Failing at rotations and weaving. Help?

Dax_Draconis · January 2020

I have been trying to find an effective, easy to remember skill rotation for my stamina nightblade and can't seem to find one. I play on pc with a controller and would like a rotation that is the same every bar swap and basically follows the button layout on the controller like X-Y-B-LB/RB swap bar and repeat button presses. I have watched videos and can't tell what they are doing in them. I guess I need it spelled out exactly what the skill rotation is. Another issue I am having is with the light attack weaving. I have watched videos of that with many different descriptions about how it is done, but have yet to see a video demonstrating in real life how to actually do it and at what pace and speed. Too fast and light attacks and skills vanish and I lose resources. Too slow and I lose dps. It's frustrating and practicing constantly with the same poor results is very discouraging.

Am I doomed to just picking flowers in ESO and should just hang it up or is it possible for me to get a grasp of this combat system?

zvavi · January 2020

Dax_Draconis wrote: »

I have been trying to find an effective, easy to remember skill rotation for my stamina nightblade and can't seem to find one. I play on pc with a controller and would like a rotation that is the same every bar swap and basically follows the button layout on the controller like X-Y-B-LB/RB swap bar and repeat button presses. I have watched videos and can't tell what they are doing in them. I guess I need it spelled out exactly what the skill rotation is. Another issue I am having is with the light attack weaving. I have watched videos of that with many different descriptions about how it is done, but have yet to see a video demonstrating in real life how to actually do it and at what pace and speed. Too fast and light attacks and skills vanish and I lose resources. Too slow and I lose dps. It's frustrating and practicing constantly with the same poor results is very discouraging.

Am I doomed to just picking flowers in ESO and should just hang it up or is it possible for me to get a grasp of this combat system?

1. It is practice.
2. Skills dont make resources vanish, if resources are gone the skill fired off (with the exception of cast time skills)
3. Nobody is Doomed picking flowers.
4. I would recommend trying to get a static rotation first, something like 4 dots then spammable as many times as needed, and practice weaving with it, with time you will be able to do faster and more complicated rotations.

MerguezMan · January 2020

I'm very, very bad at constant skill rotation. On training target, my DPS is often low.

This does not stop me from questing, nor going into Battlegrounds.
I can even solo most vanilla dungeons in veteran, and cleared vMA.

Most players tend to forget a good damage dealer is an alive one.
In a real fight, you have to heal, roll-dodge, block, cc-break, ... which you don't have to when facing a training target.

You wanna practice ?
Go into Fungal Grotto 1, or Wayrest Sewers 1, normal mode, solo.
Once it gets fast and easy, go into veteran mode solo.
(unless you're a long-time player, don't expect a flawless win first time)

NeillMcAttack · January 2020

th3asiangod on YouTube has good video tutorials on weaving, look him up. He uses a keyboard but it’s really all down to timings and in one video he even demonstrates that taking your time is the key to success.

It’s basically one skill > LT > skill > LT etc.
Each LT and skill should happen in basically the same 1 second window.

He even has up to date rotations and skills for NB. Then it should just be a matter of putting the skills in rotation to where you feel comfortable. And finally just a bit of practice.

Grianasteri · January 2020

Dax_Draconis wrote: »

I have been trying to find an effective, easy to remember skill rotation for my stamina nightblade and can't seem to find one. I play on pc with a controller and would like a rotation that is the same every bar swap and basically follows the button layout on the controller like X-Y-B-LB/RB swap bar and repeat button presses. I have watched videos and can't tell what they are doing in them. I guess I need it spelled out exactly what the skill rotation is. Another issue I am having is with the light attack weaving. I have watched videos of that with many different descriptions about how it is done, but have yet to see a video demonstrating in real life how to actually do it and at what pace and speed. Too fast and light attacks and skills vanish and I lose resources. Too slow and I lose dps. It's frustrating and practicing constantly with the same poor results is very discouraging.

Am I doomed to just picking flowers in ESO and should just hang it up or is it possible for me to get a grasp of this combat system?

In general Stamblades do not have easy rotations to use them effectively, it can involve monitoring cool downs and reacting to circumstances more than other classes. Id suggest you pick another class, or accept how fiddly it can be and get used to it.

LA weaving/animation cancelling is an enigma until you practice extensively and get used to it. The timing changes depending on what you are LA weaving with, meaning the skills and the weapons, this is crucial to be aware of. The timing also changes depending on your ping, even a little lag completely screws with LA weaving (though some folk can learn to adjust for it with practice).

In my experience, having journeyed from casual player average dps, to what would be considered more "end game" ready dps, it was a long, frustrating, time consuming process, requiring ongoing practice regularly. And you know what, I am still rubbish at it compared to others.

The single biggest piece of advice that advanced my performance was the almost subconscious consideration that almost every single skill you use, should be accompanied by a LA that is animation cancelled (woven). That little switch in my thinking, pairing the LA and skill together as one entity in my mind, did help. I dont use skills, I use LA+Skill, if that makes sense. There is more to it than that, other types of weaving required but dont worry about all that yet.
.

Shantu · January 2020

It's all really a matter of practice and repetition. I look at my parses these days, see light attacks doing the most damage, and think...hell, I can't even remember doing a light attack.

UntilValhalla13 · January 2020

Weaving light attacks and skills has kind of a heartbeat timing with a half second pause after the skill. DUN-dun, half second pause, DUN-dun, pause, etc. I always recommend watching Novaris to get an idea of the timing of weaving with a controller. It's an older video, but skip to 14:53.

https://youtu.be/DQiNDL9EeAE

MudcrabAttack · January 2020

If you want something with a circular feel there are a few things to consider.

Incapacitating strike could take around 20-22 seconds to cool down, but you really want to use it since it adds 20% to damage for 6 seconds.

Relentless focus becomes Assassin's Scourge after 5 light attacks. It deals almost 2x the damage of a spammable, so try to land every light attack between skills to max out your damage.

Killers Blade hits harder than both the spammable and assassin's scourge, so you would use it in their place when the enemy reaches <25% health.

You could start with a 10 skill rotation like this:
3 dots / Incapacitating Strike / Assassin's Scourge / 4 spammables / Assassin's Scourge

Then while Incapacitating Strike is on cool down:
3 dots / barbed trap / Assassin's Scourge / 4 spammables / Assassin's Scourge

The best chunk of damage during a fight happens when you hit incapacitating strike, then 5 killers blades in a row while DOTs are ticking. It's unbelievably huge DPS.

That gets you within spitting distance of the max damage possible with a dynamic rotation, but here is both the good and the bad about Nightblade

The Bad:
This DPS class relies more heavily on a pristine internet connection and good reflexes than the other classes. All the light attacks need to land to get every assassin's scourge to proc, so you may have to slow down to get every single light attack to land, which drags down damage over time.

The Good:
It's fun! And you're tanky for some odd reason, but who cares, things can die 10% slower and you can still get a kick out of it.

JumpmanLane · January 2020

MerguezMan wrote: »

I'm very, very bad at constant skill rotation. On training target, my DPS is often low.

This does not stop me from questing, nor going into Battlegrounds.
I can even solo most vanilla dungeons in veteran, and cleared vMA.

Most players tend to forget a good damage dealer is an alive one.
In a real fight, you have to heal, roll-dodge, block, cc-break, ... which you don't have to when facing a training target.

You wanna practice ?
Go into Fungal Grotto 1, or Wayrest Sewers 1, normal mode, solo.
Once it gets fast and easy, go into veteran mode solo.
(unless you're a long-time player, don't expect a flawless win first time)

That’s what I do. FG1 on normal and vet to practice Kragh is actually great practice on vet.

Dax_Draconis · February 2020

Sorry it took me so long to reply here, but I wanted to try and put all of this great advice to use first. I am happy to report that I am now able to do 30k-33k on a 6m practice dummy. Thanks @MudcrabAttack!

I still have issues with landing light attacks consistently, but I am not sure if that is a connection problem or hardware problem. Maybe gamepad mode on PC isn't optimized for controllers like the consoles are?

Anyway, I have seen a dramatic improvement. Thanks!

SidraWillowsky · February 2020

Dax_Draconis wrote: »

Sorry it took me so long to reply here, but I wanted to try and put all of this great advice to use first. I am happy to report that I am now able to do 30k-33k on a 6m practice dummy. Thanks @MudcrabAttack!

I still have issues with landing light attacks consistently, but I am not sure if that is a connection problem or hardware problem. Maybe gamepad mode on PC isn't optimized for controllers like the consoles are?

Anyway, I have seen a dramatic improvement. Thanks!

I play with a controller on PC and have no issues with LA weaving. What I learned that I NEED to do is actually lift my finger off the the RT (my LA) button after each LA... mashing will not work; it needs to be a clean and controlled movement.

I go left to right on the controller when considering which buttons to match to which skills. Passive skills that I don't need to activate will always go on the RB button first, since I find that the most difficult to weave.

I can't remember what the current stamblade meta is. Back when I mained it, it was keeping Leeching + Focus up then trap -> hail -> caltrops -> poison injection -> rending slashes -> surprise attack x3 or x4 depending on bow proc, then use Killer's Blade instead of SA in execute.

My front bar setup was:
Relentless Focus: RB
Barbed Trap: LB
Rending Slashes: X
Surprise Attack: Y
Killer's Blade: B

Back bar:
Leeching: RB
Vigor: LB
Hail: X
Caltrops: Y
Poison Injection: B

Do you have a controller than has an extra right and left bumper? My life changed when I got one and was able to map weapon swap and potions to them vs. having to use the up and left D-pad buttons.

Dax_Draconis · February 2020

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

Dax_Draconis wrote: »

Sorry it took me so long to reply here, but I wanted to try and put all of this great advice to use first. I am happy to report that I am now able to do 30k-33k on a 6m practice dummy. Thanks @MudcrabAttack!

I still have issues with landing light attacks consistently, but I am not sure if that is a connection problem or hardware problem. Maybe gamepad mode on PC isn't optimized for controllers like the consoles are?

Anyway, I have seen a dramatic improvement. Thanks!

I play with a controller on PC and have no issues with LA weaving. What I learned that I NEED to do is actually lift my finger off the the RT (my LA) button after each LA... mashing will not work; it needs to be a clean and controlled movement.

I go left to right on the controller when considering which buttons to match to which skills. Passive skills that I don't need to activate will always go on the RB button first, since I find that the most difficult to weave.

I can't remember what the current stamblade meta is. Back when I mained it, it was keeping Leeching + Focus up then trap -> hail -> caltrops -> poison injection -> rending slashes -> surprise attack x3 or x4 depending on bow proc, then use Killer's Blade instead of SA in execute.

My front bar setup was:
Relentless Focus: RB
Barbed Trap: LB
Rending Slashes: X
Surprise Attack: Y
Killer's Blade: B

Back bar:
Leeching: RB
Vigor: LB
Hail: X
Caltrops: Y
Poison Injection: B

Do you have a controller than has an extra right and left bumper? My life changed when I got one and was able to map weapon swap and potions to them vs. having to use the up and left D-pad buttons.

That's pretty much how my bars are set up, minus the caltrops. I do make sure I am lifting my finger completely off the trigger when I light attack, but sometimes they still miss. The best I can do with the Light Attack helper add on is .80 la. Also, the Action Duration Reminder add on has a little counter for the Relentless Focus stacks and I can see when the light attacks do not register and they seem to happen on the bow bar the most.

I also notice if I go slow enough to make every light attack hit, my overall dps is a lot less. It's like the controller input has a limit with how fast the buttons can be pressed and have it register in the game.

MudcrabAttack · February 2020

Dax_Draconis wrote: »

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

Dax_Draconis wrote: »

Sorry it took me so long to reply here, but I wanted to try and put all of this great advice to use first. I am happy to report that I am now able to do 30k-33k on a 6m practice dummy. Thanks @MudcrabAttack!

I still have issues with landing light attacks consistently, but I am not sure if that is a connection problem or hardware problem. Maybe gamepad mode on PC isn't optimized for controllers like the consoles are?

Anyway, I have seen a dramatic improvement. Thanks!

I play with a controller on PC and have no issues with LA weaving. What I learned that I NEED to do is actually lift my finger off the the RT (my LA) button after each LA... mashing will not work; it needs to be a clean and controlled movement.

I go left to right on the controller when considering which buttons to match to which skills. Passive skills that I don't need to activate will always go on the RB button first, since I find that the most difficult to weave.

I can't remember what the current stamblade meta is. Back when I mained it, it was keeping Leeching + Focus up then trap -> hail -> caltrops -> poison injection -> rending slashes -> surprise attack x3 or x4 depending on bow proc, then use Killer's Blade instead of SA in execute.

My front bar setup was:
Relentless Focus: RB
Barbed Trap: LB
Rending Slashes: X
Surprise Attack: Y
Killer's Blade: B

Back bar:
Leeching: RB
Vigor: LB
Hail: X
Caltrops: Y
Poison Injection: B

Do you have a controller than has an extra right and left bumper? My life changed when I got one and was able to map weapon swap and potions to them vs. having to use the up and left D-pad buttons.

That's pretty much how my bars are set up, minus the caltrops. I do make sure I am lifting my finger completely off the trigger when I light attack, but sometimes they still miss. The best I can do with the Light Attack helper add on is .80 la. Also, the Action Duration Reminder add on has a little counter for the Relentless Focus stacks and I can see when the light attacks do not register and they seem to happen on the bow bar the most.

I also notice if I go slow enough to make every light attack hit, my overall dps is a lot less. It's like the controller input has a limit with how fast the buttons can be pressed and have it register in the game.

I'm 5 years into playing Nightblade, and what you're describing is exactly the problem I STILL have. And it's just a Nightblade thing as far as I can tell, since DPS on pretty much every other class comes so much more easily to me.

And bows!!!! Don't get me started on how they suck so hard when it comes to weaving light attacks. It's a "me" thing apparently, because other people keep saying it all works so great for them, but now you come along and post this which makes me feel a little better about it.

Thanks! Light attack weaving with other weapons isn't nearly as frustrating, especially dual wield.

My favorite character, unfortunately, will always be a Nightblade archer, and it is my lowest DPS character by a mile. It clocks in at 75% of the DPS of my melee Stamina Necromancer.

Other classes that don't have conditional procs based on perfect light attack weaving feel face roll easy by comparison. You can rush the rotation as fast as you like, miss 20% of the light attacks, and still come out way ahead. I posted this thread when testing out Aegis caller, got 95kdps with 2 dual wield bars and a circular rotation on a Necro

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/508973/aegis-caller-dummy-tests/p1

Then someone deeper in the thread mentioned Liko got 95k DPS when he tested it. I suck by comparison, missed 20% of my light attacks, so that just goes to show that perfect light attack weaving doesn't matter on those other classes. If you want to know my Necro rotation, it's also completely circular and I'll be happy to share it.