Why does ESO favor magicka specs so much?

StaticWave

The majority of the best skills in the game all cost magicka. Even the best scribing skills, Contingency and Wield Soul, all cost magicka. Every class I build, even if hybrid, feels like I have to spec more towards mag than stam.

Can ZOS do something about this?

Urzigurumash

Like buff Stam Weapon Skills? What else makes sense?

LunaFlora

they cost magicka because they are magical skills

StaticWave

LunaFlora wrote: »

they cost magicka because they are magical skills

What part of "The majority of the best skills in the game all cost magicka" did you not understand? Do I have to spell out "buff stamina skills" lol

StaticWave

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Like buff Stam Weapon Skills? What else makes sense?

Buff stamina skills, not just stamina weapon skills.

LunaFlora

StaticWave wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

they cost magicka because they are magical skills

What part of "The majority of the best skills in the game all cost magicka" did you not understand? Do I have to spell out "buff stamina skills" lol

i genuinely thought you were confused about why they cost magicka.

But if that is your post's subject yes you should spell it out. and probably give examples of buffs you want, it could help zos

Urzigurumash

StaticWave wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

they cost magicka because they are magical skills

What part of "The majority of the best skills in the game all cost magicka" did you not understand? Do I have to spell out "buff stamina skills" lol

Like what is Stamina tho.

Why is there one kind of Fetcherflies that uses Magicka, and another that uses Stam?

Does the game ever explain this thematically? No, it's just a mechanical convenience, right?

If so I don't see a huge discrepancy in power between Mag and Stam counterparts on the classes I play, but there is a huge discrepancy in the number of skills.

Stam specs are a Thief or Warrior variant of the basic Mage class. If they've lost that essence then Stam Weapon skills need a buff.

Let me cut to the chase, Bow skills are bad in PvP except Poison Injection and the Ult. In a ranged meta like now Destro obliterates Bow, it's only being played as a Proc Envelope right now and it's been that way for some time really. On top of that Mag has two defensive options they can use to restore Mag from range (Ice and Resto), Stam we're stuck with Bow, which has only 3 defensive elements: Momentum on rolldodge, Crit chance for crit heals, and the knockback on Magnum shot.

And the cool proc set for Magnum shot is double-dipped by Battlespirit..

Urzigurumash

I think it's mostly just the Status Effect buff which has driven this recent Mag meta, rather than inherent skill power, or no?

There's not many ways to apply Diseased and Bleeding from range, for instance.

xylena_lazarow

StaticWave wrote: »

Can ZOS do something about this?

Don't worry, they'll finish hybridization by 2078.

notReclaimer

Have you tried playing something other than sorcerer

the1andonlyskwex

notReclaimer wrote: »

Have you tried playing something other than sorcerer

Maybe it's changed recently, but the impression I've had for quite a while is that hybrid and stamina builds both outperform mag builds in most aspects of the game (basically everything other than PvE healing and PvE DPS).

Udrath

There was a time when vigor and rally with roll dodge was all the healing I needed to survive. Now there’s so many easy DOTs and procs you really have to consider slotting a burst heal or have a cleanse instead of another damage skill. I hate it lol

xylena_lazarow

Udrath wrote: »

There was a time when vigor and rally with roll dodge was all the healing I needed to survive. Now there’s so many easy DOTs and procs you really have to consider slotting a burst heal or have a cleanse instead of another damage skill.

Ironically the time you were referring to was much more dot heavy, bleeds were prevalent, 2h melee was generally viable. The meta was more melee pressure and less ranged burst, which was more balanced, you weren't constantly being chunked for half your hp by one button stacks of proc sets triggered by an invisible bow heavy attack from the roof. Pressure metas tend to punish passive playstyles (good), while giving everyone a fair chance to actively defend themselves.

divnyi

Udrath wrote: »

There was a time when vigor and rally with roll dodge was all the healing I needed to survive. Now there’s so many easy DOTs and procs you really have to consider slotting a burst heal or have a cleanse instead of another damage skill. I hate it lol

This. Biggest disparity between mag and stam isn't even the damage, stam damage is still there. It's healing. There were times when templar healing skill was top notch and not accessible on other classes, but then they did nb burst heal and necro burst heal, and now everyone can burst heal with scribing.

Rallying is just about x1.5 of spammable heal but over 5 sec, so 2 spammable GCDs doing more healing and 3 times faster.
Now OK we are all hybrids now, but then we require hybrid sustain to be functional, while mag can use their primary resource and do only mag recoveries.

Joy_Division

The game was originally designed such that basically all skills were magicka. There was never meant to be any "stamina" builds.

That changed in 1.6 with the CP system when ZOS some just made some physical damage skills cost stamina (usually a morph like Biting Jabs). But the majority of skills cost magicka because they did what seemed like "magic" things. For ex., Templar had 26 magicka morphs and 4 stamina morphs if memory serves. For most of the game, "stamina" builds basically loaded up on weapon skills.

In short, it's mostly legacy.

With hybridization that changed a little bit more as a few more stamina skills were added. The newer classes seemed more intent on having a clear stamina / magicka division with damage skills, though "magic" (i.e., interesting) effects still were usually, though not always, magicka skills.

So ZOS is still operating on the same mindset they were 15 years ago when designing the game. Something mystical (a magically held skill going off on a contingency) sounds magical so it goes to the Mage's guild. Something along the lines of "me smash" goes to a generic weapon line and costs stamina. Odds are the more creative, interesting, and build enabling skill will be the more mystical thing and cost magicka.

It's more a matter of making stamina skills (or at least interesting ones) rather than buffing them.

MEBengalsFan2001

Urzigurumash wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

they cost magicka because they are magical skills

What part of "The majority of the best skills in the game all cost magicka" did you not understand? Do I have to spell out "buff stamina skills" lol

Like what is Stamina tho.

Why is there one kind of Fetcherflies that uses Magicka, and another that uses Stam?

Does the game ever explain this thematically? No, it's just a mechanical convenience, right?

If so I don't see a huge discrepancy in power between Mag and Stam counterparts on the classes I play, but there is a huge discrepancy in the number of skills.

Stam specs are a Thief or Warrior variant of the basic Mage class. If they've lost that essence then Stam Weapon skills need a buff.

Let me cut to the chase, Bow skills are bad in PvP except Poison Injection and the Ult. In a ranged meta like now Destro obliterates Bow, it's only being played as a Proc Envelope right now and it's been that way for some time really. On top of that Mag has two defensive options they can use to restore Mag from range (Ice and Resto), Stam we're stuck with Bow, which has only 3 defensive elements: Momentum on rolldodge, Crit chance for crit heals, and the knockback on Magnum shot.

And the cool proc set for Magnum shot is double-dipped by Battlespirit..

Notice nothing about 2H to DW and that’s because both are either inline or stronger than the staff.

Bow biggest advantage is it gives improved mobility and crit chance.

Urzigurumash

Joy_Division wrote: »

It's more a matter of making stamina skills (or at least interesting ones) rather than buffing them.

What about the opposite, send Stam back to Weapon Skills? Make Dizzy Swing and Snipe both cost 20k Stam with a tooltip of 100k.

xylena_lazarow

Urzigurumash wrote: »

What about the opposite, send Stam back to Weapon Skills? Make Dizzy Swing and Snipe both cost 20k Stam with a tooltip of 100k.

Sure, as long as we're adding a Sniper Rifle and Submachine Gun skill line too.

Urzigurumash

MEBengalsFan2001 wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

they cost magicka because they are magical skills

What part of "The majority of the best skills in the game all cost magicka" did you not understand? Do I have to spell out "buff stamina skills" lol

Like what is Stamina tho.

Why is there one kind of Fetcherflies that uses Magicka, and another that uses Stam?

Does the game ever explain this thematically? No, it's just a mechanical convenience, right?

If so I don't see a huge discrepancy in power between Mag and Stam counterparts on the classes I play, but there is a huge discrepancy in the number of skills.

Stam specs are a Thief or Warrior variant of the basic Mage class. If they've lost that essence then Stam Weapon skills need a buff.

Let me cut to the chase, Bow skills are bad in PvP except Poison Injection and the Ult. In a ranged meta like now Destro obliterates Bow, it's only being played as a Proc Envelope right now and it's been that way for some time really. On top of that Mag has two defensive options they can use to restore Mag from range (Ice and Resto), Stam we're stuck with Bow, which has only 3 defensive elements: Momentum on rolldodge, Crit chance for crit heals, and the knockback on Magnum shot.

And the cool proc set for Magnum shot is double-dipped by Battlespirit..

Notice nothing about 2H to DW and that’s because both are either inline or stronger than the staff.

Bow biggest advantage is it gives improved mobility and crit chance.

Both 2h/DW Executes and the DW Dots are good, Uppercut still good situationally, but we're in a ranged meta and unlike past eras, gapclosers aren't enough to equalize ranged and melee. I'm well aware Ranged Mag and Destro have taken a back seat in recent eras, but right now dealing damage with Magical Status Effects is much more efficient than spamming Uppercut.

From what I see:

Sorc, Arc, Plar, Cro all best with Destro right now.

DK and NB strongest with DW but principally to give highest tooltips to Mag Class Skills.

Warden well-balanced all around, TBD if the Piercing Cold change moves MagDen off Destro and onto DW Ala DK/NB.

Urzigurumash

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

What about the opposite, send Stam back to Weapon Skills? Make Dizzy Swing and Snipe both cost 20k Stam with a tooltip of 100k.

Sure, as long as we're adding a Sniper Rifle and Submachine Gun skill line too.

Escalating Runeblades is the Klobb of ESO

divnyi

Speaking about destro staff, who was the genius behind decision to make change from Inferno buffs single targets & Lightning buffs AoEs to what we have now, where you pick lightning staff and all your direct damage is buffed?

StaticWave

notReclaimer wrote: »

Have you tried playing something other than sorcerer

have you tried playing something other than warden?

StaticWave

Urzigurumash wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

they cost magicka because they are magical skills

What part of "The majority of the best skills in the game all cost magicka" did you not understand? Do I have to spell out "buff stamina skills" lol

Like what is Stamina tho.

Why is there one kind of Fetcherflies that uses Magicka, and another that uses Stam?

Does the game ever explain this thematically? No, it's just a mechanical convenience, right?

If so I don't see a huge discrepancy in power between Mag and Stam counterparts on the classes I play, but there is a huge discrepancy in the number of skills.

Stam specs are a Thief or Warrior variant of the basic Mage class. If they've lost that essence then Stam Weapon skills need a buff.

Let me cut to the chase, Bow skills are bad in PvP except Poison Injection and the Ult. In a ranged meta like now Destro obliterates Bow, it's only being played as a Proc Envelope right now and it's been that way for some time really. On top of that Mag has two defensive options they can use to restore Mag from range (Ice and Resto), Stam we're stuck with Bow, which has only 3 defensive elements: Momentum on rolldodge, Crit chance for crit heals, and the knockback on Magnum shot.

And the cool proc set for Magnum shot is double-dipped by Battlespirit..

Stamina skills are skills that cost stamina

Bushido2513

StaticWave wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

they cost magicka because they are magical skills

What part of "The majority of the best skills in the game all cost magicka" did you not understand? Do I have to spell out "buff stamina skills" lol

Like what is Stamina tho.

Why is there one kind of Fetcherflies that uses Magicka, and another that uses Stam?

Does the game ever explain this thematically? No, it's just a mechanical convenience, right?

If so I don't see a huge discrepancy in power between Mag and Stam counterparts on the classes I play, but there is a huge discrepancy in the number of skills.

Stam specs are a Thief or Warrior variant of the basic Mage class. If they've lost that essence then Stam Weapon skills need a buff.

Let me cut to the chase, Bow skills are bad in PvP except Poison Injection and the Ult. In a ranged meta like now Destro obliterates Bow, it's only being played as a Proc Envelope right now and it's been that way for some time really. On top of that Mag has two defensive options they can use to restore Mag from range (Ice and Resto), Stam we're stuck with Bow, which has only 3 defensive elements: Momentum on rolldodge, Crit chance for crit heals, and the knockback on Magnum shot.

And the cool proc set for Magnum shot is double-dipped by Battlespirit..

Stamina skills are skills that cost stamina

Strictly yes, thematically debatable.

I'd have to figure it's what one person said above. Originally it was just supposed to be skills and then later it was about what pool you wanted to be in and now we're at just trying to hybridize things.

Skills have now become like sets where new ones get a lot of focus and existing ones get some or no focus.

I think all stam weapon skills need a usage review to understand which are not being used at all and how they night be improved. I don't really want another dizzy meta but certainly we could do something to make the physical season skill lines more enticing without being over powered

Udrath

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Udrath wrote: »

There was a time when vigor and rally with roll dodge was all the healing I needed to survive. Now there’s so many easy DOTs and procs you really have to consider slotting a burst heal or have a cleanse instead of another damage skill.

Ironically the time you were referring to was much more dot heavy, bleeds were prevalent, 2h melee was generally viable. The meta was more melee pressure and less ranged burst, which was more balanced, you weren't constantly being chunked for half your hp by one button stacks of proc sets triggered by an invisible bow heavy attack from the roof. Pressure metas tend to punish passive playstyles (good), while giving everyone a fair chance to actively defend themselves.

I remember pressure builds could take out tanky builds, and high weapon damage burst builds could usually take out pressure builds and some tanks, also burst builds had good healing. But all builds weren’t exactly rock paper sisscors, and there were alternatives like ultigen builds, max stat builds, defile, and some crit chance builds but they were a bit class dependent and not as good as today. Crit damage is really easy to have now. PvP started to get worse and worse around Blackwood and afterwards imo.

Proc damage set builds were generally not as good because they lacked weapon/spell damage to have good healing, or just flat out were made for either magicka or stamina. Except the defensive procs sets were generally good at what they do, like the old steadfast hero set.

Health recovery nerf was bad for stamina builds too, all it took was one broken set to ruin that lol…

Good times

Bushido2513

Udrath wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Udrath wrote: »

There was a time when vigor and rally with roll dodge was all the healing I needed to survive. Now there’s so many easy DOTs and procs you really have to consider slotting a burst heal or have a cleanse instead of another damage skill.

Ironically the time you were referring to was much more dot heavy, bleeds were prevalent, 2h melee was generally viable. The meta was more melee pressure and less ranged burst, which was more balanced, you weren't constantly being chunked for half your hp by one button stacks of proc sets triggered by an invisible bow heavy attack from the roof. Pressure metas tend to punish passive playstyles (good), while giving everyone a fair chance to actively defend themselves.

I remember pressure builds could take out tanky builds, and high weapon damage burst builds could usually take out pressure builds and some tanks, also burst builds had good healing. But all builds weren’t exactly rock paper sisscors, and there were alternatives like ultigen builds, max stat builds, defile, and some crit chance builds but they were a bit class dependent and not as good as today. Crit damage is really easy to have now. PvP started to get worse and worse around Blackwood and afterwards imo.

Proc damage set builds were generally not as good because they lacked weapon/spell damage to have good healing, or just flat out were made for either magicka or stamina. Except the defensive procs sets were generally good at what they do, like the old steadfast hero set.

Health recovery nerf was bad for stamina builds too, all it took was one broken set to ruin that lol…

Good times

Lol man the health recovery set meta was short but hilarious

Urzigurumash

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Udrath wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Udrath wrote: »

There was a time when vigor and rally with roll dodge was all the healing I needed to survive. Now there’s so many easy DOTs and procs you really have to consider slotting a burst heal or have a cleanse instead of another damage skill.

Ironically the time you were referring to was much more dot heavy, bleeds were prevalent, 2h melee was generally viable. The meta was more melee pressure and less ranged burst, which was more balanced, you weren't constantly being chunked for half your hp by one button stacks of proc sets triggered by an invisible bow heavy attack from the roof. Pressure metas tend to punish passive playstyles (good), while giving everyone a fair chance to actively defend themselves.

I remember pressure builds could take out tanky builds, and high weapon damage burst builds could usually take out pressure builds and some tanks, also burst builds had good healing. But all builds weren’t exactly rock paper sisscors, and there were alternatives like ultigen builds, max stat builds, defile, and some crit chance builds but they were a bit class dependent and not as good as today. Crit damage is really easy to have now. PvP started to get worse and worse around Blackwood and afterwards imo.

Proc damage set builds were generally not as good because they lacked weapon/spell damage to have good healing, or just flat out were made for either magicka or stamina. Except the defensive procs sets were generally good at what they do, like the old steadfast hero set.

Health recovery nerf was bad for stamina builds too, all it took was one broken set to ruin that lol…

Good times

Lol man the health recovery set meta was short but hilarious

And only now is Flame losing its huge advantage it gained because of that HP Regen nerf making universal the Stage 3 Vampire penalties.

This might help balance Mag and Stam quite a bit in the overall ecosystem. And also the relatively high tooltips of Uppercut and Reverse Slice are rewarded the most by the reduction of Undeath, from a certain POV. People don't want a D Swing meta and I get that, but it needs to be competitive to keep procs in check.

We'll see in a few months about this Mag vs Stam thing, we have to see how the change to Undeath settles, especially regarding the Status Effect / Ancient Knowledge changes.

Right now also Mag enjoys the wide proliferation of Physical's Status Effect on account of the leading proc set providing it,
this is a small advantage to Mag.

Turtle_Bot

It's been a nice change considering for the longest time pre-hybridization and early hybridization ZOS heavily favored stamina specs over magicka specs.

But yes, both specs should be on par with each other (which was easier to do pre-hybridization since you could balance things for one side without hitting the other side too hard or at all).

Agreed that a full review of all skills (active and passive) needs to be done (not just for weapon skills, but all skills). Too many that are just not worth using because their niche is too restricted, they just aren't strong enough in that niche over the best skills, or are just simply outclassed by other options to be worth slotting.

What has really brought mag skills to the forefront of the meta lately though is the status effect changes. Pressure used to be the domain of DoTs, which the majority of the best generically available DoTs were skills from the stamina weapon lines, now status effects are the best way to apply pressure and magicka skills just have an easier time proccing those than stamina skills due to the destro staff passive.

The other thing that has enabled mag skills is ele sus specifically, it's free to cast, applies major breach and 3 status effects every 7 seconds, players were slotting destro on 1 bar before the status changes, so players just naturally migrated to more mag focused setups when the status effect changes were introduced.

It still seems very close though (outside of specifically ele sus) so only a small generic adjustment would be needed to fix this (say 5% reduction to status effect damage across the board). Any more than this (in terms of generic nerfs) and stamina weapons will just become the only viable choice once again since their passives significantly outclass everything staves have except for status effects. Ele sus is it's own issue that needs addressing separately.

FlopsyPrince

My petsorc main is rather wimpy, but I keep playing her because I enjoy it and she generally doesn't suck too bad.

She has definitely been more powerful in the past, but they took away many of the skills I liked to make a stam buf version that I found quite wimpy.

Not sure I agree that magicka is all that OP.

ToRelax

Why complain about magicka vs stamina options with no magicka or stamina builds?

Major_Toughness

Best class right now = Magicka Sorcerer (back on its throne after a couple of years hiatus)

The next best two are Magicka Warden and Magicka Nightblade. They can be put either way around based on your biases.
Stamina Warden isn't too far away from Magicka in fairness but the spammable difference between Blood For Blood (BfB) and Dizzy Swing is night and day. BfB hits harder, has no cast time, guaranteed haemorrhaging and no primary resource cost.
Stamden pretty much has to rely on a sustain set. Also you would have to drop execute to fit in contingency. Which means you rely on sucky Dizzy Swing even more.

Stamina Nightblade is not miles away from Magicka either. But the spammable is 10-20% weaker, and the class has a passive 8% Magicka bonus which means based purely on stats, going max Magicka will always be more damage even with Surprise Attack.

DK is basically always hybrid. Sure you can change between Noxious and Engulfing but Noxious doesn't matter in Corrosive which is the classest strongest ultimate whereas Engulfing would buff your Flames of Oblivion, Whip and burning Procs further.

Templar, ranged is superior and typically see Magicka versions with Crushing Shock/Elemental Weapon. If you go melee imo Stamina is better.