Stamina vs magicka: Has this been acknowledged for balancing?

orangeman57ub17_ESO · June 2014

Most of the balancing efforts from zenimax have been changing of class abilities to balance the 4, but I haven't read anywhere about anything to do with stamina based builds. I'm sure everyone is aware that light armor magicka builds > medium/heavy armor weapon builds so I wont get into too much detail on that topic.

The way I see it is:
1. either light armor or magicka skills are going to keep getting nerfed until they are at the level stamina skills are on.
2. Once the classes are more rounded, stamina will get buffed to be more competitive with magicka
3. Magicka will get decreased and stamina will get increased to meet somewhere in the middle.
4. (My least favorite) they will leave it where it is with magicka/light armor being the better option for most builds.

I like to play the spell sword type in heavy/medium armor that uses melee/bow with a few spells/buffs, but after experimenting with staves and light armor, it's more ideal to go with a magicka centric build. Dps, tank, healer roles are just better in robes no matter how I look at it.

Getting back on my topic: has zenimax admitted that this imbalance is in fact an issue? I see a lot of "fixing class issues" but this isn't entirely a class imbalance. This post may be a little redundant but I just wanted to know if anyone had any info on this that I havnt seen.

Obscure · June 2014

Simple answer: Nope

They're going to continue nerfing down skills instead of reigning in the resource inequality so that existing Stamina based builds that use just a few Magicka skills will eventually be totally garbage, and the Magicka based builds that use all Magicka skills will just be less effective, yet still superior in all aspects of game play.

They keep talking "class balancing", but they're only actually "mage balancing" whilst everything that isn't using that play style is overtly sub-optimal.

methjester · June 2014

Even if they did. At their rate of fixing things look at a total balance by... 2016.

SBR_QuorTek · June 2014

As long as they tone down the OP stuff magicka wise it is ok (don't get me wrong), there is some stuff that should not be THAT effective as it is... alot of the stamina stuff is quite usefull too, don't neglect it... but personally I prefere a mix of magicka skils and stamina skills, seem to work flawlessly well, in other words the going full something either way is stupid unless you are a full magicka class like a sorcere or the likes.

yelloweyedemon · June 2014

They should just tone down the light armour - staff thing. No I don't want them to buff the stamina or other lines. This is a typical MMO mistake. They keep boosting things up and forget about the rest of the environment... It ends up with the player being able to faceroll all the leveling content while playing with 1 hand and having no gear.

Worstluck · June 2014

The only thing I've ever seen them say anything about the subject was here:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/976369#Comment_976369

Apparently the main problem with stamina builds are set bonuses

Obscure · June 2014

SBR_QuorTek wrote: »

As long as they tone down the OP stuff magicka wise it is ok (don't get me wrong), there is some stuff that should not be THAT effective as it is... alot of the stamina stuff is quite usefull too, don't neglect it... but personally I prefere a mix of magicka skils and stamina skills, seem to work flawlessly well, in other words the going full something either way is stupid unless you are a full magicka class like a sorcere or the likes.

Fun fact, every class is a full Magicka class.

Mix it up all you want, your completely within your rights to do so, I do myself. But don't lie to yourself and presume it's anywhere near as optimal as wearing a dress and using a stick...its offensive how much better my build is when I remove my Stamina skills for Magicka alternatives, wear a dress instead of manly leathers, and put down my swords and bow for an R-staff and a D-staff. I go from struggling with VR10 world bosses to deliberately pulling them plus adds just to be entertained.

gronbek · June 2014

I reported this in a mail to ZoS and the reply was that there is no notes or plans what so ever to balance stamina builds.

leandro.800ub17_ESO · June 2014

Again looks like best option is soft cap calculations based on armor type
This way no specific class is nefed or boosted

Gisgo · June 2014

Sort of. They said they are looking into making the "stamina" gear sets better.

Tankqull · June 2014

orangeman57ub17_ESO wrote: »

Most of the balancing efforts from zenimax have been changing of class abilities to balance the 4, but I haven't read anywhere about anything to do with stamina based builds. I'm sure everyone is aware that light armor magicka builds > medium/heavy armor weapon builds so I wont get into too much detail on that topic.

The way I see it is:
1. either light armor or magicka skills are going to keep getting nerfed until they are at the level stamina skills are on.

well they are on comparable lvls stamina cost is reduced by 20% (provided in every weapon line) vs 21% if 7/7 is LA regenrates are caped in both ways aswell the problem infact is the itemisation no magica furnace or warlock pendant for stamina, and no skill version for stamina of equilibrium and dark exchange. on the other hand skills that would replenish stamina are horribly implemented and due to dimnishing returns (radiant aura e.g.) rather worthless. and that all defensive options consume severe amounts of stamina aswell.
outsourcing the defensive moves to a third resource pool would be great or atleast change them from a %based values to fix values that are reduced by medium and heavyarmor by a hugh amount. (leets say 500points while medium armor reduces that value by 12% for each part[5piece bonus] for roles and heavy armor by the same amount for blocking) would be a start. and 1 free cc break every 60sec that could be stacked up to 2.

orangeman57ub17_ESO wrote: »

2. Once the classes are more rounded, stamina will get buffed to be more competitive with magicka
3. Magicka will get decreased and stamina will get increased to meet somewhere in the middle.
4. (My least favorite) they will leave it where it is with magicka/light armor being the better option for most builds.

I like to play the spell sword type in heavy/medium armor that uses melee/bow with a few spells/buffs, but after experimenting with staves and light armor, it's more ideal to go with a magicka centric build. Dps, tank, healer roles are just better in robes no matter how I look at it.

Getting back on my topic: has zenimax admitted that this imbalance is in fact an issue? I see a lot of "fixing class issues" but this isn't entirely a class imbalance. This post may be a little redundant but I just wanted to know if anyone had any info on this that I havnt seen.

and as far as i know ZOS has not acknowladged that as a problem...

Enkshar · June 2014

ZOS hasnt say that stamina builds need a buff, they only admited that items sets intended for stamina builds need some changes. Also it has stated taht DK still do more dmg than intended.

From all these my opinion is that changes in set will buff stamina builds and they will continue to nerf magicka dps and ultima generation.

My guess is that it was never intended that builds should pass the 1K dps, i even suspect that anything past the 600 dps is more than intended, so stamina builds aint that bad from ZOS point of view. I say this beacuse its clear that Dev didnt expect an 11 min run on trials, most likely they were expecting that a really fast run was nowhere under 30 min

born2beagator · June 2014

yelloweyedemon wrote: »

They should just tone down the light armour - staff thing. No I don't want them to buff the stamina or other lines. This is a typical MMO mistake. They keep boosting things up and forget about the rest of the environment... It ends up with the player being able to faceroll all the leveling content while playing with 1 hand and having no gear.

actually there has been very little boosting compared to nerfing. its been mostly players complaining about certain skills/said skill getting nerfed.

its time for some boosting now

NerfEverything · June 2014

Fix templar resource management. Templars have the best healing abilities, but can't heal as well as sorcs and NBs because of lack of resources. If you fix Templars, stamina builds become more viable. Instead of wasting your stamina blocking/dodging, just eat the damage and let the templars keep you alive, plus they can feed you stamina. Then use are your stamina for DPS.

The other part of the solution is making sure stamina abilities can actually compete with magika abilities DPS-wise, assuming no stamina is used for blocking/dodging.

Shaun98ca2 · June 2014

NerfEverything wrote: »

Fix templar resource management. Templars have the best healing abilities, but can't heal as well as sorcs and NBs because of lack of resources. If you fix Templars, stamina builds become more viable. Instead of wasting your stamina blocking/dodging, just eat the damage and let the templars keep you alive, plus they can feed you stamina. Then use are your stamina for DPS.

The other part of the solution is making sure stamina abilities can actually compete with magika abilities DPS-wise, assuming no stamina is used for blocking/dodging.

You know NightBlades Resource management is getting stomped next patch 1.2 right???

It seems they have no intention of fixing out resource management but more less bringing the rest into line with ours.

Kayvee · June 2014

@yelloweyedemon‌

yelloweyedemon wrote: »

They should just tone down the light armour - staff thing. No I don't want them to buff the stamina or other lines. This is a typical MMO mistake. They keep boosting things up and forget about the rest of the environment... It ends up with the player being able to faceroll all the leveling content while playing with 1 hand and having no gear.

If you ask me, magicka dps is tuned properly and stamina dps is tuned too low. I agree with you in terms of this being a common misstep with MMO devs, but not for ESO. If they nerf LA/Resto then they're hurting healers more than anyone, which in turn hurts everyone.

Currently, healing is fun and interesting. It's just difficult enough to keep it that way and if you nerf magicka builds into the ground like the people who want to play stamina builds are suggesting, then you're going to see the pool of healers shrink.

From my experience in game, healers are a hot commodity as it is.

Shaun98ca2 · June 2014

Kayvee wrote: »

@yelloweyedemon‌

yelloweyedemon wrote: »

They should just tone down the light armour - staff thing. No I don't want them to buff the stamina or other lines. This is a typical MMO mistake. They keep boosting things up and forget about the rest of the environment... It ends up with the player being able to faceroll all the leveling content while playing with 1 hand and having no gear.

If you ask me, magicka dps is tuned properly and stamina dps is tuned too low. I agree with you in terms of this being a common misstep with MMO devs, but not for ESO. If they nerf LA/Resto then they're hurting healers more than anyone, which in turn hurts everyone.

Currently, healing is fun and interesting. It's just difficult enough to keep it that way and if you nerf magicka builds into the ground like the people who want to play stamina builds are suggesting, then you're going to see the pool of healers shrink.

From my experience in game, healers are a hot commodity as it is.

I believe there is going to be a change with the Restro Staff. HOW they are going to make it GOOD for Healers and the sucks for DPS is beyond me. They need to remove the 10% Magicka regain(I understand people WONT understand why) and simply find a better Magicka Management for healers or a way to make the Heavy Attack more useful for a healer in between casted heals so its worth while but not OP so people are still rocking the staff as a DPS.

yelloweyedemon · June 2014

Kayvee wrote: »

@yelloweyedemon‌

yelloweyedemon wrote: »

They should just tone down the light armour - staff thing. No I don't want them to buff the stamina or other lines. This is a typical MMO mistake. They keep boosting things up and forget about the rest of the environment... It ends up with the player being able to faceroll all the leveling content while playing with 1 hand and having no gear.

If you ask me, magicka dps is tuned properly and stamina dps is tuned too low. I agree with you in terms of this being a common misstep with MMO devs, but not for ESO. If they nerf LA/Resto then they're hurting healers more than anyone, which in turn hurts everyone.

Currently, healing is fun and interesting. It's just difficult enough to keep it that way and if you nerf magicka builds into the ground like the people who want to play stamina builds are suggesting, then you're going to see the pool of healers shrink.

From my experience in game, healers are a hot commodity as it is.

While I never equiped a rest staff, and none of my chars is wearing light armour or has dest staff above 30, I have seen videos of people in 7/7 light and rest staff soloing dungeon or trial bosses. I don't think this is tuned properly, and if it is, it needs to be nerfed.

About the difficulty in general I don't have any issues with game content as a melee medium armoured NB, and I do really really good in pvp in 1v1 or 1v2 fights. Further buffing stamina abilities or the class for example in general, would make it fairly easy and boring in my opinion.

Rev Rielle · June 2014

orangeman57ub17_ESO wrote: »

...
I'm sure everyone is aware that light armor magicka builds > medium/heavy armor weapon builds so I wont get into too much detail on that topic.
...

I think light armour magicka-focused builds seems 'easier' for whatever reason, but I'm not so sure that makes them necessarily 'better'. I really think it comes down to play-style more. There are plenty of players out there that have placed significant focus on stamina in their builds and they seem to work wonderfully well.

Also, there's so much misinformation that's thrown around these forums, you honestly have to take many things with a grain of salt, so to speak. What's said on the forums, and what's actually going on in-game are at times two completely different things.

SBR_QuorTek · June 2014

you can't really say anything to it since all classes is magicka based, but stamina stuff from certain weapon lines and the like is seriously not underpowered, it function very well with class based magicka skills and vise versa, it is all about 'exploiting' the ways possible, not meant in a bad way and not meant to people to pick the omgthisthebestnomatterwhat.... since that is simple minded.