Even if I had access to this, which I won't until a free trial for sure, I can't imagine running this set.

Virantis wrote: »

[snip for brevity]

Find. Better. Groups.

It's honestly tiring hearing so many complaints of "I can only play Heavy attack builds, but no groups will let us in!" Ok, so start your own. There are clearly enough people on the forums who want to play HA builds to make three trial cores out of.

No, HA is not meta. But yes, HA is totally possible to do higher-level content, up to and including trifectas. Maybe not the absolute latest trial trifectas, but those are out of reach for 99.99% of the playerbase in the first place. But dungeon tris are absolutely attainable.
All from the respective final boss and within the past few months (so current or previous patch)
Earthen Root:
Bedlam Veil:
Coral Aerie:
(note there that the healer was a Oakensorc with a resto staff, so they were doing a hybrid)
Oathsworn:
(this one was actually hysterical since one of the Oakensorcs had tank CP by accident and another forgot to wear the Oakensoul ring and therefore was a gear piece down the entire time and we only figured it out after we got the tri)

And yes, trial tris are not unattainable. Sure, Cloudrest is gonna be impossible with an Oakensoul build because barswapping is a mechanic, but that doesn't mean you can't have a HA build. But it is possible to bring a HA build to a tri. Here's an IR with two Oakensorcs:

There are a lot of players who are not willing to deviate from the meta that they saw someone post on YouTube. Those players are honestly not as good as they think they are - a lot of builds can do a lot of content if you give them a chance. But there's also a corollary: just putting on an Oakensoul ring and holding down the mouse button does not mean you're geting the most out of that build - I've seen two people with the same HA build and skill loadout where one does basically twice the DPS of the other, and it's because one knows the timings and can eke every drop of damage out of the build, while the other thinks that just holding down HA and pressing a skill every so often is enough. Yes, there are 'good' and 'not as good' players with HA builds.

And yes, other classes can be viable as well. Here's a Dawnbringer run from last month (so current patch) in which 6 of the 7 classes are represented, 5 of them as DPS:
And the Necro actually was the highest DPS. Yes, the Necro outparsed all three Arcanists. On Yandir, all three Arcs were also outparsed by one of the DKs and the Templar.

And again, not every set is designed to be used in trials in the first place. What, can't people have a bit of fun in overland? Maybe if people were more willing to bring their blue-quality silly condition proc sets on an off-meta class with random skills, then people would have more fun even in overland if they didn't nuke everything down like it was a trial trifecta trash pull.

In short: things are possible. If a raid lead is being petulant, find a new one. But also don't assume that just because you've got an Oakensoul ring that you're at the HA build ceiling, because you do still need to have some skill to be able to get everything out of it that you can.

Virantis wrote: »

HA players, or players who just want to have some fun and play the game, will always be excluded by other players or by ZOS, like ZOS did in Cloudrest.

HA builds are not banned from Cloudrest. One gear piece is not viable, and that's the Oakensoul ring.

However, there is nothing stopping a person from bringing a HA build that doesn't include the Oakensoul. HA builds did exist before Oakensoul did, so those are still perfectly viable. Not to mention that a vCR+2 is doable with Oakensoul, provided that the group kills Relequen alone first (where the player doesn't use the ring on that fight... or even if the group coordinates that if the Oakensoul user is able to stand at one end of the arena while the group outranges the AoE.

I feel like you're frustrated that sweaty groups are not accepting your Oakenbuild into trials, and you're extrapolating that into ZOS forcing people to ban all HA builds. First, ZOS isn't barring anyone from content, players are. Second, there are ways to find players who are accomodating. I would actually invite you to ask instead for people who are willing to bring one or more HA builds into a trial run where you could find players who are more accomodating.

This guy is unhinged 😂

I did vAS+2 with 8 heavy attack sorcs. Just find better people to play with or create your own listing in group finder.