You do have the option to excel in one if you do wish just because its even it doesn't mean you have to follow that path you can choose to for example only use magicka based abilities and choose to buff that and health and leave stamina alone.
There are many ways of doing things. Think about it,
Edit : and as far as i am aware the staves aren't stamina based?. Or are they?,
Lol Edit again you know come to think on it you are right humm lol
You can have a purist right now. Yes, most people will use both magicka and stamina, but there's no reason you can't go for a purely stamina based char for example (that is actually what I did in the last beta weekend and will do come early access). Yes, you'll be somewhat weaker and may need to overlevel some quests or grab help, but it's a valid choice regardless.
You also need at least stamina to raise slightly on level-up, as it's used for blocking and dodging. Even if you go for a purely magicka based character, stamina will be needed.
I know you can choose to just focus on stamina or magika, but by automatically increasing both, people who do play a more purist approach will probably be at a disadvantage as you will have an unused pool of resources.
I must admit I'm surprised why people are against it, to me the existing options reduce the number of original and competitive characters.
You'll only have an unused resource if you go for a purely stamina based character like I do. Everyone else will always utilize both resources.
It's a valid choice, but does not put them on a level playing field.
If a 'pure' character had advantages over a hybrid, such as receiving more stamina/magika I would be against that as well. It appears quite a strong oversight from my perspective and I haven't heard, what I believe, to be a valid reason to justify the advantage.
Correct, based on the existing options I will use Class based skills to remain competitive, not because I want to.
Yes but so they should be in a lot of ways. Their has to be a balance Or players will just go spamming their OP skill from their class line same goes for stamina based builds. But the fact remains you can still do this.
The level-based attribute increase is just scaling.
A pure magicka character (in the sense of ignoring stamina abilities) isn't unviable at all, as stamina is important for dodging, blocking, sprinting, breaking CCs, etc. In fact there are many people playing pure magicka builds.
The way the class system works (all class abilities use magicka) means characters who ignores magicka abilities are gimped from the get-go. Unless they change that (and they are unlikely to) not giving you free attributes on level up would make no sense, breaking most of the builds the Devs intended for a single, niche build they did not.
Also I think completely ignoring one resource is a narrow definition of a "pure" character. There are plenty of skills that are minimally affected by spellpower, and can be used just as effectively by a character investing in nothing but stamina as they can be by a character investing in nothing but magicka. The only reason not to use them is thematic, and that shouldn't be difficult to handwave away in your head... just think of magicka as your rage/inner strength/chi/chakra/whatever euphemism you prefer.
Fair enough was going to say alot of them seem to be quite useful from what i have used.
This.
The only thing that matters is ratio between them, which you still have control over. With limits, apparently (soft cap/diminishing returns)
Wasn't sure if you were being snarky or not so I gave a curt reply.
What I said was a stamina-based character, i.e. one that invested most of their attribute points in stamina and probably wears medium armour, can use most magicka abilities (11/15 of the Dragon Knight's, in fact) just as effectively as a magicka-based character can. Meaning when you use these abilities, you're not throwing out a weaker version of what a magicka-based character will throw out. With that in mind there is no reason, outside of character theme, for you to not at least slot one of these abilities, which are mostly support-type abilities.
IMO, a "pure" stamina character is simply one that relies primarily on stamina for DPS. I don't think the definition requires you to ignore magicka-based support abilities (that don't rely on spellpower, so if that helps you can think of them as not being spells).
No mate i genuinely thought at first that is what you were getting at. I get you now, Yea thats right Are some class abilities magicka based?.