Impressive summary well done. ZOS should definetly take a look at this.

I've been lurking here, and I do agree with it overall as well. It also fits nicely with an idea I've proposed a few times about adding more lore and in universe mythos into classes. My suggestion was with class reworks/rebalancing to give each skill three morphs relating to warrior, mage, and thief. In the lore warrior, mage, and thief as concepts are intentionally left vague and role agnostic. A warrior can be a tank or a fighter, a mage can be a healer or a dps, a thief can be supportive and utility based or selfish. My proposition was intended to similar to yours give variety of options and diversity to roles and to alleviate some of the tension of skills that currently have two desirable morphs but need adjusted in the reworks for balance sake (see the current dragonknight standard problem and the attempted rework of lighting form recently).

I do believe if we truly want to see eso have it's class system feel more like a tes game, we need to think about this sort of thing as the class changes move forward. I do genuinely believe it's possible to be more true to tes despite eso being a mmo genre wise (never liked this argument tbh) and I think there is at least a portion of the community that desires this. Personally, I have never liked rigid class systems and part of the appeal for eso to me over other mmos is the ability to customize my character to my liking combat wise. I still had some gripes, but I would strongly prefer the combat systems to move towards more freedom and not less.

Something to add based on my other times I've talked about the warrior/mage/thief skill design thoughts is it also can address unofficial/half roles. It's not talked about as much but controller is a popular sometimes considered a class/role sometimes not and honestly one of my favorite to play when the option exists. They offer less raw damage in exchange for zone control/area denial and/or high cc pressure. Obviously how cc works in eso that one is a bit complicated but another "half role" you mentioned in your post fits juggernauts/skirmishers who are a damage role that is more tanky than others but also not a traditional tank per say as most of their tankiness is often selfish or to draw out a fight via attrition. There are more but those two def have been almost viable or niche in eso from time to time so they are the first to come to mind.

Just wanted to hop in because I don't want people with cool, creative ideas to get demoralized. Great post and I do hope ZOS looks at it and thinks about it in regards to class changes and combat direction.

This argument assumes encounter design should compensate for class and resource imbalance.
That’s backwards.

Armor values, drains, and mechanics are multipliers — skills are the source.

When stamina morphs disproportionately grant Major buffs and status effects on direct or AoE delivery, while magicka morphs frequently trade those buffs for healing or flavour, no amount of boss armor or drain mechanics fixes the underlying disparity.

If magicka DPS only becomes relevant when encounters are artificially tuned to favour it, then the system itself is not balanced. A fair system does not require content to prop one side up.

This approach also does nothing to address PvP balance.
PvP has no encounter scripting, no selective armor values, no resource-draining bosses, and no mechanic assignment based on stats.
Any imbalance in PvP comes directly from skill design and resource coupling.
If stamina builds dominate because their morphs grant more Major buffs, status effects, and direct delivery while sharing the same resource for offense and defense, no amount of PvE encounter design can correct that.

I mean you can point out the disparity in PvP all you want but ZoS is likely to just implement Vengeance and make it so class skills use mag and weapon skills use stam, and roll dodge/block/break free being the main stam drain, and balance things that way. Most games do it this way, they have a "mana" bar to limit skills and a "stam" bar to limit defense movement. ESO is unique in that you can slot some stamina draining skills, and customize the pool size of mag and stam, but if it makes balancing too hard then I wouldn't be surprised if ZOS nukes the whole thing and sticks to a more standardized design.

Interesting ChatGPT-style response. Can you answer why should ZoS care about balancing stam's damage vs. mag's damage when they're currently focused on class reworks? Why should mag specs have better support/self-heal capabilities and do the same damage as stam specs?

Also, arcanist's class design does not have equality. Magarc is considered a worse dps to play than stamarc, despite similar damage and implementing some of the suggestions. Why is that?

Only half of arc's skills scale with max resource, so it leads to stamarc having a better balance between mag/stam drain, and the bloated Ceph flail stam morph has better defensive capabilities. Magarc is left in the dust and runs out of stam too quickly with Flail spam and Fulmanating rune's stam cost, to survive in live content, and also a more expensive magicka beam, so their primary resource is also being strained more than the stam version. Magarc has the capability to spam shields, but content has been powercrept so bad that DPS slotting a self-shield hasn't been a thing in years, and they just outsource healing to the healer. If they really need a defense boost, then Resolving Vigor is enough.

Traditionally, stam specs were squishier and had less defensive capabilites, and had to play in close range, in exchange for better damage and lower skill costs. Mag specs had better defensive capabilities. That's why some people prefer one playstyle over another. So why does content not need dps to slot more self-sustain and defense anymore? Why do people stack as much damage as possible and why is using stam spec less punishing than mag?

SugaComa wrote: »

To better explain why this is a skills parity issue I ran through the spammables for each class

The pattern is clear across all 7 classes: Stamina morphs dominate with offensive personal buffs

• (Major Brutality/Sorcery = +20% WD/SD), enemy debuffs
• (Major/Minor Breach = 5948/2974 resist shred,
• Maim = 8-15% enemy dmg taken reduce,
• Sundered/Hemorrhage = extra resist shred/status procs), executes, and CC (Off Balance).

Magicka morphs get self/group heals/HoTs, sustain, or minor utility—pushing mag into "healer-DPS" hybrids.
This stacks multiplicatively with dynamic scaling, medium armor (7% WD), and bow procs,
making stam burst 15-30% higher in PvP/PvE trials.

Spammables & Key Utility Morphs Comparison
Focus on spammables (core rotation ~40-50% DPS) + high-impact utility (DOTs/executes/buffs).

Arcanist

• Stam Spammable: Cephaliarch's Flail (Herald)
  - AOE physical damage
  - Self-heal
  - Execute under 25%
  - Crux generation
  - 5% damage buff (20s)
• Mag Spammable: Pragmatic Fatecarver
  - Channeled magicka beam
  - No heal, buff, or debuff
• Stam Advantage: Massive — best overall spammable (AOE + heal + buff). Mag is fragile.

Dragonknight

• Stam Spammable: Venomous Claw (Ardent Flame)
  - Physical DoT
  - Minor Maim (8% enemy damage reduction)
• Mag Spammable: Flame Lash (Whip)
  - Massive self-heal on Off Balance
• Stam Advantage: PvP: Maim enables burst windows. PvE: stam procs outperform.

Necromancer

• Stam Spammable: Ruinous Scythe (Bone Tyrant)
  - Bleed execute
  - Off Balance (7s)
  - Hemorrhage proc
• Mag Spammable: Hungry Scythe
  - Strong self-heal
• Stam Advantage: Defense + CC — Brawler shield + Off Balance beats mag sustain.

Nightblade

• Stam Spammable: Surprise Attack (Assassination)
  - Major Breach (5948 resistance shred)
  - Guaranteed crit from stealth
• Mag Spammable: Swallow Soul (Siphoning)
  - Ranged heal spammable
• Stam Advantage: Burst king — shred + crit = 20–30% more damage.

Sorcerer

• Stam Spammable: Crystal Weapon (Dark Magic)
  - Physical burst
  - Major Sorcery (+20% Spell Damage)
• Mag Spammable: Crystal Fragments
  - Proc-based mag burst
  - No buff attached
• Stam Advantage: Buff applies universally — strongest hybrid flex.

Templar

• Stam Spammable: Biting Jabs (Aedric Spear)
  - Major Brutality & Sorcery (+20% WD/SD for 10s)
  - Sundered proc (resistance shred)
• Mag Spammable: Puncturing Sweep
  - Heals for 25% of damage done
• Stam Advantage: Snowball design — dual Major buffs + shred > healing. Classic imbalance.

Warden

• Stam Spammable: Cutting Dive / Cliff Racer
  - Dive damage
  - Hemorrhage proc chance
• Mag Spammable: Deep Fissure
  - AOE delayed burst
• Stam Advantage: Utility monster — stam Fetcher Infection gives Minor Vulnerability (8% dmg taken).

• Personal Buffs: Stam gets Majors (20%) on spams (Jabs, Crystal Weapon) → 1.2x dmg amp uptime 100%. Mag: None.
• Debuffs: Stam shreds ~10k+ resists (Breach + Sundered/Maim) + Off Bal stuns → your group bursts 25%+ harder.
• PvP Impact: Stam snowball (debuff → kill → less counterplay). Mag survives brawls but can't kill solo.
• PvE: Stam parses 140k+ trials; mag ~120k (addon tooltip mag higher, but procs/armor win).
• Exceptions: DK mag heals strong solo; Sorc mag pets easy. But meta = stam.

Buff & Effect Distribution (Stam vs Mag)

• Self-Buffs (Major buffs / % damage on spammable / utility)
  - Stamina: 4
  (Jabs ×2, Crystal Weapon ×1, Cephaliarch's Flail ×1)
  - Magicka: 0
  - Multiplier Impact: ∞× (100% exclusive access)
  
• Enemy Debuffs
  (Breach / Maim / Sundered / Off Balance / Hemorrhage)
  - Stamina: 6
  - Magicka: 0
  - Multiplier Impact: 6×
  
• Heals / HoTs
  - Stamina: 2 (minor)
  - Magicka: 7
  - Relative Weight: Magicka ≈ 3.5×

Conclusion: How This Imbalance Plays Out

• Damage Reality:
  Stamina builds stack personal Major buffs (+20%), constant enemy debuffs, and execute pressure.
  In real combat this results in ~20–25% higher effective DPS than Magicka builds.
  
• Multiplicative Snowball:
  Stam damage is amplified by:
  - Self-buffs (100% uptime)
  - Resistance shred (Breach + Sundered)
  - Off Balance / CC windows
  These effects multiply together, not add — creating 25%+ burst spikes.
  
• Magicka Trade-Off:
  Magicka morphs trade damage for heals, HoTs, or sustain.
  This improves survival but does not convert into kill pressure or burst windows.
  
• PvP Outcome:
  Stam kills faster → removes counterplay → snowballs fights.
  Mag survives longer but cannot reliably secure solo kills.
  
• PvE Outcome:
  Stam parses consistently outperform Mag in trials and arenas.
  Even when tooltip damage favors Mag, armor passives and proc scaling push Stam ahead.
  
• Design Cause:
  Subclassing magnified an existing asymmetry:
  - Stam morphs = damage multipliers
  - Mag morphs = sustain tools
  There is no morph symmetry at the spammable level.
  
• Net Effect:
  “Play your way” becomes:
  - Stamina = damage dealer
  - Magicka = healer-DPS hybrid
  Choice is no longer neutral; outcomes are pre-determined.

While I agree with your general premise, a lot of this is not functionally correct. Arcanist is a bit of an anomaly in all regards. Runeblades or Flail are your spammable. If you use Cephalarch's you are doing that to stack crux then beaming which scales off max resource. If you are using runeblades it is based off max resource and you are using it to stack crux before using the mag flail. Honestly, arcanist's spammable and skills as max/min resource should have been used with dk and should see use in other classes as a somewhat solution to some other problems.

Whip is the spammable in dk. Claw isn't really one, stonefist has been and also is a stam morph so it's a better comparison.

Necromancer is also off. Scythe is largely used by tanks for sustain in pve and scales off health (a rare health based spammable). Flame skull, which has a mag or stam morph with venom skull or ricochet skull.

Veiled Strike has a stam and mag morph and in pve the mag morph is preferred right now due to the "deals increased damage while leaving sneak/invisble" and how that interacts with dark cloak which a nightblade can cast to proc it. Swallow soul is a weird edge case of a reverse of what you say where it has two mag morphs, one that was gutted years ago and doesn't see play and swallow soul that has fallen out of favor but still has at least an advantage of being one of the longest range spammables in game.

Sorc technically has no mag spammable because nobody casts crystal frags until it has the free nonchanneled proc so here is a weird edge case of stam spammable vs random burst added on. This is why historically sorerers have used weapon spammables like force pulse.

Warden is wrong for the same reason dk is. Deep Fissure is not a spammable it's delayed burst. Cutting dive vs Screaming Cliff Racer is stam vs mag.

Again, you are leaving out a lot of spammables and calling things spammables that aren't. The full picture helps. I admit some classes like nb and arcanist are better than others for this (though there are still some problems). It'd be better to make your point without glaring inaccuracies because it makes it hard to talk about the actual problem.

Edit: just saw the chatgpt part...this was an issue in another thread recently so I want to point out chatGPT is very out of date with eso information and largely incorrect in it's printouts. Ethics and all aside, it's usually wrong in regards to eso stuff so please be mindful of that. M0r does a good job in detail of pointing that out and why here.

I like the jabs example since I think it most succinctly highlights the issue. On the surface it looks like a pretty fair choice - you can get more sustain or more offensive buffs. It thematically makes sense (kind of, the thematic and functional difference between mag and stam has been eroding year over year, but that's a whole 'nother story) and is a solid choice.

To be more specific:
- There's a heck-ton of absorb shields and even more HoTs than there were originally. Death, in both PvE and PvP at this point, comes in the form of high burst 99% of the time (insofar as I can gather, at any rate). How is ZOS supposed to endanger someone in PvE who has lord-knows-how-many stacks of absorb shields and HoTs beneath skyrocketing their effective HP and the amount of damage required to kill them? This makes the healing from the mag morph just redundant - it won't be making much of a difference (if any, maybe, but I don't want to speak in an absolute here).
- Stam jabs has stuff that can't really be reduced or interacted with. PvE and PvP opponents aren't exactly purging the Major buffs players have or purging their debuffs (even in PvP, at this point here are so many debuffs, so easily applied, that stuff on a spammable damage skill is going to have high uptime).
- Meanwhile the mag morph heal is reduced. The player can be debuffed by major/minor defile, the target can block, have high defense (armor, major/minor prot, etcetc, plus battle spirit, so it gets double/triple/etc whammied).

I personally prefer mag builds. I like magplar and really enjoy damage->healing mechanics and builds that revolve around them, but at this point I don't know how high the heal% would have to be to make it worthwhile...Maybe the heal could be split into a heal and stacking small absorb or something? Idk. It'd help have one part (small absorb that stacks up per hit, doesn't scale with multiple enemies) that isn't hit by as many. It'd also help make the heal more valuable, but also make the defensive bit of the morph still valuable even in the current design state of pve and pvp. There are plenty of ways to go about this. I also want to re-highlight the huge amount of value having a main damage spammable skill providing Major Sorc/Brutality. It saves a lot of 'space' in a build and makes the skill very effect-dense. Although in this case, I think it's more a matter of the state of the game and other mechanics making the mag morph less valuable over the stam morph being too strong, it's still worth considering how anet has allocated major/minor buffs and debuffs to particular skills, and how the presence or lack of them forces a build to make certain choices or doesn't force them to make that choice. I think there's also some extra nuance here where the heal effect from jabs is less valuable since ESO PvP combat cycles through offensive and defensive/recovery windows to some extent, making the heal less valuable since if you *need* healing you're spamming a burst heal, not jabbing...So the heal isn't doing much there. It will help sustain and provide another layer of defense, but it's limited in that regard - gotta stay on the offensive to get continued benefit, and that just isn't feasible in pvp.

Anyway. @ OP I think you're on the right track ,just the AI posting has muddled what you're trying to say a bit, as others have mentioned. When ZOS gets to templar, I really hope they take these factors into account. It feels like I'm punished just for liking certain mechanics and preferring magicka builds. It's also worth noting the power creep and how it impacts these mechanics, increasing the value of some mechanics/effects while diminishing others. ESO has a lot of problems that tie in together, unfortunately.