Musclemagic

yes, you can use the same weapon dont know about ultimate though.

You just made my day!

When I look at some of the character build threads it all goes completely over my head, you guys seem to know every detail about what skills to use with what weapon & armour, im completely clueless about what I should go with but you guys talk of it like youve played for years.can anyone give me a clue of what to be looking at as a main healer? looking at the racial skill thread, I feel an Altmer would probably be best, after that I have no idea of what to be looking towards.

If you go templar you have a spammable nuke-heal. If you just use restoration then your only spammable healing ability (in the sense that you can keep using it, as long as they are taking damage it will keep being beneficial) is the absorption bubble. With a spammable heal, your healing is 100% based on how much magicka resource you have, and how much spell power you have.

Time is important when it comes to healing, because you can only output X amount of healing over time if you don't have one of those spammable abilities, and even they are limited by global cooldowns so you need to pump up your power as well to increase the amount it heals/absorbs each time.

The templar healing ability is much better than the bubble from resto staff because it can actually fill the targets health bar rather than just mitigate additional damage, although both could be used in unison.

There's a lot to healing, but yes, the best race is Altmer because they have the highest amount of magicka resource/sustained casting power. Breton is the next best, but their reduction of cost is much lower than the % increase in regeneration so it's not as beneficial even as a templar who gets 4% total MP back with each spell cast.

Sorce's can make great healers if you're okay with only using the resto staff abilities because they have huge MP potential (almost as much as Templar) but the thing that really shines out for a caster (light armor/staves) build on a sorce is there spell Dark Exchange which converts the stamina resource into health and magicka--so you can effectively use your stamina to cast magicka costing abilities rather than relying on stamina abilities (which you won't really have, so it's a good way to use your stamina in PVE)

It might sound like we know what we're talking about, but all we really know are the current passives and actives for each skill tree... Without knowing every in-game mechanic we can't know what the actual best build is for say pve healing..

For pvp healing I think we pretty much nailed it in the templar thread. Morph Rune Focus into uninterruptable and then use immovable, good damage reduction and anti-cc, use the support pvp skill tree for a lot of extra mp regen and then just use the spammable heal x 3 morph and you can output a mad amount of consistent healing.

Without doing a lot of research to figure out exactly how you, personally, want to play...it'll be impossible to know what the best setup for yourself is. You'll need to either just play and figure it out or do the research before asking, otherwise we can't help you. There are so many options in this game that you can build your character for an exact purpose very easily--just a matter of knowing what you want to do first.

Let us know what you plan on doing mostly with your character, I'm presuming dungeons--in which case Sorc/Resto Staff/Altmer's probably the best choice and I'd recommend that as your first character for beta.

Tell us though what your goals are, and we'll be able to help you more.

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You're trying to use with two things that don't work together:

The game is designed to either go Destro (3 types of Destro staves) + Resto or to go with 2H/DW/S&S with a Bow. This is because of how separate armor & magic resistances are, how separate weapon dmg and spell damage are, and how separate magicka and stamina are. If you deviate from one path (which you can easily go 1 path and be just as well off as going both paths) then the other path is going to be weaker. If you try to make both paths work then you will surely be weaker in both paths (and since you can make one path work perfectly, it's not beneficial in the slightest).

The only other option is using DW or 2H and using S&S as other bar instead of Bow, this works fine--especially if you're in heavy armor (best heavy armor DPS --not regular tank-- is templar though.)

Searing Strike is very efficient, yes.

If you want fire damage to be high, at all, then the only thing you should be using is Destro bar with that fire damage. If you try to use a 2H and your fire spells for damage, they will both be weak and not as good.

They try to counter this by being able to use your Stamina to use spells, while otherwise you wouldn't be able to, but the thing is that there are support spells that use stamina that you don't need to do damage with--making it so you don't need to worry about weapon power and such, making you much more powerful than anyone trying to use both and still using all resources.

Most people will not realize this, they will take things that cost ST and MP without realizing that the other thing being buffed is a nerf to the first thing.

I really think that the best DPS DK would look something like this:

DK - Dunmer - Destro/Resto - Light

Destruction (fire) Staff -

Weakness to Elements

Fiery Grip

Searing Strike

Lava Whip

Petrify

*Ancestral Guardian

Resto -

Molten Weapons

Obsidian Shield

Spiked Armor

Dragon Blood

Regeneration

*Magma Armor

Yah, I see why you'd want to build it the way you do, but I still don't really see what's going to be the source of your damage in bar#1. You'll have worse physical dps than heavy, not to mention medium (21% crit and 10% attack speed is huge). It seems to me like you have mixed priorities and should have made your #2 bar into the primary, and only use DW against casters as a backup plan, not main focus. Also I still think you underestimate the importance of dodge, did you play GW2 by chance?

 

I do agree that you are better off either focusing on magic or physical damage, which is exactly why I think picking light armor with physical weapons isn't the best idea. As things are in the game atm, focusing on just physical damage with class skills isn't really an option, unless all you take are selfbuffs. Grabbing medium, one or two weapon skills to dump excess stamina that you don't already use on sprint / dodge / getting out of CC, and then using magicka to supplement your physicial damage seems like a much more intuitive than grabbing a set of light to make your supplements more viable at the cost of a core mechanic.

The reason I made DW the main bar is because even against people in Medium/Heavy you should at least open on them with Bar 1 to get as much burst on them as possible. The fact that it's spell damage will help that burst damage by quite a lot, and the fact that your physical damage isn't that high is just fine because physical damage will still affect the people in light armor more.

I think the biggest problem with my build is that the "caster killer" bar is magic damage--which casters will have a lot of mitigation for. I think the solution to this is to put Mark on bar #1.

Without using spells that cost St you should have plenty of resources for dodge rolls and mid-fight sprinting.

The only difference between our ideas is that you think physical damage is more necessary due to DW and I think that the passives from DW combined with the use of magic damage outweigh the drawback of it being physical. Using maces will increase the damage by up to 10% on heavily armored targets--but I think you are absolutely correct.

You're spot on, I need to be using a Destro staff instead of DW. Even if DW will do damage to light armor, I think the -resistance from destro might overcome that on light armor..but definitely against people in medium or heavy. This is how the game's meant to be played, but I don't think that in this case it's necessary.

It's an easy change for these bars though, if it proves to be a better choice, since nothing actually changes:

NB, Breton, Light, Destro/Resto

Fire Destro - Opener

Invis Cloak

Veiled Strike

Tele Strike

Assn's Blade

Rapid Mnvr (Possibly Cripple)

*Death Stroke

Resto - Kite melee

Entropy

Strife

Cripple

Terror

Magelight (Possibly Shade)

*Barrier

The game is clearly designed to be used a specific way. Within 1 character we cannot deviate between either mostly physical, mostly spell damage, or mostly tanking without being gimped.

I don't know though, thinking more about it... I still think that the DW passives and the addition of physical damage will help more against light-armor targets than using destro staff for lowering their resistances. And then physical damage targets should be NP with bar 2.

Does anyone know if we can use one weapon type for both bars? (Either 2 different Destro Staff bars, or even using DW and then using one of those DW weapons in your S&S bar#2. Maybe even using the same Bow in both bars?)

If so, does it limit you to 1 ultimate for that 1 weapon type--if you're using the exact same weapon on both bars?

" you can change your hotbar configurations any time you’re not in combat"

Terrible news for this game.

This will be patched when they realize that it kills PVE when there are sequences and different dungeon characteristics... There needs to be a drawback or else the game will either be too hard or too easy depending on how well you pre-build for each fight.... How annoyed am I? Very.

Oh well, it makes it easier to kill noobs because they'll be messing around all the time with their stuff for specific situations rather than being good for all situations--so when I come at them, they're going to have huge weaknesses that they won't be able to overcome at all.

Also, I wonder if there'll only be 1 set of morphs at launch. I think they're having problems balancing things already, so I honestly hope they only have 1 set of morphs until next expansion--that way they could work on balancing and other things a lot easier than cutting down the OP builds people (like us) will find.

Well, if veiled strike requires sealth, assuming you can't just get into seatlh by crouching instantly, then the only reliable magic damage ond w set you can do is assassin's blade.I see where you are going with light armor for survival, but for one I think you underestimate the bonuses to dodge rolls and sprint that medium provides, and the dps gain due to crit and attack speed, and I do think that light/heavy attacks will be a large chunk of your dps that simply cannot be ignored.Your second bar is effectively a caster bar, you might as well grab a destro staff for the first one.

DW is physical damage, so it will help kill casters in light armor. I'm not discounting that damage, I know it will be a big % of the dmg-esp against casters.

Switching to a destro staff wouldn't really be better because you need to get close anyway for the NB spells in bar #1. The 2nd bar's already a kite bar. I was thinking about taking Mark Target on Bar#1 to help get around people's spell resistance in light though.

Increase sprint speed is huge but not enough, and more doge-rolls would only be nice in some situations.

Veiled Strike isn't supposed to be reliable, I only picture it for opening. It's damage is as powerful as some ultimates, so it makes sense that it's hard to use. The +stealth radius would be nice from medium, but I still think the crit, -enemy spell resistances, and huge difference in the amount of spells you'll be able to cast with MP is way better--mostly due to having that 2nd bar, but even for bar #1 it is definitely going to be better damage compared to medium just for melee attacks and Death Stroke. For weapon attacks to be strong (which I know they can be) you'd want to use Weapon Power instead of Spell Power--but it's impossible to get away from SP, so if you were to use WP it would just take away from your available SP which will effect the majority of your damage in this case. (And remember, this is all especially true for bar #2.. If you take WP and medium armor then bar 2 is terribly gimped.)

"Game'll be beast." --This isn't even debatable, it's a postmodern philosophical factual statement.

Obviously DK's are the best tanks in the game, which is awesome for both PVP and PVE. I'm interested in hearing about other people's DK builds though, and since nobody else was making a DK thread.. I'll take it upon myself:

I don't feel like starting this thread up how I did before, because I don't want to make a DK tank build since they're all the same cookie cutter possibilities without much difference (okay, nb builds don't vary much either, but w/e!) I got a message from someone, it read as follows:

 from private user:

 Mate ,

 

I want to set up one DPS -DK -Dunmer built for PVE by exploring fire effects as much as possible. I have spoke to lot of people about setting up that build in this stage. Still i don't feel comfortable with what i have.I would like to have great aoe output and very good single target.

I plan to switch hotbars more often than most guys plan and that way extend hotbar to 12 in most situations.

 

2H:

Fiery reach or Crit charge

Searing Strike

Reverse Slash

Momentum

Inferno ( i have question mark here)

Magma Armor

 

Destruction Staff:

Destructive Touch

Obsidian Shield

Impulse ( i have question mark here )

Ash field ( i have question mark here )

Weakness of Elements

Meteor

 

I am considering other spells like ( spiked armor, inner fire, bone shield, molten weapons, stone fist )

All that a lot depends on armor what i will wear.

What do u suggest in regard : 0) Build as such ( all suggestions are more then welcome) 1 ) points distribution (H/M/S) 2) Armor ( L/M/H) 3) Enchants

 

Thanks mate in advance ,

I think they'd get more benefit if we made this public, rather than just my own input.

This was my jumbled response:

since this build's for PVE DPS, the choices seem relatively easy--just go with what will give you the most damage output in the most situations for your entire group.

 

Light armor, remove reverse slash and momentum because they'll be weak if you divvy up weapon and spell powers.

 

bar-swapping a lot takes a lot of time out of your gameplay, so unless you're a buff/debuff bar mixed with a dump-bar it doesn't work very well.

 

you definitely want an up-close bar that you can use your DK fire damage abilities with-- DW for the +dmg passives are much better than 2H, even considering the double amount of burning you'd cause with 2H..the splash damage only applies to weapon damage, not great, and yeah--DW passives > 2H for skill damage (with Light Armor setup).

 

But here's the thing... the Destro staff's so much better for damage because of Weakness to Elements, that there's no need for another bar with single-target dmg.

 

I might say not to use light, but with destro staff as one of your weapon choices you'll definitely want it.

 

It's a shame you can't use the PVP abilities in PVE (dungeons anyway..maybe if they're in cyrodiil? Not sure how it works).

 

As much as I advocate going 100% HP distribution, you'll probably want a lot of MP because DK can't get it back that easily even when built for it. Probably 50/50 MP/HP, but maybe even more MP because you're PVE you can afford not to have quite as high HP as a DPS rather than a tank, probably 60mp:40hp would be good. Enchants I'd go as much MP regen as necessary, then spell power rather than crit since you don't have crit multipliers.

 

I've actually been meaning to make this build again for a while, since my first attempt at it is the only one still posted on the TLDR thread, lol:

 

DK - Dunmer - Destro/Resto - Light

Destruction (fire) Staff - Single Target

Weakness to Elements - Debuff

Fiery Grip - Gap Close

Searing Strike - DOT

Lava Whip - Dmg Spam

Petrify - Long incapacitate, priceless IMO in PVE. Change the fights from 1v2 to 1v1.

*Ancestral Guardian - Save the day when things get sticky but you can't afford to swap to Resto bar for survival.

Restoration Staff - Multi-target

Inferno - AOE

Fiery Breath - AOE

Lots of choices for the next 3- you could either kite groups, if you're soloing a lot you'd need to, or you could just build it kind of tanky, or healy for soloing or support--which you could also utilize even while doing single-target grinding...

*DK standard - On-point AOE dmg ftw with this bar. Drop it right into a group who's in your Dark Talons if you go kitey or your Ash Cloud if you go tanky.... Skadoo!

 

Really depends what you're looking for though, if you like melee weapons then this build doesn't work great for you--even though you'd be in melee range most the time.

 

It's hard to make a good DK, they are either the best DPS or the best Survival, but it's hard to mash both those things together while getting a decent resource distribution for both bars as well.

 

Tough calls on a 2nd bar with that 1st destro bar there.. Nothing else is really good enough compared to that sexy single-target DPS... but hey, if you have no problem with the idea of swapping bars a lot...maybe just do something like this for 2nd bar:

Resto - Buff bar

Molten Weapons - At least helps group a lot, even if weapon power's not that huge for you personally.

Obsidian Shield

Spiked Armor

Dragon Blood

Regeneration

 

If you do this, then you could win pretty much any single-target fight out there...but you'll need to max out MP almost (66%mp, 33%hp). But you'll take so little damage from most things that I think you should take +hp flat regen enchants and lifesteal on weapons rather than taking +% hp or anything.

 

There are so many options mate, it's hard to say without knowing exactly what you're looking for.

 

Hit me with some feedback, I'll reply again. And, if you liked my response, like my facebook: www.facebook.com/musclemagicps4

I want more DK discussions, so I hope a few of you reply to this thread.

Cheers

Edit: I love how it says, "David Said" haha...oh fail on my part. It won't go away!

Do you reckon you will really have that much magic damage to justify going with light armor? Veiled strike is a stun primarily and requires stealth or invisibility, Assassin's Blade doesn't seem to be any huge dps boost over regular / heavy attacks for the cost until the target is below 20% and Teleport Strike you'll want for gap closing, not damage of the ability itself. On the other hand, Death Stroke, which is your biggest burst, is physical. Also no matter how much you pump that magicka regen, it won't help you when you nullify it with cloak.

 

I'd rather see packing twin slashes and/or flurry into the mix, open with teleport strike, then follow with cloak and while your magicka is draining keep the target stunned with veiled strike and dump all stamina you have to burst it down asap. You get pretty much 100% crit chance while invisible in medium armor with daggers, even without assassination passives (70% from cloak, 21% for 7 pieces of medium, 10% for daggers). You get a stamina regen boost every time you refresh cloak, so as long as you have magicka to chain cloak -> veiled and your target doesn't break out of the stun, you get to basically slam your head into that stamina love.

 

Granted, this is not as original and it is a pretty straight forward one trick pony, but one trick pony can often kick some serious butt.

I don't think you can use Veiled Strike while invisible without also being stealthed, otherwise I would agree that taking a St dump that also causes damage would be better--but then it moves into questioning whether Light or Medium would be better even more. Would it do more damage, even though you're not a purebread? I think it has to go either all damage from physical or all damage from spell to really shine, and then use the alternative for all things besides damage.

For the build I posted, I do believe that it's worth taking light armor over medium for the spell damage -- and also because I believe light armor will protect more, more often, than medium can.

Something like this:

Khajiit, DW, Medium

DW-

Twin Slashes

Flurry

Teleport Strike

Veiled Strike // Haste

Invisibility Cloak // Siphoning Strikes

*Death Stroke

Almost like the original NB build in this thread but with Veiled and Cloak. It would do more physical damage, sure. It would kill light-armor folks super easily, and then I'd probably take maces instead of daggers to get extra dmg on heavy armor targets.

But, the problem with this is that bar#2 is hard to balance the resources similarly while still being productive. Rapid Maneuver and Evasion, maybe an anti-daedra/werewolf ability.

There's a lot of possibilities that all have positives and negatives, but I think that the light-armor Assassination build I posted above is one of the strongest builds in the game right now because the kiting bar should be extremely difficult for a melee to kill and the chasing bar should be extremely difficult for a caster to get away from. I feel like Death Stroke is more for the +crit, -healing, and then since it's physical it will still do a lot of damage against typical casters in light armor. It will definitely do more damage to light-armor targets than veiled strike or anything--but I don't think it's worth medium armor for it when you can only use it once every few minutes in PVP (unless you're KSing the crap out of people for +7 Ult with that morph and crippling a lot of people along with using agony with the damage still on even when they escape--those 2 together will get you a lot of Ult quickly if you chain cast it.)

There's so many possibilities, it's hard to say what will be best for the most amount of situations.. but I bet we'll figure it out before beta's over!

Health has a higher multiplier than the rest, given that from what I've seen in beta videos, you had 170 base health at level 2 and spending a point in health increased that by another 20. Seems he is 34?, and if so:

 

Stamina: 100 + 33 * 20 + 10 * 10 = 860

Magicka: 100 + 33 * 20 + 11 * 10 = 870

Health: 150 + 33 * 20 + 11 * 20 = 1030

 

All numbers matching.

ah, yeah, good call-- all is normal! I did the math on the DK's MP without thinking about passives or anything, it's just 6.5% higher than normal is all--prob due to being a Dark Elf. idk why I assumed gear rather than passives... =|

Edit: That makes no sense either, I think it's a dunmer so the effect should apply to both MP and ST, maybe it's.. idk, it's too late to think. Brain = Fried from stress today.

With the recent additions to our knowledge bank, I'd like to propose an improved NB PvP build.

It uses light armor, because the Assassination/Magic tree abilities do magic damage rather than melee damage -- and it appears that the class skill tree damage numbers are vastly superior to the numbers of the weapon-tree. Weapon power may strictly affect the stamina based weapon skill damage it seems, and magic power may effect everything else if it requires magicka.

Based on the huge amount of magic damage abilities VS the 4 (S&S, DW, 2H, Bow) physical damage trees, I believe that light armor may be better at tanking than heavy in PVP (In PVE heavy will be better due to the volume of melee attacks on the tank.)

I believe that the best passives come from DW for damage and Resto staff for survival (while in light armor. If you're in heavy or medium-- S&S blocking is key to survival), so those are the two weapons that make the 2 bars.

Because it's magicka based, I think Breton is a good choice because of the +% MP and the lowered cost of spells(even though Altmer MP regen is vastly superior to the % reduction in spell cost in MP management) and the +All Magic Res is nice (although not necessarily great (due to DR) because of the light armor already). Orc is also a good choice due to the +HP/St and HP regen that will increase survival (and incrs sprint time is nice for a low-St build as well.) Orc/Breton are of the same alliance, so the choice between them isn't that important. I personally prefer orc for their commanding presence, and they have a nice Ult (although this build won't use it in PVP.)

While leveling I plan to put all my points into health, I can always resource-manage through enchantments and armor/skill choices later...but I plan on doing this with any character I create, so this is not build specific.

Anyway, here's the build:

NB, Orc, Light, DW/Resto

DW - Kill Caster

Invis Cloak

Veiled Strike

Tele Strike

Assn's Blade

Rapid Mnvr (Possibly Cripple)

*Death Stroke

Resto - Kite Melee

Entropy

Strife

Cripple

Terror

Magelight (Possibly Shade)

*Barrier

Rapid Maneuver in Bar #1 is good when you have someone keeping you further than 22 meters away, because you can sprint @ 20% incrs speed without being able to be snared or rooted until you're 22 meters away and then you can Teleport Strike (with +30% next attack damage morph-as well as the incapacitated incrs dmg from Assn tree passive) into a Death Stroke if it's up and they're high health or into a series of Assassin blades if they're lower health or Stroke's not available yet.

Because you're not in medium armor and you're not a Kahjiit or Bosmer, if you want to get a melee-ranged attack off then Invisibility Cloak is necessary. Take the +70% crit chance and then use Veiled Strike, pretty dang sweet. Sadly, Khajiit's passive doesn't work on these NB abilities since they're not considered melee. But, if you plan on using more weapon-skills, then Khajiit's still probably the best choice for that build--no matter what class you are, Khajiit for DW/2H DPS rocks compared to other races.

You get +6% crit chance from the Assn tree with Tele, Blade, and Stroke on the bar, as well as +8% HP from having Cloak and Veiled. On the Resto bar you get +8% magicka from having Cripple, it might be worth it to swap Rapid Maneuver with Cripple since Crip has a 28m range and will also help you get within 22m. That +8% magicka is very large for one ability.. Cripple ticking also increase the amount of Ultimate you get. I may end up taking Cripple on both bars, actually.

Magelight is great, it will probably prove to be priceless in PVP where there'll be a ton of NB's (especially in light armor, where you could potentially be downed within 3 seconds if there's a 1 seconds GCD), but after the initial attack I think having Summon Shade would be much better because not only does it decrease the damage you take but it does damage to them, I consider it to be another DOT along with Cripple and Entropy ticking.

Entropy and Magelight give you some nice passives through mage's guild, Summon Shade would give you +4% additional HP in this bar. Casting Entropy into Strife is a nice combo, as we previously discussed. Barrier gives a nice MP regen buff, as discussed in the Templar thread.

I personally believe that for PVE you'll definitely always want Agony on a bar, it would be priceless, but this is just a Cyrodiil build, not dungeon build. For dungeons I'd replace Veiled/Invis with Haste/Siphoning and replace Rapid Maneuver-or-Cripple with that..one ability that does like 11 base dmg and gives you +% power per target, because it's good AOE dmg as well as a nice buff if used correctly, I think it lasts 27 seconds.

Sorry if my info's fudged, I'm in class and not looking at any numbers right now.

Pretty sure that this shows that Armor will be for Physical and Spell Resistance will be for magic due to how separate the two are in the attributes tab.

I'm surprised how high the numbers are in this video.. He's only level 35 and he has that much? It also looks like the health/mp/st numbers look higher than before, but that could just be due to being geared.

Duels, arenas, battlegrounds, pvp ladder rankings, and more roleplay things.

PS4, can't wait for this.

Add me on PS4 if you want to play some COD or Resogun - Musclemagic

My experience from playing Prot in WoW was that spell reflect was way more useful in PvP than it ever was in PvE (and yes, I did run with a proper offensive PvP spec at the time) - a lot of the spells that bosses used which had potential to one-shot any non-tank (and nearly so a tank) would simply be non-reflectable, so it's usefulness was really limited.

 

It might not be as easy to reflect in PvP if a lot of the casts are instant - but I wouldn't worry too much about it, there are skills that interrupt casting, and everybody can do a bash to interrupt casting (at least in melee), I'd be surprised if you couldn't predict at least some attacks in PvP. Then we got information whether you can reflect projectiles already mid-air (you could in GW2, not in WoW for technical reasons), if you can then even if it's an instant cast it doesn't really matter. And yes, spells don't have cooldowns, but neither does defensive posture, and it's cheap. I have seen some casters take half of their hp with a single spell - granted they were all mostly PvErs without resilience and stuff, but it was always hilarious.

 

I think you quite underestimate the usefulness of reflecting a spell, Muscle. By reflecting the damage you don't just negate the damage, which is great and probably something you can do to some degree with just blocking, but also deal that damage back to the attacker. You can put it this way: the difference between taking 1000 damage and taking none is 1000 damage, the difference between taking 1000 damage and taking none while dealing 1000 back is 2000 damage.

 

Assuming armor doesn't work against spells (it didn't in WoW), having a full set of heavy with s/s and all the passives for them will already make anyone attacking you with physical damage cry in despair, especially since you can - and cheaply (-20% from heavy, -25% from s/s and -whatever% max rank of defensive posture grants) - block them on top of all that passive mitigation. Having the ability to reflect spells is essentially closing the gap in your defenses and making you into a real juggernaut.

I mained a prot war in high mmr rbgs, I know it was useful in WoW pvp but because it's spammable and low cost I don't think it will be very easy to use in ESO... If it is, then it's flat out overpowered and killing a tank would be near impossible for a caster.

I'm not sure theorycrafting really applies to this game. Aside from the racials, pretty much anyone can do anything. I played a templar on beta this weekend and was amazed at the versatility of the system.

 

So, while I'm certainly a theory crafter at heart, it doesn't really work here in the same sense of min/max that you can apply to other games. My advice, pick a concept for your character and go with that. There will be skills to support whatever you want to do, no matter what class you choose to play.

 

 

~Q

The fact that everyone can play anything means that build design is more important than ever because there will be larger gaps between good and bad builds. Including the freedom of choice between resources/health, morphs, enchantments, etc. the difference between good and bad builds will be huge.

The reason I haven't been posting is because 1) the PS4 came out, so I've been livestreaming Resogun and COD. 2) we pretty much made the best possible builds with the current knowledge-at least in my opinion-so until the updated skills are available, there's nothing else to really figure out.

Ok, let's get this sorted: what can and cannot be blocked?

 

[*]s/s passive, Deflect Bolts: Block 15% additional damage from projectiles and ranged attacks

[*]s/s active, Defensive Posture: Activate to reflect next spell projectile at attacker

[*]resto staff passive, Absorb: Blocking spells restores 5 magicka

[*]Mages Guild passive?, Greater Ward?: reduce incoming spell damage by 15% while blocking

 

The last one on the list seems rather confusing, it actually doesn't exist on the mystical google doc spreadsheet, which is probably most up to date, but it does exit on the leak we got in news here, which seems to match the Quakecon build. If that passive no longer exists, that would be actually convenient for my hypothesis, since it's the only blocking related passive that doesn't apparently affect block as a mechanic itself, but rather gives you damage resistance while blocking.

 

Wording of it all can be rather tricky, especially given they are just leaks and things can get lost in translation, but both s/s skills listed talk about "projectiles", and Defensive Posture explicitly states "spell projectile" (both on the spreadsheet and on Tamriel Foundry listing).

 

With all that in mind my hypothesis would be that blocking any kind of a ranged projectile - be it arrow, a destro/resto staff light or heavy attack, or any sort of a fireball-ish kind of a spell - is possible. That means, ESO would need to use a mechanic separating offensive spells between projectiles and non-projectiles.

 

Also I'm now tempted to make room for Defensive Posture in my build, goddammit.

The real question isn't if you can block them. It's, "If you block a powered ranged attack, will the person be knocked like they would be knocked if they're using melee? Does this apply to Resto Staff which uses a magic attack, albeit at short ranged? And, if it applies to Resto, does it also apply to Destro and Bow if they're within countering-range (melee range)?"

PVE I'd take Defensive Posture and Puncture for sure, but I don't think a single spell is worth reflecting in PVP for the price of their spell-cast. In a game where there's no big cooldowns that you can expect and there's a lot of small spells, reflecting spells will be much better over-time, (Reflective Scale//Eclipse) than for a single spell at a time, unless you have a way of knowing when someone's going to cast an Ultimate or something. In PVE you'll probably have a better idea of when something worth reflecting is coming your way and you can be prepared for it. In PVP, will anything be worth the cost? Will everything be worth the cost? Can you make a 5 heavy 2 medium S&S Build that's able to continuously spam it and it can beat any caster in PVP? Can you do this with any MP heavy Temp or DK, forcing the opponent to just stop using spells on you entirely? Maybe these abilities don't even work in PVP, but I don't see them doing that.

Entropy used to give you magicka. I don't check the damn spreadsheet every day.

Haa! I was just teasing!

2h summoner in heavy.. interesting. Not much synergy going on, but in Heavy you won't have many resources so having pets is a good way to go about not requiring a lot. Anything in Heavy isn't really going to be squishy, but that's not a bad thing, I think something like this would work. It's not exactly high damage output, but your 2H swinging for a bit more--would work better with Haste though as a NB.. Summon Shade/Haste instead of two pets.. You'd get 1 pet still anyway, . You'd be able to spam Critical Charge, too, for burst..it's actually pretty good damage per resource. So maybe instead of taking Momentum you take Mage's Fury...

Pet 1

Pet 2

Critical Charge

Momentum

Immovable

Yeah, I think either:

NB-

Shade

Critical Charge or Teleport Strike

Haste

Momentum

Immovable

OR

Sorce-

Pet 1

Pet 2

Critical Charge

Mage's Fury

Immovable

The trick would just be getting out of the 3m minimum range for Critical Charge spam.

It all depends on what the morph abilities are though. Without the morphs, NB has a clear advantage if shade and sorce pets do the same damage.

http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/map/tamriel

 

Could those be the areas available at release?

It looks like Ebonheart will have to cross either mountains or a river, daggerfall will have to cross mountains, aldmeri probably just has awesome fields and pristine forests... Hmmm..

Yeah, it's only a bit less than most other builds. There's nothing you'll be spamming though, so even if the abilities are about average costs it ends up being less because you aren't wanting to recast them every 2-3 seconds for damage output like you potentially could/should with typical builds. There's no resource dump that you'll really want to be able to spam a lot. I mean, yeah you could spam Strife for finishing power if you have excess resources...and maybe against 2+ melee you'll want to be able to use Terror a lot more often than normal, but I think that in heavy with your heals incoming you probably won't need to use it much in just a 1v1 melee situation. So, idk, it just depends on how much damage melee ends up hitting you for--other than potentially requiring to use Terror pretty often it should be pretty operable.

This is a bit of a random question, but does anyone know exactly how switching skills on your hotbar works? I mean essentially as a NB could i enter combat realise that my opponent is spec'd in a certan way stun them, stealth ,( I'm assuming here that stealth takes you out of combat- I don't know) then change a skill on my hotbar to account for their spec? I haven't managed to research into the mechanics of the game as much as I would like to , so excuse me if this comes off as a bit of a stupid question.

Either it will be like Diablo 3 where it puts a long blacklist timer on an ability once it's switched, or you'll only be able to switch them in towns or something. This is just a guess, but there's no way they'd let it be instant, right? Especially during combat.

Meh... I don't think anyone knows unless they've played beta--in which case it would violate the NDA.

No Dark Exchange on DK .

.... I'm not thinking clearly right now apparently, haha! Good call! XD

But he could use Entropy :-)

Neither is Irons. I don't feel so bad anymore. /cheer!

Honestly though, Nuke, I wouldn't dedicate yourself to using that build quite yet. It'll definitely be good damage in PVE, but that was a really early build idea and I don't think it's that great of a concept anymore.

What is it that you like about it? We can definitely make a better build for you then that if we know what you're looking for.

A few people I've talked to, and a few of you who are posting here, want to play a drain/survival NB. I think this build will do well for that:

Argonian – NB – Bow/DW – Heavy Armor

Bow- *Against Melee

• [*]

DW- *Against Casters

• [*]

Ult- Consuming Darkness

Mark Target + Entropy + Strife + Cripple + Terror = Amazing bar. Mark Target will make those spells do big damage (and increase the healing from Strife. Entropy → Strife will also incrs it's dmg.), and Terror will keep melee off you pretty well-especially with Cripple slowing them and you being able to dodge-roll into 50% incrs speed to stay away, forcing them to use a gap-closer.

It's a Bow so you're able to do powered attacks without worrying about being CC'd by them if they're blocked (while at ranged anyway) (you could also use a Destro staff in this bar, but there's no point—no need to reduce enemy's resistances because Mark Target already does. [This is why Light Armor would be a waste as well, it's a low-cost build as long as you have high MPR (Magicka Points Regeneration) enchants, and the -enemy and +your own magic resistances doesn't benefit you at all because of Mark Target anyway.])

The DW bar is the cookie cutter, “Can't CC me, I stick to you easy, big burst, plenty of resources.†perfect bar for killing people in light armor.

The only hole in the build is that you'll need to take a lot of MPR for bar#1 to work, and then Bar#2 doesn't need as much so bar#2 will be a little worst than if you were centered around it. But, honestly, Bar#1's not that MP intensive compared to most MP builds..so it shouldn't be too much of a disadvantage on Bar#2 at all really!

Alright after seeing the fire Mage dk setup I was sold. So let's say I create this class to be the best glass nuke it can be. Obviously I'll have a realistic amount of health, but is there a point where having too much magicka would be pointless? In other words, is magicka only good for having the ability to cast more spells or does it also increase spell damage/crit chance?

As pure damage caster, with all MP abilities, I'd recommend going high MP for sure. You'll still probably want Dark Exchange. You'll be able to take expensive spells and almost never have to use normal weapon attacks (that do less damage than spells).

I'll still keep siphoning strikes on my alt set for resources, and if I burn stamina faster than magicka - which is very likely, I can try to fix that either by getting cripple instead of low slash, or teleport strike instead of charge.

Yeah, it's an easy remedy. That's what I was going to recommend but my phone apparently deleted it.

Any reason you're going S&S over something else since this isn't a PVE build using Puncture? You don't get much survival from S&S really except shield stuff, which I'm sure helps but in PVP you'll get more survival from Resto and more damage from anything else.

I feel like the only real highlight of S&S is Puncture, and only in PVE.