Poll: Do players have the right to do endgame on their choice of class and role?

Jaimeh

You are not asking the right thing here, because of course you can bring any class you want to a raid, there's nothing prohibiting you; the right question is: 'do we have the right to bring a non-arcanist class to an HM trial, or trifecta run, or scorepushing group, and still have the same performance as when bringing an arcanist class?', and the answer is no, because arcanists are grossly overperforming compared to other classes, so you won't have the same results, and therefore it is prohibiting in this case. Until ZOS either brings the rest of the classes on par, or nerfs arcanists (though I'd rather we have buffs all around than nerfs), the only thing you can do is make your own groups and encourage people to bring what they love to play, and try to make it that way.

YandereGirlfriend

This is just a fundamentally flawed POV.

Most groups that adamantly gatekeep like this are fundamentally mid-tier and simply mimicking the received wisdom from the top groups who are setting the world records.

It will never stop being true: you CAN do all the content in the game on whatever class you want if you build the group yourself along with like-minded players. But if you're trying to simply +1 into someone else's group then you have to live with their arbitrary and bad rules, such as the class gatekeeping.

So do the work. Build your own group. Start with dungeon trifectas while you continue to build-up players.

spartaxoxo

Ofc but they may need to put together their own group.

As for balance, devs need to work on aoe damage for other classes.

Amottica

The poll suggests that Zenimax is forcing the class on trial runners, which is incorrect.

Further, meta is never required. Being able to produce numbers and stay alive is. I have known top players who shunned meta and found builds that performed better than what meta was. Granted, they put more effort into figuring such things out than most players are willing to do. It is why most follow what is called meta.

As others have noted, we do have a choice, and why the arcanist is used so heavily for various reasons, including ease of play.

Amottica

INM wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

To be fair, stamina arcanist isn't overpowered. The fact so many players use an arcanist shows that all classes should be that easily accessible. Because my guess is, the only reason players flock to arcanists, is because they are easy and non-stressful to play. This graphic shows barely anyone really wants to barswap/weave/animation cancel/etc.

PS: ZOS needs to stop nerfing every update.

People on top of leaderboards don't care about accessibility, they will use whatever is more effective, in this case arcanists are just broken to ignore that.

Yes, and no.

Top players who do leaderboard runs care about what is most effective, but they also have their favorite class.

Desiato

Do players who post these polls actually participate in the trial community?

I could go dps a vet trial as a nb tonight if I wanted to and no one would complain and no one would even notice a difference.

Trials are so forgiving that there are no required classes. This isn't Everquest in 1999 where Warriors and Clerics were non-negotiable.

Arcanist isn't necessarily best, it's played so often because it's so easy. It allows guilds to insert a social player into a raid who might struggle with a proper rotation or with positioning.

So honestly, if you're a templar dps in your heart of hearts, you can join the trial community and be a templar dps!

Of course, ZOS is going to capitulate. They will probably give all classes the ability to cleave and survive as easily as Arc because that's how ZOS likes to balance things.

As a result, the game will be more dumbed down, less interesting, and one dps class will still dominate the others in terms of usage because most players follow the leaders, whether they need to or benefit from doing so or not.

Renato90085

Desiato wrote: »

Do players who post these polls actually participate in the trial community?

I could go dps a vet trial as a nb tonight if I wanted to and no one would complain and no one would even notice a difference.

Trials are so forgiving that there are no required classes. This isn't Everquest in 1999 where Warriors and Clerics were non-negotiable.

Arcanist isn't necessarily best, it's played so often because it's so easy. It allows guilds to insert a social player into a raid who might struggle with a proper rotation or with positioning.

So honestly, if you're a templar dps in your heart of hearts, you can join the trial community and be a templar dps!

Of course, ZOS is going to capitulate. They will probably give all classes the ability to cleave and survive as easily as Arc because that's how ZOS likes to balance things.

As a result, the game will be more dumbed down, less interesting, and one dps class will still dominate the others in terms of usage because most players follow the leaders, whether they need to or benefit from doing so or not.

You still can use a bad class do vet trial because it easy
I think op just talk about hardest part endgame(se/dsr/ rg hm
I am a stam nb main and I use he take my first GH
for easy part(GH/GS/DB)
F tier still can join but you still a bad choice
U44 log now only 1 stam nb in dsrhm
He is my friend and nb main too ,when nb buff ,his leader that he try nb
But other will think we're wasting their time/nb is joke
and when I join my new group , I can't use nb，because sorc better than nb
My other trifectas only can run mk sorc
If they have other mk sorc , I only can run arc/dk

Danikat

The game itself does not require specific classes or builds for trials (or anything else), it will let you in no matter what you're using.

It's players who add those requirements, and then the solution is simple: if you can't find a group which fits your requirements make your own, then you get to decide which builds are allowed.

Soarora

Danikat wrote: »

The game itself does not require specific classes or builds for trials (or anything else), it will let you in no matter what you're using.

It's players who add those requirements, and then the solution is simple: if you can't find a group which fits your requirements make your own, then you get to decide which builds are allowed.

It will let you in, but will you be able to complete the content? That’s the problem. Yes, there’s always a META composition that will dominate. Saying arcs dominate now isn’t a new problem, it just was DK before. But some classes are so poor off they cannot compete DPS-wise and that’s a problem. DK healer doesn’t have many good healing skills and that’s a problem. Some content is so hard it requires specific skills that are inaccessible to other classes and that’s a problem. Show me a RG HM clear where the DPS aren’t mostly DK or mostly arcanist or HA sorcs. Show me a DSR HM clear where Reef’s MT isn’t a DK in elfbane spamming the DK shield ult. Show me LC HM clear without a sorc tank. Show me SE HM without a sorc or arc tank holding Yas. Show me any of the more recent content without a DK, Cro, or Sorc tank.

meekmiko

Endgame content like Trifectas, HMs, and such: Yes, just find a guild or group to run with. Good DPS is good DPS.

Endgame content like Leaderboard chasing: Not so much, but that's because everyone on the leaderboards is using the very best of the best meta builds with VERY high DPS output.

redlink1979

bmnoble wrote: »

(...) The meta won't stay static, if ZOS feels the Arcanist is over performing which to me looking at those charts screams giant nail sticking out waiting for the nerf hammer to fall, Arcanist will get nerfed and another class will take it's place eventually.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

(...) you don't have to make an Arcanist. But you do need to then prove yourself to people that you can play [insert class here] (...) If you want to play off-meta, you have to prove that you can still compare to the meta.

^ This

Galiferno

You have the right to play what you want but you do not have the right to force raid leads to take you if they don't want to.

Orbital78

You can do end game PVE on any class, some definitely perform better than others. If you cannot do end game content on anything other than an Arcanist, it is kind of a skill or social issue. Raid leaders will always have the final say on who comes, with what role and what class. Most casual and friendly end game guild runs will let you bring whatever as long as you perform to the standard. I have cleared a lot of end game vet trials, dungeons, and hard modes even on the nerfed heavy attack builds. Right now Arcanists are just kind of hard to mess up, and are kings of the cleave. A good DK, Templar, or Necro can out dps less skilled Arcanists pretty easily, maybe even skilled ones if they have better rotations and experience.

Play what you enjoy and if you team won't let you, find a group that will. The most important thing is to have fun.

Amottica

Galiferno wrote: »

You have the right to play what you want but you do not have the right to force raid leads to take you if they don't want to.

This is very true.

There are guilds and raid groups for every player's skill level and playstyle.

reazea

We have the right to play however we want. And raid leader has the right to refuse admittance to any player that doesn't meet their requirements for raid....so we really only use about 10 sets out of 300 or more with any kind of regularity and we put those sets on the class raid leader wants us to play.

By the way, does anyone happen to know exactly how many sets there are in ESO?

TaSheen

reazea wrote: »

We have the right to play however we want. And raid leader has the right to refuse admittance to any player that doesn't meet their requirements for raid....so we really only use about 10 sets out of 300 or more with any kind of regularity and we put those sets on the class raid leader wants us to play.

By the way, does anyone happen to know exactly how many sets there are in ESO?

I *think* it's maybe 600 or so....

Rkindaleft

I still voted but feel like this question can't really have a Yes or No answer because there are so many different variables.

I suppose you can play the class you want at endgame, but a raid lead also has the right to not include you if they feel like what you're bringing to the group isn't what the group needs. Endgame groups are not about the individuals' wants but rather about the other 11 players' needs. The "endgame" groups people should be talking about here are the groups pushing for the challenging trifectas and not the groups who are doing regular veteran trials or 5+ year old hard modes.

One of many reasons that Arcanists are so favoured is because the last couple of trials (and fights like Reef Guardian) have had fights that require very high levels of cleave damage to make them smooth or even just attainable. You can bring your Warden or Nightblade DPS into Lucent Citadel Hard Mode, but in doing so you're likely going to make most of the trial both harder on the group and make the run slower. They would not nearly be as effective as handling the encounters as well as Arcanist can and if running Arcanist instead of Nightblade or Warden is going to make Knot running less challenging for example, that's something that should be considered by you and your raid lead.

ZhuJiuyin

What's interesting is that many people have been avoiding the question and instead keep claiming: "You can play the profession you want as long as the team allows it. If the team doesn't allow it, you should find a team that suits you" and the like. Some people even claim to have passed the HM of the Veteran Dungeon using other classes.
But the fact is, without the use of Stam Arc, many classes cannot pass (or are very, very difficult) to pass the real end game, the HM Trials. In U34, at least we can still see magic or stam versions of different classes in the top 100 of Log damage rankings, but now even magic Arc rarely appears in HM trials.
Try grouping 8 NBs with 120K dps for a HM trial. This should definitely be certified as a crime against humanity or torture by the United Nations.
Please note that I am not encouraging any extreme team combination (such as 12 Warden or the like), but other classes show a cliff-like gap with Stam Arc. This is not a 5% gap, but a 20-30% gap. .
I think the best way is to add a new mechanism. If the freeze damage received by a certain trial BOSS is increased by 15%, then at least we can expect ice Warden to appear in the top 100 of the log; if the impact damage received by the BOSS is increased by 15 %, maybe we can see Sorc using Overload and Mages' Fury in PVE. This will not affect PVP, and there will be no need to overly nerf or BUFF specific classes.

Rkindaleft

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

What's interesting is that many people have been avoiding the question and instead keep claiming: "You can play the profession you want as long as the team allows it. If the team doesn't allow it, you should find a team that suits you" and the like. Some people even claim to have passed the HM of the Veteran Dungeon using other classes.
But the fact is, without the use of Stam Arc, many classes cannot pass (or are very, very difficult) to pass the real end game, the HM Trials.

This point was one I was trying to make in my post but I don't think I phrased it correctly

The endgame we are talking about here is not DLC dungeon HMs or 5+ year old trial HMs. I'd wager 90% of the people who say "you can use any class in this content" are the ones who mainly stick to that level.

The endgame that should be talked about here is the last 3 or 4 trial hard modes and their respective trifectas. If you're a trials player, there's actually very little content in the game that's actually still challenging because of power creep and that it's generally been made more accessible because of things like Arcanist and Oakensoul HA (more accessiblility to trials is a good thing.) Heck, before Arcanist came out Oakensoul HA almost completely trivialised getting Immortal Redeemer from Asylum Sanctorium and it's partly why people wanted it to get nerfed.

People can disagree but the only truly challenging content in PvE is Planesbreaker, Swashbuckler Supreme, Dream Master and Unstoppable and to an extent their HMs. This is when a meta comp (or close to meta comp) is mandatory if you actually expect to push those achievements and not beat your head against the wall.

Servadei

This meta won't change until ZOS introduces a new class or thing to sell us that outperforms arcs, then arcs will be nerfed into oblivion to push you to buy the new thing. Until that happens, you just put up with it or leave it.

Orbital78

I'd like to see the stats of the numbers of players that are even engaging with the hardest of hard end game content. A vast majority of the community probably don't even consider going past normal trials as end game. The hardest trifectas are balanced around a very small portion of the community. I've dabbled with some vRG, vDSR, and vSE HM but those really need a dedicated core to keep practicing for most players.

I'm not saying classes are perfectly balanced and don't need a boost to help improve cleave. I'd like more of the heavy attack sets to be revised to address the nerfs in the past. I know many classes were using Azureblight as a crutch to address AoE deficiency. I'd like templar jabs to get some love, as that was my main class until a year or so ago.

mdjessup4906

Every properly built dps of any class should be viable for anything except score pushing. "Viable" meaning not a nightmare to play in content and/or build a group around.

Arc shouldn't be nerfed, other classes should be on/back to its level.

This is NOT "making every class the same". Class differences should be based on how it feels to play, not whether it's actually usable or not for how fights actually work in this game, ie what do devs have against cleave ffs.

sarahthes

Orbital78 wrote: »

I'd like to see the stats of the numbers of players that are even engaging with the hardest of hard end game content. A vast majority of the community probably don't even consider going past normal trials as end game. The hardest trifectas are balanced around a very small portion of the community. I've dabbled with some vRG, vDSR, and vSE HM but those really need a dedicated core to keep practicing for most players.

I'm not saying classes are perfectly balanced and don't need a boost to help improve cleave. I'd like more of the heavy attack sets to be revised to address the nerfs in the past. I know many classes were using Azureblight as a crutch to address AoE deficiency. I'd like templar jabs to get some love, as that was my main class until a year or so ago.

So there's a bot that NA raiding discords use to update clears for people and the person who created the bot posted some statistics recently.

There is some overlap with EU, I don't know how much.



Edit: the data is about 3 weeks old and as of that time only 73 people had Unstoppable, of over 4000 who had submitted clears.

tomofhyrule

I honestly think one of the fun ways the devs could encourage other playstyles is through interesting mechanics. Something like if they essentially take a leaf out of the book of some of the weird Dungeon achieves like Guardian Preserved.

Remember that before Arcanist, we had that one patch where all the DPS were DKs... except in vAS, where more single target was needed.

I'm picturing a fun (for a certain definition of 'fun') fight where you have a boss that is immune to damage unless a second boss is brought into proximity of it and breaks its damage shield. But then if you kill the second boss, the main boss would end up immune and would cause a group wipe. In that case, you'd have to have the group hard-core single target because any cleave could make the wrong boss die and wipe the group.

In a fight like that, you'd definitely have to tell all the Arcs to stop playing with Fatecarver, and probably NBs and their single target would be king.

Taril

tomofhyrule wrote: »

In a fight like that, you'd definitely have to tell all the Arcs to stop playing with Fatecarver, and probably NBs and their single target would be king.

Or more realistically... Arc's would just aim their Fatecarver so it only hit the one boss. Until that boss got low enough then they'd cleave both of them down.

You'd have to purposely put in mechanics that make AoE skills completely unusable (Such as bosses with super Avoidance or tons of weak enemies that you need to ignore or they kill you) to make Arc non-desirable.

Alternatively, they could address the actual problem. Which is Fatecarver being dumb.

Like, not only is Fatecarver the cause of Arc's dominance because of the massive cleave DPS, it's also the reason why specifically STAM Arc is the only viable option, because STAM Arc gets to use the Crux building tentacles which is just better than Runbeblades due to its cleave capability (And healing) while still putting out similar damage. While the Mag tentacles compete with Fatecarver for Crux and so is bad and they're stuck with Runeblades for building Crux.

You redistribute Arc's damage away from Fatecarver and Stamtacle and into Runeblades (And maybe some other skills like a Crux consuming morph of Tome-Bearer's Inspiration) and you not only reduce their overall cleave capacity, but also make MagArc more viable in the process.

Joy_Division

You have the right to play what you want.

The group has the right to invite other people to an end-game competitive raid.

sarahthes

Taril wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

In a fight like that, you'd definitely have to tell all the Arcs to stop playing with Fatecarver, and probably NBs and their single target would be king.

Or more realistically... Arc's would just aim their Fatecarver so it only hit the one boss. Until that boss got low enough then they'd cleave both of them down.

You'd have to purposely put in mechanics that make AoE skills completely unusable (Such as bosses with super Avoidance or tons of weak enemies that you need to ignore or they kill you) to make Arc non-desirable.

Alternatively, they could address the actual problem. Which is Fatecarver being dumb.

Like, not only is Fatecarver the cause of Arc's dominance because of the massive cleave DPS, it's also the reason why specifically STAM Arc is the only viable option, because STAM Arc gets to use the Crux building tentacles which is just better than Runbeblades due to its cleave capability (And healing) while still putting out similar damage. While the Mag tentacles compete with Fatecarver for Crux and so is bad and they're stuck with Runeblades for building Crux.

You redistribute Arc's damage away from Fatecarver and Stamtacle and into Runeblades (And maybe some other skills like a Crux consuming morph of Tome-Bearer's Inspiration) and you not only reduce their overall cleave capacity, but also make MagArc more viable in the process.

You don't even need to flail anymore. Just run banner, flail once for ink debuff, and beammmmm...

Orbital78

sarahthes wrote: »

Orbital78 wrote: »

I'd like to see the stats of the numbers of players that are even engaging with the hardest of hard end game content. A vast majority of the community probably don't even consider going past normal trials as end game. The hardest trifectas are balanced around a very small portion of the community. I've dabbled with some vRG, vDSR, and vSE HM but those really need a dedicated core to keep practicing for most players.

I'm not saying classes are perfectly balanced and don't need a boost to help improve cleave. I'd like more of the heavy attack sets to be revised to address the nerfs in the past. I know many classes were using Azureblight as a crutch to address AoE deficiency. I'd like templar jabs to get some love, as that was my main class until a year or so ago.

So there's a bot that NA raiding discords use to update clears for people and the person who created the bot posted some statistics recently.

There is some overlap with EU, I don't know how much.



Edit: the data is about 3 weeks old and as of that time only 73 people had Unstoppable, of over 4000 who had submitted clears.

Interesting that there are so few vLC clears, IMO vDSR was harder than it was. Perhaps because of those 4000 many didn't get a dlc or stopped playing? vSE is also surprising, as that was considerably easier than other recent trials. Even the first two hardmodes didn't see that bad with decent supports.

tomofhyrule

Orbital78 wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Orbital78 wrote: »

I'd like to see the stats of the numbers of players that are even engaging with the hardest of hard end game content. A vast majority of the community probably don't even consider going past normal trials as end game. The hardest trifectas are balanced around a very small portion of the community. I've dabbled with some vRG, vDSR, and vSE HM but those really need a dedicated core to keep practicing for most players.

I'm not saying classes are perfectly balanced and don't need a boost to help improve cleave. I'd like more of the heavy attack sets to be revised to address the nerfs in the past. I know many classes were using Azureblight as a crutch to address AoE deficiency. I'd like templar jabs to get some love, as that was my main class until a year or so ago.

So there's a bot that NA raiding discords use to update clears for people and the person who created the bot posted some statistics recently.

There is some overlap with EU, I don't know how much.



Edit: the data is about 3 weeks old and as of that time only 73 people had Unstoppable, of over 4000 who had submitted clears.

Interesting that there are so few vLC clears, IMO vDSR was harder than it was. Perhaps because of those 4000 many didn't get a dlc or stopped playing? vSE is also surprising, as that was considerably easier than other recent trials. Even the first two hardmodes didn't see that bad with decent supports.

I'd guess that has a lot to do with the fact that Lucent is not yet available without the separate Chapter purchase.

This could be a sign that there are a large number of people in the endgame trial community are not buying the Chapters, especially if they're not seeing any use in Scribing. I wonder if something like the Arcanist class inspired more purchases of the Chapter last year than Scribing did this year.

The zones and stories are part of the content year, but it's definitely a fact that the 'Chapter Feature' is a major driver of sales. And I'm sure that something that's as ubiquitous as Arcanist definitely drove more people to buy Necrom than something like Tales of Tribute drove people to buy High Isle.

Rkindaleft

Orbital78 wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Orbital78 wrote: »

I'd like to see the stats of the numbers of players that are even engaging with the hardest of hard end game content. A vast majority of the community probably don't even consider going past normal trials as end game. The hardest trifectas are balanced around a very small portion of the community. I've dabbled with some vRG, vDSR, and vSE HM but those really need a dedicated core to keep practicing for most players.

I'm not saying classes are perfectly balanced and don't need a boost to help improve cleave. I'd like more of the heavy attack sets to be revised to address the nerfs in the past. I know many classes were using Azureblight as a crutch to address AoE deficiency. I'd like templar jabs to get some love, as that was my main class until a year or so ago.

So there's a bot that NA raiding discords use to update clears for people and the person who created the bot posted some statistics recently.

There is some overlap with EU, I don't know how much.



Edit: the data is about 3 weeks old and as of that time only 73 people had Unstoppable, of over 4000 who had submitted clears.

Interesting that there are so few vLC clears, IMO vDSR was harder than it was. Perhaps because of those 4000 many didn't get a dlc or stopped playing? vSE is also surprising, as that was considerably easier than other recent trials. Even the first two hardmodes didn't see that bad with decent supports.

At least for the trifecta, something that should be taken into account is that the data is only taken from June until 3 weeks ago and for Lucent Citadel at least (I can’t speak for the others) just came out then and is still only a few months old today. It’s likely that people are still progging it and the people who have cleared the trifecta are likely also the ones who already cleared PB, SS and DM and don’t have those to do.

There’s tons of variables here, like it could be less overall chapter sales (haven’t seen any data of this, ZoS will never tell us, I’m just guessing), less people interested in doing trials at the moment, people quit playing or anything else. I’d also say it’s just reasonable to assume the newest trial has less overall clears compared to everything before it because I’m sure there’s some people who got the achievements years ago and didn’t submit them.