can't get the dps I need

Almakor · December 2017

I've been gaming for months building a character with the dps needed to join my guildies for vet trials like vet SO and vet MoL. I've built a stamina nightblade, 64 aspect points for stamina, gold AS weapons, gold Slimeclaw set, gold Quick Serpent set, gold Potentate set to pour out more ults, eat food that gives 5000+ stamina, but I'm still no where close to the 25k damage that I need to join my guildies on the more difficult vet trials. What am I doing wrong?
PS My guild is Conquest of Tamriel

newtinmpls · December 2017

I would suggest you do some sort of activity with some guildies (non-vet or similar) and ask them.

I know that with the allegedly "exact same build" as [any given youtube-er] I can only get about half the DPS they claim to be getting.

No idea why. Maybe it some subtle timing thing. I just don't know.

Izaki · December 2017

newtinmpls wrote: »

I would suggest you do some sort of activity with some guildies (non-vet or similar) and ask them.

I know that with the allegedly "exact same build" as [any given youtube-er] I can only get about half the DPS they claim to be getting.

No idea why. Maybe it some subtle timing thing. I just don't know.

Its just practice. And it does obviously require some understanding of the game's mechanics.

Almakor wrote: »

I've been gaming for months building a character with the dps needed to join my guildies for vet trials like vet SO and vet MoL. I've built a stamina nightblade, 64 aspect points for stamina, gold AS weapons, gold Slimeclaw set, gold Quick Serpent set, gold Potentate set to pour out more ults, eat food that gives 5000+ stamina, but I'm still no where close to the 25k damage that I need to join my guildies on the more difficult vet trials. What am I doing wrong?
PS My guild is Conquest of Tamriel

You've picked the second hardest class to play in PvE content (the first is Magblade). Stamblade is by far the most tricky stamina class to master and deal good DPS with.

First of all, your gear is... well trash. All of it.

Gear-wise what you need to get started on good DPS in a trial would be this:
5 piece Hunding's Rage or Night Mother's Gaze (both crafted) on the body
5 piece Briarheart (easily bought from the guild traders) on weapons and jewelry.
2 piece Velidreth or Selene or Stormfist or Kra'gh

Your front bar weapons should be dual wield daggers, the one in the right hand should be Nirnhoned with a Poison enchant and the one in the left hand should be Infused with a Weapon Damage enchant. Your back bar weapon would ideally be the Maelstrom bow in either Nirnhoned or Precise with an alchemical poison on it (Nirnroot + Fleshfly Larvae + Nightshade). Now as far as the traits go for Briarheart daggers, you should buy the cheapest ones you can find and then transmute them. The good thing about Briarheart is that its a set that you can keep using even later on. Another option would be to just use Hunding's Rage weapons on the front bar and use 2 Briarheart body pieces. It will give you less DPS though. If you don't have the Maelstrom Bow, get a Maelstrom Bow. There's just no way around that... But until you get it, either use a random crafted bow or the Master's Bow.

Now stamina builds are quite tricky in terms of gear, since usually every stamina build in the group has a specific set he must wear in order to optimize the group DPS. The sets are: Night Mother's Gaze, Sunderflame, Morag Tong and War Machine. The tanks are also supporting the group with Alkosh. These sets combined allow you to reach the penetration "cap" in PvE, which means that basically, the bosses will be debuffed to the point where they have no armor at all. So have both Night Mother's Gaze and Hunding's Rage ready in the exact same pieces and be ready to change your sets around when its needed.

Warrior Mundus stone (or Lover on the Target Dummy and in trials only if your group doesn't have all the needed penetration sets). All Stamina enchants on body, all Weapon damage glyphs on jewelry, Max Stamina and Max Health food, Weapon Power and Crit potions (Major Brutality, Major Savagery and Stamina pots, Blessed Thirstle + Wormwood + Dragonthorn).

Second is your skills.
This is a very important part. Now there are 2 possible setups you can use on a Stamblade. The first one is easier to use than the second.
Setup 1:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Ballista

Setup 2:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Incap Strike
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker

As you can see the only thing that changes is the ultimate. But that dictates your whole rotation. I suggest we start with the easy one, since Stamblade can get pretty tricky indeed.

LA = Light Attack
HA = Heavy Attack

Step 1: (only before the fight) Leeching Strikes > Relentless Focus > Deadly Cloak
Step 2 (Bow bar): Endless Hail > LA > Rearming Trap > LA > Caltrops > LA > Poison Injection > LA > Ballista > bar swap
Step 3 (DW bar): LA > Rending Slashes > HA > Relentless Focus (it will be a Bow proc now) > HA > Surprise Attack > HA > Deadly Cloak
Repeat from Step 2 and when your Ballista isn't ready, use Leeching Strikes at that point instead. When Leeching Strikes is already active, bar swap straight after Poison Injection and keep going.
When your target reaches 25% health, keep doing the exact same thing, except instead of Rending Slashes, Relentless Focus and Surprise Attack, use Killer's Blade.
This is a pretty simplified version of the real Stamblade rotation, but its a good way to get started.

Third part is the Champion points, I'll give you the pointers for the Target Dummy, since that's your first goal.
Blue Tree:
49 Mighty
49 Piercing
52 Precise Strikes
40 Thaumaturge
40 Master At Arms
Green Tree:
76 Mooncalf
64 Tenacity
40 Shadow Ward
40 Warlord
Red Tree:
Depends on what you're doing.

So this is my initial advice based only on what you've told us (which is much but its a start). So get started with this and let me know how it goes.

Stamblade is very rewarding however and in the end, you'll be pulling very high numbers, like this for example:
http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/lI Izaki Il/video/39353820

Be sure to also check out the following pages:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/
http://fearturbo.com/honor/
http://deltiasgaming.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-dps-build/

Narvuntien · December 2017

PVE dps Stamblade is by far the hardest to play... I get 17K but my build isn't optimised for PVE.
I gave up on improving it (300 ping made it too hard) and just play my blade in PVP.

My actual PVE DPS is still only 22K, I tried a vet trial once.. tried for 2 and a half hours and we all gave up. 22K is fine for the normal trials though.

For stamblade you basically have to hit every single light attack.. ability light attack ability light attack. then you have to fire the grim focus bow as much as possible.

SupremeRissole · December 2017

@Izaki good to see someone give a great response like that, lots of valuable info in there.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · December 2017

Izaki wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

I would suggest you do some sort of activity with some guildies (non-vet or similar) and ask them.

I know that with the allegedly "exact same build" as [any given youtube-er] I can only get about half the DPS they claim to be getting.

No idea why. Maybe it some subtle timing thing. I just don't know.

Its just practice. And it does obviously require some understanding of the game's mechanics.

Almakor wrote: »

I've been gaming for months building a character with the dps needed to join my guildies for vet trials like vet SO and vet MoL. I've built a stamina nightblade, 64 aspect points for stamina, gold AS weapons, gold Slimeclaw set, gold Quick Serpent set, gold Potentate set to pour out more ults, eat food that gives 5000+ stamina, but I'm still no where close to the 25k damage that I need to join my guildies on the more difficult vet trials. What am I doing wrong?
PS My guild is Conquest of Tamriel

You've picked the second hardest class to play in PvE content (the first is Magblade). Stamblade is by far the most tricky stamina class to master and deal good DPS with.

First of all, your gear is... well trash. All of it.

Gear-wise what you need to get started on good DPS in a trial would be this:
5 piece Hunding's Rage or Night Mother's Gaze (both crafted) on the body
5 piece Briarheart (easily bought from the guild traders) on weapons and jewelry.
2 piece Velidreth or Selene or Stormfist or Kra'gh

Your front bar weapons should be dual wield daggers, the one in the right hand should be Nirnhoned with a Poison enchant and the one in the left hand should be Infused with a Weapon Damage enchant. Your back bar weapon would ideally be the Maelstrom bow in either Nirnhoned or Precise with an alchemical poison on it (Nirnroot + Fleshfly Larvae + Nightshade). Now as far as the traits go for Briarheart daggers, you should buy the cheapest ones you can find and then transmute them. The good thing about Briarheart is that its a set that you can keep using even later on. Another option would be to just use Hunding's Rage weapons on the front bar and use 2 Briarheart body pieces. It will give you less DPS though. If you don't have the Maelstrom Bow, get a Maelstrom Bow. There's just no way around that... But until you get it, either use a random crafted bow or the Master's Bow.

Now stamina builds are quite tricky in terms of gear, since usually every stamina build in the group has a specific set he must wear in order to optimize the group DPS. The sets are: Night Mother's Gaze, Sunderflame, Morag Tong and War Machine. The tanks are also supporting the group with Alkosh. These sets combined allow you to reach the penetration "cap" in PvE, which means that basically, the bosses will be debuffed to the point where they have no armor at all. So have both Night Mother's Gaze and Hunding's Rage ready in the exact same pieces and be ready to change your sets around when its needed.

Warrior Mundus stone (or Lover on the Target Dummy and in trials only if your group doesn't have all the needed penetration sets). All Stamina enchants on body, all Weapon damage glyphs on jewelry, Max Stamina and Max Health food, Weapon Power and Crit potions (Major Brutality, Major Savagery and Stamina pots, Blessed Thirstle + Wormwood + Dragonthorn).

Second is your skills.
This is a very important part. Now there are 2 possible setups you can use on a Stamblade. The first one is easier to use than the second.
Setup 1:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Ballista

Setup 2:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Incap Strike
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker

As you can see the only thing that changes is the ultimate. But that dictates your whole rotation. I suggest we start with the easy one, since Stamblade can get pretty tricky indeed.

LA = Light Attack
HA = Heavy Attack

Step 1: (only before the fight) Leeching Strikes > Relentless Focus > Deadly Cloak
Step 2 (Bow bar): Endless Hail > LA > Rearming Trap > LA > Caltrops > LA > Poison Injection > LA > Ballista > bar swap
Step 3 (DW bar): LA > Rending Slashes > HA > Relentless Focus (it will be a Bow proc now) > HA > Surprise Attack > HA > Deadly Cloak
Repeat from Step 2 and when your Ballista isn't ready, use Leeching Strikes at that point instead. When Leeching Strikes is already active, bar swap straight after Poison Injection and keep going.
When your target reaches 25% health, keep doing the exact same thing, except instead of Rending Slashes, Relentless Focus and Surprise Attack, use Killer's Blade.
This is a pretty simplified version of the real Stamblade rotation, but its a good way to get started.

Third part is the Champion points, I'll give you the pointers for the Target Dummy, since that's your first goal.
Blue Tree:
49 Mighty
49 Piercing
52 Precise Strikes
40 Thaumaturge
40 Master At Arms
Green Tree:
76 Mooncalf
64 Tenacity
40 Shadow Ward
40 Warlord
Red Tree:
Depends on what you're doing.

So this is my initial advice based only on what you've told us (which is much but its a start). So get started with this and let me know how it goes.

Stamblade is very rewarding however and in the end, you'll be pulling very high numbers, like this for example:
http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/lI Izaki Il/video/39353820

Be sure to also check out the following pages:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/
http://fearturbo.com/honor/
http://deltiasgaming.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-dps-build/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ThreadKillers

SaintSubwayy · December 2017

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Izaki wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

I would suggest you do some sort of activity with some guildies (non-vet or similar) and ask them.

I know that with the allegedly "exact same build" as [any given youtube-er] I can only get about half the DPS they claim to be getting.

No idea why. Maybe it some subtle timing thing. I just don't know.

Its just practice. And it does obviously require some understanding of the game's mechanics.

Almakor wrote: »

I've been gaming for months building a character with the dps needed to join my guildies for vet trials like vet SO and vet MoL. I've built a stamina nightblade, 64 aspect points for stamina, gold AS weapons, gold Slimeclaw set, gold Quick Serpent set, gold Potentate set to pour out more ults, eat food that gives 5000+ stamina, but I'm still no where close to the 25k damage that I need to join my guildies on the more difficult vet trials. What am I doing wrong?
PS My guild is Conquest of Tamriel

You've picked the second hardest class to play in PvE content (the first is Magblade). Stamblade is by far the most tricky stamina class to master and deal good DPS with.

First of all, your gear is... well trash. All of it.

Gear-wise what you need to get started on good DPS in a trial would be this:
5 piece Hunding's Rage or Night Mother's Gaze (both crafted) on the body
5 piece Briarheart (easily bought from the guild traders) on weapons and jewelry.
2 piece Velidreth or Selene or Stormfist or Kra'gh

Your front bar weapons should be dual wield daggers, the one in the right hand should be Nirnhoned with a Poison enchant and the one in the left hand should be Infused with a Weapon Damage enchant. Your back bar weapon would ideally be the Maelstrom bow in either Nirnhoned or Precise with an alchemical poison on it (Nirnroot + Fleshfly Larvae + Nightshade). Now as far as the traits go for Briarheart daggers, you should buy the cheapest ones you can find and then transmute them. The good thing about Briarheart is that its a set that you can keep using even later on. Another option would be to just use Hunding's Rage weapons on the front bar and use 2 Briarheart body pieces. It will give you less DPS though. If you don't have the Maelstrom Bow, get a Maelstrom Bow. There's just no way around that... But until you get it, either use a random crafted bow or the Master's Bow.

Now stamina builds are quite tricky in terms of gear, since usually every stamina build in the group has a specific set he must wear in order to optimize the group DPS. The sets are: Night Mother's Gaze, Sunderflame, Morag Tong and War Machine. The tanks are also supporting the group with Alkosh. These sets combined allow you to reach the penetration "cap" in PvE, which means that basically, the bosses will be debuffed to the point where they have no armor at all. So have both Night Mother's Gaze and Hunding's Rage ready in the exact same pieces and be ready to change your sets around when its needed.

Warrior Mundus stone (or Lover on the Target Dummy and in trials only if your group doesn't have all the needed penetration sets). All Stamina enchants on body, all Weapon damage glyphs on jewelry, Max Stamina and Max Health food, Weapon Power and Crit potions (Major Brutality, Major Savagery and Stamina pots, Blessed Thirstle + Wormwood + Dragonthorn).

Second is your skills.
This is a very important part. Now there are 2 possible setups you can use on a Stamblade. The first one is easier to use than the second.
Setup 1:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Ballista

Setup 2:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Incap Strike
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker

As you can see the only thing that changes is the ultimate. But that dictates your whole rotation. I suggest we start with the easy one, since Stamblade can get pretty tricky indeed.

LA = Light Attack
HA = Heavy Attack

Step 1: (only before the fight) Leeching Strikes > Relentless Focus > Deadly Cloak
Step 2 (Bow bar): Endless Hail > LA > Rearming Trap > LA > Caltrops > LA > Poison Injection > LA > Ballista > bar swap
Step 3 (DW bar): LA > Rending Slashes > HA > Relentless Focus (it will be a Bow proc now) > HA > Surprise Attack > HA > Deadly Cloak
Repeat from Step 2 and when your Ballista isn't ready, use Leeching Strikes at that point instead. When Leeching Strikes is already active, bar swap straight after Poison Injection and keep going.
When your target reaches 25% health, keep doing the exact same thing, except instead of Rending Slashes, Relentless Focus and Surprise Attack, use Killer's Blade.
This is a pretty simplified version of the real Stamblade rotation, but its a good way to get started.

Third part is the Champion points, I'll give you the pointers for the Target Dummy, since that's your first goal.
Blue Tree:
49 Mighty
49 Piercing
52 Precise Strikes
40 Thaumaturge
40 Master At Arms
Green Tree:
76 Mooncalf
64 Tenacity
40 Shadow Ward
40 Warlord
Red Tree:
Depends on what you're doing.

So this is my initial advice based only on what you've told us (which is much but its a start). So get started with this and let me know how it goes.

Stamblade is very rewarding however and in the end, you'll be pulling very high numbers, like this for example:
http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/lI Izaki Il/video/39353820

Be sure to also check out the following pages:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/
http://fearturbo.com/honor/
http://deltiasgaming.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-dps-build/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ThreadKillers

Atleast he has the currage to say whats wrong and how to improve the OP's DPS.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · December 2017

SaintSubwayy wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Izaki wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

I would suggest you do some sort of activity with some guildies (non-vet or similar) and ask them.

I know that with the allegedly "exact same build" as [any given youtube-er] I can only get about half the DPS they claim to be getting.

No idea why. Maybe it some subtle timing thing. I just don't know.

Its just practice. And it does obviously require some understanding of the game's mechanics.

Almakor wrote: »

I've been gaming for months building a character with the dps needed to join my guildies for vet trials like vet SO and vet MoL. I've built a stamina nightblade, 64 aspect points for stamina, gold AS weapons, gold Slimeclaw set, gold Quick Serpent set, gold Potentate set to pour out more ults, eat food that gives 5000+ stamina, but I'm still no where close to the 25k damage that I need to join my guildies on the more difficult vet trials. What am I doing wrong?
PS My guild is Conquest of Tamriel

You've picked the second hardest class to play in PvE content (the first is Magblade). Stamblade is by far the most tricky stamina class to master and deal good DPS with.

First of all, your gear is... well trash. All of it.

Gear-wise what you need to get started on good DPS in a trial would be this:
5 piece Hunding's Rage or Night Mother's Gaze (both crafted) on the body
5 piece Briarheart (easily bought from the guild traders) on weapons and jewelry.
2 piece Velidreth or Selene or Stormfist or Kra'gh

Your front bar weapons should be dual wield daggers, the one in the right hand should be Nirnhoned with a Poison enchant and the one in the left hand should be Infused with a Weapon Damage enchant. Your back bar weapon would ideally be the Maelstrom bow in either Nirnhoned or Precise with an alchemical poison on it (Nirnroot + Fleshfly Larvae + Nightshade). Now as far as the traits go for Briarheart daggers, you should buy the cheapest ones you can find and then transmute them. The good thing about Briarheart is that its a set that you can keep using even later on. Another option would be to just use Hunding's Rage weapons on the front bar and use 2 Briarheart body pieces. It will give you less DPS though. If you don't have the Maelstrom Bow, get a Maelstrom Bow. There's just no way around that... But until you get it, either use a random crafted bow or the Master's Bow.

Now stamina builds are quite tricky in terms of gear, since usually every stamina build in the group has a specific set he must wear in order to optimize the group DPS. The sets are: Night Mother's Gaze, Sunderflame, Morag Tong and War Machine. The tanks are also supporting the group with Alkosh. These sets combined allow you to reach the penetration "cap" in PvE, which means that basically, the bosses will be debuffed to the point where they have no armor at all. So have both Night Mother's Gaze and Hunding's Rage ready in the exact same pieces and be ready to change your sets around when its needed.

Warrior Mundus stone (or Lover on the Target Dummy and in trials only if your group doesn't have all the needed penetration sets). All Stamina enchants on body, all Weapon damage glyphs on jewelry, Max Stamina and Max Health food, Weapon Power and Crit potions (Major Brutality, Major Savagery and Stamina pots, Blessed Thirstle + Wormwood + Dragonthorn).

Second is your skills.
This is a very important part. Now there are 2 possible setups you can use on a Stamblade. The first one is easier to use than the second.
Setup 1:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Ballista

Setup 2:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Incap Strike
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker

As you can see the only thing that changes is the ultimate. But that dictates your whole rotation. I suggest we start with the easy one, since Stamblade can get pretty tricky indeed.

LA = Light Attack
HA = Heavy Attack

Step 1: (only before the fight) Leeching Strikes > Relentless Focus > Deadly Cloak
Step 2 (Bow bar): Endless Hail > LA > Rearming Trap > LA > Caltrops > LA > Poison Injection > LA > Ballista > bar swap
Step 3 (DW bar): LA > Rending Slashes > HA > Relentless Focus (it will be a Bow proc now) > HA > Surprise Attack > HA > Deadly Cloak
Repeat from Step 2 and when your Ballista isn't ready, use Leeching Strikes at that point instead. When Leeching Strikes is already active, bar swap straight after Poison Injection and keep going.
When your target reaches 25% health, keep doing the exact same thing, except instead of Rending Slashes, Relentless Focus and Surprise Attack, use Killer's Blade.
This is a pretty simplified version of the real Stamblade rotation, but its a good way to get started.

Third part is the Champion points, I'll give you the pointers for the Target Dummy, since that's your first goal.
Blue Tree:
49 Mighty
49 Piercing
52 Precise Strikes
40 Thaumaturge
40 Master At Arms
Green Tree:
76 Mooncalf
64 Tenacity
40 Shadow Ward
40 Warlord
Red Tree:
Depends on what you're doing.

So this is my initial advice based only on what you've told us (which is much but its a start). So get started with this and let me know how it goes.

Stamblade is very rewarding however and in the end, you'll be pulling very high numbers, like this for example:
http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/lI Izaki Il/video/39353820

Be sure to also check out the following pages:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/
http://fearturbo.com/honor/
http://deltiasgaming.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-dps-build/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ThreadKillers

Atleast he has the currage to say whats wrong and how to improve the OP's DPS.

Oh don't take me posting that link to that subreddit as a bad thing. I am straight in awe of that post. It is literally perfect. My favorite quote is "First of all, your gear is... well trash. All of it." I was thinking the same thing but in less kind terms. If the op would follow every word in that post, he would be a top dps in no time.

newtinmpls · December 2017

As for practice, loads of it. and I don't have arthritis, I can animation cancel (or any way it seems to be working), I do decent enough in vet dungeons (some of them) with friends, but the DPS - it just ain't what the youtuber's claim it "should" be.

Izaki · December 2017

newtinmpls wrote: »

As for practice, loads of it. and I don't have arthritis, I can animation cancel (or any way it seems to be working), I do decent enough in vet dungeons (some of them) with friends, but the DPS - it just ain't what the youtuber's claim it "should" be.

But here's the thing... Animation canceling isn't even the most important part. In fact, if you watch my clips, I don't animation cancel at all aside from bar swaps! Why? There's no point. Your skills are always going to be on a 1 second global cooldown and nothing will ever change that. As an anecdote, we've had a guy come into our guild who was block canceling every single one of his skills. Like literally, his block canceling was amazing, I've never seen someone that consistent with it. Aside from the fact that block canceling looks insanely stupid, we told the guy to try doing some DPS without it. Well, what do you know? He gained 3k DPS.

The thing about most builds on YT is that they often offer the "end game" builds in terms of gear and rotations. In fact, most of the YTers I've watched don't even explain their reasoning behind rotations, when its the most important part of being a DPS. Understand your skills and which ones have higher priorities. But anyway, most Stamblades guides out there are just... bad. With a rotation that complex, most people just say "Check your Buff and Debuff trackers and keep reapplying things". That is the best way to completely get lost in what you're doing, especially when you're just starting out on DPS. There always has to be a stepping stone. You can't start doing quadratic equations before learning how to multiply and divide for example. You can't write a guitar solo over a chord progression without knowing the scales and the chords themselves. Same thing here! So the first thing to do when you're starting out on a difficult class: make the rotation as stupidly easy as possible. Then gradually build it up to where you want it to be. It really is just practice, like anything in life

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Izaki wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

I would suggest you do some sort of activity with some guildies (non-vet or similar) and ask them.

I know that with the allegedly "exact same build" as [any given youtube-er] I can only get about half the DPS they claim to be getting.

No idea why. Maybe it some subtle timing thing. I just don't know.

Its just practice. And it does obviously require some understanding of the game's mechanics.

Almakor wrote: »

I've been gaming for months building a character with the dps needed to join my guildies for vet trials like vet SO and vet MoL. I've built a stamina nightblade, 64 aspect points for stamina, gold AS weapons, gold Slimeclaw set, gold Quick Serpent set, gold Potentate set to pour out more ults, eat food that gives 5000+ stamina, but I'm still no where close to the 25k damage that I need to join my guildies on the more difficult vet trials. What am I doing wrong?
PS My guild is Conquest of Tamriel

You've picked the second hardest class to play in PvE content (the first is Magblade). Stamblade is by far the most tricky stamina class to master and deal good DPS with.

First of all, your gear is... well trash. All of it.

Gear-wise what you need to get started on good DPS in a trial would be this:
5 piece Hunding's Rage or Night Mother's Gaze (both crafted) on the body
5 piece Briarheart (easily bought from the guild traders) on weapons and jewelry.
2 piece Velidreth or Selene or Stormfist or Kra'gh

Your front bar weapons should be dual wield daggers, the one in the right hand should be Nirnhoned with a Poison enchant and the one in the left hand should be Infused with a Weapon Damage enchant. Your back bar weapon would ideally be the Maelstrom bow in either Nirnhoned or Precise with an alchemical poison on it (Nirnroot + Fleshfly Larvae + Nightshade). Now as far as the traits go for Briarheart daggers, you should buy the cheapest ones you can find and then transmute them. The good thing about Briarheart is that its a set that you can keep using even later on. Another option would be to just use Hunding's Rage weapons on the front bar and use 2 Briarheart body pieces. It will give you less DPS though. If you don't have the Maelstrom Bow, get a Maelstrom Bow. There's just no way around that... But until you get it, either use a random crafted bow or the Master's Bow.

Now stamina builds are quite tricky in terms of gear, since usually every stamina build in the group has a specific set he must wear in order to optimize the group DPS. The sets are: Night Mother's Gaze, Sunderflame, Morag Tong and War Machine. The tanks are also supporting the group with Alkosh. These sets combined allow you to reach the penetration "cap" in PvE, which means that basically, the bosses will be debuffed to the point where they have no armor at all. So have both Night Mother's Gaze and Hunding's Rage ready in the exact same pieces and be ready to change your sets around when its needed.

Warrior Mundus stone (or Lover on the Target Dummy and in trials only if your group doesn't have all the needed penetration sets). All Stamina enchants on body, all Weapon damage glyphs on jewelry, Max Stamina and Max Health food, Weapon Power and Crit potions (Major Brutality, Major Savagery and Stamina pots, Blessed Thirstle + Wormwood + Dragonthorn).

Second is your skills.
This is a very important part. Now there are 2 possible setups you can use on a Stamblade. The first one is easier to use than the second.
Setup 1:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Ballista

Setup 2:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Incap Strike
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker

As you can see the only thing that changes is the ultimate. But that dictates your whole rotation. I suggest we start with the easy one, since Stamblade can get pretty tricky indeed.

LA = Light Attack
HA = Heavy Attack

Step 1: (only before the fight) Leeching Strikes > Relentless Focus > Deadly Cloak
Step 2 (Bow bar): Endless Hail > LA > Rearming Trap > LA > Caltrops > LA > Poison Injection > LA > Ballista > bar swap
Step 3 (DW bar): LA > Rending Slashes > HA > Relentless Focus (it will be a Bow proc now) > HA > Surprise Attack > HA > Deadly Cloak
Repeat from Step 2 and when your Ballista isn't ready, use Leeching Strikes at that point instead. When Leeching Strikes is already active, bar swap straight after Poison Injection and keep going.
When your target reaches 25% health, keep doing the exact same thing, except instead of Rending Slashes, Relentless Focus and Surprise Attack, use Killer's Blade.
This is a pretty simplified version of the real Stamblade rotation, but its a good way to get started.

Third part is the Champion points, I'll give you the pointers for the Target Dummy, since that's your first goal.
Blue Tree:
49 Mighty
49 Piercing
52 Precise Strikes
40 Thaumaturge
40 Master At Arms
Green Tree:
76 Mooncalf
64 Tenacity
40 Shadow Ward
40 Warlord
Red Tree:
Depends on what you're doing.

So this is my initial advice based only on what you've told us (which is much but its a start). So get started with this and let me know how it goes.

Stamblade is very rewarding however and in the end, you'll be pulling very high numbers, like this for example:
http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/lI Izaki Il/video/39353820

Be sure to also check out the following pages:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/
http://fearturbo.com/honor/
http://deltiasgaming.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-dps-build/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ThreadKillers

Mister_DMC · December 2017

Follow @Izaki advice, he's what I would consider the resident nightblade expert now that Jeckll has retired. Great write-up bud, keep up the good work! Gonna update my nightblade that has been parked for 4 months, cheers.

Izaki · December 2017

Mister_DMC wrote: »

Follow @Izaki advice, he's what I would consider the resident nightblade expert now that Jeckll has retired. Great write-up bud, keep up the good work! Gonna update my nightblade that has been parked for 4 months, cheers.

Does that mean I have to make a written guide now?

Seriously though, I still think that I'm no where near Jeckll in terms of experience in raids on a Stamblade, but I do my best to help people out who're struggling and thank's for the kind words!

Gilvoth · December 2017

Almakor wrote: »

I've built a stamina nightblade, ... gold AS weapons, gold Slimeclaw set, gold Quick Serpent set, gold Potentate ... What am I doing wrong?
can't get the dps I need

nothing new here, this has been the same exact problem since beta 2013.
i know because i am a stamina nightblade and i have been here since that time and it has allways been this way.
people are going to aurgue that this can be fixed and even show videos ect ect ect ect ect.

the Fact of the matter remains that nightblade class is simply the weakest damage and easiest killed class in elder scrolls online.
i do what i can to survive.
i have played all the other classes and i have maxed them out but i dont like them i prefer STEALTH class.

Danksta · December 2017

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

Almakor wrote: »

I've built a stamina nightblade, ... gold AS weapons, gold Slimeclaw set, gold Quick Serpent set, gold Potentate ... What am I doing wrong?
can't get the dps I need

nothing new here, this has been the same exact problem since beta 2013.
i know because i am a stamina nightblade and i have been here since that time and it has allways been this way.
people are going to aurgue that this can be fixed and even show videos ect ect ect ect ect.

the Fact of the matter remains that nightblade class is simply the weakest damage and easiest killed class in elder scrolls online.
i do what i can to survive.
i have played all the other classes and i have maxed them out but i dont like them i prefer STEALTH class.

How are they the 'easiest killed class'? They have the major resistance buffs built into their rotation through passives.

Almakor · December 2017

QUESTION 1:
Why is building a dps for vet trials as difficult and frustrating as the vet trials!?

QUESTION 2:
What is the easiest and quickest way/method to build a dps that can pour at least 20k damage for vet trials?

nnargun · December 2017

Almakor wrote: »

QUESTION 1:
Why is building a dps for vet trials as difficult and frustrating as the vet trials!?

QUESTION 2:
What is the easiest and quickest way/method to build a dps that can pour at least 20k damage for vet trials?

MagSorc: LA - Blockade - LA - Liquid Lightning - LA - Familar - HA - HA. Repeat, keep Surge up. That should be around 20k with appropriate gear and it doesn't get much easier than this. At CP cap it's probably even quite a bit more than 20k.

You do realize though that someone put a lot of effort in giving you a very detailed answer and you didn't even say thank you?

Edit: And maybe you shouldn't try to get into trials if you find everything related to it so tedious and frustrating. With this attitude it won't work out very well I think.

Katahdin · December 2017

I am having the same troubles as the OP. I can't seem to push my stam blade to the level of DPS needed to complete the dps races in vet DLC dungeons.

@Izaki, thank you for the detailed explanation of the rotation and CP placement. Besides a couple of the skills, I think this is probably where I am lacking the most, but it's so hard to figure out from videos how to properly do the rotation. I am going to try your suggestion and see if I can improve the DPS.

One question, is all your traits on armor divine?

Izaki · December 2017

Katahdin wrote: »

I am having the same troubles as the OP. I can't seem to push my stam blade to the level of DPS needed to complete the dps races in vet DLC dungeons.

@Izaki, thank you for the detailed explanation of the rotation and CP placement. Besides a couple of the skills, I think this is probably where I am lacking the most, but it's so hard to figure out from videos how to properly do the rotation. I am going to try your suggestion and see if I can improve the DPS.

One question, is all your traits on armor divine?

Yep all divines to get as much juice out of the Warrior mundus as possible!

Almakor · December 2017

nnargun wrote: »

Almakor wrote: »

QUESTION 1:
Why is building a dps for vet trials as difficult and frustrating as the vet trials!?

QUESTION 2:
What is the easiest and quickest way/method to build a dps that can pour at least 20k damage for vet trials?

MagSorc: LA - Blockade - LA - Liquid Lightning - LA - Familar - HA - HA. Repeat, keep Surge up. That should be around 20k with appropriate gear and it doesn't get much easier than this. At CP cap it's probably even quite a bit more than 20k.

You do realize though that someone put a lot of effort in giving you a very detailed answer and you didn't even say thank you?

Edit: And maybe you shouldn't try to get into trials if you find everything related to it so tedious and frustrating. With this attitude it won't work out very well I think.

Thank you

Almakor · December 2017

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Izaki wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

I would suggest you do some sort of activity with some guildies (non-vet or similar) and ask them.

I know that with the allegedly "exact same build" as [any given youtube-er] I can only get about half the DPS they claim to be getting.

No idea why. Maybe it some subtle timing thing. I just don't know.

Its just practice. And it does obviously require some understanding of the game's mechanics.

Almakor wrote: »

I've been gaming for months building a character with the dps needed to join my guildies for vet trials like vet SO and vet MoL. I've built a stamina nightblade, 64 aspect points for stamina, gold AS weapons, gold Slimeclaw set, gold Quick Serpent set, gold Potentate set to pour out more ults, eat food that gives 5000+ stamina, but I'm still no where close to the 25k damage that I need to join my guildies on the more difficult vet trials. What am I doing wrong?
PS My guild is Conquest of Tamriel

You've picked the second hardest class to play in PvE content (the first is Magblade). Stamblade is by far the most tricky stamina class to master and deal good DPS with.

First of all, your gear is... well trash. All of it.

Gear-wise what you need to get started on good DPS in a trial would be this:
5 piece Hunding's Rage or Night Mother's Gaze (both crafted) on the body
5 piece Briarheart (easily bought from the guild traders) on weapons and jewelry.
2 piece Velidreth or Selene or Stormfist or Kra'gh

Your front bar weapons should be dual wield daggers, the one in the right hand should be Nirnhoned with a Poison enchant and the one in the left hand should be Infused with a Weapon Damage enchant. Your back bar weapon would ideally be the Maelstrom bow in either Nirnhoned or Precise with an alchemical poison on it (Nirnroot + Fleshfly Larvae + Nightshade). Now as far as the traits go for Briarheart daggers, you should buy the cheapest ones you can find and then transmute them. The good thing about Briarheart is that its a set that you can keep using even later on. Another option would be to just use Hunding's Rage weapons on the front bar and use 2 Briarheart body pieces. It will give you less DPS though. If you don't have the Maelstrom Bow, get a Maelstrom Bow. There's just no way around that... But until you get it, either use a random crafted bow or the Master's Bow.

Now stamina builds are quite tricky in terms of gear, since usually every stamina build in the group has a specific set he must wear in order to optimize the group DPS. The sets are: Night Mother's Gaze, Sunderflame, Morag Tong and War Machine. The tanks are also supporting the group with Alkosh. These sets combined allow you to reach the penetration "cap" in PvE, which means that basically, the bosses will be debuffed to the point where they have no armor at all. So have both Night Mother's Gaze and Hunding's Rage ready in the exact same pieces and be ready to change your sets around when its needed.

Warrior Mundus stone (or Lover on the Target Dummy and in trials only if your group doesn't have all the needed penetration sets). All Stamina enchants on body, all Weapon damage glyphs on jewelry, Max Stamina and Max Health food, Weapon Power and Crit potions (Major Brutality, Major Savagery and Stamina pots, Blessed Thirstle + Wormwood + Dragonthorn).

Second is your skills.
This is a very important part. Now there are 2 possible setups you can use on a Stamblade. The first one is easier to use than the second.
Setup 1:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Ballista

Setup 2:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Incap Strike
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker

As you can see the only thing that changes is the ultimate. But that dictates your whole rotation. I suggest we start with the easy one, since Stamblade can get pretty tricky indeed.

LA = Light Attack
HA = Heavy Attack

Step 1: (only before the fight) Leeching Strikes > Relentless Focus > Deadly Cloak
Step 2 (Bow bar): Endless Hail > LA > Rearming Trap > LA > Caltrops > LA > Poison Injection > LA > Ballista > bar swap
Step 3 (DW bar): LA > Rending Slashes > HA > Relentless Focus (it will be a Bow proc now) > HA > Surprise Attack > HA > Deadly Cloak
Repeat from Step 2 and when your Ballista isn't ready, use Leeching Strikes at that point instead. When Leeching Strikes is already active, bar swap straight after Poison Injection and keep going.
When your target reaches 25% health, keep doing the exact same thing, except instead of Rending Slashes, Relentless Focus and Surprise Attack, use Killer's Blade.
This is a pretty simplified version of the real Stamblade rotation, but its a good way to get started.

Third part is the Champion points, I'll give you the pointers for the Target Dummy, since that's your first goal.
Blue Tree:
49 Mighty
49 Piercing
52 Precise Strikes
40 Thaumaturge
40 Master At Arms
Green Tree:
76 Mooncalf
64 Tenacity
40 Shadow Ward
40 Warlord
Red Tree:
Depends on what you're doing.

So this is my initial advice based only on what you've told us (which is much but its a start). So get started with this and let me know how it goes.

Stamblade is very rewarding however and in the end, you'll be pulling very high numbers, like this for example:
http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/lI Izaki Il/video/39353820

Be sure to also check out the following pages:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/
http://fearturbo.com/honor/
http://deltiasgaming.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-dps-build/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ThreadKillers

thankd

Zagnut123Zagnut123 · December 2017

Mister_DMC wrote: »

Follow @Izaki advice, he's what I would consider the resident nightblade expert now that Jeckll has retired. Great write-up bud, keep up the good work! Gonna update my nightblade that has been parked for 4 months, cheers.

Did gilliam the rogue disappear?

Also I wouldn't say light attack weaving isn't needed at all. @Izaki its what helps build ult add a fair amount of damage. Your right that block canceling does nothing for dps tho. To @Almakor is suggest learning a rotation without it at first and get good enough to do it without looking, then learn how to weave in light attacks.

A good way to learn a rotation is to just do it very slowly over and over again.

As far as stamblade go I'd run night mother gaze an vicious optician with veli. I see other folks have posted before with loads of assistance so I won't go to in depth but just make sure any trials group your in has the stam support: sunder, night mother's gaze, stamplat with potl, alkosh, infused, crushed. Otherwise you damage will be *** no matter what.

Izaki · December 2017

Zagnut123Zagnut123 wrote: »

Mister_DMC wrote: »

Follow @Izaki advice, he's what I would consider the resident nightblade expert now that Jeckll has retired. Great write-up bud, keep up the good work! Gonna update my nightblade that has been parked for 4 months, cheers.

Did gilliam the rogue disappear?

Also I wouldn't say light attack weaving isn't needed at all. @Izaki its what helps build ult add a fair amount of damage. Your right that block canceling does nothing for dps tho. To @Almakor is suggest learning a rotation without it at first and get good enough to do it without looking, then learn how to weave in light attacks.

A good way to learn a rotation is to just do it very slowly over and over again.

As far as stamblade go I'd run night mother gaze an vicious optician with veli. I see other folks have posted before with loads of assistance so I won't go to in depth but just make sure any trials group your in has the stam support: sunder, night mother's gaze, stamplat with potl, alkosh, infused, crushed. Otherwise you damage will be *** no matter what.

I never said light attack weaving was not needed.

Zagnut123Zagnut123 · December 2017

Izaki wrote: »

Zagnut123Zagnut123 wrote: »

Mister_DMC wrote: »

Follow @Izaki advice, he's what I would consider the resident nightblade expert now that Jeckll has retired. Great write-up bud, keep up the good work! Gonna update my nightblade that has been parked for 4 months, cheers.

Did gilliam the rogue disappear?

Also I wouldn't say light attack weaving isn't needed at all. @Izaki its what helps build ult add a fair amount of damage. Your right that block canceling does nothing for dps tho. To @Almakor is suggest learning a rotation without it at first and get good enough to do it without looking, then learn how to weave in light attacks.

A good way to learn a rotation is to just do it very slowly over and over again.

As far as stamblade go I'd run night mother gaze an vicious optician with veli. I see other folks have posted before with loads of assistance so I won't go to in depth but just make sure any trials group your in has the stam support: sunder, night mother's gaze, stamplat with potl, alkosh, infused, crushed. Otherwise you damage will be *** no matter what.

I never said light attack weaving was not needed.

Miss read nevermind you said not the most important part. Your right

Azurya · December 2017

Almakor wrote: »

I've been gaming for months building a character with the dps needed to join my guildies for vet trials like vet SO and vet MoL. I've built a stamina nightblade, 64 aspect points for stamina, gold AS weapons, gold Slimeclaw set, gold Quick Serpent set, gold Potentate set to pour out more ults, eat food that gives 5000+ stamina, but I'm still no where close to the 25k damage that I need to join my guildies on the more difficult vet trials. What am I doing wrong?
PS My guild is Conquest of Tamriel

almost all
just a waste off time your last months if I may say so.

First as Stamblade you will have a very HARD time reaching the dps needed in a raid
on a dummy you can get it down, but in raid the rotation is *** up, and your burst-dmg will fail most often
that is fact and that is why you mostly don´t see a stamblade in vids from raids

the PvP-requests-community-for NB-nerfs really took it off
but if you really wanna give it a try
start here: http://deltiasgaming.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-dps-build/#Melee

a build by Gilliam, one of the best NB around.
enjoy

nnargun · December 2017

Zagnut123Zagnut123 wrote: »

Mister_DMC wrote: »

Follow @Izaki advice, he's what I would consider the resident nightblade expert now that Jeckll has retired. Great write-up bud, keep up the good work! Gonna update my nightblade that has been parked for 4 months, cheers.

Did gilliam the rogue disappear?

Gilliam seems to be active and he writes guides for Deltiasgaming afaik. He doesn't seem to be nearly as active as JeckII and Izaki on these forums, however.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · December 2017

Not even sure why people are commenting on this yet. @Izaki has this handled. @Almakor just needs to read that post and live it and all will be well in his world.

Azurya · December 2017

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Not even sure why people are commenting on this yet. @Izaki has this handled. @Almakor just needs to read that post and live it and all will be well in his world.

and why did you feel the need to comment, even if you are not commiting anything usefull????

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · December 2017

Azurya wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Not even sure why people are commenting on this yet. @Izaki has this handled. @Almakor just needs to read that post and live it and all will be well in his world.

and why did you feel the need to comment, even if you are not commiting anything usefull????

I feel the need to because there is an injustice happening, Izakis post is literally perfect. Well crafted and explains everything the op needs to know and it is not getting the recognition it deserves. If this was Reddit, I would submit it to r/bestof.

nnargun · December 2017

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Azurya wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Not even sure why people are commenting on this yet. @Izaki has this handled. @Almakor just needs to read that post and live it and all will be well in his world.

and why did you feel the need to comment, even if you are not commiting anything usefull????

I feel the need to because there is an injustice happening, Izakis post is literally perfect. Well crafted and explains everything the op needs to know and it is not getting the recognition it deserves. If this was Reddit, I would submit it to r/bestof.

It was getting recognized. Just not by OP.

Izaki · December 2017

Zagnut123Zagnut123 wrote: »

Izaki wrote: »

Zagnut123Zagnut123 wrote: »

Mister_DMC wrote: »

Follow @Izaki advice, he's what I would consider the resident nightblade expert now that Jeckll has retired. Great write-up bud, keep up the good work! Gonna update my nightblade that has been parked for 4 months, cheers.

Did gilliam the rogue disappear?

Also I wouldn't say light attack weaving isn't needed at all. @Izaki its what helps build ult add a fair amount of damage. Your right that block canceling does nothing for dps tho. To @Almakor is suggest learning a rotation without it at first and get good enough to do it without looking, then learn how to weave in light attacks.

A good way to learn a rotation is to just do it very slowly over and over again.

As far as stamblade go I'd run night mother gaze an vicious optician with veli. I see other folks have posted before with loads of assistance so I won't go to in depth but just make sure any trials group your in has the stam support: sunder, night mother's gaze, stamplat with potl, alkosh, infused, crushed. Otherwise you damage will be *** no matter what.

I never said light attack weaving was not needed.

Miss read nevermind you said not the most important part. Your right

I actually never mentioned light attacks at all

I personally don't consider light attack weaving animation canceling since its such a basic function of the game... I should have probably mentioned that beforehand!

QuebraRegra · December 2017

Izaki wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

I would suggest you do some sort of activity with some guildies (non-vet or similar) and ask them.

I know that with the allegedly "exact same build" as [any given youtube-er] I can only get about half the DPS they claim to be getting.

No idea why. Maybe it some subtle timing thing. I just don't know.

Its just practice. And it does obviously require some understanding of the game's mechanics.

Almakor wrote: »

I've been gaming for months building a character with the dps needed to join my guildies for vet trials like vet SO and vet MoL. I've built a stamina nightblade, 64 aspect points for stamina, gold AS weapons, gold Slimeclaw set, gold Quick Serpent set, gold Potentate set to pour out more ults, eat food that gives 5000+ stamina, but I'm still no where close to the 25k damage that I need to join my guildies on the more difficult vet trials. What am I doing wrong?
PS My guild is Conquest of Tamriel

You've picked the second hardest class to play in PvE content (the first is Magblade). Stamblade is by far the most tricky stamina class to master and deal good DPS with.

First of all, your gear is... well trash. All of it.

Gear-wise what you need to get started on good DPS in a trial would be this:
5 piece Hunding's Rage or Night Mother's Gaze (both crafted) on the body
5 piece Briarheart (easily bought from the guild traders) on weapons and jewelry.
2 piece Velidreth or Selene or Stormfist or Kra'gh

Your front bar weapons should be dual wield daggers, the one in the right hand should be Nirnhoned with a Poison enchant and the one in the left hand should be Infused with a Weapon Damage enchant. Your back bar weapon would ideally be the Maelstrom bow in either Nirnhoned or Precise with an alchemical poison on it (Nirnroot + Fleshfly Larvae + Nightshade). Now as far as the traits go for Briarheart daggers, you should buy the cheapest ones you can find and then transmute them. The good thing about Briarheart is that its a set that you can keep using even later on. Another option would be to just use Hunding's Rage weapons on the front bar and use 2 Briarheart body pieces. It will give you less DPS though. If you don't have the Maelstrom Bow, get a Maelstrom Bow. There's just no way around that... But until you get it, either use a random crafted bow or the Master's Bow.

Now stamina builds are quite tricky in terms of gear, since usually every stamina build in the group has a specific set he must wear in order to optimize the group DPS. The sets are: Night Mother's Gaze, Sunderflame, Morag Tong and War Machine. The tanks are also supporting the group with Alkosh. These sets combined allow you to reach the penetration "cap" in PvE, which means that basically, the bosses will be debuffed to the point where they have no armor at all. So have both Night Mother's Gaze and Hunding's Rage ready in the exact same pieces and be ready to change your sets around when its needed.

Warrior Mundus stone (or Lover on the Target Dummy and in trials only if your group doesn't have all the needed penetration sets). All Stamina enchants on body, all Weapon damage glyphs on jewelry, Max Stamina and Max Health food, Weapon Power and Crit potions (Major Brutality, Major Savagery and Stamina pots, Blessed Thirstle + Wormwood + Dragonthorn).

Second is your skills.
This is a very important part. Now there are 2 possible setups you can use on a Stamblade. The first one is easier to use than the second.
Setup 1:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Ballista

Setup 2:
DW Bar: Killer's Blade, Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Rending Slashes, Deadly Cloak, ULT: Incap Strike
Bow Bar: Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Razor Caltrops, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, ULT: Flawless Dawnbreaker

As you can see the only thing that changes is the ultimate. But that dictates your whole rotation. I suggest we start with the easy one, since Stamblade can get pretty tricky indeed.

LA = Light Attack
HA = Heavy Attack

Step 1: (only before the fight) Leeching Strikes > Relentless Focus > Deadly Cloak
Step 2 (Bow bar): Endless Hail > LA > Rearming Trap > LA > Caltrops > LA > Poison Injection > LA > Ballista > bar swap
Step 3 (DW bar): LA > Rending Slashes > HA > Relentless Focus (it will be a Bow proc now) > HA > Surprise Attack > HA > Deadly Cloak
Repeat from Step 2 and when your Ballista isn't ready, use Leeching Strikes at that point instead. When Leeching Strikes is already active, bar swap straight after Poison Injection and keep going.
When your target reaches 25% health, keep doing the exact same thing, except instead of Rending Slashes, Relentless Focus and Surprise Attack, use Killer's Blade.
This is a pretty simplified version of the real Stamblade rotation, but its a good way to get started.

Third part is the Champion points, I'll give you the pointers for the Target Dummy, since that's your first goal.
Blue Tree:
49 Mighty
49 Piercing
52 Precise Strikes
40 Thaumaturge
40 Master At Arms
Green Tree:
76 Mooncalf
64 Tenacity
40 Shadow Ward
40 Warlord
Red Tree:
Depends on what you're doing.

So this is my initial advice based only on what you've told us (which is much but its a start). So get started with this and let me know how it goes.

Stamblade is very rewarding however and in the end, you'll be pulling very high numbers, like this for example:
http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/lI Izaki Il/video/39353820

Be sure to also check out the following pages:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/
http://fearturbo.com/honor/
http://deltiasgaming.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-dps-build/

Much respect to ALCAST, but I can't understand why it's advised to go with a HEAVY chest, and give up the MEDIUM percentages for having the chest be medium? It would be VERY hard to justify giving up the extra percentages DEXTERITY and WINDWALKER offer for the additional medium piece:
http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Medium+Armor+Skills

Am I missing some maths here?