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

freche

I personally haven't played a DK but my friend does and he can engage groups of enemies higher level then him and without trouble always gets out alive with S&B (this is at the 30-40 lvl range).
Your boyfriend should probably read some threads about tanking in ESO since it's not like every other mmo.
If you stand around taking every hit you will have a hard time playing, this goes for all classes.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

I think I get more kills from my shield than my sword. You gotta bash em'.

For a bow wielding DK, Stonefist is the bomb. You'll have to get it right, but knocking them down and filling them with arrows works very well on a variety of enemies. With Silver Bolts along Deadra have a very hard time with this triple threat approach.

As I play more, I come from shooters, I appreciate the skills involved. I am trying to calm down and do combat right but I get excited and do far more power attacks than I should. It's coming along.

Scurvydog

What I fear the most about the "freedom" of builds is that:
All end content melee dps = medium armor + daggers crit builds
caster = light armor only + destro staff
tank = heavy armor + 1h/s

I fear especially in PvP a few types of builds will quickly be dominant. PvP I can see being more flexible.

Want to play a 2 hander sorc in heavy armor? sounds cool and you CAN, but to compete in DPS you sort of need to switch that out for medium armor and dual wield daggers, too bad
Want to play a battlemage in heavy armor? Too bad you will regen magicka too slow, and you also need a staff to be effective.

TLDR: You CAN make a lot of builds based on cool ideas, but sadly it feels like synergies between armor, weapon and class choices will quickly severely limit non gimped build options.

Niminion

The armor passives are sooo huge, if your build does not synergize with your armor the difference is night and day. Heavy armor sucks for soloing imo. If your using mainly magika go light, stamina go medium. Lots of people are stuck thinking sorc = light, nb = medium, dk = heavy, temp = light for healing otherwise heavy.

My biggest boost while leveling was when I started using food and investing in armor passives. Also there is no shame in using a resto staff in your second bar during solo missions for some self healing. Only need a couple levels for the first 2 skills and you're good.

chrisub17_ESO104

Content in this game is about how combat works and mechanics. Builds/gear are entirely secondary. You gain far more from learning the combat system and blocking/interrupting/bashing at the right times, and learning boss mechanics, then you do from having a good build.

If you are having issues with solo content, then you simply have not recognized the above. So stop blaming everything else around you, and L2P.

LunaRae

I just got to Eastmarch (EP) and I was east of the capital where the Giants roam. Before I realized it I died in 1-2 hits from their mighty club and I was a bit befuddled; never had a problem at all prior to this content and then BAM the enemy AI turns cheat mode on. Really was dumbfounded, I tried beating a single giant 1-2 times but I really died in 1-2 hits. My friends on raidcall said they had no problems killing them solo as all kinds of classes, so I thought something strange was going on.

Anyways I ignored the giants for the time being, killed other creatures like those sabrecats or wolves, did some questing etc... Eventually I got to that quest where you need to kill a giant to get his toe. Before I realized it I 4-5 shot the giant as I usually do most non-boss enemies and had the quest item in hand, no problem!

I really don't know if there's an issue with monsters being stronger than they should at times, but I know my armor was repaired and level appropriate for the content I was taking on. Especially my daggers, usually I kill anything without batting an eye. So not sure if there are some foul sorceries going on, but hopefully whatever problem you're running into gets sorted out! Wish I could be of more help

vyndral13preub18_ESO

LunaRae wrote: »

I just got to Eastmarch (EP) and I was east of the capital where the Giants roam. Before I realized it I died in 1-2 hits from their mighty club and I was a bit befuddled; never had a problem at all prior to this content and then BAM the enemy AI turns cheat mode on. Really was dumbfounded, I tried beating a single giant 1-2 times but I really died in 1-2 hits. My friends on raidcall said they had no problems killing them solo as all kinds of classes, so I thought something strange was going on.

Anyways I ignored the giants for the time being, killed other creatures like those sabrecats or wolves, did some questing etc... Eventually I got to that quest where you need to kill a giant to get his toe. Before I realized it I 4-5 shot the giant as I usually do most non-boss enemies and had the quest item in hand, no problem!

I really don't know if there's an issue with monsters being stronger than they should at times, but I know my armor was repaired and level appropriate for the content I was taking on. Especially my daggers, usually I kill anything without batting an eye. So not sure if there are some foul sorceries going on, but hopefully whatever problem you're running into gets sorted out! Wish I could be of more help

I am not saying you are wrong because I have no way of knowing that. But here is something I run into on almost every mmo I have ever played. Usually when I finish an area I am slightly to totally out leveling it. So I develop bad habits and generally just stop paying attention. Starting a new area is almost always certain to kill me or bring me close to death several times. Just moving on, often gives me time to readjust strategy and take some time watching my health again. After a bit of playing I go back to mobs that were wiping the floor with me and all of a sudden push overs.

I also notice the same things in dungeons. The first couple pulls are a mess, the bam, nothing changes, yet everything is easier. You just get use to what you have to do to survive

Valmond

While content is not difficult, as such, i feel that fighting is bit overtuned in this game (playing vr8 sorcerer, light armor+destro staff).

Part of the problem is that damage does not really scale well, and other is that there are occasional delays in abilities going off (and sometimes they simply don't go off), and weapon switching has way too long delay to be able to reliably use it in a hectic battle.

I do like that the game demands you to pay attention to most fights, even though the low skill selection (at any one time) and low magicka/stamina pools (you hit overcharged state way too early in my opinion) mean that fights can become repetitive.

dumbo

Bow/DK "works", although I wouldn't say it's been the greatest combination ever (seems to work "ok" in PvP though /shrug).

I stacked stamina and some health, and mostly used these:
- poison arrow/bow. Kindof spam it against mages.
- silver bolts->silver shards (this is a 28m knockdown on undead/daedra) [basically works on most things with a 5% chance of hilarity]. This is a "must have".
- arrow spray->bombard (use this against groups of melee to open combat, reapply if necessary).
- stonefist->obsidian shard (this isn't as good as silver bolts and uses magicka).
- dragon blood->green dragon blood (convert magicka to stamina+health).
- magma armour (dawnbreaker looks cool, but it needs fighter's guild 10).

These I did not find remotely useful:
- snipe. Useful in PvP, but in PvE it's mostly pointless. (expand into lethal arrow).
- volley. Too slow.
- obsidian shard etc. You should have enough CC to not need this.
- molten weapons. Works better in a group setting I think.

Use medium (or medium+heavy) armour, stack stamina.

kongkim

In games like this there will always be some builds there are better then others. But amny also do play will skills they just like. raher then the most OP.

But one of the fun part with skills like this is to find out what build you are best with and most fun for you to play.

thomas.manzellaub17_ESO

This isn't other MMOs, so don't play it like it is. This is ESO, play it like ESO. Do not fill 5 pure dps skills with a dps ulti and expect to not get your ass handed to you. You need CC, CC is HUGE in this game. You need survivability. You NEED to block, heal and dodge so don't burn your pools on just offence.

If you are running with a healer character and a tank character every second of your game time... fine. Have at it. If not you need to build for solo play.

If you disagree, then you can go waste all your gold on soul gems and repair bills.

stevenyaub16_ESO

this rule applies to any class, you need to have more health incoming than the damage being dealt to you, either use a mix of defensive skills, lifestealing or healing. You need enough of this to mitigate any damage otherwise your health will drop to zero.

If you are range (bow) you need less, but you will still get hit vs other range mobs, strike the most dangerous targets first (casters/archers for me).

CCs are a way to mitigate damage too. use a mix, and best to find abilities that do both.

Xithian

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.

Wrong. Progression is not exponential and inflated in ESO (thank the gods), but it is CERTAINLY not a flat line. I'm pretty sure my skills do hundreds of points of damage, from a starting point of around what, 10 damage?

Psychic_Kitty wrote: »

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.

Being a tank in ESO does not make you a god. You're not as squishy as other characters, but that doesn't mean you can take on armies. You are required to actually think and select your targets based on priority. The tank keeps the hard hitters away from the party while the DPS clear out the normal mobs. The game isn't doing anything wrong, you are. Play ESO like ESO, not like other games you've played in the past.

Psychic_Kitty wrote: »

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.

I am a level 50 alchemist and this is just plain wrong. You don't even know how the tradeskill system works and you are bashing it. Each level of healing potion does more than the last. When you say "level 50 tincture" everyone automatically knows that you don't know what you are talking about, as "tincture" is the title applied to lowbie potions. Level 50 potions are not called tinctures. The only potions that are the same at all levels are the ones that do not deal damage or heal, such as invisibility potions.

Basically everything in your post shows that you either didn't play the game much at all, tried to play it like it was another MMO and refused to adapt, or are purposefully spreading disinformation and negativity.

Xithian

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO wrote: »

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.

I have had to pound into people over and over... use your basic attacks. People spam skills for damage and then wonder why they're OOM all the time, while I'm calmly applying buffs and debuffs and swinging away the entire fight. Please, inform all of the people that you can, good sir. I salute you.