Big confusion about combat and skills in general

Okamu · March 2018

Hi everyone.

This is my first post in the forums and I hope i put it in the right place, if not I'm sorry and, as the title says, I have a big confusion about skills in general and their damage and how they affect my gameplay. Maybe I wrote a lot but I really want to understand and enjoy this awesome game!

I'm a level 35 Dual wield Stamina Nightblade Khajiit. I haven't had big problems so far except for bosses and that kind of stuff, mostly because I tend to hide and use stealth to stun and damage enemies. I suppose I'm going in the right direction but I don't know If I completely understand the mechanic of this game. First, I don't really know if I'm doing something wrong by not increasing the Hp, so:

1).- How useful is to increase your health in a character? Am I compensating the lack of it of my character with raw strength?
2).- Do other classes that rely on casting spells do the same and they go full magicka?

-

After using and trying most of the skills from different trees, I don't know if that's just me but they look pretty much the same in terms of damage, reason why I prefer to use my Assassination and Shadow skills and completely ignore the Dual Wield and Siphon attacks + their passives.

2).- How do you determinate what works best? For example, I've seen that some people say that Steel Tornado (Whirlwind Morph) is great in terms of AoE and Damage but after using it I felt like "meeh, it's not that great" and I ignored it after a few fights. I just felt it didn't fit in my play style but again, I don't know how to correctly check the DPS and utility of the skills.
3).- Is there a monster/training dummy where I can test my skills on?

-

Besides the skills, I know that weapons have light and Heavy attacks but I don't understand how useful they can be in a normal or long fight, as I can see skills have more damaging potential + secondary effects and they can also trigger some sweet actions like Grim Focus dark bow or chain-up a skill right after using a light attack (which I usually do with my Surprise Attack) but:

4).- How often do you use a heavy attack in a normal fight?
5).- Should I consider using them more often or rely more on them?
6).- is the DPS higher than using skills?

And, Do I do more damage when I attack someone from behind? (I think I saw a set that when fully equipped gives some bonus damage when attacking with skills from behind, I don't remember the name)

-

Besides skills and damage, I have questions about consumables. I never use them. I know they provide some nice extra Health, stat recovery and stuff but

7).- Is food/drink something that I should try to use more often? Do they have a big impact in late-game?

-

And finally, this is a build question tbh. I like to just get what I can use, so I have only spent points on really few skills and I never remove from my skill bar. At the moment, my skill bar has:

Surprise Attack (If someone can tell me the benefits of choosing Concealed Weapon instead it would be appreciated)
Shadowy Disguise
Killer's Blade
Ambush (I would rather use Hidden Blade but I just can't ignore the stun)
Elusion
Ultimate: Soul Shred (Because I mostly play alone, I'm going for Soul Tether atm)

I usually try to start fight with Shadowy Disguise + Surprise attack to stun the first enemy and then quickly stun the other with Ambush, then I just spam the light attack - Surprise attack combo until their health drop to 25% and finish them off with Killer's blade. Because I like the thief/assassin thing, I use the Blade of Woe too, reason why I'm trying to collect the Sithis set to get that 20% damage increase after using it and I try to get items with the infusion that lowers the dodge cost. I like to turn group fights into 1 vs 1 and get hp back from killing blade and Mark Target. If I need to take cover I rollback and use the Dawnguard Crossbow to slow them down, poison them and push them back. In general, how does it look?

That would be all! Thanks a lot for reading! For someone with a lot of question any answer would be appreciated!

Have a good day!

P.S: My native language is Spanish, sorry for any grammar mistake!

VaranisArano · March 2018

1) Increase your health to want you need to feel comfortable in combat, but you will be far more effective in combat the more you have of whichever resource you are using the most, stamina or magicka. Not only can you use your skills more times, but stamina skills hit harder the more stam you have, and magicka skills hit harder the more magicka you have.
2) Most classes go either full magicka or full stamina. Stamina classes rely on weapon skills and a few stamina morphs.

2) You figure out what works for you. Steel tornado is great for packs of enemies if you have the sustain to use it. I love it for group dungeons. But if you don't have the sustain or you are fighting 3 or less enemies, Shrouded Daggers might be a more effective Dual Wield skill for that situation.
If you are on PC, you can use addons that provide DPS counters.
If you aren't or don't like using addons, I suggest using numbers/percentages on the enemy health bars so you can tell roughly how much damage you are doing.
For boss fights, a target dummy from the housing furnishings will give you your DPS for the time it takes you to kill a 3/6 million health boss.

3) Yes, those are available from housing. You can get a 3 million health dummy or a 6 million health dummy to equate to group dungeon bosses. There are also dummies for Trial bosses. The Percursor quest in Clockwork City has you assemble a dummy with the health of a public dungeon boss.

4) Well, the simple answer is when you need to in order to get resources back. The complicated answer is when you start looking at practicing a rotation of DPS skills and looking at end game builds for advice, those rotations will suggest when to do heavy attacks. On my stam sorc, I do two to three heavy attacks in a rotation alternating with shrouded daggers, before I go back to my DOT cycle.

5) If you are struggling with having enough resources in a fight, do more heavy attacks. If you aren't, trying doing less or using more skills.

6) a good DPS rotation balances heavy attacks for resource regen and skills. If you want to up your DPS however, practice firing a light attack in between each skill. The timing can be tricky to get down, I usually rush and don't get the light attack off myself, but adding those light attacks in does help with DPS.

However, most DPS in a rotation comes from good uptime on various damage over time skills (DOTs). On my stam sorc, I'm running Endless Hail, Poison Injection, Caltrops, and Rending Slashes as ongoing effects at the same time as I'm heavy attacking and using shrouded dagger, so I have a lot of constant damage happening.

7) YES. Yes, get yourself some food/drink. It'll make your life so much easier. Since you are leveling, I recommend a holiday food/drink since those level up with you. Dubious Camoran Throne is a good festival drink, granting max health, max stam, and stam recovery. Tri-foods granting all stats or a Blue max health/max stam food are also good choices.

Finally, I don't play enough Nightblades to know whether that's a good build or not, but I would highly recommend picking up a bow for any stamina build. Endless Hail is a very powerful damage over time skill that will keep damaging enemies as you fight them with your other skills. On my stam builds, I start the fight with Endless hail, them jump into combat with my other skills. If you want to stick with just Dual Wield, I recommend Rending Slashes/Bloodcraze for its Bleed DOT. You can use that once on an enemy and light/heavy attack while you wait for them to bleed down to 25%. For an AOE effect like that, try Dual Wield's Blade Cloak skill, which will damage enemies around you.

Aurielle · March 2018

Okamu wrote: »

Hi everyone.

This is my first post in the forums and I hope i put it in the right place, if not I'm sorry and, as the title says, I have a big confusion about skills in general and their damage and how they affect my gameplay. Maybe I wrote a lot but I really want to understand and enjoy this awesome game!

I'm a level 35 Dual wield Stamina Nightblade Khajiit. I haven't had big problems so far except for bosses and that kind of stuff, mostly because I tend to hide and use stealth to stun and damage enemies. I suppose I'm going in the right direction but I don't know If I completely understand the mechanic of this game. First, I don't really know if I'm doing something wrong by not increasing the Hp, so:

1).- How useful is to increase your health in a character? Am I compensating the lack of it of my character with raw strength?
2).- Do other classes that rely on casting spells do the same and they go full magicka?

-

After using and trying most of the skills from different trees, I don't know if that's just me but they look pretty much the same in terms of damage, reason why I prefer to use my Assassination and Shadow skills and completely ignore the Dual Wield and Siphon attacks + their passives.

2).- How do you determinate what works best? For example, I've seen that some people say that Steel Tornado (Whirlwind Morph) is great in terms of AoE and Damage but after using it I felt like "meeh, it's not that great" and I ignored it after a few fights. I just felt it didn't fit in my play style but again, I don't know how to correctly check the DPS and utility of the skills.
3).- Is there a monster/training dummy where I can test my skills on?

-

Besides the skills, I know that weapons have light and Heavy attacks but I don't understand how useful they can be in a normal or long fight, as I can see skills have more damaging potential + secondary effects and they can also trigger some sweet actions like Grim Focus dark bow or chain-up a skill right after using a light attack (which I usually do with my Surprise Attack) but:

4).- How often do you use a heavy attack in a normal fight?
5).- Should I consider using them more often or rely more on them?
6).- is the DPS higher than using skills?

And, Do I do more damage when I attack someone from behind? (I think I saw a set that when fully equipped gives some bonus damage when attacking with skills from behind, I don't remember the name)

-

Besides skills and damage, I have questions about consumables. I never use them. I know they provide some nice extra Health, stat recovery and stuff but

7).- Is food/drink something that I should try to use more often? Do they have a big impact in late-game?

-

And finally, this is a build question tbh. I like to just get what I can use, so I have only spent points on really few skills and I never remove from my skill bar. At the moment, my skill bar has:
Surprise Attack (If someone can tell me the benefits of choosing Concealed Weapon instead it would be appreciated)

Shadowy Disguise

Killer's Blade

Ambush (I would rather use Hidden Blade but I just can't ignore the stun)

Elusion

Ultimate: Soul Shred (Because I mostly play alone, I'm going for Soul Tether atm)

I usually try to start fight with Shadowy Disguise + Surprise attack to stun the first enemy and then quickly stun the other with Ambush, then I just spam the light attack - Surprise attack combo until their health drop to 25% and finish them off with Killer's blade. Because I like the thief/assassin thing, I use the Blade of Woe too, reason why I'm trying to collect the Sithis set to get that 20% damage increase after using it and I try to get items with the infusion that lowers the dodge cost. I like to turn group fights into 1 vs 1 and get hp back from killing blade and Mark Target. If I need to take cover I rollback and use the Dawnguard Crossbow to slow them down, poison them and push them back. In general, how does it look?

That would be all! Thanks a lot for reading! For someone with a lot of question any answer would be appreciated!

Have a good day!

P.S: My native language is Spanish, sorry for any grammar mistake!

Am I reading that right? You're only using one skill bar...? At level 15, you get the option to equip two different weapons, each with their own skill bar, and swap between the two in combat. Most stamina nightblades use two one-handed weapons on their front bar (dual daggers or swords), and a bow on their back bar. Dealing damage effectively in this game is about using area of effect (AOE) skills in conjunction with single target skills in a certain order or rotation. These skills either do damage over time (DOT) or a single burst of damage.

To deal the most effective damage, you need to throw in a light attack between every skill you use. As a stamina nightblade, you should have Leeching Strikes active at all times, as it restores stamina and health with each light attack. Also, if you ignore certain dual wield weapon skills, you will seriously gimp your character. Deadly Cloak, for instance, is an absolute must have.

If you're just planning on doing overland content, you can play as you want. If you eventually want to do group dungeons, though, you should try an established build. Based on what you've described here, you're probably only doing about 5-6k DPS. The average nightblade will pull five times that amount of damage in a DW/Bow setup. Some very good endgame nightblades manage 45k+ DPS. Go to alcasthq.com for some basic ideas to get you started before you try dungeons.

Maryal · March 2018

If you are only level 35, and I am assuming that is your highest level character, then focus on reaching level 50 and then work on getting at least 150 CP points (you can't accumulate CP points until you reach level 50).

The reason I say this is because all your stats (health, magic and stamina) will increase quite a bit once you invest 150 CP points into the Champion System.

What 'works best' (skill/ability rotation) depends on how you play. Some people like an aggressive 'in your face' melee play style, others prefer a ranged playstyle. Now is the best time to experiment with different skills/abilities.

Also, you can reset your attribute points whenever you want at a shrine for a fee (gold) so feel free to experiment (you can put more into health now if you are dying a lot ... but once you reach level 50 and have all your attribute points, you probably will want all your attribute points into stamina, but, you can also put 10 or 11 points into health and the rest into stamina and still have good damage).
esoacademy.com/faq/where-can-you-reset-respec-skills/

AND .... you should also be using the skill/leveling advisor that is built into the game (you can pick which play style you prefer in the skill advisor for more customized information).

kadar · March 2018

Okamu wrote: »

Hi everyone.
1).- How useful is to increase your health in a character? Am I compensating the lack of it of my character with raw strength?
2).- Do other classes that rely on casting spells do the same and they go full magicka?

2).- How do you determinate what works best? For example, I've seen that some people say that Steel Tornado (Whirlwind Morph) is great in terms of AoE and Damage but after using it I felt like "meeh, it's not that great" and I ignored it after a few fights. I just felt it didn't fit in my play style but again, I don't know how to correctly check the DPS and utility of the skills.
3).- Is there a monster/training dummy where I can test my skills on?

Besides the skills, I know that weapons have light and Heavy attacks but I don't understand how useful they can be in a normal or long fight, as I can see skills have more damaging potential + secondary effects and they can also trigger some sweet actions like Grim Focus dark bow or chain-up a skill right after using a light attack (which I usually do with my Surprise Attack) but:

4).- How often do you use a heavy attack in a normal fight?
5).- Should I consider using them more often or rely more on them?
6).- is the DPS higher than using skills?

And, Do I do more damage when I attack someone from behind? (I think I saw a set that when fully equipped gives some bonus damage when attacking with skills from behind, I don't remember the name)

7).- Is food/drink something that I should try to use more often? Do they have a big impact in late-game?

And finally, this is a build question tbh. I like to just get what I can use, so I have only spent points on really few skills and I never remove from my skill bar. At the moment, my skill bar has:
Surprise Attack (If someone can tell me the benefits of choosing Concealed Weapon instead it would be appreciated)

Shadowy Disguise

Killer's Blade

Ambush (I would rather use Hidden Blade but I just can't ignore the stun)

Elusion

Ultimate: Soul Shred (Because I mostly play alone, I'm going for Soul Tether atm)

@Okamu

1) You are trading survivability that you would get from health for damage (from stamina). A little bit of extra health on a damage build is never bad. Dead DPS do no DPS.
2) Pretty much. More Magicka, more spell/elemental damage. More STamina, more physical/disease/poison damage.
2) At level 35 I'd use the skills that feel the best. Try to use skills based on situations you are in. Steel Tornado is obviously less effective than Surprise Attack when fighting a single opponent.
3) Yep, people can craft them and place them in houses they own. Find someone with a dummy and travel to their primary residence after right clicking their name.
4) Often if you are low on stamina. Light attack if you're not. .
5) Light Attack often. LA's don't actually take much/any time if you quickly use skills after them. They serve to boost your damage and like you said proc secondary effects like spectral bow or weapon enchants.
6) Skill DPS is higher than Light/heavy attack DPS. Using Light attacks between ability casts is highest DPS. Light/heavy attacks are also free and can help you return stamina.
7) HUUUGE big impact. I recommend leveling both Provisioning and Alchemy and spending points as they come available. It is inconceivable to play any endgame content without both a food/drink buff and potions.

As far as build...That bar looks pretty good. You have 2. Learn to use the backbar (if you don't already) as well. You can use 1H/Shield bars for added defense/survivability, 2H bars for some awesome damage effects, Bow for insane damage over time and mobility. Swapping to your backbar (the ` key I believe is default) actually takes very little time-- similar to light attacks, so get familiar with swapping quickly back and forth.

VonNelson · March 2018

Nightblades are squishy. I’ve got a lvl 35 stamblade and she is by far the squishiest character I have and that’s even with 600+ champion points. She makes heists and hits easy though. Food buffs help with your health bar a lot. Blue food is great - max health max stam but purple is better if you are lucky enough to find a recipe

Best advice- get a bow. I love me some bow skills. If you use snipe you can get about 3 off from range before the thing you are trying to kill can reach you. Have a light attack between each snipe for increased damage. Put down endless hail and swap to dual wield. Be wary if it’s a boss that you don’t draw him out any further or he will reset.

Forget about sithis set. Craft yourself some nights silence. You only need to learn 2 traits to craft this set. If you learn more traits craft hundings rage or night mothers gaze. Go to malabal tor and do the dolmens for spriggans thorns jewellery

Sneaky khajiit ftw

VonNelson · March 2018

@Okamu what platform are you on?

Okamu · March 2018

HI.

Thanks everyone for your responses! I will definitely start using some food and drinks, an increase in stats is always welcome. THANKS A LOT!

Now I think I understand more the game, light attacks and heavy attacks make more sense know and their utility in fights.

Maybe it might sound bad but I want to ask anyway. What about having another pair of daggers equipped as back-up weapons? It sounds redundant but what if my main skill bar has Shadow and Assassination skills and the secondary skill bar has Dual Wield + Siphoning attacks? Have someone tried that? I know I would be missing, as I can see, the enormous vantage of using a bow, but I would like to know what do you guys think.

Also, Do I get bonus damage when I attack enemies from behind in the middle of a fight or only at the start of it when I sneak up behind them?

VonNelson wrote: »

@Okamu what platform are you on?

PC

VaranisArano · March 2018

You can certainly run Dual World/Dual Wield on both bars, especially for leveling. As you branch out into group content like dungeons, the benefits of a second type of weapon become more important. The weapons each have different strengths, like two-handed has great healing, burst, and execute capabilities, the bow is great for DOTs, and one hand and shield is superior at defense and debuffs. Dual wield is excellent for single target and AOE against mobs, so you'll often see PVE damage dealing builds combine DW with bows to take advantage of those DOTs.

kadar · March 2018

PC

#masterrace

VonNelson · March 2018

If you are using a lot of magica based shadow and assassination skills as a stamina build you will be running out of magica quickly and not doing significant damage with those abilities. Nightblades have some stam morphs but a lot of the juicy sounding skills are magica based.

Okamu · March 2018

I recently joined a Guild where the Leader opened up his house for the members of it. He has a training robot and WOW, I used to think that all the skills where pretty much the same in terms of damage, after testing some attacks and using the Combat Metrics Addon I saw how useful the DoTs in the Bow line are, Im loving using Endless Hail and Poison Arrow.

I think I finally found the skills that I feel comfortable with and have a nice balance. Im still trying to get used to the weapon swap thing, I tend to mess up a lot of combos trying to keep thos Dots and buffs up, but its really fun.

I have a lot of trouble againat groups of 4+ monsters tho but after I get Siphoning attacks and keep my buffs up correctly I hope to have a decent sustain. I think i will go for the hp and stam steal poisons for this too.

Thanks again!

VonNelson wrote: »

If you are using a lot of magica based shadow and assassination skills as a stamina build you will be running out of magica quickly and not doing significant damage with those abilities. Nightblades have some stam morphs but a lot of the juicy sounding skills are magica based.

I thought Nightblades where mainly all about stamina, after doing some tests I really would like to try a magicka based build and try those spicy skills in the Siphoning tree. But, is there a really big difference of damage between a stam and magicka nightblade?

kadar · March 2018

I thought Nightblades where mainly all about stamina, after doing some tests I really would like to try a magicka based build and try those spicy skills in the Siphoning tree. But, is there a really big difference of damage between a stam and magicka nightblade

In power level, no. They play quite differently though.

KingYogi415 · March 2018

Do 10 BG's for vigor!

Make sure you have the fighters guild skill line.

This is a end game guide but Alcast gives a crafted build.

https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/

You can even get this gear crafted now as all training!

But getting to 160cp and getting all this gear in purple is important to start vet dungeons.

Cheers and good luck!

Oreyn_Bearclaw · March 2018

Ill give my 2 cents on your questions, much has been said.

1. At low level, you really shouldnt need to worry about health with battle spirit. At end game, you will find most organized groups will have health requirements. The reality is that at end game PVE, you shouldnt need to worry about your health too much, assuming you have food. In PVP, its more of a judgement call. Other than my dedicated tank, none of my 14 characters have a single point into health. It's not needed in the current meta.

2. Damage skills come in a few types. I wont cover them all, but here are a few.
-Single target spam abilities. These are skills that hit hard and fast, but only to one enemy. The damage is instantaneous. Surprise attack is a good example here.
-AOE Spam abilities. Just like the first one, but they hit multiple enemies. Steel tornado is as good as it gets here for a stamina build.
-Single Target DOTs (damage over time). These are skills that do a set amount of damage over a specified interval of time. They do not stack with themselves, but they do stack with other DOTs. For example, you could cast three different DOTS on a target, and while they are ticking, you could spam surprise attack. This is the most basic form of a DPS rotation. A good stamina example is poison injection from your bow line or rending slashes from your DW line.
-AOE DOTs- These typically come in the form of a ground ability, but not always. A good stamina example is Endless hail. Basically any enemy inside the endless hail circle will take receive a steady DOT.

3. Yes there are practice dummies that can be put in housing. The best damage results come from layering the above damage types above, and a dummy is the best place to practice. For example, a stamina nightblade might cast: Endless hail, Poison Injection, and Caltrops on their back bar, then cast rending slashes on their front bar, and while those are ticking, they spam surprise attack until one of the DOTs needs reapplied. That is an extremely simple version of a damage rotation, but that is the basics. Cast your buffs, debuffs, and DOTs, and let them run their full course. If everything is up, cast a single target (or AOE) spam skill until the need reapplied. Steel tornado might feel week on its own, but spam it with Hail, Caltrops, deadly cloak, and rearming trap all up and running, and it will melt stuff.

4. Heavy attacks should really only be used in a normal PVE fight when you are low on resources. A good nightblade almost never has to use them if they keep Siphoning Strikes active at all times. Other classes have to rely on them more. Light attacks are a totally different animal. These should before essentially every skill you use. We call this Weaving. On a nightblade, this means you can fire your spectral bow (relentless focus) about every fifth skill. A good weave will give you a few K DPS boost. Light attacks are not on the same cooldown timer as your skills, so work to weave a light attack in between each skill you cast. This is what separates good players from bad in a lot of scenarios.

5. Sort of answered, but again, use Heavy attacks when low on stam, try to use light attacks before EVERY skill.

6. The DPS of light/heavy attacks is not higher than skills, but they do add DPS. All skills in this game have a Global Cooldown of approximately 1 sec. In other words, no matter how fast you cast surprise attack, it wont fire more than once a second. Light attacks dont have the same restriction.
Example: In 10 seconds, you could cast surprise attacks 10 times (this is the lowest form of a DPS rotation). In that same time, you could also cast 10 light attacks, endless hail, poison injection, rearming trap, Caltrops, rending slashes, and 5 surprise attacks. The second one is going to do WAY more damage. Again, just an example of a rotation, but thats the idea.

7. You should have a food/drink buff active 100% of the time you are in combat. As a stamina nightblade, blue health+stamina food or Dubios Cameron Throne (health+stamina+stam regen) are your best options. The blue food is more damage, but the later is a little easier on sustain.

8 (skill bars)
A. Surprise attack vs concealed weapon. Simple, one is a stamina morph, one is a magic morph. As a stamina character, pick the stamina morph. A stamina skill scales off both your weapon power AND your max stamina pool. Increasing either (or both) make it hit harder. This is why people tend to put all their attributes into one area. A stamina nightblade that puts points anywhere but max stamina wont hit as hard as a stamina nightblade that puts them all there.

B. Shadowy Disguise is a skill your really dont need in PVE unless you are doing theives guild/DB quests, or simply want to sneak past enemies in a dungeon. Fun skill, but not worthy of a spot in actual end game content in PVE. In PVP, its perhaps the most powerful skill in the game.

C.Killersblade - This is a single target spam skill that is ALSO an execute. Practically speaking, this replaces Surprise attack in your rotation when your enemy is below 25% health. Never cast this if the enemy is above 25% health, as SA is better.

D. Ambush - Useful in PVP, pretty worthless in PVE. Gap closers are fun, but they really dont help your damage in any way.

E. Elusion - This is another skill that is nice in PVP, but in PVE, its just not needed. Its a dodge chance, but there are better damage mitigation/healing skills for PVE. Deadly Cloak and Vigor are the most obvious answers for stamina.

F. Soul Tether is a good AOE burst ultimate, but its not my first choice on a stamina character. Anything that does magic or elemental damage wont hit has hard for you as things that do physical or poison damage. Most stamblades run soul harvest on one bar, and go with a utility ultimate (veil of blades) or a physical damage ultimate (Dawnbreaker) on the other bar.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · March 2018

Okamu wrote: »

HI.

Thanks everyone for your responses! I will definitely start using some food and drinks, an increase in stats is always welcome. THANKS A LOT!

Now I think I understand more the game, light attacks and heavy attacks make more sense know and their utility in fights.

Maybe it might sound bad but I want to ask anyway. What about having another pair of daggers equipped as back-up weapons? It sounds redundant but what if my main skill bar has Shadow and Assassination skills and the secondary skill bar has Dual Wield + Siphoning attacks? Have someone tried that? I know I would be missing, as I can see, the enormous vantage of using a bow, but I would like to know what do you guys think.

Also, Do I get bonus damage when I attack enemies from behind in the middle of a fight or only at the start of it when I sneak up behind them?

VonNelson wrote: »

@Okamu what platform are you on?

PC

If you are on PC/NA, you can shoot me a message (@Oreyn_Bearclaw) in game and I can invite you to my house. It has all the mundus stones and 6 target dummies, so its a great place to practice. There is usually a small party there.

As to going DW/DW, its a total waste. DW/Bow is far and away your best choice for PVE. Endless hail (bow skill) is arguably the most powerful stamina skill in the game. You are silly not to run it. Poison injection is also really nice for those times that mechanics force you out of melee range. I cant think of any good example to go DW/DW. You can at least make arguments for back bar 2H or Sword/shield (extra survival), but DW/DW has noob written all over it.

You are probably a long way from it, but competitive endgame DPS bars look mostly like this.

DW: Surprise Attack, Killers Blade, Rending Slashes, Deadly Coack, Relentless focus, Flawless Dawnbreaker
Bow: Endless Hail, Caltrops, Poison Injection, Rearming Trap, Siphoning Attacks, Soul Harvest

You could drop something like rending slashes for vigor if you wanted to, and certainly these bars arent for everyone, but this is the setup that pulls essentially the most DPS of any class/spec in the game. Certainly feel free to deviate, but always ask yourself why.

Alqu · March 2018

Varanis's reply here is a great overview of the game mechanics in general. Well done. I am just going to elaborate with some stamina nightblade specifics. My first 50 was a stam nightblade and I have a number of others now. She is a mean machine now, but she wasn't the easiest character to get into, in hindsight.

VaranisArano wrote: »

1) Increase your health to want you need to feel comfortable in combat, but you will be far more effective in combat the more you have of whichever resource you are using the most, stamina or magicka.....
2) Most classes go either full magicka or full stamina. Stamina classes rely on weapon skills and a few stamina morphs.

Yep. Tanks would be the prominent exception, but I'll assume you are going for damage. My stamNB is full DPS. I have maybe 1 or 2 health bonuses on some armor but full attributes into stamina. I think for a NB, there are better ways to survive than hit points. She just hits so hard with that amount of stamina (and wep dmg, etc.) that few world, delve encounters last long enough to put a hurt on.

But here are some survivability tools at your disposal as a stam DW NB:

Veiled strike/Surprise attack.
You should be using this skill a lot for its huge damage, but it also, via the Shadow Barrier passive, give you additional damage resistance for a little while every time you use it.

Blur/mirage
Big dodge chance. Minor additional resistance. This stacks with Shadow Barrier. Another option is Shuffle from the Medium armor line. It doesn't have the resistance, but gets you out of some crowd control.

Siphoning Strikes/Leeching Strikes
Everytime you light attack you get some small heal and small stamina. It might not be a lot but it adds up, and your damage will be highest if you are 'weaving' light attacks between skill attacks.

Even if you don't want to PvP, do it enough to unlock Vigor. This is a powerful heal for stamina players. You'll also unlock Rapid Maneuver on the way which will speed up your travel around the world. Vigor also heals group members, wont make you a healer, but I've saved many groups with it in a pinch.

I also use bone shield from the undaunted line in PvP, but honestly, you should be able to destroy any non-dungeon/trial/world boss content with 0 health points, Shadow Barrier, Leeching Strikes and Vigor and cheap purple gear.

Dual wield's Twin Slash/Blood Craze has a tiny heal, but Leeching Strikes will outperform it. Of course you can do both and the damage difference is small too. No clear winner there. Flurry/Blood Thirst...you don't want to use, Surprise attack is superior given the above.

Blade Cloak however, does give a noticeable bit of additional protection. Either morph has its benefits. Quick Cloak does make moving out of damage or toward targets faster of course.