Confused about playing styles, help!

madridgirl7 · July 2019

After months of playing the game and leveling up a bow/bow stam nightblade in solo pve, i decided to join a guild and learn pvp. I’ve researched builds, group tactics, etc... and realized I had a lot of improvement to do. So I ended up copying alcast’s nightblade stam build and have been learning to play with a rotation and weaving.

BUT playing this new way is making me all kinds of grumpy. Im totally willing to go with it tho, if it gets better results in the end, but can somebody explain to me why my previous method of playing wasn’t as effective?

Here’s what I used to do: sneak up, snipe to stun, spam snipe until someone got too close, then draining shot to knock them back and then dark cloak to heal. Now that I’m using Alcast’s skill setup with the weaving I can see how the AoE effects really help, but the second multiple enemies converge on me, I’m dead. There’s no immediate heal aside from potion and there’s no knock back. Is it that the Alcast build is designed for pvp and I would have to worry about those things less in a group? Or maybe I’m just on a brutal learning curve?

The frustrating part is I really want to understand the dynamics of why my old style of play doesn’t work as well, but I often get lost in the lingo on the forum posts. Help!

madridgirl7 · July 2019

Also, to be clear I’ve never played pvp before and really am not invested in doing it, but I do want to get strong enough to run vet content with a group.

Streega · July 2019

1. Alcast's builds are very demanding (but of course efficient), more job than fun for me;
2. Ask your guildies for help, explaining all this on forum is rather difficult. With your "old" routine you probably lacked proper rotation (DPS) and used wrong gear.

My advice is: play with various builds, find what suits you the best. Alcast is a highly experienced, elite player probably with the best PC setup you can get. What works for him may not be the best for you.
And foremost, enjoy the game.

sudaki_eso · July 2019

If your old playstyle kept you alive while also be able to kill people then i would say there is nothing wrong with it

There is always room to improve, like @Streega suggested, try different sets and skills and simply pick what suits you the most and you have fun with, dont restrict yourself by copying a meta build.

Vyvrhel · July 2019

madridgirl7 wrote: »

So I ended up copying alcast’s nightblade stam build and have been learning to play with a rotation and weaving.

While I highly respect Alcast - as somebody once said, playing a build somebody else devised is like wearing his underwear. You need a build which would suit YOUR playstyle, but OFC using Alcast as a starting point is not a bad idea.

My advice would be to go to PTS aka test server. Here you can freely experiment with builds, you can start with a top level char with unlimited resources, maxed SP and everything, so this is the best laboratory to test your own ideas.
Start with Alcast build and adjust to your own needs. Experiment with sets and traits. Practice PVP with your friends. It is a "wasted" time since the PTS characters are just temporary but - and this comes from my own experience - it saves a HUGE amount of gold you will waste when experimenting on the live server.

jeedrzej · July 2019

Are you aware of fact, that alcast's pve builds are designed for dungeons and trials where you have a healer right? They are focused on damage becouse they are dd group pve builds.

By your words "multiple enemies converge on me", I assume you play rather solo pve... Alcast's build arent ment for solo pve begginers/casuals.

madridgirl7 · July 2019

Thanks! I did love my old play style, but I had really hit a wall with it. I couldn’t run in groups and I was running out of solo content. Plus I felt like at level 325 I should just be stronger. I do realize alcast’s builds are for group runs and that is what I want to do, but I guess I didn’t realize how much difference it would make? I mean, I see solo players wiz by me all the time easily striking down all the “skeever” characters with one pass, so I thought “man, I’m really doing something wrong”. But maybe it is just a matter of reslotting skills to work for each situation and taking more time to develop my technique (rotation).

madridgirl7 · July 2019

I like the pts idea. Unfortunately I play on a ps4. That’s not an option for me then, right?

Vyvrhel · July 2019

madridgirl7 wrote: »

Plus I felt like at level 325 I should just be stronger. I do realize alcast’s builds are for group runs and that is what I want to do, but I guess I didn’t realize how much difference it would make?

Alcast builds are not just for groups, but rather for organized group which plays regularly together. Meaning that if you join pug, you will not have half of the buffs Alcast expects you have.

325 is not much and you will get much better later so do not worry much.
Also for soloing you are better off with different skillset, if you want to use Alcast as a base for your own build, start with the version for Maelstrom Arena, which is a build designed for soloing of difficult content.