Hello Everyone,

I'm sure a lot of people have seen discussions regarding how stam sets are better than mag sets. This has mostly been a problem since Summserset with the release of Relequen and Siroria (although Velidreth, which is getting nerfed on PTS in favor of Maarselok, is still a contentious point too compared to Zaan).

Long Version:
Relequen is pure damage gained from simply stacking LAs on a target (and allowing mobility) whereas magicka relies on staying stagnant to build up stacks of siroria which add SD. This in itself isn't a problem and if Siroria were a stam set, 600 WD would go a long way with WD modifiers stam has (granted, the nerf to Flawless DB goes a long ways here). However, magicka tends to scale poorly with SD as most magicka modifers are resource (max magicka) based rather than SD based... this disparity resurfaces through the ages with the introduction of sets such as Spell Strategist as well. Keep in mind magicka rarely are offered the chance to stay stagnant and thus keeping this set up and running requires extreme amounts of effort (if possible) relative to keeping relequen going with bow LAs on transitions or mechanics. Compared to other magicka sets (such as FGD in Elsweyr or Spell Strategist, which does lack cleave) Siroria is oftentimes used purely for parse fights and mechanics and creates disparity between dummy parses and actual raid encounters where mag is scarce at the score pusher level anyways. Relequen, on the other hand, can be used in most fights (albeit lacking cleave, which is usually not an issue for most trials/encounters) even if they require extreme amounts of movement and gives a flat damage boost rather than a boost to skill damage (i.e. it's more of a proc set). If we consider monster helms, magicka's counterpart to velidreth, zaan, suffers from the same problems as Siroria and additionally requires mag to be in melee distance which may not always be possible. With the release of Wrathstone and Elsweyr, the set disparity has only gotten worse with the release of Tzogvin and Tooth of Lokkestiiz, both VERY powerful sets in their own right with no counterpart in mag. Mag Crit % is also low enough that sets like Mother's Sorrow (possibly w/ the exception of Magcro in certain sets/circumstances) are still required to maximize magicka dps. Stam does not suffer from these problems and only benefits from sets such as Tzogvin, which provides NEARLY EQUAL crit compared to Mother's Sorrow as well as Minor Force (and synergizes well w/ stam's lack of pen on the fights it's typically used in over Relequen). Lokkestiiz just added to the punishing disparity mag faces vs. every stam, as it is a high uptime source of Major Slayer on self with complementary sources of weapon damage and crit (all help make up for the lack of AY, which is not as important on Stamcro).

Tl;dr:
Stam sets provide more utility, are easier to use or require less skill to maintain generally (Relequen vs. Siroria), and generally cohesive with stam identity and modifiers (weapon damage and weapon damage modifiers vs. SD and max magicka modifiers). Example set disparities include Zaan (melee range only), Siroria, False God's Devotion, and Mother's Sorrow. Stam counterparts that are generally better (in order of their mag counterparts) include Velidreth/Maarselok (Maarselok on PTS), Relequen, Lokkestiiz, and Tzogvin's Warband.


As an example of how powerful Lokkestiiz is, here's an example of a friend's magcro parses comparing Mother's Sorrow to Lokkestiiz:


Notes:
1. Mother's Sorrow PROBABLY performs a bit better than Lokkestiiz, but the number of Light Attacks (and LA ratio) on the Lokke parse increased, which led to a DPS increase there
2. Magcro has internal crit added in execute (not shown on CMX) which helps to offset the loss of Mother's Sorrow a bit, but other classes wouldn't fail as well
3. Magcro has its own synergy which allowed for an amazingly high Major Slayer uptime (this would not be as common in a trial and lead to a dps reduction relative to Mother's Sorrow)
4. The point here is that a Stam set can provide so much utility that it's actually viable on magicka without losing extraordinary amounts of dps - something that is NOT conversely true for stam sets using magicka sets... point being stam sets provide a lot of utility that mag sets do not get (or counterpart sets just provide less utility in general; ex. Tzogvin's Warband and Mother's Sorrow)