Struggling ganking on stamblade, advice?

Nyseto · January 27

Decided to take out my old pure nightblade for a spin. Running balorgh's, sprigging, and stuhn's. I've experimented with shadow and lover mundus, stygian set, red mountain, selene. Here's my rotation: buff with rally, race against time, vigor, cloak, open with ambush into surprise attack, then killer's blade.

Problem is, it's very hard to get kills in cyrodiil. I either do big damage or hit like a wet noodle, there's no in-between. Most people are just too tanky, they stay buffed, etc. I end up getting caught somewhat easily after cloaking to disengage and then it's over.

I find it a letdown that the only time I have a fighting chance is when ganking noobs or squishy players...or players that have been whittled down by someone else. I take all of those kills for granted, they aren't as satisfying. If I can only kill weak players/builds, then I'm also pretty much in the same boat. Is that just the fate of the nightblade in pvp? Or is there something I can change about my build?

ShutUpitsRed · January 27

The entire meta is crit damage now so ganking is a different game. Everyone's building to resist, and if someone's buffed, not much you're gonna be able to do as a ganker. Might be better to focus range + speed in cyrodiil. Where does your ulti factor in? Balorgh isn't going to do you much good unless you're hitting big number Ultis.

Vulkunne · January 28

I'm going to offer this advice. It may not be exactly what you want however, here it is.

There's gankers and bombers who just meh are casual and mess around. Then there are those we call serious. But they got serious by being silly and not trying too hard.

Now, a possible issue I see, is you're trying to be ready for everything. Allow me to exercise those problems with the flip of a switch and tell you that won't work and even if it does it won't work forever.

So do the thing you like, whether that's 2h and DW, Bow, Staff, whatever. Then goto places like YouTube and just watch. Don't force nothin' just watch. Keep watching. Go back to the lab and hit the white board with some ideas. Stop. Sleep on it. Try it again and go like that. Because things change, sometimes frequently, there are so many different things out there and you're not going to understand what someone is necessarily doing to stay alive you see.

Over time, you'll get experience and be where you need to be. But rushing to grab the latest meta, whether that's a gear combo, rotation or an actual build is only meta to those who are comfortable using it. You may not even like it. There are some examples that I'm aware of, but understanding what's most important about ganking, including, your reason for ganking, these belong to you and these are your real weapons and armor.

El_Borracho · January 29

@Vulkunne This what I was coming here to say, excellent post. One thing I would add is that ganking and bombing requires patience and situational awareness. The old ganker style does not work anymore. Everything is load up crit and wait. Which is why a lot of non-ganker and non-bomber builds are built tanky to survive the initial strike.

Ganking now is either camping or picking off outsiders in small groups. Its not as effective against even a casual PVPer

Avran_Sylt · January 29

Swap out spriggans for Shattered Fate (7918 penetration)

Could also try going vamp for sneak movespeed penalty removal and WD/SD when popping out of stealth, instead of cloak leverage sneak and medium armor/khajiit/mundus detection radius reduction, martial melee stuns players from sneak, could swap to Anthelmir instead of Balorgh, open by casting Contingency, closing in and consuming an invisibility pot (to prevent being brought out of sneak to leverage the martial stun), landing a Heavy Attack + Surprise attack to land contingency/anthelmir/HA/weapon enchant/Surprise Attack/Sundered all at the same time, then LA/execute.

Personally speaking I'd swap out Stuhn's for a proc set like Tarnished nightmare (crit damage and WD/SD) or Flameblossom (light armor for more penetration and crit chance).

End of the day it does come down to crit-fishing and stacking as many abilities into one GCD of damage as possible.

Edit: Oh, and if you subclass Herald of the Tome from Arcanist, you have can slot tome-bearer's inspiration, which when active (30s duration) triggers an instance of damage every few seconds when hitting with a class ability, this triggers off of ANY class ability, even surprise attack. And passively slotted gives you Major Brutality and Sorcery.

kotisovich · February 3

Balorg/true sworn/monomyth/4 piece pen/dmg set. Incap->blood for blood->whirling. Subclass storm calling instead siphoning. Lower hp with equilibrium. True sworn bonus will activate before incap due to engaging in combat before ult hits. I prefer max mag cause streak front bar, tou can try stamina.
Dmg proc sets are usually a joke since too slow, with tarnished you may not have enough burst to kill in 1 sec, which is mandatory for fighting strong dudes