Focus makes you more powerful. Splitting between two resources makes you less powerful at more things. Simply put.

A pure stamina or pure magicka build will do more damage and be more efficient than a hybrid build. The only advantage a hybrid build has is access to a greater variety of abilities, but in a system with limited ability slots in combat that strength cannot be utilized.

While leveling I would suggest trying and leveling as many skills as you can. Once you hit vet then you can refine your build, the viability of various builds largely depends on what you're hoping to accomplish as well. For the major end game stuff such as dungeons, trial, vet DSA and PvP you may not have much luck with a balanced build, but if you just enjoy questing around and dabbling in the end game content you can probably make just about any build work.

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Focus makes you more powerful. Splitting between two resources makes you less powerful at more things. Simply put.

A pure stamina or pure magicka build will do more damage and be more efficient than a hybrid build. The only advantage a hybrid build has is access to a greater variety of abilities, but in a system with limited ability slots in combat that strength cannot be utilized.

Are you saying that you only put points in one attribute and all your gear only has benefits to that one attribute?

I wasn't really asking about the difference between hybrid and focussed builds. I was under the impression people put all their att points in one stat and built up the others with gear. That's not the case?

If I have a pure stamina build, what use are the class abilities? Are they even on the bar?

Why would someone with a pure magicka build choose any weapon other than staff?

ericoahu wrote: »

If I have a pure stamina build, what use are the class abilities? Are they even on the bar?

A, some class abilities morph to a stamina version.

B, you gain in all three attributes as you level anyways, and magicka isn't used for anything else. May as well at least slot a utility spell.

ericoahu wrote: »

Why would someone with a pure magicka build choose any weapon other than staff?

They probably wouldn't.

ericoahu wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

A hybrid build can be very good for a tank, but if you're going to be a DPS you're going to want to choose either stamina or magicka and go heavy on one of them, and if you're going to be a healer you're going to want to go heavy on magicka.

Of course, during solo PVE a hybrid build is fine, so don't worry about it when you're leveling. Just be aware that when you start doing vet group dungeons (or start PVPing I think: I don't have much PVP experie7nce) you're probably going to want to respec and focus on either magicka or stamina rather than go hybrid.

I get all that. When I hit end game I'll respec everything and build whatever the fotm cookie cutter spec is at the time.

Right now I'm curious about game design and what the developers had in mind. I don't get why every class in the game has abilities that are magicka-based while some weapons are magicka and others stamina. What is the difference between a pure stamina nightblade and a pure stamina dragonknight? Why would either have any of their magicka based class abilities on their bar?

As mentioned above, a stamina nightblade will have shades, fear, reapers mark, or disguise. A stamina dragon knight will have things like chains, burning talons, reflective scales, or petrify.

Just because you focus on stamina doesn't make magicka abilities worthless, it just means they end up getting used for effects rather than for raw damage.

I go max health in PVE. Because I'm a DragonKnight and I don't know how to not be too lazy to read the various descriptions of spells.

ericoahu wrote: »

Right now I'm curious about game design and what the developers had in mind. I don't get why every class in the game has abilities that are magicka-based while some weapons are magicka and others stamina. What is the difference between a pure stamina nightblade and a pure stamina dragonknight? Why would either have any of their magicka based class abilities on their bar?

It depends. They might or they might not have class magicka-based abilities on their bars. Some class skills start out as a magicka skill, but have a morph available once you've leveled that skill that can turn it into a stamina skill. You might use some of those. Some class magicka abilities are just too useful to not have on your bars. Some may give you passive effects just for having them on your bar even if you never use them. Also, sometimes it's handy to have a couple of skills that use a different resource pool, so that if you run out of stamina in a long fight you've still got stuff you can weave in between your heavy attacks.

Going with an example of a stamina-build melee nightblade, here's a couple of class skills that would still be super useful to have on your bar:

• Shadowy Disguise: morph of Dark Cloak - makes you turn invisible and guarantee your next attack will crit (which is super useful for a melee weapon stamina build), and if you've maxed out your passives in the skill line just having it on your bar gives you +3% health, and when you activate it your stamina regeneration increases, and you massively increase your spell resistance and armour for a couple of seconds.
• Surprise Attack: morph of Veiled Strike - this is the stamina morph, so the damage scales off weapon damage & max stamina, use it in combination with Shadowy Disguise to set your enemy off balance for 2 seconds and reduce their armour for 12 seconds, and it gives the same passive benefits as Shadowy Disguise because it's in the same skill line.

So that's just a quick example of 2 class skills that a stamina-build melee nightblade would find incredibly useful.

SirAndy wrote: »

When i first started my main characters the mantra of the day was still to put all points into health and buff either magicka or stamina with enchants and gear.
While this isn't technically true anymore, i still run all 4 of those chars regularly and they're very much playable and competitive.

A min/max'er would probably have a seizure because i'm leaving a bit of DPS the table but on the flipside, i got a huge health pool keeping me alive.

Alot of this depends on your racial choice. For example, you might not put too many points into health or stamina as an imperial due to the huge passive bumps. On the other hand, you might if you are an Argonian.

The primary advantage to putting as many points as possible into health, or otherwise balancing your stat points, while gaining magicka and/or stamina from gear, is that you can easily switch between magicka and stamina builds. If you like to switch back and forth, there are addons that let you completely switch (abilities/ultimates/gear) at the press of a button, and it takes about 2 seconds to complete.

ericoahu wrote: »

Most of the guides I have seen so far all seem to recommend all attribute points alloted to one area: magicka, health, or stamina.

Is this still the case? Why wouldn't a build with a more balanced allocation work?

More importantly, while leveling 1-40, before end-game, is it ever advisable to spread the attribute points? Maybe it is because I have become to use to the way other MMOs work, but it seems so counterintuitive that for a class that uses a weapon, there must be a choice between effectiveness with the weapon skills and effectiveness with the class skills. (Again, I'm not so much talking about end-game right now, but leveling)

Most of the guides you are referring to pre-1.6 are directed to putting all points into health. Most of the guides post-1.6, which are mostly PvP builds, say to pump your primary stat. This is because resource regen is not a big issue post-1.6 and active damage avoidance (shielding/dodge rolling/etc.) is far superior to taking damage via your health pool. With high regen, you can shield or dodge roll until the cows come home.