Hybrids are... hard. Maybe in pvp. But in pve there is no place for them
At least in hardcore pve

1. Most Magika users in Cyro are a bit Hybrid, as you need stamina for break free. Purple food / pots even some CP. Stamina has the real advantage there as they don't need Magika.
2. Define Viable? What content are you up to. Most general PvE you can Do as you wish

For killing overland mobs only (but you will kill them faster if you just concentrate on one resource) or if you are tank in group content.

I actually leveled my main character as a heavy armor 1H+S hybrid DK and killing anything was painfully slow. This was done not because of lack of knowledge, even if this this is my first MMO, as I had done extensive research on wiki & forums , but out of necessity as:
- I was unsure whether I should go magicka or stamina end game, because at that time (late 2015 - early 2016) Nords had no maximum stamina passive (added august 2016) so I ended up leveling all weapon skills to 50 without speccing in them, just using the weapon with class skills on the weapon bar for DPS
- I could have gone health/stamina, but DK had no stamina morphs to class skills, and all were magicka (stamina morphs added june 2016) so I had to have magicka as well, so my attribute points ended up split 22/20/22 until late in the game; I only respecced to 0/16/48 and then finally 0/0/64 past CP400.
- I needed all stat pools to be viable as tank in dungeons, but I couldn't afford to use tri-glyphs as both CP150-160 materials and hakeijo were costing a fortune and my overall stats were pretty low due to lack of CP; I was only able to gather enough top tier materials by painstakingly deconstructing all the trash gear I was getting from dungeons, which were the only leveled content available outside of DLCs at that time.
- I was permanently starved of skill points because I invested a lot of them in crafting, this being my first character and research, being time consuming, had to be started early; in fact I was able to spec into medium armor and 2H only after I hit Cyrodiil, having completed all alliances and Craglorn to become effective in PvP and as DD and by that time I was indeed able to go full stamina

In the mean time I have fully leveled and trained another 3 characters, and gone were the pressures that had acted on my first. Overall the playing experience as hybrid was thoroughly unpleasant, compared to full magicka and stamina builds. And nowadays many of the constraints mentioned above are gone, even for new players, as leveling to 50 and then to CP160 are blazing fast, top tier base materials are dirt cheap and all alliances are accessible straight away. So there's absolutely no reason that one tortures himself into a hybrid.

Viable, yes. Optimal, no.

More viable in PvP and tanking roles.

Hybrids serve as subpar DPS that are noticeably tankier than your standard DPS.

Unfortunately, any stam toon wearing a 2nd 5PC set that's naturally a HA set will achieve the same if not greater EHP and produce higher damage.

So the answer to your question is yes it is viable. You can build and create a hybrid more than capable of completing almost all of the game's content. The other part to your answer is that no, it is not competetive. Any mag or stam dedicated build can reach the same if not higher EHP and produce higher DPS rendering the hybrids biggest strength null if they so choose to build that way.

The third part of your answer is that it takes a ridiculous amount of time and patience and testing to get a hybrid to perform. The fourth part is this should absolutely not be your main character.

kylewwefan wrote: »

I haven't had much luck trying to hybrid, though they are right about tank. But you are best as ultimate utility group buff machine.

It can kind of work but you have to build very specific.

If you go Stamina for your main weapon damage and use magic for utility it kind of works. But magic heals and damage on medium armor stam toon are weak. Same for heavy armor and similar with light armor.

You really need to choose what your main damage abilities will use and work around them as the 5 piece armor type bonuses are very strong.

it may depend on what you use in your armor build. yes it has to be very specific, as most hybrids are stuck using either Pelinial or Shacklebreaker. What is nice is the freedom to choose the second armor set; however, that second armor set is highly dependent on your play style, and what you are building towards. On my Hybrid Warden, I have Shacklebreaker + Knight-Errant + 1 kena + 1 velidreth. Yes, my heals are weaker than that of a Magicka user, but she can still do fine 1v1.

In general Hybrids struggle to be competitive.

I'm gonna wait until this next patch with the 2 new dungeons to see what they bring into the game before testing any more hybrid stuff.