Food vs drink? What's more useful?

Chronicburn

I've been using drink figuring the regen is better, however I've been wrong about a lot of things I figured in this game so ... what is better to use, food or drink? (Assuming equal level)

lagrue

Food. Emperors fricasse is the best thing besides crown store food. The drinks just arent good enough. It would take like 30 seconds for a max Magicka recharge food to take my bar from empty to full which is like all lf 5 seconds more than natural. Foods add to base stats which adds to damage.

Bigevilpeter

Depends, in PVE most of the time food is better, max stats are very important in PVE.
For Endgame:
You need Max health between 17-18k and as much max main resource as possible for maximum damage or healing.

Tanks can sometimes use Drink if they have and ok stat pool

In PvP most of the time its Drinks since regeneration more important than maxing out your damage

zaria

Food, it increases your health and stamina / magic by an large amount.
You can get regeneration from enchants and skills.
Lots of skills have an huge health regen from damage already.

IronCrystal

If you are newish to the game and don't care as much about getting the maximum possible damage, I would recommend using the Orsinium foods that give +hp and +resource recovery. Red Frothgar for Magicka and Triple Tripe for Stamina.

The problem with standard drinks is they don't give you +max hp, which is vital for most content otherwise you'll have like 11-12k hp.

Chronicburn

So say for a magic sorcerer... increasing max magic with food will also increase damage with all magic skills? Similar to putting all your points into magic?

I didn't realize increasing the pool with food also increased damage with that particular damage group (stam or magic) ...

So for a stamplar I would eat +stam and health food
For magplar I eat + mag and health food

Drinks are not the wtg

I have been doing it backwards :0/ Which is why I asked lol

Thanks guys!

STEVIL

Food is max stat which is skills used AND damage done.

Drinks provide regen which is just skills used. No extra damage.

but there is this - as far as skills used - Drinks only break even with food if the fight lasts exactly 20s. if it lasts longer they give you more skills used. but if the fight lasts less than 20s the drink would not have even given you as much stat as the food would. Regardless of length of time, the food will get you more damage each attack. that in and of itself will likely shorten a fight.

most of the casual fights - wont last 20s.

but to me the deciding factor is - when you start to run low on stats, heavy attack gives you stat back. lotsa skills and passives give you stats back. so, regen is easier to "mimic" thru play than max stat is.

Some specialty food and drinks from DLCs and events and quests break the mold and have to be assessed independently case-by-case.

but it really comes down to playstyle. if you are using food and your fights are taking a long time and you are running out of stats - switch to drinks to see if that helps.

Chronicburn

Ok say I'm playing stamplar solo ... I'm putting all my skill points in stamina ... if I eat the magica/stamina food that will increase my attack damage and buff my self heal a bit too then right?

Chronicburn

And thx again stevil ... you seem to always be around to help us noobs ! :0)

De_Mysteriis

I guess it's rather obvious... Food and drinks are intended to supply what your build lacks.

SanSan

Chronicburn wrote: »

Ok say I'm playing stamplar solo ... I'm putting all my skill points in stamina ... if I eat the magica/stamina food that will increase my attack damage and buff my self heal a bit too then right?

yes

Magdalina

Chronicburn wrote: »

Ok say I'm playing stamplar solo ... I'm putting all my skill points in stamina ... if I eat the magica/stamina food that will increase my attack damage and buff my self heal a bit too then right?

If by self heal you mean BoL yes it will; skills generally scale with max stat of the resource required to use them(stamina skills scale with stamina etc, pretty straightforward) no matter how it's achieved. Attribute points/ food/set bonuses/armor enchants/group buffs/Warhorn ultimate will all contribute there. Most of them also scale with corresponding damage (weapon/spell), though for example shields don't.

Far as BoL goes, it's not going to be very effective for you as a stamina build(though I suppose any little bit helps, especially if you're just soloing) even with magicka food, you might want to look into stamina heals like Vigor or the 2h one, forgot its name.

Olupajmibanan

There is one special drink worth mentioning - the Witchmother Potent Brew.

It gives you bonus to max health and magicka as well as bonus to your magicka regen. It's scaled with level so it can be great even for leveling.
If you don't want pure dps, but have some nice sustain as well, go with this.

Olupajmibanan

Don't understand why upcoming recipe: the Dubious Camoran Throne which will give bonus to max health, max stamina and stamina regen, can't be a drink type to be in line with Witch Brew.

That would open some nice posibilities for Bone pirate set.

hmsdragonfly

Chronicburn wrote: »

Ok say I'm playing stamplar solo ... I'm putting all my skill points in stamina ... if I eat the magica/stamina food that will increase my attack damage and buff my self heal a bit too then right?

Don't use BoL if you are stamplar. Get vigor

Danksta

SanSan wrote: »

Chronicburn wrote: »

Ok say I'm playing stamplar solo ... I'm putting all my skill points in stamina ... if I eat the magica/stamina food that will increase my attack damage and buff my self heal a bit too then right?

yes

As a stamplar you'll likely want to go with food that buffs max health and max stamina, if PvP then maybe purple food that buffs all 3 stat pools.

Edit: Wtf!? Quoted wrong person.

bubbygink

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

Don't understand why upcoming recipe: the Dubious Camoran Throne which will give bonus to max health, max stamina and stamina regen, can't be a drink type to be in line with Witch Brew.

That would open some nice posibilities for Bone pirate set.

@Olupajmibanan I thought that Dubious Camoran Throne was going to be a drink. At least that is what it says on UESP. I was thinking of pairing it with Bone Pirate Tatters as well. Is the UESP wrong? Is Dubious Camoran Throne actually classified as food?

raj72616a

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

Don't understand why upcoming recipe: the Dubious Camoran Throne which will give bonus to max health, max stamina and stamina regen, can't be a drink type to be in line with Witch Brew.

That would open some nice posibilities for Bone pirate set.

witch brew isnt a drink neither.
it does not activate the drunk pirate set.

MCBIZZLE300

I use the Orgas tripe trifle, 5000 health and 457 stam regen, The benefits of food and drink combined!

akl77

Solid food

GreenhaloX

Food is useful for the longer term-effect, but drink is useful when you need that buff right now. So, both are useful in its own way.

Inhuman003

to me I find drinks useless I mostly use food. but its the regeneration of drinks that make me stay away from it. drink regeneration don't seem strong to me for some reason.

Violynne

Chronicburn wrote: »

I've been using drink figuring the regen is better, however I've been wrong about a lot of things I figured in this game so ... what is better to use, food or drink? (Assuming equal level)

I'm no expert in the game, but take this information with a grain of salt, as I cannot recall actual numbers.

Fishy Stick grants 743 health. Red Rye Beer grants 74 health regen.

We're going to take liberties and state default regen is 50 (couldn't find an actual source on this) and max health is 2000. I like round numbers. We're also going to assume 1500 points of damage taken.

For Fishy Stick, player is left with 1243 health (2743 - 1500). At 50 per 2 seconds recovery, it'll take the player 1 minute to recover the 1500.

For the Red Rye Beer, the player is left with 500 health. At 124 (50 + 74) per 2 seconds recovery, it'll take the player about 24 seconds to recover the 1500.

I've seen nothing in the game which speeds up the 2 seconds.

Based on this very simple example, food is clearly the winner. It's much better to draw from a large pool than to spend time filling a smaller one faster.

Now eat your Fishy Stick.