Are there any off-meta builds that are actually good? (PvE)

Booldi

Im kind of fed up with the current magicka DD meta (barbed ,mystic orb, siroria, mother's sorrow etc.). My question is, do you know any off-meta build (for DD) that actually preforms well, lets say 80k+ DPS?

mocap

lightning heavy attack build, obviously

the rest answers are "replace gear X with gear Y". And you still end up using some dots + 4-6 spam attacks/repeat rotation. Doesn't matter what class, stam or mag. Same things everywhere.

DocFrost72

80k dps isn't performing "well", it's excellent (assuming you mean iron atro trial dummy parse here).

Are you score pushing, vet trial clearing with prog, doing dungeons? I'd be happy to help design builds for you, but I'm thinking for what you want the types of things I'd suggest might not perform adequate to your expectations.

The_Lex

80k is stretching it a bit for a non-meta build. Most meta builds in the hands of "elite" players are pushing only 15-20k or so more than what you're asking from a non-meta build. If a non-meta build could consistently hit 80k, it would quickly become a meta-build option.

Narvuntien

I have a flame damage MagDK (BSW, Sun, Grothdar) rather than the high crit most mage builds use but I am not "elite" player (and have 300 ping) so I only parse 64K (iron atronach)

I had a Pet Sorc that did a bit less than that but I turned them into to my Vet Maelstrom runner.

Snow_White

BSW/Medusa/2pc Crit.

The_Lex

Narvuntien wrote: »

I have a flame damage MagDK (BSW, Sun, Grothdar) rather than the high crit most mage builds use but I am not "elite" player (and have 300 ping) so I only parse 64K (iron atronach)

I run that set-up on an alt mDK. It's a lot of fun.

Personally, I find my non-meta builds much more fun than my "meta builds." So, I often run those on everything other than vDLC dungeons and vTrials.

Everest_Lionheart

Narvuntien wrote: »

I have a flame damage MagDK (BSW, Sun, Grothdar) rather than the high crit most mage builds use but I am not "elite" player (and have 300 ping) so I only parse 64K (iron atronach)

I had a Pet Sorc that did a bit less than that but I turned them into to my Vet Maelstrom runner.

I’ve got Zen’s, Mother’s Sorrow and Domihaus going for 74k on the dummy. Zen’s is also boosting the group damage by 5%. Nice mobile set that requires some skill to place the Domi ring in the right spot but helps make up for the mag damage loss from not wearing Siroria.

You could also try Medusa instead of sorrow and drop the Ned for trap/channeled and use inner light on front bar and FoO on back and keep degeneration up. That allows you to use cheaper potions as well. I run that on 2 body pieces and jewelry though so you lose sustain and penetration. Can easily do all vet content wearing it though.

WrathOfInnos

You can swap out gear sets from any meta build and 80k+ is still possible (assuming they’re relatively damage oriented and the correct armor weight). Just make sure you still wear full sets, transmute traits as needed, use good enchants, etc.

Rotation matters much more than gear anyway. Orb is nice, but a lot of players parse without it on a dummy, so damage can still be solid without it. Barbed Trap is completely optional at this point, we have so much crit damage already that Minor Force affects DPS by less than 3%.

I guess what I’m saying is that you don’t have to follow a meta build exactly if you’re ok with losing a small amount of DPS. Just use it as a baseline and be aware that every deviation drops a few % DPS of the top end.

zvavi

The_Lex wrote: »

80k is stretching it a bit for a non-meta build. Most meta builds in the hands of "elite" players are pushing only 15-20k or so more than what you're asking from a non-meta build. If a non-meta build could consistently hit 80k, it would quickly become a meta-build option.

This is wrong. 80k is reachable by essentially any damage oriented armors, you are giving the "meta armors" more credit than they deserve.

axi

The_Lex wrote: »

80k is stretching it a bit for a non-meta build. Most meta builds in the hands of "elite" players are pushing only 15-20k or so more than what you're asking from a non-meta build. If a non-meta build could consistently hit 80k, it would quickly become a meta-build option.

Sadly this is not how things are working in the ESO.

Everest_Lionheart

zvavi wrote: »

The_Lex wrote: »

80k is stretching it a bit for a non-meta build. Most meta builds in the hands of "elite" players are pushing only 15-20k or so more than what you're asking from a non-meta build. If a non-meta build could consistently hit 80k, it would quickly become a meta-build option.

This is wrong. 80k is reachable by essentially any damage oriented armors, you are giving the "meta armors" more credit than they deserve.

I have to agree here. 80k is possible because of rotation and not necessarily because of what you are wearing. Now sometimes you will have to build a rotation a certain way because of what you are wearing (Elfbane, Medusa, undaunted infiltrator, acuity, etc) but in the end the armor is there to enhance the rotation and not the other way around. A 30k rotation won’t suddenly become 60 because you changed clothes, now it may improve to 33K because it fits with the skills you are using but that’s it.

You also have your meta rotations which can cut one of two way, dynamic which is very challenging to most of the player base and static which is easier to pull off and therefore more consistent. The crazy part is those two styles of rotation often hit in the hands of a top tier player within 2-3K of one another.

In the hands of the average player however that dynamic rotation has a much lower floor to go with its higher ceiling. You might go see one your favourite content creators page right now a 90K rotation that has a static version that is 88k those guys are hitting the ceiling every time and they are the exception not the rule. Most of your ceiling will be much lower and the best you will do on the 90K build is maybe 75-80K. But your floor may drop you as low as 60K if you make critical errors in the rotation. Or what you do is take the static version and do 70K each and every time.

Still it’s not the fancy clothes that get you there, it’s the rotations. I’ve personally settled on this and have no hopes of ever hitting those 100k+ numbers but the 75-80K I can do is more than good enough. Funny thing is I could put those toons in crafted gear and still push solid enough numbers.

Kwoung

Narvuntien wrote: »

I have a flame damage MagDK (BSW, Sun, Grothdar) rather than the high crit most mage builds use but I am not "elite" player (and have 300 ping) so I only parse 64K (iron atronach)

I had a Pet Sorc that did a bit less than that but I turned them into to my Vet Maelstrom runner.

My wife is stuck right about there on her MagDK as well after the last update. She tried many options but landed on Elfbane/MS/Ilambris giving her the best results. And as even finding a post update MagDK build that says it can do better is seemingly impossible, it may not have a lot of wiggle room for more DPS.

Draxund

mocap wrote: »

lightning heavy attack build, obviously

@mocap Would you mind sharing the details on that one? There have been several iterations over the past few updates. Thanks!

Kurat

For sure you can swap out the meta gear for anything you want but the question is why you'd want to deliberately gimp yourself.

robpr

I like Draugrkin Grip + Acuity on mDK, single target damage is not that much less than a typical meta build, at a cost of being gimped for trash packs.

mocap

Draxund wrote: »

mocap wrote: »

lightning heavy attack build, obviously

@mocap Would you mind sharing the details on that one? There have been several iterations over the past few updates. Thanks!

Main build:
Infallible Aether + Undaunted Infiltrator + Zaan + MA lightning destro back bar
Staves infused with double damage enchants (shock glyph back bar, fire glyph front bar)
Jewelry infused. Armor 7-0-0 Divines. Shadow mundus. CP: single target, dot damage, crit damage.

Budget version:
Infallible Aether + Torugs Pact
Same as before. Damage enchant from back bar will be buffed with Torugs once you swap to front bar.

Rotation:
- drop Unstable wall (for DK Blockade still BIS, imo) and some other dot/dots, swap
- apply another dot if necessary, then heavy attack 3-4 times (for DK 4-5 times since he has longer dot duration).
tip: more dots you apply - less DPS you will get, actually. So don't "dot" too much.

Food Corrupting Bloody Mara or whatever except mag regen, cuz we have infinite sustain.

DK is best for this build, cuz longer and very strong dot's and superior Molten Arnaments buff. Sorc second. The rest are so so.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

By off meta, do you mean gear, or rotation? Because I threw on purple Burning Spellweave+ Mad Tinkerer on my sorcerer for fun, whose rotation was probably meta at some point, and still hit 80k (down from 85k with Mother's Sorrow/Siroria, golded out)... On my Magicka Templar, I engineered a heavy attack dot/aoe build with Undaunted Unweaver+ Siroria and hit 80k on 21 mil (51k on 3 mil as well), so I guess in his case, both half his gear (and certainly the traits on it) and his rotation are "off meta"... so yes, it's certainly possible. If the rotation is solid and the cp is well placed, you can hit 80k with any variety of things. I should mention, if you're interested in off-meta builds that are fun and functional, you could always check out Xynode on Youtube. His builds can be fun for off-meta rotations inspiration.

DocFrost72

Kurat wrote: »

For sure you can swap out the meta gear for anything you want but the question is why you'd want to deliberately gimp yourself.

It depends on the group and content you run. For my friend group, it works best if I build a little chunkier as a DPS. When we did vHM CoA II, I ended up soloing skoria with no platform from around 15%. If I had replaced vigor and restoring focus, I wouldn't have been able to survive alone or pulled enough damage to skip that last 15.

So in a sort of odd way, what is meta for my group was not meta for a group with higher dps.

The_Lex

Okay, so I stand corrected about a consistent 80k not being realistic. I'll have to play around with various non-meta set ups to see what I can achieve. Imo, non-meta builds are far more fun than meta clones.

Kurat wrote: »

So in a sort of odd way, what is meta for my group was not meta for a group with higher dps.

This is very well put.

Chilly-McFreeze

Kurat wrote: »

For sure you can swap out the meta gear for anything you want but the question is why you'd want to deliberately gimp yourself.

Rumors had it some people play this game for fun.

Jackarallious

im magden im runninh 3hvy 2m3d 2 light mighty monster lover mundus axiom impen body war maiden weapons jewlry s spell 1 recovery then the 3 tri stat rest are magic,its grerat bgs setup couple skill changes its fine non dlc vet dungeons healer tho dps isnt terrible .solo most wb's easy and n hs or dragon fights seems very durable.i do have 1600 cp advantage but absolutly is a solid setup

CableBomb

Booldi wrote: »

Im kind of fed up with the current magicka DD meta (barbed ,mystic orb, siroria, mother's sorrow etc.). My question is, do you know any off-meta build (for DD) that actually preforms well, lets say 80k+ DPS?

Yes and I keep mine to myself, like a proper Nightblade.