Faulgor wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

Honestly I'm scratching my head a bit, because I thought the difference in build diversity compared to other MMOs would be apparent. But if you guys see that differently it's either because there is more diversity than I think or it's because modern MMOs suck and I just don't know about it.

As I said my MMO experience is basically limited to Ragnarok Online, but even back then there different ways to "deal damage".
You had builds that focused on

• attackspeed (Assassin, Falcon Hunter, 2h Knights, Spear Crusader, Blacksmith, etc),
• critical hits (Katar Assassin, certain Blacksmiths, etc),
• low cast times (Wizard, ME and TU Priest, certain Monks, Sage, etc),
• skill procs (Dual Dagger Assassin, Combo Monk, Falcon Hunter, etc),
• skill spam (Double Strafe Hunter, Spear Knight, Bolt Sage, Occult Monk, etc)
• unique skills (Asura Monk (!))

In ESO there is no attackspeed, casttime is present but irrelevant because it's confined to bad skills, skill procs require no dedicated builds but are just class flavor (Burning Light, Implosion) and no single skill is unique enough that it would warrant its own build (besides Blazplar perhaps, but that's not a PvE build).
So what you end up with is that every DD goes for high crit and skill spam - what you might call a rotation. Which also means that every DD build needs a way to sustain that spam because there is no alternative to that gameplay, and thus you get the now year-long pleas to "improve sustain on class x y and z".
But maybe I'm just ignorant.

Man, now I miss my Asura Monk lol.

Whether in PVE or PVP if you're just spamming skills you're doing it wrong if you're aiming for even marginal effectiveness in ESO.

In PVE it's very much a rotation that is deliberate, methodical, and purposely done. Botching your rotation by doing things such as missing buffs and clipping or forgetting to reapply dots continuously will noticeably impact DPS output. A solid, and practiced rotation is what separates high dps from low dps. The two biggest failing of a DPS are lacking situational awareness and slop in their rotation.

In PVP it's focused aggression and a battle of attrition. Spamming nets you out of resources and that gets you dead.

I'll be honest it seems your understanding of the finer point of combat in ESO is very lacking.

In relation to other RPG systems, all of that is still what I called "skill spam" in my post, as that is the defining source of the damage. I'm well aware of the necessity of rotations for max dps. Even RO had lots of self-buffs, although they usually lasted much longer than ESO's and thus were rarely part of a rotation.

Dawnblade wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

billp_ESO wrote: »

I tend to agree with the OP. We only really have 5 skills to play with (except everyone needs the mage light skill, and everyone uses blockade from the destro staff, you really only have 3 skills to play with).

This is a direct result of the game being designed around the console controller. It boils down to just a couple of skills that differentiate the classes.

In MMO's, I tend to like to play the utility character; you have a ton of different skills and the fun is picking the right one at the right time. ESO prohibits this kind of play.

It's console's fault huh? that is the very design of ESO. Tanks/Healers play those utility roles when built correctly via casting certain skills to debuff enemies/buff allies. Not prohibited at all.

Combat in ESO is simplistic and plays more like a console button masher than a classic PC RPG / MMO because it has to support controller based console play, that is a fact.

Nothing says that combat can't still be fun and challenging to master (mostly due to the speed of combat, animation cancelling, and the short duration of many abilities), but to try and state things like the base UI and general combat are not the way they are because of console design is just silly.

dday3six wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

Honestly I'm scratching my head a bit, because I thought the difference in build diversity compared to other MMOs would be apparent. But if you guys see that differently it's either because there is more diversity than I think or it's because modern MMOs suck and I just don't know about it.

As I said my MMO experience is basically limited to Ragnarok Online, but even back then there different ways to "deal damage".
You had builds that focused on

• attackspeed (Assassin, Falcon Hunter, 2h Knights, Spear Crusader, Blacksmith, etc),
• critical hits (Katar Assassin, certain Blacksmiths, etc),
• low cast times (Wizard, ME and TU Priest, certain Monks, Sage, etc),
• skill procs (Dual Dagger Assassin, Combo Monk, Falcon Hunter, etc),
• skill spam (Double Strafe Hunter, Spear Knight, Bolt Sage, Occult Monk, etc)
• unique skills (Asura Monk (!))

In ESO there is no attackspeed, casttime is present but irrelevant because it's confined to bad skills, skill procs require no dedicated builds but are just class flavor (Burning Light, Implosion) and no single skill is unique enough that it would warrant its own build (besides Blazplar perhaps, but that's not a PvE build).
So what you end up with is that every DD goes for high crit and skill spam - what you might call a rotation. Which also means that every DD build needs a way to sustain that spam because there is no alternative to that gameplay, and thus you get the now year-long pleas to "improve sustain on class x y and z".
But maybe I'm just ignorant.

Man, now I miss my Asura Monk lol.

Whether in PVE or PVP if you're just spamming skills you're doing it wrong if you're aiming for even marginal effectiveness in ESO.

In PVE it's very much a rotation that is deliberate, methodical, and purposely done. Botching your rotation by doing things such as missing buffs and clipping or forgetting to reapply dots continuously will noticeably impact DPS output. A solid, and practiced rotation is what separates high dps from low dps. The two biggest failing of a DPS are lacking situational awareness and slop in their rotation.

In PVP it's focused aggression and a battle of attrition. Spamming nets you out of resources and that gets you dead.

I'll be honest it seems your understanding of the finer point of combat in ESO is very lacking.

In relation to other RPG systems, all of that is still what I called "skill spam" in my post, as that is the defining source of the damage. I'm well aware of the necessity of rotations for max dps. Even RO had lots of self-buffs, although they usually lasted much longer than ESO's and thus were rarely part of a rotation.

Spam means to use the same skill or few skills over and over, and it comes with an implication of mindlessness. It's the polar opposite of a rotation in which order is quite important.

Pibbles wrote: »

There are two key reasons for this.

Firstly, whenever you have variance of components, only a few (or even one) 'build' of those components is viable in a highly functional sense. i.e, we can throw all the components that make a jumbo jet into the air and have a near infinite number of possible assemblies, but only a small handful will fly, and maybe only one or two will fly LHR to JFK in 8 hours without crashing. Or consider all of the extinct variants of human being then compare yourself to all ones natural selection has chosen to live into this generation, you're all pretty similar. ESO builds are really just natural selection with the human as the selecting agent.

Secondly, due to ESO catering for PvP, ZOS always have their eye on balance. It's a lot easier to balance builds when there's only a handful of core skills, but which you disguise with different names and animations. If the game was pure PvE it could have far more variety, but their strategy of 'play the way you want', tends to mean each class needs access to whatever a player may want in terms of skills. And even if this was not the case, you'd still end up with a few viable builds by end-game, because you're always seeking the edge as a player and even just 500 less DPS is something most people won't put up with if they know they can tweak to get more. So they'll tend to gravitate to the same builds.

Whilst there are a huge amount of possibilities, only a handful work when it comes down to it.

Paincake wrote: »

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

You are right, I meant a different Mundus Stone and mixed up their names.

But Giles, what's your point? Just because the skills have different animations and names it is different in the end when Liquid Lightning, Eruption, Blazing Spear do exactly the same? It follows the same pattern. That's my point. In the end it is still the same and as I said, if you arrange your bars all classes are nearly identical in their PvE playstyle. What exactly is unique? The color of your damage?

Thats like saying well life sucks, I mean we are born we live and then we die...its all the same......thats kind of how it all works...not sure what kind of a system youre envisioning...

Probably thinking discrete classes with no overlap that comes from having weapon, guild, and armor lines. I know I miss it from EQ2 sometimes. It was cool having 24 discrete classes.

Masel92 wrote: »

Just try things out. Now with the dps dummies you can literally test everything to max out your personal playstyle. Don't copy someone else's work without thinking, just try out different things and you'll discover cool synergies.

I usually set myself a threshold of 30k single target dps by myself, everything above that is raidmaterial and worth using. Only problem with this is the horrible rng that makes trying things out either ridiculously expensive or involving a horrible grind...

Seraphayel wrote: »

Can someone tell me why nearly all Magicka builds are 50-60% the same even with different classes? I was looking for builds and build ideas in the last weeks and one thing really baffled me: 9/10 builds are literally the same. Those builds follow the same pattern, same skills, same weapon choices, same set choices - not even the class matters anymore. I know this is called "meta" but isn't this a huge problem in ESO?

Most Magicka builds follow this scheme:

Mundus Stone: The Thief

Weapons: Fire Staff + Lightning / Restoration Staff

Sets: Ilambris, Grothdarr, Valkyn Skoria, Burning Spellweave,

Skills:

One spammable skill: Force Pulse or class spammable (Funnel Health, Dark Flare, Lava Lash)
Two AoE ground target skills: Wall of Elements + class AoE (Eruption, Twisting Path, Liquid Lightning, Blazing Spear)
Flex slot (mostly DoTs or proc abilities): Merciless Resolve, Crystal Fragments, Reflective Light, Burning Embers
Finisher: Impale, Mage's Wrath, Radiant Destruction
Crit / Magicka boost: Inner Light and / or class skills (Inferno, Bound Aegis)
Ultimate: Meteor / Elemental Rage

+ healing abilities / shields on the off bar (Healing Ward, Combat Prayer, Dampen Magic, Hardened Ward etc.)

_____________________________

Isn't this super boring? In the end every class has the exact same playstyle for Magicka DPS (in PvE). There is literally no difference. Throw your DoTs and keep spamming your fillers, throw an ultimate, rinse and repeat. It doesn't matter if you're a Sorcerer, Templar, Dragon Knight or Nightblade. You're doing the same rotation with mostly the same skills on all of them. If you arrange your skills right you could play all four classes with eyes closed due to their similarities when it comes to endgame PvE builds.

I know players tend to have the "best" builds for "best" damage but why is it so limited in ESO? This game was advertised as "play how you want" (yes, we know that was never a thing really) but since 12 (?) months or so Magicka DPS has become flat and boring because you literally have 4-5 "must have" skills or items, maybe more.

Why isn't Zenimax adressing this problem and trying to fix this? I mean, do all of you want to play the same as every other Magicka DPS out there? I don't know how it is for Stamina, maybe the same, maybe worse, but as a Magicka DPS I feel limited by the game because it forces me to use skills or items I don't really want to use.

This might be a rant thread for many players out there but I just wanted to discuss this issue. I want your opinion and I really would like to enforce a discussion about this topic (feel free to open up a Stamina thread as well if you think it's necessary). There are soooooooo many skills in game but players only use 20-30% because the rest of them is bad, very bad, terribad etc. - ZOS tries to "fix" these problems, take Scalding Rune as an example. They buffed the DoT damage by 30% in Homestead but... 30% of nothing is still nothing. So why are they ignoring so many skills while they totally overpower others (e.g. Puncturing Sweep - super cheap, AoE, amazing damage plus additional healing - this skill combines all of what's wrong with the balancing in this game).

So... what do you think?

Do you like how it is? Do you think ZOS needs to revaluate many skills? Do you feel a bit bored by the limitations?

Seraphayel wrote: »

Stillian wrote: »

If you actually played it, it feels different to play magic classes.

I don't think so. Tried this with every class. The only difference are the flashy lights, they're either black, yellow, purple or red. In the end it's still the same feeling for all of them PvE-wise.