This game makes "L2P" difficult.

Prof_Bawbag · May 2018

I think as a new player (not aimed at OP) the worst thing you can do is to copy and paste someone else's build. On my very first ever toon, I did that and I never learned why i was using skill A rather than skill B. I was just using skill A because someone said i should be using skill A. That can be applied to using certain armours over others, amongst a host of other in game items. You learn nothing.

I re specced that toon and chose my own path. Yeah, some things were terrible and my toon was a complete mess at times, but I learned why skill B sucked and why skill A was the better option. Once it all fell into place, I had learned that toon/class inside out and could hold my own. To this day it's why i main Templars as I'm unwilling to put that effort into any other class. But that's just me, i'm a lazy gamer.

Violynne · May 2018

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Does that help any?

Yes, and no.

I'll use this as a reason why I said "no":

Compare this to the 14.5k with the thief and you have about 30% increase in DPS in our example. This is why you go warrior.

Exactly! This is what I'm learning on my own. For the longest time, I kept The Tower because more stamina = more damage, which is pretty standard knowledge.

But... the 2k stamina increase from Tower pales in comparison to Warrior. Even if I lose the 2k stamina, the Warrior easily makes up for it.

Now I'm trying to determine my crit rate, which seems sporadic and is hard to gauge. I know sneak attacks are guaranteed, and I can use ambush to hit for 22k. That's great for a first hit, and I often get a crit hit using Killer Blade, and I combo these two with my first two attacks.

Seeing the 80% calculation you offered confirms what I'm seeing. Yes!

The reason I'm not seeing the benefits of the Warrior is because I'm not using a rotation. I'm spamming attacks. Stupid, I know, but it'll take me time to stop doing this and start using rotations. As @Riptide said, it's critical I practice and they're not wrong.

As for a practice dummy, no, I don't have one. I don't even know where to get one. They're not in the Crown Store and I've not seen them in merchant lists.

I know what I need to do, and I'm getting there:
-Bar swap: critical for AoE/DoT and direct damage. I don't like the bar swap mechanic, but it's necessary because we're only limited to 5 spells per bar.

- Stop button mashing. Old habits are hard to give up, especially when you're being mobbed. I'm getting better.

- Bashing. I don't do it. I'm an idiot because of it. I keep blocking instead. I also need to pay more attention to the "red glitter" trigger.

- Red zones - mastered. I can dodge roll with the best of them now. I think I do it too much.

My goal is to sustain and fight, not to build and DPS. That comes later.

I'm glad some of you believe I'm okay to do dungeons now, and I will. I didn't think I was ready for any of them, let alone vet.

Question: should I start with the Undaunted quests? I've been avoiding them because they're group dungeons. If they're a great place to start, I'll start there.

Been in this game off and on for 4 years.

It's about time I enjoy what it has to offer instead of sticking with PvE.

Last month, I did PvP for the first time. Died often. Not a single regret. Once I level up some skills and my mount speed, I'm definitely going back in!

Sergykid · May 2018

what i hate the most is that i still don't understand which spells are dots or which are direct damage. The game is bugged in this part, for as information, damage color, procs, and champion points don't match up with the spells.

other things also are about information, like how spells scale and with what. And what actually weapon damage do for example, etc.

Anotherone773 · May 2018

Violynne wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Does that help any?

Yes, and no.

I'll use this as a reason why I said "no":

Compare this to the 14.5k with the thief and you have about 30% increase in DPS in our example. This is why you go warrior.

Exactly! This is what I'm learning on my own. For the longest time, I kept The Tower because more stamina = more damage, which is pretty standard knowledge.

But... the 2k stamina increase from Tower pales in comparison to Warrior. Even if I lose the 2k stamina, the Warrior easily makes up for it.

Now I'm trying to determine my crit rate, which seems sporadic and is hard to gauge. I know sneak attacks are guaranteed, and I can use ambush to hit for 22k. That's great for a first hit, and I often get a crit hit using Killer Blade, and I combo these two with my first two attacks.

Seeing the 80% calculation you offered confirms what I'm seeing. Yes!

The reason I'm not seeing the benefits of the Warrior is because I'm not using a rotation. I'm spamming attacks. Stupid, I know, but it'll take me time to stop doing this and start using rotations. As @Riptide said, it's critical I practice and they're not wrong.

As for a practice dummy, no, I don't have one. I don't even know where to get one. They're not in the Crown Store and I've not seen them in merchant lists.

I know what I need to do, and I'm getting there:
-Bar swap: critical for AoE/DoT and direct damage. I don't like the bar swap mechanic, but it's necessary because we're only limited to 5 spells per bar.

- Stop button mashing. Old habits are hard to give up, especially when you're being mobbed. I'm getting better.

- Bashing. I don't do it. I'm an idiot because of it. I keep blocking instead. I also need to pay more attention to the "red glitter" trigger.

- Red zones - mastered. I can dodge roll with the best of them now. I think I do it too much.

My goal is to sustain and fight, not to build and DPS. That comes later.

I'm glad some of you believe I'm okay to do dungeons now, and I will. I didn't think I was ready for any of them, let alone vet.

Question: should I start with the Undaunted quests? I've been avoiding them because they're group dungeons. If they're a great place to start, I'll start there.

Been in this game off and on for 4 years.

It's about time I enjoy what it has to offer instead of sticking with PvE.

Last month, I did PvP for the first time. Died often. Not a single regret. Once I level up some skills and my mount speed, I'm definitely going back in!

My wife isnt really a "gamer". She will play simple games like hidden items games and other games of that sort. But when it comes to games like ESO, its to much learning for her( she has a job in which she is constantly problem solving and figuring stuff out).

After tempting her with what can be done with housing and crafting in this game. I let her play my magsorc and had her run around a noobie island and pick nodes and open containers. She did ok considering she never played a game like this before. She was like " this hard, to much to learn". Basically what i told her is this is not a game you can learn to play in 10 minutes. And you cant learn to play it all at once. Like most MMOS you have to take the game in chunks( the small picture). Learn to do this or that and when you got that down add to it by learning something new. Eventually you will end up with everything being as easy as tying your shoe. So dont try to learn to much at a time because its not going to stick and likely only make it more confusing and harder to learn.

To address your post directly:

* You can check your crit rate on your character sheet. Any changes applied( even temporary ones from pots) will show the increase there.

* Target dummy: These can be bought off guild traders. On PC you can get humanoid ones for about 70k for a 3 mil hp dummy. You should also be able to get this for writ vouchers from Rolis( the person you turn master writs into) or his furnishing partner though i havent looked in a while( and didnt pay attention to target skeletons when i did). You need a house to stick them in. One with a courtyard is ideal.

* Bar swap/rotations: The elites on here are going to hate me for saying this, but you can achieve decent DPS with a single bar. In fact i can do it with 3 buttons. Is it better to be able to do more? Of course. But you can achieve far more than elite players say you can with 3,4,5 abilities. Take your rotation ( assuming you want to use a 10 button rotation) in steps. Get use to using your front bar first, work in weapon swap and 1 or 2 abilities on back bar. When you get good about swapping and can do it well without messing up your rotation/damage, work in more abilities from your back bar. Got that licked? Now work on using pots.Ideally you want to have max uptime on pots. You can practice using pots cheaply by just using trash pots so you dont burn up your good pots practicing using them. Only use your good pots when your practicing if you are dps testing and not working on rotation memory.

*Button Mashing: This is probably one of the most common issues with newbies why their dps doesnt improve and the easiest one to fix. The game only registers things so fast. So hitting your first ability 10 times a second isnt helping its hurting you. If you watch videos of players that do high parses and watch how they use abilities and attacks. They are very casual about it, not at all rushed. When the anniversary event was going i got in "hurry mode" to complete quests and would mash/spam buttons because i was in a hurry to make things die so i could get the quest done. I noticed a significant drop in dps( since im on pc i can use combatmetrics and constantly monitor dps) of 30-50%. When i saw how low it was and thought something is really wrong here, i realized i was button mashing. I wasnt letting things fire that i should of been, i was double firing some abilities while skipping others and it had everything all messed up so i was just chaotically tossing all kinds of things out randomly. I took a breath slowed myself down and boom instant significant DPS boost. Being in a hurry actually makes you go slower.

*You dont need to roll dodge and bash/block everything. Its a waste of stamina. Moving out of red normally is good enough for most content. In group content the tank should be doing the bashes. In harder content, dodging and blocking become more critical. Its important to learn when and when not to use it because of stamina costs. You dont want to burn all your stamina rolling out of things that barely scratches you.

* You were fine to do normal dungeons at level 15 or 20( whenever they let you start queuing). In normal dungeons no one expects you to be an expert( though seeing a high cp level they will likely expect more out of you than a level 20). Its pretty hard to get kicked out normal dungeons as people of all skill levels do them regularly and if you kicked every subpar person in a normal dungeon it would take you 3 hours to get a group together you want when most of them can be ran in less than 30 minutes with casual fairly new players. The easiest dungeons are fungal grotto I and banished cells. followed by wayrest sewers and darkshade caverns. Base game dungeons are easy on normal overall. You will likely get groups in which you are doing 60-70% of the dps( if you do more than 10k dps on a target dummy). While the elitist theory is that dps should do 100% of the dps and the tank and heals take a nap, in reality it works out to, in a 4 group, the dps each do about 40% dps and tank and heals do the other 20%. In general, normal dungeons dont really matter dps wise. Wipes and deaths are common because of the wide range of players that do them. Vet dungeons( make sure you dont select vet by accident as it will be default for you) are far less tolerant of sub expert players. They are full of BiS geared vets and elitists that are short on patience and abundant on ego and self importance. Its best to not PUG vet content if you want a pleasant gaming experience. A good non hardcore guild that does vet content together is ideal.

*Pledges( undaunted): There are 3 people that give pledges. All pledges give the same reward. Each person has a different dungeon pool it pulls from. You will have an easy dungeon, a harder dungeon, and the hardest dungeons. You can run them on normal or vet. Normal you can run all the pledges . You do get more elitists in pledge dungeons though and its not a great idea to try to learn a dungeon when its on pledge day because people have less patience that day for people that dont what they are doing. But getting kicked even out of normal pledge dungeons is rare. The only real difference between running pledge dungeons and non pledge is people are a bit less patient and you get more elitists and ***. Usually if vet players are doing normal dungeons for pledges its because they are in a hurry and want to blitz it.

*PVP is one of those things where you just die a lot. I prefer Battlegrounds over alliance war because i like quick in and out pvp in ESO. If you want to get serious about pvp you will need to build for it rather than pve. While you can use a pve build in PVP, it does have significant disadvantages. If your ok with dying a lot, its not that big of deal in my opinion

Riptide · May 2018

Helps a little to not see the practice dummy as a pain to do, but relaxing.

I do a 150 mile bike ride once a year, and at the start of the season I’m huffing and pufing, being passed by chubby septugenarians, and just generally miserable. By week 2-3 I slow myself down from last years post training pace, get a bit of wind back, a solid soundtrack, and the daily rides become fun. As in recreation, rather than a soul killer.

Same with guitar, I muck about while watching the ballgame or netflix, and the repitition becomes mind focusing zen.

With the target dummy, I put on the ballgame, mute that, and listen to rock or whatever as I go through. The physical repetition, adding tweaks, etc is good for a mind burdened with the responsabilities and weights of managing people and budgets all day. It really is zen.

Simplify goals. Light attack, skill, light attack skill, through every skill on your bar, switch, do the same. Many times.

Speed it up.

Work on that till you can animation cancel all the way through, by muscle memory.

With only two rules of thumb re: your rotation tweaking, little by little:

1. Keep all your dots running at alm times
2. Keep your buffs up.

That will come together little by little.

But the practice itself is good for a busy mind, its not just a means to an end. Just my take, good luck.

AlnilamE · May 2018

Sergykid wrote: »

what i hate the most is that i still don't understand which spells are dots or which are direct damage. The game is bugged in this part, for as information, damage color, procs, and champion points don't match up with the spells.

other things also are about information, like how spells scale and with what. And what actually weapon damage do for example, etc.

Deals X amount of damage over Y time = DoT as a rule of thumb. Some channels are a bit weird, so you may have to test.

OP, If you are having trouble healing yourself with just Vigor, may I suggest trying out Mark Target/Reaper's Mark? It debuffs the target and heals you when they die. It's a good option to have in places like Maelstrom that have a lot of trash mobs. And Reaper's Mark gives you Major Berserk for 5 seconds when you kill the target, which increases your damage.

Rawkan · May 2018

It's not hard to do "average" in this game. I only looked up builds and stuff after I'd already completed every dugeon and most of the veteran ones. Honestly, following builds makes the game boring to me, especially the meta cookiecutter builds. I play for fun first and foremost, but some people enjoy the meta race. If you don't then do your own thing. Learning what your skills do and finding a playstyle you enjoy is what makes this game fun to me.

Anotherone773 · May 2018

Rawkan wrote: »

It's not hard to do "average" in this game. I only looked up builds and stuff after I'd already completed every dugeon and most of the veteran ones. Honestly, following builds makes the game boring to me, especially the meta cookiecutter builds. I play for fun first and foremost, but some people enjoy the meta race. If you don't then do your own thing. Learning what your skills do and finding a playstyle you enjoy is what makes this game fun to me.

I agree, i rather build my own to suit me than follow a cookie cutter. Its like using a cheat code. I feel the same way about watching youtube videos of mechanics and "researching" though researching is sometimes necessary to learn game mechanics.

I am very much a hands on learner and can learn far more far faster by doing a boss once and wiping a couple of times than i ever could watching youtube videos of the fight for an hour.

IlCanis_LupuslI · May 2018

josiahva wrote: »

And there you run into the problem with other people's builds. It doesnt matter what the build is, its only good if played in this exact way. I suggest ignoring what the best BIS gear is and just play sets that work for your playstyle and favored role. As an example...on my tank I often wear Imperium/Plague Doctor/Chudan. These aren't what are considered BIS tank sets by any means...but I am still able to easily tank the hardest content in the game because this particular combination fits my particular tanking style, BIS or not. The same goes for my DPS gear...its not BIS, but that really doesnt matter...its never worth playing someone else's build...simply find a build that works for you and practice, practice, practice. Swap out skills and enchants often to find what is most effective for YOU. Stop caring about what other people are running. As a DPS, set a DPS goal for yourself and keep changing up skills/rotations/gear until you hit your goal. BIS is BS, quite simply.

@josiahva exactly! I did my flawless conquerer after only 2 runs by taking a pre made pve build for Stam dk by @Alcast (thx BTW) but modified (skills, monster set, ultimate) it to meet my needs for this ordeal.... Build guides are more like guidelines advice what they recommend not technically to be copied 1by1 brainlessy without understanding how it works.

shadowofnarsil · May 2018

@Violynne

As some background context, I have been playing this game for several years, and actually encountered many of the same issues that you outlined, for some of the same reasons. This is my first MMO as well, and I also play as a stamblade (exclusively). I hit 28-30k as a DPS.

Initially, I had no clue about the interactions between equipment sets (and impacts, if any, of character race), the selection of skills, or even the differences in the various types of game content. You asked originally about the skills piece in particular, and your 'why?’ questions are good ones. Conceptually, there were three things in particular that I noticed as time went on, which are relevant to your questions and would have been useful for me to know right at the start, as a DPS:

1. All complete damage rotations function in three phases: buff, spam, and execute - in that order. You mentioned Grim Focus, and there are others (for stamblade), such as Leeching Strikes and Death Cloak, that fall squarely into the buff category. They should be close to or at the start of your rotation.

2. Damage over Time plays a significant role in total damage output. This, combined with the fact that by definition skills that fit here (such as Endless Hail, Rearming Trap and Razor Caltrops) last multiple seconds (sometimes 10-15+) dictates that they also go towards the front of the rotation, after buffs, so that they are up and running the maximum time possible. This leads to an additional point that the real key to good damage production, in addition to a smooth rotation overall, is a stacked damage output where you have buffs running, damage over time ticking, and are spamming (2-3 casts) a damage skill with good damage output (such as Surprise Attack for a DW) at reasonable resource cost - all simultaneously (before restarting the rotation to reset things). The build designs that are all over the web, many mentioned in this thread, for the most part all do this. Finally, execute or ‘finishing’ skills (think Killer’s Blade) are very powerful, and also require you to maintain awareness of a targets health level, so that you can substitute that skill for your spammable on the fly, when appropriate (for example, in place of Surprise Attack, when the target is below 25% health).

3. .....Which leads to a third point. Forget everything I said in point 2. Sort of. The fundamentals of it never change, but what does change is the context and overall level of difficulty of the dungeon, experience of the players in the group, etc. What this means for a DPS is that in some instances, like trash mobs in a normal level dungeon while running with a good experienced crew, it simply doesn’t make sense to do a full rotation as outlined above-the bad guys will be on the ground before you’re through your third skill. I actually modify the rotation a bit when I’m in those circumstances to be more ‘burst’ oriented - albeit still picking from the same skills that I would use as part of a full rotation. A good example of this is using Shrouded Dagger vs Endless Hail. Another example would be skipping to Killer’s Blade from the middle of a rotation, to finish off a target you are near (or can get near to) to grab some health.

I hope this is helpful, and gets at some the ‘why?’ concepts. As for the selection of specific skill A over Skill B, or armor set X over Y.....each of those gets its own thread(s) daily, which it sounds like you already know. I’m happy to share the specifics of my build, if needed (hint: I was a fan of Gilliam the Rogue).

Doctordarkspawn · May 2018

Everything this person says is true.

First MMO or not, this game relies too much on it's community to patch the holes it has in it's ability to teach new players.

Sting864 · May 2018

ReverseVenom wrote: »

join a guild with more knowledgeable members. They can show you the ropes while playing with you to get a feel for how you play. Who knows, they might suggest a whole other class that you might enjoy more

This^^^^^ ZOS can only do so much... PLAYER guilds are there EVERY DAY, doing one thing: playing... They can help immediately...

Violynne · May 2018

shadowofnarsil wrote: »

I hope this is helpful, and gets at some the ‘why?’ concepts.

It is helpful, and thank you. I have read similar information (the Deltia video I watched also explained a few things), and I'll be putting these to use.

One thing Deltia stated, which never once occurred to me, was changing skills between fights and that most seasoned players will change out mob control damage spells for direct damage when facing the boss.

Wow. That one really hit home, and his explanation made perfect sense. Why in the world would I use Steal Tornado when the only boss in front of me is a Lich.

Working all these skills together, along with buff attributes of gear/potions/spells, is definitely hard to learn and you said it perfectly: most of the low-level mobs are easily taken out by the time we're ready to move onto the next wave of rotation (though I will admit this has been extremely effective in public dungeons).

Looks like I'm on the right track.

Tonight, I'm going to find a test dummy. I don't have a house with a courtyard, but I own Cliffshade, and the living room is pretty large.

jerj6925 · May 2018

Violynne wrote: »

I've played this game off and on for the last 4 years, and I'm not ashamed to admit I still don't understand it. Rather, I'm angry because I don't. As much as I see people try to offer help, most of it is wasted on me (and others who are in the same boat).

Analogy: If I give you a list of ingredients to a recipe, what good are they if we don't get what we're supposed to do with them.

But this goes even further: why are you choosing those ingredients!

All I see online are builds, but no information on how to use those builds. It gets worse when trying to learn from the game, which is so poorly lacking in information, it turns into a difficulty.

Let me show you what I mean:
I have a weapon with a fire enchantment. It does "X" damage. Great. But, we all know this damage isn't applied with every hit. What's missing? Two critical pieces of information - 1) Does it hit every time the cool down is over or is it a percentage chance to be applied and 2) What's the gorram cool down?!

Now, let's say I find some gear that says "Applies 150% weapon enchant and lowers the cool down by 50%". Okay... how in the world does this help me when I don't even know what the basic weapons does!

I'm not looking to be BiS or max DPS. I just want to understand how to utilize my skills better so I'm not button mashing all the damn time.

In every video, I see solo players taking on world/dungeon bosses, and most start off with buffing themselves (with what, I have no clue, but I'll get there). Then they attack these things and barely drop an ounce of health.

When I'm looking at basic sets I can craft, I'm trying to learn what perks I can use. Then I see a video like this:
Top 10 Worst Sets and this got me to thinking how in the world anyone knows this stuff. Thank goodness I'm not wearing any of these sets, but can you imagine people out there are and have no clue?

Is it just me or does the game require more information? I see the Skill Advisor has been added, and it's a great start, but what good is it when it doesn't say why these are recommended skills.

So, tl;dr (sorry about that), have any of you seasoned players videos the rest of us can watch where you clearly explain why you chose the skills and how they work?

I can't watch another build video. It's a recipe I can't cook without burning it.

Thanks!

this game use to be for the common gamer, now its for the people who play 8+ hours a day. I log in just long enough to check gold vendor and see if anything has changed then I go play something that's fun.

EvilAutoTech · May 2018

I didn't see it mentioned but if you prefer to spend crowns for a target dummy, you can buy one directly from one of the tabs in the housing editor. I don't remember pricing but the small skeletons are fairly reasonable.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · May 2018

ArcVelarian wrote: »

I will say there needs to be an in-game tutorial on "weaving". It's a little silly to make it a core aspect of DPS and yet have no real mention of it anywhere in the game itself.

It is actually spelled out in the level up adviser. A practical tutorial would be nice, but it is certainly mentioned in game.

Yzalirk · May 2018

Ignore the cookie cutter meta builds. Play around with the classes and establish an opinion on the provided skills, see what you like.

My Templar utilizes a lot of non-meta abilities and he plays great as both a tank and damage dealer in dungeons. I also have no armor sets for the extra bonuses as well.

RedRook · May 2018

Violynne wrote: »

I've played this game off and on for the last 4 years, and I'm not ashamed to admit I still don't understand it. Rather, I'm angry because I don't. As much as I see people try to offer help, most of it is wasted on me (and others who are in the same boat).

Analogy: If I give you a list of ingredients to a recipe, what good are they if we don't get what we're supposed to do with them.

But this goes even further: why are you choosing those ingredients!

All I see online are builds, but no information on how to use those builds. It gets worse when trying to learn from the game, which is so poorly lacking in information, it turns into a difficulty.

Let me show you what I mean:
I have a weapon with a fire enchantment. It does "X" damage. Great. But, we all know this damage isn't applied with every hit. What's missing? Two critical pieces of information - 1) Does it hit every time the cool down is over or is it a percentage chance to be applied and 2) What's the gorram cool down?!

Now, let's say I find some gear that says "Applies 150% weapon enchant and lowers the cool down by 50%". Okay... how in the world does this help me when I don't even know what the basic weapons does!

I'm not looking to be BiS or max DPS. I just want to understand how to utilize my skills better so I'm not button mashing all the damn time.

In every video, I see solo players taking on world/dungeon bosses, and most start off with buffing themselves (with what, I have no clue, but I'll get there). Then they attack these things and barely drop an ounce of health.

When I'm looking at basic sets I can craft, I'm trying to learn what perks I can use. Then I see a video like this:
Top 10 Worst Sets and this got me to thinking how in the world anyone knows this stuff. Thank goodness I'm not wearing any of these sets, but can you imagine people out there are and have no clue?

Is it just me or does the game require more information? I see the Skill Advisor has been added, and it's a great start, but what good is it when it doesn't say why these are recommended skills.

So, tl;dr (sorry about that), have any of you seasoned players videos the rest of us can watch where you clearly explain why you chose the skills and how they work?

I can't watch another build video. It's a recipe I can't cook without burning it.

Thanks!

Gilliam the Rogue has a good video about enchants on YT. I know that was just an example, but I was happy to find it, so I'm sharing.

A lot of important information in ESO is out of sight or intentionally vague. (It's better than it used to be, so there's hope.) People who love to play it are the best source of info. Streamers often explain their reasoning and some theorycrafting while they stream - build videos assume a medium level of understanding or they'd be three times as long.

shadowofnarsil · May 2018

Violynne wrote: »

shadowofnarsil wrote: »

I hope this is helpful, and gets at some the ‘why?’ concepts.

It is helpful, and thank you. I have read similar information (the Deltia video I watched also explained a few things), and I'll be putting these to use.

One thing Deltia stated, which never once occurred to me, was changing skills between fights and that most seasoned players will change out mob control damage spells for direct damage when facing the boss.

Wow. That one really hit home, and his explanation made perfect sense. Why in the world would I use Steal Tornado when the only boss in front of me is a Lich.

Absolutely - Ideally I would actually change multiple skills (3-4), but as a practical matter limit myself to changing one only, and when considering boss vs. mob fights, I actually change based on what I think may be needed mainly from a heal perspective. I run either Death Cloak (no healing but AOE protection), or Blood Craze (some healing but over time, no burst), or in extreme cases Vigor (significant burst healing, but expensive). One replaces the other, all using the same slot on my bar/in rotation, depending on the boss, the group's experience, etc. (As an aside, if I need mob AOE, I will spam Shrouded Daggers - I actually don't run Tornado.)

Good hunting.

Violynne · May 2018

I have an update.

I bought a target skeleton and attacked it how I am playing (button mashing).

My average dps: 7.2k between two sessions. One session was a full stamina bar (38k) and the other was with 36k (food timer expired). I just wanted to see the difference. Took about 7 minutes to finish it off.

What appeared as good damage can hardly qualify as damage.

I was also equally surprised to see my HAs were delivering 7k crit damage (3.5k per weapon) rounded up.

My strongest hits came from Surprise Attack, at 10k+ per hit, all crits. I hit the thing 10 times in a row, and every one was a crit. Interesting. Never noticed this before. Not sure if this was in conjunction with other attacks, but interesting indeed.

I also noticed something peculiar about my button mashing. I'm repeatedly pushing the same button (rapid strikes). I know this is a typical spam spell, but I never realized how much I'm actually pressing it.

Good test, this was. Clearly shows my weaknesses.

Okay, time for some goals:
1) level more skills
2) Work on 10k. Baby steps.
3) Learn to control
4) Bash, damn it. Not block.
5) Learn to work spells/hits together

This will take a couple of weeks. Most of my NB skills are locked because I ignored them.

Time to get busy.

Azuramoonstar · May 2018

JKorr wrote: »

Azuramoonstar wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

My question is: is this your first MMO? (I'm not trying to be snarky or shady or what have you, it'd make it easier to understand where you're coming from if that question is answered.) If it is, then it's understandable. When you first start playing MMOs, you get all sorts of these things and mechanics that you've never seen before (mainly because single player games don't have them), and it's very, very easy to become confused and disorientated.

i'm not new to MMO but eso does the MMO genre different. MMo no longer are about making builds.

This game plays more like dungeons and dragons in a lot of aspects, which even to vet mmo players looks daunting.

I tried this game out just before morrowind launch but got flustered quick at the weird class/race/stat system. And the level up and attribute and skill points.

I recently came back, and still really unsure what I'm doing. I'm having fun though. I am playing a khajiit warden, with a destruction ice staff main weapon, and restoration staff sub weapon. Putting my points into health and magic.

I have 1 bar for tanking, 1 bar for healing. I'm leveling all 3 of my class trees, heavy armor, restoration staff and destruction staff skills. I like some of the new changes, like the level up rewards. The lil tips. Game can be a lil but better with tool tips.

The original game started out as one type of thing, simply a fighting game. The title for that game was about the only thing that survived the changes that happened: Arena. Apparently the devs did play d&d style games....

Arena started, as the name might suggest, as a medieval-style gladiator game. You had a team of fighters and went around the world fighting other teams in each city's arena until you became grand champion in the Imperial City.
The world used for Arena was Tamriel, the fantasy world created by a few members of the staff for use in their weekly D&D campaign. During development of Arena, more and more RPG elements were added -- what if you could walk around these cities? What if you could take your team into a dungeon? And soon it was clear what Arena needed to be -- a full-blown RPG.
Inspired by such games as Ultima Underworld and the unheralded Legends of Valour, Arena was now seen as a massive first-person RPG -- the game that recreated the pen-and-paper RPG experience -- be who you want and do what you want. For a long time Arena was a party-based game, where you lead a group of adventurers. This style of play proved less fun in first person, so Arena became a single character game.

Arena was to be the first chapter in an ongoing series of games, so the series took its name from Tamriel's mystical tomes of knowledge that told of its past, present, and future -- The Elder Scrolls.

Original concept of Arena: https://www.imperial-library.info/content/go-blades

I know about arena lol. I am a TES fan

though i started with tes morrowind, it was my first 3d large open world game. I started gaming in the 80s on the nes. I'm just saying MMO wise, games don't follow the D&D Pnp style level up systems. You have preset classes with preset weapons. And just train up/ level up.

this game goes the D&D pnp route of more free form with selecting a race, a base class but you are free to build your character as you see fit. Which for ppl not used to that in MMO it can take time to get used to. I actually plan on restarting to play altmer as i don't feel I'm strong enough as a khajiit in what I want to do. I also didn't realize a lashes i bought doesn't work on khajiit.

But i love that about ESO, to me ESO feels like how mmo SHOULD be. A large open world to explore, the ability to build your character as you see fit.

WoW and FF14 are too on the rails, and limit exploration way too much. I just wish i had access to the Imperial race so i could make my TES 3 character in ESO. I was a bald imperial named balmoria (this as after a few test characters) which i played for 1 year straight. It kinda funny because i made it male by complete accident, but i stuck with it, and had a blast.

Nestor · May 2018

Violynne wrote: »

Now I'm trying to determine my crit rate, which seems sporadic and is hard to gauge. I know sneak attacks are guaranteed, and I can use ambush to hit for 22k. That's great for a first hit, and I often get a crit hit using Killer Blade, and I combo these two with my first two attacks.

- Bashing. I don't do it. I'm an idiot because of it. I keep blocking instead. I also need to pay more attention to the "red glitter" trigger.

Last month, I did PvP for the first time. Died often. Not a single regret. Once I level up some skills and my mount speed, I'm definitely going back in!

Turn on the flying numbers in the Combat Settings. Normal Hits are White, Criticals are Yellow. More Yellows, more Criticals. I will say that once your around 75% to 80% Critical Chance from your gear and build, look to more Weapon/Spell Damage or Sustain (either Regen or Cost Reduction). Best way to adjust these numbers are with Glyphs you make for your Jewelry, as you can change those pretty easy.

Bashing can cost a lot of Stamina, and the Hits are more like the Off Hand from Dual Weild. Better to save your Stamina for Dodge Rolling, Blocking and of course Skills. This does not mean you should never Bash, just maybe not part of your rotation.

PvP is a different animal all together. I will tell you that going over there Solo will just lead to a bad experience and lots of deaths. Instead go with a Guild, or, do a Looking for Group Will Stay on Crown in Zone Chat. You will have a lot more fun. Not saying you won't die less, but you will get rezzed more often than not, and if the whole group wipes, you can all rezz at some keep and fight again. You will accomplish things far easier than Solo, even if your tagging along with a group but not part of it.

zaria · May 2018

plutosshadow wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

N2woR wrote: »

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

i don't believe this thread.

i learned combat in this game by figuring out how to beat doshia (before the nerf). this was just after launch. figured out how to weave and kite, keep moving and keep your resources up.

again for the people here this was back just after launch.

you really need someone to tell you how to play a game?

We had time to learn back then, everyone was new. Today there’s no such chance for the Op or new players to learn, most want them booted out of dungeons the second they see their cp or lack of. We grow with the game, working out weaving, sets etc along the way, content creators put all that was learnt out there for others to catch up on because learning outside the game is the only way new players will learn these days.... sad but true

More an issue that you queue for random dungeon as low level character and get grouped with one cp400 doing random normal, one cp720 who farm the weapon and an cp200 needing quest. yes it was an fast run but you did not learn anything.

I definitely had this experience. Even though I joined with some other friends who were new, because of timezone differences we didn't get to play together much so dungeons were PUG or nothing during the week, and dungeons became largely either "run after all the people who know just what they are doing and learn nothing" or just dread. All the guides I could find by googling just... weren't that clear, not sure if I was just not finding the good ones or what. (I prefer written guides...) I'm still actually afraid to let my CP get too high until I properly learn every dungeon's mechanics for fear of being that max-CP character who knows nothing, but there are still dungeons that I'm rather clueless on, usually because I've barely had the chance to do them. (I came from a game where there were first 8 then 10.5 dungeons - the amount ESO has is mindblowing to me ha ha.) I actually *enjoyed* vet Maelstrom because I could kind of clumsily and slowly learn the mechanics and work things out for myself while not burdening others, haha.

I do think since weaving is actually more or less required for decent DPS in this game, some kind of clue about it in game would be really nice. I had no idea. I came from a game where it was builder-consumer, it didn't even have an auto/light attack, so it wasn't very natural for me to think about the light attack (I mostly ignored it until I ran out of skill resources at first). And I'm still not sure if I'm doing it right, pretty sure I'm not since 50% of the time it doesn't even seem like my light attack goes off.

Also yeah - the ease of overland content doesn't help things much. I can just spam whatever while questing. But I do think that happens in many games...

Guides, yes remember wanting to improve my templar back then I had around 200 cp, goal was 20k dps.
was around 13K, shard, wall of elements, sweep until need to reapply dots.
Guide had an complex two bar rotation, the buffs took me to 15k, but the complex rotation did not work or rather I spent less time sweeping who was most of my damage.
Found that spawning while keeping Entropy up and spawning dark flare took me to 18K, gave up made templar an healer, never looked back.
In short the guides did not work, no it was not skill I used an keyboard macro to get an very good target dummy parse.
Asked in this forum and advice was like getting vMA weapons

Yes very realistic and helpful.

DoctorESO · May 2018

The amateur knows "what."

The professional knows "how."

The master knows "why."

ArchMikem · May 2018

Nestor wrote: »

This one of those games where almost everything is easy, once you know how.

That's a very important part of your statement. The game can become easy, but it's not inherently easy.

Azuramoonstar · May 2018

DoctorESO wrote: »

The amateur knows "what."

The professional knows "how."

The master knows "why."

this

no truer words spoken.

Androconium · May 2018

This is TES. Not MMORPG.

That means that you play at your own pace and with whatever elements of the game that you find enjoyable.

You don't have to acheive anything.

Some posters here, along with ingame players, don't actually get that.

Azuramoonstar · May 2018

Androconium wrote: »

This is TES. Not MMORPG.

That means that you play at your own pace and with whatever elements of the game that you find enjoyable.

You don't have to acheive anything.

Some posters here, along with ingame players, don't actually get that.

ESO is an mmorpg, most early mmo let you play at your own place, in a large open world. After wow MMo became on the rails a lot.

I used to play ff11 which was open world sandbox. Play at your own pace. Most mmo are very much on the rails, ff14 being more on the rails. Depending where you start, you have a restricted exploration area. Which is a being reason I quit ff14, that and the cash shop was getting too ridiculous and the community tanked.

But ESO is very much an mmorpg.

Linaleah · May 2018

lassitershawn wrote: »

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

lassitershawn wrote: »

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

Combat in general in this game is counter-intuitive if you've played other MMOs or even rpgs in general. I love this game for a number of reasons, but the combat is a huge point of frustration for me.

In summary, there are 3 reasons why "L2P" is so difficult for new players, and why there is a such a huge dps disparity between new players and the "pros".

1) The rigid, new player-unfriendly UI. Bar swapping is an admittedly creative way to add pointless complexity to combat, and fixing the cursor means that any of us who prefer clicking our abilities are SOL. ESO's UI is "adapt or die", and those who are unwilling to change their entire playstyle that they've built over years of MMOs and RPGs will fall behind.

2) The lack of a real global cooldown and the bizarre embracing of a broken, exploitable system in the name of making things "more fast paced". Having light attacks and heavy attacks being additional elements to combat is a cool idea, but it just makes things too complicated in practice. Those who can integrate it into their rotation and clip animations flourish, and those who cannot suffer. It is the single greatest reason behind the dps disparity we see today.

3) Very short durations on pretty much everything, which serve to make rotations more punishing and necessitate even more bar-swapping. Between both MMOs I used to play, there were maybe 5 DoTs that had 10s or shorter durations. Most have 15 or even 20-30s. 8-10s DoTs and 20s self buffs make rotations brutal, which is only exacerbated by the bar swapping nonsense.

Again, there is a lot I love about ESO, but they decided to "go their own way" when it came to combat and wound up with a system that you have to rebuild yourself from the ground up to learn, and even then you might not be very good at it.

By "clicking our abilities" do you mean scrolling over with the cursor and clicking them? So if I want to cast LL followed by a Mages' Wrath I have to manually move to and then click on each one (and target LL as well)? That seems like it would serve no purpose other than making combat ridiculously slow paced.

It seems like all of your suggestions are designed to slow down the pace of the game, which I definitely do not agree with. Fast paced combat that requires paying attention to multiple things at once is one of my favorite parts of this game.

Here's the problem. Your "fast paced combat" is pretty much directly opposed to every other Western MMO on the market that has some semblance of flow and GCD to it. Dpsing in this game looks like "artistic" (read between the lines there) spazzing compared to them. The whole point of a GCD is to prevent crazy / janky motions like you see in this game, and give the player a second (literally) to process their next action.

"Fast paced combat" is what is causing the best players to do 40k dps and the worst to do 5k. There are other reasons, but this is the main one. If there were a GCD, one ability bar, and longer DoTs, you'd see that 5k jump to 15k and the 40k drop to 30k.

"Fast paced combat" isn't worth all the trouble it causes. WoW understood that. Rift understood that. Guild Wars understood that (I think? I didn't play it for very long but I think it had a gcd). ESO wasn't designed by anyone knowledgeable about the genre, which is why we have oddities like weaving and light / heavy attacks on top of abilities to begin with.

I guess the bottom line is that what you and the "elite" players want, isn't good for the game as a whole. It contributes to the huge disparity that causes new players to get kicked out of dungeons and belittled wherever they go.

1. As far as I can tell this game is the best MMO on the market.

2. Maybe I'm alone in this but weaving doesn't look too bad to me, at least with staves. I actually like tossing out another fireball between attacks. The exception is bar swap canceling but as long as bars exist this is unfortunately necessary because otherwise you can be stuck in a long-ass animation like blockade when you badly need to bar swap and shield. If animations are the issue they could work on animation transitions and still keep combat fast-paced.

3. Nobody starts out doing 40k DPS. I'm not sure what the aversion of so many players is to seeking out help but almost all good players will be helpful if you ask for it. Asking for help isn't frowned upon at all and shows that you are interested in improving, not a carry. Most people are more than happy to share their knowledge, teach rotations, teach mechanics, teach weaving, etc. There are even guilds dedicated to this.

IMO, this game is one of the better MMO's on the market despite its combat, not becasue of it.

Marginis · May 2018

I can't offer too much in the way of helping specifically - a big part of the reason is that I agree, and in large part I am in a similar boat - but this isn't just an ESO problem. What with how gaming communities have developed in recent years, games have taken to relying too much on community knowledge and online research over transparent mechanics and game accessibility. The systems ESO uses, as an MMO, only serves to intensify this problem.

It is possible to learn how the game functions, and it is often less complicated than it is made to seem (by those who already know what's up and assume everybody else either does or should), but it does require a lot of individual investment and experience (and testing). I can't say I'm an expert, but after four years with ESO I've learned at least the basics of what I should do in combat, and I've made competent (if not terribly great) builds.

I just wish the game were a little more basic, or transparent, or accessible, or user friendly, or any combination of those things, so I could just hop into ESO and enjoy the game as much as I enjoy Battlefield 1, or Mass Effect 2, or Fable (or TESV). I have some suggestions, but the routes to doing this are so open I just wonder why ZOS would even need them sometimes.