Would like some help understanding "new" combat and seeking build advice.

Dunelfe

I'm returning to ESO practically fully after 1.5 years (My old PC wasn't quite powerful enough to run ESO smoothly, built a new one last week which is). And I need some help. My current main is an Altmer Magicka Templar. Now back in the day when I was playing it was said magicka goes light armor + staff. But today I found out that the new "Meta" so to speak, is dual-wield with greatsword in the back. Apparently nowadays the skills damage is scaled according to the highest stat (Magicka, Health, Stamina), yet Spell Damage also matters for Magicka skills? Furthermore, apparently medium and light armor now makes little to no difference for DPS, though heavy armor is still for tanks? But what I don't get is that now people are using Stamina based weapons, because those heavy attacks only give back stamina if I'm not mistaken. And they use them even in Magicka builds which is weird to me, and here's why.

Looking at a templar magicka DPS guide from Skinny Cheeks, someone who had been recommended to me, they use a lot of skills that require stamina despite it being a magicka focused build; why? I didn't see a way to keep magicka up, and there seem to be MANY skills pressed during the rotation. Sure there is food, but I can't imagine that being enough to keep the magicka up.

So; Why is dual-wield so popular? Why are the skills stamina focused, even on a magicka build? And where is the magicka upkeep?

Then, I need some build advice. Now that I've discovered this. So I have 2 characters right now. My main, Altmer Templar, who basically does everything and will have (mostly) everything; Crafting recipes, Skills, Quests done, Dungeons, etc. And my Breton Vampire Necromancer who is... More of a roleplay-ish character I suppose? I never planned for her to be viabale in PvP or dungeons really. Anyway, I don't know where to take my Templar now.
Currently I am running a Flame Staff on the front bar with; 1) Puncturing Sweep for 1.7k Damage 2) Reflective Light 3) Breath of Light 4) Unstable Wall of Elements 5) Whatever needs leveling (For now that's Solar Flare until I can morph it into Solar Barrage) and R) Solar Prison.
My backbar is empty as I JUST unlocked it and I can't decide what to do with it. Originally back when I made her first the plan was having long range on the front and close range in the back. Though apparently, long-timed buffs and debuffs are better in the back, so that remains a question of what weapon? Probably one that gives buffs/debuffs I'd imagine.
The original plan would look as follows (Side note: I am writing this according to some old pics and notes I found I made a year or so back so the spells probs work a bit different than they did then);
Front: Fire Staff; 1) Reflective Light 2) U-Wall of Elements 3) Degeneration 4) Call of Vigor 5) Elemental Susceptibility R) Ice Coment (Tho I'd probs replace that with Shooting Star now)
Back: Greatsword; 1) Brawler (Tho probs replaced with PS now) 2) Solar Barrage 3) Executioner 4) Rally 5) Channeled Focus R) Solar Prison.

Probably not the best, but that was what I was planning at that time. And honestly? I'm still playing with that in mind right now, and so far I'm doing pretty well. I managed to clear delves, public dungeons, even manage to beat 100-80k enemies by running around a lot, even held out at a world boss thanks to my heals (And other people also attacking it but falling in the process), though I did have trouble with my magicka because my spear is such a spammable and I don't know when to light and heavy attack.

So yeah, any advice is appreciated. Here's a bit on my playstyle to help;
I am a DPS, not a tank nor healer. I'm too disoriented to pull all enemies to me, and not attentive enough to see who needs healing while also healing myself. I am not planning on PvP as of right now, maybe in the future. But for now I just want to enjoy the stories, see the sights, maybe backstab some NPC's. So I will primarly do PvE on this character for now. This will include public dungeons, delves, and dungeon finder dungeons. Got to get those sets after all. Also scrying for mythics, I'll be doing that a lot too. I'm basically always solo as I don't really play with others, so I do need to be able to take on groups of enemies without dying. Think perhaps, 5 enemies at a time? Got surrounded a lot on Banished Cells, wasn't until the 1st boss I realized this was a group dungeon... I attack and move a lot, I can block pretty accurately when needed, though I still have trouble when enemies back up and do the "red block", I never can get there in time. Though due my playstyle and me spamming abilities, I also never know when to light and/or heavy attack, though I assume that's after each ability? So like, 5x stab, light attack, Call of vigor, stab, etc. As example, though that still leaves the heavy attack question. I think that covers it? Let me know if I missed something.

As a last add-on, if there's any suggestions for builds for my Vampire Character or Assassin, also welcome. My Vampire character I really love to focus on and use the vampire and necromancer aspect instead of being a vampire and having like 0 or 1 vampire skills, or 1 or 2 necromancer skills (This includes both front and backbar) like I see most builds do oddly enough. For assassin, one that can sneak up behind enemies invisible is always nice, to kill them with the blade of woe with the DB DLC and then get away, and then the other to kill non-human mobs fast.

I do apologize for the lengthy post, and if it sounds very noob-ish. But I never particulary watched guides back in the day, and with this new system, my knowledge I had has become useless and I don't want to arrive at level 50 CP20 or so, and die to everything due poor choices. On one hand, glad to see the system hasn't become too dumbed down, on the other... Still really wish "builds" were easier to make and you could do what you want instead of having to follow a META to have a surviving chance, but I suppose that's with most MMO's.

Necrotech_Master

it sounds like you missed out on all the "hybridization" stuff

basically all of your skills for dmg scale on your weapon or spell dmg (whichever is higher), and use your spell or weapon crit (whichever is higher)

most gear was changed to support this and increases both weapon and spell dmg for instance

dual wield is the most optimal for pve because you can get 2 enchant procs to trigger status effects, and you get higher crit bonus (2 daggers with crit chance trait)

however, you dont have to use dual wield unless your willing to chase meta

my stamina templar uses 2h front bar and bow back bar, i also have an arcanist using bow/bow, both can still parse above 60k dps

the main thing to consider though for gear, is if you want to go with a mag build you will still want to gravitate towards light armor or your sustain will suffer

advantages of light armor is that you get more penetration and magicka sustain, while an advantage of medium armor is more raw dmg and stamina sustain

your bar slotting options are not too bad, though i would drop solar prison, its not a good ult unless your running in a group for the synergy, its better to front bar dawnbreaker for the fighters guild passives

usually your back bar is where you put long duration skills (buffs/dots) and keep passives and other dots on front bar

i would also recommend using blazing spear and radiant glory too

unstable wall is usually something you would put on your back bar, if you wanted to have a staff back bar


to give you an example, my stamina templar is setup 2h front bar and bow back bar with these skills:
front: camo hunter, stampede, radiant glory, biting jabs, rune focus, dawnbreaker (ult)
backbar: poison injection, resolving vigor, spike bone shield, cleansing ritual, endless hail, shooting star (ult)

my normal rotation is to do poison injection and endless hail (and ult if i want the extra dmg), then swap to front bar stampede and spam jabs a couple of times until dots need to be refreshed

CameraBeardThePirate

The weapon you use specifically will matter much less next patch as they are trying to balance the weapons a bit more with each other. Currently, it's recommended to use DW on nearly all builds because DW is the most damage. Just remember that DW, Bow, SnB, and 2h restore stam on heavies while the staves restore mag.

As NM said, hybridization happened while you were away. Basically, all abilities will scale off your higher offensive stats. If, for example, you have higher spell damage, higher stamina, and higher spell crit, your abilities will scale off spell damage, stamina, and spell crit. The only stat that doesn't dynamically scale is penetration - AFAIK, these are still tied to the damage type of that ability (physical, poison, disease, and bleed for physical pen; flame, frost, shock, and magic for spell pen).

The effects of this are pretty straightforward - while technically fully hybrid builds will be BiS, "pure" magicka and stamina builds are still perfectly viable. The only limiting factor for builds now is if you can sustain your resources. If you're running more stamina abilities, invest more into stamina, and vice versa, but don't feel locked out of any abilities, sets, or weapons just because you're "stamina" or "magicka". The two classes with a caveat to this are Templar and DK - because of their passive minor sorcery/brutality respectively, Templars should always go spell damage and DKs should always go weapon damage.

Edit: another big change you likely missed is that armor types can now be mixed and matched - no 5 piece restrictions on the passives, only on the active armor ability for each line. You're free to run any wacky sort of combo instead of largely being relegated to 5-1-1.

Dunelfe

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

basically all of your skills for dmg scale on your weapon or spell dmg (whichever is higher), and use your spell or weapon crit (whichever is higher)

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The weapon you use specifically will matter much less next patch as they are trying to balance the weapons a bit more with each other. Currently, it's recommended to use DW on nearly all builds because DW is the most damage. Just remember that DW, Bow, SnB, and 2h restore stam on heavies while the staves restore mag.

As NM said, hybridization happened while you were away. Basically, all abilities will scale off your higher offensive stats. If, for example, you have higher spell damage, higher stamina, and higher spell crit, your abilities will scale off spell damage, stamina, and spell crit. The only stat that doesn't dynamically scale is penetration - AFAIK, these are still tied to the damage type of that ability (physical, poison, disease, and bleed for physical pen; flame, frost, shock, and magic for spell pen).

The effects of this are pretty straightforward - while technically fully hybrid builds will be BiS, "pure" magicka and stamina builds are still perfectly viable. The only limiting factor for builds now is if you can sustain your resources. If you're running more stamina abilities, invest more into stamina, and vice versa, but don't feel locked out of any abilities, sets, or weapons just because you're "stamina" or "magicka". The two classes with a caveat to this are Templar and DK - because of their passive minor sorcery/brutality respectively, Templars should always go spell damage and DKs should always go weapon damage.

So lets say I have 1000 SD&SC and 500 WD&WC, ALL skills would take the spell stats and ignore the weapon stats unless? Am I understanding it correctly?

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

advantages of light armor is that you get more penetration and magicka sustain, while an advantage of medium armor is more raw dmg and stamina sustain

your bar slotting options are not too bad, though i would drop solar prison, its not a good ult unless your running in a group for the synergy, its better to front bar dawnbreaker for the fighters guild passives

usually your back bar is where you put long duration skills (buffs/dots) and keep passives and other dots on front bar

i would also recommend using blazing spear and radiant glory too

unstable wall is usually something you would put on your back bar, if you wanted to have a staff back bar

So how would this be?
Front: Fire Staff; 1) Reflective Light 2) Radiant Glory 3) Power of the Light 4) Binding Javelin 5) Degenaration R) Ice Comet
Back: Greatsword; 1) Puncturing Sweep/Brawler 2) Solar Barrage 3) Ritual of Retribution 4) Living Dark 5) Breath of Life R) Flawless Dawnbreaker

I have a slight feeling this is worse but I don't know. I'm bad at making builds.

Necrotech_Master

Horthal wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

basically all of your skills for dmg scale on your weapon or spell dmg (whichever is higher), and use your spell or weapon crit (whichever is higher)

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The weapon you use specifically will matter much less next patch as they are trying to balance the weapons a bit more with each other. Currently, it's recommended to use DW on nearly all builds because DW is the most damage. Just remember that DW, Bow, SnB, and 2h restore stam on heavies while the staves restore mag.

As NM said, hybridization happened while you were away. Basically, all abilities will scale off your higher offensive stats. If, for example, you have higher spell damage, higher stamina, and higher spell crit, your abilities will scale off spell damage, stamina, and spell crit. The only stat that doesn't dynamically scale is penetration - AFAIK, these are still tied to the damage type of that ability (physical, poison, disease, and bleed for physical pen; flame, frost, shock, and magic for spell pen).

The effects of this are pretty straightforward - while technically fully hybrid builds will be BiS, "pure" magicka and stamina builds are still perfectly viable. The only limiting factor for builds now is if you can sustain your resources. If you're running more stamina abilities, invest more into stamina, and vice versa, but don't feel locked out of any abilities, sets, or weapons just because you're "stamina" or "magicka". The two classes with a caveat to this are Templar and DK - because of their passive minor sorcery/brutality respectively, Templars should always go spell damage and DKs should always go weapon damage.

So lets say I have 1000 SD&SC and 500 WD&WC, ALL skills would take the spell stats and ignore the weapon stats unless? Am I understanding it correctly?

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

advantages of light armor is that you get more penetration and magicka sustain, while an advantage of medium armor is more raw dmg and stamina sustain

your bar slotting options are not too bad, though i would drop solar prison, its not a good ult unless your running in a group for the synergy, its better to front bar dawnbreaker for the fighters guild passives

usually your back bar is where you put long duration skills (buffs/dots) and keep passives and other dots on front bar

i would also recommend using blazing spear and radiant glory too

unstable wall is usually something you would put on your back bar, if you wanted to have a staff back bar

So how would this be?
Front: Fire Staff; 1) Reflective Light 2) Radiant Glory 3) Power of the Light 4) Binding Javelin 5) Degenaration R) Ice Comet
Back: Greatsword; 1) Puncturing Sweep/Brawler 2) Solar Barrage 3) Ritual of Retribution 4) Living Dark 5) Breath of Life R) Flawless Dawnbreaker

I have a slight feeling this is worse but I don't know. I'm bad at making builds.

you are correct on the first part

for your slotting, i think its a good first try

your "primary" bar (doesnt matter if its front or back) would probably be better with jabs, power of the light, radiant glory and probably blazing spear

your "off" bar (the bar where most of your buffs and such will be) would probably be better with the long dots like solar barrage, reflective light/vampires bane, ritual of retribution, and if you want to keep the burst heal, breath of life

i would heavily recommend using the rune skill, it gives you the major armor buff, a heal over time, and resource restore over time (the morph changes if it restores mag or stam, which ever you need more) (the heal is also strengthened when you are in the rune, but you get all of the buffs even if you are outside of the rune)

living dark is a good skill, but not really for pve, its great in pvp though

Dunelfe

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

you are correct on the first part

for your slotting, i think its a good first try

your "primary" bar (doesnt matter if its front or back) would probably be better with jabs, power of the light, radiant glory and probably blazing spear

your "off" bar (the bar where most of your buffs and such will be) would probably be better with the long dots like solar barrage, reflective light/vampires bane, ritual of retribution, and if you want to keep the burst heal, breath of life

i would heavily recommend using the rune skill, it gives you the major armor buff, a heal over time, and resource restore over time (the morph changes if it restores mag or stam, which ever you need more) (the heal is also strengthened when you are in the rune, but you get all of the buffs even if you are outside of the rune)

living dark is a good skill, but not really for pve, its great in pvp though

I see, so keeping this in mind it would be better to do;
Front Fire Staff: 1) Puncturing Sweep 2) Radiant Glory 3) Power of the Light 4) Blazing Spear 5) Channeled Focus
Back Greatword: 1) Brawler (For shield) 2) Solar Barrage 3) RL/VB 4) Ritual of Retribution 5) Breath of Life

Am I getting that right so far?

Necrotech_Master

its certainly a good start, you would have to probably play with it in game to see if that works for you

the only thing im not really sure about would be brawler on the back bar, since that is another spammable

if you are set on using 2h on your back bar, i would switch brawler with stampede for the dot

if you wanted to use a bow back bar, i would use poison injection and/or endless hail

if you wanted a staff back bar i would use unstable wall

Dunelfe

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

its certainly a good start, you would have to probably play with it in game to see if that works for you

the only thing im not really sure about would be brawler on the back bar, since that is another spammable

if you are set on using 2h on your back bar, i would switch brawler with stampede for the dot

if you wanted to use a bow back bar, i would use poison injection and/or endless hail

if you wanted a staff back bar i would use unstable wall

Hm, true, I had 2H on the back for melee combat. Then again, I suppose jabs takes care of that on the front. Now looking at it, I suppose staff/staff is best due the amount of magicka class skills and almost 0 weapon skils.

Necrotech_Master

just also as a FYI, in the next update coming out in a few weeks, lightning staves will be the most optimal for a templar

their passive buffs will be on direct dmg and channeled abilities

this buffs several of the key skills in the templar toolkit, namely the jabs (as it is both a direct dmg and a channeled ability), power of the light (direct dmg), radiant glory for the execute (channeled ability), blazing spear (initial hit is direct dmg)

you could still use a fire staff on the back bar, due to the bonus dmg with unstable wall (ideally, if you were able to at some point, is use the maelstrom fire staff on the back bar, as this gives a good buff to the wall of element skill)

LittlePinkDot

Horthal wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

its certainly a good start, you would have to probably play with it in game to see if that works for you

the only thing im not really sure about would be brawler on the back bar, since that is another spammable

if you are set on using 2h on your back bar, i would switch brawler with stampede for the dot

if you wanted to use a bow back bar, i would use poison injection and/or endless hail

if you wanted a staff back bar i would use unstable wall

Hm, true, I had 2H on the back for melee combat. Then again, I suppose jabs takes care of that on the front. Now looking at it, I suppose staff/staff is best due the amount of magicka class skills and almost 0 weapon skils.

You can use any weapon with Magicka
skills.
But your spammable is best if it uses your main resource. If there were some kind of non spammable skill that you wanted to use from a particular weapon skill line, then you could choose that. I have a few PvP stamina characters that use a destruction staff back bar for the skill Weakness to Elements.

Magicka characters that use dual wield get access to deadly/quick cloak skill.

Two handed back bar is frequently used by classes/builds that don't have access to major brutality/sorcery, so they want to use the skill Rally/Forward momentum.

Bow back bar is sometimes used for poison injection execute if their class doesn't have an execute.

Dunelfe

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

just also as a FYI, in the next update coming out in a few weeks, lightning staves will be the most optimal for a templar

their passive buffs will be on direct dmg and channeled abilities

this buffs several of the key skills in the templar toolkit, namely the jabs (as it is both a direct dmg and a channeled ability), power of the light (direct dmg), radiant glory for the execute (channeled ability), blazing spear (initial hit is direct dmg)

you could still use a fire staff on the back bar, due to the bonus dmg with unstable wall (ideally, if you were able to at some point, is use the maelstrom fire staff on the back bar, as this gives a good buff to the wall of element skill)

Alright so, for now I have made up a set:

Front Lightning Staff (Self made with Magicka Damage + Healing enchantment) 1) Puncturing Sweep 2) Backlash 3) Piercing Javelin 4) Any weapon skill to level the weapon/class skill line) 5) Breath of Life
Back Fire Staff; 1) Reflective Light 2) Piercing Javelin 3) Backlash 4) U-Wall of Fire 5) Weakness to Elements

Rotation; 5B (On bosses) > 2B (Depending on how far the enemy is) > 4B > 1B > 2A > 1A 3 times > HA > Repeat
I didn't spec very well at first, spending first on morphs and passives, so I don't have a lot of skills, pluuusss not a whole lot of skills unlocked, but I am still only level 18.
Aedric Spear is at 18
Dawn's Wrath at 21
Restoring Light at 17
Two Handed at 15
Destruction Staff at 24
All the other weapons are at 3
All guilds are at 1 as well, except fighters guild, that one is at 2.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, front bar has Radial Sweep as ult, backbar has Solar Prison as ultimate. I don't have any other ultimates at the moment. Except the res ultimate.

EDIT 2: I'm also now understanding how sets work. For my play-purpose, what would be better? Light or Medium? I get recommended medium but I would think light works better with Magicka, no? And what set is recommended for my Templar, Vampire Necromancer, and Assassin/Thief (Who will probably be Stamina DPS)

Necrotech_Master

i dont think you need backlash on your back bar, unless you were trying to rank up the skill (it sounds like you might still be a bit lower lvl)

if you want a magicka primary build, then i would probably go more into light armor (if your main spammable like jabs is magicka, you should go for light armor to help sustain that)

if you were doing a stamina build, then i would lean more on medium armor

a more hybrid build could use both, for example my stamina templar is wearing 7 pc of medium (2pc monster + 5pc medium set), but 1 of the 2 5pc sets is actually a light set (its on weapons and jewelry) so i still have a few magicka bonuses to help sustain radiant glory during execute

Dunelfe

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i dont think you need backlash on your back bar, unless you were trying to rank up the skill (it sounds like you might still be a bit lower lvl)

if you want a magicka primary build, then i would probably go more into light armor (if your main spammable like jabs is magicka, you should go for light armor to help sustain that)

if you were doing a stamina build, then i would lean more on medium armor

a more hybrid build could use both, for example my stamina templar is wearing 7 pc of medium (2pc monster + 5pc medium set), but 1 of the 2 5pc sets is actually a light set (its on weapons and jewelry) so i still have a few magicka bonuses to help sustain radiant glory during execute

Yeah backlash is a bit of an odd one out, but I don't really have any other DoT skills so I just chucked something on there for the sake of it being there.

As for the hybrid set, if I understand right. You have the weapon + Jewelry that gives the 2-3 pieces bonus but is not light armor, and then the armor all medium? I don't know what monster is, I assume it's a trial/group-dungeon drop? Like gold drop.

Necrotech_Master

a monster set is a 2 pc gear set, the head of which is dropped from group dungeon bosses on vet difficulty (something to worry about later once your lvl 50 cp160 at least)

a typical setup you can do is a monster set (2pc, always head and shoulder), a 5 pc set on your body armor (chest, gloves, belt, pants, boots), and a 5 pc set on weapons and jewelry (necklace, 2 rings, and a weapon (2h weapon like staff or melee 2h or bow counts as 2 set pieces) so you still get the 5pc bonus)

if you want to get additional bonuses out of that, you would use an arena weapon on the back bar (such as the maelstrom staff, which buffs unstable wall, and the buff carries over to your front bar after you cast the skill)

if your still leveling up (under lvl 50) i wouldnt worry too much about the set gear yet