New Player: Tough Choices and Barrier to Entry

Praell

So much information on this game over the last three years. Do this, don't do that. Lots of hours to invest. I want to do it right, or not bother with the game at all. I can tell this is a large time investment.

I want to play an archetype akin to a melee dps. Whether it is magic or stamina focused, I don't care. Can anyone help me find a solution?

Here's what I know from current gossip on this game over the Internet:

• Stamina DPS sucks with AoE and has a large gear requirement
• Use a Staff and play Mag or Die
• Picking the wrong class (and wrong race) can really screw you over
• Tons more, I'm honestly just a jumble after all my google searching

I was planning on playing a 2H/Bow Stam DK. Aesthetically, I find that the most pleasing. But, like I listed, Stamina just isn't the special snowflake Magicka is right now. Most of my knowledge so far is limited to DK and Templar.

To the point: Is there a class that is more likely to have a melee optimal playstyle with both Stamina and Magicka builds that doesn't rely on staves / light armor 90% of the time? Any other tips and advice? I know at least one person is going to say play what you want, and, I truly respect that - but I'm three years behind on this game and I'm very competitive. You gotta understand. I want to win.

And this animation cancelling thing... Not even TERA's timing and racial spacing advantages was this complicated. But that's off-topic.

Thanks in advance to whoever reads over my musings. I appreciate you.

Praell

Enemy-of-Coldharbour

You could play a stamina sorcerer. Very popular right now.

redspecter23

If you want to play melee but still want to keep magicka as your primary option and not be tied into destruction staff, then magicka templar sounds like your best bet. Your front bar can be dual swords even on a magicka character and you can put destro on your back bar for a few utility spells. You get the benefits of a magicka class but you play it in melee mode most times. You'd likely want 5 pieces of light armor due to the passives but you can put on 1 medium and 1 heavy to maximize your undaunted passives and still get a taste of heavier armor.

All of this is assuming PVE. If you're looking for PVP advice someone will be along shortly.

Praell

I was just watching a video on magicka Templar and saw that the primary was two swords. Really do like that. My only hesitation with that option is that if I ever wanted to play stamina, I hear Templar is by far the worst. Or maybe that was last year. If someone drops into this thread and says stamina Templar is amazing then my choice would be easy. Someone, please.

My understanding is DK is the way to go for stamina, but perhaps it's not as big of a difference as I'm getting the impression. But stamina sorcerer... that is not something I'm aware of yet. I'll look into it.

Thanks for the replies.

NovaShadow

Stamina Templar is doable but it is from what I've heard hard in terms of resource management and the dps is just severely lacking.

As redspecter23 said, Magplar is the way to go if you want melee mag.

As for stam I'd say either DK or Sorc. Both are at the top, sorc is easier to master than DK. Sorc has access to a class AOE (Hurricane) that is strong (as you mentioned AOE).

DK is still at the top when it comes to dps, though you might hear VMA weapons are needed to reach that top peak. Completely up to you and depends on where you see yourself going with the game.

jlboozer

Go sorcerer...they're good stam or mag, then you can change with the meta as it goes back and forth.

waterfairy

Just play and feel it out...even with research prior to playing you're bound to restart or spend gold and time on multiple respecs.

Stam DK is do-able (I have an orc 2H/DW stam DK) but just be aware that there's only 2 stamina morphs for their skills.

You see dual wield on magic builds because it grants a bonus to spell damage but the drawback is that those twin swords will be useless eye candy as their skills are stamina based.

Waffennacht

For PvE you can't really go wrong. Switching between magicka and stamina is very easy, and either way you'll be needing to grind for some gear. Also if you're willing to be flexible, (say you're an Argonian Templar and you wanna do a trial, you should be whatever role that set up is best at) if you're willing to not be a "bow wizard" you can do end game content with just about anything.

Imo for up close and personal melee (magicka or stamina) I'd go with templar or dk. You can be melee magicka or stamina and still have a tanky build. NB and Sorc are less forgiving in what you can do with it (like all stam sorcs are practically identical)

I say what you're leaning towards is a fine idea.

Excabor

I would say a stamina Sorcerer with Dual wield on one bar and Bow/buff on second bar would fit your play style.

IcyDeadPeople

Praell wrote: »

I want to play an archetype akin to a melee dps. Whether it is magic or stamina focused, I don't care. Can anyone help me find a solution?

Here's what I know from current gossip on this game over the Internet:

[*]Stamina DPS sucks with AoE and has a large gear requirement
[*]Use a Staff and play Mag or Die
[*]Picking the wrong class (and wrong race) can really screw you over
[*]Tons more, I'm honestly just a jumble after all my google searching
[/list]


I was planning on playing a 2H/Bow Stam DK. Aesthetically, I find that the most pleasing. But, like I listed, Stamina just isn't the special snowflake Magicka is right now. Most of my knowledge so far is limited to DK and Templar.

To the point: Is there a class that is more likely to have a melee optimal playstyle with both Stamina and Magicka builds that doesn't rely on staves / light armor 90% of the time?

Any other tips and advice? I know at least one person is going to say play what you want, and, I truly respect that - but I'm three years behind on this game and I'm very competitive. You gotta understand. I want to win.

First, what do you mean by winning? Quite a large difference between what works in solo PVP, group PVP, group dungeons, veteran trials, solo PVE arena etc.

For quests and normal dungeons the choice of race and even armor sets don't matter much at all. You can manage with just any random gear you find.

When you want to start doing veteran dungeons and PVP, then you do need to figure out a specific build concept and decide on armor sets etc, but there is still a lot of flexibility.

The most extreme min/max builds that you see heavily promoted (which tend to require a lot of grinding) are really only needed if you are trying to compete at the highest level in endgame PVE speed runs, veteran trials leaderboards, etc.

There is a much wider range of builds that work for completing most veteran and normal dungeons and in the case of PVP, there is still a lot of room to come up with your own build ideas that others have not tried yet.

In PVP at least, you can absolutely roll a completely viable character from any of the four classes and your choice of stamina or magicka, light, med or heavy armor. This was not the case at launch, but overall balance has improved a lot since that time. Heavy armor 2H Bow stam DK does very well in PVP.
.

Praell

You guys are awesome.

So, from my thoughts so far, I'm still leaning towards DK. The magplar really does appeal to me, but I take 10 steps back at hearing least optimal stamina class. The fact that DK has the best of both worlds and fits my thematic preference is key to why I'm leaning that way.

Current plan:

• Imperial Dragonknight
• Primary: Stamina DPS
• Secondary: Tank
• Fallback Primary: Magicka DPS

Fingers crossed I achieve competency in a stamina build. I need to give sorcerer a serious look-over though. Not going to ignore that advice. Only issue I have with sorcerer is the lack of a tank or healer option as a secondary. They seem kinda pigeon-holed into DPS. Which could be okay...

NovaShadow

Praell wrote: »

You guys are awesome.

So, from my thoughts so far, I'm still leaning towards DK. The magplar really does appeal to me, but I take 10 steps back at hearing least optimal stamina class. The fact that DK has the best of both worlds and fits my thematic preference is key to why I'm leaning that way.

Current plan:

• Imperial Dragonknight
• Primary: Stamina DPS
• Secondary: Tank
• Fallback Primary: Magicka DPS

Fingers crossed I achieve competency in a stamina build. I need to give sorcerer a serious look-over though. Not going to ignore that advice. Only issue I have with sorcerer is the lack of a tank or healer option as a secondary. They seem kinda pigeon-holed into DPS. Which could be okay...

Not entirely true, there are some kick ass sorc healers out there and some really good tanks. I'm sure there are build videos out there for these specific roles.

Magdalina

Oh dear. You seem to be very worried about this. Are you planning to participate in endgame content?

Honestly unless you're set on being on the first lines of Trials leaderboards I wouldn't worry too much about this and just try to play and see what you enjoy. In open world, you can literally do anything you want, and do it naked if you want it this way. In dungeons, and even in trials, having a "wrong" race will most definitely NOT "screw you over". But certain races synergize better with certain builds(for example, altmer get max magicka bonus, elemental damage bonus and magicka recovery bonus, so that's obvious perfect choice for a magicka dps right there) so you will be missing out on a relatively large buff, which, while not being necessary for completion, is just nice to have. If you're not into competitive content though, you'll probably never really notice the difference really. ...nvm just saw the part where you say you are indeed competitive Sorry it's late at night and my brain's trying to shut down haha. Well anyway, they have race change in crown store now so there's that, if anything.

I wouldn't say there's the "right" class, meta changes. If you want to try for current meta, altmer magsorc and dunmer magdk is where it's at I think, but for all you know it's going to change by the time you get there.
DKs are more or less always in close range whether or not they're stamina builds, all their flashy looking magicka skills have melee range too. If you want something involving actual proper weapons though, yeah, you'll want stamina. I think current stamina meta is DW/bow. I wouldn't call it bad, I know some stamknights pushing insane numbers. They do lack some surviveability that magicka builds can gain by shields but I definitely wouldn't say they're not viable for any content in the game.

It does sound like you'll want to play stamina. Magicka always is light armor and almost always is staves. Sometimes people use dual wield instead because they provide a nice spelldamage boost(...despite the logic saying otherwise) but that's usually templars and they stay ranged a lot too, it's not like they actually use these swords. I don't do stamina so I unfortunately can't tell you much more than that, besides some generic tip

If you go stamina, you will want to be medium armor(on higher levels, possibly 5 med/1 light/1 heavy because there's a nice passive increasing your stats for wearing different armor types; it's in Undaunted skill tree which gets leveled by running dungeons so might take some time to get though) and you will want to pvp some in order to get Vigor - your best stamina heal(it's in Alliance War skilltree but it doesn't take too much to get now).

You generally want to aim at something like 17-20k health(with food. You'll want food buffing both your max stamina and max health, or perhaps the new recipe buffing max health, max stam and stam regen on top of that) and a loooot of stamina. Easier to achieve by just putting all attribute points in stamina(you can always reset them later on) and then using some health enchants/jewelry if you're lacking. Keep in mind your stamina skills scale with your max stamina, weapon damage, weapo crit and physical penetration(and magicka with max magicka, spell damage etc).

An important part of ESO's gameplay is buffs. There're buffs increasing your crit, your weapon/spell damage, your armor etc. Something perhaps not always clear that you need to know is that 2 buffs by the same name will not stack. For example, you'll want to always keep Major Brutality(? Correct me if I'm beeing too sleepy and remembering the name wrong) up as it increases your weapon damage, but if you're running potions and Igneous weapons(dk skill) that both provide this buff, you'll only get one buff, not two of them(so that's a waste of a potion/skill if you use them just for that buff). Something like Major and Minor Brutality would stack though.

I'm going to link this for possible further information because, as I said, I'm pretty potato at stamina It's an endgame build but since you said you're competitive perhaps it'd be of interest to you or at least help point you in the right direction. There're also other classes' builds there.

Whatever you choose in the end, good luck!;)

/sleepy wall of text over, here's hoping it actually made some sense

Praell

Magdalina wrote: »

Oh dear. You seem to be very worried about this. Are you planning to participate in endgame content?

Honestly unless you're set on being on the first lines of Trials leaderboards I wouldn't worry too much about this and just try to play and see what you enjoy. In open world, you can literally do anything you want, and do it naked if you want it this way. In dungeons, and even in trials, having a "wrong" race will most definitely NOT "screw you over". But certain races synergize better with certain builds(for example, altmer get max magicka bonus, elemental damage bonus and magicka recovery bonus, so that's obvious perfect choice for a magicka dps right there) so you will be missing out on a relatively large buff, which, while not being necessary for completion, is just nice to have. If you're not into competitive content though, you'll probably never really notice the difference really. ...nvm just saw the part where you say you are indeed competitive Sorry it's late at night and my brain's trying to shut down haha. Well anyway, they have race change in crown store now so there's that, if anything.

I wouldn't say there's the "right" class, meta changes. If you want to try for current meta, altmer magsorc and dunmer magdk is where it's at I think, but for all you know it's going to change by the time you get there.
DKs are more or less always in close range whether or not they're stamina builds, all their flashy looking magicka skills have melee range too. If you want something involving actual proper weapons though, yeah, you'll want stamina. I think current stamina meta is DW/bow. I wouldn't call it bad, I know some stamknights pushing insane numbers. They do lack some surviveability that magicka builds can gain by shields but I definitely wouldn't say they're not viable for any content in the game.

It does sound like you'll want to play stamina. Magicka always is light armor and almost always is staves. Sometimes people use dual wield instead because they provide a nice spelldamage boost(...despite the logic saying otherwise) but that's usually templars and they stay ranged a lot too, it's not like they actually use these swords. I don't do stamina so I unfortunately can't tell you much more than that, besides some generic tip

If you go stamina, you will want to be medium armor(on higher levels, possibly 5 med/1 light/1 heavy because there's a nice passive increasing your stats for wearing different armor types; it's in Undaunted skill tree which gets leveled by running dungeons so might take some time to get though) and you will want to pvp some in order to get Vigor - your best stamina heal(it's in Alliance War skilltree but it doesn't take too much to get now).

You generally want to aim at something like 17-20k health(with food. You'll want food buffing both your max stamina and max health, or perhaps the new recipe buffing max health, max stam and stam regen on top of that) and a loooot of stamina. Easier to achieve by just putting all attribute points in stamina(you can always reset them later on) and then using some health enchants/jewelry if you're lacking. Keep in mind your stamina skills scale with your max stamina, weapon damage, weapo crit and physical penetration(and magicka with max magicka, spell damage etc).

An important part of ESO's gameplay is buffs. There're buffs increasing your crit, your weapon/spell damage, your armor etc. Something perhaps not always clear that you need to know is that 2 buffs by the same name will not stack. For example, you'll want to always keep Major Brutality(? Correct me if I'm beeing too sleepy and remembering the name wrong) up as it increases your weapon damage, but if you're running potions and Igneous weapons(dk skill) that both provide this buff, you'll only get one buff, not two of them(so that's a waste of a potion/skill if you use them just for that buff). Something like Major and Minor Brutality would stack though.

I'm going to link this for possible further information because, as I said, I'm pretty potato at stamina It's an endgame build but since you said you're competitive perhaps it'd be of interest to you or at least help point you in the right direction. There're also other classes' builds there.

Whatever you choose in the end, good luck!;)

/sleepy wall of text over, here's hoping it actually made some sense

Sleepy wall of text provides many needed answers to thoughts and unspoken questions. Thank you.

Rev Rielle

We were just talking about this in another thread; how many forum users inadvertently spread misinformation by their continual mantra of 'It's got to be the best or your character is hopeless'. That is simply not the case at all.

Forget worrying too much about Animation Cancelling, that's something you can worry about further down the track if you want. At it's simplest you cast a skill right after your light attack, and you do a light attack between every skill. If you haven't yet, look here, Alcast explains it very simply with nice examples.

Passives can help a little, but they're not going to make or ruin your character. I'm a magicka templar redguard since launch, arguably one the worst combinations in the game. Do I care? No. Has it held me back? Not at all. Any class/race/build combination has, does and will work.

If you want to be a two-handed/bow stamina Dragonknight, go for it. I'd suggest for 95% of us, any limitations in the game are due to what we do and don't do in combat, not our class/race/role-choice. Don't worry about making mistakes, you can't change your Class, but you can change everything else in the game these days, if in the future you really find you've become unhappy with something.

You say you want to "do it right". The only true way to do that is to do what you want. It's your game to enjoy, you paid for you. The worst thing you can do is be unhappy with your character because you think it's better that way due to something you read somewhere from some stranger. What is best is what works for you and what you enjoy.

Cireous

Just so there is no misinterpretation, If you play magicka, there are no weapon skills or weapons you can actually use besides a staff. As someone mentioned, duel swords on your back bar with magicka builds are there for a small bonus to damage for your magicka class skills, but actually wielding those swords or using those weapons skills will do virtually no damage at all. Having the duel sword back bar set up as magicka will not make you feel like a melee class. To use melee weapons and melee weapon skills you will have to go stamina, no matter what class you choose.

Praell

Cireous wrote: »

Just so there is no misinterpretation, If you play magicka, there are no weapon skills or weapons you can actually use besides a staff. As someone mentioned, duel swords on your back bar with magicka builds are there for a small bonus to damage for your magicka class skills, but actually wielding those swords or using those weapons skills will do virtually no damage at all. Having the duel sword back bar set up as magicka will not make you feel like a melee class. To use melee weapons and melee weapon skills you will have to go stamina, no matter what class you choose.

This is what I thought, but thanks for confirming. I wondered if there were any exceptions to the rule, like a weapon skill that morphs to scale with magicka. This confirms there is not. Shame!

Well... I guess staff does. But that's the point. I don't want to use a staff. Ha!

@Rev Rielle

I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly. I have way more fun when I play what I like, and I also do better as a result. However! The one choice you cannot change, like you said, is your class. So, I have to get that one "right" before I put hundreds of hours into the game.

Because, I might be an edge case here but - I am not willing to reroll. I'll just walk away from the game.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Rev Rielle

Praell wrote: »

Cireous wrote: »

Just so there is no misinterpretation, If you play magicka, there are no weapon skills or weapons you can actually use besides a staff. As someone mentioned, duel swords on your back bar with magicka builds are there for a small bonus to damage for your magicka class skills, but actually wielding those swords or using those weapons skills will do virtually no damage at all. Having the duel sword back bar set up as magicka will not make you feel like a melee class. To use melee weapons and melee weapon skills you will have to go stamina, no matter what class you choose.

This is what I thought, but thanks for confirming. I wondered if there were any exceptions to the rule, like a weapon skill that morphs to scale with magicka. This confirms there is not. Shame!

Well... I guess staff does. But that's the point. I don't want to use a staff. Ha!

@Rev Rielle

I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly. I have way more fun when I play what I like, and I also do better as a result. However! The one choice you cannot change, like you said, is your class. So, I have to get that one "right" before I put hundreds of hours into the game.

Because, I might be an edge case here but - I am not willing to reroll. I'll just walk away from the game.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Honestly, all classes can fulfill all roles.And don't believe a word from anyone that says anything different. Unless you want to get right to the tip of the spear, where it seems only Dragonknight Tanks and Templar Healers are wanted (though even then this is the exception, not the rule), you really can choose what you want.

This is the beauty of ESO; all classes have some useful and unique skills for each situation; be they hit-taking, dealing damage, or healing. If you're unsure what they provide; have a look here, it will give you a nice oversight of each of their skills, morphs, passives, etc. You might be able to make a more informed choice about what you'd like to play then.

Browiseth

the meta shifts like every patch, so you could easily "do it right" this month and it won't matter the next

just pick a class and make a build dude, there's a reason there's a sizable playerbase for stamina and magicka builds of each one

dpencil

@Praell Welcome to ESO! I just wanted to echo what was said earlier about not taking the talk about best and worst classes too seriously. For example, the difference between a "good" armor set and a "best in slot" armor set is often just a small percentage difference, maybe at most 10%, but more likely around 5% or even 2%. People can have the mindset that you HAVE to wear this set because you'll get 2k more dps over this other set. My point is, it's that way with classes and races too. Yes you can make a bad build by failing to think through how skills and sets can be used effectively together, but if you spend the effort to learn your class well and choose armor sets that complement it you will do fine in 99.9% of all content in this game. This game rewards skill above all else.

Bouldercleave

Praell wrote: »

I was just watching a video on magicka Templar and saw that the primary was two swords. Really do like that. My only hesitation with that option is that if I ever wanted to play stamina, I hear Templar is by far the worst. Or maybe that was last year. If someone drops into this thread and says stamina Templar is amazing then my choice would be easy. Someone, please.

My understanding is DK is the way to go for stamina, but perhaps it's not as big of a difference as I'm getting the impression. But stamina sorcerer... that is not something I'm aware of yet. I'll look into it.

Thanks for the replies.

Actually I LOVE my Stamina Templar as well as my Magicka Templar. It really depends what you want to do long term and how competitive you feel you need to be.

If you are just out to enjoy a great game you can't go wrong with a Templar

bulbousb16_ESO

Praell wrote: »

[*]Picking the wrong class (and wrong race) can really screw you over

This is an RPG. There is NO SUCH THING as the wrong class or the wrong race.

idk

@Praell

Only looked at the OP but one piece of important information is left out. How you plan to play the character, PvP or PvE raiding or just farting around.

2H/Bow is fine and 2H is good for PvP but underperforms DW/Bow in PvE. If your going stam and plan to do both you can level everything.

Second, if you plan to raid in PvE and depending on the level you plan to play, survival is a little lower on stam than magika though you can use vigor and one of the blade cloak morphs to help out your survival and of course avoid damage. Stam also lacks the cleave that is important for killing adds while keeping focus on the boss but multiple classes have superb single target dps.

Further, the latest greatest trial many groups want about half the group ranged and especially for HM. I would expect the upcoming trial to have mechanics that require a little spreading out as well.

Currently Mag DK is doing well and Mag Templar can hold their own but I am not how far from top performers they are ATM, but all of this changes from time to time just like any other MMO.

Keep_Door

Stop ... just stop. Play the game for fun and learn as you go.

All 4 classes are good if you know them and CP are shared between toons.

If this is a game you want to play then play it.

MakoFore

play what u want...

jk

i only have 1 slot left - well 3- but 2 are for warden- and for the last spot- (I've got every mag stam variation covered) i decided to roll a templar for that very reason- with my last spot i wanted to get a heap of achievements, be able to switch both magicka and stamina- melee and do a bit of everything. not sure if you ll like the class- its not for everyone- but it certainly ticks the boxes u listed.