Blood Altar - stamina return or health return preferred?

EgoRush · June 2016

I am posing this question following a reminder of some disparity between magicka- and stamina-returning abilities in the game. I was reminded of when I suggested the possibility of reworking Blood Alter to give stamina back instead of health, to which a ZOS employee mused that he liked the idea and would see what he could do (this was many many months ago).

With Dark Brotherhood, Blood Altar has been changed and granted a Minor Lifesteal bonus (you are healed for 2% of damage inflicted). However, this is incredibly similar to an ability already available to anyone partial to a Restoration Staff; Force Siphon - restore [x] health on attacking an enemy affected by this ability. Indeed, a morph of this adds a magicka return to the ability too.

I'm wondering how many people would prefer that a stamina return be given to Blood Alter instead of the health return. The Minor Lifesteal buff could be given to Force Siphon and a new Stamina-steal buff could be added to Blood Altar, for example (for consistency we could even change magicka-return abilities like Elemental Drain and Force Siphon to a Magicka-steal buff).

Notes on abilities that return magicka and/or stamina are compiled below:

MAGICKA
Elemental Drain - return magicka on attacking an enemy with elemental damage

Siphon Spirit - return health and magicka on attacking an enemy with any ability

Mystic Orbs - returns pools of magicka based on the number of targets hit to all nearby allies

Arcane Well - killing an enemy has a chance to proc a well that returns magicka to anyone standing in it

Destruction Expert - passive in destruction staff tree for returning magicka for any enemies killed with a skill from this tree

Harness Magicka - returns magicka from enemy spells that hit the shield

STAMINA
Blazing Spear - returns stamina when you synergise the spear

Repentance - returns stamina for each corpse

BOTH
Luminous Spear - returns magicka and stamina when you synergise the spear

Siphoning Attacks - NB only, returns stamina and magicka for direct attacks

Heavy attacks - return magicka/stamina depending on the weapon, restoration staves have a passive for increasing the magicka return, Tenacity in the Champion system can boost this further

I am aware that currently in Dark Brotherhood there is some disparity between magicka and stamina sustain. I don't want this poll to descend into arguments for that as there are other polls relevant for such discussion. This poll is specifically to identify whether people like (and use) Blood Altar the way it is, or would prefer a stamina alternative to open up stamina-return capabilities for all classes as magicka-return is.

lucky_Sage · June 2016

magicka cost more to cast

Natas013 · June 2016

Other - provide details with a comment if you have ideas

Problem with abilities that return stam is endless dodge roll/permablocking. As such I'd not be opposed to a morph giving minor endurance or a fixed increase to stam regen, so as to not effect the buff to regen from potions.

Joy_Division · June 2016

Main problem is that both Force Siphon and Blood Alter are very inefficient and awkward abilities that severely undercut their purpose.

I like the Lifesteal mechanic and think this is something that should see greater use in the game; having the nirhoned armor trait use it instead of being redundant with reinforced for example.

I'm not sure the developers would change Alter to give backs stam as it seems evident that after over two years of ESO, they are hesitant to have abilities refill their stamina bar, much more so than magicka. Blood Alter is so underwhelming, perhaps it should give back all three resources.

SolarCat02 · June 2016

Change Blood Altar to provide stamina

I would love the change if it would return stamina to allies standing in it. I could cast it on my tank and help with his resources.

PvP tends to be rather mobile, so I don't think it would unbalance too much.

As a non-templar, my only option to give stamina to those in my group requires a Master Restoration Staff. (Although at least that will be obtainable at CP160 soonish!)

CasNation · June 2016

Change Blood Altar to provide stamina

Really like it. I can see people claiming pvp related issues but blood altar is a static area. I see it being only situational useful in pvp, while being a boon to stamina builds in pve.

Jade1986 · June 2016

Natas013 wrote: »

Problem with abilities that return stam is endless dodge roll/permablocking. As such I'd not be opposed to a morph giving minor endurance or a fixed increase to stam regen, so as to not effect the buff to regen from potions.

You cannot perma block at all anymore, it just isnt happening. Rolling on the other hand. I have seen someone roll 15 times in a row in BwB campaign, and the only reason he stopped was because we managed to corner him with 5 different people.

EgoRush · June 2016

Change Blood Altar to provide stamina

By having a stamina-return ability available to all classes, it also means people can heal on classes other than Templars without stamina DDs and the tank crying for Shards/Repentence constantly (this, coming from someone who mains as a Templar healer :P)

I like the idea of it giving Minor Endurance - is there any way to get this other than slotting Repentance/Radiant Aura on a Templar? I'm unsure how other classes can get access to this minor buff. Minor Endurance isn't a massive buff, so perhaps this could simply be added to the Altar along with the lifesteal?

STEVIL · June 2016

Leave Blood Altar as it is (Minor Lifesteal for health)

For one reason... as a health steal it is useful to both magica and stamina builds while a change to only provide stamina cuts out a large chunk of potential users and beneficiaries. mage guild and fighter guild are now more "locked in" to stamina vs magica division, so i dont think we need to lock the undaunted more than it is now. The current version doesn't require the magica users in your group to sacrifice a click to benefit.

Blood altar as it is helps a GROUP benefiting more members of that group than just the caster, not just the stamina ones, seems a better design choice.

EgoRush · June 2016

Change Blood Altar to provide stamina

STEVIL wrote: »

For one reason... as a health steal it is useful to both magica and stamina builds while a change to only provide stamina cuts out a large chunk of potential users and beneficiaries. mage guild and fighter guild are now more "locked in" to stamina vs magica division, so i dont think we need to lock the undaunted more than it is now. The current version doesn't require the magica users in your group to sacrifice a click to benefit.

Blood altar as it is helps a GROUP benefiting more members of that group than just the caster, not just the stamina ones, seems a better design choice.

For the sake of balance between skills in the game though, there are many more ways to return magicka that, by your argument, don't help stamina people at all. Should Elemental Drain be changed to replenish health too? Or the magicka-return component of Siphon Spirit removed?

Remove a Templar from the group completely and you have no way of helping with stamina return as a support character. I'm all for benefiting groups too, I just think we need better consistency between skills.

bebynnag · June 2016

Change Blood Altar to provide stamina

it would be nice if non templar healers were able to help their alies out with stamina!

SolarCat02 · June 2016

Change Blood Altar to provide stamina

STEVIL wrote: »

For one reason... as a health steal it is useful to both magica and stamina builds while a change to only provide stamina cuts out a large chunk of potential users and beneficiaries. mage guild and fighter guild are now more "locked in" to stamina vs magica division, so i dont think we need to lock the undaunted more than it is now. The current version doesn't require the magica users in your group to sacrifice a click to benefit.

Blood altar as it is helps a GROUP benefiting more members of that group than just the caster, not just the stamina ones, seems a better design choice.

Actually, everyone can benefit from stamina. My healer dies sometimes from not having enough stamina to break free.

It's frustrating to me as a Dragonknight healer to not have the ability to help with stamina at all. I have lots of skills available for magicka such that I can pick the ones that work best for my playstyle and still support the team.

But I cannot do stamina, and every tank could use more stamina, regardless if they are magicka or stamina based. I just want one option. Just one. Blood alter would be perfect because I could cast it on the tank. One of the morphs for orbs would also work, either adding to the magicka return or replacing it, I don't care which!

As I said, at least they are updating the Master Restoration Staff, so I will have that option to grind for, which will be a major improvement over today's options... But why are Templars the only ones allowed to give Stamina?

STEVIL · June 2016

Leave Blood Altar as it is (Minor Lifesteal for health)

EgoRush wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

For one reason... as a health steal it is useful to both magica and stamina builds while a change to only provide stamina cuts out a large chunk of potential users and beneficiaries. mage guild and fighter guild are now more "locked in" to stamina vs magica division, so i dont think we need to lock the undaunted more than it is now. The current version doesn't require the magica users in your group to sacrifice a click to benefit.

Blood altar as it is helps a GROUP benefiting more members of that group than just the caster, not just the stamina ones, seems a better design choice.

For the sake of balance between skills in the game though, there are many more ways to return magicka that, by your argument, don't help stamina people at all. Should Elemental Drain be changed to replenish health too? Or the magicka-return component of Siphon Spirit removed?

Remove a Templar from the group completely and you have no way of helping with stamina return as a support character. I'm all for benefiting groups too, I just think we need better consistency between skills.

You are comparing skills that restore for the caster to one specifically in the group based skill line.

Having magica user specific skills return magica to the user spending magica on them is NOT THE SAME as having a group benefit skill only benefit stamina users by default.

If you want to get more stamina skills returning stamina to the stamina user, focus on that and leave group benefitvskills to the broader group benefits, imo.

SolarCat02 · June 2016

Change Blood Altar to provide stamina

STEVIL wrote: »

EgoRush wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

For one reason... as a health steal it is useful to both magica and stamina builds while a change to only provide stamina cuts out a large chunk of potential users and beneficiaries. mage guild and fighter guild are now more "locked in" to stamina vs magica division, so i dont think we need to lock the undaunted more than it is now. The current version doesn't require the magica users in your group to sacrifice a click to benefit.

Blood altar as it is helps a GROUP benefiting more members of that group than just the caster, not just the stamina ones, seems a better design choice.

For the sake of balance between skills in the game though, there are many more ways to return magicka that, by your argument, don't help stamina people at all. Should Elemental Drain be changed to replenish health too? Or the magicka-return component of Siphon Spirit removed?

Remove a Templar from the group completely and you have no way of helping with stamina return as a support character. I'm all for benefiting groups too, I just think we need better consistency between skills.

You are comparing skills that restore for the caster to one specifically in the group based skill line.

Having magica user specific skills return magica to the user spending magica on them is NOT THE SAME as having a group benefit skill only benefit stamina users by default.

If you want to get more stamina skills returning stamina to the stamina user, focus on that and leave group benefitvskills to the broader group benefits, imo.

Erm...

So, removing the four skills/passives that only affect the person who uses them, we are left with:

MAGICKA
Elemental Drain - return magicka to anyone who does an elemental attack (Destruction Staff)

Siphon Spirit - return health and magicka to anyone on attacking an enemy with any ability (Restoration Staff)

Mystic Orbs - returns pools of magicka to the person who synergizes based on the number of targets hit to all nearby allies once the synergy is hit. (Undaunted)

Arcane Well - killing an enemy has a chance to proc a well that returns magicka to anyone standing in it (CP tree bonus)

STAMINA
Blazing Spear - returns stamina to the person who synergizes (Templat)

Repentance - returns stamina to everyone nearby for each corpse (Templar)

BOTH
Luminous Spear - returns magicka and stamina to the person who synergizes (Templar)

Oakmontowls_ESO · June 2016

Change Blood Altar to provide stamina

How about instead of changing blood altar they instead change trapping webs into something that allows non templars to restore peoples stamina. Either a clone of shards with instead being a Web aoe that snares (and restores less stamina on synergy than shards) or make it like blood altar where it would apply an aoe that gives a stamina steal buff or maybe make it a single target skill that restores stamina to anyone that attacks the target similar to soul siphon. This would make the undaunted tree have skills that allow someone to restore their groups health stamina and magika and then would become a skill tree based around group play like it should be.

Autolycus · June 2016

Back in the day, dropping a blood altar, circle of protection, and various class and weapon skills for stack healing/mitigation was the ultimate healer setup. When they made CoP cost 80,000 stamina, and changed the active component of Blood Altar, it became sub-par to every other potentially viable skill on a healer's bar, and has remained there since.

It needs to be completely re-designed. As it stands, its usefulness is limited to extremely uncommon and niche practices. I propose, if not changing the skill altogether, to tack on some form of Vitality, or give a flat boost to recoveries (like with Negate). Something to that effect would make the skill desirable again.

Armitas · June 2016

Change Blood Altar to provide stamina

I haven't had a chance to test blood alter out but if 2% life steal is as bad as it sounds and looks on my calculator then yeah stamina all the way.

Resipsa131 · June 2016

Leave Blood Altar as it is (Minor Lifesteal for health)

I don't really like blood alter on anything other than the last boss of fungal grotto

STEVIL · June 2016

Leave Blood Altar as it is (Minor Lifesteal for health)

SolarCat02 wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

EgoRush wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

For one reason... as a health steal it is useful to both magica and stamina builds while a change to only provide stamina cuts out a large chunk of potential users and beneficiaries. mage guild and fighter guild are now more "locked in" to stamina vs magica division, so i dont think we need to lock the undaunted more than it is now. The current version doesn't require the magica users in your group to sacrifice a click to benefit.

Blood altar as it is helps a GROUP benefiting more members of that group than just the caster, not just the stamina ones, seems a better design choice.

For the sake of balance between skills in the game though, there are many more ways to return magicka that, by your argument, don't help stamina people at all. Should Elemental Drain be changed to replenish health too? Or the magicka-return component of Siphon Spirit removed?

Remove a Templar from the group completely and you have no way of helping with stamina return as a support character. I'm all for benefiting groups too, I just think we need better consistency between skills.

You are comparing skills that restore for the caster to one specifically in the group based skill line.

Having magica user specific skills return magica to the user spending magica on them is NOT THE SAME as having a group benefit skill only benefit stamina users by default.

If you want to get more stamina skills returning stamina to the stamina user, focus on that and leave group benefitvskills to the broader group benefits, imo.

Erm...

So, removing the four skills/passives that only affect the person who uses them, we are left with:

MAGICKA
Elemental Drain - return magicka to anyone who does an elemental attack (Destruction Staff)

Siphon Spirit - return health and magicka to anyone on attacking an enemy with any ability (Restoration Staff)

Mystic Orbs - returns pools of magicka to the person who synergizes based on the number of targets hit to all nearby allies once the synergy is hit. (Undaunted)

Arcane Well - killing an enemy has a chance to proc a well that returns magicka to anyone standing in it (CP tree bonus)

STAMINA
Blazing Spear - returns stamina to the person who synergizes (Templat)

Repentance - returns stamina to everyone nearby for each corpse (Templar)

BOTH
Luminous Spear - returns magicka and stamina to the person who synergizes (Templar)

Obviously we wont agree on this it seems to me.

i dont see 4 skills + 1 120cp passive vs 3 skills to be a major imbalance in the grand scheme of things. if you do fine.

Also, sub-setting a single specific trait and doind nose counts is usually not a valid test. For example, wouldn't the number of stamina vs magica cost reductions also count just as strongly to this discussion? Isn thtere like an 80% stamina cost for next stamina at the top of a 120cp tree bonus? Are stamina costs for abilities generally on par with magica abilities or higher and lower?

All of those factor into the sustain question and taken as a whole paint the balance picture between stamina and magica sustain better than a nose count of one sub-set of sustain types.

However, even if the result was an imbalance that is significant and causing problems, i still stand by my position that taking a skill from the GROUP bonus skill tree and switching it from health restore to stamina restore seriously drops its effectiveness as a GROUP boost skill and so it is an inappropriate choice to change. IF THERE IS A PROBLEM this is thw wrong solution, IMO.

While everyone CAN use stamina, just like everyone CAN use magica, and while most effective builds use all their resources, stamina boost isn't as generally useful for the diverse group as a health boost in general.

But i have not seen a general weakness for stamina builds that cries out for this specific change.

YMMV and clearly does.

Which is fine. BA has been changed before and likely can be changed again if you make a sufficient case to convince the Devs of the crippled state of stamina users and how this change solves it.

EgoRush · June 2016

Change Blood Altar to provide stamina

STEVIL wrote: »

However, even if the result was an imbalance that is significant and causing problems, i still stand by my position that taking a skill from the GROUP bonus skill tree and switching it from health restore to stamina restore seriously drops its effectiveness as a GROUP boost skill and so it is an inappropriate choice to change. IF THERE IS A PROBLEM this is thw wrong solution, IMO.

While everyone CAN use stamina, just like everyone CAN use magica, and while most effective builds use all their resources, stamina boost isn't as generally useful for the diverse group as a health boost in general.

But there's a skill in Undaunted that specifically replenishes magicka...that's hardly a group bonus if you're running with stamina builds. Everyone needs health, I agree, but there's an entire skill tree (Restoration Staff) and entire class tree (Templar) that are dedicated to healing. Removing the health component from Blood Altar is hardly going to ruin anyone's chances at healing. However, there are times when stamina shortages occur (whether it's a tank blocking, a magicka class cc'd with no stamina left to break free, stamina DD with no resources to attack) that have limited options if there's no Templar around.

It's not so much about doing nose counts as it is the fact that stamina suffers with no Templar around.

STEVIL · June 2016

Leave Blood Altar as it is (Minor Lifesteal for health)

EgoRush wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

However, even if the result was an imbalance that is significant and causing problems, i still stand by my position that taking a skill from the GROUP bonus skill tree and switching it from health restore to stamina restore seriously drops its effectiveness as a GROUP boost skill and so it is an inappropriate choice to change. IF THERE IS A PROBLEM this is thw wrong solution, IMO.

While everyone CAN use stamina, just like everyone CAN use magica, and while most effective builds use all their resources, stamina boost isn't as generally useful for the diverse group as a health boost in general.

But there's a skill in Undaunted that specifically replenishes magicka...that's hardly a group bonus if you're running with stamina builds. Everyone needs health, I agree, but there's an entire skill tree (Restoration Staff) and entire class tree (Templar) that are dedicated to healing. Removing the health component from Blood Altar is hardly going to ruin anyone's chances at healing. However, there are times when stamina shortages occur (whether it's a tank blocking, a magicka class cc'd with no stamina left to break free, stamina DD with no resources to attack) that have limited options if there's no Templar around.

It's not so much about doing nose counts as it is the fact that stamina suffers with no Templar around.

If your solution was to add a morph of the undaunted magica restore that would add stamina instead or to have it restore both at lesser rate, would likely be better since it doesnt reduce the group effectiveness.

Of course, that assumes its a solution for a problem.

SolarCat02 · June 2016

Change Blood Altar to provide stamina

STEVIL wrote: »

SolarCat02 wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

EgoRush wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

For one reason... as a health steal it is useful to both magica and stamina builds while a change to only provide stamina cuts out a large chunk of potential users and beneficiaries. mage guild and fighter guild are now more "locked in" to stamina vs magica division, so i dont think we need to lock the undaunted more than it is now. The current version doesn't require the magica users in your group to sacrifice a click to benefit.

Blood altar as it is helps a GROUP benefiting more members of that group than just the caster, not just the stamina ones, seems a better design choice.

For the sake of balance between skills in the game though, there are many more ways to return magicka that, by your argument, don't help stamina people at all. Should Elemental Drain be changed to replenish health too? Or the magicka-return component of Siphon Spirit removed?

Remove a Templar from the group completely and you have no way of helping with stamina return as a support character. I'm all for benefiting groups too, I just think we need better consistency between skills.

You are comparing skills that restore for the caster to one specifically in the group based skill line.

Having magica user specific skills return magica to the user spending magica on them is NOT THE SAME as having a group benefit skill only benefit stamina users by default.

If you want to get more stamina skills returning stamina to the stamina user, focus on that and leave group benefitvskills to the broader group benefits, imo.

Erm...

So, removing the four skills/passives that only affect the person who uses them, we are left with:

MAGICKA
Elemental Drain - return magicka to anyone who does an elemental attack (Destruction Staff)

Siphon Spirit - return health and magicka to anyone on attacking an enemy with any ability (Restoration Staff)

Mystic Orbs - returns pools of magicka to the person who synergizes based on the number of targets hit to all nearby allies once the synergy is hit. (Undaunted)

Arcane Well - killing an enemy has a chance to proc a well that returns magicka to anyone standing in it (CP tree bonus)

STAMINA
Blazing Spear - returns stamina to the person who synergizes (Templat)

Repentance - returns stamina to everyone nearby for each corpse (Templar)

BOTH
Luminous Spear - returns magicka and stamina to the person who synergizes (Templar)

Obviously we wont agree on this it seems to me.

i dont see 4 skills + 1 120cp passive vs 3 skills to be a major imbalance in the grand scheme of things. if you do fine.

My issue is that both stamina solutions (the third listed is a morph of the first) are only available for Templar characters. I just want a skill available in a non-class tree to be able to do Stamina, so people who aren't Templars can do it. None of the magicka options are tied to a specific class. That is the imbalance.

With ZOS updating the rest of the Trials in Craglorn, I am hoping they also do the Master Weapons to CP160, because that Master Restoration Staff is the only non-Templar way to restore stamina, so I will be grinding for that.

If they make the Dragonstar Arena scale with the leader, just like MoL scales currently, then the Master Restoration Staff becomes available to all healers at all levels, and adds a non-templar stamina solution. Currently, there is none until you reach at least CP130.

Grinding for a weapon to do what a Templar can innately do is less than ideal, of course... Especially when magicka can be gifted using such diverse class-free options. But it's the only option for non-templars.

FeaR Turbo · June 2016

Change Blood Altar to provide stamina

Always coming in with those dope ideas baby. I'm in on this one ^_^

Browiseth · June 2016

Leave Blood Altar as it is (Minor Lifesteal for health)

Keep it as is I say. It makes for some interesting group play without a healer I find.

Plus - and I try to hammer in this point as often as I can - there is no need for stamina and magicka classes to have the exact same abiltiies. If magicka players have access to Elemental Drain or Siphon Spirit, why does the other end of the spectrum need the exact same perk?

The Elder Scrolls Online

Blood Altar - stamina return or health return preferred?

Blood Altar - stamina return or health return preferred? 35 votes