I feel the same way. Since they changed pet damage scaling to scale on spell power, it feels like what little build-diversity their was has simply disappeared. There is really now only one way to skin a cat so to speak when it comes to maximizing DPS - highest crit chance you can get, highest crit damage you can get, maintain high uptime on dots/aoe's and spamable when all are up, light attacks in between each ability.

I'd like them to bring back max stat build effectiveness. I miss running around in Necropotence/Alfiqi on my pet scorc.

It'd be nice if raw damage builds were at least competitive with crit builds.

Proc sets proccing other proc sets was also fun (in PVE). That should be a thing. It was fun running around in Thunderbug + Grothdar and letting minions try to beat me up. It'd be nice if you could run a proc set and compete with crit damage builds (Aegis Caller is so much fun, but just doesn't give you enough oomph).

And the hybridization has really made it so that if you want to be competitive with your DPS, you basically have to wear medium armor set to maximize crit damage.

All in all, it feels like the spectrum of viable builds has narrowed over time rather than widened. Not a good thing IMO.

Nothing is stopping you from running False God and Grave Inevitability, with a mythic and lightning staves.

I feel their should be 2 or 3 paths to very similiar dps outcomes per class.

Take sorcerer for example since it is all i know.
1) Pure spell damage path, gear that just makes spells more powerful. for a true wizard experience.
2) pet based, gear that makes pets stronger but doesn't give you great spell damage
3) melee based, which is of course the stamina based sorcerer which can run all the nirn and stuff.

Please show me a parse where a sorcerer is just running pure staff, sorcerer skills / mage guild / barbed trap or the psijic skill for minor force with no pets, actually hitting 70k dps. I have yet to see one.

Here you go. I just randomly clicked some skills to replace the pets. I know, HUrricane is still the stamina morph ... I was too lazy to morph it. Didn't want to morph bound aegis either, so I dropped it completely, and I could not be bothered to find something in place of the Matriarch on the backbar. Prey instead of curse despite no pets. Finally note that I was using Maelstrom staff on the backbar, despite the face that it's currently bugged. So basically just random skills on my bars, no effort put into this setup whatsoever.

False God, Kinra, Kilt, 1pc Slimecraw

I think one could easily hit 90k with Siroria/Tzogvin and a bit more tuning.

thorwyn wrote: »

Please show me a parse where a sorcerer is just running pure staff, sorcerer skills / mage guild / barbed trap or the psijic skill for minor force with no pets, actually hitting 70k dps. I have yet to see one.

Here you go. I just randomly clicked some skills to replace the pets. I know, HUrricane is still the stamina morph ... I was too lazy to morph it. Didn't want to morph bound aegis either, so I dropped it completely, and I could not be bothered to find something in place of the Matriarch on the backbar. Prey instead of curse despite no pets. Finally note that I was using Maelstrom staff on the backbar, despite the face that it's currently bugged. So basically just random skills on my bars, no effort put into this setup whatsoever.

False God, Kinra, Kilt, 1pc Slimecraw

I think one could easily hit 90k with Siroria/Tzogvin and a bit more tuning.

so you spam shards? i been spamming crushing shock for interrupts and the speed of the spam. maybe i need to work on spamming shard? how are you dealing with running low on when you get to 1.5 million mark ? or is shard not causing you low magica ?

You are not wrong. Where is the "build the way you want," button located again? There are 6 classes to choose from and that's it. We need more! The lack of diversity makes half of my characters so identical that the only difference is max stamina or magicka. That's very sad. With the Lost DPS patch, I have to run dual wield/2 H on everything for damage. Why? It's just Alcast copy/paste.

I would love to run a build that didn't rely on pets. I hate pet builds. But ZOS seems to want to have sorc and warden be summoners instead of actual mages. Just give us a dedicated Summoner class ZOS. You know you want too lol

Edit: Yes I know Warden are kind of like summoners but they aren't true summoners because like sorc, they have skill lines that don't summon anything

Hybridisation just seems like one of those short term thought bubbles that no one considered the effects of long term.

Of course with all skills on the table, the meta will just result in the same handful of strongest skills no matter the resource as long as it can be sustained, and whichever class can capitalise the most on being hybrid. No more mag or stam comp variation. Everyone expected to be hybrid if they want to get into the endgame.

And they didn't even finish hybridisation before they moved on to the next fundamental combat change! Absolute clown shoes.

Quethrosar wrote: »

The lack of diversity in how to achieve meta dps is driving me nuts.

First off I am a wizard. I don't want to run pets, maybe healing bird now and then. I want to use lightning and fire and other magic.
I don't want stamina, I am magica. I have every piece of nirn collected but cannot bring myself to use it because it's plus stamina.

I do not want gear that procs some effect without it being about crit chance. I love Grave Inevitability and False God.
I want high crits, I like to see big not white numbers.
I prefer Mythics over monster sets, i have all the monster sets collected for DPS.

I want to try vet trial content but i don't want to be Meta. I want to be a wizard not a thief or fighter.

I believe this game is lacking a good path of building your character for reaching a dps endpoint unless you all follow the same path.

am i wrong?

Yes.
Thieves are called Rogues now, been that way since 3rd edition in the 2000s.

Apart from that, you're essentially saying 'I want to play it my way' and in a game with hundreds of thousands of opinions, there is absolutely zero way that could occur and be called a game. Having your cake and eating it is not something many get to do, however, if you use one of the dozens of gear sets available, and don't demand you get to wear 17 mythics, then there are plenty of sets for you to choose from that will support your chosen belief of 'being a wizard'.

Except, please remember, that's just your opinion of a wizard. Gandalf was a wizard with a sword, DnD lets you play casters with greatswords (reminds me of the time at Uni I made a Cleric in 3rd edition dnd and wielded a greatsword with Strength 18 (Wisdom 17)... that I was not proficient in (still used it, never became proficient lol)

As for the veteran trial content, find some friends who are happy if you play the game your way - but when you join a TEAM you have to play WITH the team, not against them. And this sometimes means making sacrifices.

Overall, you are certainly able to have fun using no sets and slinging nothing but lightning, but remember that's your choice and it should not be powerful just because you want to play like that, because it's an online multiplayer game.