Why does it feel like ZOS hates Magicka users?

DusdrarlunThunder · July 2019

In almost any game, especially MMO's, the squishy ranged guys are the highest damage dealers.

The semi squishy melee guys have a bit more survivability and deal not quite as much damage.

And the tanks dish out the lest damage while being able to take the most to kill.

Now this game has a blend that allows people to pretty much build how they like to play. Cool. But, not so cool.

It feels like any sustainable damage dealer in this game is a stamina build. ESPECIALLY IN PVP! Why is that?

Well for one stamina users only need one resource. STAMINA! They can max out as much stamina/stamina regen as they can and that's all they need!

Stamina is used to : cast heals, dodged roll (avoiding damage), block (avoiding more damage) break stuns (obviously useful) and attack. Wow great!

Magicka users: use magicka to attack and heal BUT need stamina to also dodge roll, block (unless you have an ice staff yawn), and break stuns too!

This already puts magcika users at a HUGE disadvantage. Most games have a way for mages to use their magicka for defense as well and damage shields definitely can be useful here but they only last a few seconds and you can't do it while stunned whereas stamina can be used to break the stun then roll out of the way of an attack. But what's that you're out of stamina as a magicka user? haha u might as well just afk and die.

On top of that stamina users get incredibly powerful attacks and a ton of gap closers for melee. In fact it's nearly IMPOSSIBLY to stay at range where a stamina user isn't right next to you smashing your face in all day. This means every magicka user now has to be a tank too. And let's be honest it's much easier to tank in medium/heavy armor as a stamina user than a light armor wearing magicka user.

As I look at most all of the skills for magicka users I seem to be missing spells almost every game, including Elder Scrolls, used to have. Where's the fireball spam? Where's the lightning bolts? Where's the ice orbs? Where's the life draining? Just............. where is it all?

It's like you guys gave stamina users all the coolest single spammable skills in the game where they can literally just spam the same attack over and over and over but magicka users don't get anything of the kind. They have to lead with tiny little attacks hoping to proc one that allows them to cast their big attack with no cast, or constantly weave other spells while waiting for them to go off. It just doesn't feel the same when you run around with a sword spamming dizzying swing waiting for that right moment to pop your ults as opposed to magicka who has to weave 3-4 skills to try to output the same damage.

It just feels like everywhere I go and whatever I do I just see stamina builds left and right. PvP and PvE. Tanking and dps. It seems like the only thing magicka is good for is sustained healing.

Magicka users don't feel like they have any advantage at all over stamina users for dps or survivability and being a magicka user is just a huge drawback to the lack of stamina to be able to avoid and block damage, or break cc's.

Am I wrong? Tell me if I am but that's how the game feels.

Banana · July 2019

Gilliam prefers stamina

Sun7dance · July 2019

Billy_Badascii wrote: »

Am I wrong?

Yes!

NBrookus · July 2019

Currently I feel like the two primary melee magicka classes -- templar and DK -- can go toe to toe with stamina just fine in DPS builds in PVP with no shields nor heavy armor. Maybe a little trouble with stamblade, but that's largely because stamblade can usually successfully disengage if things aren't going well and cloak counters dots.

Evading damage is much easier on stam toons, yes. Dodge roll is very strong. But managing your limited stam is just part of playing magicka. FWIW, I run 17k mag on stamden and 15k on stamblade. So it goes both ways.

I do want a true melee magicka weapon. Skirt and stick is not how these front line mag classes should feel!

NBrookus · July 2019

P.S. Dizzying swing is easily countered, unless you are getting X'd. And everything hurts when you are getting X'd.

ChunkyCat · July 2019

No one likes Magicka users. Take your magic wand and go read a Harry Potter book.

technohic · July 2019

NBrookus wrote: »

Currently I feel like the two primary melee magicka classes -- templar and DK -- can go toe to toe with stamina just fine in DPS builds in PVP with no shields nor heavy armor. Maybe a little trouble with stamblade, but that's largely because stamblade can usually successfully disengage if things aren't going well and cloak counters dots.

Evading damage is much easier on stam toons, yes. Dodge roll is very strong. But managing your limited stam is just part of playing magicka. FWIW, I run 17k mag on stamden and 15k on stamblade. So it goes both ways.

I do want a true melee magicka weapon. Skirt and stick is not how these front line mag classes should feel!

I agree with this. A good melee magicka weapon would be great and would probably narrow the gap but the gaps not that huge. Although; I use a greatsword on mine to add to the stam management.

And, ranged magicka damage dealers in sorcs do hit really hard and good ones can kite you for days.

Sun7dance · July 2019

You know that staffs work just as well on a melee character as they do on a range one?
Now, let me try a melee character on range......oh, surprise......it doesn't work at all!

In PvE you have many mechanics which go away from the boss and makes it harder for a melee to react.
You have these situations throughout the whole game. Even the easiest dungeons like fungal grotto 1 have these kind of mechanics.

In PvP most of the fights start on range. It is also much easier to keep your opponent in sight, because your perspective is much wider.

Does anyone recognize the real imbalance here?

Runefang · July 2019

Sun7dance wrote: »

You know that staffs work just as well on a melee character as they do on a range one?
Now, let me try a melee character on range......oh, surprise......it doesn't work at all!

In PvE you have many mechanics which go away from the boss and makes it harder for a melee to react.
You have these situations throughout the whole game. Even the easiest dungeons like fungal grotto 1 have these kind of mechanics.

In PvP most of the fights start on range. It is also much easier to keep your opponent in sight, because your perspective is much wider.

Does anyone recognize the real imbalance here?

Yet in PvE stamina characters generally outparse magicka characters despite these mechanics.

Sun7dance · July 2019

Runefang wrote: »

Sun7dance wrote: »

You know that staffs work just as well on a melee character as they do on a range one?
Now, let me try a melee character on range......oh, surprise......it doesn't work at all!

In PvE you have many mechanics which go away from the boss and makes it harder for a melee to react.
You have these situations throughout the whole game. Even the easiest dungeons like fungal grotto 1 have these kind of mechanics.

In PvP most of the fights start on range. It is also much easier to keep your opponent in sight, because your perspective is much wider.

Does anyone recognize the real imbalance here?

Yet in PvE stamina characters generally outparse magicka characters despite these mechanics.

Yes, but not as much as it should be with the higher risk. Why do you think raidgroups run vas and vcr only with magickas range DD (at least during their learning phase)?

SidraWillowsky · July 2019

I agree that magicka is weaker, but I don't agree with the "stam users have it easier bc they only need one resource" argument. When I roll dodge or block on my stam chars, that draws from the resource pool that they need to be able to use their abilities. Have to sprint for too long or dodge roll a lot? I then don't have any resources to use to attack.

I play both mag and stam, so I'm not super biased either way. But yeah, I agree with your fundamental argument that mag gets the short end of the stick (which shouldn't happen for no other reason than WE USE STAVES, which are glorified sticks).

mocap · July 2019

magplar currently hit like a bulldozer.

Funny, i remember 1-2 years ago TON, just stupid amounts of complains on this forum about how ZOS hate magplars and nerf them to the ground. Meta is meta.

Vermethys · July 2019

Billy_Badascii wrote: »

Stamina is used to : cast heals, dodged roll (avoiding damage), block (avoiding more damage) break stuns (obviously useful) and attack. Wow great!

(PvP perspective) Stamina builds also need to think about their max Magicka and consumption. If you don't play any Stamina builds for yourself, watch a couple of minutes of a streamer playing on a Stamina build -- you should see that "in most cases" their Magicka needs to be carefully managed during longer or more intense fights.

4/6 class armor buffs used by Stamina characters cost magicka, and they are always used in conjunction with 1 or 2 more Magicka utility skills, with some Stamina builds being forced to run "tripots" (like Stamina Warden) if they want to achieve better results. Magicka consumption is usually high on Stamina builds, so you have to rebuff carefully, or you'll end up with no Magicka to grant yourself Major Ward/Major Resolve and you'll lose a lot of survivability by being unable to recast certain vital abilities (like Fragmented Shield, Cauterize, Critical Surge, Streak, Extended Ritual, etc.).

Billy_Badascii wrote: »

On top of that stamina users get incredibly powerful attacks and a ton of gap closers for melee.

Both Magicka and Stamina classes, if built right, have access to amazing damage potential -- even Magicka Warden and Magicka Templar, who are considered to be on the bottom of the list. The melee Magicka classes also have strong Gap-Closers, like Empowering Chains, Toppling Charge, and Lotus Fan. Some also have an easier time disengaging from fights (Streak, Shade, Cloak).

Billy_Badascii wrote: »

This means every magicka user now has to be a tank too.

Yup, everyone has to build tanky these days because damage is too high. Both Magicka and Stamina builds need to have 25k-30k resistance if they don't want to explode right away. That's unless you're a cheeky Nightblade

Saril_Durzam · July 2019

Sun7dance wrote: »

You know that staffs work just as well on a melee character as they do on a range one?
Now, let me try a melee character on range......oh, surprise......it doesn't work at all!

In PvE you have many mechanics which go away from the boss and makes it harder for a melee to react.
You have these situations throughout the whole game. Even the easiest dungeons like fungal grotto 1 have these kind of mechanics.

In PvP most of the fights start on range. It is also much easier to keep your opponent in sight, because your perspective is much wider.

Does anyone recognize the real imbalance here?

Sure, if bows didn´t exist.. right now you can make a very effective bow setup with same or even slighty superior DPS than magicka, with better resists, survability, sustain and selfhealing.

Futhermore, most trials can be done in melee range. There are just some few exceptions, so that rule really doesnt work much here in ESO.

We have to live with this. Gilliam plays stamina. Stamina will keep ruling and tbh best thing ive done is start playing my stamina toons more and more, and leaving my magicka chars away, or just healers. This is how the game works and crying wont change anything. I for once will enjoy my petsorc as it is while it last (1-2 weeks).

This is a game and i play for enjoying.

PS: magicka was the thing a couple years ago, or so i was told. I didnt read much threads from there but i bet there will be rage on stamina characters vs magicka dominance. Nothing hasn´t changed.

Saril_Durzam · July 2019

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

I agree that magicka is weaker, but I don't agree with the "stam users have it easier bc they only need one resource" argument. When I roll dodge or block on my stam chars, that draws from the resource pool that they need to be able to use their abilities. Have to sprint for too long or dodge roll a lot? I then don't have any resources to use to attack.

I play both mag and stam, so I'm not super biased either way. But yeah, I agree with your fundamental argument that mag gets the short end of the stick (which shouldn't happen for no other reason than WE USE STAVES, which are glorified sticks).

Just think it that way. You must focus on one stat. One that gives both DPS and defences. You dont need to invest on more, your pots will always give the right stat recovered, etc etc... maggicka use on stamina characters is marginal, just mostly for some buff, while maggicka users will always need stamina for dodge/block/break free. In PVP, lots of builds use tristat enchant on magicka, few do the same with stamina... something to think about.

labambao · July 2019

Don't forget that other games have round balance too, kinda tank can easy kill melee dps, melee dps can easy kill mage, mage can easy kill tank etc.
In this game its all about builds and counterbuilds, so it's all okay, no hate to magicka at all, you just got the easy countarable build or not the best.

Sun7dance · July 2019

Saril_Durzam wrote: »

Sun7dance wrote: »

You know that staffs work just as well on a melee character as they do on a range one?
Now, let me try a melee character on range......oh, surprise......it doesn't work at all!

In PvE you have many mechanics which go away from the boss and makes it harder for a melee to react.
You have these situations throughout the whole game. Even the easiest dungeons like fungal grotto 1 have these kind of mechanics.

In PvP most of the fights start on range. It is also much easier to keep your opponent in sight, because your perspective is much wider.

Does anyone recognize the real imbalance here?

Sure, if bows didn´t exist.. right now you can make a very effective bow setup with same or even slighty superior DPS than magicka, with better resists, survability, sustain and selfhealing.

Futhermore, most trials can be done in melee range. There are just some few exceptions, so that rule really doesnt work much here in ESO.

We have to live with this. Gilliam plays stamina. Stamina will keep ruling and tbh best thing ive done is start playing my stamina toons more and more, and leaving my magicka chars away, or just healers. This is how the game works and crying wont change anything. I for once will enjoy my petsorc as it is while it last (1-2 weeks).

This is a game and i play for enjoying.

PS: magicka was the thing a couple years ago, or so i was told. I didnt read much threads from there but i bet there will be rage on stamina characters vs magicka dominance. Nothing hasn´t changed.

Sorry for that missunderstanding, i always make this mistake too.
We are not talking about stamina vs. magicka. We are talking about melee vs. range! That's the real imbalance i wanted to show.
Range ist much more easier to handle in ESO.

Xarc · July 2019

nah dude,

Zos hate HYBRID builds.

JumpmanLane · July 2019

Buff resource poisons! 10% is too low. 60% was too high! 30% had fools running. People decried them for a reason. They WORKED!

Bobby_V_Rockit · July 2019

Thats why the max magicka pool for mag dps is like 40-50k and stamina is a humble 32-36k for the melee guys

Donny_Vito · July 2019

Sun7dance wrote: »

Runefang wrote: »

Sun7dance wrote: »

You know that staffs work just as well on a melee character as they do on a range one?
Now, let me try a melee character on range......oh, surprise......it doesn't work at all!

In PvE you have many mechanics which go away from the boss and makes it harder for a melee to react.
You have these situations throughout the whole game. Even the easiest dungeons like fungal grotto 1 have these kind of mechanics.

In PvP most of the fights start on range. It is also much easier to keep your opponent in sight, because your perspective is much wider.

Does anyone recognize the real imbalance here?

Yet in PvE stamina characters generally outparse magicka characters despite these mechanics.

Yes, but not as much as it should be with the higher risk. Why do you think raidgroups run vas and vcr only with magickas range DD (at least during their learning phase)?

Well, the main reason for having ranged DPS in vAS (specifically +2) is that you need to put pressure on the Minis even when you're kiting Starfall in your lane, which stamina users cannot really do unless they are a Bow/Bow build.

Emma_Overload · July 2019

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

Thats why the max magicka pool for mag dps is like 40-50k and stamina is a humble 32-36k for the melee guys

There's nothing stopping Stamina builds from stacking more Stamina than they usually do. They just prefer to stack Weapon Damage because it's massively advantageous for them to do so.

NBrookus · July 2019

Sun7dance wrote: »

Sorry for that missunderstanding, i always make this mistake too.
We are not talking about stamina vs. magicka. We are talking about melee vs. range! That's the real imbalance i wanted to show.
Range ist much more easier to handle in ESO.

Stam has exactly the same number of ranged weapons as magicka. That's a red herring.

itscompton · July 2019

NBrookus wrote: »

P.S. Dizzying swing is easily countered, unless you are getting X'd. And everything hurts when you are getting X'd.

Dizzying swing is easily countered if you are moving at the same speed or faster than your opponent, but a non-vamp MagTemp or MagDK will have a large movement speed disadvantage to most Stam players, allowing them to circle you while spamming Dizzying so you can't just walk right through the blow and when you finally run out of stam and it stuns you it's game over. I'd love to snare or root them as a counter but ZOS has decided to give stam players easy access to immunity from soft CC..

Saril_Durzam · July 2019

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

Thats why the max magicka pool for mag dps is like 40-50k and stamina is a humble 32-36k for the melee guys

That´s mostly why stamina sets receive crit and WD while mag sets receive magicka. Plus, if my skills cost less, i dont need more stamina so i can focus on what´s really giving me more damage.

I think data is what really puts everyone on its tail. RIght now parses on stamina are at least 10k over magicka ones. That must be for a reason, don´t you think?

Saril_Durzam · July 2019

We have seen many ZoS tries of standarization, id propose some:

Both stamina and magicka get same skills cost and damage. Right now my stamina toons have skill cost around 2k, while my mag ones is around 3k.

Same DPS sets, just changing stats. Magicka Relequen& Lokke, please.

Stamina gets Shields. Magicka dodge/block/break free using magicka.

Vigor scales with max resource.

Medium and Light armor receive equal passives. Light armor and Medium armor give equal armor.

Magicka receive melee weapons with same skills as Dual Wield/2Handed. Bow and Destro staff get same skill line.

Now, that would balance stamina and magicka

.

Lokey0024 · July 2019

I'm curious if there is a dodge roll glitch. On ps4 I see 6-10 normally in the "1vX"ers while they keep up vigor. And I know all about the cool down, but the stacking cost should make it impossible.

jkolb2030 · July 2019

TLDR

Basically this game patches in cycles - the last 2 cycles it was in the heaviest favor of magicka classes (magblade) putting out 80k DPS in raid settings. Magic was also exclusively favored for vAS and vCR.

Now they simply rebalanced things and stamina is pulling head for their "time in the sun" ..

It's a common cycle in every MMO, roll with it - this subject literally pops up every cycle from both stam and magicka mains.

Xvorg · July 2019

Sun7dance wrote: »

You know that staffs work just as well on a melee character as they do on a range one?
Now, let me try a melee character on range......oh, surprise......it doesn't work at all!

In PvE you have many mechanics which go away from the boss and makes it harder for a melee to react.
You have these situations throughout the whole game. Even the easiest dungeons like fungal grotto 1 have these kind of mechanics.

In PvP most of the fights start on range. It is also much easier to keep your opponent in sight, because your perspective is much wider.

Does anyone recognize the real imbalance here?

That's not entirely true. In some classes staves on melee work well (magplar), in other s(MagDK), you miss a lot of pasives that help you with a decent playing style (unless you run a frost staff on a DK which is the very same definition of an oxymoron), and finally we have melee mageblade which is the worst. And even with that, those specs are much weaker than ranged magicka/stamina builds and melee stamina builds.

Even bow melee is possible for some classes, NB has the best kit for that playing style and Templar could eventually work around it to a decent level.

The point is that when the game was designed, it had 1 class that was full melee, one class that was full range and 2 classes that could go either, melee or range. That design has been kept for 5 years with little changes, even after introducing 2 new classes which doesn't even follow the rule (both can go melee or range)

Addressing magicka as an equivalent to range is a huge mistake. Range is available to both, magicka and stamina, in the same way melee is available to magicka and stamina and what I understad from OP perspective his complains regards to how weak are magicka melee classes compared to both, Magicka/stamina ranged and Stamina melee

p00tx · July 2019

I don't think the dmg output by either spec is really all that different. Sure, high end stam generally parses 5-10k higher, which is a pretty notable margin, but those are among the rare outliers. What is different is related to what someone mentioned before. With the amount of dmg going out, players are forced to play pretty defensively in PvP, meaning shields and heavy armor and stacking into health and resistances. Both can obviously do this, as there are a LOT of tanky sets available (knock that ish off Zos. I'm tired of fighting tanks. It's boring), BUT, and here is where the difference lies, only stam can do this while still putting out huge dmg numbers.

Mag has to sacrifice pen (which I know only we have due to light armor passives, admittedly), plus our max stat dmg pool (gotta move into health and stam to survive), plus our spell dmg to be able to survive the average burst combo from a maxed player. Add to that, the shield available to light armor users isn't even worth taking up barspace for (unless you sacrifice a dmg set for Armor Master, which again causes us to lose dmg). It leaves us pretty ineffectual and makes game play pretty bland and boring. Sure, we're still alive, but what can you really do at that point besides just be really freaking annoying? Maybe we can just annoy someone until they give up on life and die to get us to go away?

The only class that can reliably get around this is Magsorc, only because their innate burst potential in insanely huge, even without maxing, plus they have the best shield in the game and their own personal LoS mechanisms as well as arguably one of the best mobility skills in the game. Every other mag class is just kinda "eh", unless you go glass cannon, which many of us have chosen to do, but at a really steep cost. I find myself having to run lvl 4 vamp and slotting invis pots so I can move in crouch and play my Magplar more like a Magblade to avoid getting my butt handed to me every time some thirsty stamboi sees my whopping 24k health and runs for the easy target (jokes on you, buttholes. I run 16k stam and RaT). It's a weird playstyle and not easy to manage, but it's really the only option you have on a legit mag spec, outside of race changing to Dunmer and respeccing for stam.

I already play both specs, and in PvE, I definitely feel how much more difficult it is to survive on stam in most 4 person content while still effectively doing dmg. It's a pretty big challenge actually. In PvP though, heavy armor stam specs are crazy easy and super rewarding to play, in terms of effectiveness in a high pressure fight. The skill floor for most PvP mag specs (barring Magsorc) is noticeably higher though.

Vapirko · July 2019

On my stamplar I use three expensive magicka abilities to stay viable in PvP and need an absolute minimum of 14k magicka to support that and would be better off with 16k. I see little difference.