The Nothing New – Stamina DK 2H/Bow (Post-DB Update)

Armor Types

Gear and Item Set Info

First off this current setup I’m about to lay out is something of a placeholder setup until I can gather the rest of the setup I want. That being me needing another Agility ring. I took a three or four week break prior to dark brotherhood update and I come back to find that even the arcane agility pieces have skyrocketed in price. I remember selling those for like 2k a piece less than a month ago.

Item Sets used:5 Hunding’s Rage, 5 Briarheart, 1 Molag Kena4 Hunding’s Rage Armor, 1 Greatsword, 1 Bow2 Briarheart Armor, 3 Jewelry1 Molag Kena Helmet

Currently I’m in the process of obtaining one more Agility ring so once that happens i’ll be switching out the BH jewelry for 3 Agility. From there I will switch my Briarheart shoulder piece to Molag Kena with the option to swap in a different monster helm/shoulder set depending on the need at the time. Most likely Bloodspawn or Valkyn Skoria.

I recently respected to stamina DPS since dark brotherhood dropped in order to try out the new changes to the dragonknight stamina morphs and because i’d been playing a magicka dk forever and was getting bored. Still working out the kinks of playing stamina but so far its been alot of fun. I was originally worried the engulfing flames morph to poison was going to look like spewing vomit or soething but I was pleasantly surprised to see its more like green tinted flamebreath. Anyways for the moment this briarheart/hundings combo is working out pretty well for the mean time. When briarheart procs as well as the increase spell/weapon damage weapon enchant my weapon damage gets up to about 4600.

General Info

Tri-stat food, weapon damage/speed/restore stamina potions, all stamina armor enchants, poison damage enchant on greatsword, increase weapon damage enchant on bow, increase weapon damage enchants on all three jewelry. All enchantment are cp160 legendary.

Traits – all divines except helm has infused. Weapons traits precise on bow sharpened on greatsword.Ability notes.

Don’t use werewolf very much and mostly keep it slotted for extra stam regent or if I’m on the ropes. If theres no need i’ll doubleslot flawless dawnbreaker for the extra weapon damage from the fighter’s guild passive I use camouflaged hunter over flames of oblivion for the extra damage as well. Same for rearming trap if theres room on my bar. The extra 12% crit damage is useful too if you have the space for it. I use both undated passives for obvious reasons. As far as other passives go I have currently 275 skill points so I take every and all passives I can for each skill tree I use. All racial passives and class passives, all weapons passives for bow, dw and 2h, the useful fighter’s guild passives and for conveniences sake I’ve got all my crafting points used. For writs and crafting, research (almost done), making potions and food, just 1 point in each of the crafting trees for the skill that makes the resources stand out with that lovely little glow.

Sometimes I’ll swap in dual wield instead of greatsword. One hunding’s rage, one briarheart with glyph of crushing on one and poison damage on the other both cp160 legendary. Abilities used from DW are rapid strikes, steel tornado and rending slashes. Sometimes I use shrouded daggers if in swapping in dw in place of bow for the range. Know that without 2h’s rally you’ll need igneous weapons and green dragons blood to make up for the heal/weapon dmg buff loss of rally.

General playstyle is pretty simple. Buff up, lay down long-range dots, crit rush in, wrecking blow to reverse slice for single adds or crit rush, wrecking blow med weave til below 30 or 40 percent health then reverse slice execute while keeping dots refreshed when needed til down for tougher enemies. For groups of adds buff up lay down long range dots and poison injection med weave with draining shots thrown in to keep them at range. If you have snipe slotted definitely use that first while crouched before engaging after buffs, hits like a truck.

I have yet to take this build into vMA but I’m hopeful once I get the full agility and add in full bloodspawn. May have some survivability problems but we’ll see. May need some fine-tuning still. Stats totals are unbuffed: Bow-Greatsword, 3000-3250 weapon dmg, 63-60 weapon crit chance, 15000-11000 spell and physical resist (both bars). All in all its a pretty standard build setup. Nothing groundbreaking or terribly original but it does work and is relatively easy to acquire if you’ve got the time and effort. I know I won’t be teaching the experts anything new but hopefully some relative newcomers to stamina DPS will find some of my ramblings useful. I’ve no claims on being an expert but I have been playing since the game came out on Xbox one so take from this what you will and feel free to post your opinions and critiques. Also, as a general comment, if you’re not having fun playing this game then something’s gone terribly wrong and you should reevaluate. More than a few people I’ve run into seem to treat this game as if its life or death, as if you don’t have the best build ever you shouldn’t even bother. Bah. It is after all a videogame, take it easy.

Champion Point Tips

I am currently at around 425 champion points so not fully maxed yet. You should be able to see the ratios I used from how I laid out what I’ve taken so you should be able to adjust based on how many points you currently have.

The Warrior

Around 20-25 points in Thick Skinned and then even split the rest between Hardy and Elemental Defender

The Mage

100 points in Mighty, 20 or so into Precise Strikes, a few points in Piercing, 25 points into Thaumaturge and the rest into Blade Expert I think its called, the heavy/light attack increase for bladed weapons.

The Thief

100 points in Reduce Cost, 48 in Stamina Regen and the rest into the Dodge/Breakfree CostReduction one.

Build Rating