Theres still things that are only found in “generic” skills. Like group major/minor expedition as 1 skill, guard, proccing backbar enchant, chain (except dk has chain), etc. Also, not everyone subclasses.

i still use non-Class skills if i want them in my builds.

Grimoires from Scribing are especially nice and i use Burst Soul with Healing scripts on most builds.

There was a time when non class skills were used a lot more, but I don't think subclassing is the reason for most of them being phased out, a lot of that happened gradually over the past few years.

Weapon skills have some use thanks to the ability altering weapons, but usually this means only one or two skills per line are good and the rest are forgotten. This seemed to have been by design, a gradual choice of weakening some of these skills and strengthening class skill to be able to do their job.

Armor Skills are bad, they have niche purposes but those they're usually not worth it even in a situation where that niche might be useful. This has been the case for a long time.

Undaunted is a good skill line. All the skills have value and the passives are nice and universal.

Assault and Support are in a decent spot. Skills that have good use and are worth slotting but not essential.

Soul Magic is bad, always has been.

Mages Guild is probably the one most hurt by subclassing, these were skills that were a bit below class skills but helped you fill gaps that are less likely to need filling now. Passives being mostly self reinforcing doesn't help.

Fighter's Guild is hurt a bit too, but the passives are better and barbed trap is a solid skill on its own terms, so it still has some use. Camo Hunter is niche, the others suffer like the mages guild skills.

Then there are the scribed skills which add some value to these lines. How much is going to depend on what you're going for, but they definitely have use cases not affected by subclassing.

You mentioned healing and IDK, seems to me you'd still use the same non healing skills as before subclassing. Orb, altar, combat prayer, regen, barrier are all non class skills that are worth running. Maybe Grand Healing is pushed out in some subclassing builds?

Armor, Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Soul Magic, Thieves Guild, Vampire, (Dark Brotherhood could have a skill line) and Scribing could use skill line updates.

BloodRedHurricane wrote: »

When I heard about subclassing system, this question popped up "If every class can use another class' abilities; then what is the point of generic skill lines or guild skill lines? Weren't those skill lines made to compensate players which do not play in the style of their classes' tendencies? Such as a healer nightblade?"

What do you think?

It does make sense to have things setup this way. Like you wouldn't want an uhh 'Assassin Class' or a 'Thief Class' or a 'Mage Class'. Why? Because those are all themes and does not uniquely identify something else. In other words, if I have a Sorc, then it's a Sorc and not a Mage or a Thief, which really it could be either one. If I have a NB, he's not an Assassin he's a NB.

Not having neutral skill lines breaks the chain of continuity.

Looking at non-Class skill lines, they're thematic to something you can do or be: Weapon and Armor skills are things you can perform with the right equipment, Guild and Alliance War skills show your involvement in a particular group and their martial/magical techniques, and World and Racial skills are innate to who or what your character is.

What even is a Class in the context of The Elder Scrolls? Are they people who have mastered a particular discipline of martial or magical techniques? If that's the case, then it would make sense that those skills are not innate to a person.

In reality, one's Class would be nothing more significant than learning techniques from a Guild or in the Alliance War. It's just that the Vestige had previously studied their Class disciplines before losing their soul.

Yeah I don't like how classes are implemented in ESO. Assigning them in the character creation menu.

Should have been like vampire and werewolf in that you can earn the class through association with some ingame faction, and alter it the same way from one faction to another. In the same light, vampire and werewolf could have been entire classes.

Start the character as some lowly peasant or something instead.

Then maybe fighters guild for dragonknight, mages guild for sorcerer, temples for templar, outlaws refuge for nightblade. The DLC classes maybe should have something in their origin zones instead. From all the stuff in Vvardenfell, Warden seems like something one should go to Ald'ruhn to learn from Ashlanders. Necromancer might be Vastarie in Ashen Scar. Arcanist is something one might place in the infinite archive lobby or something. That kind of stuff.

Ugrak wrote: »

Start the character as some lowly peasant or something instead.

That's basically the flow in TES games. You're the chosen one plucked from a lowly birth to fulfill some grand destiny, capable of breaking our limits and going beyond to even defy the gods themselves BUT that is not, and cannot be the case, in ESO.

There are hundreds of us roaming around. We're just some poor smucks who got lucky and were in the right time and the right place to get a chance at getting our soul back. We're basically just ordinary citizens from various walks of life, and unfortunately the powers that be have taken enough of an interest in us that we are essentially their errand boys, rather than shapers of our own destiny.