Discussion about Stamina & Magika balance

Master_Kas · November 2016

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

The issue between magic builds and stamina builds is not about buffing one or the other. The issue lies WITH STAMINA and how it is used in the game system overall.

Right now, Stamina is used to:
[*] Dodge roll
[*] Break Free
[*] Sprint
[*] Stamina Skills
[*] Block

With the 2 Bolded being the problem.

As we all know, this game is completely designed around CC to kill....its what it is...Outside of a group setting(anything works in a zerg) Magic Builds are at a disadvantage because they can't break CC as often as Stam builds can.

Prior to the Shield Nerf, Mag Sorcs were able to mask this clear cut design flaw by stacking shields which made up for them not being able to CC break 15 or 16 times like Stamina Builds can(Thanks Unchained) while still dealing damage.Magic Templars are only on par with Stamina right now because their Synergy with Heavy Armor and Healing Class skill lines allow them to use healing(Much like Mag Sorcs used Shields) to mask the game design flaw of Mag builds being unable to CC break on cooldown perpetually like stamina can.

Do you know all Stamina based Class abilities are 20% cheaper then their magic counterparts and also do more damage?

Do you know every Stamina based Weapon in the game has a 20% cost reduction passive? where is any magic weapon cost reduction?

Right now Stamina Builds get all of the benefits of hybrid builds(high damage, sustain, and survivability) without any of the penalties or drawbacks.

If your a Stamina Nightblade, you can stack EVERYTHING into Stamina and still use the following skills without penalty or loss of effectiveness:
Cloak

Shadow Image

Double Take

Fear

If your a Stamina Dragonknight, you can stack EVERYTHING into Stamina and still use the following skills without penalty or loss of effectiveness:
Volatile Armor

Igneous Shield

Reflective Scales

Fossilize

If your a Stamina Templar, you can stack EVERYTHING into Stamina and still use the following skills without penalty or loss of effectiveness:
Sun Shield

Restoring Aura

Rune Focus

Cleansing ritual

If your a Stamina Sorc you can stack EVERYTHING into Stamina and still use the following skills without penalty or loss of effectiveness:
Bolt Escape

Dark Deal

Surge

Encase

Rune Prison

Furthermore, Running out of Magicka is NEVER a cause of concern or death to a Stamina build...as long as they have stamina they don't die.

If a Magicka user runs out of either resource they are dead.....

Furthermore, a Magic user even casts Retreating Manauvers once his whole stam bar is mostly gone leaving him vulnerable to being CC and killed....a Stam user can spam magicka till the cows come home it will rarely get them killed.

Simply put, the 1st step towards balancing Magicka and Stamina is removing Dodge Roll and Break Free being dependent on Stamina. There needs to be a 4th resource that determines how much you can dodge or break free, and its value needs to be based on your Max health...the more Max Health you have, the more times you can dodge and break free. Health still remains its own independent pool and of course it doesn't cost you health to dodge,

it will just be another resource bar like your Horse endurance bar, the difference is the value of that endurance bar will be based on how much your max health is, and the only way to increase it is too increase your max health forcing both magicka and stamina builds to sacrifice damage(and shields) in return for the ability to dodge, block, or break free more...This is the 1st step to balancing these things.

Lasty, the Unchained passive just needs to be changed...its grossly OP...

RNG dodge chance(like Shuffle) needs to be reworked....i would suggest changing Shuffe to a Stamina Based Damage Shield skill

1 Morph increases Value and Duration
2nd Morph absorbs damage converting it to stamina(A stamina Version of Harness Magicka)

RNG dodge chance is just as bad as RNG damage procs for a healthy pvp environment.

Valencer · November 2016

Kutsuu wrote: »

AzuraKin wrote: »

i think you are in the classic lets look at each class individually rather then lets look at how the classes work together. just cause class 1 is weaker in a duel over class b doesnt make class 1 underperforming to class b. there more to performance then just numbers one can pull.

If we're going to get into how they work together in groups - let's say you're building the optimal setup for group pvp. When it comes to your DPS, why would you want a stamina proc set user that can only kill 1 person at a time when you can have an EOTS bomber who can wipe whole groups at a time and still has single target burst from range so they can stay in the stack? Magicka builds also make the best healers, so you don't need stamina builds for that role either.

Stamina's strengths start to fade when you get past small scale engagements - but then we consider that so many of the Magicka builds are extremely strong in 1v1 encounters. Nobody wants to duel a mDK or a magsorc who knows what they're doing on a meta stam build because they are going to get their faces melted. A good magblade is going to walk away from any 1v1 that they want to, and a good magplar isn't going to die in a 1v1.

So in what cases, really, is stamina overpowered? I'm asking this as an honest question because I'm just not seeing it. My point here really has nothing to do with OP's post. It's that Magicka builds make more impact on group pvp than stamina builds, but yet we're about to balance them in the upward direction while simultaneously nerfing stamina in the next update. To be clear I'm not saying Magicka needs a nerf, I am simply saying that the big picture doesn't favor stamina

In regard to OP's post, you're wrong about stamina builds all being on the same level. While class skills don't always make up the spammable damage abilities on the main bar, class skills do greatly impact the outcome of a stamina build. There are big differences between the performance of stamina builds in the various segments of pvp - Example: You'll find it harder to Xv1 out in the open on a NB than you will on the other classes, but NB makes the optimal ganker.

Thank you. You basically said all that really needs to be said.

Any guild leader that has any clue about what he's doing will take the following into his raids at the moment:
- 1 stamina boy for rapids spam (maybe 1 extra as backup)
- Templar healers
- A few sorcerers for negate/streak/encase
- Everyone else magicka NBs on bomb spec

There is literally no alternative to this at the moment. Group PvP comes down to melting the other side with destro ultis before they do the same. You bring as many destro ultis with your group (and magicka NBs have by far the best overall synergy with destro ulti, so it's a no-brainer) to make sure you always have enough storms ready to melt the other side before they melt you.

What does this mean for group PvP? Stamina builds are completely obsolete for any kind of AoE damage. They simply can't keep up with Eye of the Storm, no matter how you build them. So you only take 1 or 2 with you and only for mobility through Retreating Maneuvers spam.

I get it, heavy armour proc set stamina build are broken and ruin PvP. I feel that every time I try to have fun on my proc-less medium armour stamina DK in any kind of small scale setting. But it's so blatantly obvious many people crying for stamina nerfs (instead of heavy armour and proc sets specifically) just have no clue about organised PvP at all and don't see the big picture here.

On the magicka side specifically, magicka NBs simply outclass most other magicka specs in terms of synergy with the destro ulti - sap essence, bonus damage passives, a reliable magicka gap closer to stay on top of the enemy etc. Forget about bringing a magicka DK or templar into the group for dealing damage - it just cant compete with the package a magicka NB offers. ESO PvP is further away from "Play the way you want" than it's ever been before.

Lokey0024 · November 2016

Do any of you know what the vigor train is? Immovability pots, vigor, shuffle and go in and nuke. Vigor effects an area, not just the caster. If the stam builds go in and keep each other vigored and rally/crit surge ticking and maintained its almost as good as a templar, just less range.

Alot of you people watch the game being played but really dont understand it seems.

Stamden · November 2016

Valencer wrote: »

Kutsuu wrote: »

AzuraKin wrote: »

i think you are in the classic lets look at each class individually rather then lets look at how the classes work together. just cause class 1 is weaker in a duel over class b doesnt make class 1 underperforming to class b. there more to performance then just numbers one can pull.

If we're going to get into how they work together in groups - let's say you're building the optimal setup for group pvp. When it comes to your DPS, why would you want a stamina proc set user that can only kill 1 person at a time when you can have an EOTS bomber who can wipe whole groups at a time and still has single target burst from range so they can stay in the stack? Magicka builds also make the best healers, so you don't need stamina builds for that role either.

Stamina's strengths start to fade when you get past small scale engagements - but then we consider that so many of the Magicka builds are extremely strong in 1v1 encounters. Nobody wants to duel a mDK or a magsorc who knows what they're doing on a meta stam build because they are going to get their faces melted. A good magblade is going to walk away from any 1v1 that they want to, and a good magplar isn't going to die in a 1v1.

So in what cases, really, is stamina overpowered? I'm asking this as an honest question because I'm just not seeing it. My point here really has nothing to do with OP's post. It's that Magicka builds make more impact on group pvp than stamina builds, but yet we're about to balance them in the upward direction while simultaneously nerfing stamina in the next update. To be clear I'm not saying Magicka needs a nerf, I am simply saying that the big picture doesn't favor stamina

In regard to OP's post, you're wrong about stamina builds all being on the same level. While class skills don't always make up the spammable damage abilities on the main bar, class skills do greatly impact the outcome of a stamina build. There are big differences between the performance of stamina builds in the various segments of pvp - Example: You'll find it harder to Xv1 out in the open on a NB than you will on the other classes, but NB makes the optimal ganker.

Thank you. You basically said all that really needs to be said.

Any guild leader that has any clue about what he's doing will take the following into his raids at the moment:
- 1 stamina boy for rapids spam (maybe 1 extra as backup)
- Templar healers
- A few sorcerers for negate/streak/encase
- Everyone else magicka NBs on bomb spec

There is literally no alternative to this at the moment. Group PvP comes down to melting the other side with destro ultis before they do the same. You bring as many destro ultis with your group (and magicka NBs have by far the best overall synergy with destro ulti, so it's a no-brainer) to make sure you always have enough storms ready to melt the other side before they melt you.

What does this mean for group PvP? Stamina builds are completely obsolete for any kind of AoE damage. They simply can't keep up with Eye of the Storm, no matter how you build them. So you only take 1 or 2 with you and only for mobility through Retreating Maneuvers spam.

I get it, heavy armour proc set stamina build are broken and ruin PvP. I feel that every time I try to have fun on my proc-less medium armour stamina DK in any kind of small scale setting. But it's so blatantly obvious many people crying for stamina nerfs (instead of heavy armour and proc sets specifically) just have no clue about organised PvP at all and don't see the big picture here.

On the magicka side specifically, magicka NBs simply outclass most other magicka specs in terms of synergy with the destro ulti - sap essence, bonus damage passives, a reliable magicka gap closer to stay on top of the enemy etc. Forget about bringing a magicka DK or templar into the group for dealing damage - it just cant compete with the package a magicka NB offers. ESO PvP is further away from "Play the way you want" than it's ever been before.

Yeah I think you guys are really hitting the nail on the head here. People see stamina doing well in dueling, small skirmishes, and some 1vX scenarios. Since this is the environment a casual PvP player is exposed to, this is the impression they get.

The actual important fighting in Cyrodiil (group v. group) is most effectively done with magika builds. Combine this with the fact that magika outclasses stamina in all PvE content, and it is really easy to see why Zenimax is hesitant to "buff magika".

I'm glad there are people in this thread to break the common *** that I see on these forums.

FearlessOne_2014 · November 2016

PvP balance in a PvE MMO, will never happen. Most PvE MMO dev teams and upper management teams. Don't really care much about the PvP scene in their games. PvP normally isn't what brings in the big $$$ in MMOs. Only big money in PvP is in MOBAs and games like CSGO and Overwatch. MMOs are by very nature highly unbalanced. Hence grind and time played in MMOs is better then skill and outplaying your enemy in competitive games as described above.

MMOs make most of their money off of players spending more time in game to be tempted to buy from the cash shops. MOBAs and other competitive PvP eSports-like games make their money off of pure competition and PvP, and balance only for such. While on the other hand MMOs 9 times out of 10 will balance towards PvE and give little to no care to what happens to the side PvP project in there games.

Take this for example. If nMA was to all of a suddenly start dropping mealstrom weapons. How long you think till ZOS would shut the whole game down for a time period to fix that bug? Now this example. If people was able to start pressing one button to instantly kill someone in PvP. How long do you think it would take ZOS to fix that issue?