Most of the stamina based weapons are pretty terrible. 2h is a joke.. uppercut channel? lol Dual wield is better but gap closer?? 1h/shield has no damage skills that do enough to be usable(2h has same issue). So realistically you can only play dual wield maybe as NB(class skills use weapon power), or 1h/shield and spam class abilities(still wear light armour).

Good thing in ESO is that everyone can be ranged with different success. If this was strict class game there would be no melee anywhere to be found

Not to mentiom those utterly insulting:

0,5% incoming heal /heavy piece
0,5% weapon power /heavy piece

and all the useless (thanks to the low armor cap) armor/hpregen stats that could otherwise be obtained through food/statdistribution/racials/enchants/anythimg and the lack of others, more useful and harder to obtain like:

CC reduction?
Crit reduction?
Elemental status like frozen/ablaze/shocked reduction?

Not even in PVE groups for tanking. I can spam immovable in light and yet tank with 1h/s with the same survability amd better dps and threat management (aka Im tanking and pulling the highest aoe dps in the meantime) while using sta exclusively for blocks/dodges/ccbreaks..

Bromburak wrote: »

First we need to clarify the term melee because you always could use great class skills in melee. Nothing wrong with that ...

If you are trying to say that equipped weapons with melee range have no good skills to offer i disagree. But i would agree to push the damage of stamina based weapons because it is very low in comparison to class skills.

As long this is not improved there is no reason to play with 80% of the weapon skills from damage perspective.

The only efficient stamina based DPS option is playing 2H or Fighter guild skills.

Unfortunately thats it.

I would also add to that Brom, that 2h starts to get thin in VR levels. Add to that the severe imbalance of armor (medium and heavy don't really make enough difference in damage reduction to be worth it), and melee users suffer severe (dare i say deadly) penalties for fighting in close.

The skills they provide to balance this are almost silly to use. As an example, the "shield" i get from my cleave morph soaks up less then a single autohit from an opponent. And thats with hitting 2 opponents (so i get twice the damage shield) so do I spam that skill in hopes that the bleed from it will have any noticeable impact in the 4 seconds it takes for a mob to kill my VR1 character...or do I instead just hit it again, and hope that my uppercut with a 1 second cast time beats his heavy attack with a 1 second cast time (and those heavy attacks do 3-4x more damage then mine does).

or block. Or...i can switch to my bow, and shoot an INSTANT skill that does 70% the damage of my uppercut up front, interrupts them, and knocks them back while at the same time pushed me back, and gives me enough distance to fire off a full heavy attack and a few instants at the same time? no...balance. 95% of the Alpha/beta testers must have been playing casters.

Allot of it is class dependent too. my DK (suprise suprise huh), can face tank stuff my Templar could only dream of. but then again....he is using mostly class skills to do so. I once saw a 2h VR build on a website i frequent. nice, build, and it worked...but you could have almost replaced the 2h weapon with a noodle and it would have had little impact on the build. it was 90% class skills, and one 2h skill. that was it. and of course, the build used LIGHT armor....heavy magicka based...

I realized early on that the 2h stamina setup i had with 5m/2h was good for...well, good for switching to bow and kiting stuff to death. 2h was...passable. as long as it was 1 mob, 2 max, and didn't include ranged mobs or i was dead. 1-50? loved it. mobs post VR simply do too much damage.

armor either needs to scale better, and provide more direct bonuses to stamina builds, or they seriously need to buff stamina based attacks. I see the better route as buffing stamina based attacks via armor. in addition to the increased mitigation that the medium and heavy should have (and decreased wear compared to light), we should also get much more stamina and stamina return from medium and heavy. damage boost as well, much like the passive in the heavy tree (just more for medium armor).

this would be exactly the same advantage that light has right now. it boosts nearly everything you could ask for in magick casters. Hell, light armor almost has better ranged mitigations then heavy armor does. and if we boost it all for stamina based skills, it will give no benefit to those who are going magick.

And I second the idea of making some class skills stamina based. some of the would automatically fall into that category. I could easily see half the templar and NB skills being good as stamina skills. This is less of "we need less magick skills" and more "we need more reasons at a class level to use stamina" thing. I don't want to nerf anyone builds right now that use class skills and ignore their stamina...but its really trying when you like physical "stamina" builds, and class skills that SHOULD easily fit into that category are magick instead.

And how about that sorc skill that drains stamina but gives them health and magick back? wouldn't it be cool as a 2h primary stamina user to have a skill that drains Magick but gives you stamina and health back? templars have an awesome skill like that...unfortunately, it takes the place of a skill on your bar that would normally be your saving grace (a.k.a heal). its a good concept, but in a bar limited to 5 spots, its really not a good design.

Now that DK ability that gives you back stamina and life, and HEALS you, ...hmm...too bad that isn't just a 2h skill huh. but i guess DK's need all the cool stuff. Oh right, sorry, this is about stamina builds, not class imbalance.

I'm having a lot of fun playing a duel wielding NB with 3/5 skills being weapons skills, along with the shadow ability to close gaps, and siphon for ranged defense. I also have a destro staff, but I rarely ever pull it out in PvE.

For my weapon skills I use Rending Slashes as my main attack, which can be spammed over and over, it snares most enemies nicely. Then I have Rapid Strikes to do damage to a single target, and Steel Tornado for engaging multiple enemies.

I literally run around jumping like a crazy person, getting in attacks when their backs are turned.

Bromburak wrote: »

Archaon wrote: »

Bromburak wrote: »

First we need to clarify the term melee because you always could use great class skills in melee. Nothing wrong with that ...

If you are trying to say that equipped weapons with melee range have no good skills to offer i disagree. But i would agree to push the damage of stamina based weapons because it is very low in comparison to class skills.

As long this is not improved there is no reason to play with 80% of the weapon skills from damage perspective.

The only efficient stamina based DPS option is playing 2H or Fighter guild skills.

Unfortunately thats it.

I played 2handed nord (for the extra tankyness and rping) heavy armor dk since beta and then release. After some time in VR I moved to light destro/resto and besides doing twice the damage, aoeing endlessly like a boss and having a way easier time managing resource/s I have yet to see my survability diminish.

I was capping armor and hp in full heavy only with passives+racials and without a single enchant using a 2h. There is little to no need to use defensive skills because it wont add to your survability anyways.

In light, I can cap armor in 5L/2H with either Spiked armor or Immovable and save for glyphs/enchants for magicka cost or whatever. Thats it. Now I can pull twice the dps because ALL class skills a DK (or any other really) has are way stronger in dps terms to the 2h tree skills based in STA.

I can even keep using a 2h if I wanted to not lose all the melee feeling, but its ridiculous when destro/resto have better dps/cost skills and are based in my new main dps resource, receiving bonus for the 5 light pieces.

It doesnt change anything on my last post because imho 2H is still the ONLY stamina line that offers acceptable DPS skills for all classes.

But players should have similar possibilities with Dual wield or nothing will change when it comes to efficient builds. Because everyone sticks with class skills and Destro/Resto and 2H, just because of the fact that all stamina skills with exception of 2H have nothing to offer when it comes to damage and only NB and sorc have synergies that would work at least pretty well with DW.whirlwind when it comes to passive heals and weapon damage add with scale factors dependent of total targets hit.

My medium armor , crit surge AOE DW sorc is really fun to play but there are 3 other classes with less reasons to play DW.

On my NB i could play with sap essence the scale factor is outstanding when it comes to damage add and heal buff, but this advantage ends in Vet content.
So i had to go back playing with class skills because scale factors are much better when it comes to dps.

I only can speak for my self but there must be a significant DPS push for DW to make this line interesting for all classes.

I think you havent played more than 30 minutes with 2 handed, have you?

If you think 2handed is the "ONLY acceptable DPS for all classes" (I dont even know what you mean, "for all classes"...) weapon tree, really, you have no idea sir, and I say as both a 2H DK and a DW NB player into VR.

Name a single 2handed skill wich offers a good damage/cost and its not a stupid 1,5s animation channeled skill in top of that. AoE? You are crying about AoE? You ever used Cleave sir? You know we have 1 glyph slot also, do you?

Theres not a single 2 skill you want to use besides the charge for 2h/1hs, with the bare exception of group tanking and need a taunt from the 1hs line.

But I know where you are coming from. You main NB, so as everyother NB, negating all the other class/mechanic problems that do not affect your particular build is a daily basis to get ZOS only caring about the poor NB rogues. Cool history.

Right now DW tree is way better than 2handed, only lacking a glap closer imho, even if thats only enough to keep being subpar to everymagicka build (wich is the post matter, not your exclusive NB cryout about DW). Saying 2handed is acceptable for VR content is either not having played VR at all or not having used 2handed after lvl25.

Both trees are ***, plain simple. Stamina builds based on stamina skills are ***, plain simple. DW has better AoE (still much worse than any magicka aoe skill) and 2H has a gap closer. Both damage output/resource are utter crap it doesnt matter how you build your stats or manage your resources.

Just to finish, seeing people carrying a 2handed doesnt mean they are 2h weapon builds, I already wrote that in the last paragraph if you ever did read my full post. I can go light full magicka specced, only using class skills carrying a 1h/s and not make a single light/heavy attack or bash in the whole day.

Lynx7386 wrote: »

To further demonstrate the issue, I finally got fed up with soloing on my templar tonight. He's been in 7/7 heavy armor from the start, using a 2hander at first and then a sword and shield, focusing almost entirely on stamina and weapon abilities except for things like restoring aura (for more stamina regen) and a self heal.

I respecced him tonight, went from that full melee setup to a resto staff, dawn's wrath spells, and 7/7 light armor. My soloing ability shot through the roof - I was killing enemies in 2-3 casts, taking on groups of 3-4 mobs without even feeling the hurt on my magicka bar. When I was wearing heavy armor and going melee, those same groups nearly killed me, and it would take me a good 30-40 second fight to wear them all down. by that time I'd be out of magicka AND stamina, and almost dead.

So, I went from skills that I've had for quite some time, and gotten levelled up, to skills that I've never used before (seriously I had level 1 dawn's wrath skill and only level 4 or 5 light armor from bookshelves), and I'm killing faster, more efficiently, and more safely than I was before.



How do they explain that kind of imbalance away?

My experience was exactly the same regarding full Heavy specced out 2H squishy when it came to groups of 3-4. Cleave, pshhhh, my 2H Battle Axe seemed more like it was tickling with a feather. Game is more designed for blocking and casting (not swinging). Upper cut is great but feels clunky and slow. At 50 I had to stick those big fearsome blades in the closet and pull out the resto staff to survive. Switched and within a day (with new unleveled skills) was able to get out of Cold Harbour and move to Vet Zone.

It is hard to create and hold balance, but right now, Heavy isn't doing the job, and mighty stamina based weapons are falling into the realm of shiny toys.