Stamina Warden DPS Build
Stamina Warden DPS builds can be a little complex to get used to, but with a little practise can become incredibly strong. They have great damage over time and burst damage potential, have some nice built in survivability, and provide some amazing group buffs and debuffs that will help with everyone's damage output and survivability.
Gear Sets
Perfected Arms of Relequen: This set is just too good to pass up, and adds a ton of overall damage output to this build. You can get this from Cloudrest, but if you can't manage trials yet, then go for Pillar of Nirn from Falkreath Hold.
Azureblight Reaper: A fantastic set which will rapidly build up stacks on this setup, delivering powerful bursts of damage regularly.
Blackrose Bow: It's best to get the perfected version, but the normal one will do. This weapon is a little unconventional, but on this build will add a huge amount of damage.
Maelstrom Bow: The same goes for this - the perfected version is best, but the normal version is excellent as well. You can get this from Maelstrom Arena.
Skills
Rapid Strikes: This is your primary spammable and is designed to be used as much as possible whenever you are not reapplying your damage over time effects.
Subterranean Assault: Your primary burst skill and the workhorse of your damage output. Be sure to never apply this too early as you will miss out on the damage burst.
Camouflaged Hunter: We use this so that we don't have to use potions to get access to Major Savagery.
Barbed Trap: Your source of Minor Force, which increases your damage ouput by a nice margin. If you are getting this buff elsewhere, you can slot something with more damage.
Whirling Blades: Your primary execute that should be used as much as possible when the enemy hits around 25% health.
Wild Guardian: This is one of the highest sources of damage in the game due to the passive extra damage that the bear provides between ultimate activation. Keep this active on both bars or the bear will disappear.
Endless Hail: An incredibly powerful damage over time ability when combined with the Maelstrom bow. The damage escalates over its duration, so don't reapply it too early.
Arctic Blast: A nice combo skill that deals a lot of damage and also provides a secondary stun. In order to sustain this and Winter's Revenge, we run Magicka recovery on the potions.
Winter's Revenge: A very powerful damage over time ability that has a good chance of applying the Chilled and Brittle status effects.
Poison Injection: This is a nice extra damage over time ability that deals more damage the lower the enemy's health, helping with the execute phase.
Bull Netch: Bull Netch is your source of Major Brutality, and also provides stamina back to you over its duration on top of a regular purge of negative effects. Keep this up at all times.
Wild Guardian: This is one of the highest sources of damage in the game due to the passive extra damage that the bear provides between ultimate activation. Keep this active on both bars or the bear will disappear.
Champion Points
Fighting Finesse: A welcome addition to your critical damage output that will help you get up to the 125% crit damage cap. If you are exceeding this cap in your group, choose a different perk like Wrathful Strikes.
Thaumaturge: Damage in The Elder Scrolls Online is measured in how much damage you do per second over the duration of a fight, and stacking damage over time effects is the way to increase this. Thaumaturge will boost that damage type.
Master at Arms: An essential boost to one of the primary damage types that all DPS use - direct damage. This is important on almost any DPS build in ESO.
Biting Aura: An important addition to this build that will boost the power of your area abilities substantially, which is where this class really shines.
Boundless Vitality: Every bit of health makes a difference, especially in some of the tougher content that The Elder Scrolls Online has to offer. This will help you bump yours up a little more, increasing your survivability.
Bloody Renewal: A powerful buff that allows you to restore stamina every time you slay an enemy. This shines best in boss fights with adds, or when facing many non-boss enemies.
Rejuvenation: Recoveries are important for every role. For healers, it is essential for keeping your group alive, for tanks, it is the source of most of your buffs and debuffs, for DPS, you can't deal damage with no fuel, and in PvP, no resources means death.
Celerity: Extra movement speed is an amazing boost in all content. In PvE, it helps massively with avoiding nasty mechanics, and in PvP, it allows you to run circles around your opponents.
Mundus Stone
The go-to Mundus Stone for any DPS is the Thief. It is very rare that you will reach the optimal critical chance numbers without the Thief unless you are specifically building for it, which isn't ideal. a
Food Buff
The Lava Foot Soup and Saltrice food buff is the absolute best option for stamina DPS across all classes, offering the best spread of Max Stamina and Stamina Recovery. However, if you are in content that needs more Max Health, try the Dubious Camoran Throne or Artaeum Takeaway Broth instead.
Race
The best race to use for this build is a Dark Elf (Dunmer). If you struggle to reach the crit damage cap of 125%, then a Khajiit is your best option instead.
Potion
Having built-in access to Major Brutality and Major Savagery means you don't need to run weapon power potions. Instead, you should run Heroism potions, granting Minor Heroism along with Magicka and Stamina return for a lengthy duration.
Mortality
Most Stamina DPS characters already have to work extra hard on survivability, and being susceptible to fire damage on top of high skill cost will make you a liability. Therefore, Vampirism is not recommended, and a werewolf offers no benefit. Stick to being a Mortal.
Notes
Notes go here