How to make stamdk fun in pvp?

gummy292 · August 2017

I’m in possession of a magplar, magsorc, stamblade and a stamdk.
I’ve been playing each for more than 100 hours in PVP cyrodil. In my opinion every class has some unique builds and game play witch makes them competitive and fun to play, except the stamDK

With my magplar I can play a healer which can also do some damage. Or I can play a (soulshine, warmaiden, slimecraw) one shot build. Both styles are very usefull in zergs or small groups.
With my magsorc I can play a shield stacking high mobility build, a pet build or a vicious death bomb build. With these builds I can bomb zergs, play a hit and run tactic or be as annoying as possible for the enemy.
With my stamblade I play a sneaking gank build, or a bow one shot build.
All these builds and play styles are unique for there classes en fun to play.

For my stam dk I’ve tried several builds and playstyles,
I’ve used a tava’s tank, which is very hard to play, and makes me struggle with my stamina pool.
I’ve used a hide of the werewolf, fury, tremorscal/bloodspawn build. But because of the battleroar nerf is far from top tier anymore.
I’ve used an impregnable, armor master full tank build, but won’t be able to kill anything and against a decent group of 4 players i wont hold on for even 10 seconds.
I’ve used a permablocking build but because of the recent 0.25 tickle nerf my perma blocking is not so perma anymore.
I’ve used a viper, selene build, this one is decent but has no advantage over the stamblade.
I’ve also used a 4500 health regen build, waste of time.
A 75k health shield stacking build, most boring gameplay ever
And a self healing tank, but this one got nerved because of the ignious shield mending nerf.

Because of al the nerfs the dk’s have had the last few updates I can't find a fun, good, top tier build anymore. My DK was my first character and i really want to enjoy playing him but at this moment I don’t know how. If somebody knows, please tel me.

Sorry for my bad English.

Wing · August 2017

preface, other then maybe stam Templar, stam DK is the WORST class in pvp right now.

I personally run tava's, impreg, tremor

medium belt on the tavas so 6-1 heavy-med

2 stam cost reduction and 1 recovery, serpent mundus, camlorn drink, tri glyphs on all. (stats in cyro are a little over 30k hp, 27kish stam, 13kish magicka, and decent recovery all around.

sword and board main and 2hander buff bar

main is pierce armor, flex, flappy wings, vigor, invasion, (or reverb bash) sword and board ulti
second is shuffle, spiked armor, igneious shield, rally, flex (caltrops for obvious reasons, crit charge if you have reverb on front bar) take flight / dawnbreaker

remember as a stam DK you get stam regen from your recovery, heavy armor passives, and shield spam (that's why we have a decent magicka pool)

plays a lot like a bruiser, little more damage and utility then a straight tank, much more survivability then a straight dps. and pierce armor / reverb / tremor give you some decent pressure, the flex spot on bar one can go to whatever you need such as claw for dps and more pressure or whatever.

come update and the tremor nerf (it will be useless in pvp) I plan on putting in heroic slash in the flex slot to maintain a snare as well as more utility and prolly swaping in veli (or a monster of choice)

you can take this build out of cyro by swaping impreg with black rose (I have both sets in the same slots etc.) and swaping a few skills, will play about the same.

Asmael · August 2017

I've been trying a few different setups, including (but not limited to):

Heavy armor with BS / Tava / Impreg (SnB / 2H) (with permablock alternative)
Heavy armor with BS / 7th legion / Fury (SnB / 2H)
Heavy armor with BS / Tava / 7th legion (SnB / 2H)
Medium armor with [Selene / Skoria / BS] / Torug / Impreg (DW / 2H) OR (DW / bow)

Final setup I ended up using was BS / Tava / 7th legion with SnB / 2h, full heavy armor, Oblivion enchant, mostly Impenetrable traits with max stam enchants and 2 tristat ones, healthy jewelry (HP isn't a bad stat for DKs anyway), 2x stam rec enchants & 1x weapon damage enchant running the following abilities:

SnB: Igneous shield, Resolving Vigor, Flames of Oblivion, Pierce armor, Reverb. bash // Spell Wall
2h: Venomous claw, [Rally / Forward momentum], Volatile armor, Executioner, Crit rush // Take flight

Few notes:

I tried medium armor (5+) with the thought it would be trash, and got reminded of why I made the switch to heavy armor. Starting a fight where you get ganked with 20% of your HP and having to burn your entire resource pool to heal back up is hardly any good. Free AP / points for procblades and undodgeable attacks spammers, pass.
Oblivion enchant is really good to help your sustained damage (also much cheaper than resource poisons, but that's just extra).
Screw blocking. Really, unless you want to block a single specific hit, dodge roll is far superior outside of Spell Wall, the other option of permablocking is much better for magicka DKs since Morrowind. Since we dodge roll so much, using Tava is an absolute no brainer, and it makes Shuffle irrelevant (except for the snare / root removal, but we have Forward momentum for that).
Major expedition / Immovable / Stamina pots are incredibly good in open world and outperform all other potion combinations I've tried so far. High mobility + CC immunity definitely helps with line of sight and saving resources, and also make your opponent waste resource trying to fossilize / fear / javelin you multiples times in a row. "Y u no get stunned??"
Flames of Oblivion is quite underrated. The extra crit helps with our burst potential to line up more critical hits, and it can serve as an unpurgeable pre-cast DoT usable while behind a wall or while your opponent is cloaking / away from you. Give it a shot if you haven't yet.
I honestly can't drop Tava. If you can proc it consistently (which you will with all the rollin'), the ult generation helps survivability & sustain with Spell Wall so much in open world that I just can't drop it.
Fury is overrated in this patch. There, I said it. 7th legion is a much more reliable option which doesn't suffer from the need of using line of sight as a defensive tool nearly as much as fury does. Blocking in front of your opponents forever not being an option makes LoS even more necessary, and Fury just doesn't make the cut.
I didn't even want to try Viper / Selene combo. Stacking proc sets makes you a weaker stamblade, might as well reroll at this point.
Not going to use Hardened armor over Volatile armor. Way too many nightblades these days, the uncloak utility is too good to pass.
You can't really do without heavy attacks, especially in non-CP. Try to weave a heavy with your DoTs and piercing armor until you're ready to go full-out for the kill.
Dawnbreaker of smiting is going to be the same as Take flight next patch, since it won't dodgeable anymore (as it used to be).

From personal experience:

Up to 1v4 can be won, usually, starting at 1v5, you're forced too much on the defensive to be able to kill anyone while getting away. If you happen to kill someone, you'll usually end up taking so much damage that most of your resources will be drained by the remaining 4+ and die.
You can still get hate whispers saying you are a cheater using the final setup. I take that as a compliment, since it means I am doing my job pretty well.
Top tiers (and I do mean top tier, not just good or great, but people actually mastering their class / setup) players will usually not die to you, be it magplars, mag sorcs, stamina NBs, heavy armor stam wardens, mag wardens, altho the opposite is often true as well. This excludes pure tanking setups of course.
Stam DKs can be good in BGs :^) High tankiness for relic running and people have lower overall survivability, so even if stam DKs aren't exactly top damage dealers in PvP, they can still get their share of kills. I am usually getting 500-800k damage done in deathmatches, even tho the overall setup is tanky and has little to no AoE.

I think I've covered my overall PvP experience with stam DK this patch. There are definitely much stronger open world options, they aren't bad in BGs, but there is better as well.

ezeepeezee · August 2017

I had a lot of fun with Heavy Shacklebreaker / Coward's Gear SnB | 2h / (Monster Set) | All Impen with points into CP to get >3k Crit Resist

I also have a set of Medium Shacklebreaker, for when I need to move faster (e.g. in small groups with high mobility fighters like magSorcs and NBs).

I tried a DoT build, it's not great. Most people can counter it. The burst from 2h just can't be beat.

I tried a few monster sets, but stam healing is so disturbingly lackluster that I have been forced to settle on Troll King.

Currently, however, I am running 5 Ravaging (2 heavy), 5 Willow's Path (5 medium) SnB | 2h (I only have the 5pc on the SnB bar). It's pretty beastly, but I can't really disengage from fights, so it's more of a "to the death" build. But played correctly it hits insanely hard, and has good survivability.

I really wish I could divorce stamDK from Troll King, but I can't, the healing just isn't there unless I want to be a hit-and-run super high wpn dmg build, but then I may as well play my NB. Then again, I might have to anyway once HP regen starts getting hit with defile. Might not even be able to play stamDK after that.

Bam_Bam · August 2017

Make one morph of each skill a "Green Dragon" stamina morph. Acid Lash? Yes Please.

murdomac101 · August 2017

Baranthus wrote: »

Make one morph of each skill a "Green Dragon" stamina morph. Acid Lash? Yes Please.

I second that. These sort of changes would make a huge improvement to sDK and make it much more enjoyable to play.

murdomac101 · August 2017

ezeepeezee wrote: »

I had a lot of fun with Heavy Shacklebreaker / Coward's Gear SnB | 2h / (Monster Set) | All Impen with points into CP to get >3k Crit Resist

I also have a set of Medium Shacklebreaker, for when I need to move faster (e.g. in small groups with high mobility fighters like magSorcs and NBs).

I tried a DoT build, it's not great. Most people can counter it. The burst from 2h just can't be beat.

I tried a few monster sets, but stam healing is so disturbingly lackluster that I have been forced to settle on Troll King.

Currently, however, I am running 5 Ravaging (2 heavy), 5 Willow's Path (5 medium) SnB | 2h (I only have the 5pc on the SnB bar). It's pretty beastly, but I can't really disengage from fights, so it's more of a "to the death" build. But played correctly it hits insanely hard, and has good survivability.

I really wish I could divorce stamDK from Troll King, but I can't, the healing just isn't there unless I want to be a hit-and-run super high wpn dmg build, but then I may as well play my NB. Then again, I might have to anyway once HP regen starts getting hit with defile. Might not even be able to play stamDK after that.

I've heard folk claim willows path is broken. Is that the case, if so how?

GrumpyDuckling · August 2017

Poison dot ganker build with:
5 pc Sheer Venom
5 pc Viper's Sting
1 pc Maelstrom Bow
1 pc Maelstrom Battle Axe

1) Open with Lethal Arrow for major defile and also might proc poison status (dot 1)
2) While arrow is in flight use Poision Injection for dot and proc Sheer Venom (dots 2 and 3)
3) Stone Giant for CC
4) Crit Rush with Maelstrom Axe to proc Maelstrom enchant, possible axe bleed, and Viper (dots 4, 5, and 6)
5) Venom Claw for poison dot (dot 7)
6) Noxious Breath for poison dot and physical debuff (dot 8)
7) Burning Talons for root and hope procs burning status (dots 9 and 10)
8) Hope the person you're attacking isn't a purging Templar

- Have Rally or Igneous Weapons active beforehand
- Use Dragon Leap any time in that rotation for heavy damage or go nuts and use poison bow ultimate (Toxic Barrage) for another insane dot

GrumpyDuckling · August 2017

murdomac101 wrote: »

ezeepeezee wrote: »

I had a lot of fun with Heavy Shacklebreaker / Coward's Gear SnB | 2h / (Monster Set) | All Impen with points into CP to get >3k Crit Resist

I also have a set of Medium Shacklebreaker, for when I need to move faster (e.g. in small groups with high mobility fighters like magSorcs and NBs).

I tried a DoT build, it's not great. Most people can counter it. The burst from 2h just can't be beat.

I tried a few monster sets, but stam healing is so disturbingly lackluster that I have been forced to settle on Troll King.

Currently, however, I am running 5 Ravaging (2 heavy), 5 Willow's Path (5 medium) SnB | 2h (I only have the 5pc on the SnB bar). It's pretty beastly, but I can't really disengage from fights, so it's more of a "to the death" build. But played correctly it hits insanely hard, and has good survivability.

I really wish I could divorce stamDK from Troll King, but I can't, the healing just isn't there unless I want to be a hit-and-run super high wpn dmg build, but then I may as well play my NB. Then again, I might have to anyway once HP regen starts getting hit with defile. Might not even be able to play stamDK after that.

I've heard folk claim willows path is broken. Is that the case, if so how?

It used to not stack with any drink/food buffs that gave recovery, but in the Horns of the Reach update it is being fixed so it won't be broken anymore!

Kanar · August 2017

murdomac101 wrote: »

ezeepeezee wrote: »

I had a lot of fun with Heavy Shacklebreaker / Coward's Gear SnB | 2h / (Monster Set) | All Impen with points into CP to get >3k Crit Resist

I also have a set of Medium Shacklebreaker, for when I need to move faster (e.g. in small groups with high mobility fighters like magSorcs and NBs).

I tried a DoT build, it's not great. Most people can counter it. The burst from 2h just can't be beat.

I tried a few monster sets, but stam healing is so disturbingly lackluster that I have been forced to settle on Troll King.

Currently, however, I am running 5 Ravaging (2 heavy), 5 Willow's Path (5 medium) SnB | 2h (I only have the 5pc on the SnB bar). It's pretty beastly, but I can't really disengage from fights, so it's more of a "to the death" build. But played correctly it hits insanely hard, and has good survivability.

I really wish I could divorce stamDK from Troll King, but I can't, the healing just isn't there unless I want to be a hit-and-run super high wpn dmg build, but then I may as well play my NB. Then again, I might have to anyway once HP regen starts getting hit with defile. Might not even be able to play stamDK after that.

I've heard folk claim willows path is broken. Is that the case, if so how?

The fifth piece bonus doesn't work with drink buffs and some other sources of stamina regen.

On topic: I have fun with heavy tavas/spriggans/bloodspawn, dual wield / s&b. I use the gap closer from s&b, reverb bash, shuffle + hardened armor. That said I don't put out near enough damage and am looking forward to next patch and getting rid of spriggans.

I think all magicka classes are better off than stam. A lot of that could be improved if the game designers backed away from their magicka favoritism that's been in the game since release (just consider that for at least the first year ALL class skills used magicka). Need more stam skill morphs, more (good) stam armor sets, and fix medium armor. Magicka can spec pure damage/sustain and they get good survivability from shields; no corresponding way to do that on stam, we gotta go heavy armor. Also consider witchmothers potent brew versus camoran throne - 20k gold 10 months after the event vs 200k gold a few months after event.

Stam has far fewer viable builds because of the lack of skills and gear.

Toast_STS · August 2017

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Poison dot ganker build with:
5 pc Sheer Venom
5 pc Viper's Sting
1 pc Maelstrom Bow
1 pc Maelstrom Battle Axe

1) Open with Lethal Arrow for major defile and also might proc poison status (dot 1)
2) While arrow is in flight use Poision Injection for dot and proc Sheer Venom (dots 2 and 3)
3) Stone Giant for CC
4) Crit Rush with Maelstrom Axe to proc Maelstrom enchant, possible axe bleed, and Viper (dots 4, 5, and 6)
5) Venom Claw for poison dot (dot 7)
6) Noxious Breath for poison dot and physical debuff (dot 8)
7) Burning Talons for root and hope procs burning status (dots 9 and 10)
8) Hope the person you're attacking isn't a purging Templar

- Have Rally or Igneous Weapons active beforehand
- Use Dragon Leap any time in that rotation for heavy damage or go nuts and use poison bow ultimate (Toxic Barrage) for another insane dot

I play a similar build except I go 5 pc sheer venom, 5 piece bone pirate, 2 skoria. With sheer venom on both bars and bone pirate on the sword and board bar. It's difficult not to have rally but I use Corrosive Armor for my offensive ultimate. All the abilities you cast with the ultimate up will have 100% armor penetration and the dots will go though block.

Works well against everyone except stamplars with the ritual that removes 5 debuffs. Magplars that use the damaging ritual I can kill but if they have the other morph it's usually a stalemate.

I used syvarras in place on bone pirate last patch but I will probably try out viper next patch when it get's buffed for this build

ezeepeezee · August 2017

murdomac101 wrote: »

ezeepeezee wrote: »

I had a lot of fun with Heavy Shacklebreaker / Coward's Gear SnB | 2h / (Monster Set) | All Impen with points into CP to get >3k Crit Resist

I also have a set of Medium Shacklebreaker, for when I need to move faster (e.g. in small groups with high mobility fighters like magSorcs and NBs).

I tried a DoT build, it's not great. Most people can counter it. The burst from 2h just can't be beat.

I tried a few monster sets, but stam healing is so disturbingly lackluster that I have been forced to settle on Troll King.

Currently, however, I am running 5 Ravaging (2 heavy), 5 Willow's Path (5 medium) SnB | 2h (I only have the 5pc on the SnB bar). It's pretty beastly, but I can't really disengage from fights, so it's more of a "to the death" build. But played correctly it hits insanely hard, and has good survivability.

I really wish I could divorce stamDK from Troll King, but I can't, the healing just isn't there unless I want to be a hit-and-run super high wpn dmg build, but then I may as well play my NB. Then again, I might have to anyway once HP regen starts getting hit with defile. Might not even be able to play stamDK after that.

I've heard folk claim willows path is broken. Is that the case, if so how?

As @GrumpyDuckling said, the +15% bonus to regen isn't being applied to food/drink buffs. However, since I am running a Khajiit StamDK with Troll King, and Dubious Camoran Throne, I am only lacking a little bit of a bonus to stam regen (but currently it's around 2k depending on buffs). But when TK procs, I have +15% on that, with +20% from being Khajiit, +20% from GDB, +5-10% (depending on your skills) from Elder Dragon passive. So that's +~1500 health regen with a 60-65% bonus on top. With Rally, Vigor, Igneous Shield going, it's like having another Vigor up. I'm very unlikely to die 1v1 against anyone that can't out-sustain / out-play me. The additional magicka regen is also nice, but negligible. I could probably be fine running tri-food on this build, but I haven't tried it yet.

Thogard · August 2017

DK used to be a great sustain class and a great blocking class, but with the nerfs to both those builds are no longer viable unless you spec for them specifically, which forces you to give up DPS.

As it stands, DKs really only have three competitive advantages over other classes:
1. Receiving heals (but not healing)
2. Crowd control
3. Ultimate generation

If your Stam DK build doesn't spec for at least two of these three, you'd be much better off playing a Stam sorc or a Stam blade.