It’s time for a definitive assessment - is Stam dead in Summerset?

SmellyUnlimited

There’s been a lot of conjecture, and it’s time to lay this to rest once and for all this DLC.

What is the state of Stam?

NMG and Sunder changes were just icing on the cake, but the move to make Stamina classes less relevant in end-game content became very apparent on the release of Asylum Sanctorum. Nobody takes Stam in that trial, and I’ve heard it said that Cloudrest is much the same.

Medium Armor already is the weakest of the bunch (sneak passive? Compared to 5k spell pen?!). Deadly cloak losing 15% damage. Mag DK and Mag NB out single-target parsing comparable stamina builds (and they’re taking the new ‘melee’ positions that Stam once occupied). Then you can go ahead and add the staples of Mag: Shields, synergies, range, significantly more class skill morphs for Magicka, resource management (stam Ele drain anyone?).

As the last PTS update has passed, its time now to truly assess the State of the Tamrielic Union:

Are Stam classses RIP?


My answer: Yes. Stamina across the board losing 360 wpn dmg in favor of having to run Lover now, the end is near. And before you chime in with the usual mantra, “its about time it was evened out,” look again at the inherent strengths of Magicka I’d listed. Stam’s been fighting an uphill battle for a long time, and it was only through gear optimization that they could stay relevant.

usmcjdking

A large part of stamina's issues is that there is very little roll dodging and breaking free that needs to happen compared to just outright damage mitigation (via harness/dampen).

HRC Warrior and Yokuda Kai are the only real stam hog fights I can think of where stam actually has an mechanical advantage over magicka..

Aliyavana

We need more stam centered fights

Vapirko

It will always swing one way or the other. Is stam completely dead? No. Not unless you're in high end progression guilds looking for top leader board positions. If you are, then maybe yes. Thats way out of my area of interest though so idk. At any rate, just like many (not all) magicka users on the forums throughout 2017 and into 2018, stamina users will now take to the forums to ask for nerfs/buffs and likely in a years time it will swing back the other way. But for now at least the magicka crowd seems to have got what they wanted, which is superior single target dps on top of superior ranged dps and aoe dps. Still though, Summerset has not gone live and we don't really know what will come out of all of this as people get more of a chance to work things out. My biggest pet peeve with the ESO community is that no one is ever happy to adapt their class or play a new class as the game changes. So everyone is constantly on here asking for their class to be the best class. Imo there were maybe 3 classes that actually needed buffs in either PvE, PvP or both and those remain: mag warden, stamina DK, and to a lesser extent, stamina sorcerer who are just a hair away from being quite good. Oh and templars have need their skills fixed for a long time.

Tbh Im kinda looking forward to this class rep program which I hope is a success and I do hope they involve prominent PvPers as well and I really hope ZOS listens to whomever these people are as at least some of them are well known to be in favor of less radical changes and more incremental changes. Frankly the forums aren't a good place to source ideas for class balance.

Tannus15

Personally I don't think so ... but mostly because of relequen.

arms of relequen is really strong and sets like ravager being viable dps sets also gives stam a boost.

you don't have to rely on lover, you can up your pen CP or use TFS, or even sharp weapons. there are other options.

Certainly I'm doing more dps on my stam builds in PTS than on live. It's also true i'm doing more on my magi builds, but not as dramatic, at least where relequen is involved.

I do worry that stam will be get relequen or gtfo however. It's so much more powerful than any other option which doesn't bode well long term.

Juhasow

Lol. Stamina is still the best single target DPS in Summerset. It's not like loosing 360 wep dmg from Warrior mundus suddenly takes away over 10k DPS they were ahead over magicka counterparts.

heng14rwb17_ESO

relequen is too OP.
Nerf relequen

Juhasow

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

relequen is too OP.
Nerf relequen

Relequen is fine as it is. Strong like hell but only on single target in continuous long fights. In any content where You wont be able to use weapon attack on one target for longer then 5 seconds DPS from Relequen drops down a lot.

People take effectiveness of this set out of context after seeing skeleton parses.

Morgul667

Juhasow wrote: »

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

relequen is too OP.
Nerf relequen

Relequen is fine as it is. Strong like hell but only on single target in continuous long fights. In any content where You wont be able to use weapon attack on one target for longer then 5 seconds DPS from Relequen drops down a lot.

People take effectiveness of this set out of context after seeing skeleton parses.

So it will be OP where stamina is already good and be useless for fights where stamina are already in trouble ?


Back to topic though, I hope the balance is not broken in summerset, I was happy to see a mix of magicka and stamina in trials again

Deep_01

I know this might be a dps loss, but how about bone shield for survival instead of vigor?

Juhasow

Morgul667 wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

relequen is too OP.
Nerf relequen

Relequen is fine as it is. Strong like hell but only on single target in continuous long fights. In any content where You wont be able to use weapon attack on one target for longer then 5 seconds DPS from Relequen drops down a lot.

People take effectiveness of this set out of context after seeing skeleton parses.

So it will be OP where stamina is already good and be useless for fights where stamina are already in trouble ?


Back to topic though, I hope the balance is not broken in summerset, I was happy to see a mix of magicka and stamina in trials again

Not excatly. There is lot of bosses where stamina do really well in terms of DPS but cant always do dmg from weapon attack every 5 seconds. HoF is full of bosses like that and stam DD's are doing pretty well there.

Dyride

Deep_01 wrote: »

I know this might be a dps loss, but how about bone shield for survival instead of vigor?

You can stack vigors. Bone Shield is a big shield if you can get the synergy pulled but otherwise the shield is only about 6k.

Feanor

Trial design says nothing about class strength. Magicka got buffs, sure. But in the end people will play what’s easiest outside the very top competition. You can’t do balancing based on bad trial design.

Schattenfluegel

Mhmm i'm fine with the trial design as a stamsorc...its great.

Stibbons

Stam DK, stam Nightblade and stam Sorc are great in PvP and WvW. Look at the population when you encounter enemies. Mostly magic counterparts on every class are outnumbered.

mr_wazzabi

What about Crushing Weapon bow build for stam in trials?

Ragnarock41

Stibbons wrote: »

Stam DK, stam Nightblade and stam Sorc are great in PvP and WvW. Look at the population when you encounter enemies. Mostly magic counterparts on every class are outnumbered.

StamDk is anything but great in open world PvP. Stamsorc is also barely out of bottom tier.

Your analyze is completely wrong lmao. Both sorc and Dk are magicka dominated classes in PvP due to lack of stamina morphs and an overall lack of reason to play them over the other stam toons such as stamblade, stamden.

Apache_Kid

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Stibbons wrote: »

Stam DK, stam Nightblade and stam Sorc are great in PvP and WvW. Look at the population when you encounter enemies. Mostly magic counterparts on every class are outnumbered.

StamDk is anything but great in open world PvP. Stamsorc is also barely out of bottom tier.

Your analyze is completely wrong lmao. Both sorc and Dk are magicka dominated classes in PvP due to lack of stamina morphs and an overall lack of reason to play them over the other stam toons such as stamblade, stamden.

Stamsorc is very powerful in PvP at the moment. Great in Cyrodiil and absolutely DOMINANT in BGs. Stamsorcs are the most popular class in the matches i play on Xbox NA followed by magplars.

You are right about StamDk. They don't function well as anything other than a tank role in PvP and PvP tank is not fun for me at all.

Jowrik

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

What about Crushing Weapon bow build for stam in trials?

Crushing weapon has about as much DPS as you would if you used Snipe instead (atleast for Nightblades). I'm getting very similar results. Other classes may favor Crushing (warden still takes Cutting Dive). Ofcourse the upside of Crushing is that you don't have a cast time on Snipe and therefor can't be interrupted. Snipe also gives you and everyone hitting the target Minor Fracture (Focused Aim), otherwise only available through stamplar (Power of the Light, gives minor Breach too)

It's in no way the best stam build (DW still outperforms) but Bow got a decent buff, especially with relequen and the 2-handed set item buff.

Inig0

*remembers this thread in three months when the top guilds are stacking 5 stamnbs to kill zaj in 1:30*

Ragnarock41

Apache_Kid wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Stibbons wrote: »

Stam DK, stam Nightblade and stam Sorc are great in PvP and WvW. Look at the population when you encounter enemies. Mostly magic counterparts on every class are outnumbered.

StamDk is anything but great in open world PvP. Stamsorc is also barely out of bottom tier.

Your analyze is completely wrong lmao. Both sorc and Dk are magicka dominated classes in PvP due to lack of stamina morphs and an overall lack of reason to play them over the other stam toons such as stamblade, stamden.

Stamsorc is very powerful in PvP at the moment. Great in Cyrodiil and absolutely DOMINANT in BGs. Stamsorcs are the most popular class in the matches i play on Xbox NA followed by magplars.

You are right about StamDk. They don't function well as anything other than a tank role in PvP and PvP tank is not fun for me at all.

Might be an PC EU thing than. Stamsorcs here are usually bad players that don't know how to manage resources. But lately dual wield stamsorcs are on the rise and thanks to them I realized stamsorc can be very hard hitting in a duel. But the regular dizzy swing spamming stamsorc is rather average, as I said. They can be easily hard countered by doing what a Dk does(block), or what a nb does(cloak, dodge roll)

As for the stamDK, Tank'n spank builds are just as strong and they even got buffed in a few areas with summerset.
But if you want to wear impen, don't block too much and just play as a brawler (like stamden), then it feels underwhelming on the damage dealing side of things.. especially outside of that ''leap into 10 guys'' moments, the joy of the ''in your face and not going anywhere'' playstyle it used to offer is just not there anymore.

Imagine having near 5k weapon damage and still hitting people like a wet noodle. (except leap. leap is stronk)

ak_pvp

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Stibbons wrote: »

Stam DK, stam Nightblade and stam Sorc are great in PvP and WvW. Look at the population when you encounter enemies. Mostly magic counterparts on every class are outnumbered.

StamDk is anything but great in open world PvP. Stamsorc is also barely out of bottom tier.

Your analyze is completely wrong lmao. Both sorc and Dk are magicka dominated classes in PvP due to lack of stamina morphs and an overall lack of reason to play them over the other stam toons such as stamblade, stamden.

Stamsorc is very powerful in PvP at the moment. Great in Cyrodiil and absolutely DOMINANT in BGs. Stamsorcs are the most popular class in the matches i play on Xbox NA followed by magplars.

You are right about StamDk. They don't function well as anything other than a tank role in PvP and PvP tank is not fun for me at all.

Might be an PC EU thing than. Stamsorcs here are usually bad players that don't know how to manage resources. But lately dual wield stamsorcs are on the rise and thanks to them I realized stamsorc can be very hard hitting in a duel. But the regular dizzy swing spamming stamsorc is rather average, as I said. They can be easily hard countered by doing what a Dk does(block), or what a nb does(cloak, dodge roll)

As for the stamDK, Tank'n spank builds are just as strong and they even got buffed in a few areas with summerset.
But if you want to wear impen, don't block too much and just play as a brawler (like stamden), then it feels underwhelming on the damage dealing side of things.. especially outside of that ''leap into 10 guys'' moments, the joy of the ''in your face and not going anywhere'' playstyle it used to offer is just not there anymore.

Imagine having near 5k weapon damage and still hitting people like a wet noodle. (except leap. leap is stronk)

Stamsorc is very strong, even on PC/EU. Bleedsorcs are borderline broken, especially in no CP, its all the constant+mildly purge resistant pressure DKs wish they had, with an auto execute imposion and since dodge/medium builds got a decent buff by changing some hard counters, its quite defensible too, that and easier dark deal.

For openworld I'd put it highly too, under the top 3, blades+stamden, but still good and comparable to a magsorc, so around tied 4th place.

Ragnarock41

ak_pvp wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Stibbons wrote: »

Stam DK, stam Nightblade and stam Sorc are great in PvP and WvW. Look at the population when you encounter enemies. Mostly magic counterparts on every class are outnumbered.

StamDk is anything but great in open world PvP. Stamsorc is also barely out of bottom tier.

Your analyze is completely wrong lmao. Both sorc and Dk are magicka dominated classes in PvP due to lack of stamina morphs and an overall lack of reason to play them over the other stam toons such as stamblade, stamden.

Stamsorc is very powerful in PvP at the moment. Great in Cyrodiil and absolutely DOMINANT in BGs. Stamsorcs are the most popular class in the matches i play on Xbox NA followed by magplars.

You are right about StamDk. They don't function well as anything other than a tank role in PvP and PvP tank is not fun for me at all.

Might be an PC EU thing than. Stamsorcs here are usually bad players that don't know how to manage resources. But lately dual wield stamsorcs are on the rise and thanks to them I realized stamsorc can be very hard hitting in a duel. But the regular dizzy swing spamming stamsorc is rather average, as I said. They can be easily hard countered by doing what a Dk does(block), or what a nb does(cloak, dodge roll)

As for the stamDK, Tank'n spank builds are just as strong and they even got buffed in a few areas with summerset.
But if you want to wear impen, don't block too much and just play as a brawler (like stamden), then it feels underwhelming on the damage dealing side of things.. especially outside of that ''leap into 10 guys'' moments, the joy of the ''in your face and not going anywhere'' playstyle it used to offer is just not there anymore.

Imagine having near 5k weapon damage and still hitting people like a wet noodle. (except leap. leap is stronk)

Stamsorc is very strong, even on PC/EU. Bleedsorcs are borderline broken, especially in no CP, its all the constant+mildly purge resistant pressure DKs wish they had, with an auto execute imposion and since dodge/medium builds got a decent buff by changing some hard counters, its quite defensible too, that and easier dark deal.

For openworld I'd put it highly too, under the top 3, blades+stamden, but still good and comparable to a magsorc, so around tied 4th place.

As I said earlier, they were considered bad just few patches ago. I've never played stamsorc myself (I have one leveled up, but played less than 30 hours on it, compared to my 2k+ hours on stamDK Its nothing), I realize they are great sDK counters, but what isn't a great sDK counter in this game?

Either way I'm kinda bored of this cancer cloakblade meta(which is why I appreciate stamsorcs, they can actually get hit and die.)
so I'm playing less and less ESO.

While expecting perfect balance is unreasonable for any game, ESO's PvP balancing is going extremely slow, which is why I consider this as a PvE game nowadays. Without firing wrobel and finding someone else, there is no hope for ESO PvP.

ManwithBeard9

Stam is dead. Mag is dead. Health is dead. Crafting is dead. Trials are dead. ERP is dead. Game is dead. Everyone go home.

NyassaV

Stam is fine in PvE

Valen_Byte

I hope so. Its about time for all the 2H users to take the training wheels off.

Ragnarock41

Valen_Byte wrote: »

I hope so. Its about time for all the 2H users to take the training wheels off.

yeah, lets nerf dizzying swing while at it lmfao.

xaraan

I don't like these extreme comments about a class or style being "dead" because frankly it's hard to agree with.

And I want to agree in the sense that stam is certainly not the best choice for end game HM trial groups. The trials aren't designed well with them in mind and the balance in general is lacking a little in a couple areas.

But they are still great for dungeon runs, even new vHM dungeon runs. They are still solid (not counting certain issues class wise) in PvP. So, no, they aren't "dead." And I think when we give feedback that is super exaggerated like that, it can result in being more easily dismissed by people looking for feedback. I know personally, when I see someone exaggerating a point I feel like they are doing so because they don't have much of a point and therefore need to exaggerate to make it look like they do.

I guess it makes a snappy thread title, but frankly I think we should be looking at some specific things that need attention for stamina user (which I have seen in some discussions).

I also think that maybe zos is finding it too difficult to properly balance a battle like a hard mode trial between stam and mag (or even melee and ranged). So I think just saying trials should be designed better is great and all, but there might also be some limits on what is possible, not to mention that there are already trials out there that people still run that aren't going to be completely overhauled. So just designing better trials isn't going to completely fix that issue, the build needs some help.

One big issue I've seen outside of the debate on pen/damage is survivability. Medium has more defense stats than light b/c it supposed to be more survivable I'd say. But between the fact that shielding completely flip this and the amount of one shots continually added to trials and dungeons, this is not the case. As it stands medium users need some better shield options if we are going to stick with the shield meta. Bone shield does not cut it as a good option (no where near strong enough without synergy for use the way a magicka shield is and Brawler is very situational on how useful it is and those are really the only options for stam users.

I have a shield bigger than my health pool on my magicka characters, so it is essentially doubling my health+. So there are several situations where just high damage hits can drop a stam over a mag (even if it's not designed as a one shot no matter the mit) even if both classes took the exact same hit. But let's say you do great and never accidentally catch something like that from the mechanics and just take general damage - if my mag guy has dropped to 5K health or something pretty low - boom: shield, now I'm well over 20K, giving the healer time to respond if something was slowing them down. Stam guy - you are relying on just hope that HoTs like vigor and whatever else the healer has running HoT-wise build your health up before the next barrage of damage hits. In a lot of ways, shields for mag characters are like healing yourself up to full or even more than full health instantly and that gives you a lot of leeway in play and less worry to continue playing offensive and keeping your DPS up. (So, even if we aren't talking mag being stronger on a target skele over stam- when you look at actually being in action in an in game battle it can drop even more).

Anecdotal stories from a player popping up talking about having no problem in X situation really doesn't matter. We've all seen the results of how challenging stam builds are in some of the end-game stuff - look at vAS HM - you don't see too many players jumping to bring stam builds in. Our team has no restrictions on what someone can bring - so we do have a few stam users in our group and they are some of the better players, yet they still more often have the most deaths. Even if they do a solid job at avoiding something like the storm craziness in melee, I've watched their health bars slowly tick up or sit low while the healer gets a chance to notice they need a breath or something big heal wise, where I'll see magicka characters with a "full bar" of health simply b/c they just throw their shield back on. I think zos really underestimates how strong being able to shield in trials is.

PvP is certainly a different beast and with the nerf to shielding in battle spirit hopefully this would equalize that. But having the extra stam for sprinting, dodge rolling, or even running dodge skills make a much bigger difference there than in a trial. There are many times where none of that will do any good for a stam in pve end-game. In a trial, at this point, stam has less damage, less survivability, and requires better knowledge of mechanics not only due to needing to avoid and not eat damage/red b/c of that survivability, but also b/c if the fight moves around a lot, they not only have to move ground dots like a mag, but also have to move themselves to continue single target dps.

So, no, they aren't dead for use across the game as a whole or even most. But they are lacking for end-game raiding, which is a shame and should be addressed.

mr_wazzabi

In either Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood, they made Bone Shield scale off stam in pts, which would have fixed the survivability issues in HM trials.

Then of course the magicka pvp players qq'd ZOS into reversing the change.

Now here we are, with stam equal to magicka in pvp but a liability in endgame HM pve.

Not healthy for the game.

The Bone shield change would have fixed this.

My stam NB would have flawlessed VMA years ago had they made the change, but as of now, I have only flawlessed on my magicka toons.

Twohothardware

Valen_Byte wrote: »

I hope so. Its about time for all the 2H users to take the training wheels off.

It takes a lot more skill to land dizzying swing combos on a decent player than it does any other type of attacks. Dizzying swing is one of the easiest attacks to dodge and it doesn't CC if the opponent blocks.

templesus

Twohothardware wrote: »

Valen_Byte wrote: »

I hope so. Its about time for all the 2H users to take the training wheels off.

It takes a lot more skill to land dizzying swing combos on a decent player than it does any other type of attacks. Dizzying swing is one of the easiest attacks to dodge and it doesn't CC if the opponent blocks.

This^

Try playing a 2h/Bow stamplar and youll see just how bad cast/channels that are aimed/conal are in PvP, especially when there is lag. Feels like you cant even kill a scrub.