When the stamina vs magicka imbalance will be fixed ?

trimsic_ESO

I think I've tried everything, spending a lot of money in many respecs in a desperate search for a viable stamina based damage dealer build. But to no avail.

I've tried with the one hand and a shield, dual wield, 2 handed, a bow, medium armor, heavy armor, i.e. everything. At the end the result is always the same. I'm a DK and the other DKs of my guild who play with a destruction staff and a full set of light armor always, I mean always, have a better DPS than I have, and by far. It's almost laughable.

I've spent a lot of time and money in getting a pretty good stuff, and I'm currently wearing a full set of medium armor and two daggers, with a critical oriented build. But this is not changing anything: as a damage dealer DK using physical weapons, I just can't compete with the magical DPS DK of my guild.

So tell me Zenimax, please tell me: is there any plan to fix this imbalance any time soon; or should I completely respec as a magical DK too?

Playing as a mage is not my playstyle. I would prefer by far continuing playing my DK as a melee DPS class. But I feel close to useless when doing so. Honestly, I can wait for a solution, in the very case any is to be implemented soon. But I can't decently continue spending my time and money in an archetype that goes nowhere. Yes, I'll probably feel frustrated if I'm playing my DK as a mage; but I'll surely feel even more frustrated if I'm sticking to a melee DPS role that just does not work.

Any insight on future plans to address this issue will be welcome.

Reasons why stamina builds can't be competitive compared to magicka build:

• The light armor type offers much more interesting passive bonuses for a damage dealer than the intermediate armor does, among with spell penetration, spell resistance, and mana cost reduction. Combined with inner light, the spell crit chance is just amazing.
• Magicka based skills are generally more efficient than Stamina based skills, i.e. they deal more damage, cost less, and most of the time can be cast at range (with the exception of the bow). Melee damage skills are not as competitive as spells, by far, and require to be at close range with all the disadvantages this means for a melee class (risk to be focused and die obviously).
• It's not required to wear any piece of heavy armor to slot and use Immovable. When doing so, someone wearing a full set of light armor can reach the armor softcap and be both immune to control and be amazingly resistant to physical attacks.
• Because the light armor grants magicka cost reduction, it's possible for mages to equip jewels with spell damage bonuses, allowing them to deal even more damage.
• Because many spells have a DOT effect, and because DOTs can crit, mages can have their ultimate skills available very quicky, even after the recent nerf.
• All class skills are magicka based; but not all the weapon skills are stamina based. As a side effect, having a high magicka pool serves both the class skills and the destruction staff / restoration staff skills. Why?
• Dodge, CC break, block, and interrupt skills cost stamina; none of them cost magicka. Why?

Thanks for reading. Waiting for answer for a possible respec.

GrimCyclone

@trimsic_ESO‌

The best thing for them to do would be to take any non-ability actions like jumping, blocking, sprinting, etc and put them in their own special pool. Like endurance or something.

Will they do this and will there be a fix? Based on what we see, they will slowly hack at it. Probably by nerfing other things to make it more like stamina now. I know that sounds sarcastic, but there's plenty of proof guys.

Eventually, they'll probably just give us more stamina, then stamina will be fotm for a while, then they'll nerf it again. My first idea is the only real way to make people happy. Will they do it? I don't think they will.

GaldorP

Excellent post that sums up a balancing issue in ESO very well

What follows is my personal experience (for illustration purposes ):

My main is also a DK and had been a bow/restoration staff build since early access. I managed to get through all the VR quest content just fine (thanks to strong ultimates of the DK class I was even able to solo the 3 pupils in the VR9 version of the Alik'r Desert, the VR10 Soul Harvester and the VR10 Gargoyle for the quests in Bangkorai) but when I joined Trials parties in Craglorn, I soon realized that my sustained dps was just not good enough (especially with bosses that are nothing but dps meters).
After a few days I gave in to the pressure (imposed by the game's design not by other players ) and respecced to a Spell crit/Spell damage build. One day later the ultimate gain on crits was greatly nerfed in a patch ^^ I was disappointed though I agree that this nerf was needed (If only they had released this patch a few days earlier. That would have saved me a lot of gold and materials ><)
Anyway, I now respecced back to my old build which I enjoy playing. I realize this means I can't join Trials parties (unless I change equipment and respec again to become a Magicka dps or a Tank), but at the moment I'd rather just do PvP and keep playing a build I like. I'd also like to do some of the old veteran group dungeons but it's impossible to find groups since everyone is either powerleveling in Craglorn or doing trials already and the group tool isn't of any help.

P.S.: You can tell there is a balancing problem when the most efficient damage skill on single targets is an AoE attack.

Baphomet

The game is designed in a way where in order to be an effective stamina build, you have to alternate between class and weapon abilities - plus misc. skills. Once a player realizes this the sooner he will realize that there isn't such an imbalance that many people claim there is - it is simply the way the game is designed.

One can try to combat it all he want, but in the process one will simply gimp oneself. That really isn't the game's fault, to be honest.

That's not to say that certain weapon skills don't need to be modified because sure they do. And especially the armor passives - they are key to leveling out the playing field some more.

SootyTX

Baphomet wrote: »

The game is designed in a way where in order to be an effective stamina build, you have to alternate between class and weapon abilities - plus misc. skills. Once a player realizes this the sooner he will realize that there isn't such an imbalance that many people claim there is - it is simply the way the game is designed.

One can try to combat it all he want, but in the process one will simply gimp oneself. That really isn't the game's fault, to be honest.

Then why isn't the reverse true? It is entirely possible to build not only an effective, but an insanely powerful magicka build and use zero stamina abilities at all, reserving stamina purely for blocking, dodging and sprinting. it's not even hard to do so, it's incredibly easy

That's not to say that certain weapon skills don't need to be modified because sure they do. And especially the armor passives - they are key to leveling out the playing field some more.

This is certainly true - the light armor passives are head and shoulders above medium and heavy in the gaming impact they bring.

We need, soon, some way to fix the huge in-game imbalance between magicka and stamina, caused in very large part by the multiple pulls on the stamina pool (many of which make no sense - why do i use stamina to break out of a magical constraint?).

I honestly think the devs seriously believed all players would be happy with the class skill 'flash' and wouldn't really want to use weapon skills, which is absolutely ridiculous given the franchise's history and low fantasy feel.

Shaun98ca2

Im gonna state that a LOT of people simply look at Stamina the wrong way.

Stamina builds 1st and foremost bring MORE survivability IE Block, Dodge, Stun, CC Break.

To me this merits an immediate decrease in the overall DPS a Stamina build SHOULD bring.

Next thing to note is every point towards Stamina directly increases ALL Light/Heavy Attacks including Staff. Light/Heavy Attacks don't require a resource to preform so its constant sustained damage with increased survivability.

The Stamina abilities themselves to me seem more like utility. Yes some do provide an increase in DPS but seem like they are required to be preformed after the use of your Block, Dodge, Stun.

Magicka YES has higher threshold for damage but most classes are typically mana starved trying desperately to maintain their high level of DPS while Stamina builds maintain their DPS with great ease.

trimsic_ESO

Baphomet wrote: »

The game is designed in a way where in order to be an effective stamina build, you have to alternate between class and weapon abilities - plus misc. skills. Once a player realizes this the sooner he will realize that there isn't such an imbalance that many people claim there is - it is simply the way the game is designed.

One can try to combat it all he want, but in the process one will simply gimp oneself. That really isn't the game's fault, to be honest.

That's not to say that certain weapon skills don't need to be modified because sure they do. And especially the armor passives - they are key to leveling out the playing field some more.

In order to have an effective magicka build, I don't have to alternate between class and weapon abilities. I can equip a full set of light armor, use a destruction staff, and then use my stamina to run, dodge, block, interrupt, and CC break.

Furthermore, even if I alternate between class and weapon abilities, then I still do not have a stamina build that is as effective as a magicka build. Go figure...

What is the rationale here? The game is designed like this, that's what you said? Well, in that case, I really don't like the way it is designed, because such a design creates a huge imbalance between stamina and magicka builds.

At least the game should implement another pool of resources, call it endurance or whatever else, and this spool should be used to run, dodge, block, interrupt, and CC break. And in addition to that, melee combat skills should hit for much more that any other spells at range. It's just a question of common sense.

trimsic_ESO

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

Im gonna state that a LOT of people simply look at Stamina the wrong way.

Stamina builds 1st and foremost bring MORE survivability IE Block, Dodge, Stun, CC Break.

To me this merits an immediate decrease in the overall DPS a Stamina build SHOULD bring.

When I'm at range, I don't care about dodging, blocking, interrupting, or whatever else. I just use my stamina to trigger Immovable. What else ?

Shaun98ca2

trimsic_ESO wrote: »

Baphomet wrote: »

The game is designed in a way where in order to be an effective stamina build, you have to alternate between class and weapon abilities - plus misc. skills. Once a player realizes this the sooner he will realize that there isn't such an imbalance that many people claim there is - it is simply the way the game is designed.

One can try to combat it all he want, but in the process one will simply gimp oneself. That really isn't the game's fault, to be honest.

That's not to say that certain weapon skills don't need to be modified because sure they do. And especially the armor passives - they are key to leveling out the playing field some more.

In order to have an effective magicka build, I don't have to alternate between class and weapon abilities. I can equip a full set of light armor, use a destruction staff, and then use my stamina to run, dodge, block, interrupt, and CC break.

Furthermore, even if I alternate between class and weapon abilities, then I still do not have a stamina build that is as effective as a magicka build. Go figure...

What is the rationale here? The game is designed like this, that's what you said? Well, in that case, I really don't like the way it is designed, because such a design creates a huge imbalance between stamina and magicka builds.

At least the game should implement another pool of resources, call it endurance or whatever else, and this spool should be used to run, dodge, block, interrupt, and CC break. And in addition to that, melee combat skills should hit for much more that any other spells at range. It's just a question of common sense.

You state that Melee abilities should hit harder than ranged spells. WHY?

Baphomet

I agree that melee should hit a little harder than ranged. Sticking your head out and going melee is much more dangerous - fortunately many of the strongest magicka abilities are melee.

Shaun98ca2

Baphomet wrote: »

I agree that melee should hit a little harder than ranged.

This same argument could be said for tanks DPS as well that they should hit the hardest as their job is the most dangerous.

trimsic_ESO

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

You state that Melee abilities should hit harder than ranged spells. WHY?

At range you're safe. In the melee you're not. No pain no gain.

Shaun98ca2

Yes at range your "safe". Really your not your "safe" as long as you have Magicka which is a limited resource.

Stamina is ALSO a limited resource but your in Melee range which allows you further opportunities to Block and Stun which STOPS your opponents damage all together for a few seconds giving you free time to deal free damage.

Stamina increases your Light/Heavy Attacks which is FREE to be used at ANY time with increased damage above that of a Magicka users.

So your in Melee range with increased survivability and decent DPS.

Magicka your at range with Great DPS but much lower survivability all based on your Magicka which can run dry FAST leaving nothing but death.


Personally I would like to see a VR12 player FULL Stamina to show what kind of damage Light/Heavy Attacks produce for the various weapons to compare to a FULL Magicka users various attacks.

steinernein

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

Personally I would like to see a VR12 player FULL Stamina to show what kind of damage Light/Heavy Attacks produce for the various weapons to compare to a FULL Magicka users various attacks.

If there was a single person here who builds full stamina and intends to knowledge share then you would find out pretty quickly. But really heavy attacks are quite deceptive in terms of dealing damage -- people will eventually figure it out but whether or not it is competitive is a different story.

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

The problem with the weapon damage of 1 hand & shield, 2 hand and DW is that it doesn't scale well with the content.

Between 1 to 50 there is no issue, but at VR2 onwards there is a big issue.

And the problem sits on the issue of the Light armour and the destruction staff.
They both scale very well in VR content, as Medium, Heavy and melee weapon skills should.

In the mean time, without CC on the melee line, and the pretty broken buffs of the trash mobs at the VR content, melee Templars do struggle a lot. More than SC or DK for the sole purpose that their skill are marginally better.

Someone said on another discussion that they can achieve 800-900 dps with their Templar, instead of around 300 we do currently. Of course, only 2 skills from the Templar lines were used. Everything else was Destruction Staff and 1 ability from Mages guild.

Explains a lot I am afraid.

Shaun98ca2

This sounds more like an issue with VR content then the items themselves.

Another thing to look at is how long can you REALLY sustain a high damage threshold with a full Magicka build.

Templars simply cant do it all Magicka drains just as fast as you use it. Makes the sustainability of Stamina sound a LOT better.

DKs' have had the second worst Magicka Management in the game and next update I believe, its gonna get even worse again making the sustainability of Stamina sound a LOT better.

NightBlades after their next fix can sustain Magicka and Stamina both but at the cost of having ANY kind of viable DPS in order to do so. Stamina is starting to look better.

Sorcerers have to wait 3 seconds to get back only a portion of their Magicka. This also requires an ability slot to be CONSTANTLY wasted this is also at the cost of another limited resource.

Storm Calling for Sorcerers also assist in giving back some Magicka but nothing to truly sustain.

Magicka simply cant sustain very long which makes sense. High Damage low survivability low sustainment.

Stamina HIGH sustainment of damage that is standardly much higher than a Magicka user WITHOUT any Magicka and high survivability

In all reality BOTH are equally dangerous. There are NUMEROUS abilities that will STUN a Spell Caster that makes ANY attempt to cast anything other than instant and even to simply use a Heavy Attack ability.

Melee's suffer from their Heavy Attacks being blockable and even some of their charge abilities from being blockable.



TLDR...I believe Full Stamina builds Light/Heavy Attacks are OVERLY under rated. VR content is a BAD judgment of ANY build in this game as its over tuned for difficulty.

Sidrath

Ugh... a high sustain from current Trial-running, Magicka-based builds seems to be something in the 900-1100 damage per second.

Just how much are you expecting a Stam build's Light/Heavy attacks to deliver? It's utter nonsense to imagine that Stamina stacking will somehow give you enough auto-attack damage to compensate for gimped Class skills (all Class skills scale with Magicka pool, so any Stam-heavy build is by definition gimping its Class skills).

No, the only way Stamina builds will work is if they boost the damage coefficients on Stamina-using Weapon skill lines (One hand and Shield, 2 Handed, Dual Wield, Bow). If in doubt, go to esohead, you can get a good feel for damage tooltip values at varying levels of Stamina/Magicka. Those lay bare the raw output gap between good Magicka-based skills and pretty much all Stamina-based ones. And remember: even if some Stamina skills achieved parity with Magicka ones... that's not enough. Your class-specific buffs, even your Ultimates work off Magicka and Spell Power! Low Magicka means weakening -some- of the skills on your toolbar. For the blended approach to work, you'd need your Stamina skills to do much more, so your arsenal averages out to the same as a full Magicka-build.

It should also be obvious from the get-go that the Magicka-based builds actually are safer. If you're not using -any- of your Stamina pool for DPS, it's safely reserved for Immovable, sprinting, dodge rolls and blocking (which you can do while insta-casting). Stamina builds on the other hand will have to be more careful never to burn their full Stamina pool into attacks, lest they find themselves unable to dodge/block/sprint at a critical time. And with quite a few bosses doing PBAoEs, I expect melee Stamina-users will have to be dodging away more often than their ranged counterparts anyway, to survive.

Throw in the classic issue of DPS downtime for melee Stamina builds like 2H/DW vs ranged casters and it's really not open to interpretation: Stamina builds are vastly inferior to Magicka builds for pure DPS in the current meta.

Shaun98ca2

Well im ONLY a Level 39 with a only all 38 points placed into Stamina and NO Stamina enchantments.

Brawler III = 107dps + 105 bleed over 10 secs + 81 point Damage Ward 8 secs for each target hit. 200 Stam

Wrecking Blow III = 1 sec cast 312 damage 3.5 stun plus 38 power increase of next attack 4 meter knockback. 300 Stam

Reverse Slash 0 (haven't placed point) = 111 damage up to 300% damage based on opponents lost health. 200 Stam


I don't believe my Heavy Attack hits for NEARLY as much as Wrecking Blow but still seems stronger than Brawler so I would guess 200-250.

My melee build simply wrecks anything I fight and I mostly rely on Light/Heavy Attacks as I tend to Sprint Everywhere.

Shaun98ca2

Some quick Testing my Brawler ability took 7-8 hits on average to kill thunderbug.

Heavy Attack 4 hits

My Magicka is VERY close to equal with my Stamina and is currently producing around 300 per hit but Templars aren't really known for Direct Damage abilities.

Stamina seems to be VERY on par with a Templar in an almost perfect balance to me.

Sidrath

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

TLDR...I believe Full Stamina builds Light/Heavy Attacks are OVERLY under rated. VR content is a BAD judgment of ANY build in this game as its over tuned for difficulty.

I understand your enthusiasm for Stamina builds better, now. I loved my 2-Hander at 39 too, and yes, it wrecked everything. Then again, at 39 any build can be made to wreck the content: that's why people loved the 1-50 levelling. It's flexible and lets you play the way you want.

The thing is, the only place to truly gauge the strength of a build is in difficult content, where inferior builds no longer 'wreck anything'. Get to VR, pick up a DPS addon (we're not looking at damage per ability usage, but really damage per second, factoring in cast times and animation windows. Wrecking Blow is god-awful DPS when you count its actual animation time), track the numbers. It's not even really open to debate that there is a gap between magicka and stamina builds.

Enjoy the game, though! At 39, you don't even need to worry about this imbalance.

steinernein

Sidrath wrote: »

...

Have you even looked at ESOhead? Also the meta is only immediately relevant if you're joining a pug otherwise it's less useful.

Shaun98ca2

steinernein wrote: »

Sidrath wrote: »

...

Have you even looked at ESOhead? Also the meta is only immediately relevant if you're joining a pug otherwise it's less useful.

I love ESOhead their #s seem less than worthless though.

Sidrath wrote: »

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

TLDR...I believe Full Stamina builds Light/Heavy Attacks are OVERLY under rated. VR content is a BAD judgment of ANY build in this game as its over tuned for difficulty.

I understand your enthusiasm for Stamina builds better, now. I loved my 2-Hander at 39 too, and yes, it wrecked everything. Then again, at 39 any build can be made to wreck the content: that's why people loved the 1-50 levelling. It's flexible and lets you play the way you want.

The thing is, the only place to truly gauge the strength of a build is in difficult content, where inferior builds no longer 'wreck anything'. Get to VR, pick up a DPS addon (we're not looking at damage per ability usage, but really damage per second, factoring in cast times and animation windows. Wrecking Blow is god-awful DPS when you count its actual animation time), track the numbers. It's not even really open to debate that there is a gap between magicka and stamina builds.

Enjoy the game, though! At 39, you don't even need to worry about this imbalance.

When I get to VR level trust me I fully plan to research further into Stamina builds I still believe that most people that have tried Stamina builds simply didn't know how to play one.

1st you will want to get a quick parse of several different DPS attemps of BEST DPS run, spam instant DD and maybe spam a 1-2 second cast ability to compare to on a VR 12 Mudcrab.

Then I will even fully accept a VR12 FULL Stamina build DPS of nothing but 2 Hand Sword Heavy Attacks on a VR12 Mudcrab till it dies. Spam Wrecking Blow till it dies. Then alternate Wrecking Blow, Heavy, Wrecking Blow, Heavy till it dies.

Try to take note of how much Magicka is left after BEST DPS run.

IF Mudcrabs die too fast maybe try simple but stronger enemies that can be fought 1 on 1 for a longer length of time.

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

Don't try the mudcrabs but the hoarers at VR3-4. If you kill 3 hoarers quickly without dying, then you are in the good road. And let us know how you achieved it

Shaun98ca2

p_tsakirisb16_ESO wrote: »

Don't try the mudcrabs but the hoarers at VR3-4. If you kill 3 hoarers quickly without dying, then you are in the good road. And let us know how you achieved it

Yea that wont be happening for months as I want the leveling process to last a VERY long time. Month 2 and im level 39 half way to 40 so yea. Still in Molalab Bol whatever lol.

trimsic_ESO

steinernein wrote: »

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

Personally I would like to see a VR12 player FULL Stamina to show what kind of damage Light/Heavy Attacks produce for the various weapons to compare to a FULL Magicka users various attacks.

If there was a single person here who builds full stamina and intends to knowledge share then you would find out pretty quickly. But really heavy attacks are quite deceptive in terms of dealing damage -- people will eventually figure it out but whether or not it is competitive is a different story.

Soft cap stamina - dagger VR12 (legendary) + dagger VR11 (epic) - light attack about 125 - heavy attack about 175.

See how ridiculous are these numbers ?

As a matter of comparison, with a VR12 legendary bow, soft cap stamina, a light attack deals about 280 and heavy attack about 450. Ok, the daggers swing much faster, but I don't know much people who stand still until I get them down. They'll move quicky, TP, or whatever else. With my daggers, I'm not at a threat for them.

In Cyrodiil, especially in large combats, most of the damage dealers play with a destruction staff and a light armor, and for a good reason: it's much more effective. 3 DKs of guild had a stamina build; they now have a magicka build and they say it's just over powered compared to what they had before.

Shaun98ca2

oops

Shaun98ca2

trimsic_ESO wrote: »

steinernein wrote: »

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

Personally I would like to see a VR12 player FULL Stamina to show what kind of damage Light/Heavy Attacks produce for the various weapons to compare to a FULL Magicka users various attacks.

If there was a single person here who builds full stamina and intends to knowledge share then you would find out pretty quickly. But really heavy attacks are quite deceptive in terms of dealing damage -- people will eventually figure it out but whether or not it is competitive is a different story.

Soft cap stamina - dagger VR12 (legendary) + dagger VR11 (epic) - light attack about 125 - heavy attack about 175.

See how ridiculous are these numbers ?

Yea considering my level 39 2 hander is out performing you and Stamina isn't soft capped and my weapon is several levels lower than me 36 maybe.

steinernein

trimsic_ESO wrote: »

Soft cap stamina - dagger VR12 (legendary) + dagger VR11 (epic) - light attack about 125 - heavy attack about 175.

See how ridiculous are these numbers ?

You're doing it wrong; check your numbers again, specifically your log/parser, I am not going to bother doing a number check for you. For extra credit, go check what happens when you throw on various buffs.

You completely misunderstand what I write and apply it to a context I haven't even supplied yet, plus I haven't even made a concrete stance. I am merely saying it is deceptive (like how you completely owned yourself just now) and it may warrant people looking into.

But I'll be blunt, I have no interest in knowledge sharing with you (most of it is floating around anyways) so let's just move on and ignore each other.

GaldorP

What some people here seem to ignore in their posts is that 300k+ Health bosses that will auto-wipe your trials group if you don't kill them and their adds fast enough (3rd boss in AA is the best example I know) require all the Damage Dealers in the group to have a very high *sustained* Dps. This can only be achieved (at least for Dragon Knights) by going with a Destruction Staff Light Armor build.

The problem is that Stamina weapon skills are too weak compared to Magicka weapon skills when it comes to *sustained* Dps (they're not much weaker for single-target burst Dps at the beginning of a fight; some might even be better thanks to sneak bonus).

This is due to the fact that Magicka has much more passives (and active skills) that help ressource management (there are tons of reduced Magicka cost passives, refill when below 30%, Magicka Recovery passives that push Recovery to near hard cap, skills that let your group recover Magicka, tons of passives that increase elemental damage and make Magicka skills more efficient, the same type of Crit (Spell Critical) working on both direct damage and DoT ticks, etc.)

Stamina, on the other hand, has only the Recovery Bonus from Medium Armor passives and sets (+Green Dragon Blood for DKs), some reduced cost passives in a few weapon skill lines (for example the bow skill line). Then there's the damage bonus on Hunding's Rage (if it's working now) and the passive from Flawless Dawnbreaker if you have it slotted to make your Stamina weapon skills slightly more efficient. That's it. You can't keep up a good sustained Dps for more than 10 seconds even if you combine Stamina skills with efficient DoT Class skills like Searing Strike, Engulfing Flames, Standard of Might and maybe Burning Talons for enemies on the ground. Also, you will soon be low on Stamina, which is dangerous because you can't block, dodge roll or break from CC anymore.

Add to that the fact that Destruction Staff skills get better effects and basic damage already for a given amount of Magicka than Stamina weapon skills get for the same amount of Stamina. Especially in the case of AoE damage skills. A simple comparison:

On my VR12 character that has 1636 Magicka and 1884 Stamina, 91 Spell Damage and 188 Weapon Damage, and is wearing a Medium Armor set with full passives)

- Impulse Lv 1 does 216 Magic Damage within an 8 meter radius for 336 Magicka (no Destruction Staff passives)
- Whirlwind Lv 4 does 141 Physical Damage within a 5 meter radius for 392 Stamina (no Dual Wield passives)

I think Impulse has a shorter animation on top of that

Sidrath

VR6 Templar, 1243 Stamina, 146 Weapon Damage. My Wrecking Blow I tooltip in-game says 386, vs Esohead's 388 for the exact same parameters.

http://esohead.com/skills/38807-wrecking-blow

Input your own parameters and check it in-game. I've done it for several abilities, 90% of them were spot-on, which is good enough to get some basic arithmetic going on those abilities' coefficients (meaning damage contribution per point of Stamina/Weapon Damage), and assess that they are indeed inadequate on those Weapon Skills.

In short windows (10s fight), Wrecking Blow -> Heavy Attack -> Wrecking Blow achieves a paltry 200 DPS at my level. With a full Stam build VR6, I'd estimate it at 260 DPS based on the coefficients. Each Wrecking Blow hits for 373, each Heavy Blow for 359 (would be 303 if not buffed by WB). These attacks take far too long in animation time for the damage they deliver... to say nothing of the peril of winding up long attacks in melee range at VR.

Again, I respect people's enthusiasm for Stamina builds. But to say "most people that have tried Stamina builds simply didn't know how to play one" is arrogant in the extreme, especially when your basis for saying so is killing Thunderbugs at Lv39.

Shaun98ca2

These are some good numbers thank you probably the 1st I have seen in a long time in the Magicka v Stamina Discussion.