Funny this, a guy kicked me from Caverns last night because I was using Biting Jabs instead of Carve. My DPS was great he just didn't like it. The funny part, I was the only guy with ranged DPS in the group.

Alphashado wrote: »

Most fights allow for melee once you learn when to move in and out. The final boss in vet DSC is an exception. You pretty much must use ranged or die.

Good. That's really all I wanted to know. I have no problem moving in and out, dodging, attacking etc. at the right time, but if I can't even get close then I really don't see much point in continuing on.

I don't mind being "flexible" with my skills, but I'm not going to learn a whole new skill set that I have zero interest in, just to be able to compete. I thought the whole idea was that you could be whatever you wanted to be...

Miszou wrote: »

I thought the whole idea was that you could be whatever you wanted to be...

Nope. Literally worst mistake ZOS ever made. You can do whatever you want. You will not, and never will have the same results as a min maxer when you do this. So sure, play a magicka based 2 hander user with heavy armor. It is possible. Do not expect to be picked up for many dungeons however.

Endurance wrote: »

yes you need a bow. nightblades & thieves dont use 2 handed weapons they use small daggers and bows/crossbows, warriors are the ones that wear 2handed weapons.. dont follow those hybrid builds on the forums they never work out properly (unless its PVP)

Pausekey wrote: »

Nope. Literally worst mistake ZOS ever made. You can do whatever you want. You will not, and never will have the same results as a min maxer when you do this. So sure, play a magicka based 2 hander user with heavy armor. It is possible. Do not expect to be picked up for many dungeons however.

Eh, both of those are true to a point but not absolute. Swapping out weapons, armor and skills is sometimes necessary and something that should be encouraged. While true that min/maxing tends to squeeze the most out of their specific niche, they're not always versatile. They're set to play one specific way and generally only that way. If you come across a situation where it doesn't work, your out of luck. Plus many times if just a single skill or stat is changed/nerfed the whole build can pretty much fall apart. Sending all that money and time you sunk into your build right down the drain.

Now that's not to say that you should spend your attribute and skill points willy nilly on anything and everything. You should build your character around a central concept. However, skills and gear are largely a personal choice.

As for the need for ranged weapons, it's generally a wise practice no matter what class you are to carry a ranged weapon of some type. Simply because there's no real reason not to. Even if you don't use it often you should take one because you'll never know when you'll need it. There will be times you just can't get into melee range for one reason or another and when that happens, if you don't have any ranged abilities, your boned.

With regards to groups, so long as your trying your best to pull your own weight most folks probably won't give you a hard time about your set up (unless they're looking for something specific to do a speed run or get a top spot on leader boards in which case they should mention that before hand). But yes, unfortunately when playing anything outside of the typical archetypes, there will be times you will be passed over. It sucks but it's life. It's not always a matter of being mean as much as it's a matter of taking the sure bet. Unconventional builds fall under a critical light as they can prove to be a liability sometimes and make it difficult or impossible to clear a dungeon.

However for the most part there is considerable leeway in what you can do with your character. A large part of this game is simply learning. Learn your skills, learn your stats, learn your gear, learn your enemies, learn how to dodge/ block/break free/kite/pull, learn boss encounters, learn what works for each situation.

What's more, while cookie cutter builds tend to be accepted as the best builds, one shouldn't rely on them too much. Use them as a guideline sure but don't use them as a crutch. Better you make mistakes and learn the game mechanics then simply learn how to punch in six skills in sequence.

there are a couple of bosses that is easier both to do and to survive with a range weapon, engine is one of them, so yeah my advice adapt to what kind of boss you doing, and have like a bow as back up when u do these kind of bosses

Miszou wrote: »

Alphashado wrote: »

Most fights allow for melee once you learn when to move in and out. The final boss in vet DSC is an exception. You pretty much must use ranged or die.

Good. That's really all I wanted to know. I have no problem moving in and out, dodging, attacking etc. at the right time, but if I can't even get close then I really don't see much point in continuing on.

I don't mind being "flexible" with my skills, but I'm not going to learn a whole new skill set that I have zero interest in, just to be able to compete. I thought the whole idea was that you could be whatever you wanted to be...

You CAN play however you want but don't expect that every encounter is sliced in a way that EVERY build have the same chance. That simple would not work.

I would much rather have a challenging encounter than a faceroll where it doesn't matter if I ran naked with fists because "that is how I want to play."

Miszou wrote: »

So... I just turned V1 and started running some vet pledges. They're definitely a step up in difficulty from the normal pledges, that's for sure!

Anyway, I just did one with a V14, who was most helpful about letting a couple of noobs know the fights and so forth. But we just couldn't take down the final boss (Giant Dwarven spider thing... DarkShade Caverns IIRC),and ended up bailing on it. Nothing wrong with that... my first time in there and I obviously need to increase my DPS by quite a bit.

But, the weird thing is, as we left, he basically said that almost all dungeons require a ranged attack of some kind, and that I should get a bow. My character is basically a two-handed nightblade (in medium armor), and I really have no interest in using a bow. I *might*, if pressed, learn to use a sword/shield so I can tank occasionally, but that would be it.

So, my question is, do I really need a bow? Are all the dungeons going to pretty much instagib me at close range?

The first 50 levels of the game have led me to believe that I was doing just fine, and only now I find out that I need a bow?

This specific boss requires ranged damage. You can't take him down with melee because of the flame and lightning attacks. Even the tank should use a bow or staff with ranged abilities because of the mechanics involved.
This is not the case for most of the fights in the game though.

Miszou wrote: »

Ok, aside from the whole "Nightblades must play like this" nonsense, part of my concern was the mountain of micromanagement I would have to do to incorporate another weapon style. I use both weapon swaps for 2-handed skills where one is for pre-combat buffs and DoTs, and the other is for raw DPS, so I really didn't want to have to fool around with changing all that before each fight.

But, I just found this, which looks like it might be rather awesome and solve quite a lot of the problem: http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info947-SWAPSContinued.html

Also, what's wrong with a 2-handed nightblade in medium armor, with a few assassin and siphoning skills thrown in? Seems kinda straightforward to me... loads of stamina, lots of mobility, decent DPS. Am I doing it wrong? (Aside from the ranged thing of course, but I'm gonna work on that)

Oh, and I never read build guides. Hate them. I don't like painting by numbers.

Bows are the easiest weapons to use especially since you are a stamina build. You can easily keep your distance from fights and do ridiculous single target dps - mark->focusing aim. Its really a no-brainer.

Darkshade endboss without bow? I would have kicked u instantly from grp.

Miszou wrote: »

Ok, aside from the whole "Nightblades must play like this" nonsense, part of my concern was the mountain of micromanagement I would have to do to incorporate another weapon style. I use both weapon swaps for 2-handed skills where one is for pre-combat buffs and DoTs, and the other is for raw DPS, so I really didn't want to have to fool around with changing all that before each fight.

But, I just found this, which looks like it might be rather awesome and solve quite a lot of the problem: http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info947-SWAPSContinued.html

Also, what's wrong with a 2-handed nightblade in medium armor, with a few assassin and siphoning skills thrown in? Seems kinda straightforward to me... loads of stamina, lots of mobility, decent DPS. Am I doing it wrong? (Aside from the ranged thing of course, but I'm gonna work on that)

Oh, and I never read build guides. Hate them. I don't like painting by numbers.

NB with a 2H is great for questing, farming, and very solid for single target DPS. Any class can stack stamina/power/wpn dmg/crit and destroy things with wrecking blow spam. Add a couple assassin skills to the bar for higher crit and go to town. The major weakness for a NB is AoE damage. There aren't alot of options here. Using a 2H, the best you can do is spam Power Extraction/Cleave/Brawler. Survivability is very good due to brawler and it makes life easier on the healer, but the AoE dps is pretty low compared to Duel Weild. Using duel weild/power extraction/Whirling blades/Steel Tornado is much higher aoe dps.

I run a stamina NB and for me it depends on the healer. If I have a strong healer, I will go duel wield all the way. It's higher DPS, but much squishier. If I have a questionable healer or a fight that requires alot of CC/knockdowns, I will switch to 2H. I use a hotkey addon though so I can switch from 2H/Bow to DW/Bow at any time so long as I am not in combat. But notice I always have the Bow handy. I rely on it all the time for bosses that have alot of melee radius splat damage and/or if I don't know the fight mechanics. I have been getting 7k-9k DPS with the bow and this is at V8. So it's pretty solid. Not great, but it's not gonna hurt the group either.

2handed weapons are generally used for bash attacks.. this would send u flying nonstop in PVP but the stamina cost for that sorta thing is heavy.. jumping out at your target with duals (in this case daggers) would do massive (but not so massive anymore due to nerfs) critical damage and stun for a small period of time.. i'd say bows are very underpowered right now but if you morphed your siphon leech skills correctly u can be shooting at bosses on godmode and soloing them

Here is a list of Veteran Dungeon bosses that pretty much require DPS to use ranged and their reasons why:

- Fungal Grotto, 2nd boss: everyone needs to spread out or else the chain beam attack will kill someone in two seconds when scaled to VR14
- Fungal Grotto, last boss: you MUST be ranged the entire fight, or else you die from the big black portals
- Banished Cells, Keeper Imidral: 10x easier for ranged DPS because of the red AOE circles that spawn everywhere. If you want to stay alive, you find a nice safe spot on the ground and stay there and range the boss. If you try to melee the boss, you will be standing in red most of the fight.
- Darkshade Caverns, last boss: You MUST use ranged for the last boss. If you melee the boss during the fire stage, you insta-die. If you melee during the lightning phase, you insta-die.
- Crypt of Hearts, second to last boss: If you melee the boss, your group will wipe. Why? She throws an AOE fire circle to each group member. If you are meleeing the boss, the fire circle will fall very close to the boss. When the boss drags everyone inwards and holds them for 4 seconds, you will be hit by the fire circle and die. There's nothing you can do to stop it. Nothing. Don't EVER melee this boss.
- City of Ash, Ash Titan: This boss is very, very difficult. If you are melee, you will not be able to avoid the fire waves. You will also not be able to kite the adds and attack the boss at the same time, which is a strategy used by most advanced groups.
- City of Ash, last boss: many groups will use a technique where the tank stands on one platform and everyone else stands on another. This means that the DPS must be ranged for the entire fight. If you aren't using this technique, you can do melee.

Trials
- Hel Ra, first boss: The boss will do a whirlwind attack during the execute phase. If you are melee you will instantly die. You must kite the boss or stay ranged in order to survive.
- AA, first boss: When you are standing in the yellow circles, you are usually far away from the boss. If you ever move from the yellow circle, you pretty much die.

Don't be a noob. Learn to pull out a bow on these bosses.

Miszou wrote: »

So... I just turned V1 and started running some vet pledges. They're definitely a step up in difficulty from the normal pledges, that's for sure!

Anyway, I just did one with a V14, who was most helpful about letting a couple of noobs know the fights and so forth. But we just couldn't take down the final boss (Giant Dwarven spider thing... DarkShade Caverns IIRC),and ended up bailing on it. Nothing wrong with that... my first time in there and I obviously need to increase my DPS by quite a bit.

But, the weird thing is, as we left, he basically said that almost all dungeons require a ranged attack of some kind, and that I should get a bow. My character is basically a two-handed nightblade (in medium armor), and I really have no interest in using a bow. I *might*, if pressed, learn to use a sword/shield so I can tank occasionally, but that would be it.

So, my question is, do I really need a bow? Are all the dungeons going to pretty much instagib me at close range?

The first 50 levels of the game have led me to believe that I was doing just fine, and only now I find out that I need a bow?

sadly, you will need some form of ranged in many places. Vet DC is a major one, Ranged is effectively the only way to DPS the boss in that fight.

Its not helping that Bow DPS is still below Similar Destro Build dps, at least its compairable tho.

actually my group just ran that for the first time yesterday too.

it was quite the departure from normal boss mechanics and nothing was working. if our dps switched to bows we got swarmed by spheres. what we ended up doing was let the tank follow around the spider beating on it and the rest turtled in the center by the door and killer all the spiders while the healer kept them up.

it was fun trying to figure things out ^_^

usually the final boss of DSC with current systems.

Tank goes off DPS and and only pulls back out the shield when he taunts spheres while standing in center so death waves aim away from party.

my DK tank usually acomplishes this with a Destro staff heavy attack spam, using off Buffing abilitys like Obsidian Shield to help the healer out and give the DPS some security when they are attacking the boss during fire stages.

its proven effective so far. but everyone needs to be ranged if they intend to damage that boss, Melee is 100% suicide against him.. Despite some of the stupid people on this forum, there is a massive risk vs reward factor that determines if its ok to melee for better damage. you cant just melee everything, something anyone who has played a Flame caster DK can attest to.

On my Sorc and NB i always go bow in that final fight, there is no option to this.