During the last weeks the desire for a stam whip has risen again in the forums in oposotion to the rock toss ZoS is giving us (I don't like its animation too, but the idea has some strong points to support it). I've always been against stam whip for several reasons, such as mirroring mDK playing style, or taking away one of the morphs mDK uses for PvE or PVP.

Nevertheless there's a point few people have ever mentioned, and that has to do with the condition of whip as a spammable: it is bad. It is the worst class spammable in the game.

Ok, from a aestethic perspective I love whip. It is a beautifully designed animation, and power lash looks amazing, but it is bad, and that's why I wouldn't support a stam whip. Any weapon based spammable will do it better. Even at some point, spamming burning embers/dragon claw was better (don't you remember guys?). Nevertheless, whip (or better said, flame lash) at some point was a more than good spammable, but some painful nerfs have made it the meme it is now. Molten whip, on the other hand, has always been bad (although it used to add 100 spell dmg to all fire based skills) and even with seething fury now is just a couple steps over what it used to be, not very much

Brief History of Flame Lash Nerfs

Flame Lash before Dragon Bones

First of all, lash was a bit more expensive (beore Morrowind) and its heal wasn't that good. Nevertheless, nobody complained about it because mDK has access to emebers, which also heals. Lash was a hard hitting skill with a very risky/rewarding proc: whip stunned enemies and you will set them off balance. Whip them again to stun them.

Also you were able to use Power lash on any enemy that had an off balance given from anothe source. Tactician, or shock blockade were pretty helpful doing that (in fact, after morrowind I realised that livewire + shock staff was a much better combo to get a free powerlash, despite not using the flame staff or S/B). But the Dragon Bones came and lash started to become crap.

Dragon bones change

This was the first change : Fixed an issue where the Power Lash attack from this morph could not be dodged. At the time, few DKs complained about that, but considering all the advantages the skill had (no CD on off balance enemies, stuns, etc) it seemed a little tweak. Around that time, sould harvest got the very same nerf. What's amazing is the fact that at the time, melee magicka skills were not "dodgeable skills" because they were magicka based. In the case of lash, making it dodgeable was against the DK playing style... you MUST stun or apply a root to get the powerlash, in the case of the later, the only way to get away from the later is a dodge roll... so the impact was on playing style. No more talons to proc flame lash or you will be hitting air. Anyway, it wasn't the only nerf at the time, there are still 4 consecutive nerfs that made mDk lives a bit more misserable.

Murkmire changes
1. Decreased the range of this ability and its morphs to 5 meters from 8 meters. 3 mts less. 2 mts more through the new Elder dragon, so DKs got a 1 mt nerf. It's a class with serious mobility problems, an 8 mts range spammable wasn't doing that much dmg, but ZoS decided it was too long, so we had to stick with it. The feeling was like a buff for stam DKs range, despite they have better mobility, while nerfing the sluggish mDK.

3. Removed the stun from the Power Lash special attack That was a move that hurt Dks who didn't relied on stuns or roots to proc flame lash. Again, Lash proc conditions are obnoxious, that stun seemed like a reward. Nevertheless, ZoS justified it with this: Developer Comment: We want all classes to be intentional about when they land stuns on the enemy, and not have it coupled with an already highly damaging attack. Like lashing an already stunned/rooted enemy was a matter of luck.

5. The Power Lash special attack is no longer free, and now costs half the amount of a regular Flame Lash This was the one it hurt the most. A class that has sustain problems now has to pay to proc its special ability. But before doing that it NEEDS to spend magicka to get the enemy in position to get that special attack. In simple words you need Foss + whip to get a powerlash. Foss cost at the time around 3k magicka, same as whip, so 6k magicka for a special attack, and that special attack afer that was raised to around 7k magicka. On a melee attack. This was not a 5 light attacks to get the proc, or to get the proc by using magicka based skills. This required actual skill... but ZoS ignored that.

Whip and Ardent Lame passives (pun intended): a 5 years divorce

Passives in this game are supposed to help playes no matter if you go with PvP or PvE, for example, all passives in the Siphoning skill line help NBs, no matter if they are healers, tanks or DDs. Restoring light passives for templar have also uses for all kind of roles. Resurrecting players faster as a DD is not a bad feature either on PvE or PvP, and that's just the worst passive in that skill line.

On the contrary, Ardent Lame passives are focused on just one playing style: damage dealers. There's no support for other playing styles and the line on its own is kind of selfish. Even NBs in their dmg line provide a group buff. Ok, if the passives in the skill line are oriented to Dmg dealers, then they should be good enough, right?

But they are not. They are at bottom of the bottom, and what's worse, only 2 of them kind of help Whip.

1- Combustion: affects all flame based skills adding extra chance of proc on burning (and poison). The chance of proc those statuses is quite low, so an increase in the 50% of the chance is not a huge buff. For example, if naturally you have a 10% chance of proccing the burning status with a flame based skill, with this passive, the chance will be increased to a 15% (50% of 10). Nevertheless, it could help whip (and a supposed stam whip) proccing the status effect in aroung 1 out of 5 hits. The biggest issue with this passive is the fact that searing strike now GRANTS it, which is helpful with the buff the resource recovery part.
There's another skill that has a chance to proc the burning status on 33% base: Elemental weapon (1 out of 3) That skill beats hands down the proc chance of combustion.

2- Warmth: This passive gives a 30% snare for 3 secs. It is somewhat useful, but the effect doesn't stack with other Ardent Lame skills, so, if you are planning using whip, with embers or breath, or even chains, this passive is a waste. It won't help your whipping. In the case of sDKs, having their debuff associated to Noxious would rend the passive usless.

3- Searing heat: Nothing to see here, it clearly states the skills it helps.

4- WiR: For a flame based mDK using whip, WiR is pointless, unless you stack it with breath or another AoE flame based attack (Blockade of fire, Flame rune, maybe impulse). What's even more painful is the fact that lightning staff gives a much better buff to all AoE attacks, and Blockade of lightning could proc the off balance effect (making your power lash easier to proc).
If whip becomes a stam based skilll, this could be the only useful passive for it, giving a 12% cost reduction (proven it has been made a poison based skill). However, given ZoS nature of "Evil Genie", they would probably raise the cost of the skill to 3k stam, to make that passive reuce it to a regular level, which is what currently happens with earing strike and fiery breaath morphs. Both cost the same.

Compared that with any weapon spammable is terrible. 2H passives are more useful, I mean, Follow up has a window of 7 (yes seven) seconds to give an extra attack 10% harder. On DW, Ruffian does 25% extra dmg on stunned enemies and slaughter does extra dmg to enemies under 25% health. And I'm not even mentioned heavy weapons or twin blade and blunt.

And looking at other classes passives that interact with spammable skills is even more depressing:

NB
Veiled strike: 1) 3% extra health; 2)major ward/resolve just for using it.
Strife and drain essence: 1) 8% extra magicka just by slotting it; 2) 3% extra healing for slotting it; 3) 2 ultis per using the skill each 4 secs

Templar:
Punct strikes: 1) 10% extra crit dmg and 50% extra dmg on block just by slotting it; 2) 6 secs minor protection on use; 3) Burning light extra dmg (which also crits)
Dark Flare (not a very used spammable, but it could be): 1) 3 extra ulti each 6 secs; 2) minor sorcery for the group

Warden:
Dive and shalks: 1) 4 ulti each 8 secs 2) 12% extra magicka and stam recovery if it's slotted 3) 2% extra dmg if slotted

Necro:
Skull and blastbones: 1) 25% cost reduction on blastbones after a blastbones explodes; 2) 10% extra crit dmg on 25% health enemies; 3) increase spell/wepon pen on using a skill
Scythe: 1) 200 magicka and stamina restored pere enemy dead at 28 mts; 2) 10% reduced dmg while spamming your spammable: 3) 2% extra healing receive for slotting it

I'm not including sorcs in this summary since armaments is still being tested so the usefulness of the skill could change.

As you can see, Stam whip as a skill would be bottom tier of all stam spammables. Whip as a magicka skill is already bad but as I've said in othe threads, it is the only skill mDKs have access. In fact, when pulsar was good, that was mDK spammable. If pulsar is fixed and made again viable, I'm sure most DKs will go back to it.

What to do then?

First, if to get a decent stam whip, the passives of the class, and especially of Ardent Lame should be addressed. They are pretty lackluster for a class that relies on flame dmg (Poison to me is just a green meme). After that's addressed, we could start talking about stamwhip.

Next to that, a magicka skill which is not whip, should be turned into a magicka spammable. Since one of whip morphs is taken away, that's the obvious solution. Most class with spammable have 2 magicka spammable. DK j¿too, but is one or the other.

A side solution given by ZoS is what they are doing with stonefist. Granted, it's ugly, but the passives that are related to it are much better than the passives in Ardent Lame. In fact, they are OK when compared with other classes spammable. They do things for using your spammable skill, something current whip doesn't do. I hope they make a decen animation change to make it more appealing.

Nevertheless, despite new stone giant (with a decent animation) solves the problem of stamDK spammable, mDK will still have the problem of a spammable not supported by its passives. That's why I've been advocating last 2 years for a rework of all the passive in that skill line, and maybe some of the Draconic power skill line. Thats why I considered the auditory on class skills a failure because they made all those changes without looking into passives first. Probably they needed to revamp passives just to make some unused skills more appealing, but, they decided to build the roof before making the walls. That lead to the painful meta in patch 23, which will be destroyed on patch 24

Thanks for reading