Originally posted by Faceplant8:

If you're rested and just swinging a weapon, you should not have any issues with stamina. Also, max stamina has very little effect on regen rate, so what food you eat is mostly irrelevant.

If you're near 0 stamina, base regen rate is 12/sec. Rested bonus makes it 24. I think the max stamina required for a sword is 16, and the 3-swing attack takes a bit under 3 seconds, so a bit less than 1 sec / swing, so you regen faster than you use it, not even counting skill bonus.

Not entirely true because stamina regen isn't constant. If people are spamming attacks and not allowing stamina to start its regen before swinging again, then their stamina regen is effectively zero, even while rested. That's why this is a button mashing problem and not a regen rate problem. Chopping wood, mining, fighting, it's all so much better once you realize you can't hold down the attack button or click like crazy. It's a timing thing.