I have been taking a wait and see approach since early release assuming that ZOS would soon realize the vast imbalance we have between magicka/class/staff abilities and stamina/melee weapon abilities. I am sorry to see that ZOS clearly is unaware of what is going on. The bottom line is, that every class should be equally viable using melee(plus bow) weapons or staff weapons. There are a couple of underlying problems that prevent this from happening. This post will be somewhat Sorc focused as that is what I have the most experience with.

1. If stamina is going to be used for CC breaks, dodges, blocking we need stamina to be a larger pool than magicka. It needs to be on the same scale as HP for enchants, attribute points, and soft caps.

2. We need more ways to regenerate stamina. As a sorc, in a group PVE setting, I have access to near limitless magicka with the use of Spell Symmetry. Of course I need to be aware of upcoming damage I will be taking, but because of how heals work, the healer will almost always keep me topped off. Stamina is a lot tougher though. I have access to zero class skills to regen stamina so that leaves me with Dual Wield Whirlwind skill (only useful when mob is low health therefore useless for boss fights), Two Handed passive Battle Rush (again, only kicks in with a killing blow so close to useless for boss fights), and Evil Hunter stamina regeneration (only decent regen out there and it is situational). None of those abilities can keep me reliably sustained with stamina. There are three ways to improve this. 1.) Add more stam regen skills. 2.) Vastly increase the light/heavy standard attack damage from melee weapons. 3.)Passively have light/heavy standard attacks from melee weapons restore stamina. I personally like number 3 the most because I enjoy doing regular attacks and think it would be a great means to recover stamina.

3. Melee Weapon skills (specifically ones focused on doing damage) are inferior to class damaging skills. 2h for example has no steady DPS skill. Cleave is bad DPS, Uppercut has some burst but is not great when used regularly, charge can only be used at range. I'd love to have a 2h skill that is as sustainable and does as much dps as Force Shock from the destro line.

4. I think the division of crit between physical and spell was a huge mistake that is severely limiting build potential. I understand that because of certain mechanics (crit being tied to armor type, inner light, etc) that it will be difficult to remedy this but I believe it has to be done. We all know that class abilities can be based on either weapon or spell crit. Unfortunately for Sorc (or possible fortunately if you want to be a magicka focused Sorc), none of our class abilities use physical crit. I'd love to focus on medium armor, dual wield, and weapon crit but I would be severely hindering my ability to crit with every single one of my class skills. If I go melee weapons/medium armor I am severely hindering my ability to stay alive through crit surge because even with focusing on melee weapons and weapon skills, I need to use some class abilities regardless because I don't have enough stamina to focus on just weapon skills. I know NB also complains heavily about their class abilities being weapon or spell crit. No matter what crit you focus on as a NB, you are hurting your potential because there is some class ability out there you want to use that is going off of the other crit. The easiest way to fix this issue without fundamentally changing light and medium armor and various other skills and passives would be to have your crit stat that is used for ALL skills to be based on whatever crit stat is currently highest.

Anyways, I know it is nearly universally accepted that stam/melee weapon builds are inferior right now. I am very surprised that I do not see more buffs on the 1.2 PTS server notes and wanted to put my two cents in about why I thought they needed a buff.