Running, Blocking, Sneaking and Dodging uses Stamina. You simply dont run out of those as fast on a Stamchar.

There are a couple of builds that encourage stamina. Arcanist is the top example, as Cephaliarc’s Flail is the best class spammable and always costs stamina. Stam Arcanist also has the advantage of Fulminating Rune costing Magicka, while Mag Arcanist’s rune costs stamina and leads to unmanageable stamina drain (along with flail, barbed trap, cloak, etc.).

Sorcerer is another build that hits higher peaks on Stamina builds. This is primarily due to the skill “Bound Armaments” which increases the stamina pool by 8%, and therefore increases all skill damage for stam builds without helping mag builds. Stam Sorc also synergizes well with stamina skills like Rapid Strikes, especially when using the Maelstrom Greatsword on the back bar. Magicka sorcerer lacks a good spammable, and most just hard cast Crystal Fragments (which works ok on a dummy, but not so good in difficult content that requires blocking/dodging).

It just seems strange that certain magicka classes significantly outperform their stamina counterpart, and vice-versa. I’m also approaching this from a solo vs. group dynamic, where magicka vastly outperforms stamina in solo content from my experience.

Hybridization has changed certain skill use, but in PvE there still is very much a “stamina or magicka” identity. At some point, you have to pick the larger resource pool, so you’ll end up with one or the other realistically. I’ve tried slotting concealed weapon over surprise attack on a stamblade, and I just don’t have the resource sustain to keep it up. I just wish there was equal parts survivability and utility to both stamina and magicka variations, but except for a few stamina outliers, it seems magicka still reigns supreme.

i feel like stam characters are easier to play and deal more dmg

that being said i have some mag characters too, but they usually either feel more complex to play or less effective than my stam characters

most characters can be designed as a focus on either setup, but as noted sustain is a big thing

if you are running medium armor, your going to have significantly better stam sustain than mag sustain

@SmellyUnlimited, you seem to be a solo PvE nightblade. Sure. I'd be a magblade. The thing is, when people talk about stamina being better, they usually talk about the trial meta, whether they are conscious of it, or not. There's a simple reason for that. Veteran trials are the most competitive form of PvE with the most player coordination required. This stuff actually matters, there. The trial meta is the best known and documented form of PvE. Solo play, on the other hand, completely flies under the radar. People often, falsely IMO, use trial builds for solo play or, at least, they IMO lean too far in that direction. And by "people" I mean new players or those that are not deeply versed in buildcrafting. I think many such players are overwhelmed and look for the single armor set / class / race combination that will do them for a while, or they are simply not interested in buildcrafting at all. The content that's most fully explored, for which people make spreadsheets, for which you can clearly say X is better than Y in some cases, is trials. Since new players look for these clear judgements, they end up with trial or close to trial builds when, IMO, they shouldn't. This is exacerbated by the fact that experienced players, Alcast and the like, may very well steamroll all content, or certainly the solo arenas, with such builds. However that doesn't mean those builds are good for you, or that they are the best for soloing all soloable content.

Sure, content creators may also provide solo builds, but there's more scope for individuality here, because the content, including vMA and vVateshran, is simply not as hard as a hardmode trial, nor does it require you to fit in with what your tanks, healers and the other DDs are doing. As a consequence I find that the things that truly work well in solo play, the kind of solo play that pushes beyond the solo arenas, is relatively underexplored.

You're right about magicka builds typically having better self-healing. Nightblade and templar are both prime examples of that, since they heal from their spammables, although I find nightblade the squishier of the two with directly equivalent builds. On the other hand, the stamina equivalent of a magplar is arguably a Master's 2H Brawler build, specifically a sorc, and that beats the crap out of both magplar and magblade in terms of survivability, albeit at the expense of single target damage. When it come to stamina, you have to know your weapon skills and their corresponding arena weapons. They play a greater role with stamina than with magicka builds. Brawler gives you massive shielding. A lot of dual-wield skills heal you from damage. The latter just aren't as good as the class skills that magicka builds have, but they're there.

When it comes to trials, things are different. Magicka classes typically wear light armor for the sustain. This gives you crit % (good) and penetration (questionable). On it's own, in solo play, or in PvP, the penetration is actually very good. In trial groups, however, tanks typically provide as much as 14K all the way up to 18.2K, e.g. full penetration, on an hypothetical Arcanist tank. This mainly has to do with the availability of Crimson Oath Rive, a meta tanking set for the main tank. Magicka builds, other than heavy attack builds, are typically stuck with light armor, which they need for the sustain. However, in a modern trial group, the penetration bonus provided by that armor can partially or fully go to waste. The weapon / spell damage from medium armor, on the other hand, does not. There is no cap on it.

Then there's Arcanist. That class can switch the resource for the same morph of some skills, based on the largest resource pool. However, in keeping with the theory that you need stamina for core combat, e.g. for blocking, dodging, sprinting, and so on, stamina morphs are generally some 20%, or so, cheaper than magicka morphs. Aside from Flail being the preferred spammable between Fatecarvers, the preceding fact also makes stamina Arcanists inherently cheaper to run than magicka in a trial context. You simply use less core combat resources, there, than in other content, especially in those boss fights that are little more than trial dummy parses. Cheaper skills mean you can invest more into damage elsewhere in the build. This is one of the reasons that makes stamina Arcanist the preferred flavor of that class.

For pure Solo PvE, there is arguably only a small difference between Mag and Stam. And it derives from your armor weight choice.

Hello! Hybridization, anyone?

The question is always: How do you want to play it?

The question about Nightblade is ridiculous, because you would use almost the same abilities for damage and survivability on both Stam and Mag Blade and use the almost identical mixture of Stam and Mag morphs.
MagBlade just has a damage advantage because of +8%MaxMagicka and Major Berserk. That is why most players stack into Magicka. Even if they at the same time stack into stamina regeneration to sustain their stamina consumption, because they use mostly stamina abilities.

It's basically the counterpart to what @WrathOfInnos says about the StamSorc. Some classes have a clear damage or survivability advantage on one side of the tracks, but not the other. That can be due to passives or overloaded abilities like Cephaliarchs Flail or Puncturing Sweeps.

On the other hand, I see no structual difference between Mag and Stam DK. StamDK has more Weapon Damage, but MagDK has more pen and crit. But is that really the case?
These are stats that differ mostly because of your set and armor weight choice and not because you have integrally different abilities. And both have the minor brutality buff, meaning both will have their abilities' damage scale off weapon damage stat. It will always be higher than spell damage.
The rotations are also pretty much identical.

Hybridization, yeah!

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

There are a couple of builds that encourage stamina. Arcanist is the top example, as Cephaliarc’s Flail is the best class spammable and always costs stamina. Stam Arcanist also has the advantage of Fulminating Rune costing Magicka, while Mag Arcanist’s rune costs stamina and leads to unmanageable stamina drain (along with flail, barbed trap, cloak, etc.).

Sorcerer is another build that hits higher peaks on Stamina builds. This is primarily due to the skill “Bound Armaments” which increases the stamina pool by 8%, and therefore increases all skill damage for stam builds without helping mag builds. Stam Sorc also synergizes well with stamina skills like Rapid Strikes, especially when using the Maelstrom Greatsword on the back bar. Magicka sorcerer lacks a good spammable, and most just hard cast Crystal Fragments (which works ok on a dummy, but not so good in difficult content that requires blocking/dodging).

My sorc doesn't use frags. But I'm running an oakensoul ha build.

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i feel like stam characters are easier to play and deal more dmg

that being said i have some mag characters too, but they usually either feel more complex to play or less effective than my stam characters

most characters can be designed as a focus on either setup, but as noted sustain is a big thing

if you are running medium armor, your going to have significantly better stam sustain than mag sustain

Agreed. In general, stam specs almost always deal more damage.

ADarklore wrote: »

They really need to do the Arcanist treatment to the other classes. Let skills be based on "max" or "min" resource.

My magic user Arcanist has all points in Stamina.

Homogenization is a wonderful thing. I don't need to care where I put attributes.

Is Bound Armaments good, never try it on stamina?[/quote]

I use it as a flex spot, but generally it’s pretty good. 8% stam, can be used after 5 attacks for a lower burst type of merciless resolve, and also has passives from the Daedric skill like for having it slotted on your bar. Limited room on bars for stam sorc since they have so many good tools you want to have barred (Hurricane, Crit surge, dark deal), then your weapon skills if running 2Hander like Carve, Reverse Slice, and Wrecking blow (or stampede if using a maelstrom 2Hander).

Running solo it’s even worse, since you basically need to slot caltrops too to get major breach.

yadibroz wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

There are a couple of builds that encourage stamina. Arcanist is the top example, as Cephaliarc’s Flail is the best class spammable and always costs stamina. Stam Arcanist also has the advantage of Fulminating Rune costing Magicka, while Mag Arcanist’s rune costs stamina and leads to unmanageable stamina drain (along with flail, barbed trap, cloak, etc.).

Sorcerer is another build that hits higher peaks on Stamina builds. This is primarily due to the skill “Bound Armaments” which increases the stamina pool by 8%, and therefore increases all skill damage for stam builds without helping mag builds. Stam Sorc also synergizes well with stamina skills like Rapid Strikes, especially when using the Maelstrom Greatsword on the back bar. Magicka sorcerer lacks a good spammable, and most just hard cast Crystal Fragments (which works ok on a dummy, but not so good in difficult content that requires blocking/dodging).

Is Bound Armaments good, never try it on stamina?

Yes, they are good. Run it in PVE and PVP.

yadibroz wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

There are a couple of builds that encourage stamina. Arcanist is the top example, as Cephaliarc’s Flail is the best class spammable and always costs stamina. Stam Arcanist also has the advantage of Fulminating Rune costing Magicka, while Mag Arcanist’s rune costs stamina and leads to unmanageable stamina drain (along with flail, barbed trap, cloak, etc.).

Sorcerer is another build that hits higher peaks on Stamina builds. This is primarily due to the skill “Bound Armaments” which increases the stamina pool by 8%, and therefore increases all skill damage for stam builds without helping mag builds. Stam Sorc also synergizes well with stamina skills like Rapid Strikes, especially when using the Maelstrom Greatsword on the back bar. Magicka sorcerer lacks a good spammable, and most just hard cast Crystal Fragments (which works ok on a dummy, but not so good in difficult content that requires blocking/dodging).

Is Bound Armaments good, never try it on stamina?

Yes, they are good. Run it in PVE and PVP.

I'm a magic sorcerer which never try it with stamina sorcerer and never try magic night blade so I wanna ask you which of the two version for both class is better for pve and pvp?

I would say a magblade is superior to a stamblade. Easier to play and the magicka morphs are better. Sorcs are a little different. In my opinion, a stam sorc is superior to a mag sorc, but an Oakensorc (one bar mag sorc with Oakensoul ring) is comparable to a stam sorc, and may outperform a stam sorc, if you aren't strong on your rotation.

I found controlling a magicka nightblade easier on PC with a mouse as I need to strafe. Stamina nightblade is better /easier on Xbox using the controller.

I didn't think it would make any difference.