ZOS are you trying to remove magicka builds or did you make a mistake?

Reykice · August 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Reykice wrote: »

Right now stamina builds are doing 50k+ dps in trials with magicka at about 35k. The imbalance is so big i expected somebody to notice and redo things but i see no mention of this from you.

There is also the sustain issue, stamina has redguards, has 20% cost reduction on EVERY weapon while magicka has none of that so most magicka builds can`t sustain.

Is this intended? In most games people rage at a 10% difference in max dps, i get that you can`t make it perfectly equal but its beyond senseless right now. Stamina builds have more armor, more mobility, more sustain, more dps. What is the design logic behind this?

The CP tree also favors stamina as Thaumaturge increases dot damage and basically most of the max stamina dps build is made of dots. Rapid Strikes, Rearming Trap, Rending Slashes, Poison Injection, Dawnbreaker. All are buffed by the Vet Maelstrom Weapons too adding 3k Weapon Damage.

Magicka has none of that, their main spells, Funnel Health, Force Pulse, Crystal Frag, Whip get no bonus from Thaumaturge and no way to buff them via other means like Vet Maelstrom Weapons.

On top of that you made Rapid Strikes 0.6 seconds from 1.1 seconds channel its now the new super duper stamina filler. Why not change Force Pulse too or destro staff? Dual Wield has passives like "more damage under 20%, more weapon damage, 20% cost reduction and a pick between 10% crit, a very nice dot, 5% damage or armor penetration as a last passive".

Destro Staff has much weaker passives and Destro abilities with the exception of wall of elements(that was recently buffed) are also much weaker.

So i have to ask, was it a mistake that you will fix or are you slowly just keeping magicka for healing and you only want stamina to handle damage?

As a possible solution: revamp destro, make it good again, every magicka build uses it so it will bump everyone in damage. Either make Thaumaturge no longer affect every possible skill in some builds especially channels or just add a new Star that buffs "non dot" damage abilities so both will have 2 stars buffing the damage not like now where one has 1 star and the other 2.

Fix sustain somehow, add destro passive with 20% cost reduction for a start or just tweak the more costly spells.

If you agree please keep bumping this thread until we get some kind of answer!

I pull about 5K more on stam, but at a cost. I must be at much closer range, I am far squishier, and I give no utility to my group. The rotation is much tougher and way less forgiving. Stam should pull more DPS with these sacrifices.

This rationale is highly questionable.

"I'm squishier!" No you are not. Your medium armor provides you with more innate physical and spell resistance than my light armor. You have access to an excellent AoE heal that is not tied to a weapon. You have a resource to draw upon for defensive purposes. I get it, you're not a tank but neither am I so stop pretending that you are in greater danger of dying.

"I must be at much closer range!" That's zero problem in ESO. With a game with such easy access to gap closers, the whole range-melee distinction is almost meaningless except on castle walls in cyrdoiil. For all the insistence on being "disadvantaged" by having to be up close, these builds immediately, repeatedly, and upon command get up close (and stay there) with gap closer (which themselves are excellent abilities). The pure melee style of play is effective and pervasive, many players don't even bother slotting any range capabilities.

"I give no utility to my group!" Yes you do and more so than my magicka build. You have the option to slot a selfish heal (which you can always slot without compromising your builds) that actually heals me and the rest of the group. I'm not even going to bother slotting the terrible restoration staff. Raid needs rapids? Sorry, I won't be doing that. Circle of Protection? Nope, look to the stamina guy who does 5K more DPS than me. As as a magicka DK, what utility am I providing? 10% extra fire damage to the group who is using primarily physical damage? Overlapping major brutality from Igneous weapons? Chains? I'm sure magicka templsrs, NBs, and sorcs are just thrilled their DPS pulls are thousands less just so a DK can chain stuff.

How exactly is a stam rotation tougher? Because you have to be close? DK whips and templar jabs require the dame range and exposed to the same dangers. All rotations require correct time, proper animation cancelling, and a stationary target.

These are just selective justifications why X build should be superior to Y build.

@Joy_Division , I normally agree with pretty much everything you write, but I am going to disagree here for the most part.

Perhaps squishier is the wrong word, but they are certainly much more vulnerable. Almost any boss has basic AoE around them. On a Flurry build, you are standing right in it, and you must work to constantly avoid it. On a whip build. you generally are not. On a ForcePulse or Funnel build, you might as well be in another zip code. I do very little movement on a Magic DK. The range of whip is actually quite long. It might be only a meter longer than Rapid Strikes on the tool tip, but its longer in reality. If you stand at the edge of whip range and cast your whip, it hits the boss every time. If you do the with rapid strikes, any little movement will cause your last hit to miss, which completely nullifies the skill and is a huge DPS loss. While I am technically a melee build on a Magic DK, other than embers and trap, I can apply all of my skills from a comfortable distance and not worry about what the boss is doing. This is not the case on a stam build. You are one miss-step from death at all times.

If you would like to compare Harness Magic to Vigor (the basic defense of each resource pool), they are night and day. Yes vigor can be cast on a group, but other than dead healers on the poison phase of serpent, or perhaps during Ozaras pins, when is this needed. Also, in both those scenarios, I dont need the vigor as a magic character if I cast a shield. Stam DPS dont spend their time spamming Vigor, and that is their main Utility. Harness magic is bordeline broken if you ask me. Any magic player gets a huge damage shield that will save you from anything save a true one shot. Vigor does not do this. Magic is far more survivable than stamina in a Raid/group setting.

The only other utility they have is to run a support set to boost other stam DPS like Sunderflame (CP140), Alkosh (should be worn by off tank), or Night mothers (good set but DPS loss to the user), but this always come as a personal DPS loss.

Next you mention a gap closer. I am sorry, but nobody runs this in Raid. It's meaningless to the discussion. If you want to talk about true ranged DPS, Magic >>> Stam. Magic Sorcs and NBs can literally DPS from across the room and pull very good numbers. Try that on a bow and see what happens. You probably wont be invited back to the group...

As for magic utility, many classes are starting to run 5 Infallable Aether. That is some of the best utility in the game. 8% damage to everything you touch is insane, and you get free AoE that might be BIS. Sorcs give crit, templars give spell damage, stamina, and can rez you in an instant. Siphon blades can provide insane off heals passively while they DPS. Sorcs and NBs also have the benefit of not being in the thick of it, so they die way less.

As as a magicka DK, what utility am I providing? DKs might be the best of all. Chains and AoE Interrupt are virtually required in VMOL. There should probably be an achievement for clearing VMOL without a magic DK. Not sure if it has been done or not, we certainly havent even tried. Magic DKs are the king of utility in the current Meta.

As for the rotation, yes stamina is tougher. It's a light attack weave with a fair amount of bar swapping, and you never cast the same skill twice in a row. Rapid, skill, rapid, skill, rapid, skill, etc., all with light weaves in between. A magic DK or NB or whatever is much simpler. Weave a few buffs/Dots, Spam skill x 5 or 6. and repeat. I do twice as much bar swapping on a stam DK vs a magic DK. I do love playing stam, but I am pretty sure it is causing carpal tunnel.

Look, I agree that stam is really powerful right now, but I believe it comes at a price. As someone that primarily plays magic DK, sure, I would like a small buff. I took issue with this post because it is overstating the power gap between the two classes. Very few people are are actually posting 50k on real fights. And those that are, are the best in the world. It's not realistic to say, I can pull 35k on my NB/Sorc and then compare it to Alcast posting 50k on a stam DK. If you want to compare, you need to compare the best to the best. Is there a DPS gap, yep, but its not 15k, and it comes at a price.

All this magicka can do more real dps vs stamina would be valid if we did not have a lot of 50k stamina parses and none for magicka. So in real scenarios it has been proven stamina > magicka...

Also your "they are the best dps" is valid for stamina but its also valid for magicka. The fact that nobody including the best magicka players in the world are able to get close to stamina says it all.

There is a difference... they made stamina much better at everything now. I`m not saying nerf them, let them be this good, just make sure to buff magicka dps and sustain to those levels too. Or if you want their spells to cost this much, make them be better, make sustain be an issue but the reward is more damage.

No point to have stamina abilities cost 1200 stamina while magicka abilities cost 2200 magicka(Rapid Strikes VS Puncturing Sweep) then give magicka less sustain both in weapon trees, class passives and so on. Makes no sense to me.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2016

Reykice wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Reykice wrote: »

Right now stamina builds are doing 50k+ dps in trials with magicka at about 35k. The imbalance is so big i expected somebody to notice and redo things but i see no mention of this from you.

There is also the sustain issue, stamina has redguards, has 20% cost reduction on EVERY weapon while magicka has none of that so most magicka builds can`t sustain.

Is this intended? In most games people rage at a 10% difference in max dps, i get that you can`t make it perfectly equal but its beyond senseless right now. Stamina builds have more armor, more mobility, more sustain, more dps. What is the design logic behind this?

The CP tree also favors stamina as Thaumaturge increases dot damage and basically most of the max stamina dps build is made of dots. Rapid Strikes, Rearming Trap, Rending Slashes, Poison Injection, Dawnbreaker. All are buffed by the Vet Maelstrom Weapons too adding 3k Weapon Damage.

Magicka has none of that, their main spells, Funnel Health, Force Pulse, Crystal Frag, Whip get no bonus from Thaumaturge and no way to buff them via other means like Vet Maelstrom Weapons.

On top of that you made Rapid Strikes 0.6 seconds from 1.1 seconds channel its now the new super duper stamina filler. Why not change Force Pulse too or destro staff? Dual Wield has passives like "more damage under 20%, more weapon damage, 20% cost reduction and a pick between 10% crit, a very nice dot, 5% damage or armor penetration as a last passive".

Destro Staff has much weaker passives and Destro abilities with the exception of wall of elements(that was recently buffed) are also much weaker.

So i have to ask, was it a mistake that you will fix or are you slowly just keeping magicka for healing and you only want stamina to handle damage?

As a possible solution: revamp destro, make it good again, every magicka build uses it so it will bump everyone in damage. Either make Thaumaturge no longer affect every possible skill in some builds especially channels or just add a new Star that buffs "non dot" damage abilities so both will have 2 stars buffing the damage not like now where one has 1 star and the other 2.

Fix sustain somehow, add destro passive with 20% cost reduction for a start or just tweak the more costly spells.

If you agree please keep bumping this thread until we get some kind of answer!

I pull about 5K more on stam, but at a cost. I must be at much closer range, I am far squishier, and I give no utility to my group. The rotation is much tougher and way less forgiving. Stam should pull more DPS with these sacrifices.

This rationale is highly questionable.

"I'm squishier!" No you are not. Your medium armor provides you with more innate physical and spell resistance than my light armor. You have access to an excellent AoE heal that is not tied to a weapon. You have a resource to draw upon for defensive purposes. I get it, you're not a tank but neither am I so stop pretending that you are in greater danger of dying.

"I must be at much closer range!" That's zero problem in ESO. With a game with such easy access to gap closers, the whole range-melee distinction is almost meaningless except on castle walls in cyrdoiil. For all the insistence on being "disadvantaged" by having to be up close, these builds immediately, repeatedly, and upon command get up close (and stay there) with gap closer (which themselves are excellent abilities). The pure melee style of play is effective and pervasive, many players don't even bother slotting any range capabilities.

"I give no utility to my group!" Yes you do and more so than my magicka build. You have the option to slot a selfish heal (which you can always slot without compromising your builds) that actually heals me and the rest of the group. I'm not even going to bother slotting the terrible restoration staff. Raid needs rapids? Sorry, I won't be doing that. Circle of Protection? Nope, look to the stamina guy who does 5K more DPS than me. As as a magicka DK, what utility am I providing? 10% extra fire damage to the group who is using primarily physical damage? Overlapping major brutality from Igneous weapons? Chains? I'm sure magicka templsrs, NBs, and sorcs are just thrilled their DPS pulls are thousands less just so a DK can chain stuff.

How exactly is a stam rotation tougher? Because you have to be close? DK whips and templar jabs require the dame range and exposed to the same dangers. All rotations require correct time, proper animation cancelling, and a stationary target.

These are just selective justifications why X build should be superior to Y build.

@Joy_Division , I normally agree with pretty much everything you write, but I am going to disagree here for the most part.

Perhaps squishier is the wrong word, but they are certainly much more vulnerable. Almost any boss has basic AoE around them. On a Flurry build, you are standing right in it, and you must work to constantly avoid it. On a whip build. you generally are not. On a ForcePulse or Funnel build, you might as well be in another zip code. I do very little movement on a Magic DK. The range of whip is actually quite long. It might be only a meter longer than Rapid Strikes on the tool tip, but its longer in reality. If you stand at the edge of whip range and cast your whip, it hits the boss every time. If you do the with rapid strikes, any little movement will cause your last hit to miss, which completely nullifies the skill and is a huge DPS loss. While I am technically a melee build on a Magic DK, other than embers and trap, I can apply all of my skills from a comfortable distance and not worry about what the boss is doing. This is not the case on a stam build. You are one miss-step from death at all times.

If you would like to compare Harness Magic to Vigor (the basic defense of each resource pool), they are night and day. Yes vigor can be cast on a group, but other than dead healers on the poison phase of serpent, or perhaps during Ozaras pins, when is this needed. Also, in both those scenarios, I dont need the vigor as a magic character if I cast a shield. Stam DPS dont spend their time spamming Vigor, and that is their main Utility. Harness magic is bordeline broken if you ask me. Any magic player gets a huge damage shield that will save you from anything save a true one shot. Vigor does not do this. Magic is far more survivable than stamina in a Raid/group setting.

The only other utility they have is to run a support set to boost other stam DPS like Sunderflame (CP140), Alkosh (should be worn by off tank), or Night mothers (good set but DPS loss to the user), but this always come as a personal DPS loss.

Next you mention a gap closer. I am sorry, but nobody runs this in Raid. It's meaningless to the discussion. If you want to talk about true ranged DPS, Magic >>> Stam. Magic Sorcs and NBs can literally DPS from across the room and pull very good numbers. Try that on a bow and see what happens. You probably wont be invited back to the group...

As for magic utility, many classes are starting to run 5 Infallable Aether. That is some of the best utility in the game. 8% damage to everything you touch is insane, and you get free AoE that might be BIS. Sorcs give crit, templars give spell damage, stamina, and can rez you in an instant. Siphon blades can provide insane off heals passively while they DPS. Sorcs and NBs also have the benefit of not being in the thick of it, so they die way less.

As as a magicka DK, what utility am I providing? DKs might be the best of all. Chains and AoE Interrupt are virtually required in VMOL. There should probably be an achievement for clearing VMOL without a magic DK. Not sure if it has been done or not, we certainly havent even tried. Magic DKs are the king of utility in the current Meta.

As for the rotation, yes stamina is tougher. It's a light attack weave with a fair amount of bar swapping, and you never cast the same skill twice in a row. Rapid, skill, rapid, skill, rapid, skill, etc., all with light weaves in between. A magic DK or NB or whatever is much simpler. Weave a few buffs/Dots, Spam skill x 5 or 6. and repeat. I do twice as much bar swapping on a stam DK vs a magic DK. I do love playing stam, but I am pretty sure it is causing carpal tunnel.

Look, I agree that stam is really powerful right now, but I believe it comes at a price. As someone that primarily plays magic DK, sure, I would like a small buff. I took issue with this post because it is overstating the power gap between the two classes. Very few people are are actually posting 50k on real fights. And those that are, are the best in the world. It's not realistic to say, I can pull 35k on my NB/Sorc and then compare it to Alcast posting 50k on a stam DK. If you want to compare, you need to compare the best to the best. Is there a DPS gap, yep, but its not 15k, and it comes at a price.

All this magicka can do more real dps vs stamina would be valid if we did not have a lot of 50k stamina parses and none for magicka. So in real scenarios it has been proven stamina > magicka...

Also your "they are the best dps" is valid for stamina but its also valid for magicka. The fact that nobody including the best magicka players in the world are able to get close to stamina says it all.

There is a difference... they made stamina much better at everything now. I`m not saying nerf them, let them be this good, just make sure to buff magicka dps and sustain to those levels too. Or if you want their spells to cost this much, make them be better, make sustain be an issue but the reward is more damage.

No point to have stamina abilities cost 1200 stamina while magicka abilities cost 2200 magicka(Rapid Strikes VS Puncturing Sweep) then give magicka less sustain both in weapon trees, class passives and so on. Makes no sense to me.

Again, I disagree. The 50K parse we keep seeing is manti. It is one of the few pure single target fights left in the game, and represents a tiny fraction of real world encounters, especially in a trial setting. I agree 100% that there is a noticeable gap between magic and stam for this type of encounter at the high end of things, but I dont think it means that magic is broken. I also dont think its 15K as the OP suggested.

This is true for 2 reasons. First VMA Axe/daggers is about an 8-9k damage buff, where a VMA staff is more like 4-5k. if you dont have VMA weapons, the difference is negligible. Second, raids can be optimized so that 3 support players (yes it takes 3), can effectively remove a bosses armor so that one or two players can pull insane numbers. This cant be done with magic, they will always have some spell resist leftover. Perhaps you really want a nerf to Nightmothers. haha.

I will toot my own horn and say that I run with a pretty decent raid group. Two my knowledge, we are the only single faction guild clearing VMOL in NA, but please correct me if I am wrong. In any event, we dont suck and have some really good players. Nothing in VMOL is like manti. Everything has Adds. Total DPS is far more important than pure single target because everything must die. There is also a movement towards "gauntlets" in the new meta. There are two in VMOL, and one in each of the new dungeons. Magic excels in these scenarios, and they are every bit as important when pushing scores.

For our group personally, a magic Templar tends to be the best DPS on the first boss, the best I have seen on the second boss was a magic sorc, and stam DK gets the win on the last boss (least amount of adds). In the gauntlets and other AOE, it is a close race between Magic DK, Sorc, and Templar, with stamina very much in the middle. Sorry if I offended any of our stam DPS's, they know how good they are.

You are zeroing in on one or two fights and making statements that dont hold true across the board. Magic is better in certain scenarios. They are much better at range, and arguablly better and mixed single target. They also die far less because a shield is better than vigor.

If a manti parse is the most important thing for you, then role a stam DK and be done with it, but dont be surprised if you dont pull 50k. OP, ill give you 100k if you do. haha. If you want to talk about proper raid composition, than you need both types of DPS if you want to be successful. They have different strengths and weaknesses and understanding them is important.

Any Hodor or CHS players around? You guys ever clear VMOL with 8 Stamina DPS? Certainly not saying it cant or hasnt been done, but I would love to hear about it.

Minalan · August 2016

Fix destruction staff! I'm okay with being tied to one, but make it worth my while.

Force pulse and crushing shock cost way too much for the benefit, either raise the damage or cut the cost in half.

Destructive reach isn't nearly 'destructive' enough for the 4K magicka spent on it. That's insane. For that much it should hit like a runaway truck. Again, cut the cost in half for what it does (less than a full charged fire staff heavy attack)

With lower costs and better DPS on the staff skills you leave us with more options than spamming crushing shock.

I can say without a doubt that there is a big gap between Stam and magicka, and it's all in the COST of abilities. Dodge rolls get an 80% reduction for Stam abilities. Stam Abilities cost half of what comparable magicka ones do . VIGOR is better and more efficient than anything on a resto staff.

If magicka COSTS went down some, we could focus magicka builds on increasing damage instead of all 110% recovery. It would bridge the gap without making magicka overpowered. Don't Nerf Stam, cut magicka costs.

PS: in case anyone's missed what a Stam NB can do with a master bow, snipe, and poison injection. Magicka is no longer the 'high DPS ranged' class. Stam can murder you in two shots from range if you aren't careful. There's no longer any excuse not to buff magicka.

I expect all that ZOS will do with this information is dream up some crappy new ugly magicka set that's a huge grind to get. They'll balance that with about eight new and interesting stamina sets at the same time.

TL;DR. Eff you ZOS.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2016

timidobserver wrote: »

Runefang wrote: »

Do people really care about that difference in dps that much? Will be a magicka based dps really hamper my group playing?

The more DPS you have the less mechanics you have to deal with. The best example of this is the final boss of vMoL.

@timidobserver

You really think we could get to last boss in VMOL with 8 stam DPS? It would be tough...

GreenSoup2HoT · August 2016

You could Nerf the Maelstrom Daggers/Axe.

timidobserver · August 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

timidobserver wrote: »

Runefang wrote: »

Do people really care about that difference in dps that much? Will be a magicka based dps really hamper my group playing?

The more DPS you have the less mechanics you have to deal with. The best example of this is the final boss of vMoL.

@timidobserver

You really think we could get to last boss in VMOL with 8 stam DPS? It would be tough...

Yup. Would require some tweaking of strats, but yeh it would be a much faster fight.

Joy_Division · August 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Reykice wrote: »

Right now stamina builds are doing 50k+ dps in trials with magicka at about 35k. The imbalance is so big i expected somebody to notice and redo things but i see no mention of this from you.

There is also the sustain issue, stamina has redguards, has 20% cost reduction on EVERY weapon while magicka has none of that so most magicka builds can`t sustain.

Is this intended? In most games people rage at a 10% difference in max dps, i get that you can`t make it perfectly equal but its beyond senseless right now. Stamina builds have more armor, more mobility, more sustain, more dps. What is the design logic behind this?

The CP tree also favors stamina as Thaumaturge increases dot damage and basically most of the max stamina dps build is made of dots. Rapid Strikes, Rearming Trap, Rending Slashes, Poison Injection, Dawnbreaker. All are buffed by the Vet Maelstrom Weapons too adding 3k Weapon Damage.

Magicka has none of that, their main spells, Funnel Health, Force Pulse, Crystal Frag, Whip get no bonus from Thaumaturge and no way to buff them via other means like Vet Maelstrom Weapons.

On top of that you made Rapid Strikes 0.6 seconds from 1.1 seconds channel its now the new super duper stamina filler. Why not change Force Pulse too or destro staff? Dual Wield has passives like "more damage under 20%, more weapon damage, 20% cost reduction and a pick between 10% crit, a very nice dot, 5% damage or armor penetration as a last passive".

Destro Staff has much weaker passives and Destro abilities with the exception of wall of elements(that was recently buffed) are also much weaker.

So i have to ask, was it a mistake that you will fix or are you slowly just keeping magicka for healing and you only want stamina to handle damage?

As a possible solution: revamp destro, make it good again, every magicka build uses it so it will bump everyone in damage. Either make Thaumaturge no longer affect every possible skill in some builds especially channels or just add a new Star that buffs "non dot" damage abilities so both will have 2 stars buffing the damage not like now where one has 1 star and the other 2.

Fix sustain somehow, add destro passive with 20% cost reduction for a start or just tweak the more costly spells.

If you agree please keep bumping this thread until we get some kind of answer!

I pull about 5K more on stam, but at a cost. I must be at much closer range, I am far squishier, and I give no utility to my group. The rotation is much tougher and way less forgiving. Stam should pull more DPS with these sacrifices.

This rationale is highly questionable.

"I'm squishier!" No you are not. Your medium armor provides you with more innate physical and spell resistance than my light armor. You have access to an excellent AoE heal that is not tied to a weapon. You have a resource to draw upon for defensive purposes. I get it, you're not a tank but neither am I so stop pretending that you are in greater danger of dying.

"I must be at much closer range!" That's zero problem in ESO. With a game with such easy access to gap closers, the whole range-melee distinction is almost meaningless except on castle walls in cyrdoiil. For all the insistence on being "disadvantaged" by having to be up close, these builds immediately, repeatedly, and upon command get up close (and stay there) with gap closer (which themselves are excellent abilities). The pure melee style of play is effective and pervasive, many players don't even bother slotting any range capabilities.

"I give no utility to my group!" Yes you do and more so than my magicka build. You have the option to slot a selfish heal (which you can always slot without compromising your builds) that actually heals me and the rest of the group. I'm not even going to bother slotting the terrible restoration staff. Raid needs rapids? Sorry, I won't be doing that. Circle of Protection? Nope, look to the stamina guy who does 5K more DPS than me. As as a magicka DK, what utility am I providing? 10% extra fire damage to the group who is using primarily physical damage? Overlapping major brutality from Igneous weapons? Chains? I'm sure magicka templsrs, NBs, and sorcs are just thrilled their DPS pulls are thousands less just so a DK can chain stuff.

How exactly is a stam rotation tougher? Because you have to be close? DK whips and templar jabs require the dame range and exposed to the same dangers. All rotations require correct time, proper animation cancelling, and a stationary target.

These are just selective justifications why X build should be superior to Y build.

@Joy_Division , I normally agree with pretty much everything you write, but I am going to disagree here for the most part.

Perhaps squishier is the wrong word, but they are certainly much more vulnerable. Almost any boss has basic AoE around them. On a Flurry build, you are standing right in it, and you must work to constantly avoid it. On a whip build. you generally are not. On a ForcePulse or Funnel build, you might as well be in another zip code. I do very little movement on a Magic DK. The range of whip is actually quite long. It might be only a meter longer than Rapid Strikes on the tool tip, but its longer in reality. If you stand at the edge of whip range and cast your whip, it hits the boss every time. If you do the with rapid strikes, any little movement will cause your last hit to miss, which completely nullifies the skill and is a huge DPS loss. While I am technically a melee build on a Magic DK, other than embers and trap, I can apply all of my skills from a comfortable distance and not worry about what the boss is doing. This is not the case on a stam build. You are one miss-step from death at all times.

If you would like to compare Harness Magic to Vigor (the basic defense of each resource pool), they are night and day. Yes vigor can be cast on a group, but other than dead healers on the poison phase of serpent, or perhaps during Ozaras pins, when is this needed. Also, in both those scenarios, I dont need the vigor as a magic character if I cast a shield. Stam DPS dont spend their time spamming Vigor, and that is their main Utility. Harness magic is bordeline broken if you ask me. Any magic player gets a huge damage shield that will save you from anything save a true one shot. Vigor does not do this. Magic is far more survivable than stamina in a Raid/group setting.

The only other utility they have is to run a support set to boost other stam DPS like Sunderflame (CP140), Alkosh (should be worn by off tank), or Night mothers (good set but DPS loss to the user), but this always come as a personal DPS loss.

Next you mention a gap closer. I am sorry, but nobody runs this in Raid. It's meaningless to the discussion. If you want to talk about true ranged DPS, Magic >>> Stam. Magic Sorcs and NBs can literally DPS from across the room and pull very good numbers. Try that on a bow and see what happens. You probably wont be invited back to the group...

As for magic utility, many classes are starting to run 5 Infallable Aether. That is some of the best utility in the game. 8% damage to everything you touch is insane, and you get free AoE that might be BIS. Sorcs give crit, templars give spell damage, stamina, and can rez you in an instant. Siphon blades can provide insane off heals passively while they DPS. Sorcs and NBs also have the benefit of not being in the thick of it, so they die way less.

As as a magicka DK, what utility am I providing? DKs might be the best of all. Chains and AoE Interrupt are virtually required in VMOL. There should probably be an achievement for clearing VMOL without a magic DK. Not sure if it has been done or not, we certainly havent even tried. Magic DKs are the king of utility in the current Meta.

As for the rotation, yes stamina is tougher. It's a light attack weave with a fair amount of bar swapping, and you never cast the same skill twice in a row. Rapid, skill, rapid, skill, rapid, skill, etc., all with light weaves in between. A magic DK or NB or whatever is much simpler. Weave a few buffs/Dots, Spam skill x 5 or 6. and repeat. I do twice as much bar swapping on a stam DK vs a magic DK. I do love playing stam, but I am pretty sure it is causing carpal tunnel.

Look, I agree that stam is really powerful right now, but I believe it comes at a price. As someone that primarily plays magic DK, sure, I would like a small buff. I took issue with this post because it is overstating the power gap between the two classes. Very few people are are actually posting 50k on real fights. And those that are, are the best in the world. It's not realistic to say, I can pull 35k on my NB/Sorc and then compare it to Alcast posting 50k on a stam DK. If you want to compare, you need to compare the best to the best. Is there a DPS gap, yep, but its not 15k, and it comes at a price.

I'm not buying the"price"of dangerous melee in a game full of convenient and powerful gap closers. Rationale like yours is why cyrodiil is a joke right now. I stopped coming onto these forums because I am getting sick and tired of hearing stamina players whine, b*itch, and moan about RD because they feel they ought to have the ability to always interrupt the spell with a 100% melee build. Why are they running a 100% melee build? Because it's so F'ing powerful and does not have the "price" you claim it does. The proof is in the pudding is right there ... not you questionable justification that a stam build is "much more vulnerable" than a magicka DK for templar even though all close enough to kiss the boss's ass.

Harnes magicka was OP back in the day. Now the 6 second timer makes it a waste. I'm not exactly sure what "group utility" it was providing, but even when it was OP, I can assure you as a magicka DPS, I wasn't using it or even slotting it except on 3 fights - ash titan CoA, Lord Warden, ICP, Flame Atronach in WGT - and even during these fights it wasnt 100% unnecessary and I only did it out of habit from running with PUG groups.

As far as Chains - oops - because Eric Wrobel refused to give DK much of anything, including a reliable gap closer - I have to slot the "wrong" version of chains, so sorry Trials group raid, my main group utility that you were counting on and justifying my crap DPS I don't even have. Also, does this logic mean that my non magicka DKs can look forward to a justified 5k+ DPS increase next patch since they dont have chains and AoE interrupts?

And I'm sorry, not buying that pressing these button 1-2-1-3-1-4-1-5 is "harder" than 1-1-2-1-1-4-1-5. Every magic build I ever played (except arguably sorcerer) has to bar swap under 10 seconds because they have to slot mage light and there isn't enough room for DoTs - especially now since we have to use the stamina skill Trap Beast.

The hardest rotation right now (at least for me) is by far the sorcerer because of the moronic animation priority system that constantly gets this class locked into basic attack animations which sends magic DPS further down the toilet. I'd love to have the 'disadvantage' of having to be right next to the boss because under this stupid system, at least those skills actually fire.

I can tell you love playing a stam. People and posts that write "yeah we deserve to be more powerful because of X" have the sort of selective logic that comes from bias. Very few stam may be getting 50K, but I'm not even sniffing 40K. And this is PVE land. That sort of damage gap makes Cyrodiil an absolute joke because that BoSS Pve stuff does not matter one bit there.

Clarkieson · August 2016

Reykice wrote: »

Right now stamina builds are doing 50k+ dps in trials with magicka at about 35k. The imbalance is so big i expected somebody to notice and redo things but i see no mention of this from you.

There is also the sustain issue, stamina has redguards, has 20% cost reduction on EVERY weapon while magicka has none of that so most magicka builds can`t sustain.

Is this intended? In most games people rage at a 10% difference in max dps, i get that you can`t make it perfectly equal but its beyond senseless right now. Stamina builds have more armor, more mobility, more sustain, more dps. What is the design logic behind this?

The CP tree also favors stamina as Thaumaturge increases dot damage and basically most of the max stamina dps build is made of dots. Rapid Strikes, Rearming Trap, Rending Slashes, Poison Injection, Dawnbreaker. All are buffed by the Vet Maelstrom Weapons too adding 3k Weapon Damage.

Magicka has none of that, their main spells, Funnel Health, Force Pulse, Crystal Frag, Whip get no bonus from Thaumaturge and no way to buff them via other means like Vet Maelstrom Weapons.

On top of that you made Rapid Strikes 0.6 seconds from 1.1 seconds channel its now the new super duper stamina filler. Why not change Force Pulse too or destro staff? Dual Wield has passives like "more damage under 20%, more weapon damage, 20% cost reduction and a pick between 10% crit, a very nice dot, 5% damage or armor penetration as a last passive".

Destro Staff has much weaker passives and Destro abilities with the exception of wall of elements(that was recently buffed) are also much weaker.

So i have to ask, was it a mistake that you will fix or are you slowly just keeping magicka for healing and you only want stamina to handle damage?

As a possible solution: revamp destro, make it good again, every magicka build uses it so it will bump everyone in damage. Either make Thaumaturge no longer affect every possible skill in some builds especially channels or just add a new Star that buffs "non dot" damage abilities so both will have 2 stars buffing the damage not like now where one has 1 star and the other 2.

Fix sustain somehow, add destro passive with 20% cost reduction for a start or just tweak the more costly spells.

If you agree please keep bumping this thread until we get some kind of answer!

NERF sorcs

NERF magic regeneration

NERF shields

BUFF Stam DK’s and Stam nightblades

BUFF weapon damage

BUFF Stam armour builds

net result: just use a stam build or use a magic build and take a templar with you EVERYWHERE YOU GO to provide ele drain, worms raiment and mystic orbs.

but why take 2 people to a job that a stam build can do on its own?

DHale · August 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

DHale wrote: »

If you run a magic build in pvp or pve other than a healer you are crrrrraaaaazzzzzzyyyyyyyyy. Just saying!

Go through VMOL without some magic DPS and see what happens. Also, here is my "non-support" magic DK.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/138752410@N07/28220427641/

I was responsible for chaining ads and interrupting their channel, both come at a big DPS loss. Try chaining 4 adds or spamming deep breath on a stam DK and see what happens. Anybody that has done this fight knows how much movement and downtime there can be even if you sole job is to just DPS. Also, I am far from what most players would call elite. I have seen good magic sorcs pull 40K on this fight.

Stam DKs are great on pure single target stack and whacks, maybe too great, but that is not the DPS that matters in this game.

Endless hail and caltrops > elemental blockade and liquid lightning. Yes storing up a k on overload with elegant is effective and produces cosmic dps but that is one magic toon and one situation. This is using the bound aegis inner light with liguid Lightning elememental blockade force pulse power surge combo see below former sorc. Also to run a magic build effectively is difficult (not impossible) it's very easy to volley, throw caltrops, steel tornado, throw a rearming trap through a ton of content. Much less skill is required or effort needed. When I am on my Stam toons I move faster can heal myself can dodge roll or break free as much as I need too. It's just easier aaaannnddd most importantly funner.

DPG76 · August 2016

it's true that stamina was for a long time the underdog in ESO till recently .
Thing is and i hope they gonna add more crafted sets for magika users between 3 and 8 traits .
Another illogic thing that kills me is that i have to wear DW weps on magika to get significantly much more spell power than destro staff .. I just can't get it

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2016

Joy_Division wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Reykice wrote: »

Right now stamina builds are doing 50k+ dps in trials with magicka at about 35k. The imbalance is so big i expected somebody to notice and redo things but i see no mention of this from you.

There is also the sustain issue, stamina has redguards, has 20% cost reduction on EVERY weapon while magicka has none of that so most magicka builds can`t sustain.

Is this intended? In most games people rage at a 10% difference in max dps, i get that you can`t make it perfectly equal but its beyond senseless right now. Stamina builds have more armor, more mobility, more sustain, more dps. What is the design logic behind this?

The CP tree also favors stamina as Thaumaturge increases dot damage and basically most of the max stamina dps build is made of dots. Rapid Strikes, Rearming Trap, Rending Slashes, Poison Injection, Dawnbreaker. All are buffed by the Vet Maelstrom Weapons too adding 3k Weapon Damage.

Magicka has none of that, their main spells, Funnel Health, Force Pulse, Crystal Frag, Whip get no bonus from Thaumaturge and no way to buff them via other means like Vet Maelstrom Weapons.

On top of that you made Rapid Strikes 0.6 seconds from 1.1 seconds channel its now the new super duper stamina filler. Why not change Force Pulse too or destro staff? Dual Wield has passives like "more damage under 20%, more weapon damage, 20% cost reduction and a pick between 10% crit, a very nice dot, 5% damage or armor penetration as a last passive".

Destro Staff has much weaker passives and Destro abilities with the exception of wall of elements(that was recently buffed) are also much weaker.

So i have to ask, was it a mistake that you will fix or are you slowly just keeping magicka for healing and you only want stamina to handle damage?

As a possible solution: revamp destro, make it good again, every magicka build uses it so it will bump everyone in damage. Either make Thaumaturge no longer affect every possible skill in some builds especially channels or just add a new Star that buffs "non dot" damage abilities so both will have 2 stars buffing the damage not like now where one has 1 star and the other 2.

Fix sustain somehow, add destro passive with 20% cost reduction for a start or just tweak the more costly spells.

If you agree please keep bumping this thread until we get some kind of answer!

I pull about 5K more on stam, but at a cost. I must be at much closer range, I am far squishier, and I give no utility to my group. The rotation is much tougher and way less forgiving. Stam should pull more DPS with these sacrifices.

This rationale is highly questionable.

"I'm squishier!" No you are not. Your medium armor provides you with more innate physical and spell resistance than my light armor. You have access to an excellent AoE heal that is not tied to a weapon. You have a resource to draw upon for defensive purposes. I get it, you're not a tank but neither am I so stop pretending that you are in greater danger of dying.

"I must be at much closer range!" That's zero problem in ESO. With a game with such easy access to gap closers, the whole range-melee distinction is almost meaningless except on castle walls in cyrdoiil. For all the insistence on being "disadvantaged" by having to be up close, these builds immediately, repeatedly, and upon command get up close (and stay there) with gap closer (which themselves are excellent abilities). The pure melee style of play is effective and pervasive, many players don't even bother slotting any range capabilities.

"I give no utility to my group!" Yes you do and more so than my magicka build. You have the option to slot a selfish heal (which you can always slot without compromising your builds) that actually heals me and the rest of the group. I'm not even going to bother slotting the terrible restoration staff. Raid needs rapids? Sorry, I won't be doing that. Circle of Protection? Nope, look to the stamina guy who does 5K more DPS than me. As as a magicka DK, what utility am I providing? 10% extra fire damage to the group who is using primarily physical damage? Overlapping major brutality from Igneous weapons? Chains? I'm sure magicka templsrs, NBs, and sorcs are just thrilled their DPS pulls are thousands less just so a DK can chain stuff.

How exactly is a stam rotation tougher? Because you have to be close? DK whips and templar jabs require the dame range and exposed to the same dangers. All rotations require correct time, proper animation cancelling, and a stationary target.

These are just selective justifications why X build should be superior to Y build.

@Joy_Division , I normally agree with pretty much everything you write, but I am going to disagree here for the most part.

Perhaps squishier is the wrong word, but they are certainly much more vulnerable. Almost any boss has basic AoE around them. On a Flurry build, you are standing right in it, and you must work to constantly avoid it. On a whip build. you generally are not. On a ForcePulse or Funnel build, you might as well be in another zip code. I do very little movement on a Magic DK. The range of whip is actually quite long. It might be only a meter longer than Rapid Strikes on the tool tip, but its longer in reality. If you stand at the edge of whip range and cast your whip, it hits the boss every time. If you do the with rapid strikes, any little movement will cause your last hit to miss, which completely nullifies the skill and is a huge DPS loss. While I am technically a melee build on a Magic DK, other than embers and trap, I can apply all of my skills from a comfortable distance and not worry about what the boss is doing. This is not the case on a stam build. You are one miss-step from death at all times.

If you would like to compare Harness Magic to Vigor (the basic defense of each resource pool), they are night and day. Yes vigor can be cast on a group, but other than dead healers on the poison phase of serpent, or perhaps during Ozaras pins, when is this needed. Also, in both those scenarios, I dont need the vigor as a magic character if I cast a shield. Stam DPS dont spend their time spamming Vigor, and that is their main Utility. Harness magic is bordeline broken if you ask me. Any magic player gets a huge damage shield that will save you from anything save a true one shot. Vigor does not do this. Magic is far more survivable than stamina in a Raid/group setting.

The only other utility they have is to run a support set to boost other stam DPS like Sunderflame (CP140), Alkosh (should be worn by off tank), or Night mothers (good set but DPS loss to the user), but this always come as a personal DPS loss.

Next you mention a gap closer. I am sorry, but nobody runs this in Raid. It's meaningless to the discussion. If you want to talk about true ranged DPS, Magic >>> Stam. Magic Sorcs and NBs can literally DPS from across the room and pull very good numbers. Try that on a bow and see what happens. You probably wont be invited back to the group...

As for magic utility, many classes are starting to run 5 Infallable Aether. That is some of the best utility in the game. 8% damage to everything you touch is insane, and you get free AoE that might be BIS. Sorcs give crit, templars give spell damage, stamina, and can rez you in an instant. Siphon blades can provide insane off heals passively while they DPS. Sorcs and NBs also have the benefit of not being in the thick of it, so they die way less.

As as a magicka DK, what utility am I providing? DKs might be the best of all. Chains and AoE Interrupt are virtually required in VMOL. There should probably be an achievement for clearing VMOL without a magic DK. Not sure if it has been done or not, we certainly havent even tried. Magic DKs are the king of utility in the current Meta.

As for the rotation, yes stamina is tougher. It's a light attack weave with a fair amount of bar swapping, and you never cast the same skill twice in a row. Rapid, skill, rapid, skill, rapid, skill, etc., all with light weaves in between. A magic DK or NB or whatever is much simpler. Weave a few buffs/Dots, Spam skill x 5 or 6. and repeat. I do twice as much bar swapping on a stam DK vs a magic DK. I do love playing stam, but I am pretty sure it is causing carpal tunnel.

Look, I agree that stam is really powerful right now, but I believe it comes at a price. As someone that primarily plays magic DK, sure, I would like a small buff. I took issue with this post because it is overstating the power gap between the two classes. Very few people are are actually posting 50k on real fights. And those that are, are the best in the world. It's not realistic to say, I can pull 35k on my NB/Sorc and then compare it to Alcast posting 50k on a stam DK. If you want to compare, you need to compare the best to the best. Is there a DPS gap, yep, but its not 15k, and it comes at a price.

I'm not buying the"price"of dangerous melee in a game full of convenient and powerful gap closers. Rationale like yours is why cyrodiil is a joke right now. I stopped coming onto these forums because I am getting sick and tired of hearing stamina players whine, b*itch, and moan about RD because they feel they ought to have the ability to always interrupt the spell with a 100% melee build. Why are they running a 100% melee build? Because it's so F'ing powerful and does not have the "price" you claim it does. The proof is in the pudding is right there ... not you questionable justification that a stam build is "much more vulnerable" than a magicka DK for templar even though all close enough to kiss the boss's ass.

Harnes magicka was OP back in the day. Now the 6 second timer makes it a waste. I'm not exactly sure what "group utility" it was providing, but even when it was OP, I can assure you as a magicka DPS, I wasn't using it or even slotting it except on 3 fights - ash titan CoA, Lord Warden, ICP, Flame Atronach in WGT - and even during these fights it wasnt 100% unnecessary and I only did it out of habit from running with PUG groups.

As far as Chains - oops - because Eric Wrobel refused to give DK much of anything, including a reliable gap closer - I have to slot the "wrong" version of chains, so sorry Trials group raid, my main group utility that you were counting on and justifying my crap DPS I don't even have. Also, does this logic mean that my non magicka DKs can look forward to a justified 5k+ DPS increase next patch since they dont have chains and AoE interrupts?

And I'm sorry, not buying that pressing these button 1-2-1-3-1-4-1-5 is "harder" than 1-1-2-1-1-4-1-5. Every magic build I ever played (except arguably sorcerer) has to bar swap under 10 seconds because they have to slot mage light and there isn't enough room for DoTs - especially now since we have to use the stamina skill Trap Beast.

The hardest rotation right now (at least for me) is by far the sorcerer because of the moronic animation priority system that constantly gets this class locked into basic attack animations which sends magic DPS further down the toilet. I'd love to have the 'disadvantage' of having to be right next to the boss because under this stupid system, at least those skills actually fire.

I can tell you love playing a stam. People and posts that write "yeah we deserve to be more powerful because of X" have the sort of selective logic that comes from bias. Very few stam may be getting 50K, but I'm not even sniffing 40K. And this is PVE land. That sort of damage gap makes Cyrodiil an absolute joke because that BoSS Pve stuff does not matter one bit there.

@Joy_Division My main is a magic DK, and has been for a year and a half. I have been playing a stamina DK here and there for about a month. I am much more useful to my raid group on a magic toon, so that is what I play in Vet Trials. It very well might be that I move to stam at some point once we are more comfortable, because it is more DPS (not denying it), but I would need to give up some utility. Also, this was a post about 50k parses. The only place that happens is in a highly organized raid, so I am 100% limiting my analysis to that setting.

Gap closers are meaningless in a Raid. Also, from a PVE/Raid perspective, the Harness magic change was a HUGE buff. Every magic class now has a 6 second shield to deal with any Oh Crap moments that arise. Nobody needs a 20 second shield in PVE. Trying to keep a shield up in your DPS rotation is a terrible idea. You should only cast it in emergencies, and 6 seconds is plenty. It could be 2 seconds and it would still be powerful. The reality is that when I actually need a shield in a raid, it gets casts multiple times very quickly because something is causing a lot of damage. In those situations, Harness Magic>Vigor.

As for chains, I agree that I dont love the functionality of chains in cyro at the moment. There is a major Z axis problem. Healing also has a Z axis problem. I also agree that using the gap closer morph is not useful in PVE. But again, this discussion is based on the outrage of a 50K stam DPS. 50K is only possible in a perfect raid. If you are unwilling to morph your skills when you switch back and forth, then you arent in a perfect raid and nobody is pulling 50k in that scenario.

As for people not buying the rotation difference, I can only speak to my personal experience. To me, a rotation based around a spam skill is easier on the hands and generally much more forgiving. Also a light attack weave is generally tougher than a medium weave. Most magic DPS are running medium weaves, unless they are running kena.

Again, I am not denying that Stam is winning on pure single target. But as I keep stating, there are only two fights were that is relevant in the modern trial setttng. I am also suggesting that IN A RAID it is a tougher class to play so i dont have a problem with it pulling a little more.

Maybe I am wrong, but please, someone link a few 50k parses from someone other than Alcast. The only boss fight I have pulled 50k on was the first boss in nMOL, and I dont think that counts. For what its worth, my magic DK pulled 46k, so it's not that different. I bet there are less than a dozen people in the world that can do it on a veteran trial fight. Most of the really good stam DPS I see are pulling in the high 30's low 40's on pure single target, and most of the good magic I see are pulling mid to high 30's. Yes there is a gap on pure single target, but it aint 15k and again, in my personal experience, it comes at a price.

But alas, we can disagree and do our best to not be disagreeable. I certainly wont cry if magic gets a small buff. Truthfully my biggest issue with magic was the "bug" they fixed that made our sustain take a hit. Wouldnt mind if that was addressed...

lucky_Sage · August 2016

well I mostly pvp and 4 out of 5 people I fight are always stam now the one good thing is that there's less newbie nb bomber builds but when stam builds can get a lot more regen and weapon damage than magicka builds

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2016

lucky_Sage wrote: »

well I mostly pvp and 4 out of 5 people I fight are always stam now the one good thing is that there's less newbie nb bomber builds but when stam builds can get a lot more regen and weapon damage than magicka builds

4 out of 5 people are always "something" in cyro. A few months back, it was Vicious death NB bombers, then it was RD templars, now its I guess all stam builds. At least this FOTM has a few classes involved. Haha

AfkNinja · August 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

lucky_Sage wrote: »

well I mostly pvp and 4 out of 5 people I fight are always stam now the one good thing is that there's less newbie nb bomber builds but when stam builds can get a lot more regen and weapon damage than magicka builds

4 out of 5 people are always "something" in cyro. A few months back, it was Vicious death NB bombers, then it was RD templars, now its I guess all stam builds. At least this FOTM has a few classes involved. Haha

I thought 4 of 5 people in PVP were Templar Jesus beam noobs standing in the back of groups beaming at 100%?

Or was it 4/5 are NB gankers?

or 4/5 are VD bombers?

I am so confused.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2016

AfkNinja wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

lucky_Sage wrote: »

well I mostly pvp and 4 out of 5 people I fight are always stam now the one good thing is that there's less newbie nb bomber builds but when stam builds can get a lot more regen and weapon damage than magicka builds

4 out of 5 people are always "something" in cyro. A few months back, it was Vicious death NB bombers, then it was RD templars, now its I guess all stam builds. At least this FOTM has a few classes involved. Haha

I thought 4 of 5 people in PVP were Templar Jesus beam noobs standing in the back of groups beaming at 100%?

Or was it 4/5 are NB gankers?

or 4/5 are VD bombers?

I am so confused.

My point exactly. In PVP, everyone thinks the OP build is whatever class combo they arent playing. In PVE, we can be a little more objective because we have hard Data and Statistics. The problem with stats, is that it is easy to ignore the part that doesnt agree with your world view and focus on the limited info that supports it.

I really try to be objective on these forums. I will not pretend that the game is perfectly balanced, but I do believe that its better than it has ever been. I also dont subscribe to the notion that all class combos should be able to do everything evenly. I am fine with Templars being the best healers and DKs being the best tanks. I am fine with melee doing more DPS than range, and I am certainly okay with there being meaningful tradeoffs between pure glass cannon DPS and some utility.

Reykice · August 2016

Apparently nobody @ZOS has read this or they are busy handling the other bugs... or maybe they just hope people will lose interest and stop posting. However this is still an issue... stamina has so many advantages now, i know most focus on the DPS but that about sustain, why do spells cost oh so much more?!

Why is magicka without a redguard equivalent race? Why did they give stamina unlimited break free when magicka gets only a few, usually things like this are balanced sooo tight in other games.

Why are spells like bolt escape getting diminishing returns yet gap closers can be spammed all day long.

The list is so big... i really think they should look into that, maybe they won`t agree with all, maybe they will change very little, but at least look into it, do your job and balance it.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

Point: Stamina does indeed seem to have higher DPS than Magicka. My Archer can easily out-DPS my Mage, and both are pure Damage builds.

Counterpoint: Who cares. Long as they get the job done it shouldn't matter who can do more. But then again I am a casual gamer and not a metagamer... Sucks to be meta huh?

FireCowCommando · August 2016

Well, now with the race changes expect a massive imbalance every update from here on in!

Reykice · August 2016

FireCowCommando wrote: »

Well, now with the race changes expect a massive imbalance every update from here on in!

Lol well if its on purpose... why not. But it could just be a mistake they plan to fix and leave them equal... we will see i guess.

X3ina · August 2016

5 pages of negative. When the game was elder robes online it was less qq than nowadays. But good players adapted, if you don't believe me check Atropos, i remember that @Alcast was the only endgame stam dps in 1.5 when we were competing for the first place in Sanctum Ophidia with Hodor, at least for Eu server. It was 3 templars + 9 dks vs templar + dk + 2 sorcs and 8 nightblades lol, two main raidsgroups of Eu of that time with only 1 stamina player xD

And now after 1,8 years of magicka domination all this people came here on the forum to get the balance back ? Where were you when people were wiping raids in pvp ? Sorcs were spaming bats for 4 ultimate with special setup, simply unzergable/antizerg vampire dks, when templars could instantly oneshot people only with their blazing shield ?

Aether + Seducer dominance in pve, when healing springs gave you more magicka than u spend, when people were wiping bosses in AA/HRC with massive orbs only, dks using igneous shields to make an incredible amount of damage in trials, when a single nightblade could have a veil of blades uptime 100%. If you don't believe me check out youtube folks the earliest vids. There was NOT a place for a stam in any competetive endgame content. Check out that dk guy (i don't remember his nickname sorry) that was soloing vet dungeons on his pyromage dk while stamina players (esp. nightblades) were dying from flames of Maw in BC vet with a healer and a tank in their group. I remember that clearly, because i used to be one of that healers (mag sorc spaming healing springs).

Remember veteran areas when pulling two mobs at the same time was a big challenge and 3 mobs were guaranteed death (except for mdks).

I really don't want to be devil's advocate here, but i'll be, if people keep telling nonsence like this thread. It is not stamina's fault that it's overpowered. It is because of maelstrom weapons that overpower second skill in weapon skill line. When Zenimax will introduce next arena it will be more balanced (scatter shot/steel tornado/uppercut/defensive posture against force pulse and combat prayer).

Have you ever thought about arena number 4 or 5 ? Where people will just snipe and bash each other, or just spam impulse like in old days ?

Just a tip: my main since beta is a magicka sorcerer (that have seen almost same or maybe even more nerfs than any other class). And i play mostly magicka based characters (and only dds) and still defending stamina performance of this days.

BECAUSE: it will not last forever, it is FOTM action from Zos, to keep people busy, grinding new gear and leveling alts/changing race. Someday your mnightblades and mtemplars will shine again, can't say about msorcs because balancing them from pve perspective will overpower them in pvp perspective and vice versa. And mdks ... they are quite balanced atm (not counting pvp).

P.S.: for people who were asking for a dps post from a magicka dd with about or more than 50k in a more than 2 minutes fight, HRC hm is enough --->http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/noss-guide-to-magicka-templar-trial4-man-dps-thiefs-guild/ ?
It is not mine btw, and i didn't even use google to find it. It was in the first topic related to ESO that i opened today.

Reykice · August 2016

X3ina wrote: »

P.S.: for people who were asking for a dps post from a magicka dd with about or more than 50k in a more than 2 minutes fight, HRC hm is enough --->http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/noss-guide-to-magicka-templar-trial4-man-dps-thiefs-guild/ ?
It is not mine btw, and i didn't even use google to find it. It was in the first topic related to ESO that i opened today.

Great job linking a fight where he did 33k DPS on the boss + 17k on the adds... it totals to 50k but its a bit different to what i linked, a pure 50k dps on one target, no adds.

If you ever find magicka builds actually doing 50k in a single target fight you will make everyone here happy i think and prove it can be done and that its balanced.

As for why did nobody complain when magicka was OP... they did. A lot. But it was ZOS`s first ever MMO and they made staffs use stamina for damage and it was a mess, took them ages to sort it out.

Its only that now they are going the other way hard, you can see from the link you showed and from other parses, no magicka comes close to what a stamina can do. All that while stamina has unlimited break free, mobility, more mitigation, bla bla bla.

If they keep pushing like this nobody serious will consider magicka except for healing provided they don`t allow stamina to heal, the imbalance is already huge. So its time to work on it, doesn`t mean anyone asks them to make magicka better, i think most will settle for "do the same damage" and allow stamina their better mitigation.

In a game where damage is everything, having stamina get to 50k while magicka struggles with 35k AND the other issues is clearly a design error or just a way to make people stop using magicka builds for some reason. I`m leaning on it being an error.

So we need them to look and see the error, then fix it.

Minalan · August 2016

X3ina wrote: »

5 pages of negative. When the game was elder robes online it was less qq than nowadays. But good players adapted, if you don't believe me check Atropos, i remember that @Alcast was the only endgame stam dps in 1.5 when we were competing for the first place in Sanctum Ophidia with Hodor, at least for Eu server. It was 3 templars + 9 dks vs templar + dk + 2 sorcs and 8 nightblades lol, two main raidsgroups of Eu of that time with only 1 stamina player xD

And now after 1,8 years of magicka domination all this people came here on the forum to get the balance back ? Where were you when people were wiping raids in pvp ? Sorcs were spaming bats for 4 ultimate with special setup, simply unzergable/antizerg vampire dks, when templars could instantly oneshot people only with their blazing shield ?

Aether + Seducer dominance in pve, when healing springs gave you more magicka than u spend, when people were wiping bosses in AA/HRC with massive orbs only, dks using igneous shields to make an incredible amount of damage in trials, when a single nightblade could have a veil of blades uptime 100%. If you don't believe me check out youtube folks the earliest vids. There was NOT a place for a stam in any competetive endgame content. Check out that dk guy (i don't remember his nickname sorry) that was soloing vet dungeons on his pyromage dk while stamina players (esp. nightblades) were dying from flames of Maw in BC vet with a healer and a tank in their group. I remember that clearly, because i used to be one of that healers (mag sorc spaming healing springs).

Remember veteran areas when pulling two mobs at the same time was a big challenge and 3 mobs were guaranteed death (except for mdks).

I really don't want to be devil's advocate here, but i'll be, if people keep telling nonsence like this thread. It is not stamina's fault that it's overpowered. It is because of maelstrom weapons that overpower second skill in weapon skill line. When Zenimax will introduce next arena it will be more balanced (scatter shot/steel tornado/uppercut/defensive posture against force pulse and combat prayer).

Have you ever thought about arena number 4 or 5 ? Where people will just snipe and bash each other, or just spam impulse like in old days ?

Just a tip: my main since beta is a magicka sorcerer (that have seen almost same or maybe even more nerfs than any other class). And i play mostly magicka based characters (and only dds) and still defending stamina performance of this days.

BECAUSE: it will not last forever, it is FOTM action from Zos, to keep people busy, grinding new gear and leveling alts/changing race. Someday your mnightblades and mtemplars will shine again, can't say about msorcs because balancing them from pve perspective will overpower them in pvp perspective and vice versa. And mdks ... they are quite balanced atm (not counting pvp).

P.S.: for people who were asking for a dps post from a magicka dd with about or more than 50k in a more than 2 minutes fight, HRC hm is enough --->http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/noss-guide-to-magicka-templar-trial4-man-dps-thiefs-guild/ ?
It is not mine btw, and i didn't even use google to find it. It was in the first topic related to ESO that i opened today.

You can easily fix and balance sorc out without overpowering it in PVP.

* Give pets a longer cast time and a duration instead of a toggle.
* Do something about bound aegis, it's terrible. And a toggle. Make it work like magelight.
* Eight seconds on Hardened ward. If shuffle can last more than six seconds, so can shields.
* Increased damage on liquid lightning and elemental blockade. Nobody uses those in PVP because... Enemies can walk away from them.
* Cut the costs of some sorc and all destruction staff abilities. Start with the base values of similar damage Stam abilities (half).

PS: For heaven sake, do something about Magicka DK damage or mobility already.

Reykice · August 2016

Minalan wrote: »

X3ina wrote: »

5 pages of negative. When the game was elder robes online it was less qq than nowadays. But good players adapted, if you don't believe me check Atropos, i remember that @Alcast was the only endgame stam dps in 1.5 when we were competing for the first place in Sanctum Ophidia with Hodor, at least for Eu server. It was 3 templars + 9 dks vs templar + dk + 2 sorcs and 8 nightblades lol, two main raidsgroups of Eu of that time with only 1 stamina player xD

And now after 1,8 years of magicka domination all this people came here on the forum to get the balance back ? Where were you when people were wiping raids in pvp ? Sorcs were spaming bats for 4 ultimate with special setup, simply unzergable/antizerg vampire dks, when templars could instantly oneshot people only with their blazing shield ?

Aether + Seducer dominance in pve, when healing springs gave you more magicka than u spend, when people were wiping bosses in AA/HRC with massive orbs only, dks using igneous shields to make an incredible amount of damage in trials, when a single nightblade could have a veil of blades uptime 100%. If you don't believe me check out youtube folks the earliest vids. There was NOT a place for a stam in any competetive endgame content. Check out that dk guy (i don't remember his nickname sorry) that was soloing vet dungeons on his pyromage dk while stamina players (esp. nightblades) were dying from flames of Maw in BC vet with a healer and a tank in their group. I remember that clearly, because i used to be one of that healers (mag sorc spaming healing springs).

Remember veteran areas when pulling two mobs at the same time was a big challenge and 3 mobs were guaranteed death (except for mdks).

I really don't want to be devil's advocate here, but i'll be, if people keep telling nonsence like this thread. It is not stamina's fault that it's overpowered. It is because of maelstrom weapons that overpower second skill in weapon skill line. When Zenimax will introduce next arena it will be more balanced (scatter shot/steel tornado/uppercut/defensive posture against force pulse and combat prayer).

Have you ever thought about arena number 4 or 5 ? Where people will just snipe and bash each other, or just spam impulse like in old days ?

Just a tip: my main since beta is a magicka sorcerer (that have seen almost same or maybe even more nerfs than any other class). And i play mostly magicka based characters (and only dds) and still defending stamina performance of this days.

BECAUSE: it will not last forever, it is FOTM action from Zos, to keep people busy, grinding new gear and leveling alts/changing race. Someday your mnightblades and mtemplars will shine again, can't say about msorcs because balancing them from pve perspective will overpower them in pvp perspective and vice versa. And mdks ... they are quite balanced atm (not counting pvp).

P.S.: for people who were asking for a dps post from a magicka dd with about or more than 50k in a more than 2 minutes fight, HRC hm is enough --->http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/noss-guide-to-magicka-templar-trial4-man-dps-thiefs-guild/ ?
It is not mine btw, and i didn't even use google to find it. It was in the first topic related to ESO that i opened today.

You can easily fix and balance sorc out without overpowering it in PVP.

* Give pets a longer cast time and a duration instead of a toggle.
* Do something about bound aegis, it's terrible. And a toggle. Make it work like magelight.
* Eight seconds on Hardened ward. If shuffle can last more than six seconds, so can shields.
* Increased damage on liquid lightning and elemental blockade. Nobody uses those in PVP because... Enemies can walk away from them.
* Cut the costs of some sorc and all destruction staff abilities. Start with the base values of similar damage Stam abilities (half).

PS: For heaven sake, do something about Magicka DK damage or mobility already.

I completely agree tho its not about sorc alone... a destro staff buff would help everyone and its needed. Also the sustain thing, equal costs would be what it should have been since day 1, never to late to fix that bug.

The shields, both the light armor one and sorc one changed to 6 seconds is so annoying it makes using them so lame its like they wanted to make sure people hate that gameplay.

As for pets they need a buff in damage... the heal is good now from the matriatch, balance by the fact that the matriarch dies to some mechanics in some dungeons lol. But the damage pets do is meh.

Bound Armor should be made like inner light, as long as its on the bar it does what its supposed to and clicking it should be a skill of some kind... NB`s get 8% magicka as a passive, sorcs lose 2 slots for it on an already toggle heavy class.

Reykice · August 2016

Troneon wrote: »

I always hated stamina builds, I don't like how break free and dodging use the same resource as your skills....it's stupid.

Magicka do need more options and scale the same as weapon power, weapon power can get way higher numbers right now.

Would be cool if you could stack spell power as high as weapon power... and have a separate dodge/spring bar for everyone.

VerboseQuips · August 2016

The witches festival will add some Magicka-oriented recipes.

Creating Stamina-buffs at the same moment as Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood seems logical, so I guess we could get Magicka stuff when the Clockwork City comes out. Also, I think they said they were willing to introduce spellcrafting at some point. :-)

Writing this, I am wondering... could we see some day a third kind of Health-based 'kamikaze' build, sacrificing health in order to deal major damage, a bit like Iron Bull in Dragon Age: Inquisition?

Ender1310 · August 2016

Magicka has been on top since the game started. You are starting (key word starting) to feel what it has been like for a stamina character looking in. Also it is harder to survive boss encounters as a stam character then a magicka one. Period. I believe the skill designers are realizing this and thus the huge buffs. Magicka night blade stands back and heals and dpses for christ sake. A stam character has to be up in the aoe constantly dodge rolling. Ive played both. I am not very good but my opinion counts too. Stam characters are more squishy in that its harder to survive the closer you get. Thus more dps. Magicka has all the utility. Like all of it. Can off heal CC from a distance great shield etc.

Reykice · August 2016

Ender1310 wrote: »

Magicka has been on top since the game started. You are starting (key word starting) to feel what it has been like for a stamina character looking in. Also it is harder to survive boss encounters as a stam character then a magicka one. Period. I believe the skill designers are realizing this and thus the huge buffs. Magicka night blade stands back and heals and dpses for christ sake. A stam character has to be up in the aoe constantly dodge rolling. Ive played both. I am not very good but my opinion counts too. Stam characters are more squishy in that its harder to survive the closer you get. Thus more dps. Magicka has all the utility. Like all of it. Can off heal CC from a distance great shield etc.

Yea, but if it slots the utility it is not a dps build.

As for stamina, they have more armor. They can heal with bloodthirst for 3-4k while dps`ing if they want, bow has a heal too it heals for a lot and there is always vigor...

On top of the better mitigation stamina also has much better mobility, can roll dodge as much as they want and break free as much as they want. So yea, the boss does more aoe`s close, but unlike magicka builds that have to be careful not to waste roll dodges or break free as they can only do a few, stamina can just roll dodge out of them.

Besides, if it was oh so much harder and every stamina build got killed oh so fast they would not get the high dps would they? Melee skills like Flurry have an 8m range, you don`t need to hug the boss.

All in all, range is this game is not enough to justify giving melee 30%-40% more damage, unlimited rolls/cc breaking, more mobility, more mitigation, more sustain and unlimited gap closers. Most of that needs to go... its called balance.

NobleNerd · August 2016

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

When I read the words
"design" and "logic"
together in a sentence about ESO:

You dear sir/madam..... have made my day!

Carbonised · August 2016

And once again stamina builds are having a feast, this time over the Coat of Red Mountain set which is now being sold in zone chat for 300-400k a piece, and supposedly outperforms several of the already top tiered stamina sets for even more stamina pew pew on everything.

FFS Zenimax, why didn't you change this set into magicka instead of stamina? Didn't you think stamina already had a plethora of OP sets to choose from as it was? How long will we be stuck with Julianos as best in slot for magicka DPS builds?

What is the reasoning behind this heavy impalance in favour of stam sets? Your last DLC introduced even more stams sets, including monster sets. Nothing for magicka DPS, not a single effing thing.

Keep this going and I'm outta here, there's only so much being stepped on and squished on by the dev team that a player wants to put up with.

kadar · August 2016

Reykice wrote: »

Right now stamina builds are doing 50k+ dps in trials with magicka at about 35k. The imbalance is so big i expected somebody to notice and redo things but i see no mention of this from you.

There is also the sustain issue, stamina has redguards, has 20% cost reduction on EVERY weapon while magicka has none of that so most magicka builds can`t sustain.

Is this intended? In most games people rage at a 10% difference in max dps, i get that you can`t make it perfectly equal but its beyond senseless right now. Stamina builds have more armor, more mobility, more sustain, more dps. What is the design logic behind this?

The CP tree also favors stamina as Thaumaturge increases dot damage and basically most of the max stamina dps build is made of dots. Rapid Strikes, Rearming Trap, Rending Slashes, Poison Injection, Dawnbreaker. All are buffed by the Vet Maelstrom Weapons too adding 3k Weapon Damage.

Magicka has none of that, their main spells, Funnel Health, Force Pulse, Crystal Frag, Whip get no bonus from Thaumaturge and no way to buff them via other means like Vet Maelstrom Weapons.

On top of that you made Rapid Strikes 0.6 seconds from 1.1 seconds channel its now the new super duper stamina filler. Why not change Force Pulse too or destro staff? Dual Wield has passives like "more damage under 20%, more weapon damage, 20% cost reduction and a pick between 10% crit, a very nice dot, 5% damage or armor penetration as a last passive".

Destro Staff has much weaker passives and Destro abilities with the exception of wall of elements(that was recently buffed) are also much weaker.

So i have to ask, was it a mistake that you will fix or are you slowly just keeping magicka for healing and you only want stamina to handle damage?

As a possible solution: revamp destro, make it good again, every magicka build uses it so it will bump everyone in damage. Either make Thaumaturge no longer affect every possible skill in some builds especially channels or just add a new Star that buffs "non dot" damage abilities so both will have 2 stars buffing the damage not like now where one has 1 star and the other 2.

Fix sustain somehow, add destro passive with 20% cost reduction for a start or just tweak the more costly spells.

If you agree please keep bumping this thread until we get some kind of answer!

Replace every instance of "Stamina builds" with "1 meta build, requiring Maelstrom weaps and 2 or 3 support DPS" and you'll have a more accurate OP. To say that 50k is representative of Stamina builds is, like others have mentioned, entirely misleading.

The OP isn't about Stamina vs. Magicka balance as a whole, you're talking about 1 specific DoT build wearing 1 specific set, in a group wearing other specific sets. Perhaps that "1 build" (and it is only one that can pull those numbers), can be toned down a bit by tweaking Maelstrom weapons or CP. Overall, balance between Stamina builds and Magicka builds is better than it ever has been, imo.