Race ultimately has an effect on endgame content but shouldn't be that much of a hinderence generally.
You need to bin strife (or whatever morph of that you are using) as its a magicka skill and scales of max magicka. If you have everything in stamina then its going to be like trying to knock a wall down with a feather.
What are you using on your back bar?
I'm assuming this is your first character in which case you will be handicapped in PVP at the moment as a lot of players will be max level and max CP. You could play the no CP campaign.
Best advice at the moment is to grind xp and get your self to level 50 and CP 160 so you have access to the best gear and get yourself into at least one set (hundings rage is one you can craft yourself and has good bonuses at 5 piece for weapon damage). Other sets can be farmed by doing dungeons, delves, dolmans and world bosses.
Also look at your buffs and heals. eg something like relentless focus on your back bar which you can activate before you go into a fight will give you an 8% damage boost and increases your stam recovery. Vigor from the aliiance war skill line is the only direct burst heal for stam builds and may be worth investing in for those "oh f***" moments. Although with some practice a nightblad can heal effectively using skills like. Reaping Mark.
The other thing that is sometimes overlooked and makes a huge difference is the passive skills in your race, armour, weapon and class skill lines. Its tempting just to keep putting skill points into new skills to try new things but the passives make a massive difference. eg in medium armour the passives will massively increase your crit rating.