Welcome fellow Wood Elf Stamblade!

My first and main char is the same race+class as yours. Wood Elf is not optimal for stamina DD, but very much close enough. You get a little better sustain on Redguard, and very slightly better damage on Khajiit (higher crit value). But the difference is marginal compared to other factors. No need to change race! Wood elves are much too cute to do that.

Your set choice is perfect(ly fine). Velidreth is currently considered BiS monster set for stamblade, but again, the difference is marginal. Velidreth has the advantage that it hits up to three targets and is ranged, while Selene is purely single-target and has a very short melee range. But the DPS difference would be really small (less than 1k).

I can only speak for PVE, I don't do any PVP. In PVE, you want bow and dual wield for best damage. Bow and two-hander works too but deals noticeably less damage.

Maelstrom bow indeed plays a big role in "high end" DPS. When used properly, it'll make a difference of ~5k DPS. But you definitely don't need it to be competitive in PVE. You can reach 35k on a stamblade without it. (I haven't finished vMA myself yet either.)

vMA on a stamina char is much harder than on magicka, due to lack of strong heals and shields. You definitely need Vigor in there. Don't try to complete vMA on your stamblade before your DPS and movement are really good. Suggestion would be to use a magicka sorc as first class in vMA, it's much much easier.

Before I go into any detailed hints, what rotation do you use? What skills are on your bar, in what order do you use them, do you weave light/heavy attacks properly? Do you run out of stamina or can you sustain a target skeleton fight? Did you test your DPS on a skeleton?

Thanks you guys for the responses. They have been really helpful.
Loc I am currently using on main hand- bow- lethal arrow- acid spray- endless hail- leeching strikes- vigor.
Off hand- dual wield- rapid strikes- dark cloak- surprise attack- relentless force- elude.
And I did not weave light and heavy attacks until right now when I read what you said. And that helped with my stamina a lot. Whenever I use lethal arrow I always do a light attack after. And I just used a friends skeleton and first it was 10k. Second time was 11k. Then third time was 13k.

Okay, 10-13k, we need to work on that.

As I said, your gear choice is fine. Skills sound good too. Rotation rhythm and weaving are the most important things. Currently, the meta is doing light attacks on the bow bar, and heavy attacks on the DW bar. (You'd get better damage with also light attacks on the DW bar, but since the Big Sustain Nerf of Morrowind, you very much need the stamina return from the heavy attacks to last through longer fights. That is the case for all stamina builds since Morrowind.)

For LA weaving, you want roughly a 1.2 second rhythm. Do a light attack, wait 0.3 seconds, do the skill, wait 1 second, repeat. On the dual wield bar, hold the left mouse button down to do heavy attacks, and press the skill button as soon the character starts the HA animation. Keep the mouse button down all the time. That will ensure an optimal HA-skill rhythm by having the skill cancel the HA animation as early as possible, and vice versa.

Since I started my IT career on a Commodore 64 and played a lot of games back then, I kinda internalized the rhythm of the pokey sticks from the ground and ceiling in the game Antiriad for my weaving. Seek to 3:20 in this Youtube video. For the extension poke, I do the LA, for the retraction, the skill, then pause.

My bar allocation:
Bow: Poison Injection, Endless Hail, Beast Trap, Caltrops, Leeching Strikes, Bow Ultimate
DW: Killer's Blade, Deadly Cloak, Rending Slashes, Merciless Resolve, Surprise Attack, Flawless Dawnbreaker

Try the following rotation:

Bow bar: LA - Poison Injection - LA - Endless Hail - LA - Caltrops - LA - Beast Trap - Weapon Swap
DW bar: HA - Deadly Cloak - HA - Rending Slashes - HA - Surprise Attack - HA - Surprise Attack ... until Endless Hail runs out.

Use a buff tracker like S'rendarr or the built-in one to track Endless Hail. When you have 2 seconds left on EH, swap to Bow bar and repeat.

Keep up the buffs Leeching Strikes, Merciless Resolve (important!) and Deadly Cloak at all times, i.e. when they run out, do an additional LA/HA and the skill.

Every 5 LA/HA, the Merciless Resolve turns into the Spectral Bow. When that happens, use it instead of Surprise Attack. (Next patch, the spectral bow will be made easier to use.)

Important: Use the Bow Ultimate whenever it's ready, on single-target. If you have multiple adds, use the Dawnbreaker.

Very important: When the enemy drops the <25% health, use the Killer's Blade execute instead of Surprise Attack.

Internalizing and practicing the rhythm and rotation is what has the most impact on your DPS.

About gear: Make sure to have at least all-purple armor pieces. Jewelry can be blue or purple. Have Divines trait as far as possible. Use the Lover mundus stone and CPs in Piercing to have 11+k physical penetration if not playing in a very optimized group. You want to reach 18.2k penetration with all (de)buffs. Your Surprise Attack does a 5.2k debuff, so you need up to 13k penetration. Usually tank or healer will apply further (de)buffs, but that's not certain, so I personally go for 11+k in random groups.

Put all purple Stamina enchant on armor pieces. Put gold Weapon Damage enchant on jewelry. Have gold!! weapons with purple or gold enchantment glyphs (Poison Damage on bow, Weapon Damage on one DW piece, Disease Damage on the other). Use Infused or Nirnhoned bow and one DW piece, and Precise on the other.

You should easily reach 20+k DPS with that. Next step is using potions that give the Major Brutality and Major Savagery buffs (+25% weapon damage, +10% weapon crit). Let me know when you reach that point. Also, if you are on PC-EU, you can contact me in-game as @Loc2262.

cjhhickman39 wrote: »

Question are you using pots for major brutally and savagery? If not there is a big plus your missing for weapon damage and crit. If you don’t want to use pots you can slot power extraction or flying daggers for brutally and expert hunter for savagery

Nope. I didn’t even know that had potions like that! Do you find those in the guild stores? I seriously had no idea.

Loc2262 wrote: »

About the Major Brutality and Major Savagery buffs (+25% weapon damage, +10% weapon crit). Those are indeed very important for your overall DPS. You usually do that with potions, as not to waste skill slots. But like cjhhickman said, if you can't or don't want to use potions, e.g. in fights where you don't need maximum damage output like in Normal dungeons, you can alternatively get those buffs with skills.

Slotting Expert Hunter will give you Major Savagery. You just slot that and never use it. Replace e.g. the Deadly Cloak on your DW bar with it. Deadly Cloak does not contribute too much to your DPS, you mostly want it for the 25% AOE damage mitigation which is very useful in vet content. On the Bow bar, you could replace Leeching Strikes with it if you don't need the healing and resource return. Otherwise slot it only on the DW bar. To get Major Brutality, either slot (and use) Power Extraction as an AOE damage skill, or replace Surprise Attack with the Flying Blade. Note that you'll then have to rely on a tank to apply Major Fracture to the target.

I personally meanwhile don't swap out skills for those buffs anymore. I either use potions to get those buffs when needed like in vet content boss fights, or don't use them and go without the buffs in fights where it doesn't matter, like overland, questing or normal dungeons where you don't care if the boss dies in 40 or 35 seconds. You can still always use the Minor Berserk buff plus Spectral Bow with the Merciless Resolve skill.

Thank you so much for being so helpful! I will defintely be trying some of the suggestions out.

One suggestion that may help with your rotation I see you have Vigor so try and pick up caltrops also it’s a good aoe to use but the big plus is its easy to see during a fight, so drop it first hit all your aoe and dots then melee when you see the caltrops gone roll out reapply the dots etc.

Dawnbreaker is in the Fighters guild line. Flawless is the preferred version for PvE.

Woa thank you so much lol my issue is pretty much getting past the 20k dps. Nice advice @Loc2262