A constructive post to balancing the game

thorspark

First of all, this is not a thread to discuss class mecanics, and which one is OP or UP. So let's not discuss about class skill lines.
What I'd like to discuss is the unbalance between Magicka and Stamina based characters.

At the moment, the obvious choice would be to go all light width destro/resto staff for many reasons but i can resume this reasons to two main reasons :

• The Output dps/mana cost is good
• There's a lot of ways to replenish magicka

Without even considering class skills that give back magicka, simply by using staffs and light armor sets, you can sustain a pretty long fight without lacking magicka.
Destruction staff has the Destruction Expert passive and the Elemental Drain ability (which has become quite useless now)
Restoration staff has the Siphon Spirit and the 10% magicka refund through Heavy Attack.
And sets can provide cost reduction or magicka refund (magicka furnace).

I don't say this must be nerfed, I'm just pointing the mecanics.

On the other side, we have Stamina, with 2H,DW, 1H/S, Bows and medium/heavy armors, and the fighters guild :

• The Output dps/stamina cost is not that good
• There's a few ways to replenish stamina

First of all, you can't go full stamina, as your class skills require magicka, but let's say that base magicka is enough. So we go for Stamina/Health.
On top of that, you use a lot of stamina even when you don't use skills :

• You use stamina when you block
• You use stamina when you dodge (roll)
• You use stamina when you stun or bash

Now let's take a look at armors skills and passives :

• Medium armor will give you 28% stamina regen increase (which will make 14% if soft caped)
• Medium armor will reduce the cost of Roll Dodge by 28%
• Heavy armor ... will give you a 10% discount on blocking

Now for the weapons, they all give you a 20% reduction of stamina cost as a passive (except for 1H/S that give you 10% and 50% on blocking). That's quite the same as light armor for magicka.

• 2H : Only one passive granting extra stamina regen (but not giving back stamina)
• 1H/S : Nothing to restore stamina
• DW : The Whirling Morph Blade restores stamina for 10 seconds based on number of targets hit on a 5m radius
• Bow : Nothing to restore stamina

Ok, so here, we have a few skills/passives that increase stamina regen, which is usually soft caped, and then half as usefull as it should be.
And yes, one PBAoE which restores stamina on a small radius, but not enough to sustain dps.

_______________________________________________________________________

All beeing said, it's obvious that Stamina based abilities need some help/love to be as viable as magicka based builds.

Here are some thoughts that could help the discussion :

• Should ZOS change some of "increase stamina regen" to "give back X stamina" ?
• Should they decrease the cost / increase the dps of stamina abilities ?
• Anything else ?

leandro.800ub17_ESO

As roll run and block all use stamina the soft cap for stamina should increase
Also review the soft cap for armor as a full light armor + DK ability can get you there so why use heavy armor as the passives are not good at all.

crowfl56

mechanic's

Wargasmo

Stamina abilities don't need to have unendingly sustainable use. The only reason magicka abilities seem to have this is because the resto staff returns 10% magicka on heavy attack and the skill equilibrium offers a cannibalize mechanic to get magicka back. Infinitely sustainable skill usage kinda defeats the purpose of resource management, which is somewhat of a highlight of the game. The only reason magicka needs to be somewhat sustainable is because without sustainability a healer can only dump about 10-12 heals down before being relegated to a regimen of 1 heal every 15 secs (this is when the group dies). The side effect of adding resource management to resto staves is that ppl dps with resto staves... and the fix is easy: only allow the resto staff magicka return on heavy attack to activate if a player has used a resto staff line skill in the last 30 seconds.

What stamina abilities DO need is a flat out damage buff. many of us have stamina to spare in trials even with block roll cc break and whatnot. However, we don't put stam damage skills on our bar simply because after all passive synergies are said and done, they just don't hit hard compared with magicka skills.

Weapon skills need across the board buffs to be considered on a skill bar as a stam dump or a part of a sustained rotation. I'd say bow skils and dw needs a 20% across the board buff. 2h needs 50%. Sword and board can stay as it is since it's obviously focused on survivability and agro management/debuff utility skills and serves its purpose fine for tanks.

As skill lines for stam become increasingly attractive to use, med armor line will become more attractive as well.