As mentioned above, heavy attack builds have always existed.

Heavy attack builds can also involve two bars. Heavy attack builds used to be fine till it was nerfed, which forced players that had heavy attack builds to use empower through skills or sets (previously empower was not necessary to do decent damage).

This mythic is for two bar heavy attack builds.

If someone wants or is only able to play with onebar, then they should stick with Oakensoul, which serves the purpose of enabling that gameplay style.

Where did I say that heavy attack builds originated with the Oakensoul ring? I specifically said that it only precipitated their prominence. Heavy attack builds tend to appeal mostly to more causal players and those who don’t have the reflexes or good enough hardware and internet connections to handle constant bar swapping. How is Rakkhat’s going to help them since it requires constant uptime on Empower plus at least half of the buffs Oakensoul provides?

If you want a real world analogy, to a causal ESO player giving them Rakkhat’s is like giving a pickleball player a tennis racket.

Imperial_Archmage wrote: »

Where did I say that heavy attack builds originated with the Oakensoul ring? I specifically said that it only precipitated their prominence. Heavy attack builds tend to appeal mostly to more causal players and those who don’t have the reflexes or good enough hardware and internet connections to handle constant bar swapping. How is Rakkhat’s going to help them since it requires constant uptime on Empower plus at least half of the buffs Oakensoul provides?

If you want a real world analogy, to a causal ESO player giving them Rakkhat’s is like giving a pickleball player a tennis racket.

Oakensoul didn't precipitate the HA build prominence. HA builds have always been a prominent choice (with an adjustment period after some nerfs). Oakensoul just gave new and casual players quick access to HA builds. Oakensoul raises the floor but lowers the ceiling. Rakkhat's raises the ceiling, and there's already a sublass HA one-bar solo build using Rakkhat's putting out 130k+ dps. No bar swapping needed.

I don't see what the issue is with having options?

I'm never, ever going to play a heavy attack build, but it seems like a good thing that people who like Oakensoul can use that and players who want to do a 1.5 bar rotation as I've heard light backbar rotations described can use the new mythic.

I would guess the introduction of subclassing was part of the motivation behind a new HA mythic because only 5 ability slots doesn't offer much room for experimenting with subclasses.

Tannus15 wrote: »

it's literally the light attack test from march 2020

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/517545/pts-patch-notes-testing-ideas-for-light-heavy-attacks-in-combat

as a game wide system change it was universally hated, but clearly one of the devs liked the idea and they brought it back as a mythic.

I'm not against it, it's a good idea for a mythic.

I had totally forgotten about that. Actually, I probably subconsciously repressed the memory. 😂

Imperial_Archmage wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Oakensoul didn't precipitate the HA build prominence.

That’s just factually incorrect. Before Oakensoul came out hardly anyone played a heavy attack build even though the Sergeant set had been out forever. After Oakensoul heavy attack builds became so popular literally every other person you saw was just spamming the lightning heavy attack and the devs felt the need to nerf not only the ring but also the shock destro staff heavy attack and even the Empower buff itself. Oakensoul was a watershed moment for heavy attack builds.

The fact is, no one enjoys maintenance buffs and sadly that’s quite literally a focal feature of this game. It’s not a question of how easy or hard it is to apply them, it’s just tedious that you have to constantly reapply them and very easy to forget. So anything that makes them permanent will inevitably be extremely popular especially considering that ESO is overwhelmingly a casual game, even more than other MMOs.

Uhh no. As a PvPer, I can confidently confirm that many non-PvErs used Heavy Attack builds for PvE content long before Oakensoul. They were the "easy" build to slap on for someone that doesn't practice parsing and didn't want to farm trials for PvE gear, as most of the sets used were from base game dungeons.

It was also the go-to setup for anyone that wanted to solo Veteran dungeons, since you could purely focus on defense and simply let your heavy attacks do all the damage.

Oakensoul made them extremely common, but acting like heavy attack builds were some rarity before that is wild. The difference was that before Oakensoul, heavy attack builds were mostly only popular among PvPers looking to farm PvE or hard-core PvErs that wanted to solo veteran content. That doesn't mean they weren't prominent because they were all over the place.

https://youtu.be/lV9KLysgoK0

Imperial_Archmage wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Oakensoul didn't precipitate the HA build prominence.

That’s just factually incorrect. Before Oakensoul came out hardly anyone played a heavy attack build even though the Sergeant set had been out forever. After Oakensoul heavy attack builds became so popular literally every other person you saw was just spamming the lightning heavy attack and the devs felt the need to nerf not only the ring but also the shock destro staff heavy attack and even the Empower buff itself. Oakensoul was a watershed moment for heavy attack builds.

The fact is, no one enjoys maintenance buffs and sadly that’s quite literally a focal feature of this game. It’s not a question of how easy or hard it is to apply them, it’s just tedious that you have to constantly reapply them and very easy to forget. So anything that makes them permanent will inevitably be extremely popular especially considering that ESO is overwhelmingly a casual game, even more than other MMOs.

This is wrong. The staple "learning to clear vMA" build from 2018 until around 2021 was a one bar heavy attack plague doctor/necropotence build. Anyone who wanted a maelstrom weapon but was newer to the game or just not very confident or comfortable in vMA ran that build. It was the top of every search engine result.

https://youtu.be/Lu2kIZWjXg8?si=PSX_t3DfS2_Ogqw0

Imperial_Archmage wrote: »

That’s just factually incorrect. Before Oakensoul came out hardly anyone played a heavy attack build even though the Sergeant set had been out forever. After Oakensoul heavy attack builds became so popular literally every other person you saw was just spamming the lightning heavy attack and the devs felt the need to nerf not only the ring but also the shock destro staff heavy attack and even the Empower buff itself. Oakensoul was a watershed moment for heavy attack builds.

Prior to Oakensoul HA builds were a popular lower APM alternative to LA builds; one of the people who made them popular back then was Xynode with his old EasySorc. The most powerful HA build was two-bar DK HA running Molten Armaments with its unique 50% buff to HAs, and for ST it ran a combo of Rele body (back when Rele's dot stacked 20x), Infiltrator front-barred, vMA inferno back-barred because of its old buff to basic attack damage - and pretty much whatever choice of monster set.

This was a long time prior to mythics, prior to Sergeant's Mail becoming what it is today (it used to buff the base damage of fully-charged HAs only), prior to Storm Master becoming a flat base damage buff (it used to add shock dmg to your basic weapon attacks), prior to Empower becoming a HA-only buff with a higher percentage boost - which remains 30% higher today than it previously was - back before HA-buffing sets got changed from providing flat base damage buffs to percentage-based buffs, and when lightning staffs had a 4-hit HA channel.

Yes, Oakensoul exploded their popularity thanks to influencers showcasing how grossly overtuned Oakensoul was and how that synergised with HA builds, but they were already a popular choice long before it existed, with varying intensity options available between both one and two bars. The Voidmantle mythic effectively reinvigorates two-bar options, and is actually the most powerful one-bar option with subclassing.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Imperial_Archmage wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Oakensoul didn't precipitate the HA build prominence.

That’s just factually incorrect. Before Oakensoul came out hardly anyone played a heavy attack build even though the Sergeant set had been out forever. After Oakensoul heavy attack builds became so popular literally every other person you saw was just spamming the lightning heavy attack and the devs felt the need to nerf not only the ring but also the shock destro staff heavy attack and even the Empower buff itself. Oakensoul was a watershed moment for heavy attack builds.

The fact is, no one enjoys maintenance buffs and sadly that’s quite literally a focal feature of this game. It’s not a question of how easy or hard it is to apply them, it’s just tedious that you have to constantly reapply them and very easy to forget. So anything that makes them permanent will inevitably be extremely popular especially considering that ESO is overwhelmingly a casual game, even more than other MMOs.

Exactly this.

HA builds were mildly used in PVP and Arena as pointed above, hardly representing even 5% of the playerbase. HA did not become popular until Oakensoul as you pointed out. The chain nerfs you aslo pointed out were due to the fact that HA became so popular.

But to your OP. The mythic seemingly makes no sense. Since U46 dropped I have seen ONE MoL trial in group finder. Its an easy dungeon to run, easy to farm the gear, does not take a lot of time and yet few are running it. The mythic has limited appeal.

The mythic having limited appeal may be a result of the phenomenon I’ve noticed in which people have become immensely attached to oakensoul. Even if rakkhat is better, even if its better for one-bar, there is a nonzero amount of people who will defend oakensoul against any criticism because it looks better to them and because of the history of oakensoul.

The mythic is fine

It allows HA builds to go beyond Oakensoul, at the cost of being a little more technical, having to source bufs (spell and phys damage and critical, minor force, empower ..) and maintain their uptimes.

It allows for skilled HA builds user to perform better and actually be competitive, while oakensoul user are still powerfull enough to do content.

So, it's a mighty fine idea for a mythic

MasterSpatula wrote: »

I just think it's weird to create a whole new heavy attack build while heavy attacks themselves are in such a disastrous state. Perhaps they should focus on insuring that standing right in front of an enemy with that enemy in your crosshairs and holding down the attack button actually does something.

That would definitely be nice.

HAs have been broken in that regard since ZOS silently removed one of the damage tics from the channel, bringing it down from 4 tics total to 3. That was NEVER included in any patch notes, just done without admission or explanation.

Lalothen wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

I just think it's weird to create a whole new heavy attack build while heavy attacks themselves are in such a disastrous state. Perhaps they should focus on insuring that standing right in front of an enemy with that enemy in your crosshairs and holding down the attack button actually does something.

That would definitely be nice.

HAs have been broken in that regard since ZOS silently removed one of the damage tics from the channel, bringing it down from 4 tics total to 3. That was NEVER included in any patch notes, just done without admission or explanation.

There also seems to be some kind of desync issue going on. Dodge-rolling sometimes solves everything, sometimes solves nothing, for example.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Imperial_Archmage wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Oakensoul didn't precipitate the HA build prominence.

That’s just factually incorrect. Before Oakensoul came out hardly anyone played a heavy attack build even though the Sergeant set had been out forever. After Oakensoul heavy attack builds became so popular literally every other person you saw was just spamming the lightning heavy attack and the devs felt the need to nerf not only the ring but also the shock destro staff heavy attack and even the Empower buff itself. Oakensoul was a watershed moment for heavy attack builds.

The fact is, no one enjoys maintenance buffs and sadly that’s quite literally a focal feature of this game. It’s not a question of how easy or hard it is to apply them, it’s just tedious that you have to constantly reapply them and very easy to forget. So anything that makes them permanent will inevitably be extremely popular especially considering that ESO is overwhelmingly a casual game, even more than other MMOs.

Exactly this.

HA builds were mildly used in PVP and Arena as pointed above, hardly representing even 5% of the playerbase. HA did not become popular until Oakensoul as you pointed out. The chain nerfs you aslo pointed out were due to the fact that HA became so popular.

But to your OP. The mythic seemingly makes no sense. Since U46 dropped I have seen ONE MoL trial in group finder. Its an easy dungeon to run, easy to farm the gear, does not take a lot of time and yet few are running it. The mythic has limited appeal.

The mythic having limited appeal may be a result of the phenomenon I’ve noticed in which people have become immensely attached to oakensoul. Even if rakkhat is better, even if its better for one-bar, there is a nonzero amount of people who will defend oakensoul against any criticism because it looks better to them and because of the history of oakensoul.

But it's not better. It has the potential to do more DPS, but DPS does not equate to "being better" unless the only metric you are measuring is damage output except that is not the only measuable metric regarding a classes build.

Oakensoul is popular for a number of reasons.
1. It does away with bar swapping. A mechanic that many people hate and or, a mechanic many people can not use for a variety of legitimatge reasons.
2. Oakensoul allows for the solo player (the vast majority of the playerbase) to do content they would otherwise have a hard time doing solo (mostly due to Oakensouls defensive buffs).
3. Oakensoul allows for more casual gameplay (again, the majority of the playerbase).
4. Oakensoul does not require rebuffing your character over and over and over and over, every 6-20 something seconds during a lengthy boss encoutner. You might like buffing, many people hate it and cite it as one of the primary turn offs of ESO combat.

The bottom line is that there are good, darn good reasons for the Oakensoul community to love and defend their chosen mythic, of which for many is the only mythic they can reliably run in game.

Exactly. People look at the 20 buffs and think it’s better. Here’s the thing, you can choose not to barswap without oakensoul. What rakkhat lets you do that Oakensoul does not is (do cloudrest and) put long or permanent buffs on your backbar. You can put bound aegis, siphoning strikes, grim focus, concealed weapon, cloak, inferno, tomb-bearers inspiration, and more on your backbar and never cast them or even swap to that bar. You can also have access to your second bar to slot cloak or streak or vampire mist or any other unique ability that may help in overland. The only real downside is that you have to find a source of empower, be it from dk, scribing, or mages guild.

Minor Berserk - bird of prey, aedric spear passive. With tank (can be companion), camo hunter. With human healer, combat prayer.

Minor Courage - really not an important buff

Major Brutality/Major Sorcery/Major Prophecy/Major Savagery - theres a lot of ways to get these buffs, from permanent buffs by slotting skills to potions to 20 second skills.

Minor Force - most people probably aren’t even building for crit chance anyways, but race against time is a long skill that gives minor force AND major expedition

Minor Protection/Major Resolve/Minor Mending - unneeded, plus can use a companion to tank

Minor Fortitude/Minor Intellect/Minor Endurance - you’re a heavy attack build, you don’t need this

Minor Heroism - potions, banner, but generally unneeded

Minor Slayer/Minor Aegis - these don’t work in overland and you can use a trial set to get them. I know only one ha set is a trial set but you don’t really need either anyways

Empower - as mentioned, this is the only troubling one because theres no way to just slot something and have it be permanent except oakensoul

Even between some of the harder to achieve buffs, people are weighing the buffs against not having the buffs instead of weighing the buffs against a 50% damage boost to heavy attacks. Try voidmantle before you say it doesn’t work.

Also, I had the most fun in the game and I was a casual in half heavy armor duoing and soloing overland. If you’re being casual, you really don’t need all that. If you’re soloing dungeons, companions exist now & there’s ways to make tankier builds (such as slotting bound aegis on backbar).

katorga wrote: »

Imperial_Archmage wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Oakensoul didn't precipitate the HA build prominence.

That’s just factually incorrect. Before Oakensoul came out hardly anyone played a heavy attack build even though the Sergeant set had been out forever. After Oakensoul heavy attack builds became so popular literally every other person you saw was just spamming the lightning heavy attack and the devs felt the need to nerf not only the ring but also the shock destro staff heavy attack and even the Empower buff itself. Oakensoul was a watershed moment for heavy attack builds.

The fact is, no one enjoys maintenance buffs and sadly that’s quite literally a focal feature of this game. It’s not a question of how easy or hard it is to apply them, it’s just tedious that you have to constantly reapply them and very easy to forget. So anything that makes them permanent will inevitably be extremely popular especially considering that ESO is overwhelmingly a casual game, even more than other MMOs.

I think the old school lightning heavy attack builds, pre-Oakensoul, were solo oriented. Reduce GCD used for damage, and free up those GCD for survival. It was good for sorcerers because pets taking up 4 skill slots. I recall them used to solo world bosses, some dungeons, etc. No one used them for endgame dps.

The whole thing got nerfed once DKs and NB started one-shotting players in PVP with 40K fire staff heavy attacks.

Even with the new mythic, a 130K dps HA build will not be competitive with the 150-170 dps beam builds. Doing random dungeons for exp to level skill lines is ridiculous now, and you do not want to use a heavy attack build because the arcanist beams kill everything before HA channel gets past the first tick.

The nerfs resulting from sub-classing are going to be EPIC.

Whoa, there ! That's a quite worrisome frame of mind, really

150-170k dps deam builds? Sure, there is a few around, but seriously, that's a minority. Except for the 0.1% of elite players, no one comes close to those numbers... (and many of those who do use cheesy parse builds with overland sentinel and food that only gives a lot of their usable stats. Do I smell cheese? I do !)


And saying that 130k is not competitive against 150k is also a bold step to take, really.

In truth, anything north of 80k is still as nice as it was before. If someone asks for 150k for a vTrial, the problem lies with him and not with the rest of the community.

I've an HA build, with rakkhat, I do good damage north of 100k with my trial gear and trial food, and I have no problems getting into runs whatsoever. Even runs I did not yet have the achievement.
So, no .. it may be a problem in high-end runs indeed, butin those, no one could choose their own build before, anyway. There's always a meta.

For us normal folks, it's still all good, really.

Soarora wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Imperial_Archmage wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Oakensoul didn't precipitate the HA build prominence.

That’s just factually incorrect. Before Oakensoul came out hardly anyone played a heavy attack build even though the Sergeant set had been out forever. After Oakensoul heavy attack builds became so popular literally every other person you saw was just spamming the lightning heavy attack and the devs felt the need to nerf not only the ring but also the shock destro staff heavy attack and even the Empower buff itself. Oakensoul was a watershed moment for heavy attack builds.

The fact is, no one enjoys maintenance buffs and sadly that’s quite literally a focal feature of this game. It’s not a question of how easy or hard it is to apply them, it’s just tedious that you have to constantly reapply them and very easy to forget. So anything that makes them permanent will inevitably be extremely popular especially considering that ESO is overwhelmingly a casual game, even more than other MMOs.

Exactly this.

HA builds were mildly used in PVP and Arena as pointed above, hardly representing even 5% of the playerbase. HA did not become popular until Oakensoul as you pointed out. The chain nerfs you aslo pointed out were due to the fact that HA became so popular.

But to your OP. The mythic seemingly makes no sense. Since U46 dropped I have seen ONE MoL trial in group finder. Its an easy dungeon to run, easy to farm the gear, does not take a lot of time and yet few are running it. The mythic has limited appeal.

The mythic having limited appeal may be a result of the phenomenon I’ve noticed in which people have become immensely attached to oakensoul. Even if rakkhat is better, even if its better for one-bar, there is a nonzero amount of people who will defend oakensoul against any criticism because it looks better to them and because of the history of oakensoul.

But it's not better. It has the potential to do more DPS, but DPS does not equate to "being better" unless the only metric you are measuring is damage output except that is not the only measuable metric regarding a classes build.

Oakensoul is popular for a number of reasons.
1. It does away with bar swapping. A mechanic that many people hate and or, a mechanic many people can not use for a variety of legitimatge reasons.
2. Oakensoul allows for the solo player (the vast majority of the playerbase) to do content they would otherwise have a hard time doing solo (mostly due to Oakensouls defensive buffs).
3. Oakensoul allows for more casual gameplay (again, the majority of the playerbase).
4. Oakensoul does not require rebuffing your character over and over and over and over, every 6-20 something seconds during a lengthy boss encoutner. You might like buffing, many people hate it and cite it as one of the primary turn offs of ESO combat.

The bottom line is that there are good, darn good reasons for the Oakensoul community to love and defend their chosen mythic, of which for many is the only mythic they can reliably run in game.

Exactly. People look at the 20 buffs and think it’s better. Here’s the thing, you can choose not to barswap without oakensoul. What rakkhat lets you do that Oakensoul does not is (do cloudrest and) put long or permanent buffs on your backbar. You can put bound aegis, siphoning strikes, grim focus, concealed weapon, cloak, inferno, tomb-bearers inspiration, and more on your backbar and never cast them or even swap to that bar. You can also have access to your second bar to slot cloak or streak or vampire mist or any other unique ability that may help in overland. The only real downside is that you have to find a source of empower, be it from dk, scribing, or mages guild.

Minor Berserk - bird of prey, aedric spear passive. With tank (can be companion), camo hunter. With human healer, combat prayer.

Minor Courage - really not an important buff

Major Brutality/Major Sorcery/Major Prophecy/Major Savagery - theres a lot of ways to get these buffs, from permanent buffs by slotting skills to potions to 20 second skills.

Minor Force - most people probably aren’t even building for crit chance anyways, but race against time is a long skill that gives minor force AND major expedition

Minor Protection/Major Resolve/Minor Mending - unneeded, plus can use a companion to tank

Minor Fortitude/Minor Intellect/Minor Endurance - you’re a heavy attack build, you don’t need this

Minor Heroism - potions, banner, but generally unneeded

Minor Slayer/Minor Aegis - these don’t work in overland and you can use a trial set to get them. I know only one ha set is a trial set but you don’t really need either anyways

Empower - as mentioned, this is the only troubling one because theres no way to just slot something and have it be permanent except oakensoul

Even between some of the harder to achieve buffs, people are weighing the buffs against not having the buffs instead of weighing the buffs against a 50% damage boost to heavy attacks. Try voidmantle before you say it doesn’t work.

Also, I had the most fun in the game and I was a casual in half heavy armor duoing and soloing overland. If you’re being casual, you really don’t need all that. If you’re soloing dungeons, companions exist now & there’s ways to make tankier builds (such as slotting bound aegis on backbar).

You wrongfully assume that everyone wants to sublcass.

I tried subclassing and in my opinion it sucks. Sure, you can make your character do a ton more DPS, but for those of us who actually embrace a classes identity it plainly sucks. Subclassing is the first thing in ESO that has made me play less. It makes all my characters who were once unique, feel the same.

Secondly. Many of the buffs you suggested I dont need, I infact use on an every encounter basis. HA builds are not restricted to only using heavy attacks. In fact even with a HA build I run out of my 35k magicka pool often and have to manage it carefully. So minor intellect is 100% needed

Major resolve, 100% needed
Minor Protection, 100% needed
Minor Slayer, 100% needed (you assume I only do overland)
Minor Courage, 100% needed