How will Murkmire affect 1vX on Stamina Warden [PTS Analysis]

K3ntaaa · October 2018

Welcome to a new Guide regarding Stamina Warden 1vX in Murkmire Patch.

In this Guide I will summerize all the direct / indirect Buffs and Nerfs to Stamina Warden by looking at the PTS Patch Notes from Week 1-4. After that I will do an analysis of the Murkmire 1vX Meta based on these last changes and my personal experience as a Stamina Warden main. Keep in mind that this is only based on my personal opinion so the statement below shouldnt be take for granted, aswell as there is still the fact that these are only PTS Patch notes so there might be some changes to the live Murkmire Patch.

But Lets get right into it. (If you prefer the Video Guide, Check the Video at the bottom of the page. I will just summerzie what I said in the Video)

Starting with PTS Patch Notes from Week 1 to Week 4 summary:

Direct Buffs:
-Increase the bonus to damage done for each Animal Companion ability slotted to 3% from 2%.
-Cutting Dive (morph): This morph now also reduces the cost as a morph effect. (/only tooltip update or not isnt clear)
-Bird of Prey (morph): The Minor Berserk buff is now granted at all times while this morph is slotted.
-Subbterain: Reduced the cost of this ability by approximately 25%.
-Green Netch: Reduced the resouces restored by this ability by approximately 20% from currenty PTS Values (/from 263 Stamina Regen on live to 368 Stamina Regen on current PTS, It got buffed in Week 1 and reduced again later, thats why "reducted in the text earlier)

Direct Nerfs:
-Bird of Prey: This ability grants Major Expedition for 4s instead of 10s.

Indirect Buffs:
(if you play a medium Stamina Warden)
-Shaffle Major Evasion changes. 15% passiv Dodge Chance to 25% AEO damage reduction. (/A buff in my opinion because even if you would use dual wield you struggle with skillslots so you dont have to sacrifice somewhere else to get the 25% damage reduction instead of using blade cloak.
-Shaffle cost decrease by 15%.

(if you play a heavy Stamina Warden)
-Immovable cost decrease by 15%.

Indirect Nerfs:
-25% Damage reduction for medium armor users.
-Swift Trait now increases movement speed by 6% from 10%.
-Major Expedition from Pots reduced to 12.5s. from 40.6s.
-Forward Momentum: reduced the duration of the sanre immunity from this ability to 4s from 8s.

Meta Analysis
So currently Stamina Warden is a S-Tier 1vX Class. It has everything you need. Burst (Sub + Dawnbreaker), Healing (Vigor + Green Balance) and Tankiness (Heavy Armor + Winter Embrace). But even with all these things, its still hard to burst people because currently a lot of the enemies swapped to Heavy armor.

Heavy Armor gives good resistance and health and this makes heavy armor users not reliably burst anymore (in general). So what kind of enemies are left?

Medium and Light But:

Medium will have access to a hard counter against stamina Warden next patch through the new major evasion (25% AEO damage reduction). This makes Medium Armor not reliably burst anymore (in general).

So left is Light Armor users (Burst opportunity when their shield is down). But they get affected by Murkmire aswell and have to adapt. The Shield changes force Light Armor users to either run heavy or invest in more resistance to be able to survive. Either way they will be harder to burst and further makes 1vX on stamina Warden harder.

These Statements are based on a Stamina Warden Build that invests only in AEO Burst, 0 Single Target pressure over time and tankiness / Healing. In my Opinion this is the best setup for 1vX in the current patch. But regarding the Murkmire patch this playstyle will lose a lot of its effectivness.

So that means you have to invest in Single Target Pressure and combine it with Burst, because only Burst is not enough to kill people. (ofc there are always the bad players that you can kill whatever you do) But investing in Single Target Pressure means you lose something somewhere else (Most likely Tankiness or Healing, because you have to slot new skills and your skillbars are already full with high priority skills). Single Target Pressure (in form of Bleeds or a spammable) has also other drawbacks. For example: Applying Bleeds while outnumered can be difficult because while you apply these debuffs you cant really use LoS so you will take extra damage compared to now where you can LoS until you have your Dawnbreaker to burst People (its the best playstyle for 1vX whether you like it or not).

On top of that all souces of major expedition gets nerfed. You wont have a 100% uptime in heavy armor anymore therefore decreasing your survivability a lot. You cant LoS that reliably anymore like you can on live. The Forward momentum nerf further hits on the same spot. Some alternativs to this problem will be: running bow and dodge roll every 4s. But you will have to drop heavy armor and Medium armor has its own problems in 1vX. Cowards gear looks like a good gear choice and its only backbarable aswell but personally i need to test it more to make a own opinion on this set. If you dont adapt you will be stuck with a 40%isch uptime on major expedition on pots which is too low to successfully kite and LoS.

So in short if no one is burstable anymore, stamina Warden has to build for more Single Target Pressure, for example Bleeds and combine it with the Burst we have currently. Bleeds or the new arean 2h Uppercut that does the damage to another enemy near by. But personaly I have to test myself how good radial Uppercut is to make a reliable decision. We need a different source of Major expedition and that means that we have to sacrifice something somewhere again.

It will be interesting how the Meta shifts and Im hyped for the new patch, even if my main playsytle on stamina Warden got a huge nerf. I will just have to:

Thx for reading the post

Link to the video Guide

https://youtu.be/O2tlUWqPUMA

I will test a lot of different build and playstyle in the murkmire update and I will keep you updated with PvP Meta Builds, Guides regarding Stamina Warden and other Meta Classes in 1vX, 2-5vX and BG's.

Uploading PvP Content on my Youtube Channel on a regular Basis from PvP Builds (with different playstyles) to In-Depth Gameplay Commentaries and Tips and Tricks Videos on How to play specific PvP Classes/Builds and general PvP related Topics. So Subscribe in order to be up to date on the PvP Meta (1vX, 2-5vX, BG's)

Link to my Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLk4pslZg9bCWQQYTJt3AbQ

lucky_dutch · October 2018

It’s all about relative balance, remember. You got nerfed a little but everyone else got nerfed more. Stamden is still top-2.

Also, major evasion doesn’t really change the meta because every stam class was already using heavy and will continue to do so in murkmire because bleeds are becoming savagely OP and heavy will be needed to survive.

Not that many mag classes will be making the switch to heavy either. They all thought they were going to, tested it and realised how little damage and sustain they’d have and bailed on the idea.

The meta hasn’t really change much tbh except for the gap between stam and mag widenening.

likecats · October 2018

A little shortsighted to say every class will be playing heavy armor next patch. But aside from that analysis is good.

Shields being able to crit and being penetrable will make heavy less desirable offensively for both stam and mag since heavy has neither high crit nor high penetration. IMO this is a good overall meta change.
Most mag damage dealers can barely do any damage in heavy, I doubt most will change to heavy.

Medium + bow will also be more desirable with the change to major expedition nerf, and the major evasion change.

K3ntaaa · October 2018

lucky_dutch wrote: »

It’s all about relative balance, remember. You got nerfed a little but everyone else got nerfed more. Stamden is still top-2.

Also, major evasion doesn’t really change the meta because every stam class was already using heavy and will continue to do so in murkmire because bleeds are becoming savagely OP and heavy will be needed to survive.

Not that many mag classes will be making the switch to heavy either. They all thought they were going to, tested it and realised how little damage and sustain they’d have and bailed on the idea.

The meta hasn’t really change much tbh except for the gap between stam and mag widenening.

yea thats true every 1vX Playstyle got hit quite hard :C

I saw a Stat sheet screenshot on disord of a sorc in heavy with insane stats but looks like it was fake / bugged then.

K3ntaaa · October 2018

likecats wrote: »

A little shortsighted to say every class will be playing heavy armor next patch. But aside from that analysis is good.

Shields being able to crit and being penetrable will make heavy less desirable offensively for both stam and mag since heavy has neither high crit nor high penetration. IMO this is a good overall meta change.
Most mag damage dealers can barely do any damage in heavy, I doubt most will change to heavy.

Medium + bow will also be more desirable with the change to major expedition nerf, and the major evasion change.

Thanks for the feedback!
I didnt mean to say that every class will be running heavy. I just wanted to point out that everyone will be harder to burst as a stamden thanks to heavy armor user still using heavy, medium getting AEO reduction and light armor having to invest in another source of defense since shields will have a hard cap.

Yea medium with bow will a get higher priority for sure but imo medium is still lacking something. I guess we have to see how hard the speed nerf will be on live or how reliable the alternatives in heavy are (ex. Coward).

Amdar_Godkiller · October 2018

The Shield changes force Light Armor users to either run heavy or invest in more resistance to be able to survive.

Not really They force light armor users to wear impen, and they create an incentive for them to invest in health and resistances, but so long as they do invest in full impen and prismatic enchantments, the shield changes will be a massive buff for light armor users, regardless of whether or not they invest in physical/spell resistance.

TimeDazzler · October 2018

K3ntaaa wrote: »

Direct Buffs:
-Bird of Prey (morph): The Minor Berserk buff is now granted at all times while this morph is slotted.

This is a nerf, you can't get the minor berserk on both bars unless you double slot which is impossible with how little bar space stamden has. Most stamden builds use damage abilities on both bars, for example a S&B/2H bar uses reverse slice on back bar and heroic/reverb on front.

ku5h · October 2018

Amdar_Godkiller wrote: »

The Shield changes force Light Armor users to either run heavy or invest in more resistance to be able to survive.

Not really They force light armor users to wear impen, and they create an incentive for them to invest in health and resistances, but so long as they do invest in full impen and prismatic enchantments, the shield changes will be a massive buff for light armor users, regardless of whether or not they invest in physical/spell resistance.

That makes no sense at all. How can it be a buff if you're forced to invest into 2 resources istead of 1, to rise the shield cap. Bastion wont do any work for you anymore and you'll get crit. Only thing that could balace it out is running high physical/spell res, which your saying they wont need. Am i missing something or your logic is flawed?!

IAVITNI · October 2018

K3ntaaa wrote: »

likecats wrote: »

A little shortsighted to say every class will be playing heavy armor next patch. But aside from that analysis is good.

Shields being able to crit and being penetrable will make heavy less desirable offensively for both stam and mag since heavy has neither high crit nor high penetration. IMO this is a good overall meta change.
Most mag damage dealers can barely do any damage in heavy, I doubt most will change to heavy.

Medium + bow will also be more desirable with the change to major expedition nerf, and the major evasion change.

Thanks for the feedback!
I didnt mean to say that every class will be running heavy. I just wanted to point out that everyone will be harder to burst as a stamden thanks to heavy armor user still using heavy, medium getting AEO reduction and light armor having to invest in another source of defense since shields will have a hard cap.

Yea medium with bow will a get higher priority for sure but imo medium is still lacking something. I guess we have to see how hard the speed nerf will be on live or how reliable the alternatives in heavy are (ex. Coward).

Coward's is a poor alternative imo. I tried it out and it's nice in solo play but you are sacrificing a lot of damage. Stam 1vx only works because of high damage heavy armor sets and the fact that stam can run 2 damage sets (or BP) and have solid sustain. Mag is unable to do this due to longer/less reliable heavy attack weaves, higher base skill costs, greater dependancy on off-stat (which reduces usefulness of mag BP) and no high damage-heavy sets.

Slotting Coward's gives fantastic utility, however, the damage you need to confidently 1vx is simply no longer there, in the same way that mag 1vx builds tend to lack damage. OFC this only applies to dedicated 1vx builds, not specialized builds that require certain conditions be met to survive. A true 1vx build must be able to fight anytime, anywhere and never run out of resources while still having minimum burst. Any "1vx" build that has "insane" damage usually won't last long enough open field to get to LoS on a consistent basis.

I've run Coward's on a medium stam sorc and heavy stam DK a few patches back. It is a significant hit to damage in order to gain survivability that forces a certain playstyle. Switching to bow backbar and a hybrid sustain/damage set is 100% the better option 100% of the time.

Defensive medium armor sets are probably going to be popular for stamina 1vx. However, either sustain or damage will be just short of where one would need it to be to consistently 1vx.

OFC this analysis is based off stamina classes in general. I have the least experience on a stamden but based on what I know, the only real change for them is mobility and Major/Minor Evasion.

Master back bar may be necessary in order to keep damage to where it needs to be, but this follows your single target statement.

Juhasow · October 2018

Amdar_Godkiller wrote: »

The Shield changes force Light Armor users to either run heavy or invest in more resistance to be able to survive.

Not really They force light armor users to wear impen, and they create an incentive for them to invest in health and resistances, but so long as they do invest in full impen and prismatic enchantments, the shield changes will be a massive buff for light armor users, regardless of whether or not they invest in physical/spell resistance.

The amount of incorrect info in this post is silly. First of all magicka users currently have 100% crit dmg reduction which means their shields have 3,3 up to 5k impen depends of enemie crit dmg modifier. Right now You're getting that 3,3-5k crit resist for free as base feature of the shield and after update You'll have to invest into that which will lower Your other stats. It's impossible to reach that amount of crit resistance without investing in it with sets and that will cripple sorc dmg or with champion points and that will cripple other red cp poitns like bastion etc so we'll increase crit resist of shields by lowering base amount of dmg shield can absorb. Prismatic enchantments change nothing , many sorcs is using these enchantments right now but the thing is You are sacrificing Your max magicka to get more health so You are lowering 1 stat responsible for shield value to increase seconds stat responsible for the shield value so at the end You are not getting that much. Shields value is getting weaker for sorcs that want to do high dmg or damage is getting weaker for sorcs that want to have strong shields . In any of these cases we cannot talk about "massive buff" for shields.

lucky_dutch · October 2018

ku5h wrote: »

Amdar_Godkiller wrote: »

The Shield changes force Light Armor users to either run heavy or invest in more resistance to be able to survive.

Not really They force light armor users to wear impen, and they create an incentive for them to invest in health and resistances, but so long as they do invest in full impen and prismatic enchantments, the shield changes will be a massive buff for light armor users, regardless of whether or not they invest in physical/spell resistance.

That makes no sense at all. How can it be a buff if you're forced to invest into 2 resources istead of 1, to rise the shield cap. Bastion wont do any work for you anymore and you'll get crit. Only thing that could balace it out is running high physical/spell res, which your saying they wont need. Am i missing something or your logic is flawed?!

This.

Light Armor users may be able to get larger shield caps not but at the expense of another stat which is likely to be mag. They need to swap a lot of damage and magpool just to get the shields up to parity with pre-nerf.

It’s a nerf, whichever way you slice it.

lucky_dutch · October 2018

Double post

lucky_dutch · October 2018

Double post

lucky_dutch · October 2018

Double post.

These forums perform as bad as ZO$'s PvP servers.

K3ntaaa · October 2018

This is a nerf, you can't get the minor berserk on both bars unless you double slot which is impossible with how little bar space stamden has. Most stamden builds use damage abilities on both bars, for example a S&B/2H bar uses reverse slice on back bar and heroic/reverb on front.
[/quote]

i dont think thats a nerf because the only Builds that could utilize this skill, without sacrificing too much other good skills and losing healing or tankiness, were builds that focused on damage only on 1 bar. For example dual wield + 2h Steel tornado, 2h + S&B with 2h mainbar. On the S&B + 2h bar with slowslash and reverb you cant slot this skill since you lack the skillslots like you mentioned above. And you dont have to cast it means you dont need to invest in magika sustain anymore

frostz417 · October 2018

1vX is dead. Small scale is dying. With no escape due to lack of major expedition and people spamming roots and snares it will just be elder Zergs online

K3ntaaa · October 2018

frostz417 wrote: »

1vX is dead. Small scale is dying. With no escape due to lack of major expedition and people spamming roots and snares it will just be elder Zergs online

dont worry there will be new builds / metas that work around the major expedition nerf, etc. 1vX and smallscale will always be possible (at least on some classes), maybe it will harder but still not impossible : P

olsborg · October 2018

Medium also gain 3% more weapon dmg then on current live. The most miniscule buff ive ever seen for an armortype.

lucky_dutch · October 2018

olsborg wrote: »

Medium also gain 3% more weapon dmg then on current live. The most miniscule buff ive ever seen for an armortype.

So true. Although major evasion buff is an indirect buff to medium as AoE was always the bane of a medium build.

Medium is still objectively inferior for every PvP build besides some Stamblade builds though and will remain as such until dodge evades AoE.