IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Bonzodog01 wrote: »

Kalante wrote: »

Do you even play a stam nb? have you ever tried playing without procs? You will be very disappointed at how much skill it requires to play it because you do not have any strong heals apart from rally, which it's not something you can spam one after another the next millisecond like LOL magicka players can with their innate skills and vigor is not an instant 10k heal either, combine that with no procs and there you go, you got yourself a gimped stam nb that all it can do is roll dodge and hope for the best that your enemy has no buffs and your incap crits. Unless you are running one of those high crit stam nb's with camo hunter on the front bar there is just no other way to build a competitive high pressure damage stam nb for pvp.

THIS ^^^^

I play a non proc Stam NB, high crit build. Staying alive, even in PvE, is a challenge.

I will add that Leeching Strikes got a decent buff sometime recently and its being sorely overlooked as the goto heal for a stam NB. I now use it, and can restore to full health in 3 or 4 LA's. However, time this wrong, and you will die.

My build is Khajiit with 5 Hundings/4 NMG/3 Agility.

She runs two precise daggers on the DW bar, and has 71% crit, 2920 Weapon Damage, 33K stamina.

I actually had to go all divines on the armor, and then used the max stamina mundus to give her that extra stam.

I do indeed slot camo hunter on both bars, and use another much overlooked DW skill called Shrouded daggers which behaves like an AoE (aim at one mob, daggers bounce to a max of further two mobs.)

And like you said, get into a sustained boss fight, and it becomes a huge struggle to stay alive and keep critting the boss. Anything from a Public Dungeon boss upwards is a challenge.

It's not a struggle to stay alive on a stam NB in any content, honestly.

With Mirage + Shadow Barrier you're hitting 19-20k resistance in medium armor, with Major Evasion, and Deadly Cloak for 25% AoE mitigation.

Don't feel squishy at all, even in vHoF.

Strider_Roshin wrote: »

Takes-No-Prisoner wrote: »

@Strider_Roshin Could tell you a couple of things StamNB is lacking. They lack quite a few things compared to other classes in PvE and are not nearly as desirable in group play.

StamNB gets the most mileage out of those proc sets we can agree on that. However I guarantee you they have quite the learning curve when it comes to PvP, and not using those proc sets. Me personally, I've been there, done that even in PC patch 1.5! Was horrid honestly.

I do believe StamNB and MagNB need their soap boxes to debate and discuss the problems the class has. Because they are numerous and we need to make these play styles better in all aspects of play.

Nightblades have a lot of strengths to them. We don't need to equip a means of major defense buffs due to Shadow Barrier, we have a great (although expensive) gap closer, a means of minor Berserk, and great spammables.

Now that I've listed their strengths, I'm going to discuss their negatives. Other than their major defense buffs via Shadow Barrier they have no reliable defense. You could say cloak is a great defense; which is true when it works, but overall it's pretty undependable. For instance if the majority of the abilities in the game ignored damage shields would you still consider shields to be a strong defense? Of course not. You could also argue that the minor protection you gain from Dark Cloak helps with mitigation; which would've been a valid argument if the duration wasn't pathetically small.

Nightblades also horribly lack group utility. Now magblades do offer off-healing but since the heal is small, and it only affects one additional person; it's really not worth mentioning. You could argue that Sap Essence is a solid heal, but a magblade wouldn't use this in any serious DPS role, and why use a magBlade healer when both Templars and wardens are far superior, and offer more group support. Now Nightblades do have strong ST damage in PvE but so do Sorcs, except they can achieve strong DPS from a distance as well, and with better Survivability.

Okay I could've been a lot more extensive with both of those sections, but I'm trying to avoid writing a book.

So I'm going to do a quick synopsis of their performance in both PvP and PvE.

PvP:

Stamblades are great noob slayers, but are easy AP for any experienced PvPer.

Magblades are annoying to fight, and great kiters, but are easily shut down by Templars, DKs, and Now Wardens since their main spammable can be reflected.

Nightblades in general are great at 1vX noob slaying, and have an amazing CC (without that CC that class would probably be dead in PvP).

PvE:

Nightblades are great damage dealers, but...
Magblades are outshined by sorcs in every way.
Stamblades outshine sorcs in melee range, but are out-DPS'd by sorcs at range, and have worse survivability.
And as a whole Nightblades probably have the most difficult rotation since it requires nothing short of perfection.

TL:DR Nightblades are essentially a worse version of a sorc.

My suggestions:

Increasing their survivability is easy. For one double the duration of Minor protection from Dark Cloak, Allow Consuming Darkness (and its morphs) to follow your character, and allow the heal from Siphoning Strikes and its morphs to scale from their respective attributes. Also increase the heal from Strife and its morphs.

Increasing group utility is also easy. Rather than Nightblades passively providing their group minor Savagery, make it Major. This with free up a slot from everyone's bar, and save on potions. Increase the number of group members healed from Funnel Health to 3, and have Power Extraction inflict enemies with Minor Vulnerability. On top of this make Death Stroke, and its morphs cause Major Vulnerability instead of a personal damage buff.

Also make Strife non-reflectable.

As far as how difficult it is to play a Nightblade goes. Magblades are cake in PvE, but difficult in PvP. Stamblades are very tough to be successful with in PvE, but it's pretty easy to be a procblade/gankblade; remove cloak, and proc sets and it's hard mode.

The NB rotation, on both stam and magicka variants, is dead simple. What's difficult?

Magblade: Blockade, swap, Twisting, Cripple, Shock Clench, swap, Assassin's Will, Funnel x 3, Blockade, Assassin's Will, swap. Every other, reapply buffs and do just 1 funnel. Drop Meteor/Destro/Soul Harvest when ready. 40k DPS, dead simple.

Stamblade: Trap, Hail, Caltrops, Poison Injection, swap, Incap, Assassin's Will, Rending Slashes, Surprise Attack x 3, Assassin's Will, Deadly Cloak, swap. Sprinkle in heavy attacks when needed. 43k+ DPS, dead simple.

Nightblades are not a worse version of a sorc. Did you forget to download the Morrowind patch? That's Homestead-era stuff.

I wouldn't say that the Stamblade rotation is simple at all... Sure I mean when you put out the order in which skills need to be cast, yeah, it does look simple. There's much much more to the rotation than that however, mainly because aside from the back bar DoTs there isn't really a rotation. Relentless Focus applications can't be calculated since the rotation lasts 12 seconds and Relentless lasts 20, meaning that it will always fluctuate. Deadly Cloak is always flexible. Depending on the amount of Heavy Attacks you need to do, the rotation also changes, etc. Now obviously, this is true for the other Stamina classes (aside from DK), but Relentless is a *** to pull off properly, its not as simple as PotL or Hurricane or Scorch, because its dependant on Light/Heavy Attacks and therefore can't be used reliably in the same spot every single time. There's a reason why Stamblades are considered the hardest stamina class to pull of properly in PvE.

max_only wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Bonzodog01 wrote: »

Kalante wrote: »

Do you even play a stam nb? have you ever tried playing without procs? You will be very disappointed at how much skill it requires to play it because you do not have any strong heals apart from rally, which it's not something you can spam one after another the next millisecond like LOL magicka players can with their innate skills and vigor is not an instant 10k heal either, combine that with no procs and there you go, you got yourself a gimped stam nb that all it can do is roll dodge and hope for the best that your enemy has no buffs and your incap crits. Unless you are running one of those high crit stam nb's with camo hunter on the front bar there is just no other way to build a competitive high pressure damage stam nb for pvp.

THIS ^^^^

I play a non proc Stam NB, high crit build. Staying alive, even in PvE, is a challenge.

I will add that Leeching Strikes got a decent buff sometime recently and its being sorely overlooked as the goto heal for a stam NB. I now use it, and can restore to full health in 3 or 4 LA's. However, time this wrong, and you will die.

My build is Khajiit with 5 Hundings/4 NMG/3 Agility.

She runs two precise daggers on the DW bar, and has 71% crit, 2920 Weapon Damage, 33K stamina.

I actually had to go all divines on the armor, and then used the max stamina mundus to give her that extra stam.

I do indeed slot camo hunter on both bars, and use another much overlooked DW skill called Shrouded daggers which behaves like an AoE (aim at one mob, daggers bounce to a max of further two mobs.)

And like you said, get into a sustained boss fight, and it becomes a huge struggle to stay alive and keep critting the boss. Anything from a Public Dungeon boss upwards is a challenge.

It's not a struggle to stay alive on a stam NB in any content, honestly.

With Mirage + Shadow Barrier you're hitting 19-20k resistance in medium armor, with Major Evasion, and Deadly Cloak for 25% AoE mitigation.

Don't feel squishy at all, even in vHoF.

Strider_Roshin wrote: »

Takes-No-Prisoner wrote: »

@Strider_Roshin Could tell you a couple of things StamNB is lacking. They lack quite a few things compared to other classes in PvE and are not nearly as desirable in group play.

StamNB gets the most mileage out of those proc sets we can agree on that. However I guarantee you they have quite the learning curve when it comes to PvP, and not using those proc sets. Me personally, I've been there, done that even in PC patch 1.5! Was horrid honestly.

I do believe StamNB and MagNB need their soap boxes to debate and discuss the problems the class has. Because they are numerous and we need to make these play styles better in all aspects of play.

Nightblades have a lot of strengths to them. We don't need to equip a means of major defense buffs due to Shadow Barrier, we have a great (although expensive) gap closer, a means of minor Berserk, and great spammables.

Now that I've listed their strengths, I'm going to discuss their negatives. Other than their major defense buffs via Shadow Barrier they have no reliable defense. You could say cloak is a great defense; which is true when it works, but overall it's pretty undependable. For instance if the majority of the abilities in the game ignored damage shields would you still consider shields to be a strong defense? Of course not. You could also argue that the minor protection you gain from Dark Cloak helps with mitigation; which would've been a valid argument if the duration wasn't pathetically small.

Nightblades also horribly lack group utility. Now magblades do offer off-healing but since the heal is small, and it only affects one additional person; it's really not worth mentioning. You could argue that Sap Essence is a solid heal, but a magblade wouldn't use this in any serious DPS role, and why use a magBlade healer when both Templars and wardens are far superior, and offer more group support. Now Nightblades do have strong ST damage in PvE but so do Sorcs, except they can achieve strong DPS from a distance as well, and with better Survivability.

Okay I could've been a lot more extensive with both of those sections, but I'm trying to avoid writing a book.

So I'm going to do a quick synopsis of their performance in both PvP and PvE.

PvP:

Stamblades are great noob slayers, but are easy AP for any experienced PvPer.

Magblades are annoying to fight, and great kiters, but are easily shut down by Templars, DKs, and Now Wardens since their main spammable can be reflected.

Nightblades in general are great at 1vX noob slaying, and have an amazing CC (without that CC that class would probably be dead in PvP).

PvE:

Nightblades are great damage dealers, but...
Magblades are outshined by sorcs in every way.
Stamblades outshine sorcs in melee range, but are out-DPS'd by sorcs at range, and have worse survivability.
And as a whole Nightblades probably have the most difficult rotation since it requires nothing short of perfection.

TL:DR Nightblades are essentially a worse version of a sorc.

My suggestions:

Increasing their survivability is easy. For one double the duration of Minor protection from Dark Cloak, Allow Consuming Darkness (and its morphs) to follow your character, and allow the heal from Siphoning Strikes and its morphs to scale from their respective attributes. Also increase the heal from Strife and its morphs.

Increasing group utility is also easy. Rather than Nightblades passively providing their group minor Savagery, make it Major. This with free up a slot from everyone's bar, and save on potions. Increase the number of group members healed from Funnel Health to 3, and have Power Extraction inflict enemies with Minor Vulnerability. On top of this make Death Stroke, and its morphs cause Major Vulnerability instead of a personal damage buff.

Also make Strife non-reflectable.

As far as how difficult it is to play a Nightblade goes. Magblades are cake in PvE, but difficult in PvP. Stamblades are very tough to be successful with in PvE, but it's pretty easy to be a procblade/gankblade; remove cloak, and proc sets and it's hard mode.

The NB rotation, on both stam and magicka variants, is dead simple. What's difficult?

Magblade: Blockade, swap, Twisting, Cripple, Shock Clench, swap, Assassin's Will, Funnel x 3, Blockade, Assassin's Will, swap. Every other, reapply buffs and do just 1 funnel. Drop Meteor/Destro/Soul Harvest when ready. 40k DPS, dead simple.

Stamblade: Trap, Hail, Caltrops, Poison Injection, swap, Incap, Assassin's Will, Rending Slashes, Surprise Attack x 3, Assassin's Will, Deadly Cloak, swap. Sprinkle in heavy attacks when needed. 43k+ DPS, dead simple.

Nightblades are not a worse version of a sorc. Did you forget to download the Morrowind patch? That's Homestead-era stuff.

I'd be bored to tears if that were my rotation. Sounds like you're playing magblade like a sorc tbh.