Stamden or Stamcro? Why?

ACGOG · May 2020

Hi Everyone,

Relatively new to the game but I'm having a blast so far, especially when it comes to PvP.

I've narrowed down my choices of class to Stamden and Stamcro. I also have a Magplar that I thought was in the mix but after looking at the class population there seems to be too many of them. I've gotten them all to around 25ish, high enough I think to get a good feel for each of the classes but had a question about long term viability based off of what I've experienced so far since it's solely based off of sub-50 PvP.

The Stamden is incredibly fun: tons of sustain, seemingly great defensive spells, but only decent damage output.

The Stamcro was fun at first but it seems if I don't have my ult up I'm not really doing a whole lot of damage. I seem to be in this between area in terms of survivability as well because I don't have Spirit Mender yet. I've kept with it though and have had a few good games on it, but I don't seem to be at the "OP" level everyone is talking about on these forums by any stretch of the imagination.

My question is: what is going to have the best long-term viability and will perform well at 50? Does the Stamden only perform well in lower level BG's and fall off later? Does the damage output of the Stamcro start to ramp exponentially? I'm also assuming once I get Spirit Mender my survivability shoots up (I may also be playing it completely wrong)? All things considered, if the class was played to its absolute fullest potential, which wins out?

They're both incredibly fun but I seem to perform better on the Stamden. That being said I'm more than happy to stick with the Stamcro if the juice is worth the squeeze eventually.

Just wondering if I could get some advice from people who are much more knowledgeable from me and have experienced the upper echelons of PvP!

Thank you!

Rhaegar75 · May 2020

I'm not able to provide an answer but just a reflection: I don't use a stamden and I've just started with a Necro.

I'm not having a huge amount of success using a StamCro but I guess it's mostly to do with a L2P issue in my case: I tend to have low numbers in terms of damage and my kill/death ratio is 1.4 which is low in comparison with my main (StamDk ratio of 3.5).

waelan · May 2020

stamnec is the cheatcode of pvp, stamden was the previous one. thanks p2w.
comparing both 1vs1 with the same skill level player, stamnec wins by a little.

OrderoftheDarkness · May 2020

Here you may be led to believe in Darwin's theory (sry maybe you believe in this theory, nothing personal). Do not listen to what they say on the forum about OP and P2W, I played Necro when it first appeared it was the weakest class. For a few days BG you could see a maximum of one necromancer. Currently, Stamcro is strong and Greymoor is the first patch where Necro doesn't get a buff.
It is difficult to tell you who is better, it is probably better to see which theme is closer to you. I can only tell you that Stamden can eventually use more class skills than Stamcro. We can say that Warden is a Jack of all trades.

FirmamentOfStars · May 2020

I gonna list shortly the advantages of both classes:

Stamden:
- Great healing thx to major mending and hp based hot
- Strong delayed burst with shalks
- Fairly tanky with minor protection and shimmering shields

Stamcro:
- great healing thx to second vigor like heal in mortal coil
- Strong delayed burst with blastbones PLUS major defile
- Very tanky thx to 10% damage reduction from spirit mender PLUS 15% dot mitigation PLUS inclass major protection not bound to an ultimate

Those are only the highlights of both classes. Both are very strong and the top pvp specs, but stamina necromancer is just one level stronger than the already top class stamden. Stamcro just is tankier, has at least the same healing power and has thx to major defile actually stronger offensive power.

It is hard to grasp the real power of a class at level 25, since you unlock very strong skills on stamcro in the late levels. Additionally the preferred ultimates come from weapon or guildskilllines and will be available when you reach max level in those skilllines. I would not jump to conclusions at level 25, since the unlocked class skills are still very important to even define the class. Actually at cp160 you can really start building up your characters, since you have reached the gear cap. I wouldnt really decide anything before that.

WoppaBoem · May 2020

Stam necro, being able to have 3 healing over time make you so tanky. Vigor, Tether, Spirit Mender based on purly this there OP. On the offensive they also have major defile which is big debuff.

Thraben · May 2020

Stamcro is actually a double P2W class:

In order to use its full burst damage potential you have to wear golden jewelry with the harmony trait (you combine the blastbones with the self-synergy, and then you can frequently directly execute without having to use an Ultimate )

If you have reached that point, a StamNecro should outperform a StamDen.

Brrrofski · May 2020

Honestly, they're both very strong in PvP. Once you have them fully maxed out you'll see their full potential.

Offensively, they both have delayed burst - stamden with shalks and stamcro with blastbones. Both amazing skills in PvP as you can land all your damage with ult. Both have an additional debuff, major fracture for more damage received from physical attacks from shalks and major defile for less healing received from blastbones.

For spammables, you'll probably go 2h and use dizzying on both, but they both have a stamina based class spammable if you wanted to use it or go dual wield etc. The warden one is slightly better in my opinion as it sets enemies off balance and adds a bleed element.

Necro has some nice damage passives such as increased crit chance against enemies with lower health. Very strong in no cp especially. You also get additional damage over time damage and extra penetration at times.

Warden vet's passive damage from slotting Animal Companion abilities. Warden gets minor beasrk fro slotting bird of prey (8% damage boost plus it gives you movement speed) and can apply minor vulnerability (8% more damage taken) through the swarm skill.

Regarding ultimates, you want to get dawn breaker for both, so it's kinda even. Necro does have big daddy smash as a back bar option as well then (which give major vulnerability for a massive 25% increase in damage taken), where stamden will have something defensive more often than not.

As far as ult genetation goes, stamden can use the shield for major heroism, where necro can use necrotic potency to get a lot of ult from corpses (including from your skills). Warden also gets it from using animal companion skills.

Survivability wise, both are good. Necro does get 10% damage reduction from spirit guardian, but it takes up bar space. Warden has minor protection with its armour resolve buff, whereas necro would have to slot either both the armour buff and spirit guardian to get the same (slightly better) mitigation. Of course, with necro, you can also slot the psijic ultimate for more mitigation as the minor protection as this stacks with spirit guardian, but not the warden armour buff. Warden can use permafrost to give major protection (30% less damage taken) to you and your group, which is very strong.

For healing, warden pulls ahead. Not only does it have a stamina burst heal, but some great passive healing as well as major mending (25% more healing given). Spamming animal companion abilities give smalls heals, plus you can use the vines skill for great healing over time as well as a solid way to proc major mending. Also, you can back bar the tree ultimate which is a massive heal for you and your group. Healing will also give minor toughness (10% increase to max health) for like 20 seconds too which is very nice.

Necro does get some good healing from some of it's corpse gameplay, but is a lot more hands on, warden has a lot more passive healing.

Sustain wise, warden gets 12% increase stam and mag regen for slotting and animal companion ability (which you will on both bars) while necro has a flat number of regen when Simmons are active, as well as resource return when something does near you. You get cost reduction on certain skills with one morph of your armour buff too. Warden has bull merch, which is nice sustain but also gives major brutality (20% increased weapon damage) and can be spammed (as it's free) to remove negative effects and work as a small heal and ultimate generation.

So in short, both are very good for PvP. I'd level up both to be honest and try them out. The play alike to be honest anyway, so it might just be down to preference. Necro does require you to really nail the corpse gameplay for it to really shine though, warden is a little easier to use.

Rhaegar75 · May 2020

I'm really struggling to do good damage with the StamCro….blastbone, I find, is less reliable than Shalks and spamming Dizzy is just soooo dull.

I guess it may be different from the way I play my mains and I haven't adapted

Iskiab · May 2020

It’s all personal preference.

For myself I like stamwarden better. It’s versatile and can heal which is nice, in pve though I don’t like the bear so wouldn’t pve with it.

Stamnecro Idk, I just don’t like blastbones. I want to feel like I’m doing something and not summoning something to run after people.

katorga · May 2020

Both have good delayed burst, healing, and defensive skills. Both play about the same as damage. Overall I think warden is a lot easier to play.

Warden burst moves with you, necro burst moves independently of you. It can get delayed, snared, CC'd, or just stop. Warden is much better mechanically. Next patch tethers go back on global cooldown which will make them difficult or outright unusable again

Warden has skills/passives to greatly boost damage, necro to boost tankiness. All things being equal necro has ~13% more raw damage mitigation. Warden has at least 10% increased damage or more depending on how many skills on the bar.

Both classes have really icky colored particle effects.

ACGOG · May 2020

Thanks for all the feedback!

I got the opportunity to play even more over the past few days and got my Necro to 35 and my Warden to 33.

I took a long look at my build on my Necro and swapped some skills around. On top of that, playing the Warden allowed me to multi-task more effectively between my two bars.

In doing more research it seems that the Warden is supposedly the "king" of no-CP BG's. I actually found that, with my skills swapped around, my survivability and damage output on my Necro was substantially higher than my Warden. On top of that, I tried to pay more attention to the Blastbones Defile to see how big of a difference it made: it seems to be substantial. The burst also seems to be much higher on the Necro too, but maybe that's simply because of the Defile on top of the Big Guy, although my K:D ratio on my Necro was significantly better than on my Warden after I got the hang of it.

Is there a passive or ability via the Guild, CP, or whatever that would give the Warden a Defile? Since I'm still not max-level/max-CP are there abilities on the Warden that I haven't unlocked yet that helps increase the burst and damage potential?

Likewise, if I'm having this much success now with the Necro is that going to simply grow as I level and become more familiar with the class?

Sorry for all the questions and thank you to everyone who took the time to read and respond.

GRXRG · May 2020

Both stamden and stamcro are the two p2w classes with literally zero downsides in their kit.
For example stamdk and stamplar are really strong classes if played properly, but they have weaknesses. Stamdk is a slow turtle, with solid healing toolkit and tankiness, but crazy expensive skills, almost 5k magicka for a 6 seconds major mending and if you have a cleanse you deny big part of their pressure damage. Stamplar has the easiest combo burst rotation and maybe the best delayed burst skill (Power of the light) and class spammable out of all classes, but it is generally so squishy, even more than stamblade and lack of a decent burst heal. You just rely on vigor and rally, and if you get caught when you just renewed rally you end up dead pretty fast. Not to mention sustain is pretty awful on stamplar.
You can't go wrong with either stamden or stamcro, it is sad to say, but both are carrying classes and in the ends of a good player they achieve a stupid level of strength.

fbours · May 2020

I do not get how stamcro is a p2w class. Comes with the expansion.. guess what, you can't play FFXIV shadowbringers expansion if you don't buy it.. guess what back in the day when wow's demons hunter came out you couldn't play them if you didn't buy the expansion. Are we expecting charities here now?

Not giving too much credit or defending ZOS because they lost my trust with how they handle their performance issues but they do have one of the best MMO subscription models in the market.

katorga · May 2020

ACGOG wrote: »

Thanks for all the feedback!

I got the opportunity to play even more over the past few days and got my Necro to 35 and my Warden to 33.

I took a long look at my build on my Necro and swapped some skills around. On top of that, playing the Warden allowed me to multi-task more effectively between my two bars.

In doing more research it seems that the Warden is supposedly the "king" of no-CP BG's. I actually found that, with my skills swapped around, my survivability and damage output on my Necro was substantially higher than my Warden. On top of that, I tried to pay more attention to the Blastbones Defile to see how big of a difference it made: it seems to be substantial. The burst also seems to be much higher on the Necro too, but maybe that's simply because of the Defile on top of the Big Guy, although my K:D ratio on my Necro was significantly better than on my Warden after I got the hang of it.

Is there a passive or ability via the Guild, CP, or whatever that would give the Warden a Defile? Since I'm still not max-level/max-CP are there abilities on the Warden that I haven't unlocked yet that helps increase the burst and damage potential?

Likewise, if I'm having this much success now with the Necro is that going to simply grow as I level and become more familiar with the class?

Sorry for all the questions and thank you to everyone who took the time to read and respond.

Warden has an aoe major defile skill.

ACGOG · May 2020

fbours wrote: »

I do not get how stamcro is a p2w class.

Yeah I was more trying to focus on the productive feedback and comments people had made than people who were saying this lol

ACGOG · May 2020

katorga wrote: »

ACGOG wrote: »

Thanks for all the feedback!

I got the opportunity to play even more over the past few days and got my Necro to 35 and my Warden to 33.

I took a long look at my build on my Necro and swapped some skills around. On top of that, playing the Warden allowed me to multi-task more effectively between my two bars.

In doing more research it seems that the Warden is supposedly the "king" of no-CP BG's. I actually found that, with my skills swapped around, my survivability and damage output on my Necro was substantially higher than my Warden. On top of that, I tried to pay more attention to the Blastbones Defile to see how big of a difference it made: it seems to be substantial. The burst also seems to be much higher on the Necro too, but maybe that's simply because of the Defile on top of the Big Guy, although my K:D ratio on my Necro was significantly better than on my Warden after I got the hang of it.

Is there a passive or ability via the Guild, CP, or whatever that would give the Warden a Defile? Since I'm still not max-level/max-CP are there abilities on the Warden that I haven't unlocked yet that helps increase the burst and damage potential?

Likewise, if I'm having this much success now with the Necro is that going to simply grow as I level and become more familiar with the class?

Sorry for all the questions and thank you to everyone who took the time to read and respond.

Warden has an aoe major defile skill.

Yeah the Corrupting Pollen right? It seems that smart players will just step out of it.

katorga · May 2020

ACGOG wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

ACGOG wrote: »

Thanks for all the feedback!

I got the opportunity to play even more over the past few days and got my Necro to 35 and my Warden to 33.

I took a long look at my build on my Necro and swapped some skills around. On top of that, playing the Warden allowed me to multi-task more effectively between my two bars.

In doing more research it seems that the Warden is supposedly the "king" of no-CP BG's. I actually found that, with my skills swapped around, my survivability and damage output on my Necro was substantially higher than my Warden. On top of that, I tried to pay more attention to the Blastbones Defile to see how big of a difference it made: it seems to be substantial. The burst also seems to be much higher on the Necro too, but maybe that's simply because of the Defile on top of the Big Guy, although my K:D ratio on my Necro was significantly better than on my Warden after I got the hang of it.

Is there a passive or ability via the Guild, CP, or whatever that would give the Warden a Defile? Since I'm still not max-level/max-CP are there abilities on the Warden that I haven't unlocked yet that helps increase the burst and damage potential?

Likewise, if I'm having this much success now with the Necro is that going to simply grow as I level and become more familiar with the class?

Sorry for all the questions and thank you to everyone who took the time to read and respond.

Warden has an aoe major defile skill.

Yeah the Corrupting Pollen right? It seems that smart players will just step out of it.

So what, nothing is ever 100% certain. Warden and Necro are still the only two classes with major defile. I'm stuck using a CC with a 2 second delay....it still works some of the time.

GRXRG · May 2020

fbours wrote: »

I do not get how stamcro is a p2w class. Comes with the expansion.. guess what, you can't play FFXIV shadowbringers expansion if you don't buy it.. guess what back in the day when wow's demons hunter came out you couldn't play them if you didn't buy the expansion. Are we expecting charities here now?

Not giving too much credit or defending ZOS because they lost my trust with how they handle their performance issues but they do have one of the best MMO subscription models in the market.

You do not get them with base game and not even with eso+ those two classes are bought separately only if you want to.
And weird coincidence? They are the two strongest pvp classes of the entire game, stamcro is even top dps in pve as well.

Analyse the classes deeply and you see how they have perfect working passives and everything in their kit is perfect. Damage, sustain, tankiness, healing, cleanses, literally everything.

Go check stamsorc and you see how everything is in favour of magsorc only like they forgot they had to make a stamina version of sorcerer and made it the last 5 minutes before launch lol

And to answer to the OP, both are solid and are basically the same, with stamcro slightly ahead in terms on 1vs1s and stamden slightly ahead for group play. And as proven this upcoming patch they are protected by p2w shield and they decided to leave 100% uptime on blastbone major defile untouched. Ok.

ACGOG · May 2020

katorga wrote: »

So what, nothing is ever 100% certain. Warden and Necro are still the only two classes with major defile. I'm stuck using a CC with a 2 second delay....it still works some of the time.

Didn't mean any offense. Just confirming and I was unaware that they were the only two who had one.

katorga · May 2020

ACGOG wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

So what, nothing is ever 100% certain. Warden and Necro are still the only two classes with major defile. I'm stuck using a CC with a 2 second delay....it still works some of the time.

Didn't mean any offense. Just confirming and I was unaware that they were the only two who had one.

No offense taken. You can't always judge a skill by how the top 20% will react to it.

Sneakers · May 2020

Neco very strong for sure.

Warden is top dog, by a hair imo.

Just look at stam wardens sustain and speed. Has more damage potential then a necro and more healing to boot.

Necro sure has defile, but any person with half a brain enchants weapon with defile, so they do have access to 15% defile and built in 5400 resists debuff, which is almost 10% mitigation taken away.

A side note is that mag warden is imo best magicka class when build towards shock clench and perma frost (90% up time on 30% mit) super strong heals, super sustain and burst heal is very good. Only down side is they are not mobile.

SpiderCultist · May 2020

stamden

fbours · May 2020

GRXRG wrote: »

fbours wrote: »

I do not get how stamcro is a p2w class. Comes with the expansion.. guess what, you can't play FFXIV shadowbringers expansion if you don't buy it.. guess what back in the day when wow's demons hunter came out you couldn't play them if you didn't buy the expansion. Are we expecting charities here now?

Not giving too much credit or defending ZOS because they lost my trust with how they handle their performance issues but they do have one of the best MMO subscription models in the market.

You do not get them with base game and not even with eso+ those two classes are bought separately only if you want to.
And weird coincidence? They are the two strongest pvp classes of the entire game, stamcro is even top dps in pve as well.

Analyse the classes deeply and you see how they have perfect working passives and everything in their kit is perfect. Damage, sustain, tankiness, healing, cleanses, literally everything.

Go check stamsorc and you see how everything is in favour of magsorc only like they forgot they had to make a stamina version of sorcerer and made it the last 5 minutes before launch lol

And to answer to the OP, both are solid and are basically the same, with stamcro slightly ahead in terms on 1vs1s and stamden slightly ahead for group play. And as proven this upcoming patch they are protected by p2w shield and they decided to leave 100% uptime on blastbone major defile untouched. Ok.

What are you talking about? Magsorc comes with base game, OP, magplar comes with base game, OP, stamblade, yes stamblade, very powerful, comes with base game, stamdk, OP, comes with base game. Point is that ZOS has to make money so yes I can see why they would do something like this for more revenue but p2w nah, only people that want free stuff would call things like expansions p2w. You cant lvl up characters in wow if you don't buy expansions so if you are in open world you will get recked by a higher level player, is that p2w in your book? I'm sure people calling stamcro and stamden p2w will call the new antiquities system the same.

I main stamsorc btw and if I don't want to die by a stamcro I don't, unless I lag which now days it's normal. Playing on stamcros term sure I would die most times but that's why I enjoy stamsorc, I pick up my battles - I'm sure I bother them more than they bother me because I can troll them.

That said I would changes blastbones dmg or remove major defile and stamcros overall tankiness as it goes against ZOS idea of skills doing too much etc etc. Also I would love a stamsorc spammable.

Peace

Red99 · May 2020

Stamnecro without doubt, he s more tanky he have really strong hot skills, a major defile spammable, if u want speed skill just slot race aganist time

MurderMostFoul · May 2020

Rhaegar75 wrote: »

I'm really struggling to do good damage with the StamCro….blastbone, I find, is less reliable than Shalks and spamming Dizzy is just soooo dull.

I guess it may be different from the way I play my mains and I haven't adapted

I'm gonna break with the crowd and say Stamden for three reasons.

1. Necro will be nerfed (I smell blastbones -> minor defile)
2. Regarding shalks v blastbones, there is a lot of people loading up on combat pets in BGs recently (Xbox NA). The "target noise" that creates can make blastbones extremely unreliable. You have way more control over Shalks to land your combo. And don't forget, you get major fracture out of Shalks.
3. Having a leveled Warden gives you better access to try support builds as well.

Pauls · May 2020

Both work equally good with double duals meme build which is "non-meta" meta because its getting more and more popular every day

Waffennacht · May 2020

If Archer; necromancer

If not Archer warden

ACGOG · May 2020

Hi Everyone,

Thanks again for all the input!

This has been very interesting as I'm essentially learning the game while trying to decide between the classes. There are a few key things that I've discovered (or at least under the perception):

1. Gear makes a HUGE difference. I had a buddy of mine craft me a set of Clever Alchemist on my Warden and Necro. It was almost impossible for me to die on my Warden and I was hitting like a truck on my Necro.

2. I finally hit 50 on my Necro and got to experience PvP at that level. It's quite a bit different.

3. It seems that the offensive capabilities of the Necro really revolve around spamming Blast Bones, Dizzying Swing and Executioner while using the class skills to stay alive. I didn't really, truly realize this until I started looking at other builds for Stamcro and they're pretty much all the same. It's actually kind of boring and I feel like I'm cheesing something by spamming the same abilities over and over again.

4. In 50 PvP players are definitely a lot smarter than they are in sub-50 and I discovered the issues people were talking about with Blast Bones. It doesn't seem to be able to be used at a distance without a bit of luck, and someone dodging in and out of pillars and obstacles can normally lose it 90% of the time.

5. I feel more valuable to the team on my Warden. They actually benefit from my Armor, Pollen, and Enchanted Forest and I can save people quite often.

6. The survivability on my Warden seems exponentially higher than it does on my Necro.

Again, this is all from a fresh level 50 perspective. I bought some 50 CP10 gear to replace my crap that I had outgrown and I had fared a bit better but any time I was focused I went down in a hurry. On my Warden, between HoT's, the passive on animal abilities, and Arctic Blast it's quite a bit easier to take a beating and live to tell the tale.

Question though: does the offensive capabilities of the Necro really revolve around spamming the same abilities while keeping Momentum, etc. up, or is it my build and I can change it up? On my Warden, between trying to heal others and being able to mix in Swarm and Falcon's Swiftness I at least feel like I'm using abilities outside of the 2H tree.

You have all been great and thanks for the patience!

MurderMostFoul · May 2020

ACGOG wrote: »

Hi Everyone,

Thanks again for all the input!

This has been very interesting as I'm essentially learning the game while trying to decide between the classes. There are a few key things that I've discovered (or at least under the perception):

1. Gear makes a HUGE difference. I had a buddy of mine craft me a set of Clever Alchemist on my Warden and Necro. It was almost impossible for me to die on my Warden and I was hitting like a truck on my Necro.

2. I finally hit 50 on my Necro and got to experience PvP at that level. It's quite a bit different.

3. It seems that the offensive capabilities of the Necro really revolve around spamming Blast Bones, Dizzying Swing and Executioner while using the class skills to stay alive. I didn't really, truly realize this until I started looking at other builds for Stamcro and they're pretty much all the same. It's actually kind of boring and I feel like I'm cheesing something by spamming the same abilities over and over again.

4. In 50 PvP players are definitely a lot smarter than they are in sub-50 and I discovered the issues people were talking about with Blast Bones. It doesn't seem to be able to be used at a distance without a bit of luck, and someone dodging in and out of pillars and obstacles can normally lose it 90% of the time.

5. I feel more valuable to the team on my Warden. They actually benefit from my Armor, Pollen, and Enchanted Forest and I can save people quite often.

6. The survivability on my Warden seems exponentially higher than it does on my Necro.

Again, this is all from a fresh level 50 perspective. I bought some 50 CP10 gear to replace my crap that I had outgrown and I had fared a bit better but any time I was focused I went down in a hurry. On my Warden, between HoT's, the passive on animal abilities, and Arctic Blast it's quite a bit easier to take a beating and live to tell the tale.

Question though: does the offensive capabilities of the Necro really revolve around spamming the same abilities while keeping Momentum, etc. up, or is it my build and I can change it up? On my Warden, between trying to heal others and being able to mix in Swarm and Falcon's Swiftness I at least feel like I'm using abilities outside of the 2H tree.

You have all been great and thanks for the patience!

If you are still doing BGs, just grind XP until you hit CP160, that's the real max level for BGs since it allows you to equip max level gear. You are just going to at a huge disadvantage until you get to CP160, so much so that you are going to have to relearn things once you can equip CP160 gear and get on an even playing field with your opponents.

ACGOG · May 2020

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

If you are still doing BGs, just grind XP until you hit CP160, that's the real max level for BGs since it allows you to equip max level gear. You are just going to at a huge disadvantage until you get to CP160, so much so that you are going to have to relearn things once you can equip CP160 gear and get on an even playing field with your opponents.

I mean, I still enjoy PvPing, even with it being difficult. Does the gear change and affect how the class ultimately plays?