p00tx wrote: »

Here's the deal: In real end game, no one has a "main" We all have a bunch of characters carefully designed to fit a specific role in a very specific group for a particular piece of content. If you're a healer, you're expected to have a selection of healers to choose from depending on what the group needs. You play for the group, not individual roleplay desires.

In 4 person content though (barring BRP or score pushing DSA), anything goes. Have fun, get wild, and be creative. It really doesn't matter as long as you're doing your job and staying alive. Anyone who complains about someone being off-meta in a 4-person dungeon is a pompous wienie who doesn't know what they're talking about.

frozzzen101 wrote: »

amm7sb14_ESO wrote: »

But for regular vet trial runs, I'm not going to focus on running meta sets. I know how to tank, whether that's in meta or off meta sets.

Can you please elaborate on that train of thoughts for me? As tank that adheres to meta quite a lot, I'm really curious where does this aversion towards group support sets come from. And honestly, I think tanks in organized groups, no matter how good or bad those groups are, have much less gear flexibility than people think, and most certainly have less flexibility than dds. Every raid lead worth their salt will try to put tanks and healers into group support style sets, whichever they chose.

xaraan wrote: »

amm7sb14_ESO wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

Few answers depending on how deep the questions is:

Does it matter? sure in some situations.

First off, if you aren't doing Hard Mode Vet trials, then the answer is mostly no.
-Maybe if you are going for some really hard challenge like Unchained in BRP. And maybe you'll have issues with more toxic people just doing the newest 4 man HM vet dungeons too, but for the most part even then it doesn't make much difference.

And even at vetHM trial end game, it depends on a few things: For example in support it effects you more than the team, so if you have your bosmer tank it won't really effect the team if you can still get the job done, you may only be making things a little harder on yourself. If you struggle to the point where you have to change your gear just to deal with things though and drop gear optimal for the raid, then we are into 'effecting the team' territory.

Mostly people will nit pick it when it comes to DPS. Sure, some will say it doesn't matter much if you pick High Elf or Orc for a magicka sorc b/c the racials are only XX amount, but it does effect it more than they often let on and you will notice a difference in a raid group that is actively working on progress/builds/achievements. If you are as good as everyone else in a top guild on an Orc MagSorc, you'll still be better than most players on the meta race, but you'll always be the guy at the bottom of the DPS in that group every time they look at performance. Or, if you are in a good group and landing at the bottom or middle of the DPS anyhow, being on a meta race may bump you up a notch, even if it's due to better resource management and not just pure damage buffs. But if you get the job done and your team doesn't care, then it's all good IMO. But if things are a challenge and they start looking at who isn't bringing as much as everyone else to the table, you can stand out. Again, this is going to be for HMvet Trials, anyone nitpicking over anything less than that should chill and to a degree even some of those guys need to chill.

I will say, I've noticed the people that worry about it the most outside of just their own performance are the groups that are not going to be great groups in the long run. Usually the top teams just end up with players that care about every little min max in their own right and you don't have to badger them into it, and it's the teams that want to be like those teams that end up stressing over it. The same guys that copy the strats we've all seen in the top teams vids and can't handle it if they run with another team that does a different strat. They just can't imagine it done a different way, so that same mentality will extend to builds. On the flip side of that, the players that are so anti-meta they reject any and all advice that can often help them don't do themselves any favors either.

I fall somewhere in the middle of this.

I hate "meta" builds. I don't like being told by someone else how to play my own character. That entirely defeats the purpose, imo, of creating and playing my own character. That defeats the purpose of giving people choices to play as. At that point, you might as well eliminate race, class, sets, and skills altogether at that point, and just have 4 character options:

-Tank
-Stamina DPS
-Magicka DPS
-Healer

All come pre-equipped with their specific stats, skills, and gear to be used, and it can't be swapped out or alternated, because they are already pre-set to the "meta".

Does that sound like a fun game? If not, then you know why I am anti-meta.

On the flip side, I do aspire to at least play and complete vet trials. I don't care about leaderboards, I don't care about score pushing, I don't care about high end achievements, or anything like that. I just enjoy the experience of playing through the trials, and appreciate the additional challenge that comes from vet levels as opposed to normal levels (which I can almost clear in my sleep, at this point)

While I am anti-meta, I *do* acknowledge and agree that I need to build *intentionally*

I main a tank, so I do need to build intentionally to have survivability, crowd control, buffs, and debuffs. I am fine with doing that.

What I am not fine with is being told that the only way to provide those is to wear Galenwe and Alkosh, and that any form of self buff or survivability is "selfish".

I can buff and help my group in a lot of ways. I can use my totem to give protection to group members. I can use Lord Warden or Grave Guardian to give resistances. I can use Akaviri Dragonguard to give higher uptime on War Horn or Major Vulnerability. Brands of Imperium can give damage shields to my group. I can use Dragon's Defilement to give additional resistance drop. Hell, I've even had instances where my trial group *told* me to keep Leeching on, because my max survivability was the key, not the extra damage from my Yolnakhriin set. Something like Leeching helps me not strain the healer's resources as heavily.

There is no need to saying that Alkosh, Galenwe, and Thurvokin has to be the one and only set up for a tank in content. And people telling me that's what I have to be running is what bothers me about meta.

I don't want to scoreboard or leaderboard push, I don't care about achievements, I just want to play the game in a way that is fun for me. Being like everyone else is not fun. It takes away the main thing I love about this game, which is having a personalized character to represent me in a larger world.

According to a lot of the meta people, I have no place in this game.

I would not say you have no place in the game, but you COULD BE limiting yourself IMO, and if you are ok with that choice, then cool, own it. You also may be doing what you need to do, I don't know for sure unless I'm there in the same group doing the same job.

Most of the content, except for end game HM vet trials (usually the newer ones on top of that) are where people really should stress about builds. Anything less than that is more about showing off or maybe for specific burn strats or whatever.

My problem with some of what you said would be this: If you know the game, then you don't need to be told what to wear. I don't need a build video to tell me the benefits of Alkosh, Ebon, Yoln, etc. to the group, so no one is telling me anything I don't know. And there needs to be a realization that no matter how they balance or build sets, there will always be optimal setups. Really my only problem is that you seem to embrace the anti-meta the same way players that don't know any better embrace the meta. That may be a wrong impression, but if you are looking to jump at any chance to buck the meta, and not just doing it when you have to, then you may be doing it for the wrong reasons. There are also irrelevant buffs, like you mentioned giving the group grave guardian or getting higher warhorn uptime with Dragonguard, both of these are good, but might not be needed. If they are, then I see no issues with it, that's up to you and your raid lead.

That being said, like you stated, there are reasons to not kit out in the meta gear. A lot of mimic groups (groups that just copy whatever build and trial strats the top teams do and don't put their own thought into it) have no concept of how things change when the group isn't as good as those top teams. I've subbed in for top groups before as tank and it's a cake walk, fights ten times shorter, little to no deaths in groups, etc. Which means that resource management is hardly an issue and the amount of chances you have as a tank to make one mistake that kills you is a fraction of what it is with a group just a notch below those top groups where the fight can take much longer simply because of a little slower DPS and messy group deaths slowing down the fight. The group I run regularly on is good, we do vHMs and clear all that, but we are not a 'top team' and even then I can feel a huge difference between that and when I've helped out a stronger team. Or a huge difference between when we start progging a trial and when we have it down and smoother. So I can say there are definitely times for mixing up gear and wearing more "selfish" setups for tanks.

To feed your concept and show an example of how what you say can be right, I just had this discussion a week ago about our vKAHM prog on last boss where I was O-Tanking and was built more to help support (heal and mitigate group dmg) when I wasn't tanking the couple things you have to tank in there as O-Tank instead of maybe trying to DPS like some groups are doing. Someone questioned why I was doing certain things and I explained how the DPS' lack of smoothness in mechanics during one phase was a big reason. When the boss does the chain lightning, our group tends to not space out well, with half the group crowding the boss too much and the other half taking hits from lightning that isn't completing the circuit. So I essentially have a few other group healing skills on my bar and blow through magicka during this phase propping the group up b/c they refuse to space out correctly quickly enough b/c nobody wants to lose DPS. (Sometimes I think they don't realize DPS drops to zero when we die). Yes, we could let them wipe and start over, but that fight is ridiculously long (like so long and boring its dumb) and we needed the most practice in execute, so IMO pushing the group through some of that stupid stuff was more important for us to get practice at last phase.

And I'll add one more example, I have a build I use for my warden tank where I wear Yoln/Olorime for 4 man content without a dedicated healer. I've had DPS offer to run synergies for Alkosh and in trying that instead of Olorime, they don't realize the buff only hitting for a certain amount of time when synergies are limited like that from one source that its way less effective than Olorime (plus Olo will give buffs to off heals in addition to just the pen that alkosh offers). Every time I've dropped Olo for Alkosh in a small group it's been a waste and I've tested it enough that now I don't bother. Olo is also more useful to me personally as a tank in a group without a dedicated healer where I may need to be more selfish at times, without being a wholely selfish set. So the point here is that sometimes people argue for the meta just b/c it's the meta and not b/c it's actually better. Me keeping Olo up full time on the group is much stronger than occasional Alkosh debuffs in rando 4 man runs 99% of the time.

But your group has to trust you and your judgement. When I tell my group I need to wear XX instead of YY, they are usually fine with it. Like you said, your lead wanted you to use Leeching at one point b/c you both felt it was needed. BUT, my issue would be: you start off with the build most useful to the groups DPS and go backwards from there, dropping something for group utility or selfishness b/c you have to, not because you want to find every reason to not, for example, run Alkosh. So while I agree with you overall, I think someone's mindset is important when they pull away from meta. If you are doing it for right reasons, then do it. For example: You wanna drop alkosh b/c dps is so low the fights take forever and you are struggling with resource management and need a different sort of group utility for survival, you don't wanna drop Alkosh and make the fights take longer and be more of a struggle when the DPS increase from that pen would be more useful than a little extra group armor.

Plus, you said you don't go for achievements or scores, and if your whole team is on that same page with you, then do your thing. Sometimes if all you are after is a clear and gear, then play it safe and make it easy on yourself and the team.

I also have to add, usually the true top players are pretty chill for the most part. If you wanna pick their brain, they will often give you plenty of opinions, but don't stress too much openly about every little thing that isn't meta. The problem guys that run their mouths and act like they know it all are usually the next rung down. Either they are on teams that just copy everything and can't imagine anything different, or they are good enough to hang with a top team and clear with them, but not good enough to be with a team that isn't smooth and essentially 'carrying' them. (It is a team, we all carry each other at times, some more than others, and those aren't the ones that can carry anything but themselves).

StarOfElyon wrote: »

Karmanorway wrote: »

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?

Not sure about the Pve side of the things, but when it comes to PvP meta it doesnt matter.

For example i play 2H+SnB Dark Elf stamsorc. I have 33k resists and 3k hp recovery. Its a heavy armor bleed build and i often wreck meta players with it 🤷‍♂️

Play what u want and build how u want, it is infinitely more fun creating something of your own rather then copy paste others 😊

And when the nerfs are coming and u need to switch build, just put it on youtube so others can copy paste it, since u dont fear meeting that build in the battlefield anymore 🤣

If you said Breton, I would have been impressed.