The best stamina class in ESO is the Nightblade. The Nightblade has three skills that allow you to regenerate stamina: Assassin’s Blade, Channeled Strike, and Siphoning Strikes. There are also four skills that allow you to recover resources (magicka, health) without using any: Evasion, Essence Drain, Shadow Cloak and Dark Shades.
Why Nightblade is the best Stamina Class
The Nightblade is an ideal Stamina class for group play, as it has three defensive abilities which allow you to avoid damage from enemy attacks: Shadow Cloak, Dark Shades, and Blur. Additionally, it has another skill Shadowy Disguise that allows you to become invisible for a short period of time.
Siphoning Strikes is a stamina-based resource builder that deals damage and heals you based on the number of targets it hits. It is an instant cast skill that always hits 3 targets (you, your target, and one other enemy). It heals you for X/X health and deals X/X damage, based on your weapon damage. The ability is a must-have for any stamina-based build. Use it every 8 seconds to trigger the Nightblade passives.
Related: Best Healing Class in Elder Scrolls Online (ESO)
Assassin’s Blade
Assassin’s Blade is a very strong defensive ability that gives you excellent mobility and stealth potential while improving your sustain tremendously. Each kill performed while this ability is active will grant 15% of your maximum health back and increase the duration of the active effect by 30 seconds up to a maximum of 4 minutes – or the next time you are killed. It is an excellent tool for saving your life in combat and potentially keeping you alive if you are planning to solo.
Channeled Strike
Channeled Strike is a channeled ability that allows you to strike multiple targets. The ability deals X/X weapon damage and costs X stamina per second. It also decreases the enemy’s armor by Y/Y for Z seconds. This ability is an excellent resource builder due to its high cost as well as a good self-healing tool that deals more damage the longer it stays on the target.
Siphoning Strikes and Assassin’s Blade are the only skills that allow you to regain resources while playing a Nightblade build with this combination of passives.
Dark Shades
Dark Shades is a defensive ability that protects you from incoming attacks. For 6 seconds, it increases your armor by an amount equal to 35% of your Max Health and heals you for 5% of your Max Health every second. It also allows you to avoid all damage from direct area of effect abilities but does not offer protection from secondary effects or single target attacks. The ability costs a rather high amount of Magicka at 35/s to maintain and should only be used in emergency situations.
Evasion makes your next attack impossible to hit. It grants 100% dodge chance for 2 seconds and returns 60% magicka when casted. It costs 1.5% of your total Stamina, and a large amount of Magicka (>50) to maintain, but it can make you incredibly hard to hit for a short time.
Red Bramman is an ability which increases your Weapon Damage by 30% for 6 seconds.
Aura of Protection is your main defensive buff (and your most important passive-esque ability). It increases all resistances by 20% for 3 minutes, and allows you to regenerate 5% magicka every second for 6 seconds when activated. The buff will not last longer than the time this passive would have been active had it been applied by itself, i.e. if the passive is active for 1 minute and you use the buff, it will be active for 3 minutes.
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Reaper’s Mark
Reaper’s Mark is your biggest weapon damage buff that reduces enemy healing taken by 40% for 2 minutes. It also reduces the target’s movement speed by 50% and deals a small amount of Magic Damage (10% more if the target is stunned). If cast on a friendly player, you can activate Soul Leech to restore your health by 20%.
The Nightblade is an ideal Stamina class for group play, as it has three defensive abilities which allow you to avoid damage from enemy attacks: Shadow Cloak, Dark Shades and Blur. Shadow Cloak enables you to avoid damage from enemies, reducing the damage that they deal to you by 100% for 6 seconds. If activated on yourself, you will not be able to attack or cast spells during the duration of the ability.
Dark Shades will allow you to avoid damage from enemies up to level 60.
Blur is a passive ability that increases your resistance to all spells by 80% and reduces your chances of being hit by spells and attacks by 10%.
One of the best stamina classes in ESO is the Sorcerer. The class is a hybrid between all three stamina archetypes: Spell, Weapon, and Mundus Stone. They have access to a multitude of crowd control abilities as well as some devastating area of effect spells.
The Sorcerer is one of the hardest classes to master. At the beginning level, it can feel very frustrating trying to figure out the rotation for the class and using an ability incorrectly will cause you to take heavy damage or be silenced for a long time. The class has three defensive abilities which allow you to avoid damage from enemy attacks: Bound Aegis, Absorption Field and Negate Magic. Additionally, it has another skill Dark Shield that allows you to become invisible for a short period of time.
Bound Aegis is an ability which automatically triggers when your health drops below 30% at the cost of Magicka and Stamina. It increases your armor by an amount equal to 30% of your Max Health and damage reduction by 50%.
Absorption Field is a unique stamina-based defensive ability that allows you to absorb area of effect damage. For 6 seconds, it will heal you for X/X health every second if you take the minimum amount of damage from an area of effect attack. It also negates all incoming crowd control effects for 9 seconds.
To conclude, the Nightblade is the best stamina class in Elder Scrolls Online. It has three defensive abilities that allow you to avoid damage from enemies and four skills that allow you to recover resources (health, magicka) without using any. The Nightblade also has a buff skill called Aura of Protection which increases your resistances by 20%. The class has a couple of skills which allow you to deal massive amounts of damage to enemies, with the strongest one being the Assassin’s Blade.
The Sorcerer is the second-best stamina class in ESO, as it has access to three stamina-based defensive abilities: Bound Aegis, Absorption Field, and Dark Shield. Additionally, it also has several healing abilities and it can restore resources by simply activating certain skills as opposed to using potions or food.