Why is there so much disagreement on what is "best," among the community?

Mythreindeer · February 2021

Consensus? The only consensus in most MMO's is that there is no consensus.

coop500 · February 2021

Ermiq wrote: »

I think this phenomenon is called 'balance'.
Honestly, ESO actually has a pretty good balance, imho, and all those contradictory opinions prove that.
Sure, there're some issues, but in general, when there's no one single BiS Meta opinion that everyone could agree with, than the game is actually doing fine balance-wise.

This! I do not see a problem TBH. I would be more worried if people all agreed

Sylvermynx · February 2021

@Pencisl2 - to edit the original post, there is a gear icon at the end of the title bar, click to get a dropdown Edit option.

Pencisl2 · February 2021

On two threads of mine now, alcast is claimed to be this amazing player with reflexes beyond anyone, [Snip].

[Snip]

magblade is the most complicated class in the game, said not only in this thread but in guild chat, but hack's one bar build for the spec has him claiming it is one of the easiest specs in the game.

Huh?

Lumenn wrote: »

Alcast, even though he will make "beginner" builds has done this so often he assumes you have the basics (like block, shield, roll dodge) down to an involuntary reflex like he does. If you don't know every step of a dungeon and don't shield and block like you breathe, his builds will be harder for you because his builds are based on how he plays. Hack goes out of his way to make off meta builds that are hit or miss depending on your content. You should get ideas from these people to adjust them or theory craft for your play style, not copy exactly. And the only way to learn what works for YOU is to play and try different builds/classes. If you're new you have all of overland to muddle through, then cps before you really have to worry TOO much about your build. By then you'll have a much better idea of how to theory craft to your style. Best of luck to you(start crafting/horse training early!)

They seem awkward because most require trials / rare drop gear, with level 10 mages and psijic guilds, even for "solo" builds. it really seems like he just pieces them together from lists of what looks good on paper, regardless of how you can even get the items in game or if it actually works.

some beginner builds seem to use stuff all the way down in a skill tree or even account for 810 cp.

to make some of his easy builds you will need hundreds to thousands of hours in game, much of that just fishing for drops, at which point are you a "beginner?"

I wasn't referring to his apparent beyond reproach persona (even though he is mocked constantly).

[Edited for bashing]

Jacozilla · February 2021

Same reason why Conan answered differently when asked 'what is best in life'?

Some ppl just like to feel the wind in their hair, riding the steppes.

Others like to hear the lamentation of their women.

Jaxious79 · February 2021

What MMO has a community that agrees on the majority of things.

Also you should have changed your post to streamers/youtube/website guys can't agree cause that is what most of your OP is talking about, the rest is just your opinion and people have every right to disagree with your opinion.

ESO does a great job of offering a varity of ways to play and things to do in ESO. Go look at WoW if you don't raid or run mythic+ or BG there is NOTHING to do.

etchedpixels · February 2021

There are so many skills, buffs, gear sets, skill combinations and CP setups, let alone play styles that nobody can ever test them all. It's one of the really good things about the game. If there were a set of 4 perfect builds everyone ran it would be kind of tedious.

It's also fun in things like battlegrounds running unusual sets and watching the chaos that ensues when the opposition meet things like mad tinkerer for the first time and are stuck lying on their backsides when the ultimate lands on them.

Pencisl2 · February 2021

Jaxious79 wrote: »

What MMO has a community that agrees on the majority of things.

Also you should have changed your post to streamers/youtube/website guys can't agree cause that is what most of your OP is talking about, the rest is just your opinion and people have every right to disagree with your opinion.

ESO does a great job of offering a varity of ways to play and things to do in ESO. Go look at WoW if you don't raid or run mythic+ or BG there is NOTHING to do.

all of them but this one I have seen, and it isn't just the "influencers." even people in game do it. Like the example I gave earlier of asking what skills make magblade good at aoe grinding, and a guy outright tells me two stamina-based weaponskills and an alliance skill. When asked to clarify what makes magblade special if he is not even talking about nightblade abilities, let alone mag abilities, he just said that he was "done talking."

Can you imagine how absurd this looks?

as for "opinion," what opinion? I am recounting the things I have seen just by myself from how the community talks about the game and gives advice. I am not talking about their personal feelings, but their sweeping declarations about what the game "is" and "isn't."

everyone really does use the same skills and builds (basically every stam build online is just brawler+endless hail), but each claim performance is wildly different.

then the "beginner" builds with gear and cp that requires months of playing to get. the "easy" builds that are one ability repeated until carpal tunnel syndrome, that are harder to play than builds that use more diverse skills. "solo" builds with a mass of trials gear. it's almost like no one talking plays the same game; or maybe the game doesn't really start until 810cp and a full collection book, and it is totally different then.

when I can see the same person say completely opposite things within minutes on the forums here (even in this thread), I know something is up.

Also, it might just be the manic/depressive "balancing" in game that I hear on the forums; where a class or even set bonus can go from top to bottom to top to broken to unplayable within the span of six months.

poodlemasterb16_ESO · February 2021

It really depends on how good you are at playing this game. A NB takes more skill than perhaps any other class. If you are not extremely mobile and able to use the various escapes available, you will not have fun with an NB.

This applies all across the board, so when it comes to what's best. YMMV.

Jaxious79 · February 2021

Pencisl2 wrote: »

show previous quotes

Jaxious79 wrote: »

What MMO has a community that agrees on the majority of things.

Also you should have changed your post to streamers/youtube/website guys can't agree cause that is what most of your OP is talking about, the rest is just your opinion and people have every right to disagree with your opinion.

ESO does a great job of offering a varity of ways to play and things to do in ESO. Go look at WoW if you don't raid or run mythic+ or BG there is NOTHING to do.

all of them but this one I have seen, and it isn't just the "influencers." even people in game do it. Like the example I gave earlier of asking what skills make magblade good at aoe grinding, and a guy outright tells me two stamina-based weaponskills and an alliance skill. When asked to clarify what makes magblade special if he is not even talking about nightblade abilities, let alone mag abilities, he just said that he was "done talking."

Can you imagine how absurd this looks?

as for "opinion," what opinion? I am recounting the things I have seen just by myself from how the community talks about the game and gives advice. I am not talking about their personal feelings, but their sweeping declarations about what the game "is" and "isn't."

everyone really does use the same skills and builds (basically every stam build online is just brawler+endless hail), but each claim performance is wildly different.

then the "beginner" builds with gear and cp that requires months of playing to get. the "easy" builds that are one ability repeated until carpal tunnel syndrome, that are harder to play than builds that use more diverse skills. "solo" builds with a mass of trials gear. it's almost like no one talking plays the same game; or maybe the game doesn't really start until 810cp and a full collection book, and it is totally different then.

when I can see the same person say completely opposite things within minutes on the forums here (even in this thread), I know something is up.

Also, it might just be the manic/depressive "balancing" in game that I hear on the forums; where a class or even set bonus can go from top to bottom to top to broken to unplayable within the span of six months.

I highly doubt the majority of players use the same build. Now high-end players that may be the case, but for the majority? I doubt it.

MentalxHammer · February 2021

Because this feedback space is shared among competitive pvpers and casual rpers... it makes it incredibly frustrating to offer valuable feedback, especially because he casuals seem to be much more vocal than actual experienced players.

LashanW · February 2021

Game is very large and the fights in it can be very different from each other (both PvE and PvP). It's also not consistent since devs bring "balance" changes. Today's best performing class and set combo may no longer be the best next patch. Some people also play exceptionally well with some classes and not that great on other classes. Very few people can play all classes (mag and stam) exceptionally well. So when you ask what is the "best"? It's super hard to answer even for a very experienced person.

Only guaranteed way for you to find what works "best" for you is to try them all. But that will take a lot of time and resources. PTS might be a more efficient bet.

Lots of what you've heard seems to be opinions, not facts. Also if someone can't explain why something is the best, you can just ignore them.

Pencisl2 wrote: »

even people in game do it. Like the example I gave earlier of asking what skills make magblade good at aoe grinding, and a guy outright tells me two stamina-based weaponskills and an alliance skill. When asked to clarify what makes magblade special if he is not even talking about nightblade abilities, let alone mag abilities, he just said that he was "done talking."

If you were asking about PvE, check out "Twisting Path" (very strong AoE DoT due to big size + high damage) and "Sap Essence" (standard damage AoE spammable, but has inbuilt self heal and a very large radius) abilities on a magblade.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · February 2021

Streamers have different target audiences. The content in question and the skill level of the person playing said content matters a lot. What works well for someone who has mastered ESO content, might not be ideal for someone running their first vet trial in a questionable group.

Take Nightblade as a great example. They absolutely have one of the highest damage potentials in the game, and that is generally true patch to patch. What they might lack in terms of absolute DPS against some of the stamina counterparts, they make up for in the fact that they can play ranged, are very mobile, have great sustain and passive heals. It makes them an excellent class for some of the mini trials like VAS and VCR, or any time you need to send a DPS to handle something without support.

That said, their rotation is the toughest to master in game, and their DPS suffers much harder than others when you make mistakes. I would absolutely NOT recommend a nightblade for someone brand new to DPS rotations. Their closest direct class comparison from a DPS perspective is magic sorc. That class is MUCH easier to play. The vast majority of players will pull more damage on a sorc. A newer raid might do better to stack Mag sorcs over some of the meta setups because its just easier to play.

Necro, especially magic necro as meta is a relatively new phenomenon. Metas come and go in this game. Most meta raid groups are going to need to satisfy X number of basic requirments, then stack remaining DPS as the same spec. For example, you need 1 Sorc, Templar, and DK for some basic buffs right now that only their classes provide. After that you stack max damage, which right now for most things is Magcro (especially with their insane cleave damage).

Anyone who says Templar is the worst healer in the game either has no clue what they are talking about or is just being salty because it is not the clear meta choice that it once was. That said, you generally want one Templar, and healer is the best place for them to fit. They are still great for healing, especially for groups that might not care about coordinating evey possible buff/debuff in their group.

SickleCider · February 2021

What is best?

Crush enemies! See them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women.

Pencisl2 · February 2021

LashanW wrote: »

Game is very large and the fights in it can be very different from each other (both PvE and PvP). It's also not consistent since devs bring "balance" changes. Today's best performing class and set combo may no longer be the best next patch. Some people also play exceptionally well with some classes and not that great on other classes. Very few people can play all classes (mag and stam) exceptionally well. So when you ask what is the "best"? It's super hard to answer even for a very experienced person.

Only guaranteed way for you to find what works "best" for you is to try them all. But that will take a lot of time and resources. PTS might be a more efficient bet.

Lots of what you've heard seems to be opinions, not facts. Also if someone can't explain why something is the best, you can just ignore them.
show previous quotes

Pencisl2 wrote: »

even people in game do it. Like the example I gave earlier of asking what skills make magblade good at aoe grinding, and a guy outright tells me two stamina-based weaponskills and an alliance skill. When asked to clarify what makes magblade special if he is not even talking about nightblade abilities, let alone mag abilities, he just said that he was "done talking."

If you were asking about PvE, check out "Twisting Path" (very strong AoE DoT due to big size + high damage) and "Sap Essence" (standard damage AoE spammable, but has inbuilt self heal and a very large radius) abilities on a magblade.

In that case all builds are just opinions.

[Removed quote]

wow and ffxiv.

in wow, method (a european-based guild / "influencer" conglomerate) is never questioned (even by the devs who buff or nerf classes depending on what classes method is using) and icy veins is either made fun of or taken without question depending on what kind of player you are.

continuing about wow, back in the elitist jerks (also a guild that runs a theory-crafting site but wasn't a media conglomerate) and talent point/trees day it was actually worse. you would get kicked from entire guilds or even server-blacklisted for not having the cookie cutter builds. the gm for elitist jerks was not only hired by the company, but is currently the director for the whole game.

in fact, much of wow's dev staff was either old eq devs who were angry the game was being "dumbed down" or they were top eq raiders who were angry the game was being "dumbed down."

in ffxiv, you either do what "the balance" discord tells you or you get "colorful language" thrown at you; sometimes worse than "colorful." weirdly enough back when you could turn paladins into healers and dps classes with materia and creative gearing, it seemed there was less elitism. now that the game has no more "builds" or even diversity of classes, the elitism is absurd.

in swtor, you get kicked from ranked pvp if your stat points are not exactly meta. I mean if the meta is having 1207 alacrity, and you come in with 1300 or 1250 then they will call you a troll and kick you.

pso2 and gw2 don't seem to have a meta because no one there cares about doing the absolute best.

AinSoph · February 2021

Because the people who actually know how the game works fundamentally won't bother posting on forums when people who think they know how the game works are giving more misinformation than they bother to correct.

Jaxious79 · February 2021

Pencisl2 wrote: »

show previous quotes

LashanW wrote: »

Game is very large and the fights in it can be very different from each other (both PvE and PvP). It's also not consistent since devs bring "balance" changes. Today's best performing class and set combo may no longer be the best next patch. Some people also play exceptionally well with some classes and not that great on other classes. Very few people can play all classes (mag and stam) exceptionally well. So when you ask what is the "best"? It's super hard to answer even for a very experienced person.

Only guaranteed way for you to find what works "best" for you is to try them all. But that will take a lot of time and resources. PTS might be a more efficient bet.

Lots of what you've heard seems to be opinions, not facts. Also if someone can't explain why something is the best, you can just ignore them.

Pencisl2 wrote: »

even people in game do it. Like the example I gave earlier of asking what skills make magblade good at aoe grinding, and a guy outright tells me two stamina-based weaponskills and an alliance skill. When asked to clarify what makes magblade special if he is not even talking about nightblade abilities, let alone mag abilities, he just said that he was "done talking."

If you were asking about PvE, check out "Twisting Path" (very strong AoE DoT due to big size + high damage) and "Sap Essence" (standard damage AoE spammable, but has inbuilt self heal and a very large radius) abilities on a magblade.

In that case all builds are just opinions.
show previous quotes

Panomania wrote: »

In other mmos, you usually have a unanimous consensus on what "works" and what does not

[Removed quote]

wow and ffxiv.

in wow, method (a european-based guild / "influencer" conglomerate) is never questioned
.

Except when they are caught buying gold from sellers so they can get world 1st right? Other than that never questioned.

WoWhead and Icy vien are not always the same. WoWhead even makes it very very clear you have Personal Preference Options available.

Look here for windwalker
Icy veins
Level 15: Chi Wave Icon Chi Wave
Level 25: Tiger's Lust Icon Tiger's Lust
Level 30: Fist of the White Tiger Icon Fist of the White Tiger
Level 35: Good Karma Icon Good Karma
Level 40: Diffuse Magic Icon Diffuse Magic
Level 45: Hit Combo Icon Hit Combo
Level 50: Whirling Dragon Punch Icon Whirling Dragon Punch

WowHead
Tier 1 (lv15) – Personal preference for single target; Chi Burst for anything with more than one target
Tier 2 (lv25) – Personal Preference
Tier 3 (lv30) – Personal Preference for single target; Energizing Elixir for M+
Tier 4 (lv35) – Personal Preference; Good Karma or Ring of Peace as reasonable defaults
Tier 5 (lv40) – Dampen Harm for physical, Diffuse Magic for magic damage
Tier 6 (lv45) – Dance of Chi-Ji for AOE content; Hit Combo for single target or mixed content
Tier 7 (lv50) – Whirling Dragon Punch for all situations

With the queue times in SWTOR you will not be kicked from any group. I havent played in awhile but I don't think you are even able to view another players stats.

Mancombe_Nosehair · February 2021

The short answer is keyboard warriors.

AMeanOne · February 2021

You are getting opinions from players with wildly different skill levels, of course you're getting conflicting info. Meta builds are not simply an opinion.

Goregrinder · February 2021

The fact that you had to raise the question is what I love about ESO compared to other MMORPG's. "Best" in ESO only means best at one task. There are cookie-cutter guidelines, and BIS traits, but they are BIS for one task, or one boss fight, or one dungeon, or for Overland farming, or world bosses, etc. The horizontal gear progression ESO uses means there is really no "one-size rules all" philosophy. And it's what makes ESO so great.

Basically BIS is per task at hand, unlike themepark MMORPG's like WoW (example) where basically if you're not wearing Tier 37 (or whatever tier they are on now) gear, with item level 499 weapons (or whatever is BIS ilvl right now) then you're not running the best setup possible for your class. And it's the same for Arena BG's, it's about wearing BIS, otherwise you're trash panda fodder. But even in ESO PVP, there is no "BIS". There is a Metagame (just like with any game), and setups that work better than others, but they are still per task at hand. Take ganking for instance...there are multiple ganking setups you could run that would acheive similar results to each other based on whether you want to melee gank, range gank with bow, stack WD, stack pen, or stack crit chance modifiers, etc. Options!

I think Pre-CU SWG ruined me, because playing almost every other MMORPG afterwards made me realize how much I dislike the lack of choice when building a character for anything. ESO has been the only MMORPG since SWG that provided a similar level of choice when building your toons out. Even GW2 restricts what gear you wear and what weapons you wield. ESO essentially scratches that itch for me, but a better option might come along.

But to answer your question, there is so much disagreement on what is "best" because ESO is designed in a way (via horizontal gear progression) that really only allows things to be best for specific tasks, rather than best at everything as a whole.

Varana · February 2021

You get this consensus in ESO as well. For magicka and stamina DDs, there is a clear preference of a few sets to run in end-game trial PvE.

That will, of course, differ from beginner builds for PvE.
Or solo PvE builds.
Or even 4-man builds.
Or builds aimed at a specific group composition (like 3-DDing dungeons, having no real tank, whatever).

And it will change completely for builds aimed at PvP.

What is not set in stone, is class choice, and after all, that's a good thing. Except a few outliers, this may change with various patches, but mostly in rather minuscule amounts.

In the end, in ESO, player skill beats build choice to a surprisingly large degree. As long as it's somewhat comparable to others, using a class and build that you're comfortable with, is the "best" choice for you in 99% of cases.

In the end, why do you think it's an issue that there are differring opinions about this?
Have you taken the different audiences into account? I.e. what is the build designed for?
Why should there even be one single best thing? Wouldn't that be poor design?

Sylvermynx · February 2021

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

<snip>

Take Nightblade as a great example. They absolutely have one of the highest damage potentials in the game, and that is generally true patch to patch. What they might lack in terms of absolute DPS against some of the stamina counterparts, they make up for in the fact that they can play ranged, are very mobile, have great sustain and passive heals. It makes them an excellent class for some of the mini trials like VAS and VCR, or any time you need to send a DPS to handle something without support.

That said, their rotation is the toughest to master in game, and their DPS suffers much harder than others when you make mistakes. I would absolutely NOT recommend a nightblade for someone brand new to DPS rotations. Their closest direct class comparison from a DPS perspective is magic sorc. That class is MUCH easier to play. The vast majority of players will pull more damage on a sorc. A newer raid might do better to stack Mag sorcs over some of the meta setups because its just easier to play.<snip>

I wish I'd "known" you before I made my first character here. Yep, NB - wanted to be a stealth archer similar to Skyrim (without the very op modded bow). Since my previous MMOs were WoW and RIFT, the combat here came as a huge surprise - and it took me about a year to get it figured out (because I'm older, and my reflexes aren't optimal for twitchy combat; nor is my connection since satellite is all I have available).

So I bought Summerset and made wardens. I did finally get that NB to 50, and I do have a decent grasp of her combat rotation now - but it was painful to begin with, and I still don't really find her fun to play.

Pencisl2 · February 2021

Varana wrote: »

In the end, why do you think it's an issue that there are differring opinions about this?
Have you taken the different audiences into account? I.e. what is the build designed for?
Why should there even be one single best thing? Wouldn't that be poor design?

Does anyone read past the title?

My point is about how people disagree about the same things.

nightblade is both easy due to stand-out abilities and sustain or the hardest ever. some classes are both the best and worst at the same task according to people; same area of the game, very little build diversity overall (when was your last stam build without 2h and bow?), but WILDLY different results.

Jaxious79 wrote: »

show previous quotes

Pencisl2 wrote: »

LashanW wrote: »

Game is very large and the fights in it can be very different from each other (both PvE and PvP). It's also not consistent since devs bring "balance" changes. Today's best performing class and set combo may no longer be the best next patch. Some people also play exceptionally well with some classes and not that great on other classes. Very few people can play all classes (mag and stam) exceptionally well. So when you ask what is the "best"? It's super hard to answer even for a very experienced person.

Only guaranteed way for you to find what works "best" for you is to try them all. But that will take a lot of time and resources. PTS might be a more efficient bet.

Lots of what you've heard seems to be opinions, not facts. Also if someone can't explain why something is the best, you can just ignore them.

Pencisl2 wrote: »

even people in game do it. Like the example I gave earlier of asking what skills make magblade good at aoe grinding, and a guy outright tells me two stamina-based weaponskills and an alliance skill. When asked to clarify what makes magblade special if he is not even talking about nightblade abilities, let alone mag abilities, he just said that he was "done talking."

If you were asking about PvE, check out "Twisting Path" (very strong AoE DoT due to big size + high damage) and "Sap Essence" (standard damage AoE spammable, but has inbuilt self heal and a very large radius) abilities on a magblade.

In that case all builds are just opinions.

Panomania wrote: »

In other mmos, you usually have a unanimous consensus on what "works" and what does not

[Removed quote]

wow and ffxiv.

in wow, method (a european-based guild / "influencer" conglomerate) is never questioned
.

Except when they are caught buying gold from sellers so they can get world 1st right? Other than that never questioned.

WoWhead and Icy vien are not always the same. WoWhead even makes it very very clear you have Personal Preference Options available.

Look here for windwalker
Icy veins
Level 15: Chi Wave Icon Chi Wave
Level 25: Tiger's Lust Icon Tiger's Lust
Level 30: Fist of the White Tiger Icon Fist of the White Tiger
Level 35: Good Karma Icon Good Karma
Level 40: Diffuse Magic Icon Diffuse Magic
Level 45: Hit Combo Icon Hit Combo
Level 50: Whirling Dragon Punch Icon Whirling Dragon Punch

WowHead
Tier 1 (lv15) – Personal preference for single target; Chi Burst for anything with more than one target
Tier 2 (lv25) – Personal Preference
Tier 3 (lv30) – Personal Preference for single target; Energizing Elixir for M+
Tier 4 (lv35) – Personal Preference; Good Karma or Ring of Peace as reasonable defaults
Tier 5 (lv40) – Dampen Harm for physical, Diffuse Magic for magic damage
Tier 6 (lv45) – Dance of Chi-Ji for AOE content; Hit Combo for single target or mixed content
Tier 7 (lv50) – Whirling Dragon Punch for all situations

With the queue times in SWTOR you will not be kicked from any group. I havent played in awhile but I don't think you are even able to view another players stats.

I specifically said rated pvp in swtor. you don't have much queue times in swtor in general, and ranked pvp uses groups.

as for your wow example, you are using the recommended build instead of reading the descriptions of each talents. secondly wow at this moment is far more different than it was when I last played a while ago, and icy veins is certainly less rigid than it used to be.

Kwoung · February 2021

My 2 cents on the matter. Most other games allow people to agree because the "end game" gear is exactly that, best in slot. Most other MMO's also do not require the twitch reflexes of a teenager to perform a proper rotation, you simply press the right button when ready, which in the case of the old SOE games, you could pretty much have a button for every skill you knew on your bars at the same time.

So along comes ESO, where anyone can get pretty much any gear (except perfected) with minimal effort, golding it out, changing to correct traits the same. Now it comes down to how well you use a keyboard or controller, whats your ping rate to the server, can you LA weave properly, can you consistently nail your rotation without flaw?

Being as everyone is different in those respects and it isn't a simple matter of wearing the BIS item and pressing the right button once per second or whatever... everyone's mileage will vary with any particular build. Alcast showed he could hit 88k DPS in MS/Juli and no Maelstrom... I can't get past 60k with MS/FGD and a maelstrom on my sorc using his exact build for some reason.

So basically, there is no best or worst, it depends on your abilities as a player and some builds just don't work for you, while you may shine with others. Thus, no consensus.

QuebraRegra · February 2021

just as IRl.. "special interests"

starkerealm · February 2021

@Danikat, in other MMOs there are definitive, BiS picks. When you see it in the ESO community, you can get a very distorted sense of what that means, but there are games where given items are, without question, the best item for that inventory slot. Any other option would be a downgrade.

Beyond that, some MMOs are far more restrictive in their encounter design.

As a tiny example, I remember a dungeon in The Secret World, with electrified water. If players entered it, they would take egregious damage, and your DPS would be dead in a matter of seconds. However, it did minimal damage to damage shields. So, the strategy for dealing with that was to have a Blood Magic healer applying damage shields to the entire party. The damage was too severe for a Fists or Assault Rifle build to keep your party alive, you needed a Blood Mage for that encounter.

A lot of MMOs incorporate things like this, and require very specific solutions to get through them. You wouldn't see a lot of discussion on other ways to clear The Facility because your healer needed to use blood magic to keep everyone alive through the various fights.

In contrast, you're not going to see someone saying, "well, you need a party of sorcs to clear Vet Depths of Malatar, because they need to have bolt escape to jump through the walking walls. However, other MMOs might do something like that, where you need a sorc to bolt through the walking wall to turn it off and save the others (or something.)

ESO is a very open game, strategically, and it has a lot of build variety (even if some people will scream that "there's only one true way.") This is not the norm for MMOs.

VilniusNastavnik · February 2021

The biggest issue with finding an agreement between "content creators / Influencers" as to what is BIS for every build, class, etc is that each player is playing with uncontrollable variables.

Lets look at a few examples.
Alcast a few years ago was widely known as the go to for builds, yet for beginners, he is not really beginner friendly. His builds also are not very ping/desync forgiving.

Zynode and Hack on the other hand tend to make builds that are beginner friendly, or hold up to unstable rural or oceanic connections.

I know a guy in my guild here in Aus, uses a modified Hack Volcanic rune build and pulls 50kdps just using 1 bar on his sorc, and has a templar build that uses 1 bar and pulls 50k+ for his templar without LA.

As someone who's desync is stupid due to living in a barracks in rural Aus, builds where LAs are required are useless.

When it comes to sets, sets that require LAs to proc the 5 pce, I will avoid because of the desync and ping issues. For me, I end up experimenting with off-meta or "trash" sets, and end up being able to compete better with them, than with the "meta" sets.

If everyone played with 5 ping, and no desync, the community might have a general consensus, however as it stands, we have KBM, vs Controller, (PS vs Xbox 1, 360, Xbox Elite 1 vs Elite 2). Low ping, high ping, low desync, high desync, injuries / disabilities that prevent certain fine motor skills, etc. There is never going to be a one size fits all approach, and thus I use the "influencers" as a source of information as to how the sets work, and then go off and theory craft my own builds that work for me.

zaria · February 2021

starkerealm wrote: »

@Danikat, in other MMOs there are definitive, BiS picks. When you see it in the ESO community, you can get a very distorted sense of what that means, but there are games where given items are, without question, the best item for that inventory slot. Any other option would be a downgrade.

Beyond that, some MMOs are far more restrictive in their encounter design.

As a tiny example, I remember a dungeon in The Secret World, with electrified water. If players entered it, they would take egregious damage, and your DPS would be dead in a matter of seconds. However, it did minimal damage to damage shields. So, the strategy for dealing with that was to have a Blood Magic healer applying damage shields to the entire party. The damage was too severe for a Fists or Assault Rifle build to keep your party alive, you needed a Blood Mage for that encounter.

A lot of MMOs incorporate things like this, and require very specific solutions to get through them. You wouldn't see a lot of discussion on other ways to clear The Facility because your healer needed to use blood magic to keep everyone alive through the various fights.

In contrast, you're not going to see someone saying, "well, you need a party of sorcs to clear Vet Depths of Malatar, because they need to have bolt escape to jump through the walking walls. However, other MMOs might do something like that, where you need a sorc to bolt through the walking wall to turn it off and save the others (or something.)

ESO is a very open game, strategically, and it has a lot of build variety (even if some people will scream that "there's only one true way.") This is not the norm for MMOs.

Well I would not like more sets for one dungeon, however for an group of dungeons it might be interesting.
On my templar I have DD (off heal), DD / heal and buff, primary heal and trial heal. She should have an PvP build or two

Primary heal is for high damage in vet dlc or group take lots of damage or trying to keep the fake tank alive who I'm happy to do if he pull 30K dps

QuebraRegra · February 2021

well all know what's best.. just ask Conan!

Vevvev · February 2021

As others have pointed out ESO is too complex and there are too many branching options. Just to give you an overly simplistic reason why this is a problem among ESO is because of this.

10 races
6 classes (Split the classes into stam, mag, healer, and tank and you get 24 options here)
2 subclasses
5 weapons (2 bars further increasing the diversity here.)
4 Guilds with combat skills

And I can keep going, as well as go into more detail into sets and stuff, but you're beginning to get the idea. Some combinations are meta but then someone will come from right field with a combination nobody tried!
Like for example the vampire rework was complete and total trash, but with time and new sets people have made it deadly despite its many shortcomings.
Also combine these facts with the ever evolving meta and there will never be a definitive "this is the best" answer until development of ESO stops forever.