Stamina vs. Magicka Abilities

[Theoryexpert]

Has anybody noticed that magicka abilities (class skills) tend to be slightly superior to their stamina based counterparts (weapon skills)? Magicka appears to be the stronger of the two stats as far as abilities go, perhaps this justifies why light armor gets the magicka bonuses (weakest armor improves the best stat).

 

Stamina is used for some other things which magicka isnt though, such as CC breaks, blocks, and dodge rolls. This makes both stats important. However, the fact that magicka abilities tend to be better leads me towards designing builds that have only 1 or 2 stamina using abilities, and have 3 or 4 magicka using abilities. This way, magicka becomes your primary resource for abilities and stamina becomes your primary resources for maybe a single ability and all of your reaction based defenses (CC break, dodge roll, blocks).

 

Even for a stamina heavy character, loading up on stamina abilities seems like a bad idea, because you need that stamina for your reactionary defenses. Thoughts?

[irons]

It's not that magicka abilities are better than stamina ones, it's just that class abilities are stronger than others.

[Eol]

I agree ^^. Its not a magicka versus stamina thing, its a class skills versus weapon/armor skills thing. Class skills use magicka. But that doesn't mean magicka is better for weapon or armor skills. I am not impressed with staff skills, and my Templar build is using sword and board because the shield defense seems very good whereas equipping a staff would make me feel much more vulnerable.

 

In any event, class skills are clearly the best skills in the game at this point, and I am not even considering the Ultimate skills, just the regular class skills.

[Theoryexpert]

We all agree that class skills tend to be the best active skills in the game. We also agree that all class skills use Magicka. Therefore as far as active abilities go, magicka abilities > stamina abilities most of the time.

 

From a PVP perspective, stamina has little value as a resource for abilities. I would not slot more than one, maybe two stamina using abilities. Why? Because you absolutely need most of your stamina to break CC unless you are a hardcore tank. Getting caught in a chain of CC's without enough stamina to break out is certain death, particularly to squishier builds.

[Xenon]

Theoryexpert, I share your observation.

I think it will be a Good Idea to slot a physical weapon, at least one piece of medium armor and/or at least one piece of heavy armor and use one or two stamina fueled abilities... and fill the rest of your bar with magicka fueled class abilities.

 

Just want to point out a few things.

 

1) Magicka fueled offensive abilities deal their damage no matter what weapon you are wielding. Virtually all stamina fueled offensive abilities (weapon abilities), however, scale to the weapon you are wielding. This might (or might not) mean that weapon abilities scale faster at end game - when you are using end game weapons.

 

2) In ESO everyone can do everything. A Sorcerer can be a heavy melee tank using sword n board plus in heavy armor. A dragon knight can be a stealthy archer using nothing but long ranged abilities and medium armor. HOWEVER, when you tweak your character outside your class range like that you have to resort to mostly stamina (weapon) abilities (but with the introduction of guilds and other lines this might change down the line).

 

3) Medium Armor increase the duration and your overall ability to stealth, the duration and speed of your sprint, increase the frequency you can dodge and critical strike damage of physical weapons (and since you can take most passive skills two or sometimes even three times- the increase is actually quite considerable... +21 % crit, +28 % stamina recovery etc). Thus medium armor will be very useful (key) if you plan on using and opening up from stealth with a sneak attack and/or keeping the distance... kiting your opponent with sprint.

 

4) Weapon lines offer utility that your class skill lines might lack. Wielding Two handed or One hand and Shield, for example, are two ways for a dragon knight to get access to a charge (which this class normally lack). Wielding a Bow or Dual Wield are two ways for Night Blade to get access to snares (which this class normally lack).

 

 

Stamina is a valuable resource, but mostly because it offer so much in the form of mobility and utility. Spending this valuable resource on dealing damage with weapon skill abilities is probably not the best use of it. But since both magicka and stamina recover you should make sure you always use and regenerate both resources.

[vision2]

Are all abilities that use magicka regarded as a spell? 

 

I am asking because of the skill Magelight (Mages Guild) which bosts your Spell Crit. But what exactly is considered a Spell?