Does armor have to match the attribute?

Lenox

For example:

1. Templar with Heavy Armor for survivability, a 2H weapon or Destruction Staff for questing, most points into Stamina, but healing normal dungeons and casual PvP with healing morphed class abilities?
2. Nightblade with Medium Armor for sneaking bonuses, dual-wield for questing, most points into Stamina, but tanking with a 1H + shield or healing with class abilities?

Perhaps use enchants to get whatever stat I need? Whether it's health or magicka.



As far as I understand:

• Non-staff weapons scale off of stamina.
• Staves scale off of magicka.
• Class abilities scale off of magicka if they use magicka and stamina if they use stamina (old ESO was different).

I would love responses that are not:

1. You do you. Do what you want! ESO is flexible.
2. You will not be able to do extremely high-end content without optimal meta setups.

MartiniDaniels

You may tank in any type of armor with exception of some hardmodes, but there is simply no good light tanking armor at all. Medium and heavy both viable, but much easier in heavy. Of course there are people who tanked vHoF no-death speed run in light armor, but there are people who do similar without CP, so one case is not a reference.

For dps you need light for magicka and medium for stamina no options.

For healer in dungeons you may run whatever you want cause HPS is not an issue, though of course your healing will be much worse in heavy or medium. For trials only light armor.

redspecter23

I would respond but I think you pretty much covered the majority of potential responses at the end of your post. You already know your answer. Not sure what you're looking for.

Major_Lag

If you primarily want to just have fun, and don't care about any difficult/endgame content, the options are pretty broad.

Not exactly "play as you want" in that any possible combination will work at all well, but broad enough that there are still dozens if not hundreds of possible gear setups that will do the job just fine and will be actually fun to use.

For endgame content (trials, vet/HM) you will almost invariably end up following the meta: the raid leader will usually ask you to use a certain build, and/or remove you from group if you can't fulfill your role effectively - which you won't be able to with most of the non-meta builds.

To answer the OP's original question:
Ideally you want to use an armor type that aligns with the intended purpose of the build.
This means light (magicka) or medium (stamina) for a damage dealer or healer, medium or heavy for tanks.

Can you use a "wrong" armor type? Sure, but you are gimping your character by doing so; this hurts your damage, sustain and/or survivability.
In overland content (questing/delves) it won't matter at all. In dungeons it'll make a noticeable difference.

BTW it's perfectly possible to build very tanky in light armor, you can reach the mitigation hard cap (~33k resist) with light armor if you build right.

Grianasteri

Lenox wrote: »

For example:

1. Templar with Heavy Armor for survivability, a 2H weapon or Destruction Staff for questing, most points into Stamina, but healing normal dungeons and casual PvP with healing morphed class abilities?
2. Nightblade with Medium Armor for sneaking bonuses, dual-wield for questing, most points into Stamina, but tanking with a 1H + shield or healing with class abilities?

Perhaps use enchants to get whatever stat I need? Whether it's health or magicka.



As far as I understand:

• Non-staff weapons scale off of stamina.
• Staves scale off of magicka.
• Class abilities scale off of magicka if they use magicka and stamina if they use stamina (old ESO was different).

I would love responses that are not:

1. You do you. Do what you want! ESO is flexible.
2. You will not be able to do extremely high-end content without optimal meta setups.

As others have said, put simply you can literally do what you want, but for some content there are clear and unequivocal meta that optimise your damage/healing/tanking. So for vet dungeons and trials you will be at a disadvantage and possibly disadvantaging the group, if you dont run something at least close to the meta for your role.

Folk have answered this, mag dps/healing = light, stam dps = medium, tanking = heavy.

* However do bare in mind that you can run a set of a different type, but only on your weapons/jewellery, therefore not affecting your resistances or armour bonuses, as this stems from body worn armour.

We can transmute traits and put whatever enchants we want into each armour piece, so the variability is absolutely there. Many tanks run a medium set on their weapons and jewellery.