If a class can only use a specific class style to participate in the end-game (in pve, that is, trial HM), then "playing how you want to play" is just a delusion.
sorc is forced to only use pets to enter the trial HM. For any lightning theme or black magic theme without pets, its dps will not be able to complete the needs of the HM.

When other people ask to strengthen nopet-sorc in PVE, some malicious comments will appear, such as "you can form your own team that accepts nopet-sorc" or "there will always be metadata", etc., and even builds with low dps are used as evidence, claiming that they play well in Craftable or ordinary Dungeon, basic Dungeon.
These remarks completely avoid the fact that the dps of nopet-sorc is much lower than that of pet-sorc, and there is not even enough dps to participate in the trial HM and other key points. By the way, sorc is also the only class that does not have a magic build record in the SE HM log.



In comparison, even if other professions create builds with specific themes, even if they are not meta, they can still meet the dps requirements to enter the trial HM. As for socr, you can even see in the log that some socr do not even use or cannot use any Dark Magic skill lines.


I don’t know, if one day the speakers of these toxic remarks have a feature in their main class’s professional style that is completely weakened (for example, all DK’s poison skills are completely weakened by 100%, or, or NB’s Assassinatio skill lines are weakened by 50%), so that even if it is better to build without using the relevant Skills, will they still insist on the so-called "play how you want to play"?

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Why Sorc has to have a minion themed class skill line at all. Warden and Necro were two missed opportunities class theme wise.....ZoS as usual.

To be honest, I don't blame ZOS for this. After all, sorc is the oldest class among the three. Given the situation at the time, it was reasonable for sorc to be the carrier of the pet theme. But when Warden, Necro, and even Arcanist, who also use the power of Daedra, appear (there are indeed Mora/Arcanist-themed pets in IA), forcing sorc to only build pet themes is an over-restriction.

But is ZOS indifferent or incapable of improving this situation? We all know the answer.

DenverRalphy wrote: »

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

If a class can only use a specific class style to participate in the end-game (in pve, that is, trial HM), then "playing how you want to play" is just a delusion.

Only if you equate "play how you want" to meaning there are no sub-optimal decisions.

One can play however they wish. It doesn't mean that other players will accept those decisions when building their prog groups.

Making it about what other players accept is only looking at a symptom. It's also not about disallowing any sub-optimal decision. Some classes don't need to play in their optimal way to do just fine.

Let's say I want to play a parse sorc, no support sets, at trifecta level for DSR, SE or LC. (Let's not even consider pet vs no pet or mag vs stam for this). So yes, first barrier is that groups doing that content will say no. The thing worth looking at is why they say no. Let's imagine all DDs have to be the same class. It's an artificial situation, but a good way to compare class balance.

All Arcanists together... it just works. It doesn't even matter if the players are on optimal builds, just okay ones.
Put a group of all DKs together... supports might need to be a little better at stacking, but the cleave is still there, just melee not ranged.
All Necros? Maybe fine if the DDs are skilled enough?
Plars? Might just about manage with optimizing and skilled DDs, but getting very doubtful now.
Wardens and NBs? I don't know since I never see warden DDs and NB is crazy-rare. Probably not going to work.
Sorcs? I honestly don't see how a group of all sorc DDs could clear the hardest content in the game even if fully optimizing to the extent the class allows.

It doesn't matter if the group lead wants to let people play any class. You hit a point where you simply can't justify playing them or allowing them in groups.

If part of how I want to play is being able to clear content, then there's no way to argue "play as you want" holds up. And I don't think this is a bad thing, because I feel taking time to optimize and find the best builds should be part of growing in the game. However it stops being okay when a whole class (actually classes) are not wanted outside of occasional support set roles. When we get into different specs within classes (things like pet vs non pet sorc, or stam vs mag for some classes) then the divisions get even worse, and the result is you find yourself facing a barrier to get into groups even lower down before you hit trifecta or sometimes even HM level.