Actually, I gave up with my stamblade, converted to mag blade and things went a lot better.
Needless to say, this is only my personal experience, others, more capable than me, may get along with stam NB to their satisfaction.

I you have a free spot by now, my advice is to temporarily fill it with the soul skill. It does decent damage and converts soul gems, which is useful. When you have a more apt skill available, change it

El_Borracho wrote: »

Ignore the advisor if you are using Alcast. You probably have not opened all the skill lines yet. Just guessing here, but have you gone to Cyrodiil and leveled up to get Vigor? Or have you leveled Fighter's Guild enough to get Barbed Trap and Dawnbreaker?

Stamblade is a more difficult class to play than other like stamsorc or stamplar. You will also feel very weak and squishy for longer than other classes. This is because stamblade's rotation is dynamic, their power comes a lot from CP points, and gear matters more than any other class. That's at least my experience with it. Used to be my main until it finally got chipped away at with the nerfs. Its still viable and fun, but it has slowly sunk behind stamnecro and magDK.

Stick with it. Once you get to CP 160 and get top-level trial gear you will see a jump. Then again at CP 300 and other benchmarks.

EDIT: This, of course, is assuming you are talking about PVE. If you are a PVP stamblade, good luck.

No I have not yet. And yes pve.

I’ve played a stamblade as my main since game launch, and it’s still my favorite. Let’s see if I have any advice that might help.

First, like others say, stamblades come into their full potential later than most other classes. There are a ton of really useful skills deep in the skill trees. You won’t get to play with these until you’ve leveled quite a bit...so if you’re enjoying your stamblade just be patient and know they’ll get more fun as they level.

The Alcast build is a good starting point for a newer SB player, but you can probably adjust it a bit. But he gets to the heart of the class...use the back bar for heals, DOTs, buffs, and use the dw bar for pure carnage. On the dw bar, killers blade and surprise attack are musts. Past that, you can probably deviate from Alcast while you level. Bloodthirst (dw) is great. I love shrouded daggers. And the soul trap skill that hits multiple targets brings a decent AOE into the tool kit...which is where they’re weak, honestly. But you’re right, stamblades often have a free slot on their dw bar. I often use if for cammo hunter, just to get the add’l crit, which adds quite a bit of dps.

On my bow for PVE I use vigor (gotta have it...it’s about a dozen keep captures worth of AP), shadow cloak, leeching strikes, poison inject, focus aim. Unfortunately, poison inject is way down the bow line, and it’s super important for a stamblade’s dps.

Play style on stamblades is tough...it takes time to master, and some people love it while others don’t. It’s pretty distinct from other classes. There’s a lot more attention needed for how you move around on the battlefield, and how you kill off the enemies. SBs can get a ton of heals and resources from taking advantage of their skills...killers blade, Mark target, etc. And there’s a lot of power hidden in their class skill passives. It takes time to learn these, and how the order you use the skills can benefit you. For example, trying to always kill with your killers blade, not just because of the power, but because you get health and stamina back. Or another, Shadowy Disguise can be used frequently in a fight in lieu of a block or roll...it’s your magic dump, and dodging without spending stamina is important.

And like others point out, stamblades benefit HUGELY from the champion points. These will shoot their damage through the roof and give them much needed armor. This is where new players just have to be patient. Other classes plateau earlier, but stamblades just get more and more powerful. But don’t worry...if your account isn’t CP yet, once you get a vet character you will earn your first couple hundred CPs very quickly, and those bring like 70% of the power in the CP system.

So that’s it. Bottom line...if you’re having fun, stuck with him and know he will get better and better. But you’re not wrong to be frustrated - the 35-45 level range is the toughest time for a stamblade. You don’t have the best skills, and you get squishy as heck. If you get bored/frustrated, grab some xp scrolls and power level up to vet, then go back to where you were in the game. I’m not a huge fan of grind leveling, but honestly it’s less boring at the point you’re at than slowing unlocking everything. If it were me, I’d go run every dolmen and public dungeon and get them to fifty, then start playing with fully opened skill tress.