New-ish Player. Kind of Confused.

droscoe

I know that the general public doesn't care to read longer posts. This post has 14 short paragraphs! (yikes)

I don't expect a ton of replies to this longer post. I just HAVE to empty my head with all these thoughts. I'm here to learn and discover what, if anything, I'm wrong about. To help, I've made some sentences in bold, not to be fancy or display any anger, but to simpy accentuate my 'painpoints'. I just figured some relatively decent formatting would help with this longer post. And yes, I put the sentence above in bold because the fact that this is 14 paragraphs long, it is now a 'painpoint' for me. lol I know very few people will respond, and thats ok!

I'm relatively new to ESO (and this is my first MMO), but I'm not new to RPG games. Everything is ESO seems backwards, or different, or odd. I would appreciate some clarification on some things, and please know that I am totally open to the idea that I'm simply wrong about all these things. I'm still learning! I think because this is my first MMO, and that I'm simply acustomed to previous Elder Scrolls games (single-player) that ESO feels a little shallow. Compared to most RPGs, there a several archetypes that are simply not viable, or even possible, within ESO.

Take a Battlemage/Paladin for example. I'd love to play as a Sword & Board, Magicka-using Paladin Battlemage. I can do this in Skyrim, Oblivion, DragonAge, etc. But in ESO, S&B abilities are Stamina (with no magicka morphs). There are no magical, arcane shield bashes or magical sword slashes? Ok, moving on, what about Monk archetype, that's Stamina-based and uses a staff? Ok, well, there are no Stamina morphs for staves either. I mean, Wall of Elements could reasonably be morphed into something Stamina-based. You slam your staff down, causing earthquake tremors around and deal physical damage. I don't know, just makin this up. I thought about forcing a roleplaying build, by splitting half attributes into magicka and stamina, so I could use both weapon & class abilities, but Ive been told that splitting your attributes between Magicka and Stamina is a bad idea as it makes you effectively useless. Is this reliable advice?

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In ESO, the classic rock/paper/scissors dynamic is an obvious design element. 3 alliances, 3 attributes, 3 skill lines, 3 roles (tank, dps, heal)...but there's only 2 upgrade paths for skills? How are there not 3 morphs, with at least one converting it into the opposite resource type? This wouldn't simply allow for more skills to be used, but entire build concepts could come to fruition.

I'd also like some clarification on something else. Doesn't it feel like you're wasting so much of a class? You're not using 90% of their abilities? Stamina Sorcerers...? You mean you became a Sorcerer, only to surpass 12 of the 15 class skills, just so you can use 3 stamina morph skills?

Or the Nightblade, or Templar, or DK, I'm clearly supposed to use a staff with all these magical abilities. There are no magical morphs for weapon skills. And only SOME of the class abilities have stamina morphs. My larger point is this: Magicka users get all staff abilities and ALL class abilities. Stamina users get all melee weapon abilities and SOME class abilities. So...stamina users have, by design, less skills to choose from?

I'm just scratching my head here. I picture “Templars” with a sword and shield. “Nightblades” with daggers or swords. Since ALL weapon skills are stamina-based, with no magical morphs, I must commit to allocating points into Stamina. Ok, no problem, so there's Stamina morphs for all these skills right?...No. Only a select few have stamina morphs, and some skills actually don't make sense to NOT have conversion morphs. How does Templar's Focused Charge make sense as a magicka-based ability? I'm in light armor and I used a staff. As a mage with staff, why would I want to voluntarily charge you in melee range. That's clearly a stamina-warrior ability type character, right?

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What am I missing? I'm clearly either used to single-player games, or I'm just absolutely stupid or over-complicating thing. Why does my resource type determine the weapons I use and my playstyle? It makes sense that your weapons determine your playstyle, as melee is much different compared to staves. But clearly, in literally any other RPG ever made, simply having melee weapons doesn't mean you aren't a magicka-based character. It really feels like the typical RPG archetypes aren't possible in ESO.

Why isn't the Soul abilities more developed? Lol There could be like a niche Death-Knight class or something, sucking the lifeforce out of enemies. What about more Barbarian, Juggernaught, Beserker Dreadnaught classes? Dragon-Knight's Inferno skill could easily be stamina-based, deal physical damage, and instead of fireballs it throws boulders out at you. I don't know.

I'm just acustomed to other games where classes are molded around classic archetypes, and your playstyle determines what class you pick. Here, in ESO, since there aren't 3 morphs (one being conversion), the variation in builds is actually diminished it seems. What's a Beserker Barbarian with dual-wield axes supposed to be? Or a Paladin Battlemage with S&B? Or a Warrior Monk with a staff? To me, in any game, any character with a staff is considered primarily as a “mage”. And all the cool class abilities in ESO are magicka-based, thus, requiring me to be a “mage” with a staff. But I'm sorry, I just don't think of mages when I hear the word “Templar”, for example. Or a Nightblade for that matter. I just wish weapons had conversion morphs.

Again, if I'm totally wrong in my interpretation, please please please correct me. I'm here to learn, and I'm really just thinking out loud here with this post. Maybe I don't realize that the game is more balanced and designed for PvP? Or is designed for PvE? You know how League of Legends really centers its design decisions around pro-play....is there an element like that here where the whole game of ESO is really determined by a subsection?

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I really want an in-your-face melee character. This, so far, has led me to make a stamina-based Templar with 2handed skills. Ok, well, there's only like 3 or 4 class abilities with stamina morphs. But If I were a magicka user, I'd get all the staff magicka skills and ALL class abilities at my disposal. It just feels like stamina users get less skills to pick from. I would also like to build a cool Battlemage/Paladin character, but I've been told to use a staff as magicka-user...but Battlemages & Paladins use sword & board, right? What am I not getting here?

Also, all the online guides tell me to use a bow as my secondary. Wait, just wait a minute. I'm a Two-Handed using Templar Redguard. In what other RPG world does a bow fit in that picture? Bows are for Rogue-type characters. Rogues, hunters, bards, Rangers. I wield a Greatsword, I have a long gray beard, I'm jumping in on enemies with Critical Charge. And you're telling me that a Bow fits my character? Bows are for lean, lanky-ass athletic Rogue characters. I'm a muscle-bound greatsword charger....? I just don't get it.

Ultimately, I'm sure everyone has some suggestion for the developers, but I think the biggest, most influential change they could make would be to add a 3rd morph options to all skills, with at least one converting it to the opposite resource type. As I said, this doesn't just give more options, but entire build concepts could be reality. TRUE battlemages, Monks, barbarians, Shamans, etc could exist in ESO.

Or...maybe...just maybe...I'm an idiot and I haven't discovered the complexity of making builds yet. I'm totally open to the idea that I"m just an idiot. I must allow for that possibility.

Sorry for long post. Thanks for any input, I sincerely appreciate it. I've really enjoyed the game so far, and I'm just trying to wrap my head around the "bigger picture" here.
Dustin

Tasear

It's so interesting how this game looks to a new player. But to sort or confuse you more the ideology is more play as you want. If you simply quest and explore then you can enjoy this to your hearts content.

Going further there's Magicka or stamina dps, tank and healer though these guys have stamina and Magicka counterparts too, but 99% healers are Magicka based and let's say 87% are stamina based tanks. Now following that you can have each class do each role which leads some fights on occasion between them (rivarly). In between that are a few different weapon combinations that are effective for each combinations but things are often changing so just because it doesn't work now doesn't mean it won't it a few months time.

Now if you feeling overwhelmed, I say pick a weapon, some gear and food then simply begin your journey. Elder scrolls online is about making your own story and adventures. The freedom is yours.

Raraaku

I'll try to go in order:

1. If you plan on being anything other than a tank, pick an attribute and stick with it, magicka or stamina. The reason being is twofold. First, weapon/spell damage don't just scale off your weapon, your resource pool also contributes to your weapon/spell damage. That's why, outside of tanks, you'll see the all magicka or all stamina builds, it's to increase your damage while also giving you more resources to do damage with.

2. Yes, while some classes have more options for stamina skill morphs, the reason why most class morphs are magicka based are due to Stamina having 4 weapon skill lines plus the Fighters Guild skill line as well as Undaunted (Undaunted strikes a better balance between the two) compared to Magicka's two weapon choice, with one of those two being a restoration staff. That's why you'll see most class skill lines magicka based.

3. Yes I agree that it would be nice if some skills were more like Inferno's Flames of Oblivion in which the damage scales with your higher resource pool instead of strictly stamina or magicka. In terms of magicka/stamina conversion morphs, I think it would give magicka players a huge edge because as you have said, most class skills are magicka based. What would the point of being a stamina player if I can get the best of both worlds in terms of weapon skills and class skills? It would throw balance way off course in my opinion.

4. The reason why the Bow is a staple in all DPS builds is that Endless Hail (Volley) is one of best DoT and AoE skills out there, it's click and forget. If a tank is doing his/her job and keeping the boss in place, it's an extremely effective skill. Plus poison injection is a nice DoT execute. It doesn't mean you can't be successful with say a 2H/DW set-up, but there is a reason why the meta has bows on virtually all stamina back bars.

So yes, while magicka users get their pick of class skills, Stamina players get their pick of weapons; it's a trade-off.

VaranisArano

First for some of your specific points.

1. Yes, its good advice to pick either magicka or stamina. Most of the stamina using skills get stronger the more stamina you have, most magicka using skills you use get better the more magicka you have. This does mean that most stamina users use stamina based weapon and most magicka players use staves. There are exceptions, of course. Most tanks use One Hand and Shield, as do many PVP players who want to have a tankier option on one bar. Before ZOS made two handed weapons count for 2 slots, it was common for certain magicka builds to dual wield swords for extra damage. My MagDK, for example, uses One hand and shield and a fire staff for overland questing and as a tank in normal dungeons.

Its not that you can't make an effective hybrid. You can, its just more complicated and takes a specific build to make effective.

3. The reason morphs are so odd for the older classes is that the game was originally designed for everyone to use magicka. Gradually, the player base developed stamina builds, but the designers never changed the original 4 classes. For a look at a class designed for both magicka and stam, look at the much newer Warden, which has a pretty full line up of magicka skills and stamina morphs. I don't expect the original 4 classes to get an overhaul to add more stam morphs. I love my stam sorc -I may only have one stam morph of a class ability right now, but Hurricane rocks!

3. Any class can be an in-your-face melee character. I do it all the time on my magicka Dragonknight and magicka nightblade. But how you do it will change with each class.

Stamina builds make heavy use of weapon skills. So on my stam sorc and stam dragonknight, I'm using a bow, dual wield, or twohander to do most of my DPS, with class skills added in. My DK does poison dots with class skills while my stam sorcs chew through mobs with their aoes and executes.

Magicka builds can be melee as well. My magicka builds lay down ground based dots like Wall of Elements and then stand their ground, burning their enemies (mag DK) or fighting with magical blades and sucking their health away (mag Nightblade). I haven't played my mag templar for a while, but when I did, I used the spear skills a lot. Again, lay down a damage over time skill, then jab, jab, jab.

It all depends on how you play your characters.

4. Bows. Everyone is telling you to use a bow because in order to do high PVE DPS in this game, you have to do a rotation of skills that mixed damage over time skills with single target skills. Bow has the best damage over time (DOT ) skill for stam users: Endless Hail. It also has a great DOT and execute in Poison Injection. Even my melee stam characters use a bow on mobs and then stand their ground, fighting with single target skills while the mobs take constant damage from DOTs like endless hail and caltrops. There are also some group dungeon fights where mechanics make it harder to melee the boss so having a ranged option is good. So the bow isn't just about shooting enemies from afar like a ranger, its a vital part of the DPS toolkit.

If you are a magicka player, wall of elements serves a very similar role of providing damage over time.


I hope those address some of your more specific points. That being said, your point about wanting to role play certain archetypes in absolutely possible in overland content. Once, you start doing group content, you'll want to have a build that befits your role, but for overland, anything goes.

I'm currently leveling a stam sorc with a two-hander who uses hurricane and Mages Wrath to wipe the floor with the Veiled Heritance. Its been a blast. If I were to go into normal dungeons with him, I would back bar a bow if I were going damage dealer, again for additional DPS I get from the damage over time skills. If I wanted to tank, I'd back bar a one hand and shield for the taunt and added tankiness.

Magicka Characters can do this too. My Magicka Dragonknight tanks in dungeons, but uses a fire staff or one hand and shield for questing. Its slower DPS, but effective in melee combat. My magicka nightblade is always using her wall of elements to do damage over time while she slashes away at her enemies in melee combat.

So make your true battlemage if you want. It'll work fine for overland questing as long as you combine damage over time skills with single target abilities. For group content, though, its beneficial to look at your chosen role and choose skills and weapons that will help you and your group succeed.

RavenSworn

First and foremost welcome to Eso! It is currently one of the best mmo that is in the market so far so it seems you have come to the right place. It's not without its kinks and quirks though so let's get to it shall we?

First, it's an mmo with an elder scrolls skin. That should be your first warning in terms of what you should expect from the game. While it has similarities to both the single player ES game and other MMOs, it stands alone with its story driven quest lines and unique combat mechanics.

Currently, the combat system works in two folds; one is that it is tied to magicka and stamina variants, two is that it is heavily weapon based, not role nor class, but weapon based. It means that the damage 'resource' and the weapons you use will affect your role and style of play. Magicka based characters uses the destruction staff and restoration staff while the stamina ones uses dual wield weapons, two handed melee, bows and lastly sword and shield. in actual effect, stamina users have more access to weapon skills than class skills while magicka users are vice versa. it pans out sort of evenly to the number of skills available for each class.

with that in mind though, I usually build my char to use either resource as my main damage output resource and the other as my utility or support resource. For eg: I have a nightblade and I use stamina as my main damage output. I then would choose dual wield daggers / bows as my weapon choice. This in turn would make me a Dps or damage dealer in groups. My skill bar would then include buffs, dots and direct damage abilities. My buffs however, does not necessarily come from abilities that are stamina scaled. Shadowy disguise or dark cloak, uses magicka but it augments my build in terms of survivability. Same goes with reapers mark. The question now comes of what to put in your limited slots to perform the best to your class/weapon/resource variant.

What you think of as battlemage, paladins, assassins, etc are in actuality, themes. Whether you use stamina or magicka is up to you but a stamina templar doesn't mean you can't be as flashy as a magicka templar. It just means you are using different weapon choices. As to your eg of a stamina sorcerer, it definitely is a different playstyle than a magicka based sorcerer. A stamina sorc in my mind is like.. Thor, while a magicka sorc is like... Raiden. Each uses the same 'source' but wields it differently. See what I mean?

In terms of putting points evenly between magicka and stamina, think of it this way. You have 1 litre of water and you need to transport this water from point a to b. You have two different barrels, one blue the other green to do this. However, the blue is lightweight but can easily leak. The green one is more sturdy but requires you to use two hands. You have 3 options then, you can put all the water in either the blue or green and do it once or you can put half & half in both the barrels. All 3 options are legitimate options but the half & half will require more effort. That is why most builds will ask you to put points into one resource as that is the optimal or most efficient way. It's also the reason why hybrids aren't as optimised as builds that focuses on one resource. It takes extra effort to have the same results.

One last point to take note as well. As you go further into the game, such as dungeons and trials, the lesser the choices and variety of optimal and efficient builds. If you aren't pushing for leader boards or achievements, then most builds are viable. Understand the why and the works of the build rather than just copy paste. When you understand your class and builds, you will benefit in the long run.

Hope this helps!

THEDKEXPERIENCE

You’re asking all the right questions, that’s for sure.

The few posted above me did a great job responding. I’ll add in a bit.

People confuse “play how you want” with “anything I come up with will be effective”. You are absolutely able to build the weirdest combo character you can think of - most MMOs absolutely do not let this happen - but at the end of the day if you want to maximize what you do best you’ll need to limit your choices.

The only choice in ESO that cannot be undone is your class. If you’re a Templar you’ll always be a Templar, period. Luckily no matter the class you can make it into a healer, tank, or DPS. Adding in the new time stop ability you could even argue that a 4th controller spec can be played. Anyway, while you CAN do anything with any class, the race you pick will have a large impact on how high of a ceiling your toon will eventually have. A Redguard will always have more stamina than a Breton if they are set up exactly the same for example.

I’ll use a real life example to illustrate a point. Let’s say that potentially the 2 greatest ice hockey players ever were both born today. One of them was born in Toronto, and has a rich father who played 15 years in the NHL. The other was born in Cuba to parents who have never even seen ice, let alone have many years of professional ice hockey experience. While both have the tools to be great, one of them has min maxed his life and the other might very well be laughed at for even trying.

Making a Redguard Magic Sorc who uses a destro staff and bow might be fun and all, but it’s probably going to go over as well in end game content as a Cuban trying to break into the NHL. While not impossible, it’s a heck of a lot harder to do.

droscoe

I sincerely appreciate the feedback. I've said this in-game, and I'll say it here. ESO has, hands down, the friendliest, most helpful, and awesome community. I play alone, and none of my RL friends play PC games, so I'm left to my own devices in most multiplayer games. That being said, it's great to be a part of this community.

I've taken some time to soak up everything all of you have said. It seems to me that I started ESO without understanding some fundamental characteristics of MMO's.

From your responses, I notice a heavy emphasis on "roles". It's clear that ESO hinges its character and class design around the holy trinity of "roles" in game. I think this, specifically, was new to me. Single-player games don't use "roles" and, thus, they tend to allow for more fluid roleplaying, on an individual level.

I can see that every class or race can perform any role, but I also understand that if one desired to optimize, or min/max their role's performance, that it would be advantageous to select specific classes/races versus a non-optimal choice.

I think, at the end of the day, I was discounting the complexities of an MMO. To be honest, I think I was completely ignorant of the fundamental MMO mechanics in ESO, which, compared to what I'm used to (single-player), felt "shallow" at first. I think my inexperience with "role-based" gameplay was partly to blame for some of my misconceptions.

I still have a dozen questions (more specific), but I suppose I'll ask as I go along. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I think I have a better understanding of the game and how I can fit within Tamriel!

As of now, PvP seems like a huge, daunting mountain that I have no idea how to get into. Doesn't help that I'm a lone wolf either. :P But I'm sure I'll learn as I go!

Nolic1

https://youtu.be/qYmH1CyJcaM

This is just to show one type of build you can make that is a Hybrid which it sound like you want to play. Hybrids are a weird thing in ESO compared to the games you listed even though some are TES or The Elder Scrolls games this does not work exactly the same but you can make a hybrid build. It will not be welcome by many in the community because it is not a pure build but they do work and are viable in the game in both PvE and PvP more so in PvP because of the lack of crit but with the right set up you can pull it off.

In most cases you will only be doing dungeons normal and vet and not likely be allowed in hard mode or trial content but the hybrid does work well enough in its current stat. So just enjoy the game find what you like and play and if you feel you have to or need to play something that a main stat like a stam or mag build there are plenty of builders out there for you to find one you like.

VaranisArano

Roles tend to be most important once you start doing group content like group dungeons, trials, or PVP. Then, most people build for their role in a group as a tank, a healer, or a damage dealer. It becomes more specialized, since someone else is there to cover the other roles.

For overland questing, anything goes. Most players will go in the direction of dealing damage, since its often more effective to kill enemies quicker rather than heal/tank them. For example, my dungeon tank can survive anything but is slower to quest on because of low DPS, unless I swap some skills around to do higher damage. In comparison, as long as my damage dealers have some form of self-healing, they can easily quest because they kill most enemies quickly with damage over time and single target abilities.

In my experience, min-maxing only becomes a really big thing with Trials and really competitive PVP, where the extra gains in efficiency really make a difference compared to the best builds. For everything else, its more about whether you can tank, heal, or, deal damage good enough to complete the content. If you can, great, and no min-maxing needed. (Mind you, I say this as someone who plays a Breton Stam Sorc, which is a completely unoptimized race for that class My Breton does fine and absolutely rips through overland quests, but a Redguard stam sorc would be the better performance option for end game group content.)

Personally I find it easier to quest as a damage dealer with self-heals and do dungeons as a tank or healer (for the faster queue times, LOL), so I just swap gear and skills around as needed.

Ragebull

*starts slow clap*

Well said I agree with everything you said.

You aren't doing anything wrong, they kinda botched the skills and builds part of the game. Your observations are legit

Iselin

The system is an ancient problem we've learned to live with and work around but using two different resources to power abilities and weapon attacks has always been an issue because the game has always favored magicka. Even the few stamina morphs that exist for class abilities were added after release - it was even more slanted toward magicka back then.

And there has always been an easy fix that would have opened up builds tremendously: use stamina only for sprinting, dodging, blocking and bashing; rename magicka to "power" (or something) and use that stat for all abilities from any class, weapon or guild skill line.

But that will never happen because the team is married to just making minor tweaks to what already exists. Overhauling the whole system would take a lot of work.

In the meantime all you can really do is use the one gear set that lets you ignore (to an extent) the magicka/stamina skill divide, Pelinal's Aptitude that has the following 5 piece set bonus: (5 items) Your Weapon Damage and Spell Damage both become the highest of the two values.

A build based around that set can ignore conventional build wisdom and mix and match any class skills and weapon skills any way you want, choose morphs for what they do differently instead of just whether they're stamina or magicka morphs, etc.

In ESO builds made around using that set are considered weird, niche builds (although they work extremely well in both PVE and PVP.) The joke is that the builds that this gear set makes possible would be the normal way to make all builds if that stamina/magicka divide for powering abilities did not exist.

droscoe

I wish I had $10m and infinite time to make a game. (I am making my own RTS though!)

It sounds like there is some history here that I didn't know about. I never knew what ESO was like in the early days. I'm starting to understand now. Haha

lassitershawn

Stamina users actually get more options than it seems just by looking at resource costs. There are lots of magicka “utility” abilities within classes that are extremely useful to stamina characters. Some examples would be fear and cloak for NBs and DKs could use wings and volatile armor. Most “utility” skills of this nature would only see use in PvP of course. Non tank mag builds don’t get to use stamina skills nearly ever (occasional exception of rearming trap and I’ve seen 2h on sorc for snare removal used to good effect) as there aren’t as many stamina utility skills and stamina needs to be reserved for dodging and blocking.

In competitive PvE builds are usually fixed and stamina builds tend to make more use of weapon skills than do magicka builds. The reason for the importance of bow in PvE is the strength of the vMA bow, poison injection, and volley. The only time you get a stamina and magicka weapon with skills used from both as well as class in PvE is S/B and staff tank, which is very viable.

kichwas

For your specific notion of wanting to play a sword and board paladin, look at this build:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-templar-tank-build-pve/

That's basically the concept directly. You can mod up the skills a bit to suite your playstyle as you go along (my Templar tank hasn't unlocked all of that, so I replaced some of the things with a few 'area effect' damage skills and a few more choices from the '1-hander + shield' list like the charge ability (I always put that one on my tanks even though most tank builds lack it - I like to be able to get to something fast, especially if skills to pull it to me don't work such as with many boss fights).

You'll notice the build is basically 1/3 magika 2/3 stamina.
I instead went 1/4 magika, 1/4 health, 1/2 stamina - especially while tanking dungeons when leveling... I find a lot of time the person who 'joined under the healing role' has no healing skills in their build... and I have to tank+heal the whole place at the same time... for which a little health boost goes a long way.

(there is a thing in the community of going into dungeons on all DPS builds... and it's very popular among players that... lack the play skill to pull it off... so I find this situation where I end up having to handle multiple roles is pretty common across several different characters and not just my tanks...)