Can someone explain Stamina to me?

sammeh1991 · October 2020

I know this sounds like a silly question given that the tooltips in-game tell me about Stamina but I'm confused.

So I understand Health, that's easy. Some skills scale off health, I've learned that too.
Magicka is easy, increases effectiveness of Magicka Abilities and increases your Magicka pool to pull off more casts.

Abilities throughout cost Magicka and yet I'm hearing "As a Nightblade you want to be putting your points into Stamina. So I am. Yet I do not understand it.

Are my dual-wield weapon swings hitting more with increased Stamina? Is it effectively "strength" or "agility" from other games we are familiar with?

I want to be a sneaky sneak, a stabby stab then run away with jewels and a contract complete. I don't want to really be opening a fight with 4 enemies and face tanking them.

Thanks all

zaria · October 2020

Stamina affect dual wield, 2 hand and bow weapon damage, also some class skills can be converted to stamina.
It works the same way as magic skills except stamina skills is based on stamina and weapon damage and weapon crit.

Stamina is also used to sprint, dodge, break free and blocking except with staffs.
If you play an stamina build you might still use some magic bases abilities for buffs or utilities like Shadowy Disguise.

Danikat · October 2020

The simple answer is that stamina is exactly the same as magicka, but for non-magical abilities. If you want to throw a fireball at your enemy you have to use magicka to do so, if you want to fire an arrow at them instead you use stamina.

It also affects how long you can run for, and how often you can dodge roll.

Abhaya · October 2020

Hey there welcome to ESO!

The easiest way to look at this is to see what resource a skill uses.

If it uses stamina it will be boosted by stamina and weapon damage. If it uses magicka it will be boosted by magicka and spell damage.

Focus on the resource the skill uses and not what it actually does as ESO makes this weird. For example, I have a stamina based sorcerer who uses a skill that covers me in lightning. You would think is a magicka spell but in this case it uses stamina and is improved when I increase my stamina and weapon damage.

eKsDee · October 2020

General rule of thumb for skills is that whatever resource pool the skill uses to cast, that's the stat pool the skill scales with.

A skill that uses stamina to cast will scale off stamina-related stats (ie max stamina, weapon damage, weapon crit, physical penetration, physical resistance), while a skill that uses magicka to cast will scale off magicka-related stats (ie max magicka, spell damage, spell crit, spell penetration, spell resistance). Ditto for CP scaling.

Some skills may cost a particular resource to cast, but may scale with the highest stat pool. Ultimates are probably the best example, as they will always scale with the highest stat pool. Dragonknight's Inferno is another good example, as it costs magicka to cast, but scales with the highest stat pool. Soul Trap is an interesting example, as not only does it scale with the highest stat pool, but it also changes the damage type accordingly, such that higher stamina-related stats will deal physical damage, while higher magicka-related stats will deal magic damage. Generally, skills will mention that they scale this way in the tooltip, all except ultimates.

Currently on the live servers, weapon light/heavy attacks will also scale with whatever resource pool corresponds to the weapon type, ie staves will scale with magicka-related stats, while melee weapons and bows will scale with stamina-related stats. The upcoming Markarth patch will be changing this, such that weapon light/heavy attacks will scale with the highest stat pool, but it's still good to know for right now.

Iselin · October 2020

sammeh1991 wrote: »

Abilities throughout cost Magicka and yet I'm hearing "As a Nightblade you want to be putting your points into Stamina. So I am. Yet I do not understand it.

Class abilities all start as magicka but many of them can be morphed into stamina abilities. This is a historical bias in ESO and there was a time when class abilities didn't even have stamina morphs.

Weapon abilities OTOH are either all magicka (for staves) or all stamina whether morphed or not.

The effectiveness of any skill you slot is impacted by the Stamina and Weapon damage stats or magicka and spell damage ones with a few skills scaling off health. The description of each base skill or morph will tell you which.

For most builds you want to stack one or the other with your attribute points and gear. Hybrid builds that have some of both are rare and usually only done for tanking although there are some gear sets (e.g. Pelinal's Aptitude https://eso-sets.com/set/pelinals-aptitude ) that let you do hybrid builds for DD purposes.

If you're new to the game pay attention to the skill advisor pane - and don't just accept the default "general" recommendation. Click on the gear icon and pick one of the more specific builds, Stamina DD in your case, and that will recommend the skills and morphs you should be using. It's not perfect but it'll point you in the right direction.

ArchMikem · October 2020

Whoever told you plainly "Put points into Stamina cause you're a Nightblade" is a terrible teacher. Every Class can either be Magic or Stamina, whichever you choose to play. You have the right idea about Magicka, just apply the same logic to Stamina.

Yes your Max Stamina affects your Physical/Poison/Disease based attacks. One Handed weapons (even dual wielded) do Physical damage when light and heavy attacking. That's just swinging them. More Stamina means more damage output. It also works in concert with your base Weapon Damage value too.

Donny_Vito · October 2020

Good info above. You'll also find your Max is different between Magic and Stam.

For Stam, you'd like to be around 30 - 35k.
For Magc, 35 - 40k

You'll usually have a higher Weapon Damage than you'd have Spell Damage, though, which makes up.

MirandaSharp · October 2020

Magicka Nightblades are all the rage lately for solo builds.. I'd say decide what sort of character you'd like to play... Will you be the sort to throw a magic spell on your enemy to kill them(magicka) or would you rather club them on their head or stab them in the back(stamina)?

Don't care about what people tell you just read what each skill do and and try them out and you'll find what you like and don't like. Also please stay away from "power levelling" and just take your time to find your own playstyle. Do the questlines and just enjoy the game.

Diminish · October 2020

If you are building to be a damage dealer, and plan to do group PvE content at an end game level, you will want to dump all points into magicka on mag characters, and all points into stamina on stam characters... its pretty brainless unfortunately. If you are building for more of a solo style play, you may want to make more of a hybrid build (depending on your character choice), which usually entails putting more points into your main attribute (stamina/magicka) but putting some into health and maybe a few into your off attribute.

MirandaSharp · October 2020

Diminish wrote: »

If you are building to be a damage dealer, and plan to do group PvE content at an end game level, you will want to dump all points into magicka on mag characters, and all points into stamina on stam characters... its pretty brainless unfortunately. If you are building for more of a solo style play, you may want to make more of a hybrid build (depending on your character choice), which usually entails putting more points into your main attribute (stamina/magicka) but putting some into health and maybe a few into your off attribute.

I think for someone who's new to the game, it's most important to just have fun and enjoy it. It's only when you hit level 50cp160 that you need to think about how to specialize the character.. Before then you'll be running with whatever gear you get from your questing etc. I think just role playing the character and having fun with it is the best way to understand the game. sammeh1991 needs to come back to this forum when he's lvl 50cp160... It's an odd experience for new players when they find out that putting 20-50 hours into the game means they haven't even started. After 500+ hours they're still "beginners"... With most other games after about 20-30 hours gameplay you finished it!