Stamina Warden - Dueling

Fiveboro · February 2019

Does anyone here consider themselves a top level dueler on Stamden and would you share a build/rotation for duels? My opinion so far is that the Stamden just is not great for dueling against top tier players. It's by far the best open world toon I've ever had and the tankiness is more than effective in duels I just can't seem to keep enough pressure in duels and lining up the stamdens burst is difficult to impossible against good players. Any help or thoughts would be appreciated. Maybe just shouldn't duel on a stamden?

mursie · February 2019

Check @TheRealSniker post today on the 1v1 tournament they just had over the weekend.

the runner up was a stamden and there are vids of the fights.

Fiveboro · February 2019

mursie wrote: »

Check @TheRealSniker post today on the 1v1 tournament they just had over the weekend.

the runner up was a stamden and there are vids of the fights.

Thanks Mursie, I checked out that thread and went through the 5 hour long twitch stream and I could be missing something but I never saw a Stamden fighting? Lots of stamplars and stam dks tho...

Syhae · February 2019

Stamden is mediocre at duels. It has things that it excels at and falls short to other specs in other regards.

Stamden excels at staying alive in duels, excellent class healing, sustain, tankiness in general via S&B passives, minor protection from ice armor and major mending after healing yourself with a Green Balance heal below 40% health.
It can turtle a fight very well and play for the long game.

It has phenomenal burst via shalks. Delayed burst skill allows you to combine it instantly with any other skill or ultimate such as DB or 2h ultimate. Stamden can seriously chunk someone when they want to.

The class lacks sustained pressure. Where it has great burst, it lacks in sustained damage via dots. The class does not have an in class dot or in class stun. This means it is not able to access DW for bleed dot because it will lack either a stun and reliable spammable if S&B is dropped for DW, or it will lack snare immunity, a good dueling execute and 2h ulti if it drops 2h for DW.

Both Stamina Warden and Magicka Warden are very predictable when they will be offensive. Shalks is very predictable and easily avoided by veteran PvPers who know when to strafe you, when to stun you and when to play defensive when you are ready to go offensive. Typically they will be offensive when you are buffing and defensive in the short window that the Stamina Warden is offensive.

Both Wardens have A LOT of buffs to keep up. This means they have a lower offensive window then other specs. A good dueler will take advantage of this and pressure you when you are buffing.

Easily accessed Major Defile and passive damage via bleeds/other dots counter Stamina Warden very effectively as well, which all of the more popular dueling specs have access to. Lock down roots are also very effective as it facilitates the process of avoiding shalks. So trap beast, fossilize and talons are all very effective at countering both wardens.

Over all, stamden is not bad at dueling and can surely do very well in the right hands, however the popular dueling classes right now (Stamdk, Stamblade) can shut down stamden very easily.

Fiveboro · February 2019

Syhae wrote: »

Stamden is mediocre at duels. It has things that it excels at and falls short to other specs in other regards.

Stamden excels at staying alive in duels, excellent class healing, sustain, tankiness in general via S&B passives, minor protection from ice armor and major mending after healing yourself with a Green Balance heal below 40% health.
It can turtle a fight very well and play for the long game.

It has phenomenal burst via shalks. Delayed burst skill allows you to combine it instantly with any other skill or ultimate such as DB or 2h ultimate. Stamden can seriously chunk someone when they want to.

The class lacks sustained pressure. Where it has great burst, it lacks in sustained damage via dots. The class does not have an in class dot or in class stun. This means it is not able to access DW for bleed dot because it will lack either a stun and reliable spammable if S&B is dropped for DW, or it will lack snare immunity, a good dueling execute and 2h ulti if it drops 2h for DW.

Both Stamina Warden and Magicka Warden are very predictable when they will be offensive. Shalks is very predictable and easily avoided by veteran PvPers who know when to strafe you, when to stun you and when to play defensive when you are ready to go offensive. Typically they will be offensive when you are buffing and defensive in the short window that the Stamina Warden is offensive.

Both Wardens have A LOT of buffs to keep up. This means they have a lower offensive window then other specs. A good dueler will take advantage of this and pressure you when you are buffing.

Easily accessed Major Defile and passive damage via bleeds/other dots counter Stamina Warden very effectively as well, which all of the more popular dueling specs have access to.

Over all, stamden is not bad at dueling and can surely do very well in the right hands, however the popular dueling classes right now (Stamdk, Stamblade) can shut down stamden very easily.

Agreed! Thank you for summing up my thoughts on the Stamden. That is exactly how i feel on it versus dueling on other classes. I was just curious if anyone was known as a reallly good stamden dueler because on Xbox NA i have not run into anyone that has a 'top tier' duel build and I think it might just be impossible for the reasons you mentioned.

Crixus8000 · February 2019

Stamden is very strong but the fact that it's burst is tied to sub assault means that it will be hard to beat a good player in da duel since sub assault is so telegraphed. If you land your combo you will probably 1 shot almost anyone but getting it all off will be too hard against someone decent. I find stamdens the easiest class to duel simply because as long as I block the subs that they cant really kill me, because like Syhae said, they lack sustain pressure.