Were Stamina builds an afterthought in the original game?

Daedric_NB_187

I've been playing this game since September, so I don't know how it was when the game first came out. I have a 360 CP MagSorc and a Stamblade. I just started a DK and want to do a stamina based build. I noticed that for the morphs, there are only two of them that are stamina based. At least according to esoacademy.com. I looked at other classes and noticed the same thing. Was the original intention for the game was for everyone to play magicka based characters? Or is it that they wanted the majority of stamina attacks to come from the weapon skill lines?

Runschei

Good question. I'll link a thread on the same topic if you want more details
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/344207/87-of-class-skills-are-magicka-131-vs-stamina-19-is-this-balanced/p1

Feanor

There were no stamina builds at launch. It took over 2 years to get to the point they were viable.

vyndral13preub18_ESO

In the original it was more balanced. You weren’t one or the other. Caps kept you from going all stam or all mag. So the idea was the class skills were magicka and the weapons were stam. Except of course the staffs. But your character used both together. Maybe leaning more one way, but using the other to fill out the build. I guess maybe balance isn’t right. But it was more magicka with a larger splash of stam to fill you out. Still not this all one or the other of today.

But that was done away with and over time class skills have slowly gained stamina morphs and caps were removed so now the best damage comes from going all one or the other.

Thogard

Warden has a lot of Stam morphs. Forget your DK and play a Stam warden.

Daedric_NB_187

Runschei wrote: »

Good question. I'll link a thread on the same topic if you want more details
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/344207/87-of-class-skills-are-magicka-131-vs-stamina-19-is-this-balanced/p1

Thank you for the link.

Daedric_NB_187

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

In the original it was more balanced. You weren’t one or the other. Caps kept you from going all stam or all mag. So the idea was the class skills were magicka and the weapons were stam. Except of course the staffs. But your character used both together. Maybe leaning more one way, but using the other to fill out the build. I guess maybe balance isn’t right. But it was more magicka with a larger splash of stam to fill you out. Still not this all one or the other of today.

But that was done away with and over time class skills have slowly gained stamina morphs and caps were removed so now the best damage comes from going all one or the other.

That makes a lot of sense and puts it into perspective now. Thank you for the explanation.

Bladerunner1

There were diminishing returns and limits to how far you'd want to stack damage buffs and hybrid builds weren't as terrible in the beginning. So a weapon user could rely more on effective use of magic skills.

IcyDeadPeople

Daedric_NB_187 wrote: »

I've been playing this game since September, so I don't know how it was when the game first came out. I have a 360 CP MagSorc and a Stamblade. I just started a DK and want to do a stamina based build. I noticed that for the morphs, there are only two of them that are stamina based. At least according to esoacademy.com. I looked at other classes and noticed the same thing. Was the original intention for the game was for everyone to play magicka based characters? Or is it that they wanted the majority of stamina attacks to come from the weapon skill lines?

If you had been playing since launch I think you would be glad to see how far the game has come to improve balance between stamina and magicka builds. You can actually roll mag or stam version of any of the five classes and make viable character for PVE or PVP.

At launch unfortunately many stam players were kicked from groups in both PVE and PVP or required to respec into magicka. Quite a few people quit ESO back then because they wanted to play a kind of warrior class instead of a mage. And it took a really long time to level up alts.

Even now if you want to roll with top PVP guild groups, because destro staff ultimate is so strong, stam players are relegated to the support role of rapids spammer. Overall in PVP open world, small groups and solo, stam is quite strong however.

SaintSubwayy

Thogard wrote: »

Warden has a lot of Stam morphs. Forget your DK and play a Stam warden.

stam DK still outperforms Stam Warden in PVE by ten miles

PVP they can both be played very well ^^

Wreuntzylla

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

In the original it was more balanced. You weren’t one or the other. Caps kept you from going all stam or all mag. So the idea was the class skills were magicka and the weapons were stam. Except of course the staffs. But your character used both together. Maybe leaning more one way, but using the other to fill out the build. I guess maybe balance isn’t right. But it was more magicka with a larger splash of stam to fill you out. Still not this all one or the other of today.

But that was done away with and over time class skills have slowly gained stamina morphs and caps were removed so now the best damage comes from going all one or the other.

Even staves, with staff abilities scaling off of weapon damage, max magicka and spell crit.

It used to be an intricate scheme that was quite convoluted. The problem is that very few people actually knew the scheme for a good bit after release, and some people that were playing from release still did not know the in and outs at the time it was changed to what it is today. It broke the traditional MMO mold.

I liked it. One thing about RPGs that never made sense to me was how a magical component of a stam ability could scale off of stamina (enchants, non-physical damage DoTs). The original system was closer to what I would have expected.

OdinForge

Stamina at launch was played very little, and it worked way differently than how it does post 1.6 which changed the game considerably. There were a few other players* that did stam back then like Xylena or Velconn but I don't know where their videos are, or if they even had any.

The videos below were all stamina game-play before things like vigor or CP were added, among many other changes. Aspects of stamina game-play that we know today like perma-dodging, strong healing or blocking didn't really exist back then. It definitely felt like stamina was an after-thought, but the way they played was interesting.

2H / bow stamplar - 1.5 with 2H heal changes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5rrj-T8ct8

2H / bow stamdk - 1.5 with 2H heal changes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHEDyvIqvWs

DW / resto stamnb - 1.x

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H08lDcPEc10

DW / resto stamnb - 1.3-1.5

https://youtu.be/XCbOgRSGbsM?t=8m51s

Bow / dw stamnb - 1.3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k39wGRTFtfA

DW / bow stamnb - 1.3 PvE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRqpyjJvdZI

TheShadowScout

Daedric_NB_187 wrote: »

...is it that they wanted the majority of stamina attacks to come from the weapon skill lines?

That would be it.
Makes sense, really... "stamina build" means powered by muscle, "magica build" means powered by magic. Not that many "special magic attacks" like most of the class skills that could plausibly be "muscle powered", yes? But as things went on, they did notice that the magica characters just had too much of an edge (there had been times when cyrodil winners were pretty much exclusively "skirt and stick"), and added stamina morphs to some class skills to make it a bit more balanced...

The stamina characters still will be relying more on weapon skills, and the magica characters still have a wider range of choices, but it works better now...

ArchMikem

StamKnights make use of just noxious breath and venom claw for their class skills, otherwise its only the passives that are useful. Actually a Stamknight is a really good single target damage over time DPS build.

starkerealm

I think the original intent was for everyone to be running hybrid builds, with a mix of magical abilities and mundane physical attacks (unless you were using a staff). Stam Morphs came later (I think 1.3), but the idea that a character wouldn't be a magicka user didn't seem to be there at launch.

bloodthirstyvampire

You could say a larger variety of stam weapons makes up for it duel wield sword and Shield two handed bow

BuddyAces

Pretty much the ma

starkerealm wrote: »

I think the original intent was for everyone to be running hybrid builds, with a mix of magical abilities and mundane physical attacks (unless you were using a staff). Stam Morphs came later (I think 1.3), but the idea that a character wouldn't be a magicka user didn't seem to be there at launch.

This is pretty much what I got out of it when I first played. I didn't last long at first. Both wife and myself bought the game and paid for sub and I lasted maybe a month (she kept playing, her first mmo). I hated that there was really no stam class to play. It was basically go magicka or go home. You could tell that they wanted to have a hybrid setup but it was like they were confused on how to go about it and stamina was just kinda thrown there so they could say it was there.

SirAndy

Feanor wrote: »

There were no stamina builds at launch. It took over 2 years to get to the point they were viable.

Kirameku

Everyone talks about staffs being magical weapons, correct me if I wrong, but I remember them being based on weapon damage as well

Ender1310

Simple answer yes yes they were. In fact the way to go was to wear a dress and wave a stick. If you didn't do that you were crazy. It took soo long to make a bow and a sword viable. Embarrassingly long. One of my best friends got tired of having to wear a dress and use a stick so he left.

BuddyAces

Ender1310 wrote: »

Simple answer yes yes they were. In fact the way to go was to wear a dress and wave a stick. If you didn't do that you were crazy. It took soo long to make a bow and a sword viable. Embarrassingly long. One of my best friends got tired of having to wear a dress and use a stick so he left.

I know he gets ragged on a lot on these forums but Deltia was my saving grace while first starting out in this particular MMO. I'd come from a few others but this one was totally different with the whole magicka/stamina thing (hence me not lasting long at first). But every build for leveling was literally the same: Destro/Resto, Bow/Resto, s&b/Resto, dw/Resto. Oh yeah, and wear a dress like you said.

GrumpyDuckling

Runschei wrote: »

Good question. I'll link a thread on the same topic if you want more details
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/344207/87-of-class-skills-are-magicka-131-vs-stamina-19-is-this-balanced/p1

I would love if ZOS took a long look at that thread and decided to incorporate more stamina class morphs and more magicka weapon options (particularly a double weapon magicka option).

Ragnarock41

Daedric_NB_187 wrote: »

I've been playing this game since September, so I don't know how it was when the game first came out. I have a 360 CP MagSorc and a Stamblade. I just started a DK and want to do a stamina based build. I noticed that for the morphs, there are only two of them that are stamina based. At least according to esoacademy.com. I looked at other classes and noticed the same thing. Was the original intention for the game was for everyone to play magicka based characters? Or is it that they wanted the majority of stamina attacks to come from the weapon skill lines?

I dont think that is the case at the moment.
stamblade and the new released stam warden has tons of stamina morphs.

Back to your original question,

back in like release I remember leaving this game because I refused to play a game that was heavily biased towards magic based builds.

thankfully when I came back a few years later, stamina was a thing and it was at leasy playable.

At the moment stam toons are supposed to use weapon skills and use their limited magicka pool for utility.

Stamblade uses it for cloak,stamsorc uses it for streak/dark deal
StamDk uses magicka for volatile armor,sometimes Flames of oblivion, igneous shield or molten armaments.

So the theory is that magicka toons are obviously using magic heavy spells with a limited stamina pool and stam toons are more like physical builds that use their small magicka pool for utility..

KingYogi415

Stamina will always rely on weapons skills more then class skills!

fastolfv_ESO

weapons were stam based class skills magicka based, was no such thing as stam builds when game came out. Honestly it was much better than it is now, you didnt have people literally infinite dodgerolling

Wifeaggro13

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

In the original it was more balanced. You weren’t one or the other. Caps kept you from going all stam or all mag. So the idea was the class skills were magicka and the weapons were stam. Except of course the staffs. But your character used both together. Maybe leaning more one way, but using the other to fill out the build. I guess maybe balance isn’t right. But it was more magicka with a larger splash of stam to fill you out. Still not this all one or the other of today.

But that was done away with and over time class skills have slowly gained stamina morphs and caps were removed so now the best damage comes from going all one or the other.

that was never the case Stamina was unusable as dps for near 18 months post launch . matter o fact it was so bad that light armor was the only thing to run in end game . i dont know where your getting this info
but it was simply not the case.

Jade1986

Yes, they were. We had dto fight to get weapon ultimates and stam morphs for almost a year or more. Making stam builds significantly weaker than magicka.

Kanar

Clearly stamina build was an afterthought. You have to look no further than the fact that there is not a single stamina class: every class is based around magical abilities and visual effects. They hacked in stamina support by making some class skills stamina have stam morphs, but still those are just magical abilities that use green instead of blue.

Where is the warrior class who just relies on his strength and trained abilities? No matter which way you go you're forced into magical effects whether it's spikes sticking out of your body and bad breath, or magical hurricanes, magical invisibility, etc.

jeskah

Kanar wrote: »

Clearly stamina build was an afterthought. You have to look no further than the fact that there is not a single stamina class: every class is based around magical abilities and visual effects. They hacked in stamina support by making some class skills stamina have stam morphs, but still those are just magical abilities that use green instead of blue.

Where is the warrior class who just relies on his strength and trained abilities? No matter which way you go you're forced into magical effects whether it's spikes sticking out of your body and bad breath, or magical hurricanes, magical invisibility, etc.

Not really. The game as it was released was rather chaotic and, well interesting one - the choice was not really about stamina or magicka, but armor type and while all the skills used magicka to cast, many of them actually benefited from weapon damage (f.e. all staff skills, jabs, whip) so f.e. a dual.wielding DK was not an uncommon sight.
(sadly almost everyone used light armor, because medium sucked big time).

Kanar

jeskah wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

Clearly stamina build was an afterthought. You have to look no further than the fact that there is not a single stamina class: every class is based around magical abilities and visual effects. They hacked in stamina support by making some class skills stamina have stam morphs, but still those are just magical abilities that use green instead of blue.

Where is the warrior class who just relies on his strength and trained abilities? No matter which way you go you're forced into magical effects whether it's spikes sticking out of your body and bad breath, or magical hurricanes, magical invisibility, etc.

Not really. The game as it was released was rather chaotic and, well interesting one - the choice was not really about stamina or magicka, but armor type and while all the skills used magicka to cast, many of them actually benefited from weapon damage (f.e. all staff skills, jabs, whip) so f.e. a dual.wielding DK was not an uncommon sight.
(sadly almost everyone used light armor, because medium sucked big time).

Yes I played in beta and at release and the lack of viable stamina options is why I stopped playing for a long time. You're right there was no choice because everyone had to use magicka just as you say.

The idea of stamina vs magicka is more than just semantics. Even though venomous claw uses stamina and scales off WD it's really still a spell (magicka). The only real stamina abilities in game are the weapon & armor abilities, and maybe some FG abilities. To say I can use those abilities to make a stamina character is ridiculous because it means not even participating in the class skills. Or I can go ahead and use those class skills (because who wants to gimp themselves) and cast stamina spells. There's still no stamina class but plenty of magicka classes. The game has been designed and continues to be designed with an extreme magicka focus.

PlagueSD

Simple answer:

Class abilities are mainly Magica based.
Weapon abilities are mainly Stamina based (with the exception of staves)

Stam builds mainly use weapon skills, while magica builds rely more on class abilities.