I have been reading a lot of the threads here via search, from what I gather:

Health - Essential.

Magicka - Useless, at end game as you would be able to cast free spells via enchanted items, no Magicka required.

Stamina - 'Not bad to have', that usually means rubbish, the main value of Stamina seems to be Power Attack.

Since at end game, your enchanted weapons would be so powerful, Power Attack becomes less significant.

There has not been a sure answer to this yet, but could we say that all we really need to invest in your character is heath? No matter what class/style you play?

No
You have to actually get to the end game to play like that and I don't play based on what is best for a level 81 character (especially since I'm not interested in grinding my way to 81st level)
Also a lot of people won't use what they consider OP enchanted items
Stamina is also important for archery, sprinting and bashing

Heath and stamina are both needed in order to comfortably survive. Heath for obvious reasons and stamina if you ever want to Sprint, use power attacks, shield bash, block effectively, aim with your bow, and a whole lot more I'm sure. As for magicka... Unless you are aiming to become a mage or even just dabble a bit in spell casting there is almost no need for anymore than the starting 100. This is all my own opinion of course.

If your character has a large Stamina pool, then they can carry a lot more equipment.
If you can launch multiple power attacks, then having a large amount of Health becomes pointless, because a power attack will stagger an opponent and stop them from being able to attack your character.
The only advantage to a large health pool is the ability to survive long enough to close with and destroy ranged opponents, and surviving a mistake when fighting a Boss.
I have never had a character with more than 200 health, but I also invest in Alteration for my Warrior characters.

my mage has about 542 magicka its still not enough ... not useing armours because im not a spell sword

Health - Essential.

very wrong, i am level 30 and have yet to put a point into HP and im not planning too as im mostly sneaky/illusion assasian its fun to know that if i am cought im generally road kill in one shot unless i do some super duper manover tactics. (master difficulty for reference)

Magicka - Useless, at end game as you would be able to cast free spells via enchanted items, no Magicka required.

if you exploit the games magicka cost reduction system (which isnt difficult) then you could call it useless yes but the majority dont exploit it in my experence thus it is required as a mage.

Stamina - 'Not bad to have', that usually means rubbish, the main value of Stamina seems to be Power Attack.

hmm from my personal expereience i would love to have more stamina but i have again yet to put a point into it as i am first building my Magicka up then i may invest some inside of stamina for Bow-Zooming and Bow-Bash kiting.


so dont perk or use them if personally there viewed as too powefull. all i am personally using is frost(slow) and magicka/stam/illusion reducing regen enchants as im a S4 vamp thats pretty much required (the magicka one) for my playstyle


not really no a mage will need mana unless your exploiting and probably a good amount of HP too (especially if your using robes)

Vegetable Soup makes stamina worthless for all but running and zoom-arching.

Carrying capacity can be remedied by enchantments, potions, horses, followers, or simply by not carrying >300 pounds of garbage.

Each character build has different needs for these three Attributes. I personally do not use Mana nor could I care about Mana on my current character. But, Health and Stamina are important to them, Stamina is at 280 and Health is at 360.

How much of each of these do you need? Enough that your character is not running out of it when you need it most. That will be different for each build.

It really depends what kind of character you play and whether or not you'll be enchanting. Enchanting can effectively make magicka irrelevant. It can also make carry weight less of a hassle.

But not everyone maxes their enchanting. In that case, the bars you concentrate on really depend on how you're playing. Shouldn't be a big surprise.

Couldn't have said it better. The topic says it all. You only need health.

Assuming you are optimizing and maxed out enchant. Then yes, that's correct. Power attack can be solved by absorbing stamina enchants or vegetable soup. Carry weight can be solved by dead thralls and followers.

level 50+ dual wield Braiheart hit very, very hard on masters.

The only thing is that it might be worth while to raise magicka slightly so you can cast a few expert spells that you didn't enchant for, but that's a big might.

None of them is more valuable or useless if they match your playstyle. All of the uses of each has already been stated here so you just decide based on how you play.

I don't think it is very wrong to say Health is essential really, I've found most builds and character designs value Health mostly, it is possibile because they don't want to be one hit kill like sometimes you experienced. On a side note, congraulations that your play style would not allow to be hit at all most of the time.



Casting spells free of Magicka is not an exploit, it's not a bug but part of a game desgin, if it was to be considered as an expolit, then stack your items with the same effect would also be considered as an exploit by that theory, I guess it's a personal thing, you can consider it as an exploit as you do.


Good on you, but for your run and gun style, I would imagain you have more say on the value on stamina.



I've said "so powerful', not 'too powerful', I have no problem to be too powerful as long as it's legit, in most RPGs you would find you could always be too powerful.


I won't be investing in Magicka, I will relying on enchanting.


I would love to hear more about the importance of stamina.

Archers need a decent base pool of stamina for Steady Hand.

This.

I may use 'cheats' or exploits on 2nd or 3rd characters, but on my 1st characters I earn that $***.

At some point, there is such a thing as 'too much' health. When you've stacked enough armour and magic resist to be resist-capped, you're unlikely to take serious damage from anything. At that point, a larger reservoir of stamina can be highly useful in ending fights faster. Also, the rate of stamina regeneration is based on your total amount of stamina, so if you can double your base stamina, you've also doubled the rate at which it regenerates.

You have to pick something when you level up or you could not get your perks.

You need stamina for archery. Depends on how you play.

I don't need a lot of Health really. No one ever gets close enough to me to take any damage really. I one hit most enemies with arrows leaving health a non issue. But you need the stamina for the drawback and close ups (like a scope) for archery.

Depends on how you play:
Personally, I like to play "glass canon" mages so I put every single point into magic. (I don't use spell cost reductions either)
I don't give my warriors overpowered weapons so stamina is necessary for power attacks and bashing. e.t.c

If you plan on making the most powerful character you can then stamina and magic wouldn't be necessary* but I can see such a character being incredibly boring.

*to an extent neither would health. At endgame you could make a character that can OHK everything and has all manner of resistances.

Right you are. At a certain point though... say around 300+ stamina, you just flat stop running out in most battles even if you zoom all the time. And as you said, since you are killing everyone from a distance, you never really take much damage so health isn't really an issue. At level 71, with a full set of double enchanted smithed up dragonscale and a suped-up bow, I'm finding it difficult to decide where to put my level up points. I dumped a bunch into magica just so I could cast the transmute spell more.

I currently have three characters, two favor stamina and one magic.
I don't have much use for health, at low levels I just spam health potions. And at higher levels few foes ever manage to land a hit and even if they do my awesome armor rating can handle it.

So far I have only put points into Health. I have played three melee Warriors so far and have not felt a need to put points into Stamina yet.

"...now that's power. I wish I could turn wood into gold."

On masters, even at armor cap, a level 51 dual wielding briarheart can hit you over 400 damage when they get a dual power attack off. The ebony arrow using deathlords can also hit you over 300 damage with their arrows.

Health is king. Stamina is very nice though.

I've found on my high level warrior that more health would be essentially wasted.

To be sure, I have a lot of health already- maybe 350 or so, but with maxed armor, 3 health regen enchants, and hard hitting weapons, I rarely see my health dip below 90%. Spending more points in health at this point would be a waste.

On the other hand, after having leveled up some magic skills, I can't cast many of the spells because I don't have enough magicka. I don't want to change my enchants, so all or most of my points going forward will go into magicka.