Focusing evenly on Magicka and Stamina

Zewks · April 2014

Will this gimp you later in the game? I know many people still just think of these 2 stats as resources for using your abilities and skills. The truth of the matter is that they both seem to significantly affect your damage. It seems like optimizing your damage output would mean focusing in either Magicka, or Stamina... but not both.

Using the tool at esohead http://esohead.com/skills/35596-impale you can see the effects of these stats (in this case its magicka). The difference between spending no points in Magicka, vs maxing out the stat, is an additional 252 damage (at rank 4, level 50) Thats almost a 50% damage increase.

My character is only level 16 right now, so i have no idea how things pan out later in the game.

lupusrex · April 2014

What I've read from other players is that, while leveling, you should spend your attributes in a more balanced way (depending on what abilities you use) to help with survivability. My experience so far supports this; I'm playing a Templar caster/healer with a bow for CC and filler damage, and I'm spending the points (M-H-S) at a proportion of 4-2-1.

I haven't reached the cap yet, but I most often read that people will specialize with all their points in one stat at that time. At that point, gear adds enough attributes to pad out the rest.

Of course you'll need a respec to go from one to the other.

awkwarrd · April 2014

It comes down to armor in the end.

If you spaced out your stats, and you don't like it in the future, you can reset them and get all your points back to place where ever you wish.

Now the trouble with balancing your stats evenly, is you will need to figure out which stat you need more.

Enchants, can buff up the armor with that stat you want.
Jewelry can reduce the cost of the abilities for that stat, or give recovery.

You also want to keep in mind that with stats comes soft caps, which limits the benefits of maximizing a stat.
When you press "c" you can see your stats with an orange color.

The game really has not been out that long yet for min-maxing, but the beta testers seem to know what works best for now.

Shimond · April 2014

Until you're fully enchanting your stuff there's no problem doing it this way. I'm doing the same thing, even magic/stamina, no health. If I start getting pwned because of the extra health I'm not getting I'll reconsider, but until then...damage all the way.

jesterstear · April 2014

My Templar is basically 1:2:1 - 2 points into health and 1 to mana and stamina.

Rushed ceremony doesn't half drain the Mana pool fast, I've upgraded it to Honour the Dead which gives a 60% power return if the target is below 60% health, and get maybe get four heals out of it while soloing a tough group of mobs. The other one just takes far too long to cast, if I stop blocking or interrupting for that length of time i'm gonna take more damage than I get back from the heal.

Stamina is also in short supply, in a tough fight I have to conserve it, using only Ransack every 12 seconds and blocking/interrupting. The damage of these sword and board abilities seems to low to kill your opponents before running out of power.

I bought Deep Slash and Absorb Magic as I thought they might come in useful as debuffs of the enemy when tanking, but so far I've never had enough free time or stamina to use them.

BlackSparrow · April 2014

I've also been evenly doing magicka and stamina, with little-to-no-health. Mind, this is a Nightblade built *specifically* for damage, so she's expected to be a bit squishy.

The key that I've been finding is to compensate with gear, skills, and tactics. You can't keep control of every situation, so expect to need a mid-fight emergency button, whether it's heals, potions, cc, or, for Nightblades, stealth. This does affect your DPS, so keep that in mind when statting this way.

I will say this, though... squishy as I am, I can use feats and spells aaaall day, and I do take most mobs down within 2-3 seconds, excepting bosses. It's a fun build, if a bit frustrating against bosses that do spike damage.

Xezzu · April 2014

In my opinion (heavy in the opinion) it's really dependent on how you intend to play your character. If you build your character as a say.. Breton, they have a lot of ability to increase their Magicka availability (through spell reduction, Magicka regen, etc) so they may not warrant as much points into Magicka as say a.. Redguard.

You may be heavy on Magicka-using abilities (for whatever reason) and will need more Magicka to fuel them, but also to increase their damage potential. Likewise, it could be said the same for Stamina-using abilities.

Then to add to the mix, there's enchants, traits on armors and weapons, consumables (both food and potions) and set bonuses as well. I think everyone's strategy may be different, unless they are copying someone's right out. It'd probably be very rare to find two characters who are built identically.

The possibilities of 'viable' (I'm certainly not going to say optimal, as I think what that means to different players is debatable) character builds are near endless, but different people are going to find different builds fun or enjoyable and I think ESO caters well to that.