Stam DK vs Magicka DK (discussion)

Durham

I have have played a Stam DK for the last 2 years in this game. I do enjoy the playstyle in the past I believed that I was on Par with a Magicka DK.... I could simply run them out of stamina and end them.... Now it seems they do that to me lol... My brother plays a Magicka DK and right now he simply owns me in duels, not so in the past. In open world PVP I have noticed that magicka DKs are much more numerous and honestly the better ones are much more dangerous then the stam counterpart right now when I fight them... I see Magicak DK's blockcasting similar to the way I did when I first starting playing a DK (I was magicka at first 3 years ago) I know this is strong mechanic..

I generally play small man 2 to 8 on most nights (keep this mind also) ... I have been wrestling with this switch for sometime now (since morrowind) I wondering about some opinions you guys might have on this switch... This switch would require me to switch from redguard to another race ... So its not as easy as it seems for me....

Zordrage

resource regen got hit hard last few patches...

the prob is stamina got hit waaaay harder then magica....

pretymuch everyone and their grandma is switching their stamina builds to magica

the only exceptions are Night Blades and Tank Dks

right now Magica is just simply superior and easier to manage....

Skoomah

Stam DKs still wreck face when built right. I am competitive and win lots of duels. Try putting together an immortal build.

Durham

I switched this afternoon saw a difference already .....

Ocelot9x

I mained stam dk for almost 2 years and we're struggling at the moment (currently switched to stamward). It's the worst class to play with the current block casting meta,especially if you loved the bow/2handed. Resource management is quite hard,second just to stamplar but without reliable offensive passives. Also it's the only class who have no group utility so yeah,kinda frustrating playing one.

murdomac101

Durham wrote: »

I switched this afternoon saw a difference already .....

Yo. What are the differences you're finding ? I played mDK at launch but have been stamina for a few years. I like to brawl so having a good balance of tankyness, sustain and punch - that's obv very hard to achieve at the moment (not impossible) with my sDK

Durham

Magicka > Stamina in most situations due the expense of stamina .... ( 9 meta nerfs in the last patch)
The combination of blocking and damage shield + good damage was superior..

If you want to perma block then you need to build something other then what I call a Stamina DK ...

I do not like the Magicka DK tho even a weaker version of the Stamina DK I will go back to ...

Jawasa

Magdk lack the punch and have zero mobility. Especially vs shield stacking or templars. Both stam and magdk offer very low group utility. If you need some1 too root people bring a sorc and magwarden has major defile aoe. They still work but i would pref other classes in My group.

ak_pvp

I think they are on par. Both rather below average all around, but excel in tanking.

DKs over all have low mobility, low resource management, lowest burst, and a mess of useless abilities.

I think stam has the higher damage due to brutality passive, 2h and executes, and take flight being the better morph.

But mag has better utility with roots and better healing. On a semi related note, most magDKs in pvp are very near hybrid, which says something.

Durham

Stam DK right now is also hurting 9 meta nerfs to them .... Everything just costs way to much ... Burst is good but very slow at times ... Still tons of buggy game play with this meta ... You can make this work still yes but you are weaker, my question is why? Stam DK was mainly a single target DPS playstyle meanwhile other things in the game are killing mutiple targets doing just as much burst lol .... Before the last patch most DKs were not issues and could be taken out by any of the the other Stamina classes depending on the ability of the other player ....

Crit Rush will not due damage to players on horses if they are sprinting (So dont try knocking someone off their horse).
Crit Rush still will make fall through the ground sometimes
Crit Rush still get stuck in animations

Dizzyswing is still very slow and will be hard to get off on good players you have to sneak it in this leaves you with no other burst except for your leap (I hope you have some ult regen)

Leap still bugs out and will not go off in heavy lag
Leap still bugs out and will not go in no lag

Blocking is extremely expensive unless you really build blocking into your templete thus taking much of your damage out and killing your burst.... This hurst stam and magicka builds alike ....

Vigor is much weaker now that it will be recieve major mending only on 2 or 3 tics .... and it is 40% more expensive then before ... This further happers your stamina pools... Keep in mind Rally was at one time a very cheap skill now its very expensive to cast also (Cost increase of this skill has been adjusted 2 times upward) ... all these things add up...

Ingenius Shields was butcherd for stam builds but does not really affect the Magicka to much... Stam needs this to last 5 secs...

Helping hands was a butcher to stam builds but again in most cases this was buff to Magicka .... Stam lost 60% return from this ....

-Shield ultimate is your friend but I think it will be nerfed also this will really affect DKs hard ... This will close to a deathnail for the stam classes... On my magicka DK I do use shields and I can get away with that to some extent but this will be heavy nerf on the DK ... But I see it comming ...

-Advice to stam DK's
Make sure you use the unchained passive everytime you CC hit your medium armor buff or another expensive ability using this CP buff is what will seperate you from the potatoes DKs... By the way Im a potatoe also but I have advanced to sweet potatoe...

Make sure you practice so cancel animations.....

Right now Stam in general except for Night Blades has been hit to hard IMO... The nerfs were way to much ... Nerfing stam when they use 90% of their damage and defense comes from 1 pool hurts really bad .....

IxskullzxI

It's actually pretty sad how much the dk relies on block. I guess that's what happens when you gut it's class defensive skills. Sustain is an issue with both stam and mag dk. As Durham said, helping hands got dickked for stam dk and battle roar is cheeks compared to what it used to be.

NBrookus

Stam DK > magicka DK:
Higher burst
Greater mobility
More viable build/playstyle options

Magicka DK > stam DK:
More group utility, mostly through better roots and CC. Making people miserable and holding them down so other people can kill them is not for everyone.

Bear in mind leap is also bugged for mag DK, Igneous Shield was exactly the same nerf for both, Helping Hands was a nerf to our magicka just like it was a nerf to stam DK's stamina, and no, I didn't need or want the extra stamina. Meanwhile, the heavy attack nerf removed the only other viable solo/small group playstyle for magDK.

The pain stam DKs are feeling over resource management was what mDK was going through for over year. The mag DKs that stuck it out got a lot of practice at resource management. Vigor nerfed? How long did mDK play without any sort of on-demand heal at all unless they ran resto? Compared to those days, the tiny cost reductions we got with MW and a revamp of CDB has been freaking' awesome.

Of the 4 classes I've played with enough to have an decent opinion -- counting DK twice for mag and stam -- I know which ones are easy mode. Neither is a DK.

Durham

I would concur with most of your points but a Stam DK has very limited mobility I would say less at the moment then Mag with no mist... Unless your counting bow.. but why run a bow if you want that style go sorc or nb they both do it better.. Hell even my stam temp does it better..

Anti_Virus

NBrookus wrote: »

Stam DK > magicka DK:
Higher burst
Greater mobility
More viable build/playstyle options

Magicka DK > stam DK:
More group utility, mostly through better roots and CC. Making people miserable and holding them down so other people can kill them is not for everyone.

Bear in mind leap is also bugged for mag DK, Igneous Shield was exactly the same nerf for both, Helping Hands was a nerf to our magicka just like it was a nerf to stam DK's stamina, and no, I didn't need or want the extra stamina. Meanwhile, the heavy attack nerf removed the only other viable solo/small group playstyle for magDK.

The pain stam DKs are feeling over resource management was what mDK was going through for over year. The mag DKs that stuck it out got a lot of practice at resource management. Vigor nerfed? How long did mDK play without any sort of on-demand heal at all unless they ran resto? Compared to those days, the tiny cost reductions we got with MW and a revamp of CDB has been freaking' awesome.

Of the 4 classes I've played with enough to have an decent opinion -- counting DK twice for mag and stam -- I know which ones are easy mode. Neither is a DK.

Lol buring embers healed you, draw essence healed you, Flame lash healed you.

Stop being biased

Stam DK has two builds, 2h build or SnB build.

mDK has better build options they have lots of class skills to choose from mean while stam DK is lacking and is forced to run weapon skills to supplement but then why play a DK when you can play a stam NB which had access to to both class and weapon stam abilities?

[Edit for Grammatical errors]**

Durham

9/10 are magicka DKs right now I play both... there are more options with magicka..
Currently most Stam DKs have shelved them to magicka.. or they made extreme tanking toons that deal low to moderate burst...

Like I said in a previous post you can make a Stam DK work ... the old fury builds still work but most are less bursty now because of sustain issues..

Both Magicka and Stamina DKs are hurting in PVP imo.. you can tell by the leader boards ...

murdomac101

Anti_Virus wrote: »

NBrookus wrote: »

Stam DK > magicka DK:
Higher burst
Greater mobility
More viable build/playstyle options

Magicka DK > stam DK:
More group utility, mostly through better roots and CC. Making people miserable and holding them down so other people can kill them is not for everyone.

Bear in mind leap is also bugged for mag DK, Igneous Shield was exactly the same nerf for both, Helping Hands was a nerf to our magicka just like it was a nerf to stam DK's stamina, and no, I didn't need or want the extra stamina. Meanwhile, the heavy attack nerf removed the only other viable solo/small group playstyle for magDK.

The pain stam DKs are feeling over resource management was what mDK was going through for over year. The mag DKs that stuck it out got a lot of practice at resource management. Vigor nerfed? How long did mDK play without any sort of on-demand heal at all unless they ran resto? Compared to those days, the tiny cost reductions we got with MW and a revamp of CDB has been freaking' awesome.

Of the 4 classes I've played with enough to have an decent opinion -- counting DK twice for mag and stam -- I know which ones are easy mode. Neither is a DK.

Lol buring embers healed you, draw essence healed you, Flame lash healed you.

Stop being biased

Stam DK has two builds, 2h build or Ann build.

mDK has better build options they have lots of class skills to choose from mean while stam DK is lacking and is forced to run weapon skills to supplement but they why play a DK when you can play a stam NB which had access to to both class and weapon stam abilities?

What is an Ann build?

ak_pvp

Durham wrote: »

Stam DK right now is also hurting 9 meta nerfs to them .... Everything just costs way to much ... Burst is good but very slow at times ... Still tons of buggy game play with this meta ... You can make this work still yes but you are weaker, my question is why? Stam DK was mainly a single target DPS playstyle meanwhile other things in the game are killing mutiple targets doing just as much burst lol .... Before the last patch most DKs were not issues and could be taken out by any of the the other Stamina classes depending on the ability of the other player ....

Crit Rush will not due damage to players on horses if they are sprinting (So dont try knocking someone off their horse).
Crit Rush still will make fall through the ground sometimes
Crit Rush still get stuck in animations

Dizzyswing is still very slow and will be hard to get off on good players you have to sneak it in this leaves you with no other burst except for your leap (I hope you have some ult regen)

Leap still bugs out and will not go off in heavy lag
Leap still bugs out and will not go in no lag

Blocking is extremely expensive unless you really build blocking into your templete thus taking much of your damage out and killing your burst.... This hurst stam and magicka builds alike ....

Vigor is much weaker now that it will be recieve major mending only on 2 or 3 tics .... and it is 40% more expensive then before ... This further happers your stamina pools... Keep in mind Rally was at one time a very cheap skill now its very expensive to cast also (Cost increase of this skill has been adjusted 2 times upward) ... all these things add up...

Ingenius Shields was butcherd for stam builds but does not really affect the Magicka to much... Stam needs this to last 5 secs...

Helping hands was a butcher to stam builds but again in most cases this was buff to Magicka .... Stam lost 60% return from this ....

-Shield ultimate is your friend but I think it will be nerfed also this will really affect DKs hard ... This will close to a deathnail for the stam classes... On my magicka DK I do use shields and I can get away with that to some extent but this will be heavy nerf on the DK ... But I see it comming ...

-Advice to stam DK's
Make sure you use the unchained passive everytime you CC hit your medium armor buff or another expensive ability using this CP buff is what will seperate you from the potatoes DKs... By the way Im a potatoe also but I have advanced to sweet potatoe...

Make sure you practice so cancel animations.....

Right now Stam in general except for Night Blades has been hit to hard IMO... The nerfs were way to much ... Nerfing stam when they use 90% of their damage and defense comes from 1 pool hurts really bad .....

1: This affects all gapclosers aside from TP strike and streak.

2: Dizzying swing is meant to be difficult to line up burst. Affects all classes that use it.

3: Affects both mag/stam DKs, stam actually has the better leap.

4: Also affects both DK specs since they are almost forced into blocky builds.

5: Yep, was a bad change. They should make dragonblood scale of total stats. i.e. 10K health, 10k mag, and 40k stam would give the same healing as 40k health, 10k mag, and 10k stam. Would give all varieties of DK a bursty heal that no other stam classes have.

6: Yeah, doesn't work well with vigor at all. Not sure why it was nerfed, now its better even for mag just to use 2 DBs since igneous only lasts 3sec. Were they afraid of DK healer meta?

7: It kind of was necessary to stop permablocking. But all the other nerfs hit it too hard and made stamDK less useful. Undecided on this one.

8: Not happened yet, we don't know. I personally don't use it, mag or stam.

On the last point where you say that mag is better aside from NBs; Magwarden = stamwarden; Magplar = Stamplar (acc rlly strong now) and MagDK = StamDK (The class overall has been nerfballed) Generally to answer your main question, they are similar in strengths, however stam as a whole needs a few buffs to healing+dodging, too much goes through dodgeroll.

NBrookus

Durham wrote: »

I would concur with most of your points but a Stam DK has very limited mobility I would say less at the moment then Mag with no mist... Unless your counting bow.. but why run a bow if you want that style go sorc or nb they both do it better.. Hell even my stam temp does it better..

Stam DK can sprint and run rapids.

Anti_Virus wrote: »

NBrookus wrote: »

Stam DK > magicka DK:
Higher burst
Greater mobility
More viable build/playstyle options

Magicka DK > stam DK:
More group utility, mostly through better roots and CC. Making people miserable and holding them down so other people can kill them is not for everyone.

Bear in mind leap is also bugged for mag DK, Igneous Shield was exactly the same nerf for both, Helping Hands was a nerf to our magicka just like it was a nerf to stam DK's stamina, and no, I didn't need or want the extra stamina. Meanwhile, the heavy attack nerf removed the only other viable solo/small group playstyle for magDK.

The pain stam DKs are feeling over resource management was what mDK was going through for over year. The mag DKs that stuck it out got a lot of practice at resource management. Vigor nerfed? How long did mDK play without any sort of on-demand heal at all unless they ran resto? Compared to those days, the tiny cost reductions we got with MW and a revamp of CDB has been freaking' awesome.

Of the 4 classes I've played with enough to have an decent opinion -- counting DK twice for mag and stam -- I know which ones are easy mode. Neither is a DK.

Lol buring embers healed you, draw essence healed you, Flame lash healed you.

All of those heals required you to be in range of an enemy target. You couldn't LOS and heal up unless you ran resto. BE is a great heal, but it has a 5 meter range and you can't use it on a streaking sorc, a sprinting stam toon, a permaroller, a cloaking NB.

I have both stam and mag DKs; I like them both. Both have structural class issues.

Durham

Stam DKs are in heavy builds mostly sprinting hurts and your snared 60% of the time, you have wait for a hard stun to cast your evade buff.. ... Rapids is way to expensive to run on a DK.. keep in mind our regen is higher this patch 1200 to 1500 on most builds with the sacrifice of burst .. both of the things you listed are things i would do if i had medium armor... DK medium armor builds are weaker atm then all the other classes...

Durham

I think we are talking in circles and we both agree that the class needs some attention... and we are disagreeing about something that means very little overall.....

Anti_Virus

murdomac101 wrote: »

Anti_Virus wrote: »

NBrookus wrote: »

Stam DK > magicka DK:
Higher burst
Greater mobility
More viable build/playstyle options

Magicka DK > stam DK:
More group utility, mostly through better roots and CC. Making people miserable and holding them down so other people can kill them is not for everyone.

Bear in mind leap is also bugged for mag DK, Igneous Shield was exactly the same nerf for both, Helping Hands was a nerf to our magicka just like it was a nerf to stam DK's stamina, and no, I didn't need or want the extra stamina. Meanwhile, the heavy attack nerf removed the only other viable solo/small group playstyle for magDK.

The pain stam DKs are feeling over resource management was what mDK was going through for over year. The mag DKs that stuck it out got a lot of practice at resource management. Vigor nerfed? How long did mDK play without any sort of on-demand heal at all unless they ran resto? Compared to those days, the tiny cost reductions we got with MW and a revamp of CDB has been freaking' awesome.

Of the 4 classes I've played with enough to have an decent opinion -- counting DK twice for mag and stam -- I know which ones are easy mode. Neither is a DK.

Lol buring embers healed you, draw essence healed you, Flame lash healed you.

Stop being biased

Stam DK has two builds, 2h build or Ann build.

mDK has better build options they have lots of class skills to choose from mean while stam DK is lacking and is forced to run weapon skills to supplement but they why play a DK when you can play a stam NB which had access to to both class and weapon stam abilities?

What is an Ann build?

I meant to type *SnB(Sword and Board)* but my phone auto corrects* and types that instead.

[Edit Auto Correct strikes again]