Pvp and pve are entirely different scenarios, but everyone on these forums seems to think the only zone in the game is cyrodiil, and the only enemies you'll ever face are other players.

Stamina nightblade can have pretty formidable survivability in pve, but you cant run bow - it needs to be 2h as your go to weapon. Without the heal from Rally, you'll never be able to survive soloing bosses. I'd suggest going 2h + bow, or 2h + shield possibly, depending on the boss you're fighting.

Yea, you can use 2h as just the buff bar if you want, though on some bosses the knockback from wrecking blow works - i've been able to kill several of them solely because of that. you time the wrecking blows just right and keep them permanently knocked down.

If you're not going to be using the 2hander though, you'll have to switch back to it constantly to recast rally for a burst heal.

As someone suggested, get vigor and use rally.

Also pvp levelling assault and support is faster now so getting vigor shouldn't take you to long.

A stamina NB is totally viable in PvE dps wise, but a stamina NB will never come close to the (ease of) survivability in PvE as a magicka NB. Strong self heals by Funnel Health and Sap Essence + ranged combat + light armor shield as an emergency tool is just too strong. As a stamina NB you need to get in melee to do reasonable dps, using a bow is an option, but it comes with a serious dps decrease in compare to a magicka NB...and while you are in melee range you will soon know all that nasty stuff bosses are able to do (steel tornado like AoE attacks, other AoE attacks, front cone AoE cleaves, scripted attacks on random player which can't be prevented by the tank and where a melee player has a shorter reaction time window etc.).

Get used to the fact that playing a stamina NB in PvE will always be harder concerning survivability and damage migation as a magicka NB if you want to squench the max dps out of it. It's not impossible though. I saw stamina NBs doing the last boss in Darkshade mostly in melee range, but expect that doing this isn't that easy.

The issue I have with stamina NBs in PvE (especially when I am playing the healer for a change) is, that many stamina NB players (you might say stamina build players in general) in PvE, just think they are great players and are able to do this, but in fact deliver mediocre dps (bow) or are pretty/bad at avoiding inc damage. Many of them are PvPers too, who are used to healers in their AvA- or zerg-group healing anything by sheer burst in short fights. Although PvPers usually know what blocking is, at least.

My personal nightmare as a healer are bow using stamina DDs, using a bow from 28m range for trash groups, pulling half of the melee mobs out of AoE range while eating a ton of damage. Damned, use your bow, but stand close and if you wanne shoot at range, care for archers, the tank wasn't able to gather. Guess onto which player mostly using light armor, these archers will unload their physical attacks otherwise ?

PvP is another thing so. Although a magicka NB is far from useless in PvP, I would favor a stamina build there. You need some stamina there to prevent fast deaths by wrecking blow spammers.