Can we separate attributes from weapon/armor type?

Leiloni

Right now the way the sytem works we're really restricted in what sorts of characters we can build, especially in PvE. I'm tired of all my Magicka characters wearing all or mostly Light armor and Staves all the time. Whether I'm dps or heals, it gets boring. What if I want to build a Cleric healer with Heavy armor, 1h Mace and Shield, and Templar skills? And instead of putting Restoration skills as a Staff skill line, just have them be a Restoration Magic skill line that anyone can use regardless of weapon. Or if I want to be a Magicka DPS Paladin type and maybe I want to use a 2H weapon instead of a Staff, and maybe some Heavy armor. Or any other myriad of ideas for other classes? Magicka Sorc Battlemage? Or let people fulfill their monk fantasies and melee with a Staff and Medium armor. And can you make it so weapon animations are used more instead of just skills animations, so we feel like we're actually using our weapons? Why can't we expand the build options like this?

El_Borracho

You are describing Skyrim. This is ESO, a totally different game. Your suggestions would likely destroy all variations in the game and we would end up with 3 super-meta PVE builds for tank, healer, and DPS. I can't even imagine how the PVP crowd would respond.

Currently, you can build your heavy armor healer DPS templar. Its just not going to do much at the endgame level.

Leiloni

El_Borracho wrote: »

You are describing Skyrim. This is ESO, a totally different game. Your suggestions would likely destroy all variations in the game and we would end up with 3 super-meta PVE builds for tank, healer, and DPS. I can't even imagine how the PVP crowd would respond.

Currently, you can build your heavy armor healer DPS templar. Its just not going to do much at the endgame level.

Well that's the problem, isn't it. Except I'd still have to use Staves. I want to be able to use 2H and 1h/Shield and be an effective Magicka Healer or DPS Templar. For a game with so much build variety, it's so limited and strict.

LegendaryOaks

Leiloni wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

You are describing Skyrim. This is ESO, a totally different game. Your suggestions would likely destroy all variations in the game and we would end up with 3 super-meta PVE builds for tank, healer, and DPS. I can't even imagine how the PVP crowd would respond.

Currently, you can build your heavy armor healer DPS templar. Its just not going to do much at the endgame level.

Well that's the problem, isn't it. Except I'd still have to use Staves. I want to be able to use 2H and 1h/Shield and be an effective Magicka Healer or DPS Templar. For a game with so much build variety, it's so limited and strict.

Resto and 1h/shield will work well for a healer, only thing youll be losing is the concussion and off balance from elemental blockade but instead youll have a backbar that has reduced blocking cost and mitigation which is great for bosses or mobs that hit hard. You can also slot heroic slash if you want for the heroism so you can use your ults more frequently
Warden also has alot of healing skills which scale off highest stat so bow and two handed/1h shield could work there, ive seen some warden stam healer builds. Its definitely not meta and its worse with the vigor change a few updates ago but its totally different if you want that new feeling again

Deioth

I've legit been curious how well a new gear slot that locks you to one bar but gives you a 6th skill slot could work, and it could definitely be something utilized for just such a system as you're requesting. It would be a lot of balancing work, though. The basic idea is that you'd equip either a Class specialization item or a Weapon (or even Guild spec item) that gives a flat bonus to certain things universally but specializes in greatly improving some aspect related to the specific thing the gear piece benefits. The universal bonus would be stat based and/or role based (tank, dps, healer) and the specialization bonus would greatly improve a specific skill line or a skill group (entire class like DK or just Ardent Flame, versus Guild spec or just Undaunted). To really work, it'd be a pretty big addition requiring some real testing, but I'd love to see something like that to breathe new life into the game with a sidegrade mechanic rather than straight up better than current. Get big bonuses and buffs plus an extra skill slot but give up your backbar. I bet some really cool builds could come out of such a thing. And, they'd mesh very well with the incoming Mythic items and would benefit the most out of them since you'd have two main sets, one monster set, plus a mythic slotted.

joseayalac

Leiloni wrote: »

Well that's the problem, isn't it. Except I'd still have to use Staves. I want to be able to use 2H and 1h/Shield and be an effective Magicka Healer or DPS Templar. For a game with so much build variety, it's so limited and strict.

What good can a Sword or Shield do for a healer? What you're aking for is ilogical function-wise in the fantasy setting that the game is.

In MMOs, character building means to strategically make choices to pick some abilities with some trade offs. The Heavy Armor Dmg sets are the worse for PVP because they leave no reason to wear Medium armor (which is supposed to give you more dmg in exchange for tankiness).

Maybe the Outfit system can help you fulfill your fantasies though.

Sordidfairytale

I've seen medium armor tanks and heavy armor healers, and my MagDK wears two pieces of Heavy, so it's already totally possible.

Leiloni

joseayalac wrote: »

Leiloni wrote: »

Well that's the problem, isn't it. Except I'd still have to use Staves. I want to be able to use 2H and 1h/Shield and be an effective Magicka Healer or DPS Templar. For a game with so much build variety, it's so limited and strict.

What good can a Sword or Shield do for a healer? What you're aking for is ilogical function-wise in the fantasy setting that the game is.

In MMOs, character building means to strategically make choices to pick some abilities with some trade offs. The Heavy Armor Dmg sets are the worse for PVP because they leave no reason to wear Medium armor (which is supposed to give you more dmg in exchange for tankiness).

Maybe the Outfit system can help you fulfill your fantasies though.

Heavy armored Cleric healers with 1h Mace and shield or symbol in offhand, or 2h mace, are a D&D staple and that's the standard archetype for healers in fantasy, and things like Paladins and Shaman's healing in heavy armor are fairly common as well. I believe it was one of the original classes and in a lot of MMO's that follow the more traditional class archetypes, Cleric styled healers are the only main healer those games get. The only healer I know of that even wears light armor is the cloth wearing Priest which seems to be the only one we get in this game - numerous variations of the same archetype. You can't even wear leather which is common as well for things like Druid (or Bard), which would be a great healer to build for a Warden healer.

In fact for a game that has so much of a focus on casting non-healing spells to buff/debuff and provide regen, I think a class that is expected to get in melee to whack on the enemies when not healing, and who as a result is built to survive more damage, fits much better into this game's archetype than a Priest styled cloth healer. Cloth healing makes sense for healers who spend most of their time healing, with the cloth intended to be a tradeoff - you have little defensive capabilities, and little in the way of offensive skills, so you get more powerful healing and a wider variety of healing spells. Think the WoW Holy Priest as the standard for this archetype. You don't attack at all so no debuffs on the enemy, and have little to nothing in the way of buffs and regen spells, just all healing, thus the cloth armor. This game just doesn't play that way.

They seemed to start to go that way with some of the Templar skills and then lost their way or changed direction halfway through development. I mean what does a healer need something like Rune Focus for if they're not going to take damage? Especially one with such a tiny radius - clearly expecting the healer to not move much in that 12 second window (you know, if they're healing in the boss's face most of the fight).

ExistingRug61

You know, this is something I've sort of thought about a bit too - trying to separate armour type from damage type.

Basically, instead of armour being relevant to what type of damage you want to do (stam or mag), it was instead only related to how you want to defend, and how (as opposed to which resource you get regen for). Could still include some type of damage bonus but make it generic (ie: increase both pens, or both crits, etc)

Something like the following conceptually as an example:

Heavy (not much would need to be different here)
Defensive Focus: Damage reduction (armour)
Regen via: Taking Damage
Offensive Bonus: None
Weakness: Lower mobility, Lower damage
Possible passives: Increased armour, crit resistance, break free reduction, resources restored (all) when taking damage

Medium:
Defensive Focus: Evasion - Dodge Roll/Mobility
Regen via: Passive Regen
Offensive Bonus: Penetration (both weapon and spell)
Weaknesses: Incoming damage from Dots, AoE
Possible passives: Roll cost reduction, Increased regen (all), debuff effectiveness reduction, increased Pen (both)

Light
Defensive Focus: Active abilities (buffs/shields/heals)
Regen via: Cost Reduction
Offensive Bonus: Crit Chance (both weapon and spell)
Weaknesses: Incoming Burst, Debuffs, Stuns
Possible passives: Increased shield strength, Increased buff effectiveness (ie "major/minor" buffs are stronger), ability cost reduction (all), increase crit chance (both)

The idea would be to make the armour types all attractive for different reasons, and make the choice come down to personal preference of build/class synergies as opposed to simply if you are stam or mag. Hopefully increase build variety, but there would be a risk that one armour type simply becomes BiS for all DDs or PvP (balance could be tricky).

But this is really just a thought experiment, as the system is now too locked into medium for stam and light for mag as that's what everyone is used to and how all the drop set bonuses work.

tsaescishoeshiner

It really depends on what content you want to do. I used my PvP magblade as a healer for vet DLC dungeons - wearing heavy armor & using a 2-hander. If you're not trying to push DPS numbers super high, you can get 25-30k DPS using highly nonstandard builds - as long as you have SOMETHING standard enough in there to deal damage. Like wear at least one "meta" set that you can do whatever you want with the rest of your build

For example, with heavy armor, maybe a dps or healer can get away with using food that doesn't have Max Health. Not that I'm suggesting that ... but it could be tried as long as you're not trying to heal tombs in vet Sunspire : p

Vyvrhel

El_Borracho wrote: »

You are describing Skyrim.

No. Whatever the OP describes is a typical elder scolls franchise game. Even in ESO, Battlemages are occasionally mentioned. And no, Battlemage is NOT a stamsorc.
I fully support the OP request and in fact I asked for something like that, too. The idea is to break the stereotype which gets boring. I am an casual so I am questing at a leisurely pace and the fact the devs generate exceptional amount of a top quality endgame content means that I will probably have a lots of fun for a long time to go, yet the more commited players can get bored. And I suppose everyone would like more variability.
And we did not yest touched the concept of the magicka / stamina optimal races

Iskiab

It’s actually not that bad using melee weapon as mag in pvp. All you really lose is the destro passives which aren’t that great anyways, they mostly just help destro abilities. You are tied to a resto though.

In PvE you are absolutely tied to using a flame staff. The vMA staff is a huge amount of damage and pretty much a gate to PvE endgame for mag. No idea how you could fix that for PvE.