Once again the inclusion strawman. HA builds help those with disabilities and if you dare to criticize HA builds, you must be against inclusion, anti social, an eltist, a gatekeeper, toxic and what not. Right?

The truth of the matter is: Noone is against inclusion. Noone wants to take away your enjoyment of the game. But we should be allowed to think about the consequences and the effects that these builds have.

Open esologs.com. Pick any.. ANY trial. Check the logs and check the equipment and you will come to the conclusion that either 90% of the ESO player base seem to be suffering from disablilities all of a sudden, or that HA builds are NOT just all about inclusion, that their impact on the game is quite significant and that the "lazy meta" statements are not too far off the mark.

Btw quite ironical that many of those people who were complaining about silly meta chasers and dummy humpers and were all about build diversity and play-how-you-want are now proudly walking around like an army of clone warriors.

Next up, the Walnutsoul mythic.

"Gain every single major and minor buff in the game, but you are allowed no skill bars at all."

I present this in jest, but I actually wonder if there are those who would love this idea.

It was very inclusive of them to change all but one of the light/heavy attack sets, and the empower buff, to only work well for heavy attacking NPCs with lightning staves, halfway during the PTS of update 35. Absolutely no catering took place whatsoever. I'm also sure anyone who used those sets and the previous empower buff, but not with the intent of using lightning heavy attacks against NPCs prior to update 35, felt the full inclusiveness of the carefully thought out and unrushed decision that was made at the time.

TheDarkRuler wrote: »

„One-Bar Heavy Attack Builds are no mistake, they are in fact a good step for inclusion“… quite a line to start with in the heated discussions on the forums but still I feel the need to do so.

What am I talking about?
Quite a few ESO content creators have already talked about the „lazy meta“ or „oakensoul abusers“ or something similar. I am talking about a build combination with Oakensoul Ring, Sergeants Mail and Storm Master ( https://eso-u.com/articles/immortal_sorcerer_heavy_attack_sorcerer_build ). Some people think that 100k dps is something players should not be allowed to acieve that easily.

Why do I think that is wrong?
ESO has always considered itself as a game meant to be played by all kinds of people. End-game progress raid players, PVP players and casual dungeoneers and questers. However, ESO is heavily dps-gated in some content, e.g. 4-man dungeons and a casual player might often find itself in a situation where he or she lacks the dps to pursue his or her goals.

Those Heavy Attack Builds are dealing solid – even above average – constant dps with low or little effort that can be achieved by almost everyone. Even those with physically disabled. With ESO moving their game settings towards those people lately ( colour blind mode, reading quest texts for you, …) those builds are just the next step! You are getting the possibility to play almost all kinds of contents for the game you paid for and without being dead-weight in groups.

Personal information
I personally have a light disability in which my arm nerves are getting slower and more easily tired. If I were to play a full parse DD for a few minutes, that is perfectly doable. But over the course of a full raid my dps would go down and down due to my arms not working anymore as intended.

I used to skip Veteran Dungeons and Trials in the past because I felt useless in those. Now I have found a great streaming guild (congrats @Raikiki ) who resparked my passion for veteran content due to the very nature of heavy attack builds and including those in groups! I love being able to play with other users without dragging them down. And i know that full progress parse-players are still better, but that is fine for me!

Thanks for reading this wall of text. And I hope to receive proper feedback to it.

Greetings
TheDarkRuler

Ugh I hate heavy attacking. It's slow and clunky.

And you spend too much time waiting in group finder as a DPS.
I just play a Healer for vet and I don't have to wait anywhere near as long.
And I don't have to worry about DPS because it's not my job, it's somebody else's.

DPS is the worst job. There's no fun in it at all in vet because tight rigid rotations are boring as hell. Just sucks the fun out of playing.

Hi there! I agree with your opening line: "One-Bar Heavy Attack Builds are no mistake, they are in fact a good step for inclusion“. But I don't think this applies to Oakensoul, and I'd like to point out a couple of areas where your arguments aren't very persuasive, if that's OK.

One-bar (and two-bar) HA builds have existed for years and were perfectly viable for most content, including veteran Maelstrom Arena and Vateshran Hollows. Anyone who wanted a slower playstyle due to disability, preference or inexperience could go ahead and do it. There was no inclusion problem - HA builds just weren't all that popular. Then Oakensoul transformed them into a one-button route to victory.

Respectfully, the whole narrative that Oakensoul was created with inclusion in mind is extremely dubious. Nobody talked about this when it first appeared - the prevailing opinion was that this was an interesting but ludicrously overpowered Mythic, cynically designed to boost sales of High Isle. The PvP community made countless YouTube videos complaining about this, and about the inevitable nerf that came later.

Then Update 35 happened, and the devs had to respond to unforeseen problems on PTS, one of which was Empower. This buff would enable top-tier groups to carry on as before, while everyone else got nerfed. Obviously not good. The devs' solution, designed in a hurry in the last 2 weeks of PTS, was to make Empower affect Heavy Attacks only.

Sorry for the history lesson, but I think the various twists and turns on the road to the current iteration of Oakensoul demonstrate that it never had the chance to be thoroughly tested. Instead it went live and was tested in-game, which has resulted in countless players (ESO veterans with not a disability in sight) switching to a HA playstyle because the input-to-reward ratio is staggeringly skewed in its favour.

Just look at how often the devs talk about "build diversity" and how important it is. I find it very hard to believe that these same people intended Oakensoul to work the way it does, and for everyone to play the same class, with the same gear and the same rotation. My guess is that they don't know how to put the genie back in the bottle, and I can't say I blame them.

Thank you for taking the time to post so politely about this. I hope I have managed to do the same, and maybe add to your perspective on this topic a little bit. I sympathise with anyone who struggled in veteran content before Oakensoul, and I understand why they defend this Mythic. But it is too strong. It is making challenging content far too easy, it is obliterating build diversity and it is (for me at least) devaluing the greatest thing in ESO; the combat system.

And yet.... when you look at leaderboards, for example, Aetherian Archive - 6 of the 12 top are Dragon Knights, and per those players not using Oakensoul.....

So, honestly, we need to make it ALL fair -- if you take off an item, you lose any buff you have on it --- if you are a sorc or warden, and switch bars, you lose your pets, as they are no longer active on it.... ALL skills should be fair, when you switch bars, any skill on it goes away, as it is no longer equipped.... setting up the front bar, back bar sets --- that should go... if you don't have all 5 pieces on, for a set, then any proc from that set should go, as you do not have that equipment on.....

Auldwulfe

i do not understand why people are so angry about oakensoul and heavy attack builds that include it.
because of oakensoul i have been able to finish more dungeons alone, finish vateshran hollows on veteran, and regularly complete world boss quests alone

i cannot deal the same damage nor stay alive for as long without oakensoul and i struggled way more when i still tried to use two bar builds as a damage dealer solo and in groups. i do not have to manage timed buffs anymore and can simply focus on using damaging skills.

playing the game and learning mechanics in dungeons is a whole lot easier when there are no timed buffs to keep up that most people say are needed for builds like beserk, savagery, brutality, and whichever other buffs increase your damage because i already have them permanently.

Browiseth wrote: »

so i do agree that eso has always had an issue with having a massive skill gap between bad players and good players, and that zos should take steps to mitigate this...but the current state of oakensoul is not the way to do it.

like has been mentioned before, instead of increasing diversity of players, it is decreasing diversity, as they are all running the same cookie cutter build and playing in the exact same mindless way, holding mouse1 with zero thought or decision making

now i do appreciate that players with legitimate disabilities are able to enjoy the game more since they don't need to push themselves nearly as much as they had to, but with all due respect (and i'm not suggesting that you are making this argument, rather this is just a common mantra i see in defense of the current state of oakensoul and i would like to address it since i feel it will inevitably come up in this thread) oakensoul is not an accessibility option in eso. quite frankly, players who do have disadvantages outside of their control should expect better when it comes to inclusivity in games, as oakensoul is locked behind multiple paywalls, a grind to raise your scrying/excavation skills and a transmute stone grind if you wish to use the item across multiple characters in a convenient way

sorry, long winded, but i really wanted to nip that in the bud

anyway, oakensoul most definitely needs nerfed, probably by reducing the strength of empower or just removing empower from the item. it should reduce the skill gap between bad and good players, not elevate bad players above good players

And yet -- my wife @DarcyMardin and I are grandparents who use Oakensoul HA builds very differently than you claim.

First of all, we're duoing, with groups fleshed out only by companions. Second, we're definitely doing content more difficult than before. She hadn't done any DLC dungeons that I know of before Oakensoul, other than WGT/IC. I'd only done the ones I PUG healed. Third, we're not necessarily doing tight, decision-free rotations, for many reasons, including: That's not her style anyway. We're imperfect enough as players that emergency heals can be necessary. In boss fights, the lack of a tank naturally causes a lot of reactive play. In trash fights, full rotations may not happen anyway.

And by the way -- when we do a new-to-us normal-mode DLC dungeon, we tend to have difficulties and deaths along the way. Nerf things too much, and we'd be likely to once again not try.

I like Oakensoul heavy build and i'm not disabled. Believe it or not but many don't like it because it is boring. What they call boring i call it "simple" and i like simplicity.

Now how about everyone stop [snip] about it for once? "Oh look it's a heavy build, they doing too much damage, NERF IT, ZOS, NERF IT NAO!"
For once we have a build that doesn't require to be a master typist to use and be like "Do you see those skills i have? Look how fast i'm pressing that attack! I'm so skillful i can do vet trials with one hand!"

But when a simple build gets the same numbers as them Ooooooh LAWD all hell breaks loose and they storm the forums for a NERF [snip]

[edited for baiting and profanity]

jaws343 wrote: »

Lumenn wrote: »

endgamesmug wrote: »

I wanted to see what all the drama was about so i tried the oakensorc on an atro dummy, only gave me 70k. So seems obvious to me that some experienced raiders are hopping on the build and making it work to higher numbers. I have no intention of modifying anything on it to give me more dps, its just novelty to me i prefer another style of play myself.

Exactly. Despite repeated claims of slapping on one ring, placing a book on one button and going afk to do "more or equal" dmg, it just isn't so and those who try it realize that just as you did.

One still has to have the right skills, the right food, the right gear, still have the right rotation (even if it's simpler) to do less dmg than an optimal 2bar build. You also tend to have to follow mechanics a bit more as it's a little harder to just burn everything down and heaven help you if you actually have to block and restart your HA. Its great for my solo character (which used a HA build before oakensoul due to my arthritis) but on good days(when my hands don't hurt so much) I can still do better with (insert the current 2bar meta) and we burn everything. It's great as even when my hands were more manageable I always hated the finger waltz and wished HA were more viable. (I never wanted anything nerfed, just wanted another path to do top end content) besides, I personally think it looks better. Optimal 2bar rotations just look...janky to me. HA is a bit smoother in my opinion.

I personally actually hate it as a solo build.

My Oaken build can hit 78K (could go higher but I run crit surge instead of another dot to add some semblance of self survival)
My solo build hits 55K unsupported.

I much prefer running my solo build in content without a dedicated healer, because it is built to survive and deal damage. The oaken build is incredibly flimsy without a healer, and honestly, not worth the hassle in soloing content. Or even in doing harder vet trial/dungeon content with inexperienced groups. I'd never run the oaken build in dungeon finder for example.

So while I think the DPS is nice, and it does make a few fights a bit more manageable here and there, overall, I think the survivability of wearing the ring is incredibly overblown.

All that to say, oakensoul is fine where it is. It was only a problem when it was released due to Major Heroism, which allowed players to have 100% uptime on certain ultimate in both PVE and PVP. With Minor Heroism, that is not really a problem.

That's been my experience, - I run a double lightning attack sorc - using both bars, but right now, they are identical --- Crit Surge, Magelight for empower, and the 3 pet skills --- both bars, on an Imperial with Sergeant's Mail and Order's Wrath, along with Slime Craw -- I get the same DPS, and am FAR MORE survivable than I was, with Oakensoul, as the 60% crit means I am getting one every second..... even with heavy attacks, as the healing has a chance to proc on every pulse, I am regenerating 3300 health a second .....

I tend to die more often WITH Oakensoul, as I have to remember to heal more..... and with Crit Surge having a 33 second uptime, and Magelight only needing every 10 seconds..... it's a much more simple rotation than Oakensoul..... I really only need Daedric prey on large things... nothing else lasts long enough to bother with it.

Auldwulfe

jaws343 wrote: »

Lumenn wrote: »

endgamesmug wrote: »

I wanted to see what all the drama was about so i tried the oakensorc on an atro dummy, only gave me 70k. So seems obvious to me that some experienced raiders are hopping on the build and making it work to higher numbers. I have no intention of modifying anything on it to give me more dps, its just novelty to me i prefer another style of play myself.

Exactly. Despite repeated claims of slapping on one ring, placing a book on one button and going afk to do "more or equal" dmg, it just isn't so and those who try it realize that just as you did.

One still has to have the right skills, the right food, the right gear, still have the right rotation (even if it's simpler) to do less dmg than an optimal 2bar build. You also tend to have to follow mechanics a bit more as it's a little harder to just burn everything down and heaven help you if you actually have to block and restart your HA. Its great for my solo character (which used a HA build before oakensoul due to my arthritis) but on good days(when my hands don't hurt so much) I can still do better with (insert the current 2bar meta) and we burn everything. It's great as even when my hands were more manageable I always hated the finger waltz and wished HA were more viable. (I never wanted anything nerfed, just wanted another path to do top end content) besides, I personally think it looks better. Optimal 2bar rotations just look...janky to me. HA is a bit smoother in my opinion.

I personally actually hate it as a solo build.

My solo builds are usually to save my hands for the day. 2 bar weaving definitely used to give me more versatility but unfortunately I can now only do that for a short while before I end up paying for it. So now I can play longer and enjoy it 👍

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Auldwulfe wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Lumenn wrote: »

endgamesmug wrote: »

I wanted to see what all the drama was about so i tried the oakensorc on an atro dummy, only gave me 70k. So seems obvious to me that some experienced raiders are hopping on the build and making it work to higher numbers. I have no intention of modifying anything on it to give me more dps, its just novelty to me i prefer another style of play myself.

Exactly. Despite repeated claims of slapping on one ring, placing a book on one button and going afk to do "more or equal" dmg, it just isn't so and those who try it realize that just as you did.

One still has to have the right skills, the right food, the right gear, still have the right rotation (even if it's simpler) to do less dmg than an optimal 2bar build. You also tend to have to follow mechanics a bit more as it's a little harder to just burn everything down and heaven help you if you actually have to block and restart your HA. Its great for my solo character (which used a HA build before oakensoul due to my arthritis) but on good days(when my hands don't hurt so much) I can still do better with (insert the current 2bar meta) and we burn everything. It's great as even when my hands were more manageable I always hated the finger waltz and wished HA were more viable. (I never wanted anything nerfed, just wanted another path to do top end content) besides, I personally think it looks better. Optimal 2bar rotations just look...janky to me. HA is a bit smoother in my opinion.

I personally actually hate it as a solo build.

My Oaken build can hit 78K (could go higher but I run crit surge instead of another dot to add some semblance of self survival)
My solo build hits 55K unsupported.

I much prefer running my solo build in content without a dedicated healer, because it is built to survive and deal damage. The oaken build is incredibly flimsy without a healer, and honestly, not worth the hassle in soloing content. Or even in doing harder vet trial/dungeon content with inexperienced groups. I'd never run the oaken build in dungeon finder for example.

So while I think the DPS is nice, and it does make a few fights a bit more manageable here and there, overall, I think the survivability of wearing the ring is incredibly overblown.

All that to say, oakensoul is fine where it is. It was only a problem when it was released due to Major Heroism, which allowed players to have 100% uptime on certain ultimate in both PVE and PVP. With Minor Heroism, that is not really a problem.

That's been my experience, - I run a double lightning attack sorc - using both bars, but right now, they are identical --- Crit Surge, Magelight for empower, and the 3 pet skills --- both bars, on an Imperial with Sergeant's Mail and Order's Wrath, along with Slime Craw -- I get the same DPS, and am FAR MORE survivable than I was, with Oakensoul, as the 60% crit means I am getting one every second..... even with heavy attacks, as the healing has a chance to proc on every pulse, I am regenerating 3300 health a second .....

I tend to die more often WITH Oakensoul, as I have to remember to heal more..... and with Crit Surge having a 33 second uptime, and Magelight only needing every 10 seconds..... it's a much more simple rotation than Oakensoul..... I really only need Daedric prey on large things... nothing else lasts long enough to bother with it.

Auldwulfe

Where are you getting the added survivability from -- Ring of the Pale Order? A shielding enchant on the back bar?

For my solo build, it is actually with double barred shields. Hardened front bar, Light armor shield back. Crit surge for heals. Mostly run DDF over pale order.

Compared to my oaken build which only has room for crit surge, which is dangerously less effective with so few abilities going off and lesser crit chance and no shield to provide cover while it heals.

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Auldwulfe wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Lumenn wrote: »

endgamesmug wrote: »

I wanted to see what all the drama was about so i tried the oakensorc on an atro dummy, only gave me 70k. So seems obvious to me that some experienced raiders are hopping on the build and making it work to higher numbers. I have no intention of modifying anything on it to give me more dps, its just novelty to me i prefer another style of play myself.

Exactly. Despite repeated claims of slapping on one ring, placing a book on one button and going afk to do "more or equal" dmg, it just isn't so and those who try it realize that just as you did.

One still has to have the right skills, the right food, the right gear, still have the right rotation (even if it's simpler) to do less dmg than an optimal 2bar build. You also tend to have to follow mechanics a bit more as it's a little harder to just burn everything down and heaven help you if you actually have to block and restart your HA. Its great for my solo character (which used a HA build before oakensoul due to my arthritis) but on good days(when my hands don't hurt so much) I can still do better with (insert the current 2bar meta) and we burn everything. It's great as even when my hands were more manageable I always hated the finger waltz and wished HA were more viable. (I never wanted anything nerfed, just wanted another path to do top end content) besides, I personally think it looks better. Optimal 2bar rotations just look...janky to me. HA is a bit smoother in my opinion.

I personally actually hate it as a solo build.

My Oaken build can hit 78K (could go higher but I run crit surge instead of another dot to add some semblance of self survival)
My solo build hits 55K unsupported.

I much prefer running my solo build in content without a dedicated healer, because it is built to survive and deal damage. The oaken build is incredibly flimsy without a healer, and honestly, not worth the hassle in soloing content. Or even in doing harder vet trial/dungeon content with inexperienced groups. I'd never run the oaken build in dungeon finder for example.

So while I think the DPS is nice, and it does make a few fights a bit more manageable here and there, overall, I think the survivability of wearing the ring is incredibly overblown.

All that to say, oakensoul is fine where it is. It was only a problem when it was released due to Major Heroism, which allowed players to have 100% uptime on certain ultimate in both PVE and PVP. With Minor Heroism, that is not really a problem.

That's been my experience, - I run a double lightning attack sorc - using both bars, but right now, they are identical --- Crit Surge, Magelight for empower, and the 3 pet skills --- both bars, on an Imperial with Sergeant's Mail and Order's Wrath, along with Slime Craw -- I get the same DPS, and am FAR MORE survivable than I was, with Oakensoul, as the 60% crit means I am getting one every second..... even with heavy attacks, as the healing has a chance to proc on every pulse, I am regenerating 3300 health a second .....

I tend to die more often WITH Oakensoul, as I have to remember to heal more..... and with Crit Surge having a 33 second uptime, and Magelight only needing every 10 seconds..... it's a much more simple rotation than Oakensoul..... I really only need Daedric prey on large things... nothing else lasts long enough to bother with it.

Auldwulfe

Where are you getting the added survivability from -- Ring of the Pale Order? A shielding enchant on the back bar?

Being an Imperial with the additional 2K health, 2K stamina, and undaunted passives, plus the equivalent of 6600 health regen, due to crits.

Auldwulfe

What’s the point of an mmo or a game in general if you can get through the majority of content by holding down a single button? It seems even more cheap than a permanent tgm in an elder scrolls game.