Off-meta Flavour Builds

Woodenplank

Like many a long-time Player I have a collection of the latest meta; Pillar of Nirn, Relequen, Harpooner's Kilt, Whorl, etc. etc. and I can churn out a good 110k or so DPS on the Trial dummy. Big whoop.
But whenever I feel like branching out, and trying builds on other classes I'm met with the same guides and tips everywhere, as I search for inspiration. Pillar of Nirn, Relequen, Harpooner's Kilt, etc. etc.

I know that it is natural in the lifecycle of an MMO for the 'meta' to condense into a small selection of item sets. But with hybridization changes bluring the line between stamina and magicka, the general applicability of most stats, and the sheer power of generic weapon abilities and sets, identities have been washed out over time, and at this point every Class, every specialization in the game will get best results with the same four or five item sets.

This of course comes in part from how - beyond Class skills and passives - everyone has access to the same selection of Guild and Weapon skill lines.
This has been something I will also defend. The general skill lines means that your Class choice doesn't have to be the be-all-end-all. Picking a Sorcerer does not force you into therole of robed wizard with arcane rituals; you can grab a broadsword and charge into battle like barbarian, if you please.
However this freedom also comes at the price of more build homogeneity. If a Weapon-skill or Guild line ability outperforms its Class-ability counterpart, or provides a utility that the class itself lacks, then it will always be chosen over the more distinct Class options.
And in the history of ESO, weapon skills have typically had a solid place in the meta. These days it's Stampede+Carve and Deadly Cloak, back in the days it was Wall of Elements and Poison Injection+Volley. The weapon choices change, but the same issue remains.

Now I've rambled on quite long enough, I believe. And contrary to the impression I've probably given, I'm actually not here to ask for "meta changes" and reworks. I'm here because I want to hear about your flavourful, off-meta builds! Builds that inevitably underperform, but also feel more true to Class identity, or just builds that are fun to play and centered around a unique theme.
I'll share some of my own for starters.

TL;DR: Meta means every class uses the same sets and abilities. Please share builds that are unique/flavourful.

Lightning Bolts, Lightning Bolts! LIGHTNING BOLTS!

Class: Sorcerer:
Specialization: Magicka
Equipment:
5/5 Auroran's Thunder

• 2 items: Adds 1206 Maximum Health
• 3 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
• 4 items: Adds 1487 Offensive Penetration
• 5 items: Dealing direct damage to a target within 10 meters of you summons a cone of lightning from your chest for 5 seconds, dealing X Shock damage every 1 second to enemies in the cone. This effect can occur every 10 seconds and scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.

5/5 Storm-Cursed Revenge

• 2 items: Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
• 3 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
• 4 items: Adds 1487 Offensive Penetration
• 5 items: When you deal Shock Damage, you have a 15% chance to deal X Shock damage to the enemy and up to two other enemies within 5 meters. This effect scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.

2/2 (Perfected) Master's Lightning Staff
2/2 (Perfected) Maelstrom's Lightning Staff

Frontbar: Crystal Fragments - Destructive Reach - Daedric Prey - Unstable Familiar - Twilight Matriarch --- Power Overload
Backbar: Boundless Storm - Unstable Wall of Elements - Liquid Lightning - Unstable Familiar - Twilight Matriarch --- Greater Storm Atronach

Sorcerer's deal +5% extra Shock Damage, and have more Shock damage spells than any other Class. This build aims to take advantage of that. Since Storm-Cursed revenge has no cooldown, we simply try to stack as many Shock 'ticks' per second as possible.
Daedric Prey and Crystal Fragments are, of course, too good to pass up when we're using both pets any way.

Could also consider dropping Master's Lightning frontbar (just go Auroran's front), and getting a monster set. Ilambris, for instance, deals Shock damage.

Pet Shop Boy

Class: Sorcerer:
Specialization: Mag or Stam
Equipment:
5/5 Unleashed Ritualist

• 2 items: Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
• 3 items: Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
• 4 items: Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
• 5 items: Dealing damage to an enemy applies Ritualist's Mark to them for 10 seconds. Enemies with your Ritualist's Mark take an additional 16% damage from your summoned pets.

5/5 Mad Tinkerer

• 2 items: Adds 657 Critical Chance
• 3 items: Adds 657 Critical Chance
• 4 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
• 5 items: When you deal damage, you summon a Verminous Fabricant that charges the nearest enemy, dealing X Shock Damage to all enemies in its path, knocking them into the air, and stunning them for 2 seconds. This effect can occur once every 8 seconds and scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.

2/2 Maw of the Infernal

• 1 item: Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
• 2 items: When you deal damage with a Light or Heavy Attack, you have a 33% chance to summon a fire breathing Daedroth for 15 seconds. The Daedroth's attacks deal X Flame damage every 2 seconds. The Daedroth can only be summoned once every 15 seconds and its damage scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.

Frontbar: Crystal Fragments - Endless Fury or Weapon-dependent - Daedric Prey - Unstable Familiar - Twilight Tormentor --- Dawnbreaker (Passive)
Backbar: Hurricane - Weapon Dependent - Barbed Trap - Unstable Familiar - Twilight Tormentor --- Greater Storm Atronach

The idea of this build is to synergize different pet abilities and/or to annoy your Tank as much as possible. This build sports up to 5 active pets, including classics like Flappy Batgirl, Stompy the Daedroth, and Little Ball of Lightning and Anger.
All of which benefit from Daedric Prey and the Ritualist's Mark for another 45%+16% pet damage!

Note that both Ritualist and Tinkerer can be single-bar'd, which leaves room for both a Mythic and a Weapon set of your choice!
(Tinkerer can also be replaced by Defiler set, which does similar damage by is Medium instead of Light armor. Depending on content that could be an upgrade).

Bloodflow

Class: Warden
Specialization: Stamina
Equipment
5/5 Dro'zakar's Claws

• 2 items: Adds 1487 Offensive Penetration
• 3 items: Adds 657 Critical Chance
• 4 items: Adds 29 Stamina Recovery
• 5 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
• 5 items: For every bleed effect you have on an enemy, increase your Weapon and Spell Damage by 103 against them.

• 2 items: Adds 657 Critical Chance
• 3 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
• 4 items: Adds 657 Critical Chance
• 5 items: Increases your Bleed damaging attacks by 20%.

2/2 (Perfected) Master's Dual-wield
2/2 (Perfected) Maelstrom 2-Handed

Frontbar: Rending Slashes - Subterranean Assault - Cutting Dive - FLEX - Camouflaged Hunter --- Wild Guardian
Backbar: Growing Swarm - Stampede - Barbed Trap - Carve - Camo Hunter --- Wild Guardian

Okay I know I've been bashing Stampede and Carve, but they're here for a good reason! I could even forgive exchanging one of the sets with Pillar of Nirn.
We choose Warden because it's the only Class with Bleed damage, really. And then we just stack Bleed damage! All told we have up to 7 Bleed effects (721 Weapon Damage from Dro'zakar!) on our target, and the instant-damage Bleeds of Slashes, Dive, and Bear Mauling are also amplified by 20%.

Enjoy and share your own!

merpins

Funnily enough, I do use a bleed build on my warden. But I use blood drinker and.... Pillars. Because Pillars is bleed damage and is buffed by blood drinker.

Soarora

I love thematic builds. I think this post gives great explaination as to why I build my own builds… with addition of actually knowing what each skill is contributing. The only ones I’ve really ended up using have been my frost warden (linked in my signature… I’ve been a frost warden since before it became THE way to magden) and bleed nightblade (similar to your bleed warden, but pillar instead of blood drinker).

wilykcat

I don't do meta builds either -- they're overrated.

I create my own builds instead. The game is more fun that way.

Woodenplank

merpins wrote: »

Funnily enough, I do use a bleed build on my warden. But I use blood drinker and.... Pillars. Because Pillars is bleed damage and is buffed by blood drinker.

Soarora wrote: »

I love thematic builds. I think this post gives great explaination as to why I build my own builds… with addition of actually knowing what each skill is contributing. The only ones I’ve really ended up using have been my frost warden (linked in my signature… I’ve been a frost warden since before it became THE way to magden) and bleed nightblade (similar to your bleed warden, but pillar instead of blood drinker).

Of course, this post was never about saying to never use Pillar of Nirn or Whorl of the Depths. It was simply a cry against everyone using those two sets (and/or Relequen).

But the ways you've suggested make perfect sense. Already using Blooddrinker and a Warden (with their 3 Class Bleed damages), well Pillar of Nirn makes a tonne of sense! Incidentally, Dro'zakar + Pillar would also function.
Already using a Magden as a frost-oriented Class? Well the game is handing you a strong Frost-damage proc set, makes sense to use it.

The point is that those setups only work because of how they uniquely synergize with the Warden Class. Anyone can use Pillar, sure, but only Wardens get uniquely strong benefits from Blooddrinker. Anyone can get good value from Whorl, but no one gets value like a Magden combining it with Frostbite set.
Love it!

LukosCreyden

I always struggle between making a themed build i like the class fantasy of, and making a build that can reliably solo WB's, arenas and dungeons.
I love playing mages though and I enjoy going for a witch / forbidden magic / variety mage theme.
Any suggestions?

Woodenplank

LukosCreyden wrote: »

I love playing mages though and I enjoy going for a witch / forbidden magic / variety mage theme.
Any suggestions?

We talking Sorcerer kind or Necromancer kind?

Any way, the Grave Inevitability and Phylactery's Grasp sets have, well, grabbed my attention. I haven't collected them for trial yet, but the names at least are evocative of dark sorcery - of the Necromantic persuasian.
On top of that, I think they're actually quite strong... ? The former falls off in well-organized Trial scenarios, but that's not the main worry here, is it?

As for Sorcerer I've mostly tended towards the Storm-mage or Daedra-zoo varieties, so I'm not sure how to advise there.

Or... did you mean like a Nightblade? Sul-xan's Torment and Thrassian Stranglers certainly evoke the "witch/forbidden magic" thing of... well, stealing souls of your enemies to amp up your own power.
They're somewhat inconvenient to use, however.

berunhieyes

I have a bow-bow nightblade with a poison/disease theme based on the Toxic Raider build from Hack the Minotaur.

The Morag Tong (Cyrodiil-Bruma), Witch-Knight's Defiance (The Reach), Swamp Raider (Shadowfen). The Morag Tong and Witch-Knight's Defiance seem to perform slightly better together than either with Swamp Raider.

I haven't found a really good thematic Monster set to go with it.

This would also work well on a Stam Necro.

Nestor

Everytime a new DLC drops, the Theory Crafters rally around a couple of sets, and they get recommended for every build.

Of course, you can drop even a few levels down the list and still do the DPS you need to to be successful in the game. Your DPS might drop 5%, maybe. Unless your chasing Leaderboards or the 2 or 3 insane achievements you will still enjoy yourself. (these are fine goals, they just don't apply to 95% of the games population)

LukosCreyden

@Woodenplank Aye, I am thinking more of a magicka necromancer. Its the one i most like the theme and aesthetics of. Typically, I will run Iceheart (soloing stuff) and then maybe Briarheart jewellry and weapons. I know Briarheart may look a bit off on a necro, but I think it fits the whole Reach Witch theme nicely. The last 5-piece would be my flex spot; ideally I would like something that aesthetically and thematically fits, that is also good for soloing stuff.

Originally I ran the build as dual destro, but am thinking I may have to switch to dual wield at some point on front bar.

Quethrosar

I just discovered vampire. I have my meta dps, but vamp is so much fun mixed in. Dps is still good enough for trials but lower than meta by about 15k. But who knows, maybe it'll get more with practice. Anyways it's so much more fun to play with. Love stage 4. Love invisible running, spell damage and watching health, and blood mist that works like an aoe with heals.

I'm a sorcerer btw and it makes me feel like another class.

Woodenplank

berunhieyes wrote: »

I have a bow-bow nightblade with a poison/disease theme based on the Toxic Raider build from Hack the Minotaur.

The Morag Tong (Cyrodiil-Bruma), Witch-Knight's Defiance (The Reach), Swamp Raider (Shadowfen). The Morag Tong and Witch-Knight's Defiance seem to perform slightly better together than either with Swamp Raider.

I haven't found a really good thematic Monster set to go with it.

This would also work well on a Stam Necro.

Velidreth is sadly a bit unreliable at range (as a marksman), but it does lop disease-carrying spheres towards your targets, so that works on some level. Hadolid Husk is another Poison damage set, but it only procs off of roll dodging, and is more defensive. Might be something for you any way!
And now I'm annoyed that "Chokethorn" sounds like it would be some sort of poison bloom gas thing, but it's a healing set

Quethrosar wrote: »

I just discovered vampire. I have my meta dps, but vamp is so much fun mixed in. Dps is still good enough for trials but lower than meta by about 15k. But who knows, maybe it'll get more with practice. Anyways it's so much more fun to play with. Love stage 4. Love invisible running, spell damage and watching health, and blood mist that works like an aoe with heals.

I'm a sorcerer btw and it makes me feel like another class.

Yeah! When Greymoor was first announced some people complained of the Vampire changes, because they could no longer 'auto-include' it in builds (back then it provided passive mag. and stam. recovery, with fewer downsides).
But nowadays Vampires can actually feel properly vampiric. You pay a price of regular spells costing more, but the skill line now has its own Ultimate, Escape, Damage-Buff, and Spamable - and pretty good ones at that!

LukosCreyden wrote: »

@Woodenplank Aye, I am thinking more of a magicka necromancer. Its the one i most like the theme and aesthetics of. Typically, I will run Iceheart (soloing stuff) and then maybe Briarheart jewellry and weapons. I know Briarheart may look a bit off on a necro, but I think it fits the whole Reach Witch theme nicely. The last 5-piece would be my flex spot; ideally I would like something that aesthetically and thematically fits, that is also good for soloing stuff.

Originally I ran the build as dual destro, but am thinking I may have to switch to dual wield at some point on front bar.

I certainly won't hold that against you! I think 'Reach-Witch' is a perfectly viable theme for Necros. Case in point; I used to rock the outfit pictured below on my 'Cro.

Sadly, none of the actual Reach sets offer much necromancy. Red-Eagle's Fury just dumps a bunch of SP/WD into your Weapon Skills, and Legacy of Karth causes enemies hit by your (alchemy) poisons to take additional disease damage.
I suppose the latter has some merit for roleplay, but I'm not sure it's what you're looking for. Either way, it locks you into using Poisons, which can be a bother.

Speaking of the Reach... Unfathomable Darkness has a proc that summons three shade ravens to your side, which fly out and attack nearby enemies. The set is actually related to Nocturnal, but there's no reason you couldn't think of it as Hagraven-crow-raven-spooky magic.
Not a weak set either! I did a 90k-something parse with it once, in conjunction with Aegis Caller.