Share Your Thoughts on ESO's Classes with Us

ZOS_Kevin · September 25

This is the official discussion thread for, "Share Your Thoughts on ESO's Classes with Us"

Hi all. We know a lot of you have questions about the long term plan for classes and combat. We're looking to learn more about your experiences with ESO's classes, including class identity, visuals, abilities, and pain points. You can submit your feedback through the provided survey link in the article. The survey is open to any and all ESO players and will be available until October 3rd.

Thanks all!

Click here for a direct link to the survey.

tomofhyrule · September 25

NEW CLASSES PLS!!

lol

Seriously though, thank you for these surveys recently. I am happy so see the team is willing to look at our feedback.

I am hopeful that 2026 will be a great year for all of us and I’ll be able to expand my roster with more Classes

Tariq9898 · September 25

More incentives for pure class builds. This’ll add more diversity and cause less gatekeeping. Right now, everyone wants beam DPS and DK/Warden/Arc tanks.

And more skill styles! Especially with different animation and sounds inspired from other classes!

Ratzkifal · September 25

It's good that you are putting out a survey and this time around I think you are doing a good job promoting that survey in the relevant places. The only improvement in that regard would be if you sent a system mail to players ingame with a link to this survey, but so far so good. It's a step in the right direction.

Unfortunately I can't give much praise to the contents of the survey. Rating effectiveness to play DPS? When all of us can just subclass Arcanist? What even are "classes"? Try explaining to a new player what a class is in this game post-subclassing and you'll quickly understand the trouble you have caused. All they are is the class mastery script you have, the two class sets from Infinite Archive and which skill lines comprise the trio of skill lines from which you can use more than one of while subclassing. Everything else is subject to change. In other words, there is no "classes" anymore.
You should have made this exact survey before you pushed subclassing live. Now all the results you are going to get from this is a mixed bag from people who will evaluate their class while taking subclassing into consideration and people who answer the question based on just the 3 starting skill lines for each class. You poisoned your own data!

I can only say, keep it up with the communication. If you are honest about it, the game will eventually get back on track.

tinythinker · September 25

Agreed with concerns for pure classes, but that aside it would be nice to to use the multiclassing option to create more traditional sub-classes* (also sometimes referred to as specializations). Specializations would only be available to pure classes. So a dragon knight could choose to take a skill line from one or two other classes, choose to swap an original DK skill line for a specialization, or just keep all three original skill lines.

Unlike adding a skill line from another class, a specialized skill line is more about doubling down on a core part of class identity. The active and passive skills (and unique appearance options) for a specialization would give some additional flavor but not radically alter or diminish class identity.

Also, let me express concern about balance with additional full-blown classes being added to the game and further complicating balance with the option to take skill lines from other classes now being standard. Might be worth it to just add "for any class" skill lines one at a time to allow for testing, feedback, and balancing. For example, if an unarmed skill line is introduced, and class could choose to swap out an original skill line for it.

(*The current official term for multiclassing in ESO is sub-classing, but to avoid confusion -- at least to my own mind -- I'm using the former term for RPGs in general when you take abilities from more than one class.)

Kendaric · September 25

What the survey is missing is an option for those among us who rarely use class skills, if any at all. Most of my characters have at most 1-2 class skills on each bar (mainly to level up skill lines), some have 0 and rely completely on weapon and guild skills.

Destai · September 25

Happy to see this, should be taking it here in the next few days when I can focus on each class’s feedback.

Vaqual · September 25

That survey is a good thing, I hope you guys read it properly, because my answers are great.

Tannus15 · September 25

the problem with this survey is that it's disussing each class in isolation. I was actually shocked that the survey ended after the individual class questions.

the problem with eso classes in pve right now is their AOE options all suck EXCEPT for arcanist.

Fatecarver has completely messed everything up. It's single target dps is on par with a light attack and spammable build while having full cleave on everything.

When ALL AOE options got nerfed into the ground in Update 35 you can't just drop this skill in and expect things to be ok.

this is what you've done to the primary source of sorcer cleave since scale caller

decreased the damage per tick by approximately 37%.
Reduced the damage per tick by approximately 20%.
Reduced the damage per tick by approximately 20%.

THEN you introduce fatecarver

which looks like this

You CHOSE to kill all cleave and then gave the new class ALL THE CLEAVE.

Is sorc cool, yes. Is it thematic, yes. Is it anywhere near as effective as arcanist, NO.
Where was that question?

tentacular dread has an 11% unique damage buff. if you're not slotting herald of the tome for either beam or dread, you're doing it wrong at this point.
All classes suck compared to that.

Where was that question in your survey?

Tannus15 · September 25

ESO LOGS for dps all stars on Ossein Cage

92 out of the top 100 are arcanist.
and what is the number 1 necro using?

Yeah, fatecarver. We're all arcanists now.

The game has been boiled down to 1 skill. It's beyond broken.

Arthtur · September 25

Soo... im happy that there was anything but... it was extreamly limiting. Just overall questions. I was expecting more honestly.
Like i dont even know what to say here. I could spend hours talking about potential changes to DK to make him better and more enjoyable to play. How some skills or passives are limiting or what feels amazing, what sets would make some fun builds... and for all that i get 1 small box in the survey thats awful to write in long texts? I think i would prefer a thread like Veteran Overland about my favourite class where i can pass my feedback instead of that survey... At least on the forum there would be other players who would for sure read what i wrote. No offense but too many times DK got sledgehammer nerfs while ignorning any feedback about that.
And how much i log in? Not how much i play? I log in daily but barerly do anything more than ende and tickets. I doubt i "play" more than 4 hours per week. And thats mostly because i talk with a friend when i see him....

Well i guess that enough writing, i have better things to do. Do better because right now even writing this feels pointless.

AcadianPaladin · September 25

Survey avoided broader questions about classes overall. I have always wished ESO would move away from classes. Previous Elder Scrolls games either avoided classes or classes were flexible enough to build however you wanted and did not restrict character development.

Subclassing is a great step in the right direction.

Adding additional skill lines instead of additional classes would be welcome.

Adding skill styles to include alternate animations would be most welcome.

Radiate77 · September 26

Few key points I brought up in my survey…

Fatecarver does too much, while the healing one does not enough and the rest of the kit does not synergize well with Subclassing at all.

Necromancer feels like a Halloween wizard and does not have a melee minion, feeling great Subclassing away from their horrible skill lines.

Dragon Leap is hands down one of the most fun skills in the game yet it’s stuck on a Skill Line that does not encourage its use, while Ardent Flame does not Subclass well at all due to the lack of Flame or Poison options found elsewhere.

Assassination should focus on the top or bottom 25% of health, not to just have the best ST damage ALL of the time, Swallow Soul needs love and Consuming Darkness has always been terrible and Shadow Cloak as of the toggle now feels terrible.

Crystal Fragments is stuck on a dead skill tree with nothing but Dark Deal, Dark Magic passives are a joke, and double bar pets feel terrible. Bound Armaments do not compare to spec bow.

Aedric Spear passives are wayyy too overloaded, Sun Shield sounds like it belongs in Dawn’s Wrath with all of the other sun skills that for some reason do not do Flame Damage, even though the sun is a ball of fire.

Warden is still a Vvardenfell mascot, and several skills like Frost Cloak and that weird teleport skill that nobody ever talks about… need to be revisited.

tomofhyrule · September 26

I would have liked to see a follow up about Classes in general. It did ask about each class in isolation, but not an overall feeling on the system and Subclassing.

I’ll admit it - I love the Class system. I build characters around their Classes and that gives me their while lore while making them feel unique. I desperately want more Classes so I can make a bunch more unique characters.

This is also one of the best parts of Subclassing in that you can have a new Class for the players who like to play pureclass and players who prefer to play one character with any skills they choose can also still do so via Subclassing. I’d even like to see Subclassing made more free for those players - remove the skill point penalty and allow trading all three lines and also accepting multiple lines from one parent Class.

The biggest issue is balance though. As it stands, there is no reason to play anything but Herald/Assassination in high level PvE because it is so much stronger than anything else. A lot of players really like playing the character they’ve played for 11 years so far, and to see how even the game is telling them they’re wrong because “you’re not using the right lines” or “you’re expected to Subclass” is the general feel of the system.

I understand this is an Elder Scrolls game, and that’s why I came here in the first place. But I also recognize that as an MMO, it does necessarily have to have a different setup in order to keep balance. In Skyrim, I can build whatever massively OP build I want because that doesn’t affect anyone else’s fun, but I do need to consider other people here. Balance cannot just be thrown out the window without ruining a large group of people’s fun.

I also want to say that ESO has seemed to really be on a “do everything with one character!” kick, that also makes alternate characters feel more and more irrelevant. Why bother making more alts if they all end up the same anyway. This is one of the main reasons I like keeping my characters pure since they all feel so different from one another and I can feel like they’re all important to me.

But yes, I’m begging for more Classes. I love the new character process and exploring a brand new set of skills. The announcement of Arcanist was the best time in my gameplay since I could spend so much time planning a character and building out a whole story, and the skills were so fun to explore. I want to have that excitement back again.

Oh, and please unlock the Class outfit styles though. There was no reason they should have been locked when they were, and definitely no reason now.

ESO_Nightingale · September 26

I had a lot to write for warden. Morph compression on winter's embrace and getting a payoff skill for frost damage dealing builds is my top concern

Freelancer_ESO · September 26

I hope the survey gets good results but, I'm kind of surprised by the design of it.

When I selected a class before sub-classing, I was generally looking for something that fulfills the fantasy that I have for a character and looks like it would be fun to play.

Theme and Uniqueness are to me more icing on the cake than they are the cake itself.

I've been playing MMOs for around two decades, many of the things I actually like are pretty similar across multiple titles and many of the more unique choices are generally more negative than positive for me.

Having a high question amount in the survey may also put a damper on participation/completion/detailed completion which may leave it more vulnerable to people doing repeated feedbacks.

I would generally say with the classes the issue is less than class a or b can't do role x or y and more that other builds are perceived to be so much better at it that it looks bad to use them.

Eclipse318 · September 26

I've said it before and I'll say it again: All I ever wanted was bigger and improved skill trees to choose from as my character grows. That's it. Simplicity.

I don't want to read 500 websites and watch 500 YouTube videos to learn all the fiddly fussiness of scribing and subclassing. I just want to play a fun game in my spare time.

ESO should not be a part-time unpaid job.

LunaFlora · September 26

awesome survey!
thanks for looking at our feedback.

Faulgor · September 26

Phew, that was a lot of questions if you play every class in every role.

I took the first goal of this survey to be to figure out which classes lack a coherent vision and design.
I think the best one is obviously Arcanist, not only does it have a very focused theme around Hermaeus Mora, but also a unique gameplay design with crux management.
Second would be Necromancer with its corpse mechanic, although it feels backwards most of the time (we should be raising corpses, not consuming them for buffs). The fact that Necromancer feels like a mouse next to the Arcanist elephant should tell you that theme and design aren't everything, though.
Worst in my opinion is Sorcerer. This class is all over the place in its skill design, and it will probably not be improved without upsetting a few people (you already tried with the changes to Lightning Form recently).

Secondary goal seemed to be to figure out what roles different classes struggle with.
I mostly tank these days, and classes feel very comparable in that regard, mostly thanks to Scribing. The only one I struggle with is again Sorcerer, ever since the Ward lost a chunk of its healing power (I refuse to slot the Clannfear as a heal, nobody can give up that skill slot and be bothered to keep that thing alive).

Healers are a mixed bag, but again somewhat comparable (it used to be so much worse). I feel subclassing made Green Balance somewhat mandatory for my healers though, and that's 100% due to the Minor Toughness buff. Every (healing) skill line should have something like that.

For DDs, I'm gonna go against the grain here a bit and say that non-Fatecarver builds are pretty even as well (again, it used to be so much worse). Some skill lines obviously need more help than others (Animal Companions, Siphoning, any Sorc skill line), but when has that not been true. The main buff from subclassing comes from passives, and I think that's where balance efforts should be focused instead of adding more convoluted mechanics that buff "pure classes" after the fact or such.

But the real issue is and always has been Fatecarver. That skill absolutely broke every encounter design, when Lightning Staff HA builds were nerfed right before for the very same reason: Too simple, too much AoE.
If you don't put an axe to this skill, no amount of tinkering around the edges will fix what people are annoyed with right now.

Renato90085 · September 26

dev need remember the overland and pveendgame not same game
in overland,mobs maybe 50k health and 150dps,it mean you can nude play and make a meme subclass and still easy burn anything
but pveendgame boss maybe have 176-220m health,aoe 8k dps and cleave/st dmg check,so subclass in here like delete other 6 class ,because Arcanist in any combat is better 50% than anything , and tell us"in subclass you can build however you wanted" , but same time hardmode only Arcanist can did(or you are top 0.1% player can play other ting)
not say subclass is a bad choose in game ,just your game balance is suck long year,and you add a system like you can open hack mode,and this mode only one class can did
and skill,you nerf many aoe/cleave skill in old patch,but only a pay to win class have best cleave
looked Siphoning line,it a line have healer and old magic nb dps skill,in dev hope, Swallow Soul can heal magic nb dds
so you choose Swallow Soul,a single target skill should do lower 30% dps than other spam ,but same time Fatecarver and it skill line can give you a big shield,skill can heal you,have 11% dps buff is a aoe can hit 6 mobs and do full dmg like single target for all mobs(jabs:?)
so Siphoning suck?,no,in healer here have many good passive,but yes active abilities all is joke,but should any dps choose this line?,no it suck
it why now in log ,95% game all player is Arcanist or other class running Fatecarver or runeblade ,it a only one class/line can have all subclass power

colossalvoids · September 26

After taking the survey on most classes I'm not sure what exact data can you pull from there to make any changes or rethink your decisions. It's either too vague, lacking appropriate options or worded the way it can sway the answer depending on too many variables in many possible directions.

Just as a small example questions about identity being it visual or not doesn't specify current patch, class across the years, original idea and design of it etc. which is absolutely huge for answering those, or adding appropriate context without which the initial question is pointless. It also doesn't take into consideration if the class was good or not before in those roles, having identity etc. as most classes had strong identities, visual design and strong ability kits that were different from other classes but in recent years we lost most if unique traits to homogenisation and attempts to tune classes across the board resulting having one class effectively.

And yes, we want to know the long term plans and what your idea for the "vision" is now compared to what it was. Is identity good to you or not currently, is it changing to something new or returning back to form it had initially, what's the timeline here, would we need to wait years for a small numerical adjustments like we do with homogenisation on consumables etc etc etc., not another marketing post we're getting instead of communication. If the team has no idea what communication looks like I'd suggest googling Path of Exile league launch QnA sessions and presentations, that what people do want quite explicitly, that's already industry solved for you to just pick up and run with it.

colossalvoids · September 26

Arthtur wrote: »

And how much i log in? Not how much i play? I log in daily but barerly do anything more than ende and tickets. I doubt i "play" more than 4 hours per week. And thats mostly because i talk with a friend when i see him....

Well i guess that enough writing, i have better things to do. Do better because right now even writing this feels pointless.

It felt more like a generic user data mine for selling rather than a survey indeed.

Radiate77 · September 26

I wish the survey didn’t end abruptly after answering the Warden questions.

I would have loved to explain how great of an idea Subclassing is in theory, and how in a world where options are more competitive, a system like it is revolutionary, but before releasing the system, we have had years of our favorite skills getting butchered on the chopping block… skills like Jabs & Backlash, Cloak & Siphoning Strikes, Stalking Blastbones & Avid Boneyard(Harmony), Arctic Blast & Eternal Guardian, Hardened Ward & Daedric Minefield, Venomous Claw & Burning Talons, even Flail & Runeward…

No wonder most of the skill lines these skills come from have such horrible pick rates! Imagine the excitement around getting any of these skills in their prime? Such a shame, really.

menedhyn · September 26

AcadianPaladin wrote:

I have always wished ESO would move away from classes

This.

AcadianPaladin wrote:

Adding additional skill lines instead of additional classes would be welcome

Very much this.

colossalvoids · September 26

experiences with ESO's classes, including class identity, visuals, abilities, and pain points

Also this part seems intentional and telling personally. Like the first thing that we're getting is a visual overhaul that would be in their eyes tied to class having an identity, or enhancing it, then abilities rework and after working on pain points, effectively making it more about visuals as the easiest avenue to improvement in their eyes. Might be wrong and reading too much into order of importance but it leaves that impression, especially after the survey taken.

If the visual part is indeed getting a huge plans I'd just remind that every single one of the visual changes to abilities was taken badly, to say the least and rightfully so. If that's indeed one of the main focuses of some next update in the future it can't be done as sloppy as visual updates were treated in recent years, especially if we will not have an option to stay "legacy" on those.

Edit: are we still getting those godawful new "optimised" animations from the pts next update? Just to prove a point here in a sense.

ESO_Nightingale · September 26

menedhyn wrote: »

AcadianPaladin wrote:

I have always wished ESO would move away from classes

This.

AcadianPaladin wrote:

Adding additional skill lines instead of additional classes would be welcome

Very much this.

personally i agree. i think that it'd be a good idea to have slotted passives as well with many to pick from on the line to tailor it to your build's needs too.

alakeyfox · September 26

Herald of the Tome is straight up busted, it does everything and too much of it. No other DPS skill line comes even close. However, instead of nerfing it and making pure class Arcanists weaker, how about we buff other skill lines? The problem is that HoT is simply the only sensible option. If we had every class offer an equally powerful set of passives and skills, then we could truly utilize subclassing to play however we want, rather than however we are forced to.

I would also love to see some passives shuffled around in general to make pure classes stand out in comparison to subclasses. Currently, the only class I can think of that it applies to is Necromancer, as it has a bunch of passives that only really work if you are predominantly using Necro skills. As it stands that means pure Necro is just significantly weaker than a subclassed one, because other classes do not have the same balancing point, but if they did then that would instead elevate base classes as they would be the only ones to truly benefit from their own passives. Granted, this should also not be a huge difference to begin with, I think it should be balanced similarly to races, where certain races are clearly better for certain playstyles, but in the end the difference doesn't make or break a build.

TheDreamstride · September 26

I happily took the survey, I think it's great to see the team communicating with us. That being said, I'd like to add some things here:

I think beam builds are fine 'in theory', it's a playstyle that enables more casuals to partake in endgame content without having to focus too much on their rotation and with more space to pay attention to mechanics, however; This kind of a build should have a mediocre potential in terms of damage, something akin to HA builds, easy to play but not overperforming. It -is- overperforming unfortunately. Why play a unique build, perform hard and achieve something subpar when this exists? No old school magicka builds, no weapon variety allowed. Just last night I got into a dungeon where a beam DPS called a bowden out for 'RP building'. Not only this is unhealthy for gameplay, but it's also feeding the elitist mentality.

There was a time before Arcanist, where each class was needed in a trial for their unique minor/major buffs, that was a good direction to take albeit being imperfect. At least in PvE content right now, it feels like the game is yelling at you to 'BUY THIS CLASS OR YOU'RE MISSING OUT'.

As a recently returned player, I personally enjoy subclassing, in the sense of not having to switch characters to have a taste of another playstyle, I can simply change my build on my main. But that's where my joy ends. Subclassing simply polarised the community, you're either roleplaying or delivering one-hundred-somethingK DPS with your templar-dk-arc. No variety. This should be addressed and improved immediately.

On another note, please for the love of divines release more skill styles and more frequently too. Arcanist and Warden have skill visuals that are far too focused on that specific expansion's storyline/zone. If there will be more classes and skill lines released in the future, please focus on making them universally appealing, Necromancer is a great example of this. It's a school of magic we all know and love. Seeing holy-aedric-templars shooting black tentacles or a Khajiit nightblade walking around with a bull netch is not only immersion breaking, it also integrates to the subclassing system in an incomplete way right now.

Final note; Skill lines like, Dark Magic and Shadow (infamously) feel extremely outdated. They have been barely touched despite the community actively trying to draw attention here on the forums. This whole 'Negate and streak are useful in PvP, they can stay useless in PvE' mentality needs to be gone. Simply separating skill effects with a 'while battle spirit is active' could be a nice touch to balance them for PvE and PvP separately. Nearly all class skills need visual+animation updates and their effectiveness needs to be looked at. We can't talk about pure-classing without addressing the fact that a pure-NB is punished by existing compared to a class like Arcanist which has dedicated skill lines for different roles equipped with competent skills.

Bodolphin · September 26

The truth is subclassing is killing the pure classes. I was uncomfortable with the exchanging 2 skill lines as this immediately meant the base class was meaning less: Arcanist/Necromancer/Templar - well which is it? If only 1 skill line was exchanged you might be an Arcanist with and an interest in Necromancy which to me fits RP better.

Including skill lines just for the passives feels wrong too. When subclassing, including a skill line should mean at least including a skill from that line in order to access the passives. Also these passives should probably be less than when used by a pure class - after all a pure class should be a master of their arcane skills.

In terms of balance I accept there will always be the meta points but currently these are so OP it's barely fun. Where a subclassed char is more powerful than the base class I'd prefer it to be situational a "jack of all trades" should not be able to out perform the master all the time.

Faulgor · September 26

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

menedhyn wrote: »

AcadianPaladin wrote:

I have always wished ESO would move away from classes

This.

AcadianPaladin wrote:

Adding additional skill lines instead of additional classes would be welcome

Very much this.

personally i agree. i think that it'd be a good idea to have slotted passives as well with many to pick from on the line to tailor it to your build's needs too.

100%. That was an issue from the very beginning, when there were even less skills to chose from - passives are not only always active, they are also unlimited. That always meant you had to get them. People became Vampire just for the passives. Now they pick subclasses just for the passives.

Adding a bar for passives would not only rein in the power creep, it would also open up a design space for much more interesting and impactful passive choices. Stuff that is currently only found in item sets and mythics, for example.

ZOS learned that lesson with the champion point rework. Applying it to passive skills doesn't seem like an impossible leap.

Xarc · September 26

about pure classes:

why not add a way to give a bonus (like heavy and light armor bonus) which rewards having a certain number of base class skills in the bars ?

could be a champion point? or something else I dont know tbh