Right now there are viable magicka only builds. Even if you invest no points anywhere in stamina as a caster you still have a fairly large resource pool for sprinting rolling and blocking. So there are MANY viable magicka only builds just no stamina only ones.

What, pray tell, determines effectiveness? Gotta' qualify and quantify before using such nebulous terms, bro.

But if I am to guess I'll just say this: a warrior that uses pure stamina will compete with a pure caster barring some skills that need tuning because that's how it ought to be. If you refactor your concerns it's more about fine tuning your abilities than stamina/magicka distribution or anything else.

Also the caster archetype has ass for auto DPS.

You obviously didn't min-max. The best builds were magicka based ones abusing enchants up until Skyrim, then it was all about abusing crafting.

Not at all. I ran through Skyrim for example as Sword-and-Board... it was actually easier than as pure caster by a long shot. For the sword-and-board Nord, I started upping the difficulty at level 10, and then upped it again to the hardest level in my early 20s. When I tried to play a pure caster, I got quite a shock. The Sword-and-Board was as viable, if not more so, than the caster, at least early on in the game; and I'm not the only one to think that. There were literally hundreds of posts on the Skyrim boards about how Destruction needed a boost (and many mods now that do it).

Non-magical builds were far more viable in Skyrim, Oblivion and Morrowind than they are in ESO.

Show me a build. Wait I'll guess it, it has flawless dawnbreaker. So it's cool to give stam users 2 ults and magicka users get 15?

No, the reason he was not gimping himself was because the game was made so you didnt need magicka if you didnt want it and you didnt need stamina if you didnt want it.

I understand that abilities like teleport and invisibility cannot be stamina based because its obviously magic, but having some class abilities going with stamina would have been nice.

I just think we are lacking abilities that use stamina. If I want to make an archer with ranged stamina abilities, my choice is extremely limited, but if I want to make a sorcerer with ranged magicka abilities, my choice is way larger.

No, the best builds were stamina-based fighters abusing enchants, or any stealth with overpowered sneak attacks.

If you want to play a pure mage you will be infinitely closer to optimal than a pure stamina user.

That doesn't actually contradict what I said. There are always more optimal builds even in single player games. You can do what you want, just don't expect it to be optimal. I've cleared the once stupidly hard bosses at the ends of the mages and fighter's guild with just stamina skills. So do what you want, just don't expect it to be as good as something taking full advantage of everything available.

I'm sorry, I just don't think there should be a pure anything user, and I feel like magicka was meant to be used sparingly. I think the devs did this on purpose.

Does not change the fact that you can play what you want. Basically choose one 'play what you want' or 'play and optimal build.' Oh making class skill stamina bosed won't actually fix the issue.

So just because you are content to shake up the class/archetype tree, doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who want to play a specific archetype. it's a large part of the player base whether you realize it or not. If one or two (caster and healer) pureish builds are viable than there should be just as many for stamina users.

Actually, I think the best thing to do would be to let all the class skills like they are and use magicka for them, and just add more abilities in every weapon skill line, because I think the biggest problem for stamina fighters is the lack of choice.

If I could choose from 10 abilities in the bow skill line instead of 5, I wouldn't care that my class uses magicka.

Or if I had more than 2 ultimates to chose from... that would be neat.

from what i have seen of pve in livestreams it is straight faceroll boss mechanics are a joke so i dont see a need to really min/max optimization the one boss fight i saw that had anything close to a soft enrage timer would spit down fire like every 30 secs that covered only part of the encounter area hence covering the area slowly because it covered a small area and it was a pretty big area they easily did it with less than 1/4 of the area covered.i mean idk they might buff these mobs and bosses as some mmos do after beta as they are wanting to see mechanics and fights completed to make sure they are functioning as intended.

now pvp is completely different from pve beings situational awareness is paramount diferent abilities at diferent times how you react is everything no 2 encounters are ever the same were pve is quite scripted.this might bring some of your points some more validity idk as i didnt get to do any pvp in the stress test and im not on the pts.

Casters can focus on stamina/health. NB and DK DPS must build stamina/magicka to equal the DPS of the caster.

I thought it would be clearer. Your example works well. If a pure magicka caster and pure stamina tank match up evenly in duels, then it sounds fair and balanced. If the pmc and pst can handle their appropriate level quests without either being at a disadvantage, all things being equal than it's fair.

Someone said stamina influences normal/power attacks. Are those going to be used nearly as much as in prior tes games or will they be like they are in wow? That makes a world of difference.

Lol, what's that?

Actually the best build was everything to health, then gear to which ever resource you wanted. This is due to the soft caps that eats up a large portion of the resources.

Revamp,

Until I read your post I didn't realize all Class skills used magicka. It seems odd.

If I understand right your concern is this:

Since all Class skills use magicka:

Players wishing to focus on melee characters need to focus on magicka and stamina

Players wishing to focus on magic characters need to focus on magicka

They recently nerfed the health gain per point to 15, but that doesn't effect how much you lose in stam and magicka from the soft caps. Also if you watch the pts livestreamers, you'll see some rocking all points to stamina with the dps focus on stam only abilities and if they use magic, it's only in a support form.

Yes, that's exactly it

I don't want to talk instead of the OP but I'm pretty sure that's it lol... it's my concern as well

While I actually agree with OP; magicka casters will need stamina to dodge, block and parry. While if stamina users can also use calss skills with stamina, they would not need magicka at all.
Still, I agree that some class skills should scale off stamina.

It's not a problem.

I don't play LoL so I can't speak there. This is not a big deal as you are making it.

True. That would be an issue. It's a pickle.

Dodging eats a % of stamina, so you don't have to increase stamina for it.

As for blocking, it takes a very little amount of stamina, no reason to invest point in it... Anyway, just use a magicka-based knockback/CC and BAM, no need to block or dodge