steinernein wrote: »I'm experimenting with a set up that has the capacity to reach at least 900+ sustained dps melee. Pure stamina. We'll see how it turns out.
Moonchilde wrote: »What a solid stamina build should be like at VR level, IMO. Never gonna happen the way things are, but this is the equivalent to the magika builds we have now. There should be options besides a walking people-oven in cloth/resto.
Please let us know if you make it. A lot of us really want to make it work. I capped out on 510 avg dps on mammoths with a two hander. I've run out of significant ideas to make it better.
steinernein wrote: »Please let us know if you make it. A lot of us really want to make it work. I capped out on 510 avg dps on mammoths with a two hander. I've run out of significant ideas to make it better.
Quick update, on mammoths: I've more or less surpassed your average at vr 2 with crappy greens and missing flawless dawn breaker, though execute was on my bar.
If I take off execute, and do nothing but mark target , light attack, and wrecking blow my dps ends up at around 450 average.
If I sneak attack, and utilize execute my damage is anywhere from 700 to 800 DPS (that was just for amusement).
Basically, I am pretty much on track and we'll see what I can do with VR12 gear, raid/party buffs. I also need to optimize the rotation a bit as there is a spot before 25% where you should be using execute rather than wrecking blow.
The unfortunate thing is I am probably going to have to hybridize my Nightblade and try to push spell power jewelry and cut a bit of stamina for more magicka. Crippling Grasp is a bit hard to ignore.
Also, I feel that both Templar and DK can pull off similar builds and reach 1k dps if given the right gear. Anyways, these are all projections and we'll see when I get there.
Oh, cleave is perfectly fine and I am pretty sure it will be fine as a primary AoE source.
The only class that really can't do any of this and has no chance of reaching it without doing something janky is the sorc, and I have a possible pathway for that as well.
The 510 does not include stealth. I hit for well over 2k from stealth so it would make my parse go up a lot higher. Since I can only do it once I left it out of the parse to better represent a sustained parse. NBs can...theoretically..., go back into stealth so maybe an opening stealth hit is representative, not sure.
Stamina builds can dish out some impressive numbers - especially in PvP since most people are running with light armor - but they have to be more alert how they use their main resource. Find a healthy balance between your usage of stamina and magicka feats and you can be perfectly viable.
You break the root with pressing and hold left and right mouseclick(default) in that order. This sacrifices stamina.
The cone or straight line aoe are easily avoided by circling your target.
jesterstear wrote: »Doesn't change the fact that it's much much easier to deal with this pair at range. While your breaking the root and interrupting the guy on the left the one on the right casts something at you again. So you take 1000 damage and loose a big chunk of stamina.
Im not sure. I believe Zos wanted to make meaningful combat. Making blocking,dodging essential. With the magicka aoe spam, you just trample that.
If you want to make it dangerous for a ranged or aoe spaming clothie, Zos need to make light armor have lower armor cap.
For me as melee, 3 mobs is a dangerous fight. I avoid it if I can, its a 50/50 unless I have ultimate up, then its 90/10 win.
If you buff alot of the classes/weapons then they just trample the combat too.
I believe it is Light armor/staff/magicka that needs a genuine nerf bat beating. But the outcry would be too much to handle so they cant do that.
What we will see I believe is a buff to the weapon trees/stamina builds, and a general increase in health on players and mobs to keep combat interesting.
jesterstear wrote: »Indeed, had a near-death experience against a Pyromancer/Cyromancer pair in VR1, guarding the entrance to a room.
Silly me, slotting Absorb Magic (Defensive posture morph of Sword and Shield line) thinking that would absorb some of their attacks. No, the ability to conjure flame lasers and tornadoes of ice out of thin air in the desert arent' magical at all !
I run up to one, interrupt with a bash. The other casts ice on me while interrupting mr flame, now i'm rooted and can't reach the other guy to interrupt him. Their most damaging attack is that line of flame that runs along the ground/tordado of ice. If you go ranged, you easily have time to react and can simply walk left/right to avoid. No need to dodge or sprint. In melee , your only hope is to interrupt, but against two this isn't going to happen. Sat there spamming heals before realising that whilst escape seemed unlikely in the face of this ranged damage, staying put was certain death. Managed to get away by the skin of my teeth, came back at them with a restoration staff for an easy kill.
Cheatingdeath23 wrote: »jesterstear wrote: »Indeed, had a near-death experience against a Pyromancer/Cyromancer pair in VR1, guarding the entrance to a room.
Silly me, slotting Absorb Magic (Defensive posture morph of Sword and Shield line) thinking that would absorb some of their attacks. No, the ability to conjure flame lasers and tornadoes of ice out of thin air in the desert arent' magical at all !
I run up to one, interrupt with a bash. The other casts ice on me while interrupting mr flame, now i'm rooted and can't reach the other guy to interrupt him. Their most damaging attack is that line of flame that runs along the ground/tordado of ice. If you go ranged, you easily have time to react and can simply walk left/right to avoid. No need to dodge or sprint. In melee , your only hope is to interrupt, but against two this isn't going to happen. Sat there spamming heals before realising that whilst escape seemed unlikely in the face of this ranged damage, staying put was certain death. Managed to get away by the skin of my teeth, came back at them with a restoration staff for an easy kill.
See, I like a balance between magicka and stamina. I have 13 points in each and the rest in health (level 46).
There are two ways to deal with these guys.
Ranged skill bar:
I'd throw down volcanic rune and blow them up, alternating with the templar fireball and silver shards. If I need to heal, I have breathe of life. This works on 99% of enemies fairly effectively, but I do run out of magicka or stamina eventually. [Against bigger mobs, I keep using stamina and then refill stamina with repentance]
Melee skill bar:
I would use invasion to get up close and knock one of the mages down. Then I attack the second mage while the first mage is dazed. Then I use power bash on either one and attack the other one.
As long as you have the stamina to keep this up, you can take on two enemies at once no problem. I throw in Solar Barrage and purifying ritual to do damage/heal.
So... if I have 2 enemies or less, I use melee skill bar. 3 or more, I use ranged, as silver shard and fireball both hit 3 enemies, whereas melee only hits 1.
We'll see how it goes in VR territory, but the stun is key to facing 1-2 enemies and having an easy time of it.
Cheatingdeath23 wrote: »jesterstear wrote: »Indeed, had a near-death experience against a Pyromancer/Cyromancer pair in VR1, guarding the entrance to a room.
Silly me, slotting Absorb Magic (Defensive posture morph of Sword and Shield line) thinking that would absorb some of their attacks. No, the ability to conjure flame lasers and tornadoes of ice out of thin air in the desert arent' magical at all !
I run up to one, interrupt with a bash. The other casts ice on me while interrupting mr flame, now i'm rooted and can't reach the other guy to interrupt him. Their most damaging attack is that line of flame that runs along the ground/tordado of ice. If you go ranged, you easily have time to react and can simply walk left/right to avoid. No need to dodge or sprint. In melee , your only hope is to interrupt, but against two this isn't going to happen. Sat there spamming heals before realising that whilst escape seemed unlikely in the face of this ranged damage, staying put was certain death. Managed to get away by the skin of my teeth, came back at them with a restoration staff for an easy kill.
See, I like a balance between magicka and stamina. I have 13 points in each and the rest in health (level 46).
There are two ways to deal with these guys.
Ranged skill bar:
I'd throw down volcanic rune and blow them up, alternating with the templar fireball and silver shards. If I need to heal, I have breathe of life. This works on 99% of enemies fairly effectively, but I do run out of magicka or stamina eventually. [Against bigger mobs, I keep using stamina and then refill stamina with repentance]
Melee skill bar:
I would use invasion to get up close and knock one of the mages down. Then I attack the second mage while the first mage is dazed. Then I use power bash on either one and attack the other one.
As long as you have the stamina to keep this up, you can take on two enemies at once no problem. I throw in Solar Barrage and purifying ritual to do damage/heal.
So... if I have 2 enemies or less, I use melee skill bar. 3 or more, I use ranged, as silver shard and fireball both hit 3 enemies, whereas melee only hits 1.
We'll see how it goes in VR territory, but the stun is key to facing 1-2 enemies and having an easy time of it.
With no disrespect, the gameplay is fine up to veteran rank enemies.
Fighting 6-7 mobs at lvl 45ish is perfectly doable.
At veteran rank, the enemies hit like freight trains and an unmititigated heavy attack or channeled spell will peal of 30-40% health when at ~2k health.
You must certainly be on your toes to keep the stuns up, the mitigation spells on, and still dish out enough dps that the enemies are down before your magicka/stamina is.
Forget weapon swapping, there is no chance I can leave my guard open long enough to swap when standing in front of enemies hitting me.
For the 2 seconds it takes to stop everything, swap and get back to blocking, I have taken more damage then what anything would benefit me on the other bar.
It is my belief that there is a scaling issue with veteran rank melee characters stats.
The mitigation provided by armor is miniscule from medium and heavy. Light is fine, it should be squishy, but squishies with staffs have more synergies to regenerate magicka, which in turn can be used for health returning spells and also reducing the cost for them.
Medium does have the stamina regeneration, but that cant be translated to health. It does have the melee dps synergies, but when I need to cc/roll/block everything to live, I dont push damage.
Heavy has the health regeneration, but that is so very little and with armor rating doing so very little and caps being so very low, meh.
The armor skills should also require at least a majority of its type to be used i.e. 4 pieces.
A stamina based character can not provide the survivability, even though it should be the opposite as melee playstiles have to be close to its foe punching them in the face dodging their attacks.
Since my original post Ive managed to find a working playstile.
I can quest well enough and ive grown to vr4. I still die to groups of three if I dont have a stun/cc/interrupt timed just right for a heavy/channeled attack,
I even die to two mobs if im surprised.
But I believe that might be the intended gameplay so I dont mind.
Then I see that guy riding up to the world boss I've been buffing and changing skills to match the fight for after 4-5 tries solo. He whips up his staff starting his thing and I just watch as he nuke the boss down with no problem what so ever. Then I sit there wondering what Im doing wrong.
I now believe that while stamina synergies need a buff, its actually the magicka that need a nerf, one that affects light armor and staff magicka upkeep.
I dont see that the devs intended for clothies to be the best survivalist while pushing the best damage.
That or the game mechanics guys need to tell us what the intended gameplay is.
I generally dont cry this much in forums, but I want to play this game so I want it to be fun.
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom
@ZOS_GinaBruno
Are sticks'n'dress supposed to be the only way to feel powerful?
Are stamina builds doing it wrong?
Please give your thoughts on this.