Question on how to counter Incap?

Nelson_Rebel · May 2018

This is going to be a rather general question.

I have attached my stat sheet for my Stam Warden above to show what I'm working with

It's a heavy armor build and even with my stats and using my skills rather well I cant ever seem to recover from an Incap. The defile and Major fracture coupled with Empower and stun just feel way to strong in addition to how HARD it hits and how cheap the cost is makes the Incap up almost every 15 seconds or so

I have at this point accepted Incap is staying as is and I'm trying to find a viable way to effectively combat Incap without being a potato tank.

*NOTE* I'm speaking from a purely open world perspective, I dont care about dueling.

I need a effective way to deal with NB's open world and Stamblades are the only ones I cannot counter without luck or additional help in many cases

If you have any other tips or tricks with particular sets or anything besides blocking the hit itself or attempting to dodge it. Block or dodge hardly ever work due to the classic combination of FEAR then the incap. And since the NB's always use steath then pop the fear there is simply never enough time to break free before the incap hits

Avran_Sylt · May 2018

Not that I've tried it, but can you Purge the defile?

Get Efficient Purge and slot it somewhere.
(Alliance War/Support)

Purge into a Roll-dodge with a follow-up heal.

Nelson_Rebel · May 2018

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Not that I've tried it, but can you Purge the defile?

Get Efficient Purge and slot it somewhere.
(Alliance War/Support)

Purge into a Roll-dodge with a follow-up heal.

You can but even efficient purge costs 7k magic. I do use my mana for Bird of prey and my Self Buff.

I cant use it and still use my other skills interchangably. I just dont have the slot for it even if it was cheaper.

The only way it would be worth it would be if the cost was around the same as my self buff without losing my other critically needed abilities

LeagueTroll · May 2018

Run doruk’s bane, so the nb get defile too?

Avran_Sylt · May 2018

It costs around 5K if I recall correctly. The regular cost of purge is around 8K

Not sure if that's cheap enough or not though.

Koolio · May 2018

One thing for sure is your weapon damage and crit are low. This directly effects heals.

Also try running blue Betty for the cleanse. You can spam for low heal and remove hopefully the right debuff.

Wtb cleanse prioritizing list to manually select what get removed first.

Nelson_Rebel · May 2018

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

It costs around 5K if I recall correctly. The regular cost of purge is around 8K

Not sure if that's cheap enough or not though.

I'm fairly certain that efficient is only 5k if you are wearing Light amor 5 pieces to reduce the cost. I'm a stam warden heavy build

LeagueTroll wrote: »

Run doruk’s bane, so the nb get defile too?

This might be worth looking into. I'll see if I can fit it into my build

Solariken · May 2018

Man I feel you, stamblade burst is downright vicious, I have trouble recovering from it on all my toons (with magplar being the only slight exception).

Strider__Roshin · May 2018

Just kill the Nightblade using it. Incap doesn't hit that hard, and if you have a decent spec you can just destroy the overconfident Nightblade. Heck last night in battlegrounds I had a 1v3, and it was against all stamblades. Even though all three of them hit me with an Incap I had no issues killing them.

Incap also has every form of counterplay available against it (it's dodgeable and blockable).

Minno · May 2018

Daus wrote: »

Just kill the Nightblade using it. Incap doesn't hit that hard, and if you have a decent spec you can just destroy the overconfident Nightblade. Heck last night in battlegrounds I had a 1v3, and it was against all stamblades. Even though all three of them hit me with an Incap I had no issues killing them.

Incap also has every form of counterplay available against it (it's dodgeable and blockable).

There are some terrible nightblades out there. Rinaldo and I came across an entire raid of them in IC last week and even as terrible as they were 24 incaps is a pain to receive. But since they were terrible, I slotted lingering flare and it was funny watching them stay outside the circles too scared to exit stealth lol. We ended up wiping them with the boss lol.

But still, you can only dodge so many times. 120/75 cost using the Templar ult gen is more balanced than 20 burst ultimate gain on pots because Empowering sweeps does terrible DMG. But incap will lose the stun soon based on their rules for high DMG/no stun abilities.

I do agree dodge/block is the counter though.

Nelson_Rebel · May 2018

Daus wrote: »

Just kill the Nightblade using it. Incap doesn't hit that hard, and if you have a decent spec you can just destroy the overconfident Nightblade. Heck last night in battlegrounds I had a 1v3, and it was against all stamblades. Even though all three of them hit me with an Incap I had no issues killing them.

Incap also has every form of counterplay available against it (it's dodgeable and blockable).

Please read my post first.

I provided a stat sheet showing my combat buffs.

I have over 25k resistances both spell and physical, I have over 2k crit resistance and I'm on a max CP enabled toon with proper allocations and all maxed out skills. My problem is that I still get hit by 9k-13k damage Incaps.

Saying "just block or roll dodge" is NOT a solution, every NB first casts fear (usually from steath) then immediatly follows up with a hard hitting ult with 4 other effects applied on top
of the initial burst damage plus feared.

And if I could "just kill him" then why would I even be here? You're assuming my opponent is a target dummy?

Dyride · May 2018

Efficient Purge costs close to 5k magicka without any cost reduction. Not worthwhile for heavy armor or stam build unless you run something like Shacklebreaker to boost your mag pool and even then I would question its use.

To counter someone using Incap as an opener, obviously you need to CC break but unless you are already execute range instead of rolling first, you should BLOCK, cast Vigor/Spores then either potion if necessary, then roll dodge plus use Soothing Spores/Living Vines to go full defensive. You want to use your CC immunity to your advantage and hopefully save something like a Health/Stam/Immovable potion for near the end of your CC immunity. Keep Vigor up on cooldown.

You want to block to prevent their finisher or burst. This may suck on your stam pool but losing stam is worse than health.

Potions seem to be affected by the full dodge GCD, and are hard to get off after rolling. This means you want to potion and try to make sure Vigor is active before dodging. Obviously it doesn't always work this well.

Another option to surviving their burst is potentially stunning them to stop their rotation. This is a tempting option and definitely a pretty good choice if you expect backup or have allies close by.

But if you are solo, you don't necessarily want them to get into their dodging/cloaking and healing stance too quickly.

Preferably, you'll want to hit them with a DoT, maybe heavy attack for resources and cast Shalks, let your dot tick THEN do a light/heavy attack weave into a stun skill with Shalks/Dawnbreaker/Reverse Slice or Steel Tornado combo.

Stunning them too early on gives them CC immunity and then they will likely kite/cloak then come back with a Fear/Incap combo once your CC immunity is up.

ChefZero · May 2018

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

This is going to be a rather general question.

I have attached my stat sheet for my Stam Warden above to show what I'm working with

It's a heavy armor build and even with my stats and using my skills rather well I cant ever seem to recover from an Incap. The defile and Major fracture coupled with Empower and stun just feel way to strong in addition to how HARD it hits and how cheap the cost is makes the Incap up almost every 15 seconds or so

I have at this point accepted Incap is staying as is and I'm trying to find a viable way to effectively combat Incap without being a potato tank.

*NOTE* I'm speaking from a purely open world perspective, I dont care about dueling.

I need a effective way to deal with NB's open world and Stamblades are the only ones I cannot counter without luck or additional help in many cases

If you have any other tips or tricks with particular sets or anything besides blocking the hit itself or attempting to dodge it. Block or dodge hardly ever work due to the classic combination of FEAR then the incap. And since the NB's always use steath then pop the fear there is simply never enough time to break free before the incap hits

Did you say 15 seconds...

https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Whitestrake's+Retribution+Set

casparian · May 2018

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

I have over 25k resistances both spell and physical, I have over 2k crit resistance

Both of those numbers are pretty low. You want 3K+ crit resist these days in open world CP-enabled PVP.

The best thing to do is to get more practice vs. nightblades. Yesterday I was being double-teamed by two stamblades and I managed to roll dodge two incaps in a row because I could anticipate when they would use them. Many nightblades are fairly predictable.

Also, wear Impregnable Armor. It's one of the most underrated sets in the game, and will make you significantly more survivable against nightblades (and everyone else for that matter).

Nelson_Rebel · May 2018

casparian wrote: »

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

I have over 25k resistances both spell and physical, I have over 2k crit resistance

Both of those numbers are pretty low. You want 3K+ crit resist these days in open world CP-enabled PVP.

The best thing to do is to get more practice vs. nightblades. Yesterday I was being double-teamed by two stamblades and I managed to roll dodge two incaps in a row because I could anticipate when they would use them. Many nightblades are fairly predictable.

Also, wear Impregnable Armor. It's one of the most underrated sets in the game, and will make you significantly more survivable against nightblades (and everyone else for that matter).

Well seeing at res cap is at 33k-32k I dont think 25k is very low and I'm 7/7 Heavy. Unless I golded out the armor the resistance isn't going much higher without sacrificing to much damage

Then all my armor is Impen so the only way to go higher is to use CP into the Crit resistance, but again I'd be sacrificing more damage against something that isn't the issue, it's the total amouny of effects that add into Incap. Having 1k more crit resistance isn't going to do much to 9-13k incaps I'm taking when I'm fully buffed still getting hit like a truck

Nelson_Rebel · May 2018

Dyride wrote: »

Efficient Purge costs close to 5k magicka without any cost reduction. Not worthwhile for heavy armor or stam build unless you run something like Shacklebreaker to boost your mag pool and even then I would question its use.

To counter someone using Incap as an opener, obviously you need to CC break but unless you are already execute range instead of rolling first, you should BLOCK, cast Vigor/Spores then either potion if necessary, then roll dodge plus use Soothing Spores/Living Vines to go full defensive. You want to use your CC immunity to your advantage and hopefully save something like a Health/Stam/Immovable potion for near the end of your CC immunity. Keep Vigor up on cooldown.

You want to block to prevent their finisher or burst. This may suck on your stam pool but losing stam is worse than health.

Potions seem to be affected by the full dodge GCD, and are hard to get off after rolling. This means you want to potion and try to make sure Vigor is active before dodging. Obviously it doesn't always work this well.

Another option to surviving their burst is potentially stunning them to stop their rotation. This is a tempting option and definitely a pretty good choice if you expect backup or have allies close by.

But if you are solo, you don't necessarily want them to get into their dodging/cloaking and healing stance too quickly.

Preferably, you'll want to hit them with a DoT, maybe heavy attack for resources and cast Shalks, let your dot tick THEN do a light/heavy attack weave into a stun skill with Shalks/Dawnbreaker/Reverse Slice or Steel Tornado combo.

Stunning them too early on gives them CC immunity and then they will likely kite/cloak then come back with a Fear/Incap combo once your CC immunity is up.

Good tips, Most of these I'm already aware of

The problem is my opponents generally are aware of these as well. And the unbockable undodgeabe CC that Fear is always stops almost all of these with the exeption of Immovability Potions. Which I'll just have to farm for. Quite *** I have to farm to craft hundreds of pots just to get somewhat of a workaround for 1 skill

Own · May 2018

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

Just kill the Nightblade using it. Incap doesn't hit that hard, and if you have a decent spec you can just destroy the overconfident Nightblade. Heck last night in battlegrounds I had a 1v3, and it was against all stamblades. Even though all three of them hit me with an Incap I had no issues killing them.

Incap also has every form of counterplay available against it (it's dodgeable and blockable).

Please read my post first.

I provided a stat sheet showing my combat buffs.

I have over 25k resistances both spell and physical, I have over 2k crit resistance and I'm on a max CP enabled toon with proper allocations and all maxed out skills. My problem is that I still get hit by 9k-13k damage Incaps.

Saying "just block or roll dodge" is NOT a solution, every NB first casts fear (usually from steath) then immediatly follows up with a hard hitting ult with 4 other effects applied on top
of the initial burst damage plus feared.

And if I could "just kill him" then why would I even be here? You're assuming my opponent is a target dummy?

I'm a full dps open world stamblade. I hit incaps that big constantly.

1. You have too little crit resist. 2.6 minimum, I wouldn't go below 2.9.

2. Fear + incap became meh a while ago. If you breakfree and dodge roll fast enough you wont take the incap. You just have to be ready for it, so now go to the next step.

3. 90% of nightblades will ambush + incap, even with empower changes. If you get ambushed.. block, dodge roll, or drop a dawnbreaker on thier face.

4. Time thier incaps. If they haven't incap'd in a while, stay defensive if you think they're going to drop you. After the incap go all out. Some nb can regen an incap in 6 seconds with a double bloodspawn proc and a potion. You probably won't see this.

5. StamWardens blocking my burst stops me. So try getting better with that.

In short, Incap is an instant attack. You have to block or roll before they cast it. It's all about prediction when fighting Incap.

Strider__Roshin · May 2018

Minno wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

Just kill the Nightblade using it. Incap doesn't hit that hard, and if you have a decent spec you can just destroy the overconfident Nightblade. Heck last night in battlegrounds I had a 1v3, and it was against all stamblades. Even though all three of them hit me with an Incap I had no issues killing them.

Incap also has every form of counterplay available against it (it's dodgeable and blockable).

There are some terrible nightblades out there. Rinaldo and I came across an entire raid of them in IC last week and even as terrible as they were 24 incaps is a pain to receive. But since they were terrible, I slotted lingering flare and it was funny watching them stay outside the circles too scared to exit stealth lol. We ended up wiping them with the boss lol.

But still, you can only dodge so many times. 120/75 cost using the Templar ult gen is more balanced than 20 burst ultimate gain on pots because Empowering sweeps does terrible DMG. But incap will lose the stun soon based on their rules for high DMG/no stun abilities.

I do agree dodge/block is the counter though.

I honestly can't recall the last time I fought a stamblade that I considered to be good. Let me check my videos... Ah! Early June of 2016

Either almost no one that plays a stamblade is good or it's just an easy class to kill.

casparian · May 2018

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

casparian wrote: »

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

I have over 25k resistances both spell and physical, I have over 2k crit resistance

Both of those numbers are pretty low. You want 3K+ crit resist these days in open world CP-enabled PVP.

The best thing to do is to get more practice vs. nightblades. Yesterday I was being double-teamed by two stamblades and I managed to roll dodge two incaps in a row because I could anticipate when they would use them. Many nightblades are fairly predictable.

Also, wear Impregnable Armor. It's one of the most underrated sets in the game, and will make you significantly more survivable against nightblades (and everyone else for that matter).

Well seeing at res cap is at 33k-32k I dont think 25k is very low and I'm 7/7 Heavy. Unless I golded out the armor the resistance isn't going much higher without sacrificing to much damage

Then all my armor is Impen so the only way to go higher is to use CP into the Crit resistance, but again I'd be sacrificing more damage against something that isn't the issue, it's the total amouny of effects that add into Incap. Having 1k more crit resistance isn't going to do much to 9-13k incaps I'm taking when I'm fully buffed still getting hit like a truck

You're telling me you're not running any Resistant CP? No wonder you struggle against nightblades. You're ignoring one of the game's most important tools for fighting them. Don't complain NBs are OP if you refuse to use the tools ZOS put in the game to make them easier to fight. Are you aware that it's a red star? What damage would you be sacrificing in order to run points into Resistant like the rest of us?

1K more crit resistance is 15% critical damage mitigation. That's nothing to sneeze at. It alone won't save you against a good NB, but 15% additional damage reduction on the enemy's hardest hits is very, very nice to have.

25k resistance is 38% damage resistance. A good nightblade is going to have the following buffs affecting his Incap:
- 23% increased damage from Master-At-Arms
- 80% or more increased damage from his various sources of critical damage bonuses (80% crit damage is very easy to achieve without making sacrifices)
- 8% increased damage from Minor Berserk

So your 25k resistances are nice, but not very much at all compared to the damage bonuses the Nightblade is getting. (And note that those damage bonuses don't have anything to do with Incap or with NBs specifically being OP -- I run almost exactly the same damage bonuses on my stamplar with Slimecraw.)

I agree that Incap is overtuned and it has too many effects added into it (especially since it costs so little). But I'm also pointing out that there's a lot of room for improvement in your build.

Minno · May 2018

Daus wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

Just kill the Nightblade using it. Incap doesn't hit that hard, and if you have a decent spec you can just destroy the overconfident Nightblade. Heck last night in battlegrounds I had a 1v3, and it was against all stamblades. Even though all three of them hit me with an Incap I had no issues killing them.

Incap also has every form of counterplay available against it (it's dodgeable and blockable).

There are some terrible nightblades out there. Rinaldo and I came across an entire raid of them in IC last week and even as terrible as they were 24 incaps is a pain to receive. But since they were terrible, I slotted lingering flare and it was funny watching them stay outside the circles too scared to exit stealth lol. We ended up wiping them with the boss lol.

But still, you can only dodge so many times. 120/75 cost using the Templar ult gen is more balanced than 20 burst ultimate gain on pots because Empowering sweeps does terrible DMG. But incap will lose the stun soon based on their rules for high DMG/no stun abilities.

I do agree dodge/block is the counter though.

I honestly can't recall the last time I fought a stamblade that I considered to be good. Let me check my videos... Ah! Early June of 2016

Either almost no one that plays a stamblade is good or it's just an easy class to kill.

I chalk it up to them being all terrible lol.

When I find a good Stamblade, I'm usually dead very very quickly.

mikey_reach · May 2018

You should have everything you need already with those stats and the race. Try to anticipate their burst eventually you might be able to anticipate it better also try using vigor more proactively and make sure the fowaward momentum buff is running or reapply if need to remove snare its a pretty cheap cost unlike shuffle and like other players already mentioned try to recognize the fear if he uses prior to incap if not just try to recognize that incap stunned you and if you break free quickly and block cast vigor which you should if you have unchained passive just quickly dodge roll right after the vigor and depending on how much defile on you can quickly go back to offense.

barshemm · May 2018

If the nightblade opens with fear, they have already messed up.

They want the stun from the incap to pile on damage. The answer to incap for a stamina character is break free, dodge roll. If you have the stamina, dodge roll again. If you have a stun in your tool belt, stun them. The way to survive is to avoid getting hit for the duration of the empower, 1 dodge roll is a lot of that. If you're low on stamina, block and cast vigor. Even defiled, block mitigates a lot of damage and will assist your heals and keep you alive.

You'll get it over time and occasionally you still won't. It's what they are built for, especially if they can add procs/poisons to the attack it can hurt a lot. However if you can recover from that burst there isn't much they can do but cloak off and an and build ult to try again.

I still think stamblade has the highest ceiling but most aren't that good once you get past their first burst.