Improvements for Stamina-Based Skills and Passives

Tobiz · June 2014

I need more information on what is being done and how gameplay is intended before I can specify what needs to be done. It is simply overwhelming trying to narrow it down to a single change that needs tuning.
What parts of the imbalance are you working on?

In Dual Wield you seem to want Flurry and its morps to be a high damage ability. With a stated 1.3 (more like 2.5 actual) second channel, the damage part will almost always be interrupted for a block/interrupt/dodge.

Heavy attacks are useless. You are open to attacks and gain very little.

There is no survivability in armor.

Itemization is poor.

Stamina/melee has no synergies.

Is Magicka builds working as intended or is it too powerful.

Magicka is a one build to rule them all with all the versatility, lots of skills and passives that all scale together. Great gear options. Magicka return on heavy attack with resto and heal while youre at it.

Are weapon abilities just a filler between magicka spells? Are spells supposed to be so much more powerfull then stamina abilities?
With 0 magicka enhancements I get more damage from class spells then
weapon abilities.

Id like to know what you like melee combat to be before attemting suggestions for fixes.
What is intended and what is not?

edwardspruitb16_ESO · June 2014

Here's a list of things I'd suggest to make stamina based builds more viable:

General Combat:
-Reduce the cost of sprinting, blocking and roll dodge for all players by 5%
-Slightly increase basic weapon attacks for 1h/s, dual wield, two handed and bow
-CC breaks now use magicka and no stamina

Med Armor:
-Agility: Increase attack speed from 5 to 8-10% when wearing 5+ pieces of med armor equiped
-Atlethics: Decreases the cost of roll dodge from 2 to 3-4% per piece of med armor equiped
-Evasion (+morphs): Raise dodge chance from 15 to 20-25%
-Dexterity: raise the increase in weapon critical from 1 to 1.5% per piece of med armor equiped

Heavy Armor:
-Bracing: Raise the decrease in blocking from 10 to 15-20% when wearing 5+ heavy armor pieces
-Juggernaut: Raise the increase in melee weapon damage from 0.5 to 1% per heavy armor piece equiped
-Resolve: Raise Armor (not spell resist though) increase from 1 to 1.5% per piece of heavy armor equiped.

Class abilities:
-Make on average 5 out of 15 active abilities from each class stamina-based (preferably the melee based ones like Veiled Strike, Stonefist, etc). The exact number may vary from class to class (Sorc may have slightly less of these than DK and NB).

Bow:
-Volley (and morphs): Slight increase in radius and dmg
-Scatter shot and morphs: Either slightly increase the range or dmg
-Long shots: increase the bonus dmg from 6 to 8-10%.
-Hasty retreat: Increase move speed from 15 to 20%.

I cannot speak on the account of Dual Wield, 1H/S and Two handed, since I haven't tried them extensively, but it seems to me that DW and 1H/S need slightly more small buffs, than Two handed, but I could be wrong.

Future:
-Make plenty of skills in the upcoming Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild skill trees based on Stamina

davidetombab16_ESO · June 2014

edwardspruitb16_ESO wrote: »

Here's a list of things I'd suggest to make stamina based builds more viable:

Med Armor:
-Agility: Increase attack speed from 5 to 8-10% when wearing 5+ pieces of med armor equiped

agility is useless bacause cancel casting system, I prefer a passive bonuses like dark stalker vampire

arnaldomoraleseb17_ESO · July 2014

edwardspruitb16_ESO wrote: »

Here's a list of things I'd suggest to make stamina based builds more viable:

Heavy Armor:
-Bracing: Raise the decrease in blocking from 10 to 15-20% when wearing 5+ heavy armor pieces
-Juggernaut: Raise the increase in melee weapon damage from 0.5 to 1% per heavy armor piece equiped
-Resolve: Raise Armor (not spell resist though) increase from 1 to 1.5% per piece of heavy armor equiped.

Heavy armor will be still pretty useless with your suggestions...... I think you never have used heavy armor and you don't have any idea about it.

ZoM_Head · July 2014

edwardspruitb16_ESO wrote: »

Here's a list of things I'd suggest to make stamina based builds more viable:

General Combat:
-Reduce the cost of sprinting, blocking and roll dodge for all players by 5%
-Slightly increase basic weapon attacks for 1h/s, dual wield, two handed and bow
-CC breaks now use magicka and no stamina

Med Armor:
-Agility: Increase attack speed from 5 to 8-10% when wearing 5+ pieces of med armor equiped
-Atlethics: Decreases the cost of roll dodge from 2 to 3-4% per piece of med armor equiped
-Evasion (+morphs): Raise dodge chance from 15 to 20-25%
-Dexterity: raise the increase in weapon critical from 1 to 1.5% per piece of med armor equiped

Heavy Armor:
-Bracing: Raise the decrease in blocking from 10 to 15-20% when wearing 5+ heavy armor pieces
-Juggernaut: Raise the increase in melee weapon damage from 0.5 to 1% per heavy armor piece equiped
-Resolve: Raise Armor (not spell resist though) increase from 1 to 1.5% per piece of heavy armor equiped.

Class abilities:
-Make on average 5 out of 15 active abilities from each class stamina-based (preferably the melee based ones like Veiled Strike, Stonefist, etc). The exact number may vary from class to class (Sorc may have slightly less of these than DK and NB).

Bow:
-Volley (and morphs): Slight increase in radius and dmg
-Scatter shot and morphs: Either slightly increase the range or dmg
-Long shots: increase the bonus dmg from 6 to 8-10%.
-Hasty retreat: Increase move speed from 15 to 20%.

I cannot speak on the account of Dual Wield, 1H/S and Two handed, since I haven't tried them extensively, but it seems to me that DW and 1H/S need slightly more small buffs, than Two handed, but I could be wrong.

Future:
-Make plenty of skills in the upcoming Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild skill trees based on Stamina

You still did not cover no CC stamina based skill...

david.haypreub18_ESO · July 2014

But I do very much like the idea of making some class skills key off Stamina rather than Magicka.

I can see several in the Templar's Aedric Spear tree, for example, that could key off Stamina. Puncturing Strikes (stabbing a spear), Piercing Javelin (throwing a javelin) and Focused Charge (charging) could all key off Stamina (not all three should, but certainly one or two of them could). Also, the Templar ultimate Radial Sweep could as well.

Another thought: make one morph key off Magicka, another off Stamina, to give players the choice of how they want to play the class.

Eivar · July 2014

What we really need is an update from ZOS on what they are working planning on at this point. I personally have stopped bothering to log in, I really like the game and I'm keeping my sub active, but I am only interested in playing a melee or bow user and those approaches are way underpowered by comparison. I'm of the opinion that this policy of small slow changes is the wrong way to go and we need to start seeing some serious progress on bringing these builds up to par with the staff users. An update on what is being worked on to balance out the gameplay would go a long way to reassure people that progress is being made. I came here with a guild of 25 or so people and now am the only one left, I'm sure I'm not the only person in a similar situation, would love to be able to tell my friends that they bailed to early and should have stuck around, but right now i really can't say that with a straight face.

Darkstorn42 · July 2014

This is fantastic. I just found this thread. I understand that they cannot fix things all at once, and we will see balance over time, balance creep? Its gotta be this way or everyone will jump ship to try out the new beefed up stuff and then everyone will complain its OP. They gotta keep doing it in small increments until they are on par with each other. Then maybe we can see some WW fixes too.

I personally would love to see some class abilities changed from magicka to stamina use, so that there are just more stamina abilities. Even one ultimate from each class being stamina would be nice.

Eivar · July 2014

Darkstorn42 wrote: »

I understand that they cannot fix things all at once, and we will see balance over time, balance creep? Its gotta be this way or everyone will jump ship to try out the new beefed up stuff and then everyone will complain its OP. They gotta keep doing it in small increments until they are on par with each other.

I disagree, I understand the thought process, and sticking with the analogy of "jumping ship", were the ship closer to on course, than changing direction a degree at a time would be a reasonable thing to do. As it stands I feel it's more like the ship's destination is to the east, but somehow we woke up one morning and found we were headed west, using their current strategy, they are changing course over the next several months a degree at a time, and by then, if anyone is still on board, we could be lost in the arctic.

david.haypreub18_ESO · July 2014

I'm all for the slow and steady approach-- if it is applied evenly.

I wonder where it was in beta when they nerfed the Templar's magicka-replenishment.

If they had taken it slow on that, perhaps Templars wouldn't have been in the mess they are in now.

Armitas · July 2014

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom
I wanted to address one of the main problems with stamina based builds in comparison to magicka based builds, and provide a humbly submitted possible solution.

Problem.
Stamina based weapons cause a double draw in Stamina due to the fact that blocks, rolls, CC breaks draw from the same pool as the weapon attacks.

Why it's a problem.
In PvP this allows magicka based builds to block cast using their stamina bar solely for block/roll/breaks while using their magicka solely for attacking. Stamina based builds can also block cast but they will consume their resource pool twice as fast. Simply put in a fight against a magicka user and a stamina user the stamina user will be out of resources long before the magicka user will. This gives the stamina user a sophies choice, do I block and run out of stamina to attack, or do I attack and run out of stamina to CC break? This is not a choice that the magicka user has to make.

Potential Solution.
Add a new bar called "power". Power = (Stamina + Magicka)/2). All blocks dodges and breaks consume a rescaled amount of power rather than stamina or magicka. The power bar could be as simple as the horse stamina bar.

**Alternate equation that does not require a rescaling and would automatically allow power to represent the highest resource pool.
( (S+M/2) * ( (S-M)/(S+M) ) ) + ((S+M)/2)

Why it could work.
* Both magicka and stamina builds have the same considerations when it comes to the choice of blocking, dodging or breaking.
* The resulting power pool is identical to what it currently is for magicka users in regards to being able to Block/dodge/break.
* The power bar equally represents what the player invests in whether he invests in stamina or magicka.

Ancillary uses for a Power bar.
* It can be used to provide an effective GCD without making a GCD by attaching certain skills to the power bar. If that skill is used consecutively then it causes an exhaustion debuff. If that skill is used again while under the exhaustion debuff it will consume power as well as stamina or magkica. This would be very effective in reducing skill spam without harming the individual skill or adding a GCD. If needed it can also be used for managing gap closers or openers such as Bolt escape and invasion without harming the individual skill or adding a GCD.

* It could give you an additional point of contact for fine tuning that may be more precise to the issue at hand then the current system may allow allow for.

Tendeep · July 2014

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Many of you have asked what we’re doing to make skills, passives, and builds based on stamina more viable and as attractive as the magicka-based options. Below is a first look at some of the improvements we’re making to stamina-based skills and passives. As with all our balance efforts, this is an ongoing process and there will be more to come. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Bow: Poison Arrow
Poison Arrow’s damage-over-time has been increased by 50% overall.

Bow: Snipe
Snipe’s cast time will be reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.

Snipe’s maximum range will be reduced from 40 meters to 35 meters.

Snipe’s minimum range will be reduced from 20 meters to 10 meters.

Dual Wield: Flurry
The damage for Flurry’s final hit will be increased by 10%.

Medium Armor
With the Wind Walker passive, medium armor will reduce stamina costs by 2% per piece equipped.

Two Handed: Cleave
Cleave’s damage-over-time will be increased by 25% overall, and scale as the ability ranks up.

Two Handed: Uppercut
Uppercut’s damage will be increased by 10%.

Uppercut’s global cooldown after use will be reduced by 50%.

That's it?!? That looks more like a Night Blade minor buff than Stamina, Melee, Heavy/Medium armor fixes...

Sad to see this.

There is still A LOT of work needed to improve class functions and balancing.

Stamina builds are still very poor
Medium and Heavy armors are still very poor
Sword and Shield skills are still incredibly poor
Dual Wield was improved slightly, but to nothing worth much
Bow skills tweaked a little, but to nothing worth much

The game is still forcing players to go Light armor and Staffs to be viable.

DK's are essentially gods in PvP with the best self heal, great single target DPS, great AoE dps/CC, and best survivability with scales. Just go you tube DK's and watch the crazy vids of 1 DK taking on packs of 2,3,8 players at once and winning lol.

Anyway, would love an update on when we can expect to see the next set of buffs and changes for the above mentioned?

Thanks,

dragnier · July 2014

My post about fixing class skill damage scaling with magicka/stamina.

This only another small step, but could help equalize the damage scaling. As things sit now, Stam based builds get squat out of class skills because they scale with Magicka.

This would make class skills useful no matter what type of build you had.

monden1980b16_ESO · July 2014

dragnier wrote: »

My post about fixing class skill damage scaling with magicka/stamina.

This only another small step, but could help equalize the damage scaling. As things sit now, Stam based builds get squat out of class skills because they scale with Magicka.

This would make class skills useful no matter what type of build you had.

I really like this idea. I would even say make class ability damage (and crit chance!) dependent 50% on magicka and 50% on stamina. Keep magicka as the ressource for class skills (as it is now).

Pure magicka users will have the class ability damage slightly reduced (compared to now), but still have the advantage that they can use all their stamina to sprint / roll dodge / block / cc break (the base stamina is enough if you use your stamina solely for this).

Magicka/stamina hybrid users and pure stamina (yes, you gimp yourself!) users will no longer gimp their damage output coming from class abilities. They will have less resources (magicka) to use class abilities, but will have their second ressource pool (stamina) to dish out weapon damage... which will still be reduced by the use of sprint, roll dodge, block, cc break.

I think this approach could even out the disbalance between magicka and stamina/hybrid users quite easily, or at least bring it more in line.

Shaun98ca2 · July 2014

Here is my take on this whole Magicka>Stamina issue
(FYI this is just a personal belief)

The issue between Magicka and Stamina stems directly from 1 issue sustained DPS.

Magicka has High DPS and is capable of Sustaining it.

Stamina DOESNT have high DPS and EVEN IF it did WOULDNT be able to even come close to sustaining it.

So it boils down to a few things. Take ANY CLASS and neglect ALL Magicka gain on a PURE Magicka build....what do you get.....CRAP.

Whats a Stamina build currently....CRAP.

Well actually its not that those 2 are crap its actually that Magicka gain is OP and breaking the system we have which is STRICT resource management to adhere to. Magicka users DO NOT adhere to the resource management they work around it essentially getting "unlimited Magicka".

IF you look at a Magicka Build without ANY Magicka gain other than regen you get

Magicka = High Damage Low Sustainment
Stamina = Good Damage High Sustainment

A Stamina build doesn't need its Resource pool to sustain its good damage hence why its actually capable of allowing all the drains from its resource pool such as Block, Dodge, Stun, because it can sustain its damage through the increased Light/Heavy Attacks from points in Stamina.

A Magicka build with NO resource and LOW-ZERO points in Stamina has crap for DPS where it can burst really well as a 1 trick pony but then is worthless when OOM.

Once you start running out of Magicka you start to realize how much is required from Magicka just like a Stamina build IE CC Self Healing Buffs eat away your potential DPS.

BUT Magicka builds DONT run out of Magicka.........SO WHY do we have the resource system anyways then???

Is it by design to have to constantly have to have Equilibrium + Restro to be decent in anything you do in this game or is it simply those are broken and not working as intended increasing our DPS far higher than Devs intended which is why we are seeing the discrepancy between Magicka and Stamina.

I challenged ANYBODY with GOOD testing skill to.......

Make a FULL Magicka build with ZERO points towards Stamina use NO Magicka gain feats and see how well your DPS does 1 min 2 min 3 min. then compare that to a FULL Stamina build with ZERO points towards Magicka.
Obviously you would want the BEST DPS build you can think of and you need BOTH to run out of resources as fast as possible while still attempting to DPS for about the same amount of time it took your to run out of resources or a little longer.

OBVIOUSLY this would be hard to test but GOOD LUCK to those who are capable.....IF we the community can find the problem and agree on it then we can find the solution.

Sangeet · July 2014

For now, i shelfed my Rank 7 Nightblade, and play my lvl 25 DK Destro Staff /Light Armor Toon.

The problem is:

All class skills use magica, its easy to bump up magica with passive traits, with the mage mundus stone, 20% crit from a single inner light morph, crit from the light armor passive, 5% crit on my lvl 20 staff. I could already solo group dungeons in rivenspire, aoe trash groups. I also have the warlock set dropped for me at lvl 20, which disabled my main problem for the DK, i never run OOM.

The same build would not work for a nightblade, as the fiery talons are essential to have all the enemy's nicely grouped for that AOE pew pew to happen.

What nightblade needs: viable skills that provide synergies opportunities for other players to enact group play. Also i think, the whole system should be revamped, get rid of stamina, and make every active skill magica based.
Stamina is then only used to block, roll, sprint.

It comes down to this: when i activate a skill, why should i choose a skill that is providing lower damage than a different skill? Only for style reasons?

The complete system in its current state is totally unfair, when i have to get into melee range to do damage, i need to do significantly larger damage than someone standing in range, casting with a stick /bow etc.
The guy standing in the distance can hide in a group of players /keep etc.

Also as the inner light morph is so mandatory for casters, everyone uses it, so sneaking upon people is almost meaningless.

Minor changes like a bit more damage for bow poison, and the stamina reduction cost, doesnt cut it by far. With dual wield, steel tornado you should receive the same effect as with impulse !

Also that light armor provides the spell resist , making you immune to part of all active class skills in game, is just bad game design. It should be, that heavy armor has the most spell resist, like 21%, medium has 14% and light 7%.
Its a glass cannon in light armor ?`Currently i have the feeling that my survivability with the DK is by far exceeding the nightblade, 10% less damage with only 2 skill points in block, how cool is that? Also got a Darkelf with fire resist, extra fire damage, more magica to tune in. Compare that to woodelf, where you could specc to avoid poison damage - nobody does poison damage in this game, but there a quite a lot of fire seen in PVE.

When a DK can skill with 2 points to block 10% damage, and Nightblade if offensive type of character, where is my passive to increase damage 10% ?
Master Assasin does not count, as its 1x 10% for opener, not 10% blocking all the time ?

Siphoning attacks 20% damage nerf? Oh come on, thats pretty ***, how does that fit to a offensive class like the nightblade ?

When there are classes, they have to have a certain direction, why should i pick a nightblade over an DK ?

The classes are the 4 Basic DnD types, everyone agrees that the fantasy basic we now since the 80ties , Wizard, Fighter, Cleric, Rouge.

I really like the option in ESO, that you could fulfill every role with each class, but i think you should provide a weighting to it, as we would expect it from our experience:
Wizard: the one with the special effects, he is the best at it.
Fighter: best at tanking
Cleric: best at healing
Rouge: best at DD.

As every class has 3 trees, you could basically sort the 3 Roles of DD, Tanking, Healing in each of the trees, and support one of the roles you have to take over, when it comes down to group content.

So when the Wizard could provide the extra 10% CC
The Fighter the extra 10% protection
The Cleric the extra 10% healing
The Rouge the extra 10% DPS, nobody would complain.
Also each class should have something unique to them, which none of the other classes provides, could be a group buff. Like the 10% above, the DK could buff the whole group with a Earth shield ? He also gets the Weapon Buff for the Group ?
Why isnt that skill assigned to nightblades ? For example the haste Buff, for the whole group, with additional synergie options, like fiery talons, when somebody triggers it, he gets a free flurry ?

Also the blocking dynamic heavy favors the caster, and melee type characters get a shaft here, so that needs to be tweaked as well.

Untill that is fixed, i will play a caster, or cancel my sub, if i cant face the VR grind again, Nightblade stays broken.

OkieDokie · July 2014

Again, you guys are assuming magicka and stamina builds should be even. They've never said that.

Therefore, all these suggestions might be a waste of effort, because we don't really know if we should be talking about dps or resource management until they actually say it.

Lyall84 · July 2014

OkieDokie wrote: »

Again, you guys are assuming magicka and stamina builds should be even. They've never said that.

Therefore, all these suggestions might be a waste of effort, because we don't really know if we should be talking about dps or resource management until they actually say it.

If they are not suppose to be even, then why would they ever put them into the game?

If you come across a huge "MISSING TEXTURE" cube while running around do you assume that it is suppose to be there until ZOS comes out and says, "no those cubes are bugs"?

ZOS has never said that they think classes should be even. Is one class suppose to be better than another?

Your argument does not hold water. This is a stamina improvements thread. If you do not think stamina should be improved, you must be afraid of stamina builds doing comparable or better damage than your magicka one. Instead of trying to keep poking everyone in the eye when they don't want to play the way you want to play, either leave constructive criticism or post elsewhere.

OkieDokie · July 2014

Lyall84 wrote: »

OkieDokie wrote: »

Again, you guys are assuming magicka and stamina builds should be even. They've never said that.

Therefore, all these suggestions might be a waste of effort, because we don't really know if we should be talking about dps or resource management until they actually say it.

If they are not suppose to be even, then why would they ever put them into the game?

If you come across a huge "MISSING TEXTURE" cube while running around do you assume that it is suppose to be there until ZOS comes out and says, "no those cubes are bugs"?

ZOS has never said that they think classes should be even. Is one class suppose to be better than another?

Your argument does not hold water. This is a stamina improvements thread. If you do not think stamina should be improved, you must be afraid of stamina builds doing comparable or better damage than your magicka one. Instead of trying to keep poking everyone in the eye when they don't want to play the way you want to play, either leave constructive criticism or post elsewhere.

If you go to the PTS section, you'll see one topic I created with the medium armor suggestion just a couple weeks before they implemented it. So no, not afraid of stamina builds at all. In fact, I'm trying to help you.

The question is pertinent. Or they are supposed to be even, or stamina is a secondary source of damage. How to 'balance' it depends on the answer.

arnaldomoraleseb17_ESO · July 2014

When Zenimax will tell us something about heavy armor? :-s

Venatoreo · July 2014

In my opinion it seems the devs are missing the mark by a long shot here. The reason why stam/magika builds are inferior to pure magika builds is due to the fact that class abilities is still scaling based only on magika.

If it's possible to for the devs to somehow make it to where class abilities are scaled based on weapon of choice (i.e. melee weapons and bows = scale with stam, destro/resto staves = magika).

The problem currently is for those who want to make a stam build, their class abilities become weaker versions of their pure magika counter parts, nothing more than just utilities.

Players who want to roll a stam build, won't get to enjoy and see the full extent and power of the their class abilities. Buffing stam abilities will not fix the issue that class abilities that currently require and scales with magika are still going to be weak compared to someone of a full stam build.

What the player base is asking that for stam builds to be pure stam, allow the class abilities to scale with stam somehow (again my idea that class abilities should scale with stam or magika due to weapon of choice).

It's already been tested and proven that a destro staff pure magika build dk class abilities will out shine a dk using a 2 hander wearing plate.

So obviously the idea wasn't made clear enough that stam build players want to be able to pour all their attribute points into one resource just like pure magika builds currently are doing.

Another idea would be to create ultimates for each weapon so the players don't feel they're getting shafted on abilities.

TL:DR

ultimate fix would be to all class abilities to scale with magika or stamina based on weapon of choice, or create weapon ultimates.

Lyall84 · July 2014

OkieDokie wrote: »

Lyall84 wrote: »

OkieDokie wrote: »

Again, you guys are assuming magicka and stamina builds should be even. They've never said that.

Therefore, all these suggestions might be a waste of effort, because we don't really know if we should be talking about dps or resource management until they actually say it.

If they are not suppose to be even, then why would they ever put them into the game?

If you come across a huge "MISSING TEXTURE" cube while running around do you assume that it is suppose to be there until ZOS comes out and says, "no those cubes are bugs"?

ZOS has never said that they think classes should be even. Is one class suppose to be better than another?

Your argument does not hold water. This is a stamina improvements thread. If you do not think stamina should be improved, you must be afraid of stamina builds doing comparable or better damage than your magicka one. Instead of trying to keep poking everyone in the eye when they don't want to play the way you want to play, either leave constructive criticism or post elsewhere.

If you go to the PTS section, you'll see one topic I created with the medium armor suggestion just a couple weeks before they implemented it. So no, not afraid of stamina builds at all. In fact, I'm trying to help you.

The question is pertinent. Or they are supposed to be even, or stamina is a secondary source of damage. How to 'balance' it depends on the answer.

The fact that they are even in the game answers that question. Yes they are supposed to be even. You are supposed to have the choice between the two, and it should be a tough choice. Not 4 (dual wield, one hand & shield, two hand, and bow) of the 8 (those 4 plus destruction staff and 3 class lines) available skill lines being completely pointless because they don't even come close to the damage of the other 4. If that was the case then 100% of weapon skill abilities would have some sort of utility secondary effect like CC, knock back or what not. There would not be a need for pure damage abilities. But those pure damage abilities are there. That makes it obvious to anyone that has any common sense that stamina builds with weapon skills are supposed to be comparable to magicka builds with class skills. Better? No. No one here wants stamina builds and weapon skills to outright trump magicka and class skills. They just want them to be closer to equal so they can enjoy playing the game the same way that everyone wearing light armor wielding resto staffs are enjoying it.

david.haypreub18_ESO · July 2014

Venatoreo wrote: »

In my opinion it seems the devs are missing the mark by a long shot here. The reason why stam/magika builds are inferior to pure magika builds is due to the fact that class abilities is still scaling based only on magika.

...

TL:DR

ultimate fix would be to all class abilities to scale with magika or stamina based on weapon of choice, or create weapon ultimates.

I've been saying the exact same thing since beta. It hasn't been getting through though.

Mortosk · July 2014

Shielded Assault, nice skill for the 2 second stun, but the damage shield element could use some work. It is pretty useless 1v1. It only lasts 4 seconds, and by the time the mob you just stunned gets up and tries to hit you, the damage shield is gone. I don't think a solo mob takes a single tick of damage from it before it poofs.

If you are fighting a group of mobs, they might take 1 tick before it poofs, but usually I open with Volcanic Rune, and then charge in with shielded assault, so by the time they recover from the Volcanic Rune the damage shield is pretty much gone as well.

In short, 4 seconds on the damage shield is not a long enough duration.

SC0TY999 · July 2014

Crap changes! Stamina still won't be as effective as magika you clowns!

Soloeus · July 2014

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Many of you have asked what we’re doing to make skills, passives, and builds based on stamina more viable and as attractive as the magicka-based options. Below is a first look at some of the improvements we’re making to stamina-based skills and passives. As with all our balance efforts, this is an ongoing process and there will be more to come. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Bow: Poison Arrow
Poison Arrow’s damage-over-time has been increased by 50% overall.

Bow: Snipe
Snipe’s cast time will be reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.

Snipe’s maximum range will be reduced from 40 meters to 35 meters.

Snipe’s minimum range will be reduced from 20 meters to 10 meters.

Dual Wield: Flurry
The damage for Flurry’s final hit will be increased by 10%.

Medium Armor
With the Wind Walker passive, medium armor will reduce stamina costs by 2% per piece equipped.

Two Handed: Cleave
Cleave’s damage-over-time will be increased by 25% overall, and scale as the ability ranks up.

Two Handed: Uppercut
Uppercut’s damage will be increased by 10%.

Uppercut’s global cooldown after use will be reduced by 50%.

All you need to do is take all those Passive Skills that say "When using this, this or this, you get..."and remove them from the game.

BORING.

Replace them with Sorcerer-esque passives; ones that have synch outside of their own skill line. Let the passive skills of Temp and NB work with any weapon, any guild, world or alliance warfare skill line.

Your passives in these classes are so restrictive... and give targeted bonuses "When making melee attacks..." "melee damage increased..." I want my Templar and Nightblade to work with Destro Staff and Bow. This is how I like to play, with light armor at that.

Want to compel me to use Stamina Based skills? Bow is the only "in" you will ever have. But I cannot use it. You see, anything the Bow can do, the class doesn't interact with "melee weapons, melee attacks". So instead I will proudly live in Destro Staff.

adino · July 2014

There seems to be some fear about stamina builds. I don't get it but for some reason they have this fear of them.

How can they say we will increase stam reduction in medium armor to 2% and yet leave light armor magicka passive at 3%? I don't get it? You don't use magical for anything but spells, while stam is used on so many things. Do they not get it? I sure don't get why the timid increase? The soft cap is roughly the same, resource usage on skills is in fact better on magicka and yet 2% vs. 3%... why?

Are they gunshy now? They also do not seem to understand their own system. The soft caps and synergy make increasing stamina regen useless.

I could be totally missing it as well. I am no expert at all but wouldn't increasing stamina soft cap to that of hps maybe be a good fix to start? Give stam a larger pool, boost stam enchants and so when you draw from it from multiple sources it has the pool to do so. Also let all weapons scale with stamina not mag. That way you really have to create a build using the runes, eq sets, and stat builds. As it is now, most people with food can reach soft cap in all three stats... or very close to. It makes it so where you are not choosing a stat to focus on but you are choosing the best way to optimize and get all three stats to softcap.

Increase the caps so one has to make a conscience choice. Tanks focusing on HPs should have much more hps than the FRAKEN LIGHT ARMOR SORCERER!!!! A dps dual wield or bow should have more stamina than the FRAKEN LIGHT ARMOR SORCERER!!!

sorry. The level of frustration is indeed boiling over for me. Changes just seem kind of intuitive at this point. The fact that they don't seem to understand is making me lose hope for this game.

Tobiz · July 2014

OkieDokie wrote: »

Again, you guys are assuming magicka and stamina builds should be even. They've never said that.

Therefore, all these suggestions might be a waste of effort, because we don't really know if we should be talking about dps or resource management until
they actually say it.

I agree with you on this.
With the current construction of max 5 skills a stamina based skill has little to no place unless for flavor and rp. Even with a stam build I need heals and cc that are all on magicka. The 2 skills i have from weapon trees are easily surpassed by class skills in damage, and this is with a full stam build. No magicka enhancements.
Each and every magicka based skill does more, scales better and has a wide variety of synergies from passives, cross tree skills, ultimates. Stamina has none of the above and is often based on restrictions such as target below 25% health in order to even compare.
Unfortunately this IS an rp game wheather you want to rp or not and physical melee is a classical playstile that is and should be different but compareable to magicka based playstiles.
If there were testing of VR content before release, then either they did not test A) magicka, because they can solo the "group" VR content without many problems.

magicka vs stamina comparison, because they do not compare.
C)either, because magicka is supposed to be the only viable choice to scale your character.
Thus we need a Zos response to understand if stamina based skills were intended for rp flavor only.

david.haypreub18_ESO · July 2014

adino wrote: »

There seems to be some fear about stamina builds. I don't get it but for some reason they have this fear of them.

How can they say we will increase stam reduction in medium armor to 2% and yet leave light armor magicka passive at 3%? I don't get it? You don't use magical for anything but spells, while stam is used on so many things. Do they not get it? I sure don't get why the timid increase? The soft cap is roughly the same, resource usage on skills is in fact better on magicka and yet 2% vs. 3%... why?

Are they gunshy now? They also do not seem to understand their own system. The soft caps and synergy make increasing stamina regen useless.

I could be totally missing it as well. I am no expert at all but wouldn't increasing stamina soft cap to that of hps maybe be a good fix to start? Give stam a larger pool, boost stam enchants and so when you draw from it from multiple sources it has the pool to do so. Also let all weapons scale with stamina not mag. That way you really have to create a build using the runes, eq sets, and stat builds. As it is now, most people with food can reach soft cap in all three stats... or very close to. It makes it so where you are not choosing a stat to focus on but you are choosing the best way to optimize and get all three stats to softcap.

Increase the caps so one has to make a conscience choice. Tanks focusing on HPs should have much more hps than the FRAKEN LIGHT ARMOR SORCERER!!!! A dps dual wield or bow should have more stamina than the FRAKEN LIGHT ARMOR SORCERER!!!

sorry. The level of frustration is indeed boiling over for me. Changes just seem kind of intuitive at this point. The fact that they don't seem to understand is making me lose hope for this game.

It does seem odd that so many of the players realize this, but the developers do not. Seriously, many of us have been saying this since beta. Their response is to raise stamina regen on medium armor by a couple of percentage points. They just don't seem to be getting what many of their players realized long ago.

Tobiz · July 2014

adino wrote: »

I read somewhere that the reason they are having so much trouble with bows is the balance issue with NPC bowmen. Is this true?

This makes sense on more then bows.
If true, it is quite awesome that npcs are under the same mechanics as players.
It also brings a whole heap of problems with balancing.
We really, really need to know the core mechanics before guessing what needs to be done in order to not push the problem around but solve it.
It'd be great to have this confirmed, if mechanics apply to npc and player alike.