Melee focused build with little to no magic - possible?

menedhyn

Hello!

So, here's the slight dilemma I have. I want to try to create an Orsimer character that focuses on melee weapons and which excludes as many (if not all) forms of 'magic' use. The idea stems from a desire to role-play as a simple warrior / metalsmith using a race that doesn't share the same affinity for magic as others. I confess that it also stems from how I sometimes played characters in earlier Elder Scrolls games. I know i'm trying to replicate elements of that in an MMO, and maybe that path leads to failure. The skill lines associated with the four classes kind of represents spell-casting to me, which is exactly the thing i'm trying to avoid.

As it will be a role-play based character, with a heavy emphasis on crafting, exploration and provisioning, i'm not thinking of endgame viability. However, I'd like to be fairly useful in cooperative situations and general PvE. There was a helpful thread here with similar ideas, albeit a year ago now.

If I accept the huge limitations and self-imposed difficulty, can it be done? I'd welcome any other thoughts, new experiences or up-to-date considerations that you good people might share.

Many thanks in advance.

HumanNinja

You can obviously do anything you want to do. It's totally possible to not put any magicka based abilities on your hot bar. However, as you mentioned, you'd be penalizing yourself because you're not using one of your two resource pools. Even if you don't put any skill point into magicka, it's still a resource to take pressure off your stamina pool.

If it's all about the RP, do what you want. The point of playing games is to have fun!

Waffennacht

It also depends on what you consider magical? There seems to be a thin line that seperates the two.

The bow seems like a perfect option for one weapon as it's all arrows and poisons.

For practical purposes you would wanna go 2H, but do you consider a move like Rally magical? Same with vigor, is Dragonknight's fire breath magical or a mastery of forges and ancestral rage? Etc...

I can see it being done

LinearParadox

The best advice I can give here is, ironically, play a Sorc. A stam-Sorc to be exact.
A morph of their skill, Dark Deal, spends magicka for stamina and heals you in the process. I suppose technically that's 'using magic' but it's only one skill, and it would allow you to make use of your other resource bar at least, maybe taking some of the pressure off the self-imposed limitations.
Bonus, Stam-Sorcs are actually pretty dang solid right now, so you'll have that going for you as well.

menedhyn

I'm grateful for your replies - all very useful.

Waffennacht wrote: »

It also depends on what you consider magical? There seems to be a thin line that seperates the two

You're spot on there, it's not as straightforward as it might be. I guess part of me wanted to explore a classless build, but with a focus on passive weapon skills as some seem much more akin to you simply improving your ability as you play. Otherwise, limiting what areas I put points into might be worth considering. Hmm.

LinearParadox wrote: »

The best advice I can give here is, ironically, play a Sorc. A stam-Sorc to be exact

That's an interesting idea. If I need to consider compromises of sorts, that sort of logic might help me. I've never looked at a sorc before.

Lolssi

menedhyn wrote: »

I guess part of me wanted to explore a classless build, but with a focus on passive weapon skills as some seem much more akin to you simply improving your ability as you play. Otherwise, limiting what areas I put points into might be worth considering.

I like passives also but even if people focus more on their skills they will have "all" their passives maxed out eventually.

Dracane

Funny. Stamina people discussing either if they should use their magicka pool or not.
Magicka people on the other hand don't even have this choice. They need all their stamina for breaking free.

Stannum

stamplars are good if you do not guess their spears magical
stam sorc are also interesting but warrior with hurricane around looks somewhat magical ))

Acsvf

Well, just go for a stamina dps. Maybe you'll use a bit of magic for some buffs and utilities but you'll be mostly using non-magic stuff.

AverageJo3Gam3r

All stamina classes are pretty similar. As a DK, only class skills you use are the poison DoTs, and igneous shield and maybe wings for PvP. Stam NBs have a few more stamina morphs of their skills, but probably don't fit the RP you're going for. Stam sorcs use hurricane and bound armor, and streak for PvP. Stamplars use jabs, focus, and purify. Aside from these class skills, any stam DPS loadout is going to look the same.

menedhyn

Again, thanks all for your thoughts. I have a few ideas forming, which is just what I had hoped for.

menedhyn

I thought I would revisit this thread to to ask for your thoughts once again.

I'm currently on PS4, so waiting patiently for Update 12 to hit. I've read many, many posts about the changes to difficulty as a result of the new levelling system, and i'm wondering how this might affect my ability to play as a melee and passive focused, magicka free sword and board type of character?

I'm still low level (11 or 12 I think) and I opted to put points into stamina. I thought that avoiding active skills would make things too hard, but even in these early stages I found this to be a neat way to address balance. There were signs that sword and board was working fairly well.

Based on your experience so far, has the difficulty changes made it almost essential to use active skills, even for solo PvE which was the intention of this build? I know, I should be patient and try it out for myself, but I thought there's no harm in asking!

Jar_Ek

Honestly? You probably can now, but it may be painful. You can use some sets to offset limitations, such as troll king to get healing through regeneration. But if you want 0 mage like elements, then you're going to be hurting.

No stam sorc crit surge, dark deal, hurricane or bound armour and no implosion passive.
No stam DK skills pretty much at all (fire based or obviously magical)
No templar skills (heals... no; magic sunfire... no; magic shiny spear... no)
No stam blade cloak, ambush, maybe suprise attack and impale would be okay.. but thats about it.

My suggestion would be to run with some magic abilities and to level the class skill lines even if you never use the skills... at least you get access to the passives. I would probably go stam sorc personally and build dual wield 1st and then 2h.

Dw for the heals from the morphs of the first two skills and 2h for brawler morph and later rally.

daemonor

Either everyone is missing the point or am i the only doing that. Yes you can play a magicka free character pretty viable, thats actually the only way to play. Either pure magicka or pure stam. And DK is a perfect class for it since they have no spammable stamina skills. For 2 hander you need crit rush, wrecking blow, reverse slice and rally. Wether yo consider rally or not magic thats up to you, but it costs stamina and raises your weapon in the air, so you could say its some sort of a charge/focus type of thingy before battle? No sorcery! That leaves you with 1 more slot, which you could put a fighters guild passive in. Also 2h weapon ultimate has nothing to do with magicka, you just slam your opponent with your weapon thats it. Same applies for Dual wield, only difference here is you would be using venomous claw dot (which is a STAMINA skill), thats up to you to decide wether it looks to magical or not. If your going sword and board well, ransack/heroic slash thats 2 skills you should always be using and theyre just basic weapon attacks, costs stamina. Then defensive posture as a passive skill which just sits there for the bonus. As a tank however you need to use burnin talons wich is a magicka skill that costs magicka and summons magical talons from the ground to root your enemies. As well as skills like volatile armor, shuffle, igneous shield whcih are self buffs who help mitigate incoming damage. Bow skills all cost stamina and are physical, but then again tis for you too judge wether its too unrealistic for you or not. Hopefuly i cleared some confusion up!

menedhyn

Thank you both for your replies. Lots to think about, but all really useful commentary

Cherryblossom

@menedhyn

I would echo the remarks of playing a Stam Sorc, if you are planning to roleplay, use the idea that they trained to be a mage but were not suited to magic, this then explains use of some magic abilities.