"interesting build choices"

ezio45

Heard zos throw this statement that they want us to make more interesting build choices. Now personally im just gunna call it like i see it, this sounds like corporate bs at its finest. Ya know, when somebody is outraged about something and pr puts out a "we are also very concerned and are looking further into the situation" type phrase. Something to calm the angry sheepeople thats fake af. But lets take zos at their word, whats wrong with how we are building? How are the choices not impactful or interesting.

End game pve: Not alot of variety here. Thing is there isnt alot zos can do about it. Each role has a specific job and there is a best way to do that job no matter how fast they change meta. As soon as they have a patch go live there is now a best way to do something for that patch. We might have to figure it out but from the time a patch goes live there is an optimized setup that will result in giving every group the maximized dps, sustain and survivability that is attainable at that time for any group. Any build diversity that comes from here is based on class and role. Generally we also have guidelines we set for the roles. Tbh i just dont think there is an option for increasing diversity here. No matter what zos does there will always be a new best and any divergent from that best is really just subject to your group. Tanks and healers probably have the least amount of choices there allowed to make. Dps has more freedom but its still do more dps and die less than your competition. Still gotta crank out as much dps as possible with just barely enough survivability. So really even there build choices are made for them based on there skill level. If you cant survive or sustain ya you have to make adjustments. Theres no choice in the trade off. There no meaningful choice of well I can have higher crit but lower damage. Its already decided based on numbers. Health vers resources, health will only ever be desirable up until the point you can reliable survive. Your not making choices, your just adapting the best set up to meet your skill lvl

general pve, same as above players have just made fewer rules for it. Tanks still want to survive while being useful to group. dps still want to kill things the fastest they can while reasonable surviving, healer wants to stay alive while keeping group healed and buffed. no dps is going to invest in more survivability than they need at the cost of dps slower. Its all based on your skill. zos is never going to do anything to make dps want more health than they need to reasonably survive unless health starts doing dmg.

pvp, you got the most diversity buildwise here. you can make a build that specializes in a certain area, can tailor survuvability and dps and utility to your desire. Really though this is just more freedom to choose your destination rather than how you get there. If im trying to be a dps magsorc that can live though a back and forth with my team against another team of players and kill them theres still things I want to prioritize and things i am only going to tailor enough into until i have what i need. example they made shields need health. There still no choice in the matter. At no point am i like god i think investing more into my health is a good idea. im like ok, what is the lowest health a can possibly go to survive. If i had a dps magsorc buddy that wanted to be alittle more tanky than me. ya he might invest in 2k more health, now granted if this is real bro would need to invest like 8k into health to actually see a difference but whatever. bro invest 2k health to be tankier, hes still not going to invest more into that at the cost of damage. Once you have what you need your only going to invest in what you want. Its not a trade off there making, its something they need to there build to be viable for them. there not choosing it.

Really the only build options to choose are what thy of build you want but how you get there is all predetermined, ya you can have a variety of sets to pick from but it still falls as get what you need then invest in what you want. if you want to be a high dps your never going to choose a set like pariah. Really if we only get to make choices regarding what we build i think we have less interesting choices than before. Mid dps mid survivability magsorc or magblade are gone, your either an tank or a glass cannon, high rolldodge chance builds are gone. overload builds gone. Going way back here but blazeplar is gone. Now if zos thought these builds were doing to much damage or had to much survivability fine make fine tuning adjustments. its not giving us interesting choices or even uninteresting choices to pick from. The game as a whole doesnt really have interesting trade offs or again even uninteresting ones. You have the core needs the game forces you to have and then you invest in the area you building for. Everything is either a need or something you want to invest as much as you can in or something you dont want to invest in. I mean theres an argument to me made for things in the same area like spell damage spell crit and spell pen or recovery vs reduced cost but even there a best option exists to give you the most bang for your buck you just have to find it. Ya they can switch around the requirements for a build to be viable but its still not anything we choose and is decided for us by viability and our skill, its not a choice.

i think if zos really wants to increase the interesting choices in our builds they need to give us more types of builds, mag ice dps a thing, i sure there will be alot of players that start building those.

idk, just thinking out loud, thanks for wasting your time reading a lunatics ramblings. What are your thoughts

Kulvar

Removing damage scaling out of max resource would help hybrid builds.
Hybrid builds would be more about sustain than raw damage.
Balancing set bonuses and traits would be needed to get meaningful alternatives.
Having additive bonuses instead of multiplicative bonuses (CP & buffs going flat) would allow more choices.

But even after all of that, there'll always be something "META". It would just be much closer to other builds.

Elwendryll

Your post is particularly challenging to read.
I mostly agree. In PvE, on a specific class/role, you don't have much options on playstyle. You can have slightly more survivability, slightly less damage, but you can't really change the way you play your character.

I tried to go a little off-meta, and replaced my DW bar on my stamsorc by a 2H bar, and basically, the rotation is almost the same, except I now have a cast time ability as a spammable, one less dot, and an execute. I perform the same if not better as before (Just did vMoL yesterday with it), but that's not like there was any different mechanic or anything. And that's kind of sad.

But well. In pvp you can do whatever you want, you're not spoiling a whole raid for your excentricity. I've tried a no cp stamina build with overload as a spammable, it's fun.

srfrogg23

I honestly don't think the "lack of build variety" can be blamed on Zos, at all.

The claim that there is a lack of variety usually comes from pedantic min/maxers who insist on whining about a 2% dps loss if people refuse to use whatever happens to be META during the current patch.

If you can overlook a 2%-5% difference in dps, then there a metric ton of builds to play with. A huge amount of variety.

generalmyrick

srfrogg23 wrote: »

I honestly don't think the "lack of build variety" can be blamed on Zos, at all.

The claim that there is a lack of variety usually comes from pedantic min/maxers who insist on whining about a 2% dps loss if people refuse to use whatever happens to be META during the current patch.

If you can overlook a 2%-5% difference in dps, then there a metric ton of builds to play with. A huge amount of variety.

and couldn't it be argued that you can give up 2-5% dps for something more valuable? the uni-variable analytics will kill creativity.

Jeremy

ezio45 wrote: »

Heard zos throw this statement that they want us to make more interesting build choices. Now personally im just gunna call it like i see it, this sounds like corporate bs at its finest. Ya know, when somebody is outraged about something and pr puts out a "we are also very concerned and are looking further into the situation" type phrase. Something to calm the angry sheepeople thats fake af. But lets take zos at their word, whats wrong with how we are building? How are the choices not impactful or interesting.

End game pve: Not alot of variety here. Thing is there isnt alot zos can do about it. Each role has a specific job and there is a best way to do that job no matter how fast they change meta. As soon as they have a patch go live there is now a best way to do something for that patch. We might have to figure it out but from the time a patch goes live there is an optimized setup that will result in giving every group the maximized dps, sustain and survivability that is attainable at that time for any group. Any build diversity that comes from here is based on class and role. Generally we also have guidelines we set for the roles. Tbh i just dont think there is an option for increasing diversity here. No matter what zos does there will always be a new best and any divergent from that best is really just subject to your group. Tanks and healers probably have the least amount of choices there allowed to make. Dps has more freedom but its still do more dps and die less than your competition. Still gotta crank out as much dps as possible with just barely enough survivability. So really even there build choices are made for them based on there skill level. If you cant survive or sustain ya you have to make adjustments. Theres no choice in the trade off. There no meaningful choice of well I can have higher crit but lower damage. Its already decided based on numbers. Health vers resources, health will only ever be desirable up until the point you can reliable survive. Your not making choices, your just adapting the best set up to meet your skill lvl

general pve, same as above players have just made fewer rules for it. Tanks still want to survive while being useful to group. dps still want to kill things the fastest they can while reasonable surviving, healer wants to stay alive while keeping group healed and buffed. no dps is going to invest in more survivability than they need at the cost of dps slower. Its all based on your skill. zos is never going to do anything to make dps want more health than they need to reasonably survive unless health starts doing dmg.

pvp, you got the most diversity buildwise here. you can make a build that specializes in a certain area, can tailor survuvability and dps and utility to your desire. Really though this is just more freedom to choose your destination rather than how you get there. If im trying to be a dps magsorc that can live though a back and forth with my team against another team of players and kill them theres still things I want to prioritize and things i am only going to tailor enough into until i have what i need. example they made shields need health. There still no choice in the matter. At no point am i like god i think investing more into my health is a good idea. im like ok, what is the lowest health a can possibly go to survive. If i had a dps magsorc buddy that wanted to be alittle more tanky than me. ya he might invest in 2k more health, now granted if this is real bro would need to invest like 8k into health to actually see a difference but whatever. bro invest 2k health to be tankier, hes still not going to invest more into that at the cost of damage. Once you have what you need your only going to invest in what you want. Its not a trade off there making, its something they need to there build to be viable for them. there not choosing it.

Really the only build options to choose are what thy of build you want but how you get there is all predetermined, ya you can have a variety of sets to pick from but it still falls as get what you need then invest in what you want. if you want to be a high dps your never going to choose a set like pariah. Really if we only get to make choices regarding what we build i think we have less interesting choices than before. Mid dps mid survivability magsorc or magblade are gone, your either an tank or a glass cannon, high rolldodge chance builds are gone. overload builds gone. Going way back here but blazeplar is gone. Now if zos thought these builds were doing to much damage or had to much survivability fine make fine tuning adjustments. its not giving us interesting choices or even uninteresting choices to pick from. The game as a whole doesnt really have interesting trade offs or again even uninteresting ones. You have the core needs the game forces you to have and then you invest in the area you building for. Everything is either a need or something you want to invest as much as you can in or something you dont want to invest in. I mean theres an argument to me made for things in the same area like spell damage spell crit and spell pen or recovery vs reduced cost but even there a best option exists to give you the most bang for your buck you just have to find it. Ya they can switch around the requirements for a build to be viable but its still not anything we choose and is decided for us by viability and our skill, its not a choice.

i think if zos really wants to increase the interesting choices in our builds they need to give us more types of builds, mag ice dps a thing, i sure there will be alot of players that start building those.

idk, just thinking out loud, thanks for wasting your time reading a lunatics ramblings. What are your thoughts

This game does suffer from a lack of diversity and interesting build options. Adding more monster sets and other gear options that add unique abilities and effects that interact with varying play styles is probably the best way to address this. Because the fundamentals of the game's combat structure is so basic it doesn't leave much room for experimentation.

As far as the "meta" - I don't think that's the real problem here. That segment of the player base is only a tiny sliver of the population. They just tend to be over-represented on gaming forums.

Malprave

srfrogg23 wrote: »

I honestly don't think the "lack of build variety" can be blamed on Zos, at all.

The claim that there is a lack of variety usually comes from pedantic min/maxers who insist on whining about a 2% dps loss if people refuse to use whatever happens to be META during the current patch.

If you can overlook a 2%-5% difference in dps, then there a metric ton of builds to play with. A huge amount of variety.

Exactly ^
There is a lot of room for diversity if you don’t have to have BiS stuff and the absolute best dps. And as far as I’m concerned unless you are in a guild that is routinely at the top of the leaderboards just play the way you want to. Let me clarify though that your build needs to work for the content you intend to do. If you are going to be that special snowflake, make sure you are a snowflake that knows what you’re doing.

Jayroo

In their defense... they try much harder than a good portion of mmo's out there

ZonasArch

Eng game meta is boring and monotone, but if you look at the 99%ers, not the 1%ers, there's a huge variety.

And about the specificity of roles, that's fine. That doesn't need to change to add variety. The are many ways to achieve what you described in general pve and that's what people do. Instead of using a health glyph, they'll use a set with one health bonus, or instead of having a heavy gear piece, they'll use a mundus Stone.... So on and so forth. Because you're not trying to squeeze maximum possible performance, you now have freedom to think outside the box, and people like doing that. This just doesn't happen where meta really matters, but it happens everywhere else.

Also, following that line, I made a new DK tank with beekeeper, Alessian and engine guardian. Basically unkillable on the content I run, allows for a non healer vet dungeon run, super fun to play. Totally non meta, would never make a vet trial for score, but it's still perfectly fine even if it does basically no damage. And this one is also great for duels, since I just don't die, I always win because people give up. 😂

My point being... Variety is def there. People use sets they like, that match their styles. Just not on the top.

Shantu

Thinking that it would cause "interesting build choices" was the developer comment for the massive nerf of shields in Nerfmire. It's comment that still gets under my skin. Yeah, I used to main a MagSorc. Not anymore. While all the complaining in PVP about shield stacking had some merit, this extraordinarily narrow minded comment somehow justified pretty much wiping out a style of game play in PVE. And what do they offer instead? You can still have your shield if you max out your health and resistances. Earth to developers...if you have a high health, high resistance build, you don't need a damn shield! Don't think I'll ever get my head around that clueless decision. I pretty much ignore any build using a shield these days. They are basically worthless to all but the builds that don't need them. Personally, I don't find an iota of interest in that.

Sorry for the shield rant, but it still pisses me off.

Draxys

Some punctuation would help with readability next time...

But I mostly agree. Softcaps and different scaling would help this. Also, I think many people conflate “best” and “viable”. There are a plethora of viable combinations that will complete any content, but people tunnel vision on what’s considered the best.

Castagere

Malprave wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

I honestly don't think the "lack of build variety" can be blamed on Zos, at all.

The claim that there is a lack of variety usually comes from pedantic min/maxers who insist on whining about a 2% dps loss if people refuse to use whatever happens to be META during the current patch.

If you can overlook a 2%-5% difference in dps, then there a metric ton of builds to play with. A huge amount of variety.

Exactly ^
There is a lot of room for diversity if you don’t have to have BiS stuff and the absolute best dps. And as far as I’m concerned unless you are in a guild that is routinely at the top of the leaderboards just play the way you want to. Let me clarify though that your build needs to work for the content you intend to do. If you are going to be that special snowflake, make sure you are a snowflake that knows what you’re doing.

Yes this is it 100%
This is why I don't watch any of these people's twitch and YouTube channels anymore either. It's a mmo and this new passive change proves how foolish it is to follow meta and mid max advice that flood these boards. I have been playing mmo's since 99/2000 and they always change down the road. The same type of players are freaking out over at Neverwinter from PWE. They are making major changes to classes and skills in a huge update coming. But over there it being PWE people have spent real money on their builds.

InvictusApollo

"interesting build choices" can mean literally anything as you can't universally define whats interesting to everyone. Thus I think this was some corpo slang to talk about build diversity.

Iskiab

Meh, ZoS has a point. People talk about how X and Y are required but really they have no clue. Most players have never experimented because it’s expensive so prefer cookie cutter stuff. That’s fine, but people spreading nonsense irks me.

I can’t think of a single skill besides combat prayer that’s required on a healer. People just prefer to do what’s easiest and conform to x or y, but there are options.

If ESO was more like Rift where it encouraged experimenting I’m sure you’d see players reacting differently.

ZonasArch

Draxys wrote: »

Some punctuation would help with readability next time...

But I mostly agree. Softcaps and different scaling would help this. Also, I think many people conflate “best” and “viable”. There are a plethora of viable combinations that will complete any content, but people tunnel vision on what’s considered the best.

Omg, this. Depending on what you're doing, mostly any set can be viable! Just build around it, synergizing the other sets to cover the weaknesses you have. Won't be best or close to best, maybe, but you'll be able to play anything just fine.

Kadoin

I'm still wondering when I can have a hybrid with decent weapon and spell crit. Too bad I can't because ZOS axed the 8% spell/weapon crit Khajit in PTS. Meh...

Too bad there is no monster set that can at least passively give major prophecy and major savagery. It would at least save me two slots (and potions) for the cost of a monster set or 2x 1 pieces that could cover a problem in my hybrid elsewhere (balanced IMO, but meh apparently ZOS doesn't feel like adding such a set).

JinMori

Jayroo wrote: »

In their defense... they try much harder than a good portion of mmo's out there

Well, the majority of mmos are just straight *** garbage, so...

Rake

removing players would make game balanced

Kiralyn2000

No matter how "interesting" or "balanced" an MMO makes it's stuff, the bleeding-edge/progression/min-max/'l33t' crowd will find a meta and stick to it like glue. Because, for them, something being 1% less DPS is Absolutely Worthless™.

So if you try to judge "more interesting build choices" by the top-end raider/leaderboard crowd, you're always going to be disappointed. (and, honestly, a game shouldn't try to balance thing around the top 1-5% of the players. That'll just screw over everyone else. I remember one WoW patch in the... Wrath? Cata? -era, where they balanced resource recovery around the Best Players, and ended up with beginners having to stop and rest/drink after every single overland trash fight.)

The question is if "average" (whatever that means) players are doing "interesting" things. Or if they're buying in to the whole "the game begins at level cap, rush to 50/160 ASAP, must play meta!" trap.

ezio45

What i was more than less trying to say is, I think by "interesting build choices" zos meant they want us to be able to consider x and y. With x and y having some kind of trade off. I dont thin x and y will ever have a trade off. Once players have what they need for there build to be viable to them there only going to invest in what they want there build to be. Zos can move the needs around but actual trade offs only come from the type of build you choose to run.

Even it your a tanky dps your only going to spec into tankiness up until it meets the needs you have for your build and then everything else is going into dps.

MashmalloMan

Diversity to me, means actual viable choices. Even if you don't min-max, not using certain skills can be a huge loss of dps to your character. Why do we only have 1 option for minor force on stamina builds for example? Why is there only beast trap? Sure you can use channeled acceleration, but it doesn't actually do any damage. It was a step in the right direction, but there is so much they could do with it.

Why not make class skills that include minor force so you can actually have an option between the 2 abilities.

Endless hail is on everyones rotation because it's too good to pass up, sure you can play like a snowflake and do dw/2h for example, but there just isn't enough abilities to warrant such a needless nerf to your dps. Why don't those skill lines have options for ground aoe dots that compare to bow.

These are the types of choices I'd like to see. It doesn't matter if 1 is better on paper, there is already some better choices now like for example Crushing Weapon VS Flying Blade, etc. 1 can give you a shield, more cost effective, heals. The other has cleave dmg, major brutality, execute dmg, etc.

The comment "why bother if min-max meta is all that matters and people will just use whats best" is a misdirect. If that were ACTUALLY true, then people would all be playing nightblades, I've stuck with stam sorc for years not because it was top dps but because I found the theme interesting. I want more options and they can do that easily by making different skills more viable, updating un-used morphs OR even adding more skills to skill lines.

alexj4596b14_ESO

You know, let's look at more interesting. Today I am like "hey let's see if I can't make Druid Stamina Build with a Pet!"

So first I chose warden for obvious reasons. So I've got my bear double barred. Alright so now let's chose my weapons! I was like alright Dual Weapons and Bow! Makes sense so far. Alright I put together my bar. A stun, some sustain, a damage buff and some defensive buff. So I've got, lotus flower stamina Morph Cor crit and sustain, green Betty for some weapon power and regin. And of course Ice Fortress. 3 buffs to maintain bit horrid but what can you do.

So then I go look at my bow passives "with bow abilities" is attached to Every Passive, so rip my ranged damage boost with the bird. Alright let's see posion nope nothing in the class kit compliments this so this ain't gonna work nothing is working together.

So while I'm awaiting amazing ideas I'm looking at stamina sets that boost weapon power and there is only one that applies to everything and it's hundings. Which is eh..nah doesn't quite feel right.

The bow sets are very nesh and two hand set is Eh. There simply nothing that meshes well with the idea. So I go back through without the warden in my head and I realized NONE of the stamina sets and mean none mesh well with any other set.

Like bow sets don't mesh with other bow sets, two hands sets don't mesh with anything, and dual wield sets are a pipe dream. Posion sets don't mesh with anything but DKs. Posion sets don't even mesh with Bow which is largely posion damage and dots. You have to be a DK for any of those sets to synergize well.

So I gave up on that idea and was like alright what about a magkica version. By the time I finished building the it I realized I just rebuilt the same warden magkica build without the frost ult and put the bear in there instead.


If they want different builds the sets really need to encourage that, because as far as stamina goes excluding 2 sets hundings and the pentration set nothing meshes with anything but dk. Which is dumb.

ZonasArch

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

You know, let's look at more interesting. Today I am like "hey let's see if I can't make Druid Stamina Build with a Pet!"

So first I chose warden for obvious reasons. So I've got my bear double barred. Alright so now let's chose my weapons! I was like alright Dual Weapons and Bow! Makes sense so far. Alright I put together my bar. A stun, some sustain, a damage buff and some defensive buff. So I've got, lotus flower stamina Morph Cor crit and sustain, green Betty for some weapon power and regin. And of course Ice Fortress. 3 buffs to maintain bit horrid but what can you do.

So then I go look at my bow passives "with bow abilities" is attached to Every Passive, so rip my ranged damage boost with the bird. Alright let's see posion nope nothing in the class kit compliments this so this ain't gonna work nothing is working together.

So while I'm awaiting amazing ideas I'm looking at stamina sets that boost weapon power and there is only one that applies to everything and it's hundings. Which is eh..nah doesn't quite feel right.

The bow sets are very nesh and two hand set is Eh. There simply nothing that meshes well with the idea. So I go back through without the warden in my head and I realized NONE of the stamina sets and mean none mesh well with any other set.

Like bow sets don't mesh with other bow sets, two hands sets don't mesh with anything, and dual wield sets are a pipe dream. Posion sets don't mesh with anything but DKs. Posion sets don't even mesh with Bow which is largely posion damage and dots. You have to be a DK for any of those sets to synergize well.

So I gave up on that idea and was like alright what about a magkica version. By the time I finished building the it I realized I just rebuilt the same warden magkica build without the frost ult and put the bear in there instead.


If they want different builds the sets really need to encourage that, because as far as stamina goes excluding 2 sets hundings and the pentration set nothing meshes with anything but dk. Which is dumb.

You were doing fine on your text, until you showed how hyperbolic it was when you set out to build Stam and you built the same Magicka you had before. Bad representation of the game, good representation of how bad people are at getting creative and free. If you want a set that synerges well with both class, race and attribute of choice, you're adding way too many filters, so of course you'll be more limited. If you let go of this, you can have a set for your poison, a set for your DW, and a monster set that suits your style. Or you can have one set for your bow, one for your pet, and a monster set that does whatever.

Be. Free.

If you wanted a "druid" which is a concept this game doesn't have, you will necessarily have to make trade offs. Take it or leave it, the deal is that you want to build something that doesn't currently exist in the game for RP reasons. RP means accepting your build will be suboptimal. Once you accept that, you'll be able to build viable fun builds for your Stam druid. Go on the extralife wiki page and read one by one, all the sets in the game.

And there's nothing wrong with using hunding's if you don't have anything better, this set is well balanced and neutral, suits everything to a great degree, even if it's not always optimal.

sneakymitchell

srfrogg23 wrote: »

I honestly don't think the "lack of build variety" can be blamed on Zos, at all.

The claim that there is a lack of variety usually comes from pedantic min/maxers who insist on whining about a 2% dps loss if people refuse to use whatever happens to be META during the current patch.

If you can overlook a 2%-5% difference in dps, then there a metric ton of builds to play with. A huge amount of variety.

I hate those kind. Even if they can do better than others it’s the enjoyment of ones build they made on their own. I know this one youtuber named Sherman’s gaming has been called by another player a “snowflake”? I know what he does. He makes his own builds and doesn’t focus to heavily on the meta. You always get one or two players complaining about their dps is superior cause they copy and paste a build.

alexj4596b14_ESO

ZonasArch wrote: »

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

You know, let's look at more interesting. Today I am like "hey let's see if I can't make Druid Stamina Build with a Pet!"

So first I chose warden for obvious reasons. So I've got my bear double barred. Alright so now let's chose my weapons! I was like alright Dual Weapons and Bow! Makes sense so far. Alright I put together my bar. A stun, some sustain, a damage buff and some defensive buff. So I've got, lotus flower stamina Morph Cor crit and sustain, green Betty for some weapon power and regin. And of course Ice Fortress. 3 buffs to maintain bit horrid but what can you do.

So then I go look at my bow passives "with bow abilities" is attached to Every Passive, so rip my ranged damage boost with the bird. Alright let's see posion nope nothing in the class kit compliments this so this ain't gonna work nothing is working together.

So while I'm awaiting amazing ideas I'm looking at stamina sets that boost weapon power and there is only one that applies to everything and it's hundings. Which is eh..nah doesn't quite feel right.

The bow sets are very nesh and two hand set is Eh. There simply nothing that meshes well with the idea. So I go back through without the warden in my head and I realized NONE of the stamina sets and mean none mesh well with any other set.

Like bow sets don't mesh with other bow sets, two hands sets don't mesh with anything, and dual wield sets are a pipe dream. Posion sets don't mesh with anything but DKs. Posion sets don't even mesh with Bow which is largely posion damage and dots. You have to be a DK for any of those sets to synergize well.

So I gave up on that idea and was like alright what about a magkica version. By the time I finished building the it I realized I just rebuilt the same warden magkica build without the frost ult and put the bear in there instead.


If they want different builds the sets really need to encourage that, because as far as stamina goes excluding 2 sets hundings and the pentration set nothing meshes with anything but dk. Which is dumb.

You were doing fine on your text, until you showed how hyperbolic it was when you set out to build Stam and you built the same Magicka you had before. Bad representation of the game, good representation of how bad people are at getting creative and free. If you want a set that synerges well with both class, race and attribute of choice, you're adding way too many filters, so of course you'll be more limited. If you let go of this, you can have a set for your poison, a set for your DW, and a monster set that suits your style. Or you can have one set for your bow, one for your pet, and a monster set that does whatever.

Be. Free.

If you wanted a "druid" which is a concept this game doesn't have, you will necessarily have to make trade offs. Take it or leave it, the deal is that you want to build something that doesn't currently exist in the game for RP reasons. RP means accepting your build will be suboptimal. Once you accept that, you'll be able to build viable fun builds for your Stam druid. Go on the extralife wiki page and read one by one, all the sets in the game.

And there's nothing wrong with using hunding's if you don't have anything better, this set is well balanced and neutral, suits everything to a great degree, even if it's not always optimal.

Not sure were I got hyperbolic but I think you just proved my point. 2 stamina based sets, wait no 3 cuz Hulking Dragur synchronize well with all classes. Out of How many stamina sets in game? Now compared to Magicka sets which synchronize well with nearly every class, and Magicka Based Weapon.

As far as I can tell the way they wanted Stamina builds to be built is based around the weapon and less around the class. Which makes sense until the class passives offer no substantial boost to any one thing associated with stamina based weapons and then on top of that the weapon passives are very restrictive in what they apply to.

So if stamina builds use weapon damage passives and abilities as there main source of stats, and the class for stamina builds is supposed to take support role such as buffs/passives they are falling short with both applicable sets and class passive structure.

zaria

Malprave wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

I honestly don't think the "lack of build variety" can be blamed on Zos, at all.

The claim that there is a lack of variety usually comes from pedantic min/maxers who insist on whining about a 2% dps loss if people refuse to use whatever happens to be META during the current patch.

If you can overlook a 2%-5% difference in dps, then there a metric ton of builds to play with. A huge amount of variety.

Exactly ^
There is a lot of room for diversity if you don’t have to have BiS stuff and the absolute best dps. And as far as I’m concerned unless you are in a guild that is routinely at the top of the leaderboards just play the way you want to. Let me clarify though that your build needs to work for the content you intend to do. If you are going to be that special snowflake, make sure you are a snowflake that knows what you’re doing.

This, note that lots of the meta trial gear is also designed to long burns on high health bosses.
However most who don't understand how the game works will always go with meta and often believe its more important than it is.

Androconium

My main is a Redguard Sorcerer.
His only Title is Grand Master Crafter.

When farming he chooses:

• Fiords with Well-Fitted trait
• Spinners with infused trait.

When attempting to die he chooses:

• Spinners with Infused trait
• Shacklebreaker with a mix of infused and Nirnhoned.

He hypes up on the purple Arteum food stock.

Mock at ur leezure.


EDIT: Actually the Spinners may be Divines, coupled with the Steed mundus.
See how little it matters?

Androconium

Elwendryll wrote: »

Your post is particularly challenging to read.
<snip>

oh yeah, ^^this.

max_only

I had an interesting build for pve that they destroyed for no reason other than to look busy.

I played my alliance quest line as a Templar, jabbing and charging through it all - no creativity needed. Build for maximum AOE damage and just jabby jab all day.

Then I played a stealth play through, giving myself the challenge of completing the same goals only more clandestine. I used my imagination. Now they want me to race change to keep up. No thank you.

They took away options. They should have given more races stealth because it is actually a 3rd option in this game. No joke.
Not everything is solved with overwhelming force. Example, the Lamias vs the Bosmer in Coldharbor. I stealth to the champion and stealth back out. No need to kill any more “people” than necessary. I could have just barreled through like a truck, but I used an “interesting build choice” to provide REPLAYABILITY to otherwise lackluster side quests.

MashmalloMan

@alexj4596b14_ESO Stop trying to build that way. There are interesting sets that don't pull top dps but can fit the theme your looking for. If you feel like sets like Hundings Rage and Spriggan's are boring and your trying to build a druid, my suggestion would be to go for more proc sets to be honest. They add more animations and flavour and can really make a build stand out instead of straight statistics which you seem to be frustrated with, you still get stats from jewelry, food and 2-4 pc bonuses.

Google: "In role-playing games, a druid is a character class that is generally portrayed as using nature-based magical abilities and striving to protect nature from civilized intrusion. Druid characters tend to have abilities that involve healing, weather or plant related spells, summoning animal allies, and shapeshifting."

That description completely fits warden so check. Now sets.

Don't forget. You can pair heavy armor sets as jewelry/weapons on a medium armor stamina build.

Some set's I'd use if I were you.

Unfathomable Darkness, summons crows that do single target dmg. Pretty cool animation and it's not weak either. (animal summoning/shapeshifting)

Plague Slinger, shoots out balls of poison from a dead skeever body. (poison-nature/animal)

Defiler (Infector Set), chance to summon a pretty big mob every 5 seconds to spew poison in a cone, stuns. (poison-nature/monster summoning)

Morkuldin, chance to summon animated swords to fight with you for 15 seconds (summoning/shapeshifting)

Monster sets: Selene's summons a primal spirit bear to attack for you. Velidreth spawns poison spores that do very high dmg. Maw of the Infernal summons a daedra to fight with you for 15sec. There are many "weather" related or elemental sets although the 1pc doesn't match a sta DD setup.

I won't argue that class abilities need more stamina morphs, I agree. The same can be said about magicka builds needing more weapons. The thing is their class abilities are unique enough that the weapon becomes less obviously boring compared to stamina builds that all behave almost the same.

alexj4596b14_ESO

Marshall1289 wrote: »

@alexj4596b14_ESO Stop trying to build that way. There are interesting sets that don't pull top dps but can fit the theme your looking for. If you feel like sets like Hundings Rage and Spriggan's are boring and your trying to build a druid, my suggestion would be to go for more proc sets to be honest. They add more animations and flavour and can really make a build stand out instead of straight statistics which you seem to be frustrated with, you still get stats from jewelry, food and 2-4 pc bonuses.

Google: "In role-playing games, a druid is a character class that is generally portrayed as using nature-based magical abilities and striving to protect nature from civilized intrusion. Druid characters tend to have abilities that involve healing, weather or plant related spells, summoning animal allies, and shapeshifting."

That description completely fits warden so check. Now sets.

Don't forget. You can pair heavy armor sets as jewelry/weapons on a medium armor stamina build.

Some set's I'd use if I were you.

Unfathomable Darkness, summons crows that do single target dmg. Pretty cool animation and it's not weak either. (animal summoning/shapeshifting)

Plague Slinger, shoots out balls of poison from a dead skeever body. (poison-nature/animal)

Defiler (Infector Set), chance to summon a pretty big mob every 5 seconds to spew poison in a cone, stuns. (poison-nature/monster summoning)

Morkuldin, chance to summon animated swords to fight with you for 15 seconds (summoning/shapeshifting)

Monster sets: Selene's summons a primal spirit bear to attack for you. Velidreth spawns poison spores that do very high dmg. Maw of the Infernal summons a daedra to fight with you for 15sec. There are many "weather" related or elemental sets although the 1pc doesn't match a sta DD setup.

I won't argue that class abilities need more stamina morphs, I agree. The same can be said about magicka builds needing more weapons. The thing is their class abilities are unique enough that the weapon because less obviously boring as it is for stamina builds.

Those sets don't work for all content especially the proc sets. They are easy to avoid, when they do hit they can be cleansed. The point of the post is that sets don't synchronize with other sets unless they are magkica. Even tank sets synchronize well with other tank sets and even magkica sets. If "diverse builds" are not effective in most content then they are useless.