What are the main differences between stamina and magicka toons?

Nyseto

Are there any patterns pertaining to both? I only really have experience with NB, but which one tends to have higher single target damage? I imagine stamina is more weapon skills and single target whereas magicka is aoe? Or am I wrong

StaticWave

Is this for PvE or PvP?

Nyseto

StaticWave wrote: »

Is this for PvE or PvP?

Both

Treeshka

Since damage scales up whichever resource is higher whatever you go does not matter damage wise.

If you go Magicka with Medium armor you may have some sustain issues or Stamina with light armor since armor passives recovery and cost reduction passives. Some sets have maximum Stamina and maximum Magicka as set bonuses, so in some cases you might be trashing that but it is not a big deal since most of the time the damage bonus you get from the set outweighs that one piece off stat bonus.

In the current game you can go Stamina and still use staves since we have global ranged spam skills.

Eliran

The main difference is the resource ..

Magicka using Magicka as their main resource.

Stamina using Stamina as their main resource.

Source: I am a stamblade.

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic.

Thank you for your understanding.

fred4

These days there is little difference left. Hybrid builds are the order of the day. I would argue as a magicka build you use a magicka spammable and are wearing light armor to sustain your greater use of magicka. Conversely, as a stamina build, you are using a stamina spammable and are wearing medium armor to sustain your greater use of stamina. You might also argue that a magicka build has a greater magicka pool and a stamina build a greater stamina pool. We're talking DDs or PvP here. In reality the lines have become so blurred you can mix and match skills as well as armor weights whichever way you like. However this does not absolve you from buildcraft and knowing what you're doing, if you want to compete at endgame.

DMuehlhausen

Stamina are typical more melee based skills, and Magicka is more magic / ranged based as well.

I do feel they need to introduce a third resource and call it like Power or something. It will become the used resource for skills, then all builds can have a stam pool for dodging and blocking etc.

Seminolegirl1992

Mainly, the resource you invest in. If stamina dps, all goes into stamina. If magicka, all goes into magicka. With hybridization, usually the go-to for PVE is dual wield front bar and two hand backbar for both of them, but the skill morphs vary a bit depending on if you're mag or stam. I don't think stam/mag makes a huge difference single target vs aoe- that's more-so the class you pick. Sorcs are good single target, for example. Dks are good aoe. I can't speak much for pvp- but stamina usually dominates the scene there whereas magicka dominates the pve scene because it's a smidge more versatile in terms of maneuverability/healing, but that's been lessened with stam heals being pretty strong.

WrathOfInnos

There's no hard global answer, but I can give some info. As a few others have defined, I'll call Stamina builds those with 64 attribute points into Stamina, and Magicka builds those with 64 into Magicka. Even in the hybrid meta you should avoid splitting attribute points between Mag and Stam, and armor enchants and food should both give the same max stat as your attribute points.

In general, I'd say that Stamina builds are better at AoE when clearing weak trash because Whirling Blades and Carve are both better area spammables than Pulsar. There are exceptions like Blazing Spear and Sap Essence, both being great Magicka AoE spammables.

If you are looking to cleave some adds while focusing a boss I think Magicka has a slight edge. Wall of Elements covers a larger area than Stampede or Hail. There are also various mag skills that provide nice cleave compared to their stam alternative, such as Stalking Blastbones or Ricochet Skull, and many more AoE DoTs (Winter's Revenge, Boneyard, Path, Ritual, etc.) That's not to say stamina cannot cleave, they do have skills like Silver Shards, Biting Jabs and Caltrops, but IMO these are not quite as good as the mag options.

For pure single target both stam and mag are pretty competitive. There may be some scenarios where stam pulls ahead, but both are very close.

Keep in mind that you can easily slot a few skills from the opposite resource (and should), so the lines are very blurred. You just may run into sustain issues if your spammable does not match your primary attribute. Even this can be solved in a few ways, such as hybrid food (e.g. Candied Jester Coins), cross-stat sustain skills (like Bull Netch on Magden), or various passives like Altmer restoring Stamina on a Magicka build.