Why Are Skill Morphs and Build Changes Restricted in Trials?

abkam · September 3

Why can't we select any skill morph whenever we want? Sometimes it's better to have Resolving Vigor, but Echoing Vigor could be more beneficial in certain situations. When playing with random groups (PUGs), we never know what might be needed. The same goes for skills like Fetcher Infection or Growing Swarm, or any other skill. Why are they locked?

The same applies to Ghrasharog, the Armory Assistant. Why can't we summon him to change our build inside trials? If a healer, tank, or damage dealer leaves the group, and someone else can switch role, they have to exit the instance, summon the assistant, change their build, and then re-enter to rejoin the group and continue the trial. Why is this restriction in place?

Is there any good reason behind all this? Why can't we change skill morphs whenever we want, and what's the reason for locking Ghrasharog, the Armory Assistant, inside trials?

Yudo · September 3

I believe it is to avoid unfair advantage on leaderboard scoring, since not everyone has access to these assistants which are only available through crown store.

DenverRalphy · September 3

Armory is disabled inside all activities with a Score/Leaderboard.

abkam · September 3

Ok. But why can't we select any skill morph whenever we want?

C_Inside · September 3

I believe you can still use skill respec scrolls in trials no problem. I haven't tested it since who tf even keeps respec scrolls considering how easy it is to respec nowadays, but if someone has a spare respec scroll, do try to use it next time you do a trial.

ApoAlaia · September 3

C_Inside wrote: »

I believe you can still use skill respec scrolls in trials no problem. I haven't tested it since who tf even keeps respec scrolls considering how easy it is to respec nowadays, but if someone has a spare respec scroll, do try to use it next time you do a trial.

Good point, I still have those from login rewards (bit of a magpie me), gotta remember to try next time I'm in dungeon/trial.

thorwyn · September 3

abkam wrote: »

Ok. But why can't we select any skill morph whenever we want?

Because picking a morph is a choice you make. That's one part of the gane. It's not "alwas use the best one". If you could swap morphs everywhere and instantly, the entire feature would be pointless. ZOS could just combine the effects of both morphs and call it a game.

abkam · September 3

thorwyn wrote: »

abkam wrote: »

Ok. But why can't we select any skill morph whenever we want?

Because picking a morph is a choice you make. That's one part of the gane. It's not "alwas use the best one". If you could swap morphs everywhere and instantly, the entire feature would be pointless. ZOS could just combine the effects of both morphs and call it a game.

Ok. But as I said, in PUGs groups from the group finder, you never know what to expect. I don't see any valid reason why I have to use the same skills I used with a different PUG group. In the last group, we had very good penetration, so I could use Crystal Fragments. But in this group, the penetration isn't as good, so I should be able to help with Crystal Weapon (Unless I leave the trial in the middle of the run to change my skills. Because we won't know the group's penetration level until we start).It's a similar situation with a group that has a DK providing Igneous Weapons versus one without a Dragonknight.

We can only find good groups outside of the game, primarily on platforms like Discord. But if you want to focus only in-game and do your best to help, you're limited. You simply can't because the game doesn't allow that level of flexibility!

Stafford197 · September 3

The OP brings up a fantastic point.

This is a massive fundamental issue with ESO combat balance which is not often talked about. In a truly organized group, everything will of course be optimized. However, in a PUG group or really any group that is not perfectly optimized, there is an enormous amount of overlap in stats and buffs which ruins much of the group’s damage potential.

The most important part of dealing damage is to cut through enemy resistances. This is done through resistance debuffs, but also through the Penetration stat of which DPS characters may have either a small or large amount. How much resistances do enemies have and why isn’t it explicitly stated in game? How are DPS supposed to know exactly how much Penetration they need to bring to the group? It’s so easy to underpin or overpen and therefore throw away tons of damage.

This issue also occurs with buffs, particularly the stronger ones. For example, if you wear a set that provides Minor Courage, your entire set can now be made useless if the group just so happens to have an Arcanist. Or as a DK, is casting Igneous Weapons a waste or not? What about sets which provide Major Berserk - why does this have to make it incompatible with a Sorc Atro Ult?

We can’t put on an Item Set, or cast an ability, or build for Penetration, without potentially having a large portion of the power completely deleted in a group setting. Nearly all buffs have many sources which can overlap and resistances/penetration is impossible to get right without out of game knowledge and specific gear optimizations based on the group.

It’s a pretty deep issue with the game. At the end of the day, this just causes random groups to lose a huge amount of power. Even plenty of organized trial groups I’ve seen tend to make mistakes because they don’t fully understand how everything works.

The solution requires some serious Character Sheet Stat reworks and is not so simple to fix. I do wish this would all change though. It would be great if you could throw on gear, or cast a skill, and know with 100% certainty that you and your group will be made more effective for it.

abkam · September 3

Some changes need to be made. But honestly, I don't see any harm in allowing players to freely choose any skill to better support the group. Playing with pugs isn't always easy, but it's even worse when you can't contribute more. There are definitely some changes that could be made to the game. Allowing players to choose which skills to use at any time would only benefit everyone.

wolfie1.0. · September 3

You could always create a blank slate template in the armory system.. or an unmorphed one. And equip it before queuing into a PUG.

Most times when I pug into trials the biggest problem is getting the group to work together on mechs and how to get things done, skill optimization and gear effectiveness only come up if someone is complaining that they arnt getting heals..and forget to remove pale order ring.

Amottica · September 3

thorwyn wrote: »

abkam wrote: »

Ok. But why can't we select any skill morph whenever we want?

Because picking a morph is a choice you make. That's one part of the gane. It's not "alwas use the best one". If you could swap morphs everywhere and instantly, the entire feature would be pointless. ZOS could just combine the effects of both morphs and call it a game.

But this was not always the case, and I have not seen where the devs stated this was because they wanted to force us to live with the morph we chose.

Nharimlur_Finor · September 3

Stafford197 wrote: »

The OP brings up a fantastic point.

This is a massive fundamental issue with ESO combat balance which is not often talked about. In a truly organized group, everything will of course be optimized. However, in a PUG group or really any group that is not perfectly optimized, there is an enormous amount of overlap in stats and buffs which ruins much of the group’s damage potential.

The most important part of dealing damage is to cut through enemy resistances. This is done through resistance debuffs, but also through the Penetration stat of which DPS characters may have either a small or large amount. How much resistances do enemies have and why isn’t it explicitly stated in game? How are DPS supposed to know exactly how much Penetration they need to bring to the group? It’s so easy to underpin or overpen and therefore throw away tons of damage.

This issue also occurs with buffs, particularly the stronger ones. For example, if you wear a set that provides Minor Courage, your entire set can now be made useless if the group just so happens to have an Arcanist. Or as a DK, is casting Igneous Weapons a waste or not? What about sets which provide Major Berserk - why does this have to make it incompatible with a Sorc Atro Ult?

We can’t put on an Item Set, or cast an ability, or build for Penetration, without potentially having a large portion of the power completely deleted in a group setting. Nearly all buffs have many sources which can overlap and resistances/penetration is impossible to get right without out of game knowledge and specific gear optimizations based on the group.

It’s a pretty deep issue with the game. At the end of the day, this just causes random groups to lose a huge amount of power. Even plenty of organized trial groups I’ve seen tend to make mistakes because they don’t fully understand how everything works.

The solution requires some serious Character Sheet Stat reworks and is not so simple to fix. I do wish this would all change though. It would be great if you could throw on gear, or cast a skill, and know with 100% certainty that you and your group will be made more effective for it.

I'm not being dismissive of what you write here. There's a lot of important points.

I think that the massive issue is actually about predictability. Too many players create a build and expect everything to go 'their way' as a result.

The whole point of a random group, is for you to learn and understand that you can never know what each new random team will bring. It's random, so that you'll get a different experience each time. No, it isn't always a good experience. You're supposed to learn from where it goes wrong.

If you want a precision grouping, that requires investment in social networking inside the game with other players.
That has always been the real purpose of guilds. This where you can build predictability, if that's what you need.

Benzux · September 3

Better question is, what are you PUGging that actually requires you to care so much? As long as people know mechanics, you can run through any normal trial/dungeon with a group of randoms from the group finder and it won't make that much of a difference if there happens to be two instances of a group buff being applied. For veteran stuff, I'd almost expect communication to be a requirement, though again, unless you are going for score pushes (which you are not going to find in PUGs lol) you'll still probably be fine. Vet trials is the only place where I'd even bother to pay attention to this stuff, I've PUGged almost all DLC dungeons on Vet with no comms and nobody ever needed to change their builds in any drastic way, aside from "oh I need a ranged interrupt for this so let me slot Crushing Shock" or whatever.

Nharimlur_Finor · September 3

thorwyn wrote: »

abkam wrote: »

Ok. But why can't we select any skill morph whenever we want?

Because picking a morph is a choice you make. That's one part of the game. It's not "always use the best one". If you could swap morphs everywhere and instantly, the entire feature would be pointless. ZOS could just combine the effects of both morphs and call it a game.

I don't have experience with all skill lines, but my observation is that most morphs define the fundamental difference between a 'magicka' build and a 'stamina' build. It may be more complex than that.

thorwyn · September 3

I don't have experience with all skill lines, but my observation is that most morphs define the fundamental difference between a 'magicka' build and a 'stamina' build. It may be more complex than that.

Most do, some don't.
Crushing Shock is a ranged interrupt, Force Pulse is not. Resolving Vigor is a self heal, Echoing Vigor is a group heal etc.
The advantages are very small though and usually don't matter unless you are in a group that is trying to min/max.

Stafford197 · September 3

LaintalAy wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

The OP brings up a fantastic point.

This is a massive fundamental issue with ESO combat balance which is not often talked about. In a truly organized group, everything will of course be optimized. However, in a PUG group or really any group that is not perfectly optimized, there is an enormous amount of overlap in stats and buffs which ruins much of the group’s damage potential.

The most important part of dealing damage is to cut through enemy resistances. This is done through resistance debuffs, but also through the Penetration stat of which DPS characters may have either a small or large amount. How much resistances do enemies have and why isn’t it explicitly stated in game? How are DPS supposed to know exactly how much Penetration they need to bring to the group? It’s so easy to underpin or overpen and therefore throw away tons of damage.

This issue also occurs with buffs, particularly the stronger ones. For example, if you wear a set that provides Minor Courage, your entire set can now be made useless if the group just so happens to have an Arcanist. Or as a DK, is casting Igneous Weapons a waste or not? What about sets which provide Major Berserk - why does this have to make it incompatible with a Sorc Atro Ult?

We can’t put on an Item Set, or cast an ability, or build for Penetration, without potentially having a large portion of the power completely deleted in a group setting. Nearly all buffs have many sources which can overlap and resistances/penetration is impossible to get right without out of game knowledge and specific gear optimizations based on the group.

It’s a pretty deep issue with the game. At the end of the day, this just causes random groups to lose a huge amount of power. Even plenty of organized trial groups I’ve seen tend to make mistakes because they don’t fully understand how everything works.

The solution requires some serious Character Sheet Stat reworks and is not so simple to fix. I do wish this would all change though. It would be great if you could throw on gear, or cast a skill, and know with 100% certainty that you and your group will be made more effective for it.

I'm not being dismissive of what you write here. There's a lot of important points.

I think that the massive issue is actually about predictability. Too many players create a build and expect everything to go 'their way' as a result.

The whole point of a random group, is for you to learn and understand that you can never know what each new random team will bring. It's random, so that you'll get a different experience each time. No, it isn't always a good experience. You're supposed to learn from where it goes wrong.

If you want a precision grouping, that requires investment in social networking inside the game with other players.
That has always been the real purpose of guilds. This where you can build predictability, if that's what you need.

I don’t think the unpredictability of random groups is a bad thing. It can be fun to see what sort of players join group and to meet new people. I think various aspects can make this a good or bad experience.

My post was mainly about how easy it is for random groups to be enormously incompatible. Not player personalities, or a small losses such as a Mag DK increasing enemy flame damage taken when the other DPS is a Mag Ice Warden…. but detrimental things such a player’ entire set 5-piece being made obsolete, or a player being greatly over or under penetrating a target. While you’re correct that it can fall under the Build Predictability idea, this total cancelling of set or skill effects, or a baseline huge damage reduction due to Penetration inefficiencies, is not fun at all imo. It also heavily reinforces using specific sets/builds which can’t run into these issues as much, instead of players using stuff they enjoy (such as choosing pure weapon damage buffing sets instead of one that grants Major Beserk on self etc).

It’s ok for random groups to be less efficient and to provide new experiences! I just wish ESO builds were designed in a way where the group focus is on complimenting each others strength, not calculating how to avoid negating each other.

zaria · September 3

Stafford197 wrote: »

The OP brings up a fantastic point.

This is a massive fundamental issue with ESO combat balance which is not often talked about. In a truly organized group, everything will of course be optimized. However, in a PUG group or really any group that is not perfectly optimized, there is an enormous amount of overlap in stats and buffs which ruins much of the group’s damage potential.

The most important part of dealing damage is to cut through enemy resistances. This is done through resistance debuffs, but also through the Penetration stat of which DPS characters may have either a small or large amount. How much resistances do enemies have and why isn’t it explicitly stated in game? How are DPS supposed to know exactly how much Penetration they need to bring to the group? It’s so easy to underpin or overpen and therefore throw away tons of damage.

This issue also occurs with buffs, particularly the stronger ones. For example, if you wear a set that provides Minor Courage, your entire set can now be made useless if the group just so happens to have an Arcanist. Or as a DK, is casting Igneous Weapons a waste or not? What about sets which provide Major Berserk - why does this have to make it incompatible with a Sorc Atro Ult?

We can’t put on an Item Set, or cast an ability, or build for Penetration, without potentially having a large portion of the power completely deleted in a group setting. Nearly all buffs have many sources which can overlap and resistances/penetration is impossible to get right without out of game knowledge and specific gear optimizations based on the group.

It’s a pretty deep issue with the game. At the end of the day, this just causes random groups to lose a huge amount of power. Even plenty of organized trial groups I’ve seen tend to make mistakes because they don’t fully understand how everything works.

The solution requires some serious Character Sheet Stat reworks and is not so simple to fix. I do wish this would all change though. It would be great if you could throw on gear, or cast a skill, and know with 100% certainty that you and your group will be made more effective for it.

This, now on PC we have stuff like dressing room who let you change gear and bars at an click.
I found it mostly useful in dungeons, say on an magplar and you run DD with off heal all the way but know last boss deals lots of damage so you switch to much more healing focus for him.

katanagirl1 · September 4

I guess the current system assumes that everyone arrives with an optimized build but of course we know that doesn’t always happen. I don’t think I would want to change my build just because of the group, though. It might make sense for healers and tanks to change gear or skills, but the dps build states one particular morph for the sills on your bar. In some cases dps use other gear sets to help the group, but my experience is that different skills might be used but not different morphs.

If I change morphs then my dps is likely to go down.