On the topic of stamina/magicka regeneration: I agree with what everyone has been saying in regard to the biggest limitation to actives is simply the stamina/magicka consumption vs. regeneration. In light of that, does anyone know how much blocking consumes? It's hard to figure out how much stamina to leave when working on actives and trying to consider stamina used on dodges, blocking, bracing, sprinting etc. And I have a feeling that if you don't allow some room in your stamina regen to factor in these things and instead consume all your stamina through the use of actives then your character may be at severe disadvantage without having the resources for at least one of the activities I listed.
If someone at lvl 50 has a shield, the shield + one-hand passives, maybe even an enchant to reduce cost of blocking - how much roughly would they be depleting their stamina for every block?
I don't think blocking/bracing/sprinting/dodge rolling will be
that stamina intensive when we're lvl 50.. but just a guess.
I have a feeling Marked Target, though expensive to cast, will at times be crucial for bringing some foes down. If you have a DK in Heavy armour popping off Spiked Armour every 17s and Immovable every 8 who also happens to have decent in-combat Health regen - you're going to have real problems dps'ing through the mitigation. In fact, I would doubt any NB's burst dps would ever get such a DK close enough to "low health" for them to even use Assasin's Blade and take advantage of the DW passive. In a case like that, without Marked Target, I would think that a NB would just be forced to ignore the DK and stay stealthed or die every time...
I agree, the defensives in this game are so much stronger than the offensives that it's ridiculous for someone with a dps build to try and 1v1 a tank.. Especially because it's not like taking a defensive ability makes you do less damage- Yes, it takes up some of your mp/st, but it appears to be way more powerful than each offensive attack. I personally think they need to increase the stam/mag cost of defensives... right now Healing is a bit gimp seeming too... but I'm sure with all the internal high-end testing they're doing they'll get it all sorted by launch.
I went off on a few topics here, but I totally agree with your post.
Personally I don't like Nightblade builds without Shadow Cloak (invisibility) but I see a major problem with your Nightblade builds you may dish out lot's of dmg but if someone survives your burst you lack survivability.
Cripple as your only "kite" ability is a bit thin.
Yeah, I just think shadowcloak is almost worthless. Different playstyles.
Hopefully between cripple and scatter shot I'll be able to get away from 1v1's with bow-speed.. at least until Ult's up and then I can slip away.
Against any other DPS though in 1v1 I think this is the strongest, against a caster DW will take them out easy and against a melee in medium or another archer.. there's no stronger 1v1 build unless you're going for a bloodknight build... which you are! XD
PvP:
Role With this you are going to run around on the battlefield and protect your allies. So if someone attacks 1 of your healer you rush to him and either kill him or make him run away.
2H: Critical Charge, Inferno, Dragon Blood, Momentum, Immoveable; Magma Armor
S/S: Shield Charge/Fiery Reach, Inferno, Dragon Blood, Defensive Posture, Obsidian Shield; Magma Armor
Playstyle:
You want to try to keep up your buffs (Obsidian Shield, Momentum, Immoveable) use Inferno when you have Magicka and are close to an enemy this is an ability you will use often but most of the time only for a short time. Ones you come closer to a keep you will want to switch Shield Charge for Fiery Reach because with Fiery Reach you can pull players from Keep Walls. Other than that the playstyle is mostly managing your buffs and focusing on the fight.
I see your playstyle, I'm sure it'll work really well but it's too passive for me to enjoy!

I couldn't use a pvp build without Fiery Reach and Searing Strike for single targets and Ash Cloud for groups. They're too strong to pass up.
Check if it gives you more than x% HP compared to the MP cost to keep one of those -x% damage shields active... because of diminishing returns on things, it's a lot better to just have one active for maximum effective HP rather than building your character to be able to use them both at the same time.
1000 hp and 1000 mp, 500 points to place, you can either take 20% less than 70% of your hp (140 hp) and put the 500 points into MP, or you can put 500 points into HP.
That's an extreme example, but you get what I'm saying? You'll need to predict your numbers and see where the tipping point lays.
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As per my previous post, my favorite build so far (temp bow/resto) is going to take both Immovable and Rune Focus but I'm only going to use one or the other usually, and immovable's a stamina sink for me because I can't use much st with resto staff out. You get the difference though? Mine are situation specific while I feel like you have too much overlap so you'll have diminishing returns.
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They need to get rid of Soul Shards..
Soul Shards just add a tedious element to the game. Yes, you need some kind of punishment for ressing on the spot or ressing someone else on the spot... but just make it so you can only spot-res with like 15% of hp/st/mp, and make it cost a ton of mp to res someone else. This way you wouldn't want to do it in combat even if you could cast it in battle.
Or, if anything..keep the soul shards but give us a different way to get them. Casting Soultrap on everything 10 seconds before it dies will get annoying and then at clvl50 you get them automatically anyway so what's the point of doing it while leveling up??
So far I love everything about the game except for this one little part... Oh...and I don't like siege weapons in any game..I think you should be able to use the character you worked hard for exclusively rather than getting a character all built up and then playing a Chess-Game at high end PVP instead of actually using that character. How would PVE be if you just used random weapons and crap to win high-level dungeons instead of character synergy within a group? :S
But that's off topic. I think they need to change the soul shard mechanic... Discuss?