From: https://www.esouniverse.com/character-builds/nightblade/

Nightblade DPS Builds The Assassin and Siphon skill lines will be the source of a DPS Nightblade’s damage. Nightblades can first use abilities from the Siphon line to damage and weaken enemies before using Assassin abilities to finish the job. Some of the best Siphoning skills for a great Nightblade DPS build are Strife, Drain Power, Soul Shred and Agony. Haste and Death Stroke from Assassination line are amazing skills as is Assassin’s Blades’ Mark Target!

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From: http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/stamina-nightblade-dps-guide/

Stats
I think you should not get lower than 18000 HP. If you have a low amount of Champion Points and not that much spend in those damage mitigation passives from the Lady, I’d suggest going a bit higher up to 19k. It’s always okay to get some extra defence IF REQUIRED because dead DPS is shitty DPS.

I use a blue VR15 food (Braised Rabbit With Spring Vegetables) that provides Stamina and HP. I put all Attribute Points in Stamina and every piece of Armor I wear is enchanted with +Stamina, but I’m Imperial and while I’m writing this, I’m at 501 Champion Points. The cheapest way to get extra HP is to allocate your Attribute Points in a way that gives you exactly the amount of HP you need.

The biggest factor for your DPS still is your amount of Weapon Damage, but in general, I like to balance Weapon Damage, Stamina and Weapon Crit Chance because all those stats have diminishing returns when stacked. In 12 player content, Weapon Crit is extra benefical due to Aggressive Warhorn.

MUNDUS STONE
If your Crit Damage Modifier is at least ~10% greater than your Critical Chance without any Mundus Stone, use the Thief.
Your Crit Damage Modifier is 50% + 10% Hemorrhage + x% from Precise Strikes + 12% Beast Trap. If that Value is at least 10% greater than your current Crit Chance, use Thief. Else, use the Shadow. For more details about that, read the tread of @Asayre with tons of awesome Maths.

Calculation Example:
My Crit Chance without Thief: 62,4%
My Crit Damage Modifier without Shadow: 50% Base + 10% Hemorrhage + 12% Beast Trap + 18% Precise Strikes = 90%

Potions
The main DPS setup of this build uses Potions (Panacea of Weapon Power) to get the Major Brutality (20% Weapon Damage), Major Savagery (10% Weapon Crit) and 20% Stamina Regeneration all the time without having to use Evil Hunter, Drain Life, Flying Blade or Momentum. To get 100% Portion uptime, you have to skill the “Medicinal Use” passive in Alchemy. That way, a V10 Potion gives you 44,2s duration with a 45s cooldown (aka. almost 100% uptime) or you use a V15 Potion for the complete duration. I use this potions for all Trials including Maelstrom Arena.

This is quite expensive for many players, so I will also show you ways to play without constant potion usage and save some money in situations where you don’t have to give 100%. Just be aware that if you want to squeeze out the last bit of DPS, you’ll have to have those Potions available.

CHAMPION POINTS
Every Champion Point you spend gives you extra stats (Red= HP, Green = Stamina, Blue = Magicka).

Template for 501 CP
Green – The Tower: 100 Warlord // The Lover: 53 Mooncalf // The Shadow: 14 Tumbling
Red – Lady: 53 Hardy, 53 Elemental Def, 20 Thick Skinned // Steed: 13 Block Expertise, 5 Spell Shield, 5 Medium Armor Focus // Lord: 18 Quick Recovery
Blue – The Ritual: 100 Mighty, 61 Precise Strikes, 5 Thaumaturge, 1 Piercing

In general, Mighty, Warlord and the damage reduction stars from the Lady are the most “rewarding” things to put points in. But there are very good passive stars which require to put points into specific constellations like “Synergizer” in the Lover constellation.

GEAR
There is a discussion going on if you should use 5pc Hundings, Night Mother’s Gaze or Twice Born Star. I fond the following setup to work best in general. There are situations where one setup is better than the other and in other sitatuions, it’s the other way round. Either way, the difference is small so you will get good results with any setup. I personally have all 3 sets to swap around.

I like running 5/1/1 because I benefit more from the extra Stats I get as an Imperial. Going 7 Medium is an option as well, especially if you dont have a racial bonus to boost Stamina.

Chart suggesting Night Mother's Gaze on Helmet, Main Hand and Off Hand; Maelstrom on Bow; Hunding's Rage on Chest, Waist, Feet, Hands and Legs; Molag Kena on Shoulder; Agility/Robust on Jewelry.

Traits/Enchants are Divines/Stamina on all armor pieces, Precise/Weapon Damage on Dagger (Main Hand), Sharpened on Mace (Off Hand)(Crushing) and Bow (2nd Weapon)(Maelstrom Enchant) and Robust on the three Jewelry pieces with Weapon Damage on Neck & one Ring and Reduce Stamina Cost on the other ring.

Skills PvE
We usually have to have AoE AND Single Target Skills on the bar for most encounters nowadays as encounters often feature adds. Consider certain bosses need specific skills so the following bars are a general framework and I will give you some alternatives for certain bosses afterwards.

DUAL WIELD bar:

Killer’s Blade: [Assassination – Assassin’s Blade] The main Execute skill I use from 25% to 0%. Dont Light Attack weave that skill. Just spam it. It’s really cheap.

Surprise Attack: [Shadow – Veiled Strike] This build’s main spam ability is Surprise Attack. This ability might be the best Stamina based Skill in the game right now for the following reasons: It does great damage while procing Shadow Barrier (5120 Spell Resistance and Armor for 6s) and Major Fracture (5120 Armor Reduction for 17.3s). Yes that’s right, it grants the Armor debuff even out of stealth. For the whole group! Granted most of the time, the tank has Puncture up which doesn’t stack but there are also times where the tank has to use Inner Beast or you’re fighting an add that is not debuffed by default. It helps a ton in WGT/IC to have Shadow Barrier up 24/7.

Rearming Trap: [Fighter’s Guild – Beast Trap] Rearming Trap is a great source of DPS against Deadra/Undead but there are 2 weak points: it’s stationary and it has to be triggered twice to be really worth it. So there are some encounters that you will not be able to use that skill efficiently. Also note that it’s REALLY expensive. So make sure you use it wisely. This skills real awesomeness shines when fighting multiple mobs. Then the added damage is noticeable.

Steel Tornado: [Dual Wield – Whirlwind] Not much needs to be said about that. It is THE STRONGEST AoE in the game for Stamina users. It has insane range, making it easy to dance around red circles and still hit every mob in a trash pack. When the enemies are below 25%, the damage really gets out of hands.

Camouflaged Hunter: [Fighter’s Guild – Expert Hunter] With all content against Deadra, having Camo Hunter on the main bar is really good. Keep Evil Hunter up 24/7 against those enemies. If you need extra Stamina to sustain, consider Evil Hunter instead. Be aware, since Update 7, Evil Hunter can only proc once every 2.5 seconds.

Flawless Dawnbreaker: [Fighters Guild – Dawnbreaker] 8% more Weapon Damage passive, low cost, high damage vs Daedra. I use this on cooldown in the new dungeons.

Skill replacements:

For Rearming Trap:
(1) Sap Essence: [Siphoning – Drain Life] Too low on money to throw in 1 potion after another? No problem! Just use Sap Essence here as a source of Major Brutality. It’s also a nice Magicka dump.

For Steel Tornado:
(1) Rending Slashes: [Dual Wield – Twin Slashes] It is a great DOT and I keep it up all the time. It’s also a really cheap skill which is good for your Stamina Management. Like any DW Skill, it starts getting stronger against targets below 25%. Keep in mind that every mob can bleed now. Its a nice DPS increase when you dont need AoE.

(2) Resolving Vigor: If there is no AoE involved in a boss fight and survival is key (Planar Inhibitor, Lord Warden) I like to use Vigor to make sure I survive.

For Camouflaged Hunter:
(1) Evil Hunter: When you have Stamina issues, better use this morph. Camo Hunter adds a bit more damage and for PvP, it’s way better.

For Flawless Dawnbreaker:
(1) Soul Harvest: If you don’t have Dawnbreaker yet, Soul Harvest gives you a great damage boost and fills your Ultimate really fast when fighting trash packs. A strong combo for every trash group is Shooting Star and Soul Harvest, allowing you to gain tons of ultimate really quickly.

BOW bar:

Siphoning Attacks: With the current nerf, it’s not as strong as it was but it’s still needed to sustain long fights. In AoE fights, you still gain a good amount of Stamina back thanks to Steel Tornado. It just doesnt procc from DOTs anymore.

Poison Injection: This gem does great DPS from 50-0%. I constantly reapply it. It now also scales with Mighty. Awesome skill.

Scorched Earth: This skill is super good in combination with the Maelstrom Bow. If you dont have that Weapon, use Arrow Barrage instead. Arrow Barrage deals physical damage which is better in general. The Maelstrom Bow makes Scorched Earth just too good to pass even if it deals fire damage. Extra strong in groups with a DK that uses Engulfing flames as you gain 7% increased flame damage.

Razor Caltrops: Strong Stamina based Dot, huge Area of Effect. super long duration. It procs Evil Hunter but no longer Siphoning Attacks. Keep this buddy up 24/7. Anti-Cavalry Caltrops is actually better vs bosses and in longer fights but since most mobs are dead in less than 30s, I think it’s overall the better morph atm. Only one person can use Caltrops in a specific area. So if you run with 2 Stamina DPS players, you have to decide who’s allowed to use it.

Relentless Focus: 8% more damage plus additional Stamina Regeneration. This skill is really valuable. I can sometimes skip to reapply it in a fight if my healer keeps combat prayer on me. But usually, I always reapply it if possible. I also like to use the Spectral Bow 1s before the buff runs out. It’s basicly damage without having to spend resources and it hits slightly harder than Surprise Attack for me.

Ice Comet: The hardest hitting single target ultimate at our disposal especially when fighting non deadra/undead mobs. Also has a small AoE effect which makes it ok vs trash mobs as well.

Skill replacements:

For Siphoning Attacks:
(1) Reaper’s Mark: Marking a weak target in a trash pack before you run in usually means you’ll get a 25% damage buff around the execute phase of the stronger mobs in the trash pack. That results in INSANE Steel Tornado numbers. So if you can sustain without Siphoning Attacks, this is a nice DPS boost for trash mobs.

For Scorched Earth:
(1) Arrow Barrage: Use this Morph if you dont have a Maelstrom Bow. I also use Arrow Barrage when doing MSA as mobs rarely live long enough to take the full duration of Scorched Earth.

For Razor Caltrops:
Only replace that skill if you don’t have it, yet or multiple persons in your group want to use it.
(1) Reaper’s Mark: Marking a weak target in a trash pack before you run in usually means you’ll get a 25% damage buff around the execute phase of the stronger mobs in the trash pack. That results in INSANE Steel Tornado numbers. So if you can sustain without Siphoning Attacks, this is a nice DPS boost for trash mobs.

(2) Bombard: Especially with a second Stamina DPS who is using Steel Tornado, using Bombard to root a group of mobs really helps the team. It’s also nice to keep the casters of a trash pack in the AoE zone because they tend to run away. In Maw of Lorkhaj, you can pin panther adds in place so people can AoE them down nice and fast.

(3) Focused Aim: In high mobility encounters like in Maw of Lorkhaj or against the Lord Warden in vICP, I like to use Focused Aim to have a decent range option available. The Minor Fracture buff also adds some DPS when you are back in melee range.

For Ice Comet:
(1) Shooting Star: When fighting a lot of Trash, this morph is better. Also consider it if you run a Dunmer and/or a DK in your group uses Engulfing Flames. Vs many targets, the extra Ultimate is really noticeable. Awesome trick: Having Shooting Star and Soul Harvest is a Ultimate Generation Monster. Use Shooting Star, then swap to the Soul Harvest Bar and AoE the targets down -> Shooting Star is back up in no time.

2) Veil of Blades: Classic! Our class specific damage mitigation ultimate still helps a ton if your group needs some extra defence against harder trash mobs or bosses. Not the best DPS but very nice group support option.

ROTATION
In every rotation, I use Light Attack Weaving for every skill I use, even buffs. Only exception: Killer’s Blade. I also block cancel or swap cancel the animation of most of my skills. So when I write: Relentless Focus, Caltrops, Scorched Earth, I actually mean Light Attack – Relentless Focus – Block, Light Attack – Caltrops – Block, Light Attack – Arrow Barrage – Block. Skills I dont block cancel: Surprise Attack, Rending Slashes, Poison Injection, Killer’s Blade.


Single Target:
1) Buff up with Siphoning Attack, Relentless Focus, Camoflaged Hunter
2) Cast Caltrops, Scorged Earth, Poison Injection
3) Rearming Trap, Rending Slashes, Surprise Attack

When your Relentless Focus/Rearming Trap/Catrops/Rending Slashes runs out, reapply it. If you have to run away from the boss at any point in time, also swap to bow, reapply buffs, Scorched Earth/Arrow Barrage and Poison Injection. If you have the Maelstrom Bow, keeping Scorched Earth up is insanely important.

At 50%-0%, I keep Poison Injection up all the time. Being able to block and swap cancel your skills perfectly is especially important.

At 25%-0%, I spam Killer’s Blade while I keep Poison Injection and Rending Slashes up. Shortly before 25%, I rebuff everything so I can focus on Killer’s Blade spam :D. Doing a Light Attack when reapplying Rending Slashes usually reapplies the Weapon Damage Enchant from our mainhand.

Side note: Keeping Relentless Focus up is only important if you’re healer isn’t giving you constant Combat Prayers anyways. When I see my healer using Combat Prayer, I usually skip Relentless Focus for the time being as both give the same 8% damage increase.

AoE:
1) Buff up with Siphoning Attacks, Relentless Focus, Evil Hunter
2) Cast Caltrops, Scorched Earth/Arrow Barrage
3) Rearming Trap, Steel Tornado

Steel Tornado and Scorched Earth/Arrow Barrage all the way :) If you’re targets are at 25% or lower, I usually keep spamming Steel Tornado. A “normal” trash pack doesn’t take longer than 20-25s, so I don’t need to reapply stuff like Relentless Focus usually. If your trash takes longer, combine buffing Relentless Focus with another Scorched Earth/Arrow Barrage. Make use of the huge range of Steel Tornado and don’t stand in the middle in all red circles. You can also hit everything when standing slightly at the side to avoid unnecessary damage.

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The following is adapted from ESO Academy (author not specified).

Sets:
Hawk's Eye or Hunding's Rage
Morag Tong or Night Mother's Gaze
Agility jewelry set
For PvP suggest Marksman's Crest/
My sets: , 5 Hunding's Rage (armor), 3 night mother (2 armor, weapons), agility jewelry set

Mundus Stone: Thief for critical hit chance, Shadow for critical hit damage

Food: Health & Stamina maximum and/or recovery

Bow ability bar for numerous enemies, Two-handed bar for a boss. Can add dual wield option if have enough skill points.

For boss:
Sneak close & use Wrecking Blow, then switch to Bow bar and use Poison Injection while moving away.
Then light weave* Lethal Arrow from as far away from the boss as you can to get increased damage.
Keep your buffs up at all times.
Keep using Poison Injection.
When boss is around 30% health Ambush the boss, use Veil of Blades and light weave* Executioner until the boss is dead.

* "Light weave" means trigger a light weapon attack and then launch a skill attack before the weapon animation finishes. Result is more damage per second.

Note: In White Gold Tower dungeon Ambush can be used to escape from the cage without having to pick the lock.

Skills from
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/243441/end-game-stamina-nightblade-build-pve-dps-one-tamriel-ready

Dual Wield- source of bread & butter and execute

1) Steel Tornado: Only a former shadow of its self, the 3.5m radius nerf was a massive hit to stamina’s AoE potential. This is still the largest AoE in game, but only by 1 meter. This still is better than Power Extraction due to the innate dual execute. Use this when you know you’ll be fighting more than 3 enemies at a time. Power Extraction IS stronger on targets above 67% health (Not a static number, changes based on enemy resistances), so if targets have an overall smaller HP pool you can use this.
*Interchangeable with*
– Deadly Cloak: Reworked to increase the damage by 70% instead of a measly dagger throw, this ability is pretty legit now. This reduces damage taken from AoE spells by a staggering 20%, allowing for some much needed mitigation. It ticks for about 4-5k crit every 3 seconds, so it won’t be the strongest DoT to run, but it has great AoE potential as well as the added benefits of damage reduction. This will increase your chance to proc Skoria, give some flat DPS, and boost defenses- very solid pick.

2) Relentless Focus: Provides 8% damage across the board and 10% stamina regeneration. Pretty straightforward to keep up. Main reason we use it on this bar is to gain some extra critical strike, as well as having it there to proc the damage portion of it when it becomes available. I don’t really find this worthwhile to recast on cooldown
*Interchangeable with*
– Resolving Vigor: The best and only universal stamina heal in game. I can easily pump out 4-5k HPS per target with this thing, keeping myself and group members alive through moderate damage. I always run this in PvP/Solo PvE. Now that PvP ranks are easier to get, there really isn’t an excuse to have this. Make sure to slot this in harder dungeons or if you’re pugging and want to have some safety.

3) Rapid Strikes: As of the Dark Brotherhood update, this skill has received some major adjustments. The cast time was cut by 54%, so the damage on hit was lowered as well. However the damage is now higher than it was in Thieves Guild, as well as the fact that it operates much more smoothly in comparison. Paired with Maelstrom Daggers, this ability CRUSHES the DPS potential we had with Surprise Attack. Rapid Strikes alone now out performs Surprise Attack by roughly 200-500 DPS, but with the Maelstrom Dagger enchants our DoT’s will be ticking much much more. This will make the build even more difficult, so if you’re just starting off this build I suggest sticking with Surprise Attack until you’ve gotten a hang of buff and debuff management.
*Interchangeable with*
– Surprise Attack: Your main ability if you do not have Maelstrom Daggers, you’ll be casting this whenever all your DoTs and buffs are up. Does a nice amount of damage, and increases the damage of your’s and other’s further physical penetrative attacks. Also gives you Major Ward/Resolve from our shadow passives, giving us an exact 8% damage reduction. Also stuns the target if casted from stealth, allowing for insane burst damage in PvE and PvP alike. Use this if you do not have Maelstrom Daggers, or are doing fights that deal with burst more than sustain.

4) Killer’s Blade: A pretty decent execute. Only cast this when the target is below 25% health (24.9% to be exact). Don’t forget to keep up your execute scaling DoT’s when you’re doing this though! Pretty straightforward here, nothing fancy. This now deals Disease damage to allow for better CP scaling, putting it much closer to (still not as high) to the caster version.

5) Rending Slashes: A hefty DoT in form of bleed damage, this has been updated to apply to ALL mobs now. When utilized it provides great damage, even worth keeping up through long execute fights. We take this over Blood Craze because of the initial damage bonus Rending does. This ability is increased by Cruel Flurry, the Maelstrom 1h enchant.
*Interchangeable with*
– Since Rending is our weakest DoT this should be your primary spot to flex in and out abilities. Vigor and Deadly Cloak both help out with survivability in some of the more brutal encounters of the game.

Ulti) Rend: The new Dual Wield ultimate with One Tamriel has had me hyped since its conception. On single target fights or cleave fights (most boss fights in end game) this pulls more DPS than any other ultimate in our arsenal. The main kicker is it requires Maelstrom Daggers to perform to this letter, and thus must be empowered before casting. Rend’s 16 second duration is the real selling point here, as that’s a massive DoT empowered by the Cruel Flurry enchant, giving great damage potential. The other added benefit here is that it heals for a very high % of the damage it deals, allowing you to take some punishment in harder fights. Paired with a relatively low cost, this serves a great purpose on boss fights. Just be wary of it’s odd hit box detection, it’s a very narrow application, roughly the size of Refreshing Path or Wall of Elements if you know how big those are.

Bow- source of DoTs and buffs
1) Rearming Trap: A newly founded power source for high crit builds, this adds a staggering 12% critical hit damage for 6 seconds, and rearms after it ends for a total of 12 seconds as long as a mob has hit it. Does a nice DoT to all targets, and procs the Exploiter passive on mobs while they are in it. This is one of the stronger DoT’s in our kit, make sure this is kept up 100% of the time to ensure maximum DPS between the raw damage and Minor Force. It also gives a flat 3% Weapon damage bonus for slotting, making it even better! This ability is increased by Cruel Flurry, the Maelstrom 1h enchant.

2) Poison Injection: A pretty legit DoT that gets even more potential around 50% and below. It is operationally worth keeping up 100% of the fight, I usually start off a fight with a fully charged heavy attack and this for some decent initial damage. In Dark Brotherhood it received a 12% buff in terms of damage, so this thing is a monster. Paired with Maelstrom Daggers I’ve seen this crit for 30k plus on low health targets. This ability is increased by Cruel Flurry, the Maelstrom 1h enchant.

3) Endless Hail: Wow, what a spell. This thing is monstrous, I have been waiting a long time to be able to say this ability was worth running all the time. Paired with the Maelstrom Bow, this thing becomes the best universally accessible DoT in the game, ramping up to 6k a tick near the end of it’s duration. On top of that, it provides AoE damage too, and a massive amount at that. This ability is easily in my top 3 damage sources on breakdowns of fights. The reason we take this over Arrow Barrage is because the extended duration means more scaling with the Maelstorm Bow for even more DPS. It is quite small however, so some fights you won’t be hitting the optimal target amount. Think twice about what content you do more, single target or AoE.
*Interchangeable with*
Arrow Barrage: Almost identical to Endless Hail, but loses a little bit of single target DPS due to being shorter and not ramping up as much in damage. The main difference with this is we gain 2 meters on the size, allowing you to hit more targets with it on trash or AoE boss fights (almost all fights in the new trial have use for this). Even on fights with 2-3 targets, mobs will refuse to clump up due to size or derpy AI, so Arrow Barrage comes in handy. This is a hard choice, so choose wisely.

4) Razor Caltrops: Alone this ability is worth running just for the DoT it provides, even on single target. Scales best with stamina Nightblades as we have the highest crit values and crit hit damage. Also increases the potency of % proc chances, although it is rather redundant now. I run Razor over Anti -Calvary because of the initial application damage it does, and most fights I use it on don’t last long enough for Anti to get its full operational value. I’ll directly quote a break down I made of them later in this build. Sadly this no longer can trigger Siphoning Attacks, meaning that the hefty cost will drain your resources with no return value to them.

5) Siphoning Attacks: A solid ability when it comes to managing resources, and is why the Nightblade is able to get away with playing a Khajiit instead of Redguard. Since we have no other DPS abilities to run this serves perfectly to fit a more support based slot. Activate this when your resources start to dip under 60% on longer fights.

Ulti) Soul Harvest: Probably one of my favorite ultimates in game, this thing has a ton of uses. The main reason we use this over Flawless Dawnbreaker is because while we lose 8% weapon damage from FDB, we gain 2% crit from our Assassination passive, and 10 ultimate per kill we get. This means in AoE situations you’re getting an insane amount of ultimate. Not only this, but once we near the end of the fight, instead of saving up large sums of ultimates for bigger ones only to shoot them off as the boss dies, or only once, we can cast this for a measly 50 ultimate. It does some serious damage, and boosts all damage against the affected target by 20% for a little bit. Paired with executes, you can dish out some serious damage in a short period of time. Also applies a healing debuff, so if you see a pesky healer mob in PvE or player in PvP, smack em real quick with this and watch them struggle to keep themselves up.
*I know that Incapacitating Strikes is Disease damage, meaning it’ll do more damage on cast, but we don’t use this skill for the damage. The damage is a nice bonus paired with the cheap cost, but the main reason we slot this is for the 2% crit and ulti on kill. Removing the Ult on kill effectively makes this skill weaker than Flawless Dawnbreaker as a main bar option.


Notes on Ultimate usage; Outside of boss encounters you’ll want to main bar Soul Harvest for much more ultimate generation, and since Rend is quite weak on large AoE pulls due to its small size. The standard setup for trash involves main barring (dual wield) Soul Harvest and then back barring (bow) Shooting Star for high density pulls or Dawnbreaker of Smiting for lower health targets.

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From:
http://deltiasgaming.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-dps-build/

For GROUP DUNGEONS:

Dual Wield: Steel Tornado, Surprise Attack, Acid Spray, Relentless Focus, Siphoning Attacks, Soul Tether
Bow: Arrow Barrage, Rending Slashes, Acid Spray, Surprise Attack, Siphoning Strikes, Soul Harvest

For VETERAN MAELSTROM ARENA:

Dual Wield: Deadly Cloak, Rearming Trap, Killer’s Blade, Surprise Attack, Steel Tornado, Rend
Bow: Relentless Focus, Poison Injection, Siphoning Attacks, Arrow Barrage, Resolving Vigor, Dawnbreaker of Smiting

DUAL WIELD | MAIN DAMAGE BAR

Deadly Cloak (morph of Blade Cloak | Dual Wield skill line) – It does great damage, AoE damage reduction and has a 15 second duration. It’s a great ability that preforms similar to rending slash yet makes us tankier. Some fights will benefit from Rending Slash do to movement, however.

Rearming Trap (morph of Trap Beast | Fighters Guild skill line) – Another powerful DoT with an added benefit of increase critical strike damage or Minor Force (12%). My tooltip says 6 seconds then a rearming trigger by a mob on top of the trap, which regains another 6 seconds of the buff. However, in game, I’m receiving 7 seconds to both duration. So, you’ll need to place this down where a mob/boss are likely to go or right on top of them to apply the effect. This will take some getting use to, but 14 seconds of near constant Minor Force skyrockets our DPS. Additionally, having it slotted for the Weapon Damage bonus via the fighters guild passive so it’s ideal to place on our front bar. A trick to using this is immediately bar swapping after applying it due to it’s long winded animation. It won’t always line up perfectly in your rotation to do so, but try when possible. It’s very useful in VMA since it locks in place one mob, and we can combine it with Endless Hail to basically kill one mob outright.

Killer’s Blade (morph Assassin’s Blade | Assassination skill line) – A on demand execute that becomes effective at 25% health or less with the addition of healing us for a large amount.

Surprise Attack (morph of Veiled Strike | Shadow skill line) – Our spammable DPS ability that hits like a truck. For hardcore raiding (trials) and if you have Maelstrom Daggers, you can use rapid strikes for more damage. But for VMA or solo, burst is better.

Steel Tornado (morph of Whirlwind | Dual Wield skill line) – Best AoE in the game, and is great for all around damage in an area.

[Ultimate] Rend (morph of Lacerate | Dual Wield skill line) – The reason I use Rend in VMA is the healing. It’s not optimal for high scores because you want burst, but for massive healing during boss encounters, try the new ultimate out.

FLEX – Soul Harvest (morph of Death Stroke | Assassination skill line) – I slot this on my front bar because all my kills will rack up ultimate. I can generate a freakishly amount of ultimate and in boss fights, a meteor, potion and soul harvest can nearly kill anything within seconds. Try it for faster scores.

BOW | RANGE AND HEALING

Relentless Focus (morph of Grim Focus | Assassination skill line) – An 8% damage buff and 10% stamina regeneration boost, plus the chance to proc a damage ability. We also slot this for the assassination skill line passives.

Poison Injection (morph of Poison Arrow | Bow skill line) – This acts as our DoT execute though it should be up 100% of the damage as the damage outweighs recasting it. The damage up front isn’t that much, but if you’re in a ranged only situation for a short time, you can keep up PotL and spam Injection until you can regain melee range.

Siphoning Attacks (morph of Siphoning Strikes | Siphoning skill line) – A stamina based management tool with a 15 second duration. Consider this part of your buff rotation during portal summoning.

Endless Hail (morph of Volley | Bow skill line) – Our ranged Juggernaut AoE/single target DPS ability that scales well with the Maelstrom bow. It’s still worth using without the bow, but the added damage adds up quickly. I have some detailed explanation of how to use this in the video for extra damage and burst. Consider this #1 DoT single target and AoE, it’s that good.

Resolving Vigor (morph of Vigor | Alliance War Assault skill line) – Everyone needs a self heal, not to mention this can AoE healing as well if you play group.

[Ultimate] Smiting Dawnbreaker (morph of Dawnbreaker | Fighters Guild skill line) – You can use Shooting Star (meteor) or Smiting depending on your play-style though there’s a useful trick with Smiting. If you need to AoE stun mobs, come in range even on your bow bar, as soon as you click the ultimate, BAR SWAP. This will use the stats on your front bar (DW), not your bow thus hitting harder. It takes some time getting use to so practice on trash mobs after applying Endless Hail. Keep in mind, Meteor for boss phase will do more damage.