Too easy to accidentally gimp yourself = freedom of choice sucked out of the class system

Nyalani

I've never played any of the other Elder Scrolls games before myself, I've watched friends and my boyfriend play them but I never actually tried the combat or the classes myself.

I was really timid about the skill system in this game because I never played a game that forced you to make so many meaningful choices about your character before.

Now, that is not a bad thing. I love the idea of it.

But the thing is, I'm not very good at the whole planning ahead thing, tactics, logics, not really my strong suit.

But by some strange fluke I've managed to get myself to lvl 32 with little to no issue! I put my skill points in rather erratically. None of the skills on my bar are the same as when I started out, I've changed things up quite a lot. I have all of my class trees past 30 now and points in all of them. My character is the very definition of erratic. But she can heal herself (my initial plan was to play a healer) and she has pets she can rely on when soloing tough bosses. But it's really all a fluke!

Meanwhile, my BF thinks tactically. He usually plays characters that are more or less minmaxed. He played other Elder Scrolls titles. And he's a hell of a lot better at combat in this game than I am (I think I've clicked block like...once. And sometimes I slowly back out of red circles on the ground. I know, I'm totally awesome right?) But whenever we do a solo quest, I come through without a scratch and he dies over and over. Everywhere around me (in guilds and zone and on the forums) I hear people say they have trouble with solo quests, that they feel they gimped themselves etc. I'm starting to see the people around me in dungeons and dolmen use the same skills as anyone else present of the same class and it's starting to get to me.

We tried to "fix" my BF's toon today, play around with the skills a little to make him more able to handle himself without me to heal him, since we're not allowed to help each other in solo content, but our second, well planned idea of how to make his dragon knight go from weaksauce to cc'ing and well protected fire god doesn't seem to be working. He's talking about quitting the game until it is better balanced, because he doesn't want to create a new character because he's stuck. I really don't want that, I want to keep playing, but I don't know what to do to fix the situation. And at the back of my head I can't shake the thought that no matter what we do with his dragon knight, it's not going to be able to hold its own against my nutty random combination of crystal blast, healing ward, blessing of restoration, clannfear and restoring twilight, with the storm astronach ultimate and the resto staff allowing me magica regen.

I have a second bar, focused on DPS, with a nice synergized combo of skills that enhance and boost each other, actually based on advice and builds I've heard and read about, but when I have to kill something on my own I never even swap over to it. I've tried and I know that if I do I'll just die.

I don't actually think my combo of skills should be made weaker, cause while I've managed every boss fight so far, they are definitely still tough, and I'm not sure my heals are strong enough to solo heal a group as they are. I think a lot of other skills and options should be made stronger. Tanks should be able to solo content just as well as healers currently can (from what I've seen that is), if many many different builds are supposed to be viable and people are supposed to be able to make the character they want without looking up builds online then make sure they are, please, because at the moment, the skill system is not just inviting minmaxing and people spending countless hours determining the Best Possible Builds, the game pretty much requires it just to get through the storyline.. that or insane luck, apparently...

Veshal

Hey there,

I'm not quite sure exactly what it is about your BF's char that is making him gimped. The fact that he is a DK tank isn't enough to really get some help from others. I play a sorc tank, and I do know that it's extremely important to let your gear fall no lower than 4 levels below your characters level AT THE MOST. DK's aren't broken or unbalanced, but you should have him use an AOE to open large groups with and probably not focus any skill points into CC.

I'm not trying to bash or provide this advice negatively, but I have a pretty good idea that the four classes aren't that unbalanced. It's a matter of continuously upgrading your gear ( like really frequently ) and making sure that you are using skills that bring out the best in the build your playing.

Nyalani

Veshal wrote: »

Hey there,

I'm not quite sure exactly what it is about your BF's char that is making him gimped. The fact that he is a DK tank isn't enough to really get some help from others. I play a sorc tank, and I do know that it's extremely important to let your gear fall no lower than 4 levels below your characters level AT THE MOST. DK's aren't broken or unbalanced, but you should have him use an AOE to open large groups with and probably not focus any skill points into CC.

I'm not trying to bash or provide this advice negatively, but I have a pretty good idea that the four classes aren't that unbalanced. It's a matter of continuously upgrading your gear ( like really frequently ) and making sure that you are using skills that bring out the best in the build your playing.

I agree that the classes themselves probably aren't really that unbalanced. I've seen people mention every single class as underpowered and every single class as overpowered, so my thoughts is there are possible builds for every class.

I didn't go much into my BF's build as I was focusing on the overlying problem that many builds end up underperforming, but in case you have some advice I'll try my best to explain:

Initially, he wanted a bow wielding Dragon Knight, but we thought a tank was pretty much required to be able to get through the content, so he started out with a shield and 1-handed even though he didn't really want to (he prefers ranged classes). Eventually he got himself a bow, which was his preferred weapon in Skyrim, and he got through a fair bit of content having an easier time with the bow than the 1-hander and shield.

But since about lvl 25 things seem to be a lot tougher. He wasn't really using the 1-hander skills anymore since we kite a lot in stead, so he grabbed himself a fire staff. The problem is that we can't seem to figure out which skills are essential for him to stay alive while dishing out the damage. He's currently got a fire staff and fire spells bar, and a bow bar with survivability skills to keep himself alive and to be able to do damage while his magica is restoring itself. Both bars contain a knockback.

He's got the obsidian shard, green dragon blood, bow knockback skill, scorched earth, some fire damage spells for DPS (including molten whip and engulfing flames to further increase the fire damage), etc I don't remember all of them. His ultimate is the corrosive armor.He's currently using heavy armor though we're debating whether he should just change to light. But since he doesn't have the option of pets and no real interest in the resto staff I'm not sure he'd be able to survive at all in light armor.

We both create a new set of armour and weapons for ourselves every 2 levels. We increase the weapons to green quality but keep the armour at normal since those pieces decay so rapidly. Repairing gear is a lot more expensive for us than recreating new pieces, and we try to keep the gear from decaying too rapidly. But in a solo dungeon, a few deaths = less armor because of decay, which makes the fights tougher and tougher...

Chelo

Well, seens that your BF isnt very ''tactical'' after all XD. Just kidding, back on topic, this game isnt Skyrim, its an MMO, what works in Skyrim isnt going to work here... In this game CC + AoE > All, at least in pve. Just watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKlr0Enw-yM

vyndral13preub18_ESO

Something to try as well is stop healing him! I know it sounds dumb, but i have a similar problem. I play with someone else. So when we try to do solo content i often get smoked quite a bit for a while. Not because i am gimped but because i slow to change. And i get use to being able to do whatever i want because most content is fairly easy with 2 people. And when that changes it can take me quite a bit to shift gears.

Feidam

One of the things to look at is how is his gear set up. It needs to be fairly close to at level with appropriate enchants on it for him perform at that level. If he is primarily using bow attacks but all his point/enchants are in magicka he will be somewhat weaker than he should as his primary damage is not buffed. I've found just adjusting these enchants can make your life easier.

Calgrissom

As a sword and board Templar tank I have had next to no issue with any content up to VR2. Just have him tweek his build until he find something with synergy. Don't forget that they balanced the game around potion/food use. It can be hard to get in the habit of using them but for Heavy melee/low healing out put classes they are a must.

Celless

Just kinda throwing it out there, possibly mentioned somewhere.

Mundus Stone choice, Food, healthy supply of potions (obtain a few from a delve/public dungeon), up to date gear, and repairs, omg the repairs, make a difference on survival.

While one can gimp oneself, I think as you level up and your skills broaden, there's more options to mix and match. You won't be as far along as someone who knew what they wanted to achieve from the get-go, but neither should you be too far behind from finding a build that works. And then tactics (and minimal lag) will come into play afterward.

Psychic_Kitty

The balance is horrible in this game....you get up to high levels and still do the same damage except maybe 5 points more when you reach that level.

What is worse is the fact that every enemy or monster continues to get stronger...more health more damage yet the player seams to stagnant and stay behind.

The ultimate show of this games balance system problem was the Tank system...you cant hold the agro and cant sustain the damage enough to protect your friends...and that failing...makes the balance really bad.

Its why I cancelled my subscription. This game is worse then AION(which is also a bad game)....basically you can tell they have someone pumping money into the hype machine for this game...and are not really trying to fix it....the no live GMs in game is another dead give away.

And the skill mechanic problems are kind of really noticeable....I mean seriously....when you make a level 50 tincture of health...it needs to heal more then a level 1 version....but no....right now all the difference is that a level 50 potion can only be used by a level 50 player....while level 1s can be used by all.

Jochamo

Though I don't usually go down this road ....

Time for a new boyfriend! :-)

Brayton

If you don't know what you're doing and don't copy other people's builds, it's very easy to get a weak build that doesn't work. I started as a sorcerer tank and made some terrible choices that made solo content a nightmare. I reassigned my skills to things that actually seemed to work and kept away from the ones I thought were 'cool'. Now I have no problem with the solo content and I'm getting better at controlling groups of mobs. Tank jobs really need to focus on staying alive rather than DD imo. If you mix it up too much, it just makes you a very lightweight tank with some DD skills. And then you die...

cleric670b14_ESO

The freedom to create a totally crappy build has given me a new level of respect for WoW-like games with cookie cutter classes that devs are able to balance.

Chelo

Psychic_Kitty wrote: »

The balance is horrible in this game....you get up to high levels and still do the same damage except maybe 5 points more when you reach that level.

What is worse is the fact that every enemy or monster continues to get stronger...more health more damage yet the player seams to stagnant and stay behind.

The ultimate show of this games balance system problem was the Tank system...you cant hold the agro and cant sustain the damage enough to protect your friends...and that failing...makes the balance really bad.

Its why I cancelled my subscription. This game is worse then AION(which is also a bad game)....basically you can tell they have someone pumping money into the hype machine for this game...and are not really trying to fix it....the no live GMs in game is another dead give away.

And the skill mechanic problems are kind of really noticeable....I mean seriously....when you make a level 50 tincture of health...it needs to heal more then a level 1 version....but no....right now all the difference is that a level 50 potion can only be used by a level 50 player....while level 1s can be used by all.

So do you quit because the game was too hard for you?

cleric670b14_ESO wrote: »

The freedom to create a totally crappy build has given me a new level of respect for WoW-like games with cookie cutter classes that devs are able to balance.

Too easy... Actualy I think its funny when newbies screw their chars because they have no idea what the hell are they doing? XD They are the deadmen running in Cyrodill XD

Blackhorne

Nyalani wrote: »

But by some strange fluke I've managed to get myself to lvl 32 with little to no issue! I put my skill points in rather erratically. None of the skills on my bar are the same as when I started out, I've changed things up quite a lot. I have all of my class trees past 30 now and points in all of them. My character is the very definition of erratic. But she can heal herself (my initial plan was to play a healer) and she has pets she can rely on when soloing tough bosses. But it's really all a fluke!

I wouldn't be so sure this is a fluke. Organically growing a character like you describe is actually a good way to generate a pretty good (but probably not super-awesome) character, allowing the experience you've had playing guide your character choices.

Meanwhile, my BF thinks tactically. He usually plays characters that are more or less minmaxed. He played other Elder Scrolls titles. And he's a hell of a lot better at combat in this game than I am (I think I've clicked block like...once. And sometimes I slowly back out of red circles on the ground. I know, I'm totally awesome right?)

Here's where I think the problem is. Your BF is letting his experience with other Elder Scrolls games affect his decisions here. This game plays very differently than other ES games. In other ES games, reaction speed was king. While quick reactions in combat are very good for this game, adjusting your skill so that you don't need to react quickly is even better.

You're doing well without clicking block and evading out of the red circles because you don't need to; you've chosen a set of skills which keep you out of danger or allow you to recover well.

With my first DK, I loaded up on melee and self-heal abilities. I found myself clicking furiously to keep up, especially at higher levels. I could NEVER beat harvesters with that build. Adding AoE and snares made a huge difference.

I think you're a better player than you give yourself credit for, and your BF can be too, if you both treat this as a completely new game w/r/t combat skills, rather than an Elder Scrolls game.

Tamanous

Not sure what to say. I have no issue with content and I see others day the same yet there are always posts about how hard the game is too. Perhaps it is just a learning curve for some.

Re-specs may be costly but there is no real way to gimp your character.

MasterLanz

Partial respecs to allow for redeeming some skill points without redeeming all of them would help here for small character tweaks like untraining just one specific skill line.

Anyways, the best advice I can think of for messed-up builds is to just start focusing from the ground up. It's never too late to pull out a stat builder and look at all the skills and their morphs to pick out some stuff that you can add to your build to round it out or specialize it as needed. Go back through the areas and make sure you've completed all the quests and collected all the skyshards, and you might be able to scrounge up a few extra skill points to buy those desired skills and that should help get you back on track.

If you can afford it, you can just respec, which is an important consideration early, since the more skill points you have, the more expensive a respec becomes.

Moonchilde

For some players, this game is going to be like moving from an Xbox console to a PC. If you haven't played an Elder Scrolls game, its worth the time to research the history a little, they have been at this for over 20 years. Its always been a highly customizable fantasy RP experience, and classes are not rigid boundaries they way they are in other games.

The thing about ESO that I noticed is: if you want a strong build, try to focus on only two of your class skill trees for the first 25 lvls or so, and choose only the abilities from them that you are going to use for the mode your fighting in. Morph those asap for the bonuses in that modality and rank them up. You can unlock rank 30 abilities early on this way.

Also, choose only one or two weapon types (if you need to switch modes). Most classes can build balanced offensive or supportive characters this way, who aren't spread out and weak.

What makes you even more solid in any scenario to slot your weapons and armor with enchantments that both accent what you do best, and supplement where you are weak.

The DPS Sorcerer would benefit from armor jewelry, and a good portion of health enchants in their armor (because their Light armor skill would be supplying great magicka regen and bonuses already). That makes them tougher.

The Tank Sorcerer would benefit from a mix of heavy armor and light armor, and a sword and shield. That lets them get close enough to control, especially if they enchant for higher magicka and spell resists.

Developing the enchanting skill is crucial for this approach, and it's separate from food and potions, as someone already mentioned.

Saiff

DKs are ridiculously easy to solo with. Tanky with AOE spells to burn down multiples npcs. If he wants to stick with 1hnder and shield make sure he knows that after he gets the points into his passive, the shield bash(interrupt) is probably his best single target attack.

Altros

Hmm. So he wanted a bow/ranged Dragonknight? My main is a bow Nightblade (bow is my weapon on both bars). I looked at the skills for Dragonknight and I don't see much synergy between them.

Dragonknight skills focus on close-ranged, with a couple mid-ranged skills in there as well as a long-ranged leash. Bow, on the other hand, focuses on keeping your enemy away from you, bombard and magnum shot are examples of that. By trying to stay at long-range he is giving up Burning Embers from Dragonknight which seems like their bread-and-butter healing skill.

I would really recommend using sword and one-handed as his main weapon, with his bow being his opener. That's if he's truly adamant about using a bow. Otherwise I would say shield and one-handed for damage mitigation and healing skills and then two-handed as switch out for DPS. That's just what pops out at me from looking at the Dragonknight skills. His main stat would be HP.

zhevon

It is easy to gimp yourself for a number of reasons including it is very hard to judge from the tool tips what to choose. Plus a number of skills are just plain broken. I think until things settle out a bit respecs should be significantly cheaper.

Stautmeister

Burning talons- Green dragonblood.
Fill rest of the slots with whatever ability you want.
For fighter guild quest and a lot of other stuff i advise taking evil hunter (fighter guild skilline and silver shards) The dmg surpases anything normal skills do.

zamiel

Well, some random ungimp tips:
1) eat blue food (for health and mag/sta buff - provisioning is extremely easy to level and if there are two of you there's no reason one of you shouldn't level it. Food is extremely potent throughout the game)
2) use pots (they are extremely cheap, even cheaper to make and being able to heal 25-40% of your hp in an instant makes a difference)
3) you can change skills on hotbars - do it. There's no sense that he should use the same skillset in a group as in solo. I have a hunch that you have plenty of CC on your toon while he does not. CC is good, CC is useful. Especially that DK talons-from-the-ground thingie. That's totally badass.
4) blocking is not the best strategy. Honestly, it's easier to take one attack and kill the mob than blocking 3 attacks. Especially against multiple mobs.
5) AoE, AoE, AoE against multiple mobs.
6) self criticism. I also had great ideas when I started to play the game. Hell, I was in beta as well. I was completely wrong. The game plays out differently than you imagine, it's a *** like that. Sometimes you just have to take it like a man that you were wrong, learn a bit more and adapt.

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO

Ok so to all the guys who says the mobs are to strong end game....

Just what have you been smoking? I mean I run a nightblade blademaster in heavy armor (yep a NB in heavy armor!) with a 2h sword (realy a 2h sword!) using 3 bugged or weak pve ability (haste,mark,carve) and I manage to wreck the hell out of most foe using heavy attack my ultimate a carve spam and invigorating drain! If a 3/6 ability build actualy DOES the job without effort at lvl 40 then I realy don't know why you guys are having problem with yours. Learn to block take advantage of their spell by interrupting them and of course PUNISH them when they are stunned that's how Ive survived this far. You don't need to be a build genius to create something nice just think it over before making your character... what are you going to be? Jack of all trade are master of none for a reason avoid that path you need to specialise into something or at least make your path as clear and obvious as possible, I always know up to 10 level ahead what I will pick up next.

If any of you even dares to hope to reach veteran level in this game you better learn to interrupt and block now. Of course you will need a strong build to go this far without much so make sure the build make sense.

Maverick827

Morph Searing Strike into Burning Embers and throw that up on every mob during a pull.

Use Standard of Might as the ultimate. Put two points into the Battle Roar passive.

Get three +Bash Damage enchants on the three pieces of jewelery (craft or buy the enchants), but two points into Deadly Bash and use shield bash (attack while blocking) as your main attack.

Zargorius

Just a word of warning on Burning Embers - the heal ticks only when the debuff falls off which means that with the Searing Heat passive you are looking at a whooping 10.5 seconds - if the trash is not dead after 10 seconds you are doing something wrong - this morph is good for tanking bosses and has some utility in PVP but again, 10 seconds in PVP is a lot of time.

Reavan

Dk is currently the easiest class in the game, stack magika even as a melee char, shield charge and deadly bash, use rest of class skills and you can now do anything.

He must be seriously screwing his build in the wrong way to fail at dk and that is his fault not the game

zamiel

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO wrote: »

If a 3/6 ability build actualy DOES the job without effort at lvl 40 then I realy don't know why you guys are having problem with yours.

Lol, since when level 40 is endgame? Congratulations, you did 20% of the game at level 40... It's end of the tutorial maybe, but it's far from being end game.

ShadowWolf613

I don't mean to be a prick or anything but maybe it's his skill level? The only reason I say this is. Me and my buddy quest together non-stop doing everything together. I take my laptop over to his house and play. Doing quests with 2 people are easy but the solo content your so use to how easy it is you forget some of the basics. For example when we went to fight doshia for the fighters guild. I went in with my bow wielding templar and had no problems. My buddy is a templar healer and had a ton of issues. He thought it was his character until I jumped on his character and beat doshia no problem. Just don't forget to block at times, move out of the way at times. Be aware of your surroundings.

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO

zamiel wrote: »

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO wrote: »

If a 3/6 ability build actualy DOES the job without effort at lvl 40 then I realy don't know why you guys are having problem with yours.

Lol, since when level 40 is endgame? Congratulations, you did 20% of the game at level 40... It's end of the tutorial maybe, but it's far from being end game.

I also got a veteran character thank you. Ill just remind you that its perfectly possible to kill mob without using your utility. As far as I remember I was still killing mob with regular attack and heavy attack in coldharbor and in veteran zone when training fire staff (yes in veteran zone while training a weapon I had absolutely no learned ability to use with save for the first one)

Some of you may have finished the non veteran game and got their veteran zone permit in a cereal box however you cant just allow yourself not to fight correctly post end game. Regardless ill just mention the ability bar is not as important as your ability to fight correctly! You have no excuses for having let that 2h warrior throw you off into the air or for crying about that spellcaster who let out a fireline wich nearly killed you or for raging about the healer in the corner who simply put healed all the mob you dealth damage to because you ignored it and let him cast his stuff. Focus the correct target, block and interrupt this is what ESO true fighting is about.

Did a few veteran dungeon and to my amusement or my dismay half of the team didn't had a clue about how to perfect a damn interrupt (god sake did that tank even knew what blocking means) Zenimax said it most clearly any idiot can run a build but the good player will know how to fight with panache (aka block rupt heavy attack and use ability between these) and that's how veteran zones if not the whole game is designed to be done. You cant seriously hope to barge in like some barbarian and smash thing all the time while ignoring everything that happens during the battle.

zamiel

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO wrote: »

wall of text snipped

I love the fact how you go into a huge post about player skill level. I don't care about player skill level. I don't think veteran content is especially hard either - it could use a bit of fine tuning here and there (SA and dagger throw spam after vet5), but it's okay.
You debated a whole lot of things which I didn't say, congratulations.
I only said - and I stand by it - that level 40 despite what you are saying is far from being end game. Difficulty will ramp up from there and playing a level 40 with only 1-2 good skills is not that kind of super achievement or impressive even the least bit. Especially with a 2H night blade, come back when you hit vet5 and let's talk about how you mop the floor with groups of mobs with half skill bar (hint, you won't).

Instead of throwing mirth and incense around yourself and bashing player skill you also could, I don't know, maybe help the OP. Becasue that's why she came here, not to listen to you about how awesome you think you are.

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO

Im already helping and I will keep saying it because it seems some people don't get a hint. Learn to block interrupt and bash down. Skill do damage true but exploiting a dazed target does even more and best of all its free of resource cost.

''You debated a whole lot of things which I didn't say, congratulations.''

I don't care about what you are saying up here im not even debating with you or would even care to, if you feeling the hats fits your head and that my tips are endangering your gameplaying ways so much that you need to discredit me then good for you its not my problem. Im just explaining facts here and fact is this game reward those that fight correctly and punishes those that don't regardless of how well built they are, if you want to go far in ESO you need to use more then just your action bar. Fight intelligently seek the correct target aim for the weak spots and take advantage of any if all battle opportunity.

Oh and yes the blademaster build I run on that alt is working so well at mauling a full team of 10+ mob within seconds I have no doubt ill reach Vet 10 with it. If you doubt your own build it means you must have done something wrong but its not to late to change it so take the time thinking over what you could do.