VaranisArano wrote: »

If we're going to add magicka skills, stamina players would appreciate some more stamina morphs.

You know, in the name of variety and all.

I've been wondering what would happen if ZOS made all class skills scale with whichever resource/stat/damage type was higher. So, say, stamina nightblades could still use Funnel Health, they just wouldn't be able to spam it like a magicka nightblade. Might be interesting and open up some new build possibilities (such as stam sorcs being able to benefit, in part, from crystal frags proc)

VaranisArano wrote: »

If we're going to add magicka skills, stamina players would appreciate some more stamina morphs.

You know, in the name of variety and all.

Yes, please!

StamDK, StamSorc, and Stamplar could use some serious love when it comes to class skills.

We would definitely love to see some stamina additions! Great suggestion! ❤️

Nerouyn wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

If we're going to add magicka skills, stamina players would appreciate some more stamina morphs.

You know, in the name of variety and all.

You already have four physical weapon skill lines. None of those are locked behind classes, unlike magic abilities. You have both variety and degree of freedom much closer to the single player Elder Scrolls games.

Also see my suggestion number four. While I don't love this solution and see it as an extension of stamina morph madness (magic should use magicka and physical attacks stamina) it would be a quick and nasty fix to provide more variety / options for everyone.

lol, if you think that stamina classes have variety you are SORELY mistaken, they all rely on weapon skills, because guess what? most class abilities are magicka, some of those abilities have stamina morphs...most do not.

The easy solution is to get redo the system...let people choose whatever basic 3 skill lines they want, and depending on which they choose their class is determined from those choices...summoning skill lines from Necro, Warden, and Sorc would make you a "summoner" and open a few "summoner" specific skills. Elemental skill lines from DK, Sorc, and Warden would make you an "elementalist" etc....it wont solve the lack of stamina-specific skill lines though

josiahva wrote: »

lol, if you think that stamina classes have variety you are SORELY mistaken, they all rely on weapon skills, because guess what? most class abilities are magicka, some of those abilities have stamina morphs...most do not.

Let's take the most extreme example of warden.

Wardens have a grand total of 4 class damage abilities. 3 have stamina morphs.

Weapon damage abilities

Weapons = 18
Two Handed : 4
One Hand and Shield : 4
Dual Wield : 5
Bow : 5

Fighters Guild = 2

Psijic = 1

Magic damage abilities

Destruction Staff = 4

Mages Guild = 2

Psijic = 1

Lets's add those up.

Magicka warden : 4 + 4 +2 + 1 = 11.

Stamina warden : 2 + 18 + 2 + 1 = 23.

Stams have more than double.

Even the less extreme examples still put stamina ahead.

There's a grand total of 15 class abilities, with a range of about 9-11 being damage. Typically several of those have stamina morphs.

11 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 18. That's less than 21 and not even taking into account those stamina morphs.

Nerouyn wrote: »

Ok so there's a huge problem for magicka players in that there's only 1 DPS weapon and courtesy of classes most of the game's magic is inaccessible to any given player. The problem is especially bad for wardens who only have 4 class DPS magicka abilities.

Wardens only have 4 DPS skills AND the frost staff was turned into a tank weapon. It's like ZOS did everything in their power to ruin the class before it even came out.

I have some issues with your argument. Maybe not with your conclusion, but certainly with your math.

Chief among them is the small sample size of Warden. Whether you are right or wrong, you simply can't base recommendations about balancing Stamina vs Magicka options around one class. You have to look at everything.

So I did the math/research myself, because I like stats. Lots and lots of Stats ahead.

So here's the rest of the classes in terms of their skills that cost stamina or magicka. I did not count ultimates because those don't "cost" stamina or magicka. I also compared morphs to morphs, marking how many magicka skills are present in the list because stamina has zero class skills, only morphs. In terms of variety, having morph choices is also important, so I think its worth noting that Stamina Classes do not have the same flexibility with morphs as magicka builds do, nor do they have the option to leave those skills unmorphed. I did not count skills that buff attacks, choosing to focus on skills or morphs that actually deal damage because that's what we're dicussing here.


Part I - How Many Damaging Skills/Morphs do Stam/Mag Builds actually have?

Warden
Class Damage Skills:
Cutting Dive/Screaming Cliff Racer, Sub Assault/Deep Fissure, Swarm, Impaling Shards, Arctic Blast, Crystallized Slab, Frozen Gate
Stamina: Cutting Dive, Subterraenan Assualt
Magicka: Screaming Cliff Racer, Deep Fissure, Swarm (2 morphs), Impaling Shards (2 morphs), Arctic Blast, Crystallized Slab, Frozen Gate (2 morphs)

Total: 2 stamina morphs, 10 magicka morphs (7 skills)


Now for the older classes. Spoilered for size of data;

Conclusions Part 1
1. Much to my surprise, Nightblade is the most stamina-friendly class, with 4 stamina DPS morphs. Templar comes in second with 3 stamina DPS morphs. Sorcerer, unsurprisingly, is last with Hurricane being the only stamina morph that deals damage.

2. In every case, Magicka builds have more variety in terms of using their class skills than Stamina builds. To compare a Stam Warden to a Mag Warden, the Mag Warden has 7 skills (10 morphs) that deal damage compared to the Stamina Warden's 2 stamina costing skills.

From Best to Worst in terms of class skills that deal damage
Nightblade: 4 stamina morphs, 12 magicka morphs (9 magicka skills)
Templar: 3 stamina morphs, 15 magicka morphs (10 magicka skills)
Warden: 2 stamina morphs, 10 magicka morphs (7 skills)
Dragonknight: 2 Stamina Morphs, 22 Magicka Morphs (12 skills) to choose from.
Sorcerer: 1 Stamina morph, 18 magicka morphs (11 magicka skills)


Part II - Does a Disparity Exist between Stam/Magicka Skills and Morphs in Total?
Now to address the issue of the thread. Disparity between damage options for Magicka and Stamina Builds.

Stamina Costing Weapon/Guild skills that deal damage: 21 (taken from the above post)
Magicka Costing Weapon/Guild skills that deal damage: 7 (taken from the above post)

Now this assumes that ZOS does not count Lightning Staffs, Inferno Staffs, and Frost Staffs as seperate weapons in terms of variety. I'm going to stick with the single destruction staff for the sake of the argument, but if they do count them as separate, the Magicka Costing skills goes up to 15, and morphs goes up to 29. Hold this thought, I am going to come back to it later.

So we see that the total disparity of damage dealing skills (class+ weapons + is as follows:

Ooh, that looks terrible! Magicka builds have less skills all around!

Except - there's a problem here. This is where your math above is most flawed.

This doesn't take into account the full variety of morphs that Magicka builds get to choose from compared to Stamina Builds. So we have to redo our math to take morphs into account. We can't compare stamina morphs to magicka skills like we did above - we have to use the same units of measurement or else we get skewed data.

Stamina Morphs Weapon/Guild morphs that deal damage: 8 (1H &S) + 8 (2H) + 10 (DW) + 10 (Bow) + 4 (fFighters Guild) + 1 (Crushing Weapon) = 43 morphs
Magicka Costing Weapon/Guild morphs that deal damage: 8 (Destro Staff) + 1 (Elemental Weapon) + 4 (Mages Guild) = 15 morphs

If you are looking at this like..."didn't you just double all the skills except for Imbued weapon?" Yeah, that's how that works. We have to convert all of those to morphs, so we can compare in morphs, so we know whether or not there is actually a disparity or not.

Here's the comparison of number of Morphs.
Huh, that makes the disparity more obvious. YES, this is why you do the math properly with the same units of measurement. When you actually break it down to the level of morphs, that's where we find the best support in favor of your argument!

Conclusions Part II

1. There is a disparity between the TOTAL number of damaging skills morphs that Stamina Builds and Magicka Builds can use. Stamina Builds clearly have more total morphs of damaging skills when you take class, weapon, and guild skills into account.

2. The disparity is most marked in Nightblades and Wardens. For Nightblades, this is because they have the highest number of class skills with stamina morphs. In the case of Wardens, its because they have the fewest class skills that deal damage, even less than Templars.



Part III So, why hasn't ZOS done anything about this disparity, Varanis Arano, since you clearly proved that it exists?

I have a couple of ideas.

1. If ZOS adds Magicka Weapons to give magicka Builds more variety, they also have to address the concerns of Stamina Players who lack Class Skill options. The disparity does measurably go both ways.

Let's try to get Stam/Mag Builds to within 5 class vs weapon/guild morphs of each other. We have to add, because we obviously can't go taking away options.

Its my suspicion that ZOS is not willing to do the work of adding or balancing that many new Class and Weapon/Guild skills that it would take to bring the disparity to even within 5 morphs of each other.


2. Its possible that ZOS considers Lightning Staff, Inferno Staff, and Ice Staff as distinct weapons in a way they don't for the different onehanded and two handed weapons. This is somewhat supported by the Destruction Staff passives, which make the different staffs perform much different in functionality that the equivalent passives for stamina weapons.

That's also somewhat backed up by the math. When we use the three staffs as separate weapons, bringing the MAgicka Build Weapon/Guild Morphs to 29, we get:
All of a sudden, the morphs start to look A LOT more equal.

Now, to be perfectly clear, I'm not saying that this is how ZOS looks at the 3 Destruction Staves as separate options compared to axe, dagger, sword, and maul where they categorize them by two-handed, DW or One hand and shield. But if they do, then the math on morph disparity starts to look much more equal. (Obviously, if we compare axe, dagger, sword, and mace as well, the disparity reappears.)

If I were going to argue really hard about this, I'd actually classify Ice Staff as its own weapon due to really different effects and do Fire/Lightning together, but I've done a lot of math, and I'm tired. Plus, there's still a disparity.



Final Conclusions AKA WAY TLDR

1. Stamina Builds have way less class skill morphs that do damage than Magicka Builds do. This feels unfair to Stamina Players.

2. Magicka Builds have way less weapon/guild skill morphs that do damage than Stamina Builds do. This feels unfair to Magicka Players.

3. If you total up ALL the morphs for damaging skills, Stamina Builds have noticeably more options than Magicka Builds do, due to the greater variety of stamina using weapons.

4. In my estimation, fixing both problems would require ZOS to add so many class morphs and weapon skills to the game that they've probably decided not to bother. Nevertheless, both issues should be addressed together. The disparity in both cases, not just the total, is substantial enough that it feels unfair to players of all build types.

P.S. Wardens really got the shaft when it came to class skills that do damage. That's why the MagWarden feels like it has so few damage options compared to, say, MagBlades, who have the exact same disparity between their Mag/Stam Builds.

VaranisArano wrote: »

I have some issues with your argument. Maybe not with your conclusion, but certainly with your math.

My math was literally just 1 off. I'll edit that correction in. I miscounted warden damage stam morphs. I was thinking of the stam heal morph. But yours is even worse.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Chief among them is the small sample size of Warden. Whether you are right or wrong, you simply can't base recommendations about balancing Stamina vs Magicka options around one class. You have to look at everything.

I looked at everything.

Nerouyn wrote: »

Even the less extreme examples still put stamina ahead.

There's a grand total of 15 class abilities, with a range of about 9-11 being damage. Typically several of those have stamina morphs.

11 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 18. That's less than 21 and not even taking into account those stamina morphs.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Warden
Class Damage Skills:
Cutting Dive/Screaming Cliff Racer, Sub Assault/Deep Fissure, Swarm, Impaling Shards, Arctic Blast, Crystallized Slab, Frozen Gate
Stamina: Cutting Dive, Subterraenan Assualt
Magicka: Screaming Cliff Racer, Deep Fissure, Swarm (2 morphs), Impaling Shards (2 morphs), Arctic Blast, Crystallized Slab, Frozen Gate (2 morphs)

Total: 2 stamina morphs, 10 magicka morphs (7 skills)

No, warden has 4 magicka damage skills. Just 4. Dive, Scorch, Swarm and the magicka morph of Impaling Shards which scales from health.

Frozen Gate and Crystallized Slab have a damage component but they're not damage abilities. They're just not. Crystallized Slab is a shield with a small reflect on it. Frozen Gate does straight up damage but it's primarily a pull / ally teleport. A magicka warden wearing light armor is very unlikely to want to pull mobs close to them for the tiny amount of damage that does.

Warden has 4 magicka damage skills.

Speaking more broadly to the issue of morphs, I hate them.

Morrowind didn't have morphs.

Oblivion didn't have morphs.

Skyrim didn't have morphs.

Morphs suck balls. I'm vaguely aware there was some Skyrim mod which added something like them but that has zero appeal to me. What appeals to me about ES character development is that it is eminently flexible. One character can learn and max every skill, learn and cast every spell, and use every weapon. Morphs detract from that.

Typically there's only one morph I'd consider worth using anyway so it's as if the other one just doesn't exist, eg. the only warden magicka damage ability without a stamina morph, Swarm. I don't love either of the morphs and many wardens hate both but Fetcher Infection (every other cast does 50% more damage) is at least occasionally useful. The other one is rubbish.

Stamina morphs are a quick and nasty fix to stupid problems.

The game shouldn't have classes in the first place and their having decided to have classes, they shouldn't have all been stuffed full of magic because not everyone likes that.

The game shouldn't have magicka / stamina and more recently health scaling. It's stupid. We have it because it was a popular mod for Skyrim to fix a stupid problem - very poor scaling of magic damage compared to physical weapons courtesy of smithing and enchanting. More damage based on total magicka was a simple solution but not actually a great idea in its own right.

But we have those things in ESO so stamina morphs came about to please the stams. Personally I think it's weird as hell. Magic uses magicka. The stamina morphs look like magic, function like magic but are fuelled by stamina. No. That's not right. It's not Elder Scrolls.

I seriously can't use stamiina morphs. The game is not ES in so many ways (classes, weird arse skins and mounts etc.) that there's just the thinnest veil of illusion left that it's ES at all. Me using stamina morphs would shred it. I tried the warden Scorch stam morph to see it but didn't keep it very long.

Even putting that aside, the total number of morph options available is irrelevant. You can't switch between them freely. You have to pay for that. The total number of damage abilities you have available to slot at any given time is what matters.

For every single class, stam has more damage abilities. In the case of warden stams have more than double the amount - 11 v 23.

VaranisArano wrote: »

If we're going to add magicka skills, stamina players would appreciate some more stamina morphs.

You know, in the name of variety and all.

In the name of variety and all I'd like to have two melee Magicka weapons, thank you.

The easiest solution would be to remove the barriers created by Stamina and Magicka exclusive builds / skills. Every skill should always scale with your highest stat and automatically become a skill in that regard (morphs) except you explicitly don't want it to be the case and choose the other (morph).

Nerouyn wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

I have some issues with your argument. Maybe not with your conclusion, but certainly with your math.

My math was literally just 1 off. I'll edit that correction in. I miscounted warden damage stam morphs. I was thinking of the stam heal morph. But yours is even worse.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Chief among them is the small sample size of Warden. Whether you are right or wrong, you simply can't base recommendations about balancing Stamina vs Magicka options around one class. You have to look at everything.

I looked at everything.

Nerouyn wrote: »

Even the less extreme examples still put stamina ahead.

There's a grand total of 15 class abilities, with a range of about 9-11 being damage. Typically several of those have stamina morphs.

11 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 18. That's less than 21 and not even taking into account those stamina morphs.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Warden
Class Damage Skills:
Cutting Dive/Screaming Cliff Racer, Sub Assault/Deep Fissure, Swarm, Impaling Shards, Arctic Blast, Crystallized Slab, Frozen Gate
Stamina: Cutting Dive, Subterraenan Assualt
Magicka: Screaming Cliff Racer, Deep Fissure, Swarm (2 morphs), Impaling Shards (2 morphs), Arctic Blast, Crystallized Slab, Frozen Gate (2 morphs)

Total: 2 stamina morphs, 10 magicka morphs (7 skills)

No, warden has 4 magicka damage skills. Just 4. Dive, Scorch, Swarm and the magicka morph of Impaling Shards which scales from health.

Frozen Gate and Crystallized Slab have a damage component but they're not damage abilities. They're just not. Crystallized Slab is a shield with a small reflect on it. Frozen Gate does straight up damage but it's primarily a pull / ally teleport. A magicka warden wearing light armor is very unlikely to want to pull mobs close to them for the tiny amount of damage that does.

Warden has 4 magicka damage skills.

Speaking more broadly to the issue of morphs, I hate them.

Morrowind didn't have morphs.

Oblivion didn't have morphs.

Skyrim didn't have morphs.

Morphs suck balls. I'm vaguely aware there was some Skyrim mod which added something like them but that has zero appeal to me. What appeals to me about ES character development is that it is eminently flexible. One character can learn and max every skill, learn and cast every spell, and use every weapon. Morphs detract from that.

Typically there's only one morph I'd consider worth using anyway so it's as if the other one just doesn't exist, eg. the only warden magicka damage ability without a stamina morph, Swarm. I don't love either of the morphs and many wardens hate both but Fetcher Infection (every other cast does 50% more damage) is at least occasionally useful. The other one is rubbish.

Stamina morphs are a quick and nasty fix to stupid problems.

The game shouldn't have classes in the first place and their having decided to have classes, they shouldn't have all been stuffed full of magic because not everyone likes that.

The game shouldn't have magicka / stamina and more recently health scaling. It's stupid. We have it because it was a popular mod for Skyrim to fix a stupid problem - very poor scaling of magic damage compared to physical weapons courtesy of smithing and enchanting. More damage based on total magicka was a simple solution but not actually a great idea in its own right.

But we have those things in ESO so stamina morphs came about to please the stams. Personally I think it's weird as hell. Magic uses magicka. The stamina morphs look like magic, function like magic but are fuelled by stamina. No. That's not right. It's not Elder Scrolls.

I seriously can't use stamiina morphs. The game is not ES in so many ways (classes, weird arse skins and mounts etc.) that there's just the thinnest veil of illusion left that it's ES at all. Me using stamina morphs would shred it. I tried the warden Scorch stam morph to see it but didn't keep it very long.

Even putting that aside, the total number of morph options available is irrelevant. You can't switch between them freely. You have to pay for that. The total number of damage abilities you have available to slot at any given time is what matters.

For every single class, stam has more damage abilities. In the case of warden stams have more than double the amount - 11 v 23.

Edited to add: Thanks for fixing the math. However, I'll argue that for class damage skills, we look at all skills that do damage. Certainly, when I did my math, that's how I categorized all the other class's skills. It did damage? It got counted. So for consistency's sake, I'll stand by including Frozen Gate, etc. Otherwise, we'd have to debate the inclusion of some DK and Templar skills too, and that's a lot more complicated.

I also counted morphs because while you can't swap freely between them, on a magicka build, you have the option to use them. A stamina build does not even have that option. A magicka sorcerer can use either twilight matriarch or twilight tormentors. A Stamina build cannot use either. In terms of variety of choice, magicka builds have more choices.

My main concern with doing all the math was that I needed to work through ALL of the classes to figure out if the disparity of total skills exists (it does), who it favors (stamina has more than magicka), and how that compares to the disparity of class skills (magicka has more than stamina.)

After all, my first post was pointing out the disparity of class skills between stamina and magicka, and I wanted to know the math on that myself.

Original post:
I get the feeling that you want a complete game overhaul to match how you want the game to be played - going back to a more idealized, classless vision.

I'm looking at ESO as it is. ESO with its committment to classes from the beginning and its current meta for magicka and stamina. Within that framework, I'm looking at what's fair to everyone who enjoys the current playstyles offered.

I think your vision is vanishingly unlikely to happen. Sunk costs, and all that. Unless the Devs upend the entire game again and through out all the work they've put into classes and stamina - no matter how odd you think that is - stamina and classes are here to stay. Not to mention, stamina morphs may not work for you, but they do work for plenty of stamina players who would like more variety in their class skills. That's why I went through each class - because as much as magicka builds are missing variety in damage skills from weapons, stamina builds are missing variety in class skills. Both are problems that ZOS could fix if they chose to add new abilities to the game.

So any further debate is probably pointless. Especially if your response to my repeated bringing up of the concerns of stamina players is essentially "I don't like stamina morphs, it shouldnt be a thing in TES, and magicka has less flexibility anyway." I'll grant the last one, as seen in my math, but the first two are not conducive to discussion of how to fix problems with the stamina and magicka builds that we do have. In fact, I read it as rather dismissive of the problems that stamina players face when trying to play as a distinctive class, not just dependent on the greater variety of weapons - if that's not your intent, I'll be glad to hear it.

As the game stands, I think ZOS needs to add magicka weapons/guild skills and stamina class skills if they want to make it fairer for everyone who prefers those playstyles.

Variety for everyone, is what I'm saying.

Not variety for magicka only.

TequilaFire wrote: »

I think an important point that echos through out this thread is this is not a traditional ES single player system and never will be.

I'd certainly agree with that. While the singleplayer TES games followed a loose archetype of Warrior, Mage, and Thief/Rogue, ESO adheres more closely to the MMO trinity of Tank/Healer/Damage Dealer.

We see that reflected in the original classes. DK is tank, Templar is Healer, Sorc is Magic DD and Nightblade is the Rogue DD. Oh, and in the beginning, everyone used magicka with stamina as a flavorful afterthought.

Now, that's gotten rather muddled in recent years as ESO tries to move closer to the TES idea of anyone can do anything. We see that in the expansion of classes to meet all the roles - now every class has ways that can meet every role in the Trinity, some still better than others. We see it in the expansion of stamina for players who didnt want to be pidgeonholed into using magicka. For players who want a more traditional TES feel, this expansion and broadening of classes and roles should be a good thing, even if it doesnt perhaps go far enough.

ESO is not a traditional singleplayer TES game. It has an end-game where builds matter. It has distinct roles that make a difference in how you complete the content. It has actual difficult content that you can't complete unless you know how to play your role. It has classes that actually matter, unlike previous games where major/minor skills only determined how quickly you leveled them.

Its a different beast. Its a TES MMORPG. And unless ZOS revamps ESO entirely, its going to remain a different beast.

also there should be a way to only play with magic skills
now when u use a destruction staff you are almost forced, to have fire, shock or frost damage in your build
but what if u wanna go full magic damage

a new weapon line would be awesome for that

as i already mentioned

there could be again 3 different types of weapon for that skilline, with different effects

like: orb - more damage
book - lower cost
something - crit chance

Drummerx04 wrote: »

Don't see a benefit

We need more mag damage abilities. Fire Rune is nice but there are three destruction elements and runes were a thing in Skyrim. Moving it to the Destruction Staff makes ESO more like the single player games, and adds a little more diversity.

There's already a ranged aoe / pbaoe + a column aoe and two single target abilities. A cone attack is one possibility but not so terribly different from the existing column.

A melee attack of some kind is another option. But I personally would prefer a rune in every flavour of destruction.

Drummerx04 wrote: »

No. Equilibrium is critically important within an end game pve context... Meditate is effectively useless within the same space.

Many many moons ago I read about its usage but haven't heard anyone mention it since so I wondered if maybe it had been superseded. I'm really surprised that it hasn't.

Drummerx04 wrote: »

That's interesting, but the simple fact that it would take up a bar slot makes it pretty much useless to all but the RP community.

I think that's unimaginative.

For a single slot out of 10, you potentially get near full powered access to a whole range of abilities which otherwise you might be able to use but at greatly reduced power because you're built for magic and they scale off weapon damage / stamina.

Eg. magicka users could run a staff / melee weapon combo. Rely on the staff while opponents are distant. When they close in, switch to melee weapon, engage Imbue Weapon, and trade blows almost on their terms. At 90% the power of a stam player and with 1 fewer slot due to Imbue Weapon requiring one.

I'd definitely use it if only for the glorious variety it would offer.

Drummerx04 wrote: »

I'm sure the NB mains would love their class identity stripped away. Why not suggest including bolt escape while you are at it?

At launch NB, DK and Sorc had no class heals.

Now they all do.

At launch DK's covered tanking best. Now all classes have something for that.

The game has moved on from the stupidity of those early days.

Having a whole chunk of content - stealing and murdering - at which one class has undeniable advantages is transparently unbalanced.

Drummerx04 wrote: »

This will not add the variety you think it will. Either the new damage skills will either be better, worse, or functionally identical. Build "diversity" will just crowd around whichever damage skills are most effective.

You're super wrong and it's super easy to demonstrate.

Other classes have more magicka damage abilities. Wardens have 4. Other classes have 9-11.

When I play those other classes I actually have options. I enjoy that about those classes.

It's that simple. Also I'd think, common sense.