Help on my DPS Stamblade build?

PeachVsEggplant · March 2021

I currently haven't gotten a Monster set yet, so I'm running with what I can on head and shoulders. I feel pretty scared to attempt a vSelene's Web since I've never done a vet dungeon. I'm Orc CP370 ish. I'm confused a lot about the enchantment I should run on my Briarheart daggers, I've seen poison enchant, poison dam IX, and then absorb stamina. Anyway, here's what I have, any help boosting my DPS would be great, thank you! The parenthesis next to each item is what color it's in. I'm obviously slowly trying to get everything to gold, jewelry is expensive so the goal is to just buy the pieces in gold. OH and I'm a Solo player that dabbles in PvE with the daily undaunted/random dungeon. I run all Medium Gear and all my attribute points are in Stamina.

Main Weapon: Briarheart Dagger (gold) - Nirhoned - Poison Weapon Enchant (gold)
Off hand: Briarheart Dagger (gold) - Precise - Absorb Stamina Enchant (gold)
Back up Weapon: Briarheart Bow (gold) - Infused - Weapon Damage Enchant (gold)

Head: Night Mother's Gaze (purple) - Divines - Max Stamina Enchant (gold)
Chest: Hunding's Rage (gold) - Divines - Max Stamina Enchant (gold)
Shoulders: Night Mother's Gaze (purple) - Divines - Max Stamina Enchant (gold)
Waist: Hunding's Rage (purple) - Divines - Max Stamina Enchant (gold)
Hands: Hunding's Rage (purple) - Divines - Max Stamina Enchant (gold)
Legs: Hunding's Rage (gold) - Divines - Max Stamina Enchant (gold)
Feet: Hunding's Rage (purple) - Divines - Max Stamina Enchant (gold)

Necklace: Briarheart (purple) - Bloodthirsty - Weapon Damage Enchant (gold)
Ring 1: Briarheart (blue) - Bloodthirsty - Weapon Damage Enchant (gold)
Ring 2: Briarheart (blue) - Bloodthirsty - Weapon Damage Enchant (gold)

PeachVsEggplant · March 2021

Also should I be trying for Velidreth over Selene's? I definitely use a varied combination on both bars of direct damage to one enemy and attacks that damage multiple enemies (like whirling blades, arrow barrage and silver shards) but I don't know if those count as AoE damage or whatever it is.

Zodiarkslayer · March 2021

SOLO on a StamBlade can be tricky.
I would recommend considering to move away from DualWield to TwoHanded. Just for Brawler. That is just so much Survivability in one ability.

It is more important to talk about abilities and your "rotation". Or how you use them. Nightblade is not very beginner friendly in that regard.

How are your uptimes on the three big buffs? For armor, weapon damage and crit chance? Especially major resolve for the armor buff is only passive on nightblades. So you have to recast a shadow ability every 6 seconds, if you are 0 heavy armor.
The others can also be difficult to manage on the Nightblade class. I learned it rather late. Took me about a month to figure stuff out on my main MagBlade.
How are debuffs coming, btw? .....Right.....
Every other optimisation follows after that.

Try to focus on that. Your gear is good for a progression setup. Don't worry too much. If you have a few Undaunted keys, try for a Slimecraw Arm Cops and a Helmet of the trainee. Better stats. Other than that?

SidraWillowsky · March 2021

I agree with the poster above- you've got a good progression setup AND NB is perhaps the least beginner-friendly class (my first char was a stamblade, so I've been there).

What's your DPS sitting at right now?

For the head, you should def get one piece of Slimecraw. Kra'gh is a decent set, especially for a solo player, so you might want to invest in that. It's super easy to get as well.

As for enchantments-
The poison/absorb stam enchantment meta was back when the enchantments on DW weapons were full strength for each one. So a poison enchant on ONE dagger was = a poison enchant on one bow. That meant that you basically got 2x the enchant power on DW weapons, and that apparently wouldn't do. They adjusted the power, and at that point it became more advantageous from a DPS perspective to use the poisons. If you're having trouble with sustain, though, 1x poison and 1x absorb stam on your DW bar will be just fine.

I don't know if you know this, but never use multiples of the same glyph on your weapons. They share a cooldown- this basically means that if you have a poison glyph on one of your daggers and put one on your bow, when one of those goes into cooldown, they both do. Using two poison glyphs doesn't give you 2x the power- running one is the same as running multiples, if that makes sense.

Re. Selene vs. Velidreth- it's context-specific, though I see a lot of people just running Selene. Selene is good for boss fights where you're mostly concerned with hitting that one target. Velidreth for multiple targets. I personally prefer Velidreth, but getting that represents a fairly large increase in difficulty from other vet dungeons. Go for Selene now and worry about Veli later.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · March 2021

Here is the dirty secret. Almost nothing you posted is helpful for us to get you more DPS, especially considering we dont know where you are at currently. At your level, that gear is just fine, in fact, its probably better than most.

DPS in this game comes down to ROTATION ROTATION ROTATION. If you want high DPS, start by watching some youtube videos of a Nightblade Rotation, then get on the dummy and practice. I could give you the best gear in the game, and my guess is you would not notice much of a difference in your damage (other than maybe the proc from Relequen).

I also wouldnt waste gold mats on anything but your weapons TBH, but looks like that is covered.

For enchants, I usually go back bar weapon damage, front bar main hand poison, and off hand is either disease or absorb stamina. Absorb stamina is probably better for most people. The DPS difference is negligible.

Have you attempted Maelstrom Arena (either normal or vet)? Sure the bow would be nice, but to be candid, there is not a better training ground in all of eso. Your current setup will work just fine. Consider yourself geared, now it's time to learn to play eso. Questing and Overland content just doesnt get you very far in that regard unfortunately. Run Normal MA until you can cruise through it, then do vet. Once you complete vet, I promise you will be a better player for it.

BeefcakeManwich · March 2021

My first toon was a magsorc. Second was a stamdk. Third was a stamblade. I remembering thinking stamblade sucks cause they are too squishy. Give it some time. Once you get an understanding of the abilities and class play it'll be a lot easier. My bosmer stamblade is my favorite toon. Stick with it. If ur soloing stuff like WB, move around often. Don't spam dodge rolls. But definitely use them. I noticed I don't block much. I prefer dodge rolling. There are some fights u have to block. Oh that's why I'm dead. Start out with resolving vigor as ur heals. Once u get comfortable u can change the morph to echoing vigor which is less of a heal for you but benefits group play. You have a good beginner setup. Take that stamblade into ncr and get yourself some relequen. It is really hard to explain til u play around some more. I remembered reading and watching videos and was like that doesn't help much. I listen and read what was said but didn't understand it. Took a bit of frustration and even shelving my stamblade for a bit. But I think I now understand more about the class and it's made a world of difference. My stamcro hits harder but my bosmer stamblade is just way more fun to play.

Parrot1986 · March 2021

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Here is the dirty secret. Almost nothing you posted is helpful for us to get you more DPS, especially considering we dont know where you are at currently. At your level, that gear is just fine, in fact, its probably better than most.

DPS in this game comes down to ROTATION ROTATION ROTATION. If you want high DPS, start by watching some youtube videos of a Nightblade Rotation, then get on the dummy and practice. I could give you the best gear in the game, and my guess is you would not notice much of a difference in your damage (other than maybe the proc from Relequen).

I also wouldnt waste gold mats on anything but your weapons TBH, but looks like that is covered.

For enchants, I usually go back bar weapon damage, front bar main hand poison, and off hand is either disease or absorb stamina. Absorb stamina is probably better for most people. The DPS difference is negligible.

Have you attempted Maelstrom Arena (either normal or vet)? Sure the bow would be nice, but to be candid, there is not a better training ground in all of eso. Your current setup will work just fine. Consider yourself geared, now it's time to learn to play eso. Questing and Overland content just doesnt get you very far in that regard unfortunately. Run Normal MA until you can cruise through it, then do vet. Once you complete vet, I promise you will be a better player for it.

Honestly can’t get better advice than this. There’s too much focus on gear in this game and it’s not a golden key to hitting high dps at all.

Focussing on your rotation particularly on a nightblade is huge especially light attack weaving since bow procs play a good chunk of your damage and gives really nice passive healing with leeching.

Doing vMA on a stamblade is pretty much as tough as you’ll get but completing it will make you a much better player so it’s a pretty good goal to focus on as well. Becoming comfortable fighting around mechanics, self sustaining and bursting down priority adds will help you so much long term in group content and sustaining a higher dps.