daedalusAI wrote: »

I just came back after 2 years and as far as skill builds and combat is concerned nothing has really changed.

Skill builds:

• If you want a PvE stamina build you have to use either bow or DW, if you want a magicka build you have to use destruction staff, as weapon skill lines aren't "Pick if you want to" but rather a "You have to pick the corresponding skill lines for magicka/stamina, as class skill lines alone don't suffice to make a complete build on their own", which results in the majority of builds running around with the same weapon skills and just a few different skills here and there
• In theory every class can go either stamina or magicka, but in reality a lot of class skills don't even offer a stamina morph for stamina builds
• Questionable skill scaling like Entropy or Destructive Touch
• I don't know about hybrids, but I reckon a DW magicka caster would be a failure by default due to having to spent on both magicka and stamina, weapon scaling for stamina skills damage and both worlds of stamina and magicka not really meshing very well together

Combat:

• In the grand scheme of things spells are very underwhelming in terms of mechanics and damage done: in longer fights shoot-and-forget-spells like Wall of Elements and light attacks make up the majority of the damage done, while direct damage spells are rather negligible
• Without an impressive magicka/stamina recovery or recovery from secondary effects I'm running dry after only a few rotations across both bars, which forces me to use heavy attacks to get resources back, leaving behind the feeling of being a pathetic and tiny novice who can't even use a few skills/spells in quick succession without being useless
• Weaving is a travesty: if my white attacks contribute a very high percentage of my overall damage in long fights something is really wrong. What kind of a pathetic mage am I that I have to constantly hit something with my staff to 1. get better overall damage numbers and 2. to get a somewhat good skill flow by cutting animations short?

Yeah I agree. This game has made light attacks so important that you can't really get a good parse without them. And this is another reason why there is so many bad DPS in the game.

When they are playing they don't want to do light attack weaves they want to use their class skills. If zos wanted to help players out they would make your abilities and rotation of using them be more important than landing light attacks in between moves.

daedalusAI wrote: »

Combat:
In the grand scheme of things spells are very underwhelming in terms of mechanics and damage done: in longer fights shoot-and-forget-spells like Wall of Elements and light attacks make up the majority of the damage done, while direct damage spells are rather negligible

I'm not sure what you mean by "shoot-and-forget" vs "direct damage spell". What's the difference in execution between a light attack and a spammable like force pulse, for example?

daedalusAI wrote: »

Without an impressive magicka/stamina recovery or recovery from secondary effects I'm running dry after only a few rotations across both bars, which forces me to use heavy attacks to get resources back, leaving behind the feeling of being a pathetic and tiny novice who can't even use a few skills/spells in quick succession without being useless

But then again, only a novice would just spam their strongest attack. Wouldn't an actual master also know what their limits are and how to circumvent them?

daedalusAI wrote: »

Weaving is a travesty: if my white attacks contribute a very high percentage of my overall damage in long fights something is really wrong. What kind of a pathetic mage am I that I have to constantly hit something with my staff to 1. get better overall damage numbers and 2. to get a somewhat good skill flow by cutting animations short?

At the end of the day, no matter how weak light attacks are someone weaving light attacks with skills will always end up doing more damage than someone else just using skills. They are just doing more stuff in the same amount of time.

Stop crying, learn light attack weave and animation cancel. This is what distinguishes a good dps from amateur. nobody forces you to deal 50k+ dps to play the game. You can complete all normal content just pressing whichever buttons you want. “Veteran” content is not for people that are not “veterans” and don’t want to learn the mechanics.
You have no idea of dps parses if you think that spammable attacks are doing less dmg that wall of elements. Direct dmg is 2-3 place after LA.
Why are you complaining about mag sustain? You want to fire skills for an eternity? If 2-3 of your rotations are draining all your mana than something is wrong. In group there must be minor magicka steal, orbs, synergies, some sets that lower skill cost for group. Put some mag recovery glyphs if that is an issue. Put some skills that convert hp/stam into mana. Good dps must never run out of resource and stand still to spam HA

I rather like how in order to do good dps, you need to devote your entire skill bar and gear to it. I remember when good dps just meant spamming impulse over and over, so this has been a massive step in the right direction.

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Yeah I agree. This game has made light attacks so important that you can't really get a good parse without them. And this is another reason why there is so many bad DPS in the game.

When they are playing they don't want to do light attack weaves they want to use their class skills. If zos wanted to help players out they would make your abilities and rotation of using them be more important than landing light attacks in between moves.

This has been one of my issues with the combat system the last two years.

In the past weaving was a thing good players did to rise above okay players, now weaving is a thing good players have to do to complete content.

I have personal reasons for disliking it but still feel it's not as good for the game or making people work better together.

Animation canceling and light attack weaving are a design flaw that people figured out and then it became a so called mechanic with content created revolving such flaw, why go to the trouble of adding animations if to be “good” you must make sure not to see most them? why not just have a static character standing there and input as fast as you can? Telling people they should practice to get better at voiding every visual design as possible and the. back it up saying that this is an action oriented game is the most illogical argument ever made. I would even love to see the development team actually say, “ We worked hard in designing good looking animations and effects so players must make sure they don’t see them in order to be good” such a lovely sales pitch right?

It would require a rework of the animation system unfortunately. All instant attacks, including light attacks, deal damage the exact moment a skill / light attack is triggered. That's a really dated and problematic system, in particular because it means the poor animators working for ZOS have to create animations that are front-loaded with their damage-dealing visuals. They can't make a heavy weapon light attack look slow and heavy to wield for example, having a good wind-up animation before the swing is executed, because that would create a bizarre delay between the damage being dealt and the weapon visually connecting. So heavy weapons swing instantly as though they're made of cardboard, and then your character suddenly pretends their weapon is heavy afterwards, when really you'd want to use your momentum to move into the next swing but can't because of the front-loaded animation requiring a long animation delay afterwards.

Combine that instant-damage problem with animation cancelling - which is a great system for making a combat system feel responsive - and you've got a huge problem. Damage is already dealt regardless of whether an attack animation is allowed to play out. Animation cancelling feels good, but isn't compatible with an instant-damage animation system. You can't kill animation cancelling without making the game feel worse, and you can't retool the animation system to deal damage at a specific animation frame instead of on skill activation without requiring a rework of almost every animation in the game.

For Honor is a great example of what animation cancelling can do with a proper damage-on-animation-connection system. Since attack animations have a wind-up phase, it means you can feint attacks to bait opponents. It means you can read opponent animations and enjoy a reactive playstyle. Try being reactive to light attacks and instant cast skills in ESO, even against regular mobs, and you'll see why this animation system sucks.

They even tried adding a 5 piece set in Murkmire to allow for reactive playstyles: Might of the Lost Legion - blocking an attack grants 3 charges of empower. So you might try and play the game in first person like a traditional TES game, waiting to see an opponent wind up their light attack, blocking as it comes in, then enjoying a heavily buffed counter-attack. Sounds fun on paper! But due to instant damage attacks, as soon as you see an enemy launch a light attack (which barely has a wind up animation anyway due to this limitation, only a wind "down" animation) the damage is already done to you. So you can't react at all. If you see an attack animation starting, it's already too late. You have to stand there like a lemon with your guard up until a light attack comes in anyway. Reactive playstyle is impossible against the majority of attacks, since the majority are instant damage.

One of the worst parts of this community is seeing the constant battle between animation cancelling fans and detractors. Both camps cling to wild and heavily flawed arguments. Very few people understand that animation cancelling is a good system to have (look at For Honor) due to the reactive playstyle it allows for, but that the archaic instant-damage design of ESO's combat system means animation cancelling doesn't work well in this game, since reactive playstyles are impossible. You simply have a combat system that is all about weaving light attacks that don't visually connect, into skill animations that also don't connect, because you've cancelled them into a block. It's a complete mess, and one of the worst combat systems in any MMO. I know it can be hard to see that when you're so accustomed to ESO's combat system, but look at it objectively. It's a complete design failure.

To all ZOS animators - I feel really sorry for you guys and girls I can't imagine how depressing it must be to try and create animations for a system this restrictive and flawed.

daedalusAI wrote: »

If you want a PvE stamina build you have to use either bow or DW, if you want a magicka build you have to use destruction staff, as weapon skill lines aren't "Pick if you want to" but rather a "You have to pick the corresponding skill lines for magicka/stamina, as class skill lines alone don't suffice to make a complete build on their own", which results in the majority of builds running around with the same weapon skills and just a few different skills here and there.

DW/Bow stamina might be the min/max ideal DPS setup, but there are many builds out there that use 2h/bow and bow/bow and pull high DPS. It might not be maximum, but it's good enough for all vet content if you know how to use the build. I don't know if your complaint is "why isn't every single set-up in the game perfectly balanced" or "why does DW/Bow the only stamina set up that works" but if it's the latter, I'll tell you from experience that Bow/2h and Bow/Bow definitely works.

As far as magicka builds, I think it makes sense that destruction staves are the only viable option for dps. As a magicka character, you have a lot more options in using your class abilities to pull DPS because there are often more magicka morphs. In addition, you're probably building for max magicka to get increased magic damage and recovery. Seeing as though destruction staves are a magicka weapon, whose heavy attacks restore magicka and whose skills all require magicka, it only makes sense.

daedalusAI wrote: »

In theory every class can go either stamina or magicka, but in reality a lot of class skills don't even offer a stamina morph for stamina builds

I agree with this, especially Stamina Sorceror. The class doesn't have any real identity and I think even the addition of just 1-2 stamina morphs on any of the abilities could greatly fix that.

daedalusAI wrote: »

Questionable skill scaling like Entropy or Destructive Touch
I don't know about hybrids, but I reckon a DW magicka caster would be a failure by default due to having to spent on both magicka and stamina, weapon scaling for stamina skills damage and both worlds of stamina and magicka not really meshing very well together

There are a few hybrid builds that can work, at least in PvP. A player's skill in ESO will get them further than any build. However, your reasoning already answered your question for you. Building in both magicka and stamina leaves you less room to build in other things that pure staminas and pure magickas can. Less resource pools means less damage, and probably less recovery, which means that you probably won't last in prolonged fights against pure builds.

daedalusAI wrote: »

[*] In the grand scheme of things spells are very underwhelming in terms of mechanics and damage done: in longer fights shoot-and-forget-spells like Wall of Elements and light attacks make up the majority of the damage done, while direct damage spells are rather negligible

AoEs and light attacks are the highest damaged skills in rotations because of their uptime alone. With vMA bows and destruction staves giving increased ticks to endless hail and increased damage from light and heavy attacks in wall of elements respectively, it makes complete sense given those are the BiS PvE DPS weapons. Even if vMA weapons that favors AoEs and light attacks were taken out of the rotation, those would probably still be your highest damage abilities because light attacks cost no resources and you are weaving them between every single skill, and AoEs are exactly how you put it: shoot and forget (until the timer runs out and you need to reapply of course). Spammables and other class abilities you might use in your rotation drain resources will drain resources, and even if you make a mistake of overcasting a buff or abilitiy and you run out of resources, you have your AoEs and light attacks to maintain constant damage so your DPS doesn't drop too drastically.

daedalusAI wrote: »

Without an impressive magicka/stamina recovery or recovery from secondary effects I'm running dry after only a few rotations across both bars, which forces me to use heavy attacks to get resources back, leaving behind the feeling of being a pathetic and tiny novice who can't even use a few skills/spells in quick succession without being useless

This can be a playstyle or build issue. You might not have a build that has enough recovery or you might be overcasting/overbuffing your skills and running dry too fast, I don't know if you mean PvP or PvE.

daedalusAI wrote: »

Weaving is a travesty: if my white attacks contribute a very high percentage of my overall damage in long fights something is really wrong. What kind of a pathetic mage am I that I have to constantly hit something with my staff to 1. get better overall damage numbers and 2. to get a somewhat good skill flow by cutting animations short?

Light attacks are your highest damage ability because it is your most used ability, it makes sense. This game is about maintaining resources and light attacks do just that while maintaining your DPS. I think without the resource mini-game that everyone plays in PvP, dungeons, and trials, this game would be very bland and repetitive. Being able to just spam your rotation without having to worry about resources forever seems pretty boring to me.

Meta builds are a bit more diversified now than a couple patches ago. Before that there was like really hard meta and any alterations would fall behind.

Kel wrote: »

As some one who's just barely competent at animation cancelling, I'd love to see a tutorial on it. Either from Zos themselves (unlikely) or some content creator in the community.
Not only one that explains it ,but shows their hands on both a controller then on a keyboard while doing it.
You could tell me with words all you like, but I think it would be a great boon to the community to actually show the "flow" of the hand movement.

I mean, everyone complains about low dps. Here's a opportunity to help improve that.

I'm an average LA weaver and animation canceller... I do it, just not as fast as a min/max high end player. I improved hugely by watching different tutorials from different content providers online. There are plenty out there, some better than others. Go type it in, "ESO light attack weaving" or "ESO animation cancelling". As you elude to, some guides are poor and not really explaining what is actually happening, some are far better and actually talk about the timing involved and how the player thinks about it and approaches it.

One single tip that helped me, was to think of every skill use as a "skill+LA" unit together. i.e I am not using a skill, or a light attack on their own, I am not thinking about one after the other... instead they are together, doing this helped my timing sub consciously or in some other way, because I improved quite a bit.

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

DjMuscleboy02 wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

Yeah I agree. This game has made light attacks so important that you can't really get a good parse without them. And this is another reason why there is so many bad DPS in the game.

When they are playing they don't want to do light attack weaves they want to use their class skills. If zos wanted to help players out they would make your abilities and rotation of using them be more important than landing light attacks in between moves.

This has been one of my issues with the combat system the last two years.

In the past weaving was a thing good players did to rise above okay players, now weaving is a thing good players have to do to complete content.

I have personal reasons for disliking it but still feel it's not as good for the game or making people work better together.

You do not need to weave to complete content. It helps, sure, but is not absolutely needed.

DPS matters very little at this point in the game, most classes do very good damage with even the most basic debuffs. Damage is so high right now that if you're struggling to clear content, it is 100% on your skill as a player and has next to nothing to do with any particular game mechanic.

20k dps gets you through any content and is more than easily attainable by anyone of any CP level.

No, not even close. It gets player through vet2 dungeons in best case if tank and healer are good, and in all higher content, 20k dps players are simply carried. That's ok if this is guild run and overall group dps is sufficient, but for PUGs I'll never go to any even vet trial with 20k dps.

Sure that's fair. But for the record you can beat most vet trials without any cp at all. So I'll admit it probably not going to get you into a group but it's definitely doable.

daedalusAI wrote: »

I just came back after 2 years and as far as skill builds and combat is concerned nothing has really changed.

Skill builds:

• If you want a PvE stamina build you have to use either bow or DW, if you want a magicka build you have to use destruction staff, as weapon skill lines aren't "Pick if you want to" but rather a "You have to pick the corresponding skill lines for magicka/stamina, as class skill lines alone don't suffice to make a complete build on their own", which results in the majority of builds running around with the same weapon skills and just a few different skills here and there
• In theory every class can go either stamina or magicka, but in reality a lot of class skills don't even offer a stamina morph for stamina builds
• Questionable skill scaling like Entropy or Destructive Touch
• I don't know about hybrids, but I reckon a DW magicka caster would be a failure by default due to having to spent on both magicka and stamina, weapon scaling for stamina skills damage and both worlds of stamina and magicka not really meshing very well together

Combat:

• In the grand scheme of things spells are very underwhelming in terms of mechanics and damage done: in longer fights shoot-and-forget-spells like Wall of Elements and light attacks make up the majority of the damage done, while direct damage spells are rather negligible
• Without an impressive magicka/stamina recovery or recovery from secondary effects I'm running dry after only a few rotations across both bars, which forces me to use heavy attacks to get resources back, leaving behind the feeling of being a pathetic and tiny novice who can't even use a few skills/spells in quick succession without being useless
• Weaving is a travesty: if my white attacks contribute a very high percentage of my overall damage in long fights something is really wrong. What kind of a pathetic mage am I that I have to constantly hit something with my staff to 1. get better overall damage numbers and 2. to get a somewhat good skill flow by cutting animations short?

And, it will ALWAYS be this way as long as people insist on pushing this belief based on hearsay and parses that misrepresent actual gameplay.

Kel wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

Kel wrote: »

As some one who's just barely competent at animation cancelling, I'd love to see a tutorial on it. Either from Zos themselves (unlikely) or some content creator in the community.
Not only one that explains it ,but shows their hands on both a controller then on a keyboard while doing it.
You could tell me with words all you like, but I think it would be a great boon to the community to actually show the "flow" of the hand movement.

I mean, everyone complains about low dps. Here's a opportunity to help improve that.

There is such a guide. Although a bit more PvP oriented and slightly on the too specific side.

But the general idea is still not rocket science. You press "Light Attack", then you press "skill". The basics are really that simple.

Sweet.
Know of one on a controller?

I'm decent at weaving and block cancellations. Weaving I think of like a heartbeat. LA/skill (like the boom/boom of a heartbeat)

More or less just looking for something to further improve.

On a controller it’s really just A, trigger, A, trigger etc. The key is knowing at what point to literally cancel the animation.

Personally I’m a bigger fan of block casting or block canceling in PVP unless it’s a case where you’re sure you can melt someone without them returning fire. A lot of time if you AC and are unsuccessful you’re left with no choice but to flee and or die because you can burn through your resources just as fast as you can AC.