Rotation for beginners - What? How? Why?

schizophrenica

Hi Forum,
ich bin ein relativ neuer Spieler und frage mich, wie ich eine für mich sinnvolle und gute Rotation der Kampf-Skills finde. Deshalb dachte ich und hoffe, dass dieser Threat die nötigen Grundlagen vermittelt, sodass Spieler, die keinen Build 1:1 kopieren, oder wenn diese Info schlicht fehlt, selbst auf gute Rotations-Ideen kommen können.
Ich stelle hier mal ein paar Fragen vorab in den Raum, die sich rund um das Thema ranken und hoffe, dass wir früher oder später eine generelle Beschreibung finden, was eine gute Rotation ausmacht und wie man sie für sein persönliches Bar-Setup finden kann.

Here we go:
- Was ist eine Rotation?
- Wozu muss ich mir dazu überhaupt Gedanken machen?
- Was unterscheidet (generell) eine gute von einer schlechten Rotation?
- Wie finde ich eine gute Rotation für meine ausgerüsteten Skills?
- Ist Rotation ein Thema, das jeden angeht, unabhängig von Rasse, Klasse, Volk...

Und hier noch ein paar Buzzwords, die, wie ich finde, relevant für die Diskussion sind:
- Fertigkeiten mit Schaden über Zeit
- Fertigkeiten gegen einzelne Gegner
- Flächen Fertigkeiten
- Harte und leichte Attacken
- Wechsel der Bar
- Primäre und sekundäre Bar
- Cool down Zeiten von Fertigkeiten
- Fertigkeit-Kosten vs. Sustain der nötigen Resource

Selbstverständlich können wir auch einfach Links auf schon bereitgestellte Erklärungen hier einfügen.
Hoffe, diese Idee macht für euch auch Sinn.

P.S.: Wenn es diese Art Diskussion (allgemeiner Art) schon gibt, bitte ich das zu entschuldigen...

BooPerScOOper

Hi Forum,
I'm a relatively new player and wondering how to find a meaningful and good rotation of combat skills for me. That's why I thought and hope that this Threat provides the necessary basics, so that players who do not copy Build 1: 1, or if this info is simply missing, even come up with good rotation ideas.
I'd like to ask a few questions in advance about the subject and hope that sooner or later we'll find a general description of what makes a good spin and how to find it for your personal bar setup.

Here we go:
- What is a rotation?
- What do I have to worry about at all?
- What sets (good) a good one from a bad rotation?
- How do I find a good rotation for my equipped skills?
- Is rotation an issue that concerns everyone, regardless of race, class, people ...


And here are a few more buzzwords that I think are relevant to the discussion:
- skills with damage over time
- Skills against individual opponents
- area skills
- Hard and easy attacks
- Change of the bar
- Primary and secondary bar
- Cool down times of skills
- Skill Cost vs Sustain the necessary resource

Of course, we can also simply insert links to already provided explanations here.
Hope this idea makes sense for you as well.

P.S .: If there is this kind of discussion (of a general nature) already, I apologize for that ...

schizophrenica

thanks for that. i just realized after posting and was not aware how to change/delete it...

BooPerScOOper

no problem

OG_Kaveman

schizophrenica wrote: »

thanks for that. i just realized after posting and was not aware how to change/delete it...

There is a cog that appears to the top right of your threat after you reload the page. Use that to edit the op.

vesselwiththepestle

From an average players point of view:

Well, the basic form would be a completely static rotation, that means you activate skills in a given order and repeat it. Often "rotation" refers also to "dynamic" rotations which require you to not exactly repeat the same skills in the same order over and over. An example would be Nightblade rotations, which have to utilize the skill "Merciless Resolve" or "Grim Focus", which has procc conditions making a static rotation less desirable. Another example would be the Sorc ability Crystal Fragments, which would require you randomly to activate a skill and thus bring chaos into order .

Why do a rotation at all? The aim and goal of a rotation is to maximize your damage by achieving near 100% uptime on buffs and damage over time effects. Near 100% means to avoid less than 100%, but also over-casting those dots. Ideally you would activate every skill with an effect over a duration exactly when it runs out. Additionally, a rotation will anchor itself in your muscle memory. By time, you'll be able to do your rotation eyes closed. This is especially helpful in mechanics-heavy content, so you don't have to think about what to do, you just do it.

With those goals in mind a good rotation is one which achieves a high uptime in the desired dots, but is only as complicated as you can manage. That said, there might be META (most effective tactic available) rotations which in theory give the best dps. Those rotations might be used by a hand full of players being able to do them in practice... You have to look at your rotation as an individual with its own capabilities and you might decide to do a rotation which is less effective than the meta rotation in theory, but is for example less complicated so that you get actually better results. Just one example, I like to look every patch at Alcast's rotations (from www.alcasthq.com and his Youtube channel). I try to imitate and usually I come to a point where I see I can't make use of them as good as Alcast can, as for whatever reason I can't play a rotation as fast as he can (may it lacking competentce in keeping a rhythm in the desired speed, lag, hardware issues or lack of the right technique), so then I start to make changes to the rotation to adapt it to my personal abilities, resulting in higher dps for me.

So yeah, even if there is a meta rotation, I think when looking for a good rotation you have to look for a rotation which is good for YOU and YOUR style of play.

If you want to find an own rotation, you need to look at the duration of the skills you want to use and then it's mostly math and trying stuff out. Just try to bring order in your set of skills. Although the first step is actually to decide which skills you want to use. A base rotation is usually to apply dots, then cast your spammable until you need to repeat recasting the dots. Then the Scalebreaker Patch came and players stopped using spammables, suddenly it was best to just cast dots over dots over dots and even over-casting them instead of casting a spammable. Now we are in the Dragonhold cycle and some players are dropping most of their drops to get more casts of their spammable...

Additionally you need to consider that most rotations you find anywhere are made for single target dummy parses or boss fights. Often you make use of different rotations in trash fights and fights which are heavily aoe focused. Also rotations are most important for Trials and other group content - you probably won't make use of a full rotation while questing or doing Public Dungeons. Also rotations are a PVE thing, PVP relys on combos instead.

P.S.: I highly recommend checking out youtube, you'll find channels from several content creators like Alcast, Liko, T3hasiangod, Sherman's Gaming and others, which have builds, rotations, and more stuff online. You need to be sure to look at new stuff, though, many videos you can still find on Youtube is highly outdated. A German source on Youtube would be ProNDC, which has a great beginner's guide to ESO in German.

Jaimeh

Hello, and welcome to the game! These are my thoughts on your topics--the forums have a lot of threads with builds that include rotations, and there's a wealth of information on the web as well, so even though the game doesn't really do a good job of explaining things like this, there's at least a lot of external information you can seek out.

What is a rotation?

Casting skills in a specific order or succession.

What do I have to worry about at all?

It's important if you want to play as a dps, and arguably gets more important when you're playing harder content.

What sets (good) a good one from a bad rotation?

Generally, overcasting skills, or using single target skills for AoE fights (fights with lots of mobs), and vice-versa, or casting shields or healing when it's not needed, are signs of a bad or absent rotation. A good rotation has the appropriate skills for the type of fight, in an order that works with the timer of the skills, and 'weaves' light attacks between casts for maximizing damage. Light attack weaving is a topic in itself, and something that you have to practice once you've set your rotation.

How do I find a good rotation for my equipped skills?

Check the timer and description on the skills and make a decision on which order to cast them as a starter point. Some skills, for example, empower certain other skills, so it makes sense to cast them beforehands. Also, some skills act as buffs, shields, or conditional self-heals, take them into consideration as well. Finally, your weapons have enchantments, so you need the appropriate skills to make them most out of them. However, if you are completely new to this, I would look at guides with builds, or videos of rotations that other players have made in order to get an idea of what rotations consist of.

Is rotation an issue that concerns everyone, regardless of race, class, people ...

Not really, it concerns DD characters that want to achieve a certain amount of damage.

In my opinion, you don't have to copy a build, and even though there always meta builds that are optimized for maximum damage possible, I think it's better to adapt them to your preferences, and always play in a way you're comfortable with and find enjoyable

THEDKEXPERIENCE

You’re gonna have different rotations depending upon your chosen platform. Consoles do not have uptime timers so it’s near impossible to have a perfect rotation there.

Anyway, you definitely want skills that improve your other skills. If you’re a magic user you’ll want something that gives your spells a magic boost for example.

Another thing to keep in mind is the downside of a false button push. Since you’re gonna have 2 bars you will inevitably hit the wrong button more than you expect. To combat this I try to map my skills on the bar slot that will give me the least bad result should I cast them at the wrong time. Bar one slot 1 for me is a shield while bar two slot 1 is ... a shield. I have rapid maneuvers mapped to the same bar as my ranged execute. If I hit the execute on accident nothing will happen because I most likely won’t have a target. Correctly mapping your button presses to account for incorrect pushes will save you more resources than you could ever imagine.

Bobby_V_Rockit

THEDKEXPERIENCE wrote: »

You’re gonna have different rotations depending upon your chosen platform. Consoles do not have uptime timers so it’s near impossible to have a perfect rotation there.

Anyway, you definitely want skills that improve your other skills. If you’re a magic user you’ll want something that gives your spells a magic boost for example.

Another thing to keep in mind is the downside of a false button push. Since you’re gonna have 2 bars you will inevitably hit the wrong button more than you expect. To combat this I try to map my skills on the bar slot that will give me the least bad result should I cast them at the wrong time. Bar one slot 1 for me is a shield while bar two slot 1 is ... a shield. I have rapid maneuvers mapped to the same bar as my ranged execute. If I hit the execute on accident nothing will happen because I most likely won’t have a target. Correctly mapping your button presses to account for incorrect pushes will save you more resources than you could ever imagine.

Consoles do have uptime timers actually, character buffs and debuffs are seen above your skill bar and enemy debuffs are seen below their health bar. Both are toggles in the options menu

WiseSky

vesselwiththepestle wrote: »

From an average players point of view:

Well, the basic form would be a completely static rotation, that means you activate skills in a given order and repeat it. Often "rotation" refers also to "dynamic" rotations which require you to not exactly repeat the same skills in the same order over and over. An example would be Nightblade rotations, which have to utilize the skill "Merciless Resolve" or "Grim Focus", which has procc conditions making a static rotation less desirable. Another example would be the Sorc ability Crystal Fragments, which would require you randomly to activate a skill and thus bring chaos into order .

Why do a rotation at all? The aim and goal of a rotation is to maximize your damage by achieving near 100% uptime on buffs and damage over time effects. Near 100% means to avoid less than 100%, but also over-casting those dots. Ideally you would activate every skill with an effect over a duration exactly when it runs out. Additionally, a rotation will anchor itself in your muscle memory. By time, you'll be able to do your rotation eyes closed. This is especially helpful in mechanics-heavy content, so you don't have to think about what to do, you just do it.

With those goals in mind a good rotation is one which achieves a high uptime in the desired dots, but is only as complicated as you can manage. That said, there might be META (most effective tactic available) rotations which in theory give the best dps. Those rotations might be used by a hand full of players being able to do them in practice... You have to look at your rotation as an individual with its own capabilities and you might decide to do a rotation which is less effective than the meta rotation in theory, but is for example less complicated so that you get actually better results. Just one example, I like to look every patch at Alcast's rotations (from www.alcasthq.com and his Youtube channel). I try to imitate and usually I come to a point where I see I can't make use of them as good as Alcast can, as for whatever reason I can't play a rotation as fast as he can (may it lacking competentce in keeping a rhythm in the desired speed, lag, hardware issues or lack of the right technique), so then I start to make changes to the rotation to adapt it to my personal abilities, resulting in higher dps for me.

So yeah, even if there is a meta rotation, I think when looking for a good rotation you have to look for a rotation which is good for YOU and YOUR style of play.

If you want to find an own rotation, you need to look at the duration of the skills you want to use and then it's mostly math and trying stuff out. Just try to bring order in your set of skills. Although the first step is actually to decide which skills you want to use. A base rotation is usually to apply dots, then cast your spammable until you need to repeat recasting the dots. Then the Scalebreaker Patch came and players stopped using spammables, suddenly it was best to just cast dots over dots over dots and even over-casting them instead of casting a spammable. Now we are in the Dragonhold cycle and some players are dropping most of their drops to get more casts of their spammable...

Additionally you need to consider that most rotations you find anywhere are made for single target dummy parses or boss fights. Often you make use of different rotations in trash fights and fights which are heavily aoe focused. Also rotations are most important for Trials and other group content - you probably won't make use of a full rotation while questing or doing Public Dungeons. Also rotations are a PVE thing, PVP relys on combos instead.

P.S.: I highly recommend checking out youtube, you'll find channels from several content creators like Alcast, Liko, T3hasiangod, Sherman's Gaming and others, which have builds, rotations, and more stuff online. You need to be sure to look at new stuff, though, many videos you can still find on Youtube is highly outdated. A German source on Youtube would be ProNDC, which has a great beginner's guide to ESO in German.

Thanks for inputting youtubers and your Indept description is a godsend