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Introduction

When TG came out we saw a lot of NB’s flocking back to the magicka build.  Considering the pros why not?  Pot up, cloak, might of the guild proc, Soul tether, proxy det, vicious death have become the new meta.  So what’s left for those who favor a stamina build?  Well, there’s 2h/bow and dw/bow.  9/10 NB’s run not only the same weapons but same exact bars.  It’s effective I’ll admit, but alas also VERY boring.  Plus they are glass cannons (imo) I mean, out of the four available classes the easiest to kill is an NB (for me at least).  Heck, most depend so much on cloak or “bloak” as I call it (broken cloak) that if marked or unable to recloak they become instant casualties.  What I aim to do here is not only present a different build and play style but a little guidance on how to fight each class using this build.  Today we will be looking at the 1h-shield/2h setup!

Strengths and Weaknesses

Pros:

<li style=”text-align: left;”>Damage.  Though weapon damage isn’t as high as dual wield, enchanting your shield with stamina lends some extra damage.  it’s still quite close.
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Survivability.  Blocking cost a bit less than a roll dodge but after just 2 roll dodges it costs WAY less.  With this build you will be doing both.
<li style=”text-align: left;”>1v1 and 1vX.  The setup has it all and is extremely effective in 1v1 and small scale battles.
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Sustainment.  Using magicka and stamina recovery drinks allow for great sustain.  Combining block, dodge roll, and cloak uses resources.  This build lets you keep your resources where you want them.

Cons:

• Need different setup for large coordinated group play.  Switch to bow/2h for group play (explained later)
• Practice.  This isn’t for novices.  You need to be able to swap bars correctly, keep buffs up, and know when its more beneficial to block than dodge roll.
• You may have a sword and board but YOU ARE NOT A DK OR TEMPLAR.  Don’t expect to turtle with this build and fight 20 people all at once.

Race

For this build I prefer a Wood Elf.  However an Imperial or Redgaurd works well.  The reason I like Wood Elf is because of the 21% stamina regeneration.  I currently have 422 CP with plenty invested into stamina regen.  However, if you have less CP being a Wood Elf helps a lot.  Not only do you get the regen, but extra stamina (albeit not as much as Redgaurd) and bonus to stealthed damage. Basically if you have a lot of regen already you can focus on other things like more stamina and weapon damage.

STATS and cp

I do not know how to paste pictures so I will have to just tell you my buffed stats.  These stats are with relentless focus up and rally up.  No cloak, no server buffs, and no resource buffs.

Magicka- 9,807

Stamina- 30,252

Health- 19,514

Magicka recovery- 1198

Stamina recovery*- 2048

Weapon damage (without enchant proc)*- 3,807

Crit- 40.7

Spell resist (without shadow barrier passive)- 13,801

Armor (without shadow barrier passive)- 13,438

Crit resistance- 1,589

*This is with Warrior mundus.  If I use the serpent weapon damage is around 3,607 but stamina recovery is almost 2,500.  That extra 500ish regen does wonders where sustain is key.

As far as CP goes have some into block cost reduction, crit resist, and quick recovery.  I put 60 and 60 into hardy and elemental defender.  The important thing here is to get the UNCHAINED PASSIVE.  It’s amazing.

For the mage I have 20 into blessed for the extra heals.  21% extra damage, 12% extra crit damage, and the rest into armor penetration.

For the thief I have 39 into tumbling, 4% magicka cost reduction, 10% stamina cost reduction, and the rest into stamina regeneration.

Armor, Traits, and Enchants

I call this build flank and spank because it’s best served attacking from the enemies weak side, kill, kill, kill, get out, survive, and repeat.  Unlike a DK or Temp who can simply face tank a full alliance and heal through the damage, you cannot.  You’re an NB, and not a sap tank NB at that (who does pitiful damage btw).

There are 2 different options with both working perfectly fine.  The first is a little harder to get and does SLIGHTLY less damage but works none the less.  With both I go 5 medium armor, 1 heavy armor, and 1 light armor.  For this you should have the undaunted passive unlocked to get the full 6% to all resources.

<li style=”text-align: left;”>Head (medium): Morkuldin-impen-stamina
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Shoulders (medium): Morkuldin-impen-stamina
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Hands (medium): Morkuldin-impen-stamina
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Legs (medium): Hundings Rage-impen-stamina
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Feet (medium): Hundings Rage-impen-stamina
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Belt (light): Hundings Rage-impen-stamina
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Chest (heavy): Hundings Rage-infused-health
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Maul: Morkuldin-sharpened-disease
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Shield: Hundings Rage-impen-stamina
<li style=”text-align: left;”>2h sword: Hundings Rage-sharpened-increase weapon damage

The next option we keep the same Hundings Rage gear however we use Molag Kena helm, Blood spawn shoulders, and Leki’s hands and maul instead of Morkuldin. You lose the stamina from Morkuldin but gain another weapon damage which actually gives an ever so slight damage increase.  However on the flipside, you may not get the traits you want.  This is why I favor the Morkuldin pieces as I want as much crit resist through armor as possible.

Skills and Mundus

Mundus stone: Warrior if you want more damage.  Serpent if you want even more stamina regen.  I’d suggest starting with serpent if you have resource management issues.  I honestly switch back and forth depending one what my goal is at the moment and who I am fighting.  In group play I run warrior.  In 1v1 I run serpent.

Main bar skill (1h/s):

<li style=”text-align: left;”>Absorb Magic: Block costs less, you can block more damage, and it works great against sorcs and mage blades. Even if they do bigger damage than what is absorbed the heal more than makes up for it at rank IV.
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Surprise Attack: Main damage skill that hits hard and also reduces the enemies armor.  I rarely if ever use the stun from it though.
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Resolving Vigor: Stam blade lacks heals so have this on your main bar always ready to use.  DO NOT WAIT TIL YOUR HP IS LOW TO USE.  It will not help.  Use it more often than not, just don’t spam it because you’ll waste resources. Also try to use it in conjunction with a roll dodge or cloak.
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Ambush*: Although I was playing with shielded assault and invasion for a bit, Ambush gives better mobility and damage.  It also adds some crit via class passive.
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Reverberating Bash: Considering any good player will break free within a second or so anything longer than 2 seconds is useless imo.  If for some reason they are actually out of stam and cannot break free they are disoriented until they can, which allows you to heal up really quick before attacking and breaking their disoriented state.  It’s also the morph of choice because it gives us major defile which causes the target to have 30% reduced healing for 10 seconds.
<li style=”text-align: left;”>Flawless Dawnbreaker: I generally do not use the ultimate unless I’m trying to finish off a vampire or werewolf.  What I do use it for is the extra 8% damage which helps out my damage skills on this bar.

Back bar skills (2h):

• Rally: Amazing skill.  Weapon damage buff, HoT, and burst heal.  If you are going to use it for the heal try and wait it out until it’s over half way over.  Using it too soon the heal will be less than favorable.
• Wrecking Blow: You may be wondering why this is here since we already have Surprise Attack.  First off it’s a flex spot, you can use Shuffle, piercing mark, whatever you need that may help vs a particular class.  Here is why I use it though; If stealth opening on an enemy i’ll do a fully charged heavy attack which gives 10% bonus damage to next attack, then wrecking blow which gives empowerment to next attack, then immediately Soul Harvest.  You can easily do all of this before a person breaks free, especially if they are on siege.  Devastating combo.  Plus it’s nice to use once Soul Harvest is up for good burst damage vs tankier targets.  I’ll explain further on the next skill.
• Shadowy Disguise: As you all know cloak has been changed.  To me it is now more beneficial to use Shadowy Disguise for the 100% crit on next attack.  Using this with wrecking blow does massive damage especially when chained with Soul Harvest.  I also noticed it’s good against shields and a blocking target because even though a person is blocking, the fact that it hits so hard it does much more damage than if I was just trying to spam Surprise Attack.  If you do manage to land Wrecking Blow without them blocking you can do back-to-back Wrecking Blows and DESTROY the enemy.
• Relentless Focus*: It’s extremely rare I ever actually use Spectral Bow proc, but the extra damage and stamina recovery?  Yes, please.
• Shadow Image: Considering we have to rely on HoT’s and a “not always there” burst heal, it’s nice to get outa dodge, teleport to shade, cloak, and use vigor to get back to 100% health very easily.  It also reduces the damage output of the enemy by 15% which helps us survive even more.
• Soul Harvest: Hit’s wicked hard.  It’s crazy cheap.  Causes major defile to the enemy.  Lastly, every kill you get back more ultimate.  Best single target ultimate in the game as far as I am concerned.  Did I mention it increases your damage by 20% for a small amount of time as well?

* So, what does this build have?  Reduce enemy damage. Reduce enemy healing.  Increase damage mitigation.  Guaranteed crit.  One thing it does NOT have however is a snare.  What I do sometimes (class I’m fighting dependent) I’ll throw relentless focus or shuffle in place of ambush and put stampede on my back bar instead of relentless focus.  As much as I love Crit Rush (when it actually freakin works) Stampede STILL does great damage seeing as that it’s a 100% crit chance, plus it gives us a 60% snare for 8 seconds.  You just need to practice going back and forth between bars since you main bar no longer has a gap closer with this setup.

THE KEY to this build though is SPEED POTS.  You want to make pots that give immovability, major expedition, and stamina/stamina recovery.  It is absolutely ridiculous.  Even though the immovability does not last the entire time the stamina regen and speed DO!  It’s especially awesome to have major expedition up against people trying to escape by roll dodging.  You can easily keep within range for wrecking blow and time it just right and destroy them.  Without the speed, an enemy can almost always roll just out of range and cancel your wrecking blow.  Being as fast as you are keeps constant pressure on the enemy and allows you to out maneuver another player, making it harder for them to hit you.  Considering you can run through another player, I constantly go through the enemy so they have to do a 180 while I go back and forth using my own attacks.  Combined with Shadow Image and Cloak you can move around the battlefield very effectively.

Group PLAY SKILLS

When I say group play I don’t simply mean 4 or 5 people running small PvP or gank squad.  I’m talking highly organized, team speak required, on crown at all times ball group of traveling death.  I keep my same armor and mundus setup (warrior) but change out my main bar weapon and some skills.

Main bar skills (bow, Hundings Rage):

• Arrow Barrage: Nice damage tics when combined with other skills.  Generally best used when enemy is on a flag or resource and refuses to move.  I wish it had a snare lol.
• Acid Spray: Though bombard is nice, most people already run it so doing something a little different to add some poison damage just increases the groups overall DPS.  Plus the Snare is also great.
• Resolving Vigor: Still need heals, even in a group.  Plus it helps others in your group.
• Razor Caltrops: Great snare, huge radius, okay damage tic, and assists your group in overtaking the enemy since they have a harder time of escaping.
• Retreating Maneuvers: Helps the entire group move faster.  If you look at most large organized ball groups they hit and run.  So to me it’s more beneficial to be able to give all members in the area immunity from snares and immobilization so you can stick together and leave no one behind, HOORAH!
• Flawless Dawnbreaker: Like the other setup, there mainly for extra damage.

Back bar skills (2h, Hundings Rage):

• Rally: More damage.  Simple as that.  Not overly concerned about the HoT or burst heal since you should have healers with you.
• Surprise Attack: For those times you find yourself separated and need to still be able to 1vX.
• Cloak: Again, if you find yourself up shits creek without a paddle and need to escape to come back and rez people retreat using this and rapids.
• Shuffle: Since temps will be dropping spears for stamina you shouldn’t need the extra regen from Relentless Focus.  This will however help you survive other ball groups to an extent, plus remove snares and is cheaper than rapids.  You can replace this with Relentless Focus if you want though.
• Mass Hysteria:  Spam the heck out of it when in the middle of enemy group.  You may not be doing damage, but your group will be.  Plus it snares and reduces the enemy damage output for a few seconds.
• Ice Comet:  As much as I despise this skill it is indeed a great skill to hit many enemies.  If your group is worth half a guar you’ll practice everyone either charging proxy det or getting ice comet ready.  It will annihilate the enemy when timed right with your groups ultimates.  Can care less about the passives you get from the mages guild for this skill.

CLASS specific battles

Sorcs:  There are a few very common builds out there.  Some stand on mines all day and other are a bit more mobile.  However they have one thing in common-Shields.  Everyone knows by now how annoying shields are.  Even after the nerf I still see sorcs running around with 20k+ shields.  This is where skills like stampede, wrecking blow, and soul harvest burst combos come into play.  Its actually best to use wrecking blow not for the knockdown but for the damage.  Soul harvest ends up being a good finisher.  If they try and escape, stampede, stampede, stampede. They will die.  If their build is to stand on mines I like Ambush.  Make sure to hold block when going in or else the mines will mess you up.  Also DO NOT FORGET the mines take a few seconds to activate, do the damage you can then shadow image out, try and get them to leave their mines to follow you.  I favor fighting sorcs around trees where I can put absorb magic up, heal, cloak, then gap close in.  shadow image back to the tree to LoS them to heal if needed.  These fights tend to go long with this style of conservative play, but allows you a higher chance of winning.  Taking to many risks and being the in the sorcs face to much might end up with them doing a high burst combo you cannot heal out of.  It’s a fine balance of attack and defend.  To much attack you’ll die.  To little attack they will always get their shields back up before you can do damage to their health.  Being able to BLOCK and attack is key.  Practice LA/SA/BASH technique.  Get’s their shields down faster.  Use serpent mundus, no matter your DPS it’s all about timing your burst.  You need stamina left to do this, so you don’t run out when using the serpent.

Nightblades:  Pretty easy fight just don’t get cocky vs NB’s who are putting out a lot of damage, they will burst you down before you know it.  Since most all NB’s use fear it’s no different than usual, just always be ready to break free then immediately roll dodge.  I have unchained passive so using vigor and a couple of roll doges after a break free cost next to nothing and helps you to get you health pool back up to full. Considering NB self heals are poor, using reverberating bash really helps kills NB’s.  Debuff them then full assault.  If they mark you, who cares, not a big deal.  We still get our crit from it.  If you want, switch out relentless focus for piercing mark.  Like I said earlier, most NB’s have no clue what to do once marked, they panic and die.  As far as mage blade, make sure to keep absorb magic up and wrecking blow EATS through their healing ward.  I have got many an angry tell from a mage blade who was butt hurt because I wrecking blow spammed through their shield and killed them.  Is it a cheap move?  Sure, but in the end the victor is still the victor.  Use warrior mundus.

Dragon Knights: There are the ones that turtle the entire time and those who wrecking blow spam.  First off, if they are using wrecking blow either block it or walk into them.  It will cancel their wrecking blow if you walk into it.  Strafing at a close angle going in a circle also screws them up.  Use wrecking blow enough yourself you’ll learn what it can and can’t do.  Don’t bother cloaking it, it tends to fail.  Also shadow imaging away will sometimes still leave you hit by the attack. Having a speed potion up makes it that much easier to cancel their wrecking blow.  They tend to also be rolly pollys.  Keeping your major expedition up through pots allow you to always be on them.  TIME YOUR ATTACKS for right as they stand up from the roll.  Whether it’s a 1h/s DK or 2H they still can heal up pretty easy.  Keep reverberating bashing them to get the defile.  Have shadow image up to reduce their damage.  If in talons you can shadow image away, however you WILL still be in their talons.  Talons do little damage so sometimes Ill stay in them, heal then get out of them.  This is why I like fighting near trees and rocks.  Ill stay in the talons behind a tree or rock where I teleport, heal, wait for talons to go, then attack again.  Just remember, whenever you have a chance to heal, so does the enemy.  Don’t take to long, you NEED to keep heavy damage on DK’s if you want to kill them, especially the tankier ones.  The tankier they are, the less damage they put out.  Having a shield and shadow image on them helps you survive. Like I mentioned in the skills parts of this guide, using shadowy disguise, wrecking blow, and soul harvest helps fight their block by doing as much damage as possible.  I specifically make sure I have ambush as my gap closer for this in case I am rooted by the DK because I can still attack the DK without having to roll dodge out.  If they have petrify or whatever it’s called remember you must break free AND dodge roll if you want to get out of it.  OP skill IMO but whatever.  I also switch to serpent mundus.  Bursting them down just won’t happen so you’ll need sustain.

Templars:  Honestly, and I don’t care what anyone says, temps are OP at the moment.  Right next to sorcs.  Even as a stamplar, they can out heal most damage and tank multiple targets for awhile before falling prey to the enemies blades.  Speed pots help against the rolly polly stamplars, always have it up.  Be careful of their sweeps, performing a dodge roll does nothing as it is AoE damage.  Again, this is why I hate temps.  This is the time to be using that shield and blocking!  If you do decide to dodge roll, roll through them not away.  Their sweeps will continue to hit you if you stay in their cone of damage.  Radiant oppression to many people is OP.  I tend to agree unless you are an NB.  CLOAK THEIR RADIANT OPPRESSION.  It’s that easy.  Roll dodging does nothing, LoSing it doesn’t always work, but cloak does wonders.  You can choose to block it and counter the damage with vigor but you will be rolling a dice depending on you health.  Do yourself a favor and just cloak.  BTW, when trying to cloak around a temp do it when either outside the range of their sweeps or when behind them as sweeps will breaks cloak.  They key here is to get your CC off as soon as possible.  Many temps are now able to do a lot of damage but if you can start bursting them it forces them to take the defensive.  At this point use both bars, switching between high burst wrecking blow/soul harvest combos when up, and surprise attack/reverberating bash combo.  For temps I like to remove shadowy image and replace with executioner.  A) they don’t do as much damage as you so it’s not a big deal to have maim on them, and I can’t count how many times I have gotten a temp to execution range and NOT have an execute on my bar and they heal back up to 100%.  If I had an execute on the bar it would of ended the fight a lot sooner!  Burst, Burst, Burst, is key.  use LA/SA/Bash on these guys to add to your DPS.  Your only option here is to burst so I use warrior mundus and hope pots keep my stamina up.

I hope you all enjoy.  Sorry for no pictures.  Give the build a try and do something not everyone else is doing and you won’t regret it!