Stam DK currently

RighteousBacon · October 2018

So I want to begin by saying stamdk is my least played class, which is mainly why I’m expressing my thoughts about the class on forums.

If I am correct, a heavy armor stamdk has access to snare immunity and reflect with wings, rally, major mending, and an undodgeable high damage ultimate.

Having the ability to use rally in heavy armor without sacrificing snare removal and immunity seems to be a great advantage to me. I understand that this comes at the cost of magicka, but it this the only weakness of the class’s defense?

I know that for a while now people have been complaining that stamdk is underpowered except for in a tank role. As I have pointed out above, they certainly can fulfill a tank role without any tanking sets.

Basically, my question is, what exactly is the main problem with stamina dragonkight’s damage, if it is underpowered, because it seems to me that the class has no need to invest in tankiness and to a lesser extent sustainability. How could this lead to a lack of damage?

moosegod · October 2018

The issue is that it's not very burst-oriented. The stamDK wins through outlasting opponents which it can definitely succeed at. The class is built around healing received and sustaining resources without investing a lot into actual recovery stats. The problem is that the meta has shifted towards burst damage (especially in no-CP) so the stamDK cannot keep up. It's best burst option is through uppercut+leap timed with several dot ticks (bleed,claw, breath,etc.). Also, thanks to all the proc sets and free damage in no-CP it's tankiness is sort of outdone so again, it suffers there as well.

It can take on several opponents at once if it invests into some tankiness through an armour set but it takes some skill to wear them out one by one because now you've sacrificed some damage (burst) to survive. So when solo it becomes near impossible to win against a group bigger than 4 because it's hard to sustain your pressure while sustaining yourself because there's not much burst option. However, once in a group the class becomes a lot better because it can provide minor brutality, tank, and debuff enemies (though the high magicka costs on a lot of those abilities make magdk better at this). That's why it's sort of a subpar class currently.

I think it's very strong in duels however it becomes increasingly difficult to win as your number of opponents increase. Where as a stamwarden has major mending as well, a little less tankiness, but more burst and it's an AoE burst at that. Plus it's getting more sustain from netch too. And Stamdk is just getting cheaper dots which is nice because we already have to spam them sometimes because landing them is so unreliable.

I should also add that the ultimate isn't exactly undodgable because it will frequently bug-out and miss if there's some lag and your target is moving too much. Thus, the class biggest burst ability becomes unreliable for anything more than resource return with battle roar (Which should be changed to function like balorgh. However, that set has barely functioned on its own).

Asmael · October 2018

They have essentially 1 damage-oriented passive in the form of Combustion, which increases poison & fire status effects damage by 25%. A damage increase on a low proc chance effect which isn't significant means you have to invest in offense to make up for it. You do have access to Venomous claw, Flames of Oblivion (scales on whichever is highest crit) and noxious breath, but Breath is mostly used for the Major fracture, as the ability itself does barely more damage than a spammable, thus claw is the remaining sustained pressure option with Flames of Oblivion to time some burst. Finally, due to the nature of PvP, high burst is preferable over sustained pressure, especially in outnumbered situations where you have but a few seconds to finish off someone.

Take Flight is an undodgeable burst ultimate just like dawnbreaker, but they are both similar enough that it doesn't really make a difference with other stamina specs. Take flight can't be used on a target who just cloaked, doesn't have a dot if you are looking to pressure blocking targets and no extra damage against vampires / WWs. Take flight is the better pick in CP environments when you significantly invest in direct damage, for the rest, dawnbreaker is simply more overall damage.

When it comes to using Rally and wings as a snare removal after trying it, I'd stick to Forward Momentum (at least for this patch, next one... we'll see), since the significantly higher snare / root removal for a fraction of the cost means you are indirectly going to receive much less damage, reducing the need for a burst heal like Rally. Mobility is one of the best forms of mitigation when used by proper players. Wings is mostly a tool for dealing with clench sorcs, snipers and ranged magblades, so you'll have to swap it pretty often. Having to use 4k magicka for a 2s snare / root removal in other fights is pretty wasteful, not to mention the high magicka cost results in less uses of Fragmented shield.

When it comes to survivability, stam dks rely on block mitigation and high healing multipliers with draconic passives (12% extra healing) and major mending, but they lack the flat healing sources necessary by default, requiring you to invest in some of these (Lingering HP potions being a very popular pick, some healing sets as an alternative). Outside of this, you do have spell resistance, but no physical resistance. As such, you are not particularly more tanky against other stamina setups if blocking isn't your primary defense, which itself requires a pretty significant investment.

With the rather recent nerfs to defile, outsustaining and having enough damage to overcome the healing of your targets can become quite difficult. I personally had more success running a pure dot spec with dw / 2h than the more classical SnB / 2h build, due to Reverb's debuff only lasting 4 seconds.

Essentially, stam dks can be extremely tanky, but doing so drastically reduces their killing potential against half-decent opponents.

Solariken · October 2018

StamDk is excellent, very well tuned. People who whine it's underpowered usually either aren't good at it or have an agenda to get it buffed.

However I will admit that most of its playstyle strengths get overshadowed by stam warden which is an overtuned monster. It's not that stamDk is weak it's just that it has a hard time competing with ZOS' pay2win Crown store baby.

DarkJester1 · October 2018

As a stamdk, I've found more success on bow build. I usually top the damage charts, though lack any sort of solo power due to the nature of bow skills, and lack killings blows due to no executes (though, I make up for that with high assist counts). I also die pretty quickly, even in fortified brass medium. I really, really wish stamdk had a more reliable burst heal instead of green dragon blood.

RighteousBacon · October 2018

DarkJester1 wrote: »

As a stamdk, I've found more success on bow build. I usually top the damage charts, though lack any sort of solo power due to the nature of bow skills, and lack killings blows due to no executes (though, I make up for that with high assist counts). I also die pretty quickly, even in fortified brass medium. I really, really wish stamdk had a more reliable burst heal instead of green dragon blood.

Green dragon blood is a buff, if you ask me, not a burst heal for stamdk. That’s why I said that being able to run heavy with rally is such an advantage

lucky_dutch · October 2018

You are correct. StamDK has some good utility and really only lacks in burst outside of ultimates. They're in a reasonably balanced place right now.

lucky_dutch · October 2018

Solariken wrote: »

StamDk is excellent, very well tuned. People who whine it's underpowered usually either aren't good at it or have an agenda to get it buffed.

However I will admit that most of its playstyle strengths get overshadowed by stam warden which is an overtuned monster. It's not that stamDk is weak it's just that it has a hard time competing with ZOS' pay2win Crown store baby.

Don't worry, come end of this month everyone will be running around with 25% resistance to stamden's burst & ultimate. I realise the same applies to DK's ulti but at least the primary damage rotation is single-target.

Ragnarock41 · October 2018

lucky_dutch wrote: »

You are correct. StamDK has some good utility and really only lacks in burst outside of ultimates. They're in a reasonably balanced place right now.

>StamDk

>Good Utility.

Failed, you can only pick one. Now try again.

Solariken wrote: »

StamDk is excellent, very well tuned. People who whine it's underpowered usually either aren't good at it or have an agenda to get it buffed.

However I will admit that most of its playstyle strengths get overshadowed by stam warden which is an overtuned monster. It's not that stamDk is weak it's just that it has a hard time competing with ZOS' pay2win Crown store baby.

One can't be excellent and the bottom tier at the same time. Stamden is the excellent, stamDk is undertuned and mostly outdated. A stam class with absurdly high magicka utility costs, dots that do less than free bleeds, and an ultimate thats pretty much dawnbreaker with a gapcloser, if you like coin flips.

However if one plays the underperforming option against all odds, who are you to call him bad?

SilverPaws · October 2018

Solariken wrote: »

StamDk is excellent, very well tuned. People who whine it's underpowered usually either aren't good at it or have an agenda to get it buffed.

However I will admit that most of its playstyle strengths get overshadowed by stam warden which is an overtuned monster. It's not that stamDk is weak it's just that it has a hard time competing with ZOS' pay2win Crown store baby.

lucky_dutch wrote: »

You are correct. StamDK has some good utility and really only lacks in burst outside of ultimates. They're in a reasonably balanced place right now.

Good jokes. Guess never played stam dk hm ?

Ragnarock41 · October 2018

RighteousBacon wrote: »

DarkJester1 wrote: »

As a stamdk, I've found more success on bow build. I usually top the damage charts, though lack any sort of solo power due to the nature of bow skills, and lack killings blows due to no executes (though, I make up for that with high assist counts). I also die pretty quickly, even in fortified brass medium. I really, really wish stamdk had a more reliable burst heal instead of green dragon blood.

Green dragon blood is a buff, if you ask me, not a burst heal for stamdk. That’s why I said that being able to run heavy with rally is such an advantage

That depends on how much magicka you're willing to spend on a ''buff''. To be fair GDB would be slotted just for the buffs if it gave you the buffs passively. Compare this to bird of prey or stamsorc's armaments buffs and soon you'll realize you don't get a good deal out of it.

To be fair, if you think you can sustain wings, GDB, spiked armor ,igneous shield, without making heavy sacrifices to your damage output, then good luck. I do run a medium armor bleed build with dw/2h that uses wings as ''class utility'', and that alone requires me to run 1k+ magicka regen.

Give it a shot. You'll see things are different in practice and I guarantee you will drop GDB/Rally for more igneous spamming and forward momentum because thats what matters. People will tell you all day about how good stamDk is here and they will never, ever touch their hands on one.

Grimlok_S · October 2018

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

RighteousBacon wrote: »

DarkJester1 wrote: »

As a stamdk, I've found more success on bow build. I usually top the damage charts, though lack any sort of solo power due to the nature of bow skills, and lack killings blows due to no executes (though, I make up for that with high assist counts). I also die pretty quickly, even in fortified brass medium. I really, really wish stamdk had a more reliable burst heal instead of green dragon blood.

Green dragon blood is a buff, if you ask me, not a burst heal for stamdk. That’s why I said that being able to run heavy with rally is such an advantage

That depends on how much magicka you're willing to spend on a ''buff''. To be fair GDB would be slotted just for the buffs if it gave you the buffs passively. Compare this to bird of prey or stamsorc's armaments buffs and soon you'll realize you don't get a good deal out of it.

To be fair, if you think you can sustain wings, GDB, spiked armor ,igneous shield, without making heavy sacrifices to your damage output, then good luck. I do run a medium armor bleed build with dw/2h that uses wings as ''class utility'', and that alone requires me to run 1k+ magicka regen.

Give it a shot. You'll see things are different in practice and I guarantee you will drop GDB/Rally for more igneous spamming and forward momentum because thats what matters. People will tell you all day about how good stamDk is here and they will never, ever touch their hands on one.

I run a similar setup in heavy. General rule as I see it is that you can run 3 mag skills if you're conservative with your spending.

I opt for GDB, Spiked Armour, and Fossilize.
GDB grants me the stam sustain you'd normally get from pots, allowing me to run lingering health + speed.

In my experience, GDB, while not an excellent heal, has a better chance of pulling you out of execute range than the 2-3 GCDs required to get vigour and fragmented's major mending rolling.

HankTwo · October 2018

Imo, fragmented (/igneous) shield is overrated. Granted, its a good skill and it can be a very strong buff for your healing. But does that mean you can't run a viable build without it, as some other stam DKs suggest? I would say no. The only situation where fragmented shield is really a must have is when you run medium armor with shuffle as your snare removal and rally for the burst heal.

In heavy armor you can play with wings for snare removal + rally (fm will get nerfed!), and unless you really invest into mag regen, you wont be able to sustain fragmented shield on top of that (and I'd say you don't need it anyway, because your healing will be good enough). Keep in mind however, that you should use at least one earthen heart skill for the passives. Usually when you don't slot fragmented shield that would be fossilize. Under rare circumstances cinder storm is also worth checking out, especially when dueling a melee NB (and the skill will get buffed in the future update while fm will get nerfed, making it much better than it now is).

kaithuzar · October 2018

#Fury

xselfish · October 2018

My medium 2H/bow stam Dk can survive very well atm using wings and shuffle. Wings help offset the cost of shuffle. You can run some tri stat glyphs to get more magicaka. BUT you basically only can survive if you are running swift if you Use 2H/bow. But rip my playstyle with the swift changes. I guess I’ll play sword and board like every other Dk in pvp.

StamWhipCultist · October 2018

RighteousBacon wrote: »

So I want to begin by saying stamdk is my least played class, which is mainly why I’m expressing my thoughts about the class on forums.

If I am correct, a heavy armor stamdk has access to snare immunity and reflect with wings, rally, major mending, and an undodgeable high damage ultimate.

Having the ability to use rally in heavy armor without sacrificing snare removal and immunity seems to be a great advantage to me. I understand that this comes at the cost of magicka, but it this the only weakness of the class’s defense?

I know that for a while now people have been complaining that stamdk is underpowered except for in a tank role. As I have pointed out above, they certainly can fulfill a tank role without any tanking sets.

Basically, my question is, what exactly is the main problem with stamina dragonkight’s damage, if it is underpowered, because it seems to me that the class has no need to invest in tankiness and to a lesser extent sustainability. How could this lead to a lack of damage?

First of all. Wings cost quite much, so snare removal just by using these aint great.
Most DKs use forward momentum to remove snares since it vastly outperforms wings.
Ultimate is undogeable, at least on paper. but once you start to play DK bit more you will see all the glory of leap.
Its bugged bro. it misses more times than any other ulti I ever used in ESO. Or it goes out without animation, leaving you without stats you would gain or ultimate. Or you hear sound q and think it was activated just to see it was not. Or you just get some wings that drag behind you like toiletpaper without even dealing damage since you somehow missed with undogeable ultimate.

Main problem with sDK damage is there is none. Yes, you have read it well. Outside claw that is dot everything else is bs. Noxious deal next to no damage, volatile has poor synergy with you since its magicka damage and not poison. Everything else is related to weapons but other classes have that as well, right?

sDK has no spammable, no escape mechanism, no delayed burst skill. We have one good single target dot, one mediocree cone dot and one terribad aoe magicka based dot. Thats pretty much it.

HankTwo · October 2018

StamWhipCultist wrote: »

RighteousBacon wrote: »

So I want to begin by saying stamdk is my least played class, which is mainly why I’m expressing my thoughts about the class on forums.

If I am correct, a heavy armor stamdk has access to snare immunity and reflect with wings, rally, major mending, and an undodgeable high damage ultimate.

Having the ability to use rally in heavy armor without sacrificing snare removal and immunity seems to be a great advantage to me. I understand that this comes at the cost of magicka, but it this the only weakness of the class’s defense?

I know that for a while now people have been complaining that stamdk is underpowered except for in a tank role. As I have pointed out above, they certainly can fulfill a tank role without any tanking sets.

Basically, my question is, what exactly is the main problem with stamina dragonkight’s damage, if it is underpowered, because it seems to me that the class has no need to invest in tankiness and to a lesser extent sustainability. How could this lead to a lack of damage?

First of all. Wings cost quite much, so snare removal just by using these aint great.
Most DKs use forward momentum to remove snares since it vastly outperforms wings.
Ultimate is undogeable, at least on paper. but once you start to play DK bit more you will see all the glory of leap.
Its bugged bro. it misses more times than any other ulti I ever used in ESO. Or it goes out without animation, leaving you without stats you would gain or ultimate. Or you hear sound q and think it was activated just to see it was not. Or you just get some wings that drag behind you like toiletpaper without even dealing damage since you somehow missed with undogeable ultimate.

Main problem with sDK damage is there is none. Yes, you have read it well. Outside claw that is dot everything else is bs. Noxious deal next to no damage, volatile has poor synergy with you since its magicka damage and not poison. Everything else is related to weapons but other classes have that as well, right?

sDK has no spammable, no escape mechanism, no delayed burst skill. We have one good single target dot, one mediocree cone dot and one terribad aoe magicka based dot. Thats pretty much it.

Use a gap closer (or stun) before leap and it will hit > 95% of the time. Right now I'd say forward momentum + fragmented shield is still stronger than wings + rally in open world cyro, but I prefer the latter playstyle and with the upcoming nerfs to fm it will get comparatively stronger. Furthermore, having rally in a duel situation is already much better imo. I don't think stamDK is as weak as some people make it out to be, but our class tool kit definitely seems lacking compared to other classes.

Ragnarock41 · October 2018

HankTwo wrote: »

StamWhipCultist wrote: »

RighteousBacon wrote: »

So I want to begin by saying stamdk is my least played class, which is mainly why I’m expressing my thoughts about the class on forums.

If I am correct, a heavy armor stamdk has access to snare immunity and reflect with wings, rally, major mending, and an undodgeable high damage ultimate.

Having the ability to use rally in heavy armor without sacrificing snare removal and immunity seems to be a great advantage to me. I understand that this comes at the cost of magicka, but it this the only weakness of the class’s defense?

I know that for a while now people have been complaining that stamdk is underpowered except for in a tank role. As I have pointed out above, they certainly can fulfill a tank role without any tanking sets.

Basically, my question is, what exactly is the main problem with stamina dragonkight’s damage, if it is underpowered, because it seems to me that the class has no need to invest in tankiness and to a lesser extent sustainability. How could this lead to a lack of damage?

First of all. Wings cost quite much, so snare removal just by using these aint great.
Most DKs use forward momentum to remove snares since it vastly outperforms wings.
Ultimate is undogeable, at least on paper. but once you start to play DK bit more you will see all the glory of leap.
Its bugged bro. it misses more times than any other ulti I ever used in ESO. Or it goes out without animation, leaving you without stats you would gain or ultimate. Or you hear sound q and think it was activated just to see it was not. Or you just get some wings that drag behind you like toiletpaper without even dealing damage since you somehow missed with undogeable ultimate.

Main problem with sDK damage is there is none. Yes, you have read it well. Outside claw that is dot everything else is bs. Noxious deal next to no damage, volatile has poor synergy with you since its magicka damage and not poison. Everything else is related to weapons but other classes have that as well, right?

sDK has no spammable, no escape mechanism, no delayed burst skill. We have one good single target dot, one mediocree cone dot and one terribad aoe magicka based dot. Thats pretty much it.

Use a gap closer (or stun) before leap and it will hit > 95% of the time. Right now I'd say forward momentum + fragmented shield is still stronger than wings + rally in open world cyro, but I prefer the latter playstyle and with the upcoming nerfs to fm it will get comparatively stronger. Furthermore, having rally in a duel situation is already much better imo. I don't think stamDK is as weak as some people make it out to be, but our class tool kit definitely seems lacking compared to other classes.

Whole point of running leap over dbos is the gapcloser my dude. Some builds prefer not to run gapclosers for the extra skill slot and If I were to slot one , I would definitely drop leap for dawnbraker.

Amdar_Godkiller · October 2018

Their increased melee range make them an underrated WW option. Also a good way to supplement their lack of burst.

HankTwo · October 2018

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

HankTwo wrote: »

StamWhipCultist wrote: »

RighteousBacon wrote: »

So I want to begin by saying stamdk is my least played class, which is mainly why I’m expressing my thoughts about the class on forums.

If I am correct, a heavy armor stamdk has access to snare immunity and reflect with wings, rally, major mending, and an undodgeable high damage ultimate.

Having the ability to use rally in heavy armor without sacrificing snare removal and immunity seems to be a great advantage to me. I understand that this comes at the cost of magicka, but it this the only weakness of the class’s defense?

I know that for a while now people have been complaining that stamdk is underpowered except for in a tank role. As I have pointed out above, they certainly can fulfill a tank role without any tanking sets.

Basically, my question is, what exactly is the main problem with stamina dragonkight’s damage, if it is underpowered, because it seems to me that the class has no need to invest in tankiness and to a lesser extent sustainability. How could this lead to a lack of damage?

First of all. Wings cost quite much, so snare removal just by using these aint great.
Most DKs use forward momentum to remove snares since it vastly outperforms wings.
Ultimate is undogeable, at least on paper. but once you start to play DK bit more you will see all the glory of leap.
Its bugged bro. it misses more times than any other ulti I ever used in ESO. Or it goes out without animation, leaving you without stats you would gain or ultimate. Or you hear sound q and think it was activated just to see it was not. Or you just get some wings that drag behind you like toiletpaper without even dealing damage since you somehow missed with undogeable ultimate.

Main problem with sDK damage is there is none. Yes, you have read it well. Outside claw that is dot everything else is bs. Noxious deal next to no damage, volatile has poor synergy with you since its magicka damage and not poison. Everything else is related to weapons but other classes have that as well, right?

sDK has no spammable, no escape mechanism, no delayed burst skill. We have one good single target dot, one mediocree cone dot and one terribad aoe magicka based dot. Thats pretty much it.

Use a gap closer (or stun) before leap and it will hit > 95% of the time. Right now I'd say forward momentum + fragmented shield is still stronger than wings + rally in open world cyro, but I prefer the latter playstyle and with the upcoming nerfs to fm it will get comparatively stronger. Furthermore, having rally in a duel situation is already much better imo. I don't think stamDK is as weak as some people make it out to be, but our class tool kit definitely seems lacking compared to other classes.

Whole point of running leap over dbos is the gapcloser my dude. Some builds prefer not to run gapclosers for the extra skill slot and If I were to slot one , I would definitely drop leap for dawnbraker.

You can still use the gap closing properties of leap in certain situations effectively. Just don't assume you'll actually hit a speed build thats running around, a sorc thats using streak, or a roll dodge spammer at range. In all those cases its better to use another gap closer like stampede and then leap (in comparison to just leap).

There are also two other advantages of leap over dbos: the greater upfront burst and the lower cost. Imo these ults are kind of balanced, and they perform better or worse compared to each other depending on the situation.

P.S.: I just wanted to tell people that they can make leap more reliable if they combine it with a cap closer. My statement earlier was not meant to evaluate the strength of this compared to other possible setups.

DarkJester1 · October 2018

Amdar_Godkiller wrote: »

Their increased melee range make them an underrated WW option. Also a good way to supplement their lack of burst.

Except IIRC the murkmire change that will increase their range is only obtained by slotting Draconic Power skills, which you lose access to in WW form.

Kanar · October 2018

DarkJester1 wrote: »

Amdar_Godkiller wrote: »

Their increased melee range make them an underrated WW option. Also a good way to supplement their lack of burst.

Except IIRC the murkmire change that will increase their range is only obtained by slotting Draconic Power skills, which you lose access to in WW form.

You don't need to slot a skill to get the increase. But it only applies to instant cast melee skills.