Suggestion: Magicka & Stamina Block and Dodge Resource

michael_bimson · September 2014

Just an idea I'm putting out there - I've not seen anything along these lines before: One of the main Stamina/Magicka Balance issues is that blocking and dodging comes out of the Stamina resource creating multiple drains on this resource for Stamina based builds.

What do people think of either; giving the choice of or assigning "dodge" and "parry" to the Stamina resource and "blink" and "block" to the Magicka resource? Each player using one or the other and can only be changed outside of combat, like skills.

"Dodge" and "Parry" would work as they do, drawing on Stamina. Possibly assigned to DK and NB as primary stamina builds. "Blink" and "Block" would be a short range, identical distance to dodge, teleport and a Magicka shield, both drawing on Magicka. These could be assigned to Sorc and Templar as the primary magicka classes. They would work in exactly the same way, but draw on different resources.

However you could just make this a choice per player as choosing Stamina as the resource for a Stamina based build would give you more resource to draw on, but with the drawback of sharing resources, whereas choosing Magicka as the resource would give less resource, but fewer sharing abilities.

I hope I have expressed my idea clearly and would be interested in your thoughts.

Circuitous · September 2014

I like the idea for flavor reasons, but the implementation is iffy.

How does one decide which to use? Slotting them like skills in special slots? Buying passives? Based on the equipped weapon? Armor? Class?

If it's not determined by weapon or armor, what's to stop someone from using whatever resource they use the least of to maximize utility? How does this improve the balance of stamina/magicka builds? How does this help "pure warrior" types who don't want to rely on magicka at all?

Don't take my questions at criticisms. Let's use them as starting points to refine and polish this idea.

michael_bimson · September 2014

Thanks for your consideration, Circuitous. You have asked pertinent questions that go a bit beyond my knowledge base and is forcing me to rely on logical assumption (making it up as I go along

) however, I think:

"How does one decide which to use?"

I think slotting them like skills would be the way forward. ZOS must have a mechanism for introducing new skill lines as this is planned for the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood. Perhaps this could be co-opted? A new slot may be an issue, but it doesn't need display in the HUD, just in the skill page.

"How does this improve the balance of stamina/magicka builds?"

I only see it as a part of the balance debate, there are other issues which I've not touched on, but currently Stamina builds are complaining that they have a disadvantage because dodge and block drains their damage resource, whereas Magicka builds' damage resource is separate. This would even that imbalance as Stamina builds could chose to separate their dodge and block resource in the same way.

Importantly it would also then be player choice as to whether or not they did this, returning to ZOS core "play how you want to play" theme and moving responsibility back to the player base. Players would need to consider if they wanted a big shared resource pool for blocking and damage or a big damage pool and a small dodge pool (although given the complaints, separating the resources seems to be best).

Of course they could just increase max Stamina for the Stamina using classes to provide a bigger resource pool anyway, but that's a different story!

NakedSnake · September 2014

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/1238745/#Comment_1238745