Stam buffs? What are they?

Nihili · October 2014

From the guild summit:
"The multi-dependency of Stamina in combat, is this something that is a concern for the future? Have you considered the possibility of implementing a separate resource pool for defensive actions?

(ZOS): Stamina users have several advantages when it comes to using defensive actions, they can take those actions more frequently because of their larger pool and have their Magicka reserved for using defensive or buff abilities. We have seen the suggestions to separate this resource, but its not something we are considering for now."
tamrielfoundry.com/2014/10/eso-guild-summit-day2/

I'm a little distraught at this. My personal view was the exact opposite of what ZOS said: Stamina users have several disadvantages when it comes to defensive actions, because both offense and defense drains a marginally* larger stamina pool. This is my opinion at least - so while I tear out my hair and cry, would someone lift my mood by telling me what are the buffs we can expect to Stamina builds?

jrgray93 · October 2014

A few spells should be reworked soon to hit harder, so there is more damage potential for stamina. That doesn't fix the underlying problem you mentioned. Some people are also in agreement with ZOS that it isn't a problem to have the resource shared, but I guess those people don't do a lot of PVP. It makes no sense in the current implementation. It's really poorly designed.

Nihili · October 2014

jrgray93 wrote: »

A few spells should be reworked soon to hit harder, so there is more damage potential for stamina.

Stamina spells? I believe they are planning to do this: they seem to focus on Bow and Two handers by e.g. improving the DoT damage of Venom arrow and improving the base damage of Cleave (along with many more).

jrgray93 wrote: »

That doesn't fix the underlying problem you mentioned. Some people are also in agreement with ZOS that it isn't a problem to have the resource shared, but I guess those people don't do a lot of PVP. It makes no sense in the current implementation. It's really poorly designed.

Agree fully, glad I'm not the only one who feels that way at the very least.

guybrushtb16_ESO · October 2014

I was also quite surprised to see them insist there. "defensive or buff abilities" are not used to the same extent that dodging, blocking, or breaking cc are.

AFAIK, dodge rolls cost about ~400 stam, so a magicka char that doesn't need to use stamina for anything else gets about 3 dodge rolls and then has a 100% regeneration rate because it's a seperate pool.

A stamina char in medium armor takes the cost down to ~300, so the same 3 dodge rolls put them at about 1500 of their primary resource pool, which is now barely enough to kill anybody in pvp (provided they at least block as well), whereas the magicka build still has their full 2400. Yes, the stam build can now dodge further, but fights aren't won by dodging alone and further diminishing your primary resource pool is a sure way of losing.

All this is not even taking into account that actually, you are more likely to want to be blocking as well as dodging key attacks and breaking cc, which further benefits magicka users as neither of them get a cost reduction for it.

Heishi · October 2014

I might be wrong, but I thought I had read that most defensive things such as block, dodge roll, and counter used a % of your stamina. So a larger pool, it uses a larger amount. Unless they were referring specifically to things like Sparks, the shield abilities, and such.

jrgray93 · October 2014

I guess calling them "spells" might be confusing. Sorry about that. But they also mentioned adding morphs to some class abilities to make them scale from and use stamina. So there's that as well.

It is also worth mentioning that having class abilities be almost useless for damage output on stamina builds is also a huge underlying design problem. Whenever I design a stamina build, I feel like every time I add a class spell, it is an imposition. But since most stamina abilities are so-so at best and I can't fully rely on stamina and still be able to dodge / cc break, I feel obligated to include a not-insignificant amount of class spells.

Nihili · October 2014

All in all, I feel that ZOS's… "disassociation" from the suggested separate resource pool is odd. Pardon me if I suggest a bunch of ridiculous ideas; I hope no one takes me serious with these statements. I'd just like to brainstorm what I would do to fix stamina builds. By all means, criticize constructively:

I've numerously suggested in threads that the player should have the choice to make blocking/rolls/CC breaks Magicka costs. My reason for suggesting this is the split-dependency a Magicka build enjoys, but multi-dependency a Stamina build suffers. A Magicka build can use its magicka pool to act offensively, and its stamina pool to act defensively, using both resources far more efficiently. Stamina builds have a wasted resource in magicka, and a over-used resource in Stamina. With this change however, a Stamina Build can make its blocking/rolls costs Magicka based, and it would share in the split-dependecy that Magicka builds enjoy. I've always received many "LOLs" on this one, indicating people disagree with me, but no one ever said what was wrong with my logic?
Second idea I've considered is more ambitious than the previous one. I would change class skill costs. A Nightblade and a DragonKnight are both stamina classes logically, but ZOS made them Magicka based. E.g. a Nightblade has a skill called "Concealed weapon", but it uses magicka? I would make two of the three skill lines of these two classes Stamina based. Then I would make one of the three skill lines in Sorcerers and Templars (the two which I consider magicka classes "logically") stamina based… I only thought of this one very broadly. I haven't thought of what the impacts would be, feel free to shoot it down. The reason why I suggested it was because currently we have 10 magical skill lines and 10 stamina skill lines available; but 3 of the 10 Stamina skill lines are Armor skill lines, containing one active ability each and very few of the weapon skill lines are on par with the class skills. This aims to reverse that.
Change the way our damage scales. The night blade class has a class skill named "Ambush", that is a magicka cost skill, but its damage scales off Stamina. This is terrible because a Nightblade who invested in magicka will have a weak skill, but someone who invested in stamina will have a costly skill.

That's all I could think of. If someone would like to add to my 3 point, please do. I feel that's one area that needs fixing.

Samadhi · October 2014

guybrushtb16_ESO wrote: »

...
A stamina char in medium armor takes the cost down to ~300, so the same 3 dodge rolls put them at about 1500 of their primary resource pool, which is now barely enough to kill anybody in pvp (provided they at least block as well), whereas the magicka build still has their full 2400. Yes, the stam build can now dodge further, but fights aren't won by dodging alone and further diminishing your primary resource pool is a sure way of losing.
...

My Stamina build for my character sits around 2300 Stamina.
My Magicka build for my character puts me at around 1600 Stamina with a food on.

My Stamina build also has 1.5-2 times as much Stamina Regen as my Magicka build has.

The builds mirror each other. The Magicka build has limited ability to dodge and block, the Stamina build has limited ability to CC and buff with Class skills.

My Stamina build gives me greater mobility, while still having plenty of resources to kill people.

Nihili wrote: »

... Change the way our damage scales. The night blade class has a class skill named "Ambush", that is a magicka cost skill, but its damage scales off Stamina. This is terrible because a Nightblade who invested in magicka will have a weak skill, but someone who invested in stamina will have a costly skill.
...

Ambush damage scales off of Magicka and Spell Damage stats.

Nihili · October 2014

Samadhi wrote: »

Nihili wrote: »

... Change the way our damage scales. The night blade class has a class skill named "Ambush", that is a magicka cost skill, but its damage scales off Stamina. This is terrible because a Nightblade who invested in magicka will have a weak skill, but someone who invested in stamina will have a costly skill.
...

Ambush damage scales off of Magicka and Spell Damage stats.

If so, I'll take it on board. That Ambush scales with Stamina is something heard through word of mouth, and if you say it isn't then it is again the word of mouth that I trust

PBpsy · October 2014

Nihili wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Nihili wrote: »

... Change the way our damage scales. The night blade class has a class skill named "Ambush", that is a magicka cost skill, but its damage scales off Stamina. This is terrible because a Nightblade who invested in magicka will have a weak skill, but someone who invested in stamina will have a costly skill.
...

Ambush damage scales off of Magicka and Spell Damage stats.

If so, I'll take it on board. That Ambush scales with Stamina is something heard through word of mouth, and if you say it isn't then it is again the word of mouth that I trust

It only crits with weapon crit. All class skills of any class always scale with magicka and spell power.

Nihili wrote: »

[*] Second idea I've considered is more ambitious than the previous one. I would change class skill costs. A Nightblade and a DragonKnight are both stamina classes logically, but ZOS made them Magicka based. E.g. a Nightblade has a skill called "Concealed weapon", but it uses magicka? I would make two of the three skill lines of these two classes Stamina based. Then I would make one of the three skill lines in Sorcerers and Templars (the two which I consider magicka classes "logically") stamina based… I only thought of this one very broadly. I haven't thought of what the impacts would be, feel free to shoot it down. The reason why I suggested it was because currently we have 10 magical skill lines and 10 stamina skill lines available; but 3 of the 10 Stamina skill lines are Armor skill lines, containing one active ability each and very few of the weapon skill lines are on par with the class skills. This aims to reverse that.
That's all I could think of. If someone would like to add to my 3 point, please do. I feel that's one area that needs fixing.

No NB are most definitely mages since TES ARENA and they use magic.All their skills including concealed weapon are spells. Summoned weapons are a TES thing.DKs are more or less designed as a mellee fire mage and should also more or less use magic.

One thing that they could do is add some more developed 2 skill line stamina specializations that you can get in game. Fighter and rogue for example with good stamina based utility and leave our damn magicka based classes alone.

Woolenthreads · October 2014

Actually I logged in to an Alt the other day and was a little shocked to see my Stamina bar was larger than the size of my Magicka+Health. I don't recall it being that size before and the Alt was only L17.

superquadockyb14_ESO · October 2014

I got an idea. They should utilize the Magic pool like how they do for Stamina in some fashion. Like certain actions use magic energy etc.