Idea for a web site to help people who suck at combat

dk_dunkirk

I have been on a years-long quest to improve my DPS. My latest effort with an "oakensorc" is 59K. I followed one of the popular build guides, but I wanted to give it a try right away, with easier-to-get gear, so I substituted Knight Slayer instead of Storm Master. The build guide (as they all do) advertised 100K+ with this setup, so where's the rest? It's easy to blame me for sucking at weaving, but it seems to me that the whole point of an oakensorc build with 2 pets is to eliminate the weaving, and SUBSTANTIALLY simplify the rotation, so that's not an automatic disqualifier here. I've been at this awhile. I can handle pressing a button for a skill right before a heavy attack finishes, and I can watch 3 numbers and deal with that rotation. Someone on the forums told me a key reason why my substitution wouldn't perform as well was because the bonus damage from the SM set fired on each of the 3 "ticks" of a heavy attack from a lightning staff, whereas the KS bonus damage only landed on the completion.

There's nothing in the description of the 5th piece bonus of these sets to indicate this difference, so that's annoying. Further reading leads me to believe that the forum commenter is incorrect, because it seems that doing bonus damage on each "tick" of a lightning staff has been nerfed in a relatively-recent patch, so that this DOES NOT land 3 times, but instead only once, on the completion of the heavy attack. If I've read this right, this would seem to indicate that there would be much less difference between these 2 sets after all.

Stick with me; I'm going somewhere.

All of the write-ups and videos about various builds focus on getting the highest number possible. For all these years, when I don't hit those numbers, I get discouraged because I am confused as to WHY. I want new KIND of build guide, and I don't think I'm alone. I want someone to show me how to put together an EASY-TO-OBTAIN "build" using nothing but craftable gear in green or blue, using stock class and weapon skills, and simple rotations, then just show me the number, whatever it is. If you can't hit those numbers, then it would show you need to work on your rotation and weaving skills before going ANY further. THEN show me what happens if you upgrade to purple, or change to a different mundus, or use a different food or potion, or use different traits on the weapons, armor, or jewelry, or different enchants on the weapons. THEN show what happens to the number if you upgrade to dungeon gear with UNMATCHED, NON-META traits. And I don't even WANT to see a number using trial gear.

All the builds out there are for well-above average players. I want to see builds aimed at average and below. (The PvP gods don't use these builds, and I don't care about any of that. I CAN'T care about any of that yet.) All the build guilds just expect us to put it all together, but there's no consideration for the cost, whether in terms of time or gold or ability. For one thing, it's a catch-22. I can't get trial gear because I'm not good enough to run trials!

When we average players see these builds, and try to replicate them, we have to make decisions. In my oakensorc case, I retraited my Sergeant's Mail jewels at (relative-to-me) high expense in order to see if that would help. It did. But what about getting the Storm Master gear? Well, I can now say that, after 10 runs of Tempest Island, I now have a set of SM that I can use to try a new parse. Of course, NONE of the 5 pieces are in divines, and I don't have the transmute stones (after the jewels) to re-trait those pieces. So WHEN I don't hit the humping numbers again, the question will be, well, how much would retraiting the armor in divines help? Then I'm going to have to make a decision about investing 25 days of random dungeon run transmute stones into retraiting the gear, or running Tempest Island another 50 times to get them to drop "organically," and whether EITHER is worth it.

I say all of this to point out: I DON'T KNOW WHERE MY BEST BANG-FOR-BUCK IS.

What part of my build is dragging me down the most, and which would cost me the least to upgrade? That's the question I want to answer with a web site/app. I've seen sites where you can plug in your whole build and share it. My idea is more than that. There could be a mod that allows you to "dump" your complete build, and upload it, so that you don't have to fill in 1000 pieces of information. But then the real magic could start. You could give it your rotation, and the app would figure out your DPS using perfect timing and weaving. Then you could try different rotations, and see what would happen. Then you could swap out your gear sets, or your traits, or enchants, or mundus, and see what affect that would have on your number. But then you could see what to work on, and not have to guess at it, and get incredibly frustrated. 
I don't know; maybe that's just me.

The "only" trick here is that you have to have every number from the game, and ALL the math, and keep up with the changes from every patch.

What do you think? Is it a good idea? Is it doable? I know I've watched videos from people years ago that filled out spreadsheets doing things like this, so I'm thinking it's all out there somewhere. It would be a big task, but I think it might help me and a lot of other people. I've got the itch, but I've already got a side project, and I'm about to pick up another. I'm "daunted." ;-)

alcoraptor

I don't think it's feasible, no - what you're asking for is a 3rd party implementation of ESO's entire combat system.
It would have to take CP, Mundus Stones, Food, Glyphs, light and heavy attacks into account, as well as all of the buffs and sets and how they interact with each other.
It would be a mammoth undertaking - and one that would have to be completely updated each time there's a new patch.

The people that I've seen that have created spreadsheets of this kind of stuff have done it on a much smaller scale - typically a couple of sets with a common rotation.

Since you're on PC, you can do pretty much what you're asking on the PTS already.
You get all of the sets (including perfected), infinite mats, transmutes, glyphs etc, and something like 1 trillion gold.
Everything in the crown store is also 1 crown, and you get 500 crowns a day.

In order to fully test different builds, I set up a house with all of the mundus stones in it, a transmute station, one of each of the crafting stations and a few 21m target dummies.
That way, you can test any combination you like without worrying about mats etc, and then create that build on live once you're happy with it

ShawnF

There's a build editor on UESP that attempts to get the math correct - you can, for example, set up your class, race, champion points, skill points, mundus, and the gear you're wearing... and then for example quickly change the traits on all your armor from divines to reinforced or something like that to see how much some numbers change. I believe you can even import a build from the PC version of the game - I'm on PS so I have no more info about that, but there may be documentation on the site.

However, it can't calculate what you'd get from parsing - as you noted, a lot of that is determined by whether you hit the right buttons at the right time. The build editor does have an "effective power" value on the right side which is an attempt to calculate how much damage you're going to do. The creator of that build editor did investigate a "rotation calculator" in the past, but implementing it wasn't feasible. You pointed out that it would need to be updated with every new patch, and right now they can barely keep up with all the changes to sets without trying to simulate combat... ESO doesn't publish their math, it has to be puzzled out by volunteers.

A better option is probably to join a guild with knowledgeable players and an active discord server (or other out-of-game chat option) where you can ask these specific questions. For example, one key difference between knight slayer & storm master is that knight slayer can't scale at all. If you're testing on the 21 million health trial dummy, it won't do 8.0% of its health with every heavy attack, it'll do 0.038%. maximum. No bonuses from critical chance, I think it doesn't even scale from perks like minor berserk... with a lightning staff it's just a tiny 8k hit every 2.2 seconds, or ~3600 DPS.

Storm master, by contrast, is a 1542 boost to each tick of your lightning staff attack (things did change in the current patch, but only the AOE damage component - I think it's still 3 ticks over 2.2 seconds) and each tick gets buffed by things like sorc lightning passives (5%) minor berserk (5%) champion points (20%) empower (80%) plus it can crit (on a heavy attack build, that's probably ~60% damage boost). Plus the other set bonuses from storm master increase your crit chance, which is better than knight slayer as well. All together, it's probably... 3x as good? At some point it becomes very hard to compare.

Players in discord could help with other things too - for example, on a lightning heavy attack build you don't need to time your skill presses at all - hit a single skill any time during the 2.2 second attack channel and it'll go off immediately when that heavy finishes. That's not obvious at all when watching parse videos, and it's certainly not explained in the game. Each time I try a heavy attack build on a character I just hold heavy attack for 5 minutes and see what happens with no skills at all. I think my nightblade (sergeant/storm/slimecraw) hit around 65k in all gold/divines gear last patch using zero skills. My sorc was probably over 70k. Then I start adding skills to see how much I go up (or down) when trying to get good. Spoiler, I am not good.

Long story short, I think the UESP editor is the best we're likely to see unless someone can figure out how to make money on a true ESO combat build simulator. If ESO made their code public it would be a different story, but until then the best option I've found is tossing knowledge around with players I trust.

And yeah, since you're on PC, you can just use the PTS. I'm jealous.

dk_dunkirk

ShawnF wrote: »

And yeah, since you're on PC, you can just use the PTS. I'm jealous.

A couple years ago, I setup everything to try a parse in the PTS, to see how much more I'd get with trial gear over what I had. It was a LOT of work to get a house, put a dummy in it, gear up, and do it.

ZOS_Hadeostry

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic, as it's asking players for their assistance.

Thank you for your understanding

Blood_again

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

A couple years ago, I setup everything to try a parse in the PTS, to see how much more I'd get with trial gear over what I had. It was a LOT of work to get a house, put a dummy in it, gear up, and do it.

AFAIR on some stages of PTS testing you could buy crown store items for 1 crown each. Doesn't it include houses and dummies?
Gear and any mats was available from testing coffers. A bit more clicks, but very easy to obtain anyway.

merpins

ESO could put in a little rhythm game that shows players how to light attack weave. Make it a tutorial you can find in the main starter town of each faction, and have it be a repeatable quest at like a guard training ground, called "Bootcamp." It teaches you how to weave, specifically, with a rhythm game that has a prompt at the bottom of the screen. They can even make it class specific, 7 separate prompts for the 7 classes, one for 2-h, one for dual wield, and one for staves. Just to get players used to it and let them understand the timing. Then make it an occasional Endeavor daily to "get a perfect score in Bootcamp."

wilykcat

I keep on thinking the title of this post says " Idea for website for people who stuck in combat" every single time. Then I have to reread it again.

It's "suck at combat" not "stuck in combat".

Nice suggestion though.

Anyone can create a website and or a blog about anything in the game. Even by using something as simple as Blogger or Google slides.

Necrotech_Master

usually if a set says "fully charged heavy attack" then it only applies on the final tick for resto/lightning since that is the "fully charged" version

if it just says "buffs heavy attack" or something of the like, it usually can apply to all 3 ticks of resto/lightning staves

so an example of the first kind (fully charged heavy attack) would be a set like knight slayer

an example of the second kind would be heavy attack sets, or empower buff, which just state "increases dmg of heavy attacks", so it would apply to all 3 ticks of channeled heavy attacks (resto/lightning)

i definitely agree there is a ton in this game that is very subtle and not obvious without actually testing it/experimenting

and the part of the lightning staff that was "nerfed" was the tri-focus passive, so that the 2 earlier ticks no longer have splash dmg (heavy attack set functionity is unchanged, single target dps remains the same or slightly elevated due to the other bonuses, but the aoe potential is about half of what it previously was)

GooGa592

Well, running off the content creators who used to provide all these guides, builds, mechanics and such is really hurting ESO and it's just starting to show just how significantly.

FireBreathingNord

Download the PTS and parse with a meta set and a beginner set.

This is a great way to compare the DPS of different sets and builds.

Steps:

1. Download the PTS client from the ESO website.
2. Create a new character on the PTS.
3. Equip the meta set on your character.
4. Go to a dummy and parse your DPS.
5. Equip the beginner set on your character.
6. Go back to the dummy and parse your DPS again.
7. Compare the two DPS numbers and see how much difference there is.

Tips:

1. Make sure to use the same rotation for both parses.
2. Use the same food and potions for both parses.
3. Stand in the same spot for both parses.

FireBreathingNord

"Your biggest competition is the person you were yesterday." - Jeff Olson