(PvE) Lack of Stamina Nightblade Sustain (TG Patch)

susmitds · April 2016

The Thieves Guild patch hit the Stamina Nightblade sustain very hard with the nerf to Siphoning Attacks not procing from DoTs. Even previously after the Stam Regen nerf, stamina builds were burdened with sustain issues but could be managed with the Siphoning Attacks Proc from DoTs but it is really hard to maintain mobility and use skills.

I am elaborating on this issue from two different perspectives.

Tank Perspective - As it stands, Nightblade Tanks are generally considered the worst tank amongst all classes. Pretty much, the only thing that had them going was their higher sustain due to Siphoning Attacks proc. That was the only advantage NB tanks ever had over other classes. With that gone now, NB tanks are hardly effective any more. While it is still possible to run a NB tank build, it would however be a lot less useful and harder to manage than tanks from other classes. For a game like ESO, which emphasizes on freedom of choice for all roles of combat regardless of class, I believe some extra sustain along with other perks is required to raise the NB tanks to the level of tanks of other classes.
DPS Perspective - Stamina Nightblade DPS builds also took a major hit to sustain after the nerf to Siphoning Attacks. The lack of sustain of Stam NB DPS builds is the current patch of the game makes them a liability in long trials and also makes PvE parts of the game like Veteran Maelstorm Arena really hard on Stam NBs. The cost of maintaining mobility with dodges and blocks while dealing damage leaves Stamina NBs out of stamina pretty fast and hence, vulnerable. The result is that the Stamina Nightblades can no longer compete with Magicka builds of all classes, who deal similar damage but has much higher sustain allowing them to maintain their damage and defense. While Stamina sustain is hard to manage for all classes, it is still somewhat possible to manage in some other classes, like Stamina Templars, who got Repentance and cost reduction, Stamina DKs, who rely on DoTs as their main source of damage, which generally costs less. Stamina Sorcerers, however, are in a pretty bad state and themselves require attention.

So I think, Nightblades require a buff to stamina sustain either by passives or by active skills (like maybe changing the other morph of Siphoning Strikes to return only stamina but in much higher amounts). That is the only way for stamina nightblades to regain some of their effectiveness in PvE. The stamina sustain is also really required due to the fact that Nightblades as a class don't have any defensive skills and as such depend a lot on their mobility for survival which has a heavy Stamina cost.

Zerok · April 2016

It depends how you build your nightblade.

If I use siphoning attacks, potions (major endurance) and relentless focus (minor endurance), I will never run out of stamina with my stamina nightblade, even during long trials.

I'm a Bosmer with about 475 CPs, so this also helps with sustain.

If you feel you lack sustain, maybe you should change your gear a little bit to get more stamina recovery / more stamina cost reduction.

dday3six · April 2016

Last ZOS said anything about it, they were looking into Siphoning Attacks, perhaps increasing the return.

Strider_Roshin · April 2016

Okay let me just stop you right there. Nightblades do not need a sustain buff. What needs to change are the currents punishments in place for stamina builds. The reason why our resource management sucks is due to the no stam regen while blocking nerf, and the dodge roll cooldown penalty.

Honestly if they just removed the cooldown, and made it so you don't gain stamina while dodge rolling, and rather than remove stam recovery; just cut it in half our resource management would be a lot better. If they really want to do something about tanks, then make a CP passive that allows you to dish out more damage against blocking opponents as well as making them consume more stamina while blocking your attacks. Heck, the Last Stand passive is pretty useless; how about we swap it out for something that doubles the stamina cost of blocking opponents? That'll help solve that. Tanks have a CP that reduces the cost of blocking so why not? Isn't the champion system suppose to be balanced now?

susmitds · April 2016

Zerok wrote: »

It depends how you build your nightblade.

If I use siphoning attacks, potions (major endurance) and relentless focus (minor endurance), I will never run out of stamina with my stamina nightblade, even during long trials.

I'm a Bosmer with about 475 CPs, so this also helps with sustain.

If you feel you lack sustain, maybe you should change your gear a little bit to get more stamina recovery / more stamina cost reduction.

I do realize your point (I run a redguard with 501 cp) but the thing is that equipping exclusively for sustain it may be possible to maintain stamina but that comes at the cost of a lot of potential damage (which is very important to be competitive) and still you will suffer from a good amount of lack of sustain, especially if you run damage based classes like Imperial, Khajiit and Orc. And for tanks, the issue is much higher as they can not solely focus on stamina sustain.

Wollust · April 2016

15% stam regen from a passive.
Siphoning attacks.

NBs are fine.

Parasaurolophus · April 2016

Siphoning attacks does not work if you do not have the stamina . Many NB going to magica bilds after TG patch.

susmitds · April 2016

Strider_Roshin wrote: »

Okay let me just stop you right there. Nightblades do not need a sustain buff. What needs to change are the currents punishments in place for stamina builds. The reason why our resource management sucks is due to the no stam regen while blocking nerf, and the dodge roll cooldown penalty.

Honestly if they just removed the cooldown, and made it so you don't gain stamina while dodge rolling, and rather than remove stam recovery; just cut it in half our resource management would be a lot better. If they really want to do something about tanks, then make a CP passive that allows you to dish out more damage against blocking opponents as well as making them consume more stamina while blocking your attacks. Heck, the Last Stand passive is pretty useless; how about we swap it out for something that doubles the stamina cost of blocking opponents? That'll help solve that. Tanks have a CP that reduces the cost of blocking so why not? Isn't the champion system suppose to be balanced now?

You are quite right about the tanking part. But for the DPS part, in Deltia's NB changes video, you can see both Magicka and Stamina Nightblade in action in VMA. You can see Mageblades and Stamblades both dealing same kind of damage while being geared for max DPS but the Mageblade hardly falls below half of his magicka pool where as the Stamblade is frequently out of stamina. This results in the Stamblade having significantly lesser DPS and thereby taking more time to finish resulting in a worse score.

Zerok · April 2016

susmitds wrote: »

Zerok wrote: »

It depends how you build your nightblade.

If I use siphoning attacks, potions (major endurance) and relentless focus (minor endurance), I will never run out of stamina with my stamina nightblade, even during long trials.

I'm a Bosmer with about 475 CPs, so this also helps with sustain.

If you feel you lack sustain, maybe you should change your gear a little bit to get more stamina recovery / more stamina cost reduction.

I do realize your point (I run a redguard with 501 cp) but the thing is that equipping exclusively for sustain it may be possible to maintain stamina but that comes at the cost of a lot of potential damage (which is very important to be competitive) and still you will suffer from a good amount of lack of sustain, especially if you run damage based classes like Imperial, Khajiit and Orc. And for tanks, the issue is much higher as they can not solely focus on stamina sustain.

What gear are you using? Just curious.

I use Morkuldin (5 pieces), Briarheart (5 pieces) and Nerien'eth (2 pieces). I use weapon damage on all my jewelry.

The only thing that adds stamina recovery on my setup is the 2nd bonus from Morkuldin and that's it.

susmitds · April 2016

Zerok wrote: »

susmitds wrote: »

Zerok wrote: »

It depends how you build your nightblade.

If I use siphoning attacks, potions (major endurance) and relentless focus (minor endurance), I will never run out of stamina with my stamina nightblade, even during long trials.

I'm a Bosmer with about 475 CPs, so this also helps with sustain.

If you feel you lack sustain, maybe you should change your gear a little bit to get more stamina recovery / more stamina cost reduction.

I do realize your point (I run a redguard with 501 cp) but the thing is that equipping exclusively for sustain it may be possible to maintain stamina but that comes at the cost of a lot of potential damage (which is very important to be competitive) and still you will suffer from a good amount of lack of sustain, especially if you run damage based classes like Imperial, Khajiit and Orc. And for tanks, the issue is much higher as they can not solely focus on stamina sustain.

What gear are you using? Just curious.

I use Morkuldin (5 pieces), Briarheart (5 pieces) and Nerien'eth (2 pieces). I use weapon damage on all my jewelry.

The only thing that adds stamina recovery on my setup is the 2nd bonus from Morkuldin and that's it.

I used to go Hunding's Rage(4)+Night mother's gaze(5). I dropped Night Mother for Crusader(5) for the regen currently.

Anti_Virus · April 2016

Zos just needs an extra resource pool dedicated to roll dodge, block and cc break.

This will make all stam builds(not just NBs) have equal resource management to magic builds (since they can go 40k + magicka).

Maybe call it 'Endurance'.

lonewolf26 · April 2016

I agree with the o.p. stamina blades need more sustain to remain competative in trials. I've been differentially comparing the DPS outputs of both my stam DK and stamblade with similar gear sets. While stamblade ekes out a decent DPS with fights less than 20 seconds long, anything longer than that my stam dk heavily outclasses my NB. 20-25k within 2 min by my stam nb vs 35k on my stam dk. Thanks to judicious dot application stamina dk DPS stays consistently high, where the nb's spikes then drops off sharply if SA wears off or fails to proc . DKs can sustain this damage indefinitely thanks to earthen heart passives and liberal use of ultimates. Also the dk DPS rotation is much kinder to my hands. I've got to beat the heck out of my keyboard to keep my NBC's DPS numbers up since surprise+light weave outperforms rapid strike+medium weave without Maelstrom weapons.

What saddens me is that at least one trial group I've worked with had set a minimum DPS test for core progression that my NB cannot consistently pass.

SanTii.92 · April 2016

Honestly, I don't have troubles with my stamina sustain whatsoever. I run 5 nightmothers and 3 hunding's or 2 Nerien'eth, all weapon dmge on jewellery. I do have major and minor endurance buff 100% uptime though.

I don't know, maybe you should weave a full heavy attack now and then.

DRXHarbinger · April 2016

My NB tanks ICP just fine. Maelstrom mace, armour master, bloodspawn, endurance with regen enchant and wrothgar food sees you to 2.6k regen, never ever get an issue with sustain plus I still manage to park anything up in 3 aoe attacks and use poison injection etc at the same time. L2tank I suppose. PVP in dps set up they die instantly these days. Issue isn't sustain per say it's the attacks like ST are just too stam hungry, empty bar in seconds. If you don't care about health use green regen drinks. They give near 700 regen alone.

Wollust · April 2016

zadrotscrolls wrote: »

Siphoning attacks does not work if you do not have the stamina . Many NB going to magica bilds after TG patch.

Siphoning attacks is mainly usef because of the resource retourn while weaving. Not because of the 10% proc chance while doing damage.
Yes, because mag NB is king of blowing stuff up this patch.

susmitds · April 2016

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

My NB tanks ICP just fine. Maelstrom mace, armour master, bloodspawn, endurance with regen enchant and wrothgar food sees you to 2.6k regen, never ever get an issue with sustain plus I still manage to park anything up in 3 aoe attacks and use poison injection etc at the same time. L2tank I suppose. PVP in dps set up they die instantly these days. Issue isn't sustain per say it's the attacks like ST are just too stam hungry, empty bar in seconds. If you don't care about health use green regen drinks. They give near 700 regen alone.

I am not saying NB tanks are unplayable. I am just saying tanks of all other classes beats NB tanks in all aspects.

sAnn92 wrote: »

Honestly, I don't have troubles with my stamina sustain whatsoever. I run 5 nightmothers and 3 hunding's or 2 Nerien'eth, all weapon dmge on jewellery. I do have major and minor endurance buff 100% uptime though.

I don't know, maybe you should weave a full heavy attack now and then.

I can maintain stamina fine enough to beat every PvE encounter. But I am forced to do it at the cost of DPS. I can maintain 35k DPS for a fight over 3 min with my Stamina Templar and 34k DPS with my Stamina DK. As for magicka builds, I can pull off 35K+ DPS without breaking a sweat. But for my Stamina Nightblade, for the first 15 sec, I have 39K DPS, but then it falls off sharply due to sustain issues, resulting in 21-23K DPS. If I specifically run a sustain build, I get 26K DPS. Now, like I said, while everything is still possible with the stamina Nightblade, if you want to be "competitive", then all other classes and builds except stamina sorcerers are going to beat stamina Nightblades. So basically stamina Nightblades can not live up to the competition anymore.

In case, any one wants to know all my characters are v16 with 501 cp. All stamina builds run Hunding's rage(3)+ Night mother's gaze(5).
Stamina Templar - Khajiit
Stamina Nightblade - Redguard
Stamina DK - Redguard
All magicka builds except DK - Altmer
Magicka DK - Dunmer

Parasaurolophus · April 2016

susmitds wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

But for my Stamina Nightblade, for the first 15 sec, I have 39K DPS, but then it falls off sharply due to sustain issues, resulting in 21-23K DPS. If I specifically run a sustain build, I get 26K DPS.

One question - how?

Attackopsn · April 2016

Going to chime in on the veteran maelstrom part, as I feel many here are extremely misinformed with their opinion if they believe you are sustaining your resources on a stamina nightblade in vma running a high damage build geared towards a competitve 540k-560k+ score. I've played both stamina and magicka nightblades pre TG and post TG in vma, and I can 100% confirm that stamina nightblades do not sustain their resources efficiently post update at a level competitive with virtually all other classes (minus stamina sorcerers) stamina or magicka despite having recovery passives and siphoning attacks. The OP is not talking about whether or not a pvp built stamina nightblade can sustain resources, they are stating that a correctly built high dps PvE stamina nightblade will not self sustain the way they should to be fully competitive with their magicka counterpart and otherwise in areas such as VMA. Before TG, you could get within the 460k range as stamina nightblade and the top magicka nightblades would reach 470-476k. Post TG this gap has been dramatically increased due to not only champion point changes but the heavy nerf delivered to SA which was imperative to stamblades sustain due to the nature of their spammable being higher cost and sharing the same resource pool for cc breaking/rolling/dpsing. As this is brought up, it should be also noted that Stamina Sorcerers are in a significantly worse state, and only begin to recover through overload (slowly).

templesus · April 2016

Are....are you serious? Nb has siphoning attacks and 15% extra. You now what we stamplar have? Repejtamce, which has to be slotted for the 10% and gives us 3k stam back per kill. Quit crying

player_klaus · April 2016

engine guardian for the win.
\sarcasm off

Volkodav · April 2016

Hmm,..I a m a Stamina Nightblade and find that I love it.I dont do PvP,just PvE,and have great fun doing it. My NB vet plays much better than my DK vet does.

Waseem · April 2016

from time TG got announced till now i played my stamina NB for 4-4.5 hours.
too much inner and radiant lights
too much beams and zergests ongoing
i did, however, make couple magicka NBs instead of my planned stamina DK and stamina sorc because, well..
ZOS stated that this is a magickapatch. why shall i go to the absolutely wrong choice when the developers himself warned me from!

AOECAPS · April 2016

Quit the qq NBs don't need sustain help YOU need to learn to sustain better I have a stamplar know how many passives or class abilities i have to help with sustain ONE and it's only helpful on trash pulls and even then I don't need it my recovery is around 1200 and I'm at CP cap as a redguard. My magicka NB don't need help either because of class passives and siphoning strikes just because caltrops doesn't add to your resource pull anymore which is completely ridiculous

olsborg · April 2016

The dodge and the block nerf is too severe, I also think the streak nerf is too severe. Either revert these nerfs or drastically change them. You should be able to block for atleast 2-4 seconds while still gaining stam. The cost of dodge should stop stacking after say 4-5 dodges. Streak shouldnt start stacking until you cast it 3-4 times in a given time without damaging or absorbing anything (2 different morphs)

susmitds · April 2016

templesus wrote: »

Are....are you serious? Nb has siphoning attacks and 15% extra. You now what we stamplar have? Repejtamce, which has to be slotted for the 10% and gives us 3k stam back per kill. Quit crying

AOECAPS wrote: »

Quit the qq NBs don't need sustain help YOU need to learn to sustain better I have a stamplar know how many passives or class abilities i have to help with sustain ONE and it's only helpful on trash pulls and even then I don't need it my recovery is around 1200 and I'm at CP cap as a redguard. My magicka NB don't need help either because of class passives and siphoning strikes just because caltrops doesn't add to your resource pull anymore which is completely ridiculous

Let us consider Stamplar and Stamblade side by side with both their respective sustain ability equipped.
Templar - 10% stamina regen, 5% cost reduction, 9-18k stam return per mob
Nightblade - 15% stamina regen, 0.8k stam return per LA weave resulting in 4-10k stam return per mob

10%+5% cost regen>15% stamina regen

Additionally Biting Jabs spam cost less over a span of time than suprise attack spam.
And yeah, I am not talking about Magicka Nightblades, @AOECAPS . They have the best sustain in TG patch. I am talking about the Stamina Nightblades.

Actually like I said, all stamina builds are suffering somewhat from lack of sustain compared to magicka builds. I am just pointing out that Stamina Nightblades are having it somewhat harder.

player_klaus wrote: »

engine guardian for the win.
\sarcasm off

Loss of relative DPS if Stamina Nightblades are forced to equip Engine Guardian, while stamina other classes can still go Hunding's Rage+NMG. And Magicka Builds don't need to equip for any sustain what so ever. Stamina Nightblades end up taking more time in fights and thereby lose out in competetion.

Volkodav wrote: »

Hmm,..I a m a Stamina Nightblade and find that I love it.I dont do PvP,just PvE,and have great fun doing it. My NB vet plays much better than my DK vet does.

Yup, in most small fights, NBs outplay DKs. But in long battles (VMA, trials) a competitive DK will score better than a competitive Stamina Nightblade. And yeah, IMO Nightblades are more fun inspite of all the sustain issue.

Strider_Roshin · April 2016

susmitds wrote: »

Strider_Roshin wrote: »

Okay let me just stop you right there. Nightblades do not need a sustain buff. What needs to change are the currents punishments in place for stamina builds. The reason why our resource management sucks is due to the no stam regen while blocking nerf, and the dodge roll cooldown penalty.

Honestly if they just removed the cooldown, and made it so you don't gain stamina while dodge rolling, and rather than remove stam recovery; just cut it in half our resource management would be a lot better. If they really want to do something about tanks, then make a CP passive that allows you to dish out more damage against blocking opponents as well as making them consume more stamina while blocking your attacks. Heck, the Last Stand passive is pretty useless; how about we swap it out for something that doubles the stamina cost of blocking opponents? That'll help solve that. Tanks have a CP that reduces the cost of blocking so why not? Isn't the champion system suppose to be balanced now?

You are quite right about the tanking part. But for the DPS part, in Deltia's NB changes video, you can see both Magicka and Stamina Nightblade in action in VMA. You can see Mageblades and Stamblades both dealing same kind of damage while being geared for max DPS but the Mageblade hardly falls below half of his magicka pool where as the Stamblade is frequently out of stamina. This results in the Stamblade having significantly lesser DPS and thereby taking more time to finish resulting in a worse score.

What you just mentioned is the issue with the game, and that's magicka is just naturally better than stamina in every way. They do the same if not better DPS, their sustain is light years better than stamina, and with an OP move like healing ward out there, they're a pain to kill. What I'm trying to convey to you is that this isn't a stamina Nightblade problem; it's a stamina problem.

Zerok · April 2016

susmitds wrote: »

I used to go Hunding's Rage(4)+Night mother's gaze(5). I dropped Night Mother for Crusader(5) for the regen currently.

Sounds like a good move to me to increase your DPS.

If you're using both Hunding and NMG, you're stacking too much weapon critical, and these give you diminishing returns (contrary to pure weapon damage).