STAMINA NIGHTBLADE SUBCLASS SOLO GUIDE

Soul Burst - Bleed, Lingering Torment, Courage. Use Twisting Path instead if you don't have access to Scribing

• Flame - use it instead of Bleed when you need more Stamina sustain, at the cost of Magicka sustain. It can be especially useful when using the Regular or Ranged setups, but when using the Difficult setup you should keep using Bleed, as that setup trades Barbed Trap for Ulfsild's Contingency, so you wouldn't sustain it with a Magicka-costing Soul Burst

Ulfsild's Contingency - Bleed, Gladiator's Tenacity, Force

• Surprise Attack - a very strong spammable which applies the Sundered status effect and is guaranteed to be a Critical Strike, up to once every 3 seconds
• Killer’s Blade - an execute you should switch to when your enemy is below 30% Max Health
• Merciless Resolve - an ability that will cause your Light Attacks to generate stacks which increase your Weapon and Spell Damage. You can spend 5 stacks to fire a powerful arrow that also heals you if you're in Melee range. Stop using the active ability once your enemy is below 25% Max Health
• Skeletal Archer - an ability that summons a Skeletal Archer which attacks your enemies for 20 seconds. It also grants you Major Brutality and Major Sorcery for the duration, increasing your Weapon and Spell Damage by 20%. Getting Major Brutality from an ability allows you to use different potions. We need this ability on frontbar to trigger passives of the Grave Lord skill line, which will grant us a lot of penetration thanks to Dismember passive and increase our Critical Chance in execute thanks to Death Knell
• Shadowy Disguise - an ability that will increase your damage by 10% for 10 seconds after being cast. It will also passively grant you Major Savagery which increases your critical chance by 12%. It will also grant you Major Resolve thanks to the Shadow Barrier passive. When timed correctly, you can use this ability to dodge heavy attacks
• Soul Harvest - a cheap ultimate that increases target's damage taken from you by 20%. This is the ultimate you should use in Single Target fights. Having it slotted will also cause you to regain 10 Ultimate whenever you deal a final blow against an enemy
• Soul Burst - an AoE DoT which grants you Minor Courage, increasing your Weapon and Spell Damage by 215
• Dark Shade - an ability that deals constant AoE damage and applies Minor Maim, reducing enemies' damage done by 5%
• Elemental Susceptibility - an extremely loaded ability that does a multitude of things. It’s completely free to cast so it'll help you sustain. It applies Major Breach, which reduces enemies’ armor by 5948 which is a massive damage increase. It also applies Burning, Chilled and Concussed status effects at the beginning and then every 7.5 seconds. All of these Status Effects deal decent damage, but Concussed will also apply Minor Vulnerability for 4 seconds, increasing enemies’ damage taken by 5%. Chilled will also apply Minor Maim for 4 seconds, reducing enemies’ damage done by 5% and it will also apply Minor Brittle for 4 seconds if you were on your Ice Staff bar while the Chilled effect procced, which is always going to happen at the beginning when you cast Elemental Susceptibility. Minor Brittle increase Critical Damage taken by 10%. The Chilled proc will also synergise with our Elemental Blockade
• Elemental Blockade - this ability will constantly apply your Weapon Damage enchantment. It will also constantly apply Minor Breach to enemies who are Chilled, and they’ll be Chilled thanks to Elemental Susceptibility
• Barbed Trap - a DoT that will also apply Hemorrhage status effect at the start and grant you Minor Force buff, increasing your Critical Damage by 10%
• Shooting Star - a powerful ultimate that deals damage in an AoE and grants you Ultimate for each enemy hit with the initial blast. Use it in AoE fights or when you start fights with high amount of Ultimate stored up

Soul Burst and Dark Shade are the first skills that have to go when you need to slot something situational, unless the situational skill specifically says that it's replacing something else. If it has to be a frontbarred skill then the first skill that has to go is Killer’s Blade

• Bloodthirst - a spammable which heals you for 33% of the damage it does. Use it instead of Surprise Attack in more difficult fights
• Lethal Arrow - ranged spammable that can be used instead of Surprise Attack in fights where you need to stay at range
• Whirling Blades - AoE spammable than can be used instead of Surprise Attack if you want to get through trash packs faster, or if you need lots of AoE damage for some boss fight
• Resolving Vigor - use it for more difficult fights where the pressure is constant and thus you need the Minor Resolve. It can also be used as your main source of healing before you obtain the Ring of the Pale Order Mythic or in fights with invulnerability phases where you can't heal with Ring of the Pale Order
• Silver Leash - a chain ability that you can slot in trash packs to stack enemies and get through them faster
• Unnerving Boneyard - a source of AoE Major Breach which can replace Elemental Susceptibility in AoE fights
• Ulfsild's Contingency (Bleed, Gladiator's Tenacity, Force ) - a replacement for Barbed Trap in fights where you need more damage mitigation. It's a delayed AoE damage that also grants you 8% damage reduction for 8 seconds and Minor Force for 22 seconds, which increases your Critical Damage by 10%. You should recast it every 8 seconds when under pressure and every 22 seconds otherwise
• Revealing Flare - slot it for more difficult fights where you need more damage mitigation. It's a skill that passively grants Major Protection, reducing your damage taken by 10%. It will also trigger the Magicka Aid passive, which increases Magicka Recovery by 10%
• Acid Spray - a decent AoE DoT for when you need more AoE damage in the Ranged setup
• Precognition - an ultimate that breaks you out of some otherwise unavoidable stuns, you'll need it to get around some mechanics which are otherwise impossible or very difficult to solo, like for example Inferno's Hold in Zaan the Scalecaller fight

Priority List

I don't use a static rotation so this is just a list of priorities. Simply recast abilities when they run out and follow this list of priorities when there are multiple things to refresh

• Use Elemental Susceptibility
• Use Elemental Blockade
• Use Skeletal Archer
• Use Shadowy Disguise
• Use Barbed Trap
• Use Dark Shade
• Use Soul Burst
• If it's an AoE fight or you're starting at or close to 200 Ultimate, use Shooting Star
• If it's a Single Target fight, use Soul Harvest
• If enemy is below 25% HP, use Killer’s Blade
• If you're at 9 stacks and the enemy is above 25% HP, use Merciless Resolve. If your Soul Harvest is about to run out you should use it at 5 stacks instead, in order to fit 3 Merciless Resolve casts during the Soul Harvest debuff
• If enemy is below 30% HP, use Killer’s Blade
• Use Surprise Attack

Pre-buff

These abilities can be pre-cast before entering combat

• Skeletal Archer
• Shadowy Disguise
• Dark Shade
• Soul Burst