How is it really, for the non-meta builds at end game?

Glurin · May 2020

thorwyn wrote: »

One prime example are the tanks with 60k hp who think that taunting and staying alive is tanking.

That actually is tanking. Pretty much by definition.

It's not great tanking, or the most efficient, but it is tanking.

Well, unless he's dragging that boss right into the DPS and healer while he's at it I suppose. Otherwise, yeah. Keep the boss on you, stay alive, aim him away from everybody else. That's tanking in a nutshell. Everything else is icing on the cake.

mairwen85 · May 2020

I don't think its elitist in a game in which a large portion of combat and gear is mathematical to understand that certain combinations will always be better than others. The old 'copy/paste' or 'cookie cutter' method is possibly the least elite thing you can do; it's taking what is proven and adopting it - - that's not elitism, just common sense. In the same context, it's probably more elitist to disregard all that purely for ego stroking or just to be different. I'm not hating on off-meta, I actually like to play around and theory craft too, but any time you come up with something that is a liability to your group, or underperforms, you have to take it on the chin should people pass comments on it. I've seen and met players who can make anything work, and it's great the game gives so much freedom to explore and experiment, and even content creators like dottz and alcast say to do so, tweak what they provide, and to come up with your own... Meta is meta for a reason, but it isn't or shouldn't be a lockout, rather, understanding the what and why of it should be used to achieve and clear content, whatever form that takes.

Mancombe_Nosehair · May 2020

But I was under the impression from people on the forum that trials don't work, the game is dead, the walls of society are collapsing, and we are all going to end up living in tree houses?

Lisutaris · May 2020

More difficult content , more optimized setups required.

No one cares about your race, as long as you are not part of a high endgame high score/leaderboard grp.
Everyone there is maxing out, so it's also required for you.

Sets are a more difficult topic.
Most raids (premade) try to have a good setup with buffs/debuffs. As long as you can provide yourself useful, like having alkosh, ebon armory, ... as tank, you should not have to worry at all. If it's only purple quality and not everything goldened out or perfect trait ? As long as it's not veteran HM trials , no one should complain.
Well, as long as you can do your job ofc. If you can manage without having, let's say sturdy /bracing on a tank and still get little dmg because you can block everything... fine... do it, if you are having problems and die alot ... that's your answer, not optimized enough.

Same goes for DD, if you can do your job and deal good dmg, no1 cares about sets/enchants. As mentioned before, leaderboard or "real endgame" grps are a different story. There you don't want to have good dmg, but the best dmg.

Long story short:
As long as you can do your job and fullfill your role (buffing/debuffing as tank or heal is also your job

)no one will complain as long as you are not in leaderboard/HM/Achievment grps.

If you know how to play dd, even crafted sets will give you enough dmg boost to do every veteran content ingame, with no problems at all. Provided you know how to use your champion points, skills and what's light attack weaving.

daemonios · May 2020

Lordy, the amount of FUD on these threads

Nobody cares what your race/class combo is unless you're trying to get into serious trials groups or achievements runs. You're far more likely to be called out on your CP level if queuing for some of the harder DLC dungeons.

You will not be kicked from a group by not following one of Alcast's builds, which nobody can tell anyway because ESO has no gear inspect. Btw, did Alcast steal your ice-cream or something? He just posts builds that you choose to follow or not to follow. Why all the hate?

Whatever you class/race choice, do try to learn to play your role. Tanks will appreciate you if you don't run ahead and ruin pulls, making it difficult or impossible for them to stack everything together so it can all be killed faster. DDs will appreciate tanks that CC enemies, debuff them and keep them in AoE, as well as healers who besides keeping an eye on your health throw you synergies and buffs to increase your damage and resource recovery. Healers will appreciate tanks and DDs who don't move around needlessly, know when to get out of stupid, and block/dodge heavy-hitting blows. Everyone appreciates DDs who can kill stuff in a reasonable time, and no, you don't need an 80k+ parse on a trial dummy.

If you don't know a dungeon's mechanics, read/watch a guide, or say so in chat. Don't just sit there wipe after wipe hoping nobody notices you don't know what to do. Pay attention to chat and respond if possible. Many people, myself included, have no problem quickly going over mechanics before a boss fight.

In short, play as you want is a thing, and while it doesn't mean you can be the best at all things by going your own way, you can still be more than good enough for any sort of content regardless of race/class combos provided you still bother to play your role well.

deleted221106-002999 · May 2020

The dk healer in your (OP) example is tricky. As others have mentioned in pugs expect to be kicked/reviled by the uninformed (anecdote: dd left group after imperiously stating that a 'dk healer was incapable of healing end-game content' - which was hilarious given that the 'end-game content' referred to was normal wgt!).

If you're running something non-standard like a dk healer - and I think it's a good thing to do - do it to learn the challenges involved in the role. Sometimes, when you go back to your more 'mainstream' support role class/race combination you are far better in that role because of that experience.

thorwyn · May 2020

That's tanking in a nutshell. Everything else is icing on the cake.

The icing is a requirement if you want to succeed in endgame trials, which is what OP is talking about.

the1andonlyskwex · May 2020

Chelo wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

I once got kicked from a group right before the final boss when the tank realized I was a dragonknight and declared that anyone other than a templar couldn't be a healer and convinced the others to vote kick me.

And this was a group where we were steamrolling normal darkshade caverns 1 and nobody in the entire run had dropped below 90% health.

Afterward, the tank even sent me a hate message about how anyone healing with anything other than a templar was ruining the game for everyone else.

Aside from that kind of prejudice, you can definitely get through any (normal or vet) dungeon content healing on any class, although it certainly is easier with some builds than others.

I can't really comment on trials, but the same is probably true there, although you might need multiple roles running non-meta classes to make sure you have all of the necessary buffs/debuffs covered.

Base game normal dungeons can be done solo. Veteran trials are completely different.

Imagine the game like this.

Overland content: playing any game in "very easy difficulty"

Base Game and DLC Normal Dungeons: Very Easy difficulty.

Base Game Normal Trials: Easy difficulty.

Base Game Veteran Dungeons Hard Mode: Easy difficulty.

DLC Normal Trials: Normal difficulty.

Base Game Veteran Trials: Normal difficulty.

DLC Veteran Dungeons Hard Mode: Normal/Hard difficulty.

DLC Veteran Trials: Normal/Hard difficulty.

That's part of my point. I got kicked for being a DK healer from content where it didn't even remotely matter.

I've also pretty regularly PuG healed hard mode DLC dungeons on the same character. That said, I did eventually go back to queueing for my daily random in normal mode, because I'm not good enough to carry really bad groups through most vet DLC dungeons (which, with my skill level, is probably still true for any race/class combo).

Elwendryll · May 2020

So, I play a khajiit sorcerer, I'm a decent DD (~88k dps), and over the last 5 months I started tanking, and even more recently, healing.

I cleared all the trials HM, vAS+2 as an offtank, vCR+3 as a main tank.

I don't think khajiit sorcerer tank is considered meta. I run with very open-minded people, the results talk. I still run meta gear, but other than that I really have my own build. To me, you can go as off-meta as you like as long as it doesn't require your group to build around you to make it work. If you do have a group willing to build around you, then you shouldn't be worried about meta or not.

Drdeath20 · May 2020

We are all thankful to the innovators.

Twilanthe · May 2020

I was doing dungeons yesterday and we got a tank that was using a resto staff. They pulled the boss with it, and I only ever noticed them doing light or heavy attacks or using skills that appeared to be self-targeted, like buffs and self heals maybe. I never saw them swap weapons (unless they had restro staff both bars) so I never saw sword and shield or frost staff, and I didn't see him using Inner Fire, so from what I can tell he didn't have any kind of taunts.

Is there any main bar resto staff tank builds you know of?

Also, if I were to go with a more mainstream healer, something like breton templar or whatever, can a good healer carry a bad group?

Chelo · May 2020

Twilanthe wrote: »

I was doing dungeons yesterday and we got a tank that was using a resto staff. They pulled the boss with it, and I only ever noticed them doing light or heavy attacks or using skills that appeared to be self-targeted, like buffs and self heals maybe. I never saw them swap weapons (unless they had restro staff both bars) so I never saw sword and shield or frost staff, and I didn't see him using Inner Fire, so from what I can tell he didn't have any kind of taunts.

Is there any main bar resto staff tank builds you know of?

Also, if I were to go with a more mainstream healer, something like breton templar or whatever, can a good healer carry a bad group?

In Dungeons as long as tank can maintain agro and not die, he can use a bow if he wants. Dungeons (normal and veteran) are entry level content.

A healer can't "carry" a bad group unless you are doing the damage too.

If your group does like 2k dps, and don't know mechanics, you are going to have a hard time unless you start doing dps and basically end up clearing the dungeon by yourself.

When I do Dungeons with PUGs (using Dungeon Finder), I go with a solo build and I don't even waste time reviving people, I clear everything as fast as possible by myself.

If I going to do more serious stuff like achievement runs, I go with a pre-made group.

Knightpanther · May 2020

Hey OP come to Cyrodiil, we don't care what your build or gear is, we are totally inclusive in fact you will often get praise for trying something different.

If you do no CP campaign there is no set cookie cutter build because shock horror its actually down to how good you are as a player (hard concept to grasp coming from dungeons!).

Be Safe, come to PvP and let your hair down !!

Varana · May 2020

Twilanthe wrote: »

I was doing dungeons yesterday and we got a tank that was using a resto staff. They pulled the boss with it, and I only ever noticed them doing light or heavy attacks or using skills that appeared to be self-targeted, like buffs and self heals maybe. I never saw them swap weapons (unless they had restro staff both bars) so I never saw sword and shield or frost staff, and I didn't see him using Inner Fire, so from what I can tell he didn't have any kind of taunts.

Is there any main bar resto staff tank builds you know of?

Also, if I were to go with a more mainstream healer, something like breton templar or whatever, can a good healer carry a bad group?

Did he keep aggro on the boss? Inner Fire is not very noticeable.

There are only a few abilities that taunt - Puncture (1HShield), Inner Fire, frost staff heavy attack, and the Tormentor set. If they kept aggro, they were using one of those things.

As for resto staff in general, I know someone who tanks vet trials as a Khajiit with a resto staff back bar. (They do use 1HShield on the other bar, though.) It's not a bad idea, really.
Is it the best? Probably not. But that's a good thing about ESO - many of these somewhat "off-meta" builds do work up to a very high level.

Jaimeh · May 2020

Twilanthe wrote: »

I hear a lot on both sides, if I go googling enough I get responses from it doesn't matter to it 100% does and everywhere in between.

But how is it really? If I want to make a Nord Dragonknight Healer, or a Bosmer Nightblade Tank, am I excluding myself from higher end game content? Will I get vote kicked out of vet dungeons the second I set foot in one? What would be my glass ceiling? Vet dungeons? Normal trials?

Do people have any luck theory-crafting their own builds, or does everyone at the higher end have cookie cutter builds?

For anything other than a dps, you can make it work, and do very well with almost any combo, if you know your role and class. You will just have to go around sustain issues and get creative with your skills. And even when it comes to a dps there's some leeway; for example, orc is best for stamina, but a redguard, dunmer, khajiit can work as well, with a small damage loss, at equal skill. Again, if you know your role, and can perform well with it, no one will kick you because your character is not the BiS/FotM class/race combo.

Rake · May 2020

in PvP non meta is unplayable, unless megazerging

Ratzkifal · May 2020

The glass ceiling is somewhere on the transition from veteran trials to veteran trial score runs, although healers and tanks feel it a lot less than dps do.
Unless we are talking about gear. The wrong gear choice can already make you unable to complete veteran trials.

D0PAMINE · May 2020

Twilanthe wrote: »

I hear a lot on both sides, if I go googling enough I get responses from it doesn't matter to it 100% does and everywhere in between.

But how is it really? If I want to make a Nord Dragonknight Healer, or a Bosmer Nightblade Tank, am I excluding myself from higher end game content? Will I get vote kicked out of vet dungeons the second I set foot in one? What would be my glass ceiling? Vet dungeons? Normal trials?

Do people have any luck theory-crafting their own builds, or does everyone at the higher end have cookie cutter builds?

I have a Breton DK Healer wearing Symphony, SPC and Hiti with a Master resto. Hiti front barred with nirn trait. I healed vDSA with it easily and have done several vDLC dungeons. It would work in some trials but it's not a leaderboard build. I've had no issues with it and neither have my guildies. I spec'd it to put out powerful HoT's due to the lack of burst heal (although with major mending and spell power pots my radiating regen is over 26k).

http://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=208020

Just swap Barrier and Warhorn slots. They're on the wrong bar in that build setup.

Knightpanther · May 2020

Rake wrote: »

in PvP non meta is unplayable, unless megazerging

HAHA rubbish any build is viable if you no how to play it well.

Be Safe

Starlock · May 2020

Hamish999 wrote: »

Housing is perfectly fine in off meta gear and setups

Edit: everyone knows housing is the true endgame.

And fashion. And creativity. Especially with the storytelling that is roleplaying.

In seriousness, though, the term "endgame" confuses the crap out of me. To me, those words mashed together imply the end of the game. You know, an actual end? Game complete? Time for new game plus, or play through number two? Or just playing a different game? What kids these days call "endgame" is really just repetitive, grindy content that exists for... honestly, I haven't quite figured that one out yet. Probably never will.

Iarao · May 2020

Twilanthe wrote: »

I was doing dungeons yesterday and we got a tank that was using a resto staff. They pulled the boss with it, and I only ever noticed them doing light or heavy attacks or using skills that appeared to be self-targeted, like buffs and self heals maybe. I never saw them swap weapons (unless they had restro staff both bars) so I never saw sword and shield or frost staff, and I didn't see him using Inner Fire, so from what I can tell he didn't have any kind of taunts.

Is there any main bar resto staff tank builds you know of?

frost resto staff? frost staffs taunt. unless it is only frost destro. i just learned about frost staffs recently.

central_scrutinizer · May 2020

I've made lots of toons and I have been in a progression guild for years, I don't ever chase a meta.
I make toons for various reasons and to attempt various niches (especially in pvp) and the way development for this game works is that eventually they all end up on the right and the wrong side of the meta.

Make what you want to make, and if you are concerned about how it will perform, gear it and most importantly play it as well as you can.

For 99.9% of content simply being willing to learn on your feet, and to utilize what you have learned will make you more powerful then the vast majority of this playerbase.

I almost never pug alone so I can't actually get kicked, but when people HAVE tried, it had nothing to do with their perceptions of my toon, usually it has been from greedy people seeking loot conduits that were afraid I'd keep what I pulled because I don't discuss loot before it drops in a pug.

In addition to having many chars, I also have multiple accounts from family members who moved on early in this game's life, so any reputation I've earned on one character might not protect me on the next. Yet I've never encountered any grief, sometimes when I am way off meta people ask me why I do something that I do, and I explain and that's that.

Most people are at least willing to form their opinions of you based on your actions. I know I am. And I've never seen anybody in any of my guilds, including my progression guild give people grief for their choice of toon without even seeing them play yet.
Anybody who doesn't give you a chance to see what you're about is likely worthless.

You could chase the current meta as hard and as fast as possible, and the next day it could get nerfed, and anybody who has been around a bit and learned about the game knows this cold hard fact all too well.

You may bump into a few idiots, but they're not the ones running anything worth a damn.

You could show up naked on one of our open raids and we'd just bet on the timing and frequency of your deaths.

kichwas · May 2020

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

I once got kicked from a group right before the final boss when the tank realized I was a dragonknight and declared that anyone other than a templar couldn't be a healer and convinced the others to vote kick me.

And this was a group where we were steamrolling normal darkshade caverns 1 and nobody in the entire run had dropped below 90% health.

Afterward, the tank even sent me a hate message about how anyone healing with anything other than a templar was ruining the game for everyone else.

Stupid happens in any environment.

In WoW over a decade ago I was once kicked from a group for, as the tank, taunting an enemy off of the healer. I was even given a reason first; that it was unfair that I kept taking all the enemies for myself...

Some people, have no idea what kind of game they are playing and how things work.

You noted Darkshade caverns 1 - that unlocks at level 12 right. You can be in that dungeon within an hour after installing the game for the first time, and coming from something where class did determine role, after having had your buddies tell you something like "templar is the go to healer" - and that's enough right there to create some stupid.

With luck that person figured it out a few days later, and if they saw your post... grinned at remembering their folly...

But we also know sometimes stupid can stick all the way into endgame.

kichwas · May 2020

Czekoludek wrote: »

CompM4s wrote: »

Just remember that end game pve has some of the most toxic people that will blame your build if they die.

Wow, that is pretty toxic way to encourage someone to try PvE in this game

Well... just to add to what I said in my last post bringing up an ancient experience I had in WoW...

I've tried a dozen or more MMOs, and played about a half dozen to a fairly decent point - through endgame raiding in a few of them...

Jerks exist in all of these games.

Every MMO I have played has had a community tell me the same two things:

1. We have the best community of any MMO, including at endgame, start, midgame, and over there to the left.
2. Our MMO has the most toxic players of any MMO at endgame / low level / pvp / folks standing by that quest marker right there.

- Basically the same stuff gets said about the community everywhere...

The truth is basically... who you yourself meet ends up shaping your opinion and unless we're talking Wildstar in the last year of it's life (when they had an average player count under 100 at a time)... there are just too many people for it to be anything other than extremely subjective and varied.

If you get a bunch of jerks, block them, move on, and find nicer people...

.

the1andonlyskwex · May 2020

kichwas wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

I once got kicked from a group right before the final boss when the tank realized I was a dragonknight and declared that anyone other than a templar couldn't be a healer and convinced the others to vote kick me.

And this was a group where we were steamrolling normal darkshade caverns 1 and nobody in the entire run had dropped below 90% health.

Afterward, the tank even sent me a hate message about how anyone healing with anything other than a templar was ruining the game for everyone else.

Stupid happens in any environment.

In WoW over a decade ago I was once kicked from a group for, as the tank, taunting an enemy off of the healer. I was even given a reason first; that it was unfair that I kept taking all the enemies for myself...

Some people, have no idea what kind of game they are playing and how things work.

You noted Darkshade caverns 1 - that unlocks at level 12 right. You can be in that dungeon within an hour after installing the game for the first time, and coming from something where class did determine role, after having had your buddies tell you something like "templar is the go to healer" - and that's enough right there to create some stupid.

With luck that person figured it out a few days later, and if they saw your post... grinned at remembering their folly...

But we also know sometimes stupid can stick all the way into endgame.

I'm pretty sure he was CP700+, sadly.

daemonios · May 2020

Iarao wrote: »

Twilanthe wrote: »

I was doing dungeons yesterday and we got a tank that was using a resto staff. They pulled the boss with it, and I only ever noticed them doing light or heavy attacks or using skills that appeared to be self-targeted, like buffs and self heals maybe. I never saw them swap weapons (unless they had restro staff both bars) so I never saw sword and shield or frost staff, and I didn't see him using Inner Fire, so from what I can tell he didn't have any kind of taunts.

Is there any main bar resto staff tank builds you know of?

frost resto staff? frost staffs taunt. unless it is only frost destro. i just learned about frost staffs recently.

You can't have a frost resto staff. Frost is one of three types of destro staves: inferno, lightning, and frost.

Chelo · May 2020

Knightpanther wrote: »

Hey OP come to Cyrodiil, we don't care what your build or gear is, we are totally inclusive in fact you will often get praise for trying something different.

If you do no CP campaign there is no set cookie cutter build because shock horror its actually down to how good you are as a player (hard concept to grasp coming from dungeons!).

Be Safe, come to PvP and let your hair down !!

Sadly if you want to try PvP builds, you have to do PvE, since 90% of the gear in this game come from PvE.

For example I did a PvP build with Icy Conjuror and have to farm Frostvault for a week...

mairwen85 · May 2020

Chelo wrote: »

Knightpanther wrote: »

Hey OP come to Cyrodiil, we don't care what your build or gear is, we are totally inclusive in fact you will often get praise for trying something different.

If you do no CP campaign there is no set cookie cutter build because shock horror its actually down to how good you are as a player (hard concept to grasp coming from dungeons!).

Be Safe, come to PvP and let your hair down !!

Sadly if you want to try PvP builds, you have to do PvE, since 90% of the gear in this game come from PvE.

For example I did a PvP build with Icy Conjuror and have to farm Frostvault for a week...

But you can farm most of that on normal.

Chelo · May 2020

Starlock wrote: »

Hamish999 wrote: »

Housing is perfectly fine in off meta gear and setups

Edit: everyone knows housing is the true endgame.

And fashion. And creativity. Especially with the storytelling that is roleplaying.

In seriousness, though, the term "endgame" confuses the crap out of me. To me, those words mashed together imply the end of the game. You know, an actual end? Game complete? Time for new game plus, or play through number two? Or just playing a different game? What kids these days call "endgame" is really just repetitive, grindy content that exists for... honestly, I haven't quite figured that one out yet. Probably never will.

End Game = the most difficult content of an MMO, once you clear it, farm it and get mostly everything from it, there's no much else to do in game. Just waiting for the next DLC or expansion with even harder content.

Danikat · May 2020

It's important to remember, as this topic is showing, that there isn't a neat divide between meta builds and everything else. Not all non-meta builds are equal so it's not really possible to draw conclusions about how good they are as a whole.

I was going to say it's a spectrum, but I'm not even sure that's true because there's a lot of meta builds (or other highly effective builds) which are also extremely specialist - they're great in one trial, or as part of a Battlegrounds team (as long as everyone else has appropriate builds to match) or for one part of PvP but they don't work nearly as well for anything else. Is that better, overall, than an good all-rounder build which may not be as effective in that situation but can be used in many more areas of the game? I suspect that depends on your priorities and preferences.

Is it possible to make an ESO character who will struggle to complete even basic content because none of their skills or attributes mesh with each other? Probably yes. But that doesn't mean all non-meta builds are like that. Some are pefectly functional and just take slightly longer than the absolute minimum to complete content. People who like using them will say they work just as well, because they're still able to complete stuff without any significant problems. But meta players may say they're utterly useless, because it makes a dungeon take 20 minutes instead of 10 to complete. Neither is wrong exactly, they just have different priorities.

If you're curious about a specific build, or just about having more freedom to design your own builds, then my advice is to try it and see how you find it. You might well find some of your ideas don't work, but others might be perfectly good for you even if they're not as fast at clearing content as ones you might be used to.