How do you manage your 5 Skills ?

Grazzt

Hello everyone !
I just returned to this greeat game, and I find myself wondering the same thing I did when I used to play before : why are there so many cool Skills and Skill Lines available, when we ony have 5 Skills slots ?
I'm not asking wether we should have more Skills slots or not, cos I guess this is something you've already discussed a million times, but I'm interested in how you manage those slots ?
If I remember correctly, when we reach lv.15 and have Weapon Swipe available we can put the same weapon twice, and then have 10 slots, is this something you do ? Or do you really stick to your 5 skills ?
I guess you can create different builds, but is there a way to save them and switch them on the spot ?
Thanks !

Taunky

Always include your back bar into your rotation. Take a look at the addon 'Dressing Room', it allows you to save gear-sets and switch between them as long as you're not in combat.

Everest_Lionheart

There are some good guides out there that can explain how it all works plus give you tips on how to set up your skill bars so you aren’t all over the place. Check out Dottz Gaming, he’s got some great tutorials for new players that lay it all out.

There are different types of skills in this game such as self buffs, heals, dots (damage over time), direct damage skills, spamables, shields, etc that all have their uses and have a certain synergy depending on what kind of weapons and armour you run. You’ve also got passive skills that are actually more important than the active skills you are slotting because certain skills boost others. Again do a search for Dottz gaming and watch all of his beginner tutorials for ESO. You will have a major head start with the knowledge he has on his website.

Biggest tip I will give is setting up all of your bars in a similar manner. Whether you are on PC or console you’ll want your key binds or buttons to cast similar skills. In other words assign your buffs to the same button, heals to the same button, dots and spammables the same button. For instance I play on XB1 and all my heals are on the B button, buffs on LB, my dots are on X, spammable on RB, AOE skills on Y. Depending on build my back bar lays out a little different but similar idea. Heals on B, Buffs LB, dots on X, shield on Y, AOE damage over time on RB. Back bar is a simple but quick cycle where I rarely use the heal or shield but that’s also my bail out bar when I’m under duress and need to survive.

So you see things have familiarity that way when you do bar swap everything is still cohesive. From build to build follow the same types of button assignments and the adjustment period to a new build takes less time.

Also not all the cool looking skills are necessarily the best skills and not all of the skill morphs are worth spending points to unlock. Also be wary that certain passive require certain types of armor to be work or skills to be slotted. After you have looked at a few guides you will understand.

And most importantly have fun with your build. You aren’t forced to play a certain way in this game until endgame content. So if you want to mix and match a few skills just make sure that the skill lines you are budding work well together.

Grazzt

Taunky wrote: »

Always include your back bar into your rotation. Take a look at the addon 'Dressing Room', it allows you to save gear-sets and switch between them as long as you're not in combat.

Your back bar, you mean the other Skill bar that appears when you do the Weapon Swipe ?
So you get a total of 10 skills in the end ?
I thought about that, but I do have a question : some Passive Skills require you to have a specific Ability slotted, does this "count" when this Ability is slotted in your back bar ?

Grazzt

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

So you see things have familiarity that way when you do bar swap everything is still cohesive. From build to build follow the same types of button assignments and the adjustment period to a new build takes less time.

So basically, everyone uses the Weapon Swap as a back bar ? Why not have 10 Skills slots in the first place then ?
(but that's probably another discussion)

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

And most importantly have fun with your build. You aren’t forced to play a certain way in this game until endgame content. So if you want to mix and match a few skills just make sure that the skill lines you are budding work well together.

Yes, that's the most important !
I'm having fun with my build right now, and it works pretty well (I think), but as there a lot of cool Skills that I never use because of the 5 slots I felt frustrated ... I guess I'll start using the 10 slots then !

Bergzorn

Grazzt wrote: »

Taunky wrote: »

Always include your back bar into your rotation. Take a look at the addon 'Dressing Room', it allows you to save gear-sets and switch between them as long as you're not in combat.

I thought about that, but I do have a question : some Passive Skills require you to have a specific Ability slotted, does this "count" when this Ability is slotted in your back bar ?

No, "while slotted" passives only work on the active bar.

Everest_Lionheart

Grazzt wrote: »

Taunky wrote: »

Always include your back bar into your rotation. Take a look at the addon 'Dressing Room', it allows you to save gear-sets and switch between them as long as you're not in combat.

Your back bar, you mean the other Skill bar that appears when you do the Weapon Swipe ?
So you get a total of 10 skills in the end ?
I thought about that, but I do have a question : some Passive Skills require you to have a specific Ability slotted, does this "count" when this Ability is slotted in your back bar ?

It’s mostly weapon skills that you have to match to your bars. So say you have a 2 hand weapon as your main weapon you would need to slot whatever 2H abilities you choose on that bar and your back bar the one that unlocks at level 15 for your backup weapon needs to match that as well. Now if you run the same weapon type on each bar it doesn’t matter as much but you may want to slot different skills from that same weapon type otherwise you aren’t utilizing your build to its potential. Now you can slot an ability from another weapon type to either bar if you choose to level it it but that skill will be greyed out if you don’t have to weapon that corresponds to its skill. So if you wanted to say level a bow skill while running a 2 hand you could but that skill wouldn’t be available in combat.

Bradyfjord

@Grazzt If a passive requires a specific weapon, then it will not work while you are not using it.

For example, many pvp stamina builds use 2hander and bow. There are passives in 2hander that affect your attacks with 2handers, but will not have any affect on the bow attacks. And there is a passive from the bow skills that give you increased run speed for a few seconds after dodge rolling, and that won't work if you are on the 2hander bar.

But... some enchants do work in specific situations. Like putting crusher enchant on your bow, and then casting hail of arrows which puts a dot in an area for a few seconds. Every tick of that dot has a chance to activate the crusher enchant (lowering opponents' defenses), even if you switch to your other bar.

Ysbriel

I usually have two of the 10 slots as passive skill, on PvP i might have an Ult for the passive as well.

Everest_Lionheart

Ysbriel wrote: »

I usually have two of the 10 slots as passive skill, on PvP i might have an Ult for the passive as well.

Warden class is a great example of the passive skills for animal companions. Each slotted ability is worth another 2% damage when you’ve maxed out the final passive. I run multiple animal companions on each bar. Also helps that those also apply buffs, debuffs and are spammable. But warden has its drawbacks because the way to get the most out of the class requires a tight well practiced rotation.

But it’s versatile enough that you can sacrifice DPS for survival if you choose. That’s the other advantage to the class. All of the skill lines in warden are viable even the ice magic but that really requires a niche build.

zvavi

First, there are 12 skills, not five.
Second, it is like that, because the game is also for consoles, which means controllers. 6 skills + bar swap is 7 buttons vs 12 skills which is 12 buttons.
Third, two bars also let you have different active sets on you different hands, which is pretty neat.
Fourth, many times I find myself swapping skills for specific fights, so it is not like "you can't use all skills"

Muizer

Also, since you're a new player and bound to get confused by this, people often refer to your two weapon slots as 'primary' and 'secondary', and/or to the associated skill bars as "front bar" and "back bar". This is confusing. There is no inherent difference between the weapon slot 1 and its associated skill bar vs weapon slot 2 and its associated skill bar.

The terminology seems to be used to distinguish a bar on which you have instant or near instant abilities (front bar) and a bar on which you have abilities with a prolonged effect. The implication being that you spend more time in combat on your 'front bar', while occasionally switching to the 'back bar' to refresh the prolonged effects.

BoraxFlux

Like Taunky said, Dressing Room is great to create presets for sets and skills in different situations and toggle them fast (when not in combat).

In Cyrodiil you ride a lot on your mount, I use Assist Rapid Riding to automatically change one of the slots to Rapid Maneuver. No need to switch manually. As soon as you use Rapid Maneuver, Assist Rapid Riding switches the slot back to the old skill automatically.

You need to time the use of Rapid right however, because when you engage in combat you risk being stuck with Rapid Maneuver :P

TheShadowScout

Grazzt wrote: »

why are there so many cool Skills and Skill Lines available, when we ony have 5 Skills slots?

So we -have- to think long and hard about which ones to pick?
Personally I like this system MUCH better then starting at two dozend skill cooldoan counters and remembering the "perfect rotation" as way of combat...

And yeah, a lot of fun can be had in setting up your back bar to cover some other speciality, and then switching as needed. Some will do a "melee/ranged" others a "damage/heals", and others still a "damage/tanking"... and some might even slot the same weapon type in both bars, yet with completely different companion skills... like, make one DoT heavy, and another direct-damage, switch, unload the Dots, switch, do damage... rinse, repeat... because while passives don't hold when you switch, things you put out on a dutation DO. Do... DoT, lingering area effects, HoT... all those can be "cast then switch bars" for more tactical options if you want to go to the trouble!

Muizer wrote: »

There is no inherent difference between the weapon slot 1 and its associated skill bar vs weapon slot 2 and its associated skill bar.

...except that you only ever see the primary weapon in the character selection screen...
(Yeah, which doesn't mean much, but... )

Grazzt

Woah thanks guys for all of your answers !

I'm not so much a "new player" as more of a "extremely casual and recently returned" one, I actually was here since Open Beta, but I'm only beginning now to become interested in Builds, as I'm trying to take on more difficult fights, which is fun !

Alright then, I'll get ingame right now and take all your advices to use my 2nd bar and get my 10 Skills + 2 Ultimates !
Thanks again !

EDIT : Alright, I just did that, but ... didn't realize that you actually had to slot 2 different weapons in each bar ! At first I thought you could just slot the same weapon twice, but it seems that it really needs to be two different weapons from your Inventory ... they really don't want you to just get 10 Skills ... no biggie, I guess I just need to craft my weapons twice then

MaleAmazon

I have ALT, space, E, R, F for skills and Q for ultimate when using hotkeys, making them all easy to reach when WASD-moving. Usually I´ll go for:

ALT: Damage over time or area-of-effect.
Space: spammable.
E: something that heals.
R: Movement bonus or gap closer.
F: Varies. Usually some bonus like grim focus.

It helps me setup so I don´t have to memorize a lot of different stuff for alts. I´ll use my above template and work from there.

So on my main (magicka nightblade) I have unstable wall of elements, swallow soul, degeneration (not really heal but I have heal from swallow soul and restoration staff backbar), path of darkness and grim focus on my front bar. Backbar is restoration spells where I usually emergency-heal with regeneration and combat prayer (not optimal but perfectly fine).

This lets me mow through mobs with wall of elements, hit single target with swallow soul, buff myself and heal with backbar. Very practical for farming and questing. If I went PvP I´d change the setup.

On a warden archer I would have something like arrow spray, snipe, vigor, falcon´s swiftness and bull netch. So, I always know that 'E' probably heals me, space is for single target damage, and 'R' is for speeding up.

I use F1 to switch to rapid maneuver in the 'R' slot with addon.

When going overland and questing, everything dies so fast that I try to put a passive bonus skill or something that I don´t really actively use on my bar. My backbar is a heal bar that I use when doing a daily normal dungeon, or some veteran dungeons. But I don´t really like to switch between bars overland. Just keep it 'max DPS simple'.

And the 5 limit is good. I mean, I wouldn´t object to them making it 6 + ulti, but...

Knightpanther

Im a mage Sorcerer, we only generally have 8 slots as our flappy annoying thing takes up two.

Of the rest all that matters is Crystal Frags and run away ......... er sorry Streak

Be Safe

Everest_Lionheart

MaleAmazon wrote: »

I have ALT, space, E, R, F for skills and Q for ultimate when using hotkeys, making them all easy to reach when WASD-moving. Usually I´ll go for:

ALT: Damage over time or area-of-effect.
Space: spammable.
E: something that heals.
R: Movement bonus or gap closer.
F: Varies. Usually some bonus like grim focus.

It helps me setup so I don´t have to memorize a lot of different stuff for alts. I´ll use my above template and work from there.

So on my main (magicka nightblade) I have unstable wall of elements, swallow soul, degeneration (not really heal but I have heal from swallow soul and restoration staff backbar), path of darkness and grim focus on my front bar. Backbar is restoration spells where I usually emergency-heal with regeneration and combat prayer (not optimal but perfectly fine).

This lets me mow through mobs with wall of elements, hit single target with swallow soul, buff myself and heal with backbar. Very practical for farming and questing. If I went PvP I´d change the setup.

On a warden archer I would have something like arrow spray, snipe, vigor, falcon´s swiftness and bull netch. So, I always know that 'E' probably heals me, space is for single target damage, and 'R' is for speeding up.

I use F1 to switch to rapid maneuver in the 'R' slot with addon.

When going overland and questing, everything dies so fast that I try to put a passive bonus skill or something that I don´t really actively use on my bar. My backbar is a heal bar that I use when doing a daily normal dungeon, or some veteran dungeons. But I don´t really like to switch between bars overland. Just keep it 'max DPS simple'.

And the 5 limit is good. I mean, I wouldn´t object to them making it 6 + ulti, but...

Looks a lot like the setup I shared except I’m on console. I also overland on a single bar but so long as you can sustain health and you main pool for your skills you are good to go in overland. You can sustain with buffs or enchants but usually it doesn’t take more than one.

Having that 6th skill plus ultimate would be nice, but I’m all out of buttons on console lol! Another skill would make 1 bar builds extremely strong, but imagine the DPS on proper 2 bar builds with the extra skills. My feeling is all skills would get nerfed to compensate and the forums would explode! 😆

Victor_Blade

2 bar shouldn't be a thing tbh. It makes the game look cluncky and weird. I mean I saw this Templar in bg fighting with a huge sword and then he takes out a staff out of no where. It's like the staff pops out of his bum or something it's just weird. You should change the game so people compete with 1 bar but 6 or 7 skills. 10 skills are overwhelming and doesn't make sense from a combat perspective. @ZOS_GinaBruno

Everest_Lionheart

Victor_Blade wrote: »

2 bar shouldn't be a thing tbh. It makes the game look cluncky and weird. I mean I saw this Templar in bg fighting with a huge sword and then he takes out a staff out of no where. It's like the staff pops out of his bum or something it's just weird. You should change the game so people compete with 1 bar but 6 or 7 skills. 10 skills are overwhelming and doesn't make sense from a combat perspective. @ZOS_GinaBruno

Magic! But seriously that sword and staff also turn into a spear when you use jabs or sweeps depending on morph. And sometimes it gets stuck as a spear when you try to use a weapon ability after which is even more hilarious!

Take away that bar swap though and ESO will become staves vs 2H real quick.

L_Nici

Well on the front I have mostly just 2 direct attack moves (1 SPamable, 1 Execute) and if available 1 that will serve as nice bonus damage for warden that would be the bugs and necro blastbones or a passive skill that rises damage, so I don't need to rely on weapon swap to get a burst combo and 2 Main Buffs, mostly Major Brutality and another buff (on Stamsorc Crit surge). My Backbar is reserved for things like armorbuffs (for example hurricane) and passive damage (for example Bladecloak) the main heal mostly Vigor and the other 2 depending on the class. On my stamsorc they are Dark Deal and Ball of Lightning.

Starlock

When you focus your decision-making around a particular gameplay goal, the skills you use typically write themselves. For example:

• Creating a character to be a dedicated crafter and harvester? Slot skills that increase your mobility, remove annoying snare effects, and let you ignore overland mobs as much as possible.
• Want to tank for non-competitive content like normal 4-person dungeons with randoms? Slot a taunt, at least one crowd control ability like a root or a fear, and hybridize into either damage dealing or healing.
• Want to create characters with a unique identity and persona? Slot skills that reflect who they are as a person and avoid slotting anything that would be out-of-character for them.

And so on...

There's also the secondary decision of "do I want to have someone else figure this out for me" or "do I want to figure this out for myself." To my mind, it's always better to do the second. Not just because everybody plays this game differently (and thus a template that works well for one person won't work well for another) and for different reasons/goals but because half the fun of creating a character is... well... the actual character creation process!

Sylvermynx

Grazzt wrote: »

Hello everyone !
I just returned to this greeat game, and I find myself wondering the same thing I did when I used to play before : why are there so many cool Skills and Skill Lines available, when we ony have 5 Skills slots ?
I'm not asking wether we should have more Skills slots or not, cos I guess this is something you've already discussed a million times, but I'm interested in how you manage those slots ?
If I remember correctly, when we reach lv.15 and have Weapon Swipe available we can put the same weapon twice, and then have 10 slots, is this something you do ? Or do you really stick to your 5 skills ?
I guess you can create different builds, but is there a way to save them and switch them on the spot ?
Thanks !

Badly. Mega satellite ping. Nuff said.

FrancisCrawford

Some thoughts:

• Of course I use all 10 skill slots. (12 really, including ultimates.)
• Further, I use different skills at different times. If nothing else, I slot Charging Maneuvers when I'm traveling from place to place, but replace it with something combat-oriented if I expect a tough fight.
• Similarly, if you're doing easy content, you might want to slot a skill or two that isn't useful but that you want to level up for future reference.

Further, I play on a PC, so it's easy to change all my skills at once.

• So I usually have one skill bar that's completely different from my combat skill bars, but instead has skills I want to level up, and that's what I have active at the time of quest turn-in.
• I use quite different skills (and gear) when dungeon healing than when playing solo.
• I typically have somewhat different skills/gear for different contexts, at least for hard fights. E.g., there are some fights in which ground-based AoEs are wonderful and some in which they're somewhat wasteful. And skills that give synergies or group buffs may be better when you're actually grouped with other people.

Wandering_Immigrant

MaleAmazon wrote: »

I have ALT, space, E, R, F for skills and Q for ultimate when using hotkeys, making them all easy to reach when WASD-moving. Usually I´ll go for:

ALT: Damage over time or area-of-effect.
Space: spammable.
E: something that heals.
R: Movement bonus or gap closer.
F: Varies. Usually some bonus like grim focus.

It helps me setup so I don´t have to memorize a lot of different stuff for alts. I´ll use my above template and work from there.

So on my main (magicka nightblade) I have unstable wall of elements, swallow soul, degeneration (not really heal but I have heal from swallow soul and restoration staff backbar), path of darkness and grim focus on my front bar. Backbar is restoration spells where I usually emergency-heal with regeneration and combat prayer (not optimal but perfectly fine).

This lets me mow through mobs with wall of elements, hit single target with swallow soul, buff myself and heal with backbar. Very practical for farming and questing. If I went PvP I´d change the setup.

On a warden archer I would have something like arrow spray, snipe, vigor, falcon´s swiftness and bull netch. So, I always know that 'E' probably heals me, space is for single target damage, and 'R' is for speeding up.

I use F1 to switch to rapid maneuver in the 'R' slot with addon.

When going overland and questing, everything dies so fast that I try to put a passive bonus skill or something that I don´t really actively use on my bar. My backbar is a heal bar that I use when doing a daily normal dungeon, or some veteran dungeons. But I don´t really like to switch between bars overland. Just keep it 'max DPS simple'.

And the 5 limit is good. I mean, I wouldn´t object to them making it 6 + ulti, but...

I do similar, except I'm on PS4. So for me triangle is my spamable, circle my execute, square is some sort of opener or set-up, usually an offensive ability that either buffs or debuffs, LT is a self buff, RT my heal.

There's tons of exceptions to that since not all my kits are the same, but those exceptions follow their own set of "if this then that" rules of priority.

BRogueNZ

one regen the other burn pretty much