Musclemagic

Great summary of a lot of things at once! I've never seen an ultimate change when the bars are swapped, so I believe that you'll only be able to equip one ultimate ability.. but I haven't looked at it much while watching videos. The Light armor active ability currently costs MP not ST, was this an accident or are you sure this is true? And, are you sure you need to have 1+ piece(s) of the armor to use the active? I was under the impression that we could use any of them as long as we unlocked that active.

The problem with trying to exploit this is that in Cyrodiil we're all considered level 50 with maxed skill levels and skill costs. So, even if we were able to save leveling Encase for PVP or PVE at high levels where you'd be able to spam it all the time since it'd cost next to nothing... Hopefully they'll implement a system where that ability would *miss more often, or something, to avoid this. If your cLvl is that much higher than the sLvl (skill level) though, you're going to level up that sLvL really quickly anyway though..so you probably won't be able to exploit this for long, if you're able to at all.

ZOS is probably paying people to edit in random crap.

Yeah, mage tanks are going to be a bitch in PVP. In PVE they won't be that special because with S&S taunt you need a pretty big amount of Stamina, so Dark Exchange won't be a huge bonus for PVE tanking. PVP tanking..something like this, just really hard to kill: Altmer - Sorc - Heavy Armor - Lifesteal Resto & Power Destro Resto - Hard to kill. Blessing of Protection Steadfast Ward Lightning Form Bound Armor Dark Exchange Negate Magic* Destro - Kills you fast. Surge Weakness to Elements Lightning Splash Mages Fury Dark Exchange Overload*

560 armor is about how much armor full Light armor will give you. With 560 armor + Light I think it'll be about = to heavy. This is just speculation. Any reason for going Light instead of Heavy Armor + Bound Armor? With Dark Exchange, regen doesn't matter much, so you'll have 21% more effective MP due to spells being 21% cheaper..but compared to what? As a tank you'll need to measure how often you can keep up your mitigation abilities compared to keeping them up with light armor on and see which one grants you the most mitigation..so it's not really just about how much mitigation the armor itself gives.

Haha! Epic post!

Yeah, I figured that it would be too much to get a bar builder......... .... ..... ......... .... I HATE THAT BLACK FADE-OUT BAR WITH A PASSION!!! Haha!

Hmm.. here's how I'd set it up: (Everything's minimizable) RACIAL Trees Aldmeri trees Daggerfall trees Ebonheart trees CLASS Trees DK trees NB trees Sorc trees Temp trees ITEM Trees 2H + DW + S&S trees Destro + Resto + Bow trees Armor trees OTHER Trees PvP trees Disease trees Guild trees Soul Magic + Undaunted trees Start with THESE minimized, and then let people maximize into each part or THESE into a more specific tree from there. That would be the easiest way for me anyway. Maybe make a "skill selector" where there's a button on each active ability that allows you to add it to bar 1 or bar 2... and then have a Bar 1 and Bar 2 somewhere on the side... That would be super cool, but probably a lot of scripting.. XD EDIT: Actually, it's perfect how it is.. just make everything minimizable and possibly do the Add to Bar 1 or Add to Bar 2 thing in the future. XD

Sorry for the double post-- Doczero asked me to further explain the buffed NB build I posted earlier, I ended up making revisions to it: In 1v1, unless you're fighting a healer, you'll almost always want to have the following cast-sequence: 1) Force Siphon (since it's a cast time, if you cast this one after another pre-buff's applied it takes up 1.5s of the duration of previously casted Timed spells.) 2) Blur, Evasion, Summon Shade in any order. -Swap Bars 3) Teleport Strike & Flurry until out of a resource. 4) Haste & Siphoning Strikes until you've got resources again. -If the battle's going your way at this point, then Teleport Strike & Flurry combos until the target's dead, maybe using Death Stroke if they're on the defensive. -If the battle's going poorly at this point, then switch back to Resto bar and reapply buffs, this time including Regeneration. If the battle's going really poorly, use Consuming Darkness and get out of there. -If there's more than one target, the only difference you'll want to make is to cast Drain Power... Actually.. I don't think it's worth it.. Take Mark Target in Resto Bar instead of Summon Shade, and put Summon Shade in DW bar instead of Drain Power. If you're fighting a healer then all you really want is Summon Shade from your buff-bar, unless it doesn't do much damage..then no need for the buff-bar at all. Against a healer the sequence would just look like this: 1) Teleport Strike 2) Flurry -Repeat 1&2 until out of MP or ST. 3) Haste 4) Siphoning Strikes -Auto attack until able to use teleport strikes and flurries again. 5) Death stroke and it's over, low heals = dead healer. A sorc healer with Dark Exchange, Bound Armor, Lightning Form, Blessing of Protection, and Regeneration + Grand Healing will be extremely hard to kill with this build. The good thing about fighting a healer is that they're not going to be able to kill you, between all your mitigation and passive healing ability there's no way they can get your health down as a healer. A tank DK will also be very hard to kill, but I think you'd get the kill first in 1v1 due to their lack of self-heals. Between your mitigation from Armor & Shade, them being stunned a lot, and your high dodge+their miss chance, you won't take much damage so just Regeneration + Force Siphon (with fast Daggers that are also Lifestealing enchanted) means you'll probably have no problem surviving pretty much any 1v1 fight except against a mirror class. Even against a sorc you don't need to worry, they can do a lot of damage but have less single-target damage and less mitigation as you... also, dodging/them missing = the best mitigation in my opinion because it doesn't just reduce damage--if something misses then the effects don't get to you either. At the same time as all that passive survival (passive as in not reaction-based), you have huge capacity for burst-damage to single targets. Hmmmm... Actually... Now that Summon Shade is on the more active bar, I think taking Immovable is a better choice. It also balances MP:ST a lot better as well as giving you more self-utility. Updated- Khajiit – NB – Heavy Armor – DW/Resto Resto (Power)- [*]Mark Target [*]Force Siphon [*]Blur [*]Evasion (Unlock this by using Medium Armor before switching to 7/7 Heavy for all the passives as well as to unlock Immovable) [*]Regeneration [*]Consuming Darkness DW (Lifesteal Daggers)- [*]Teleport Strike [*]Flurry [*]Haste [*]Siphoning Strikes [*]Immovable [*]Death Stroke

It isn't really level dependent: You have to get experience in the skill tree to unlock an ability, and then you can use a skill-point to be able to use the ability. For example, you can have your Resto tree fully unlocked before being able to unlock a single ability from Destro. A couple people have asked about how many pieces of armor you'd need to wear in order to use the active ability. I don't think you need to wear any at all, you just need to have leveled up the skill-tree enough. For example, if you level up in Medium Armor then you can unlock the Active and the Passives for medium armor. Then, if you change to Heavy or Light armor later on, you wouldn't get any of the benefits from the passives you've unlocked in Medium (unless you have a few medium pieces on still) but even if you've got zero pieces of medium armor on, you'd still be able to use Evasion. For example, if you look at the quakecon video, he's level 16 in Aedric Spear abilities, but level 1 in Destro Staff. I'm fairly certain that within the skill-tree, you get the first active ability unlocked at lvl 1(without any use) and then every 10 levels you gain access to 1 active and 1 passive ability. Then character levels and soul shards (x3) give you access to points to put into those unlocked trees separately. I'm not sure how this correlates with skill-trees that have less abilities/passives (like Soul Magic) but I get the feeling it'd still be every 10 levels of the tree. I'm planning on leveling up the Soul Magic tree really quickly to lvl 30 so that I can get Soul Lock and not worry about putting that shit on my bars ever again... To do this I'm going to put both of the possible actives from this tree on my bars. Armor levels slow because there's only one active that you can put on your bar for it. I think armor/weapon skill trees will levels while in use, even without an ability on your bar, but it will go faster if you keep one on there and use the ability often. **This is all guesswork**

YOU are the reason why vampire and lycan movies suck!! "They can't use weapons because teeth/claws are cooler!" If I was a werewolf I'd wear kevlar and carry a machine-gun. ....I also wish that bad guys could shoot straight. XD

What do you guys thinks about this interesting build idea? It would be for PVP and Solo PVE: Khajiit – NB – Heavy Armor – DW/Resto Resto (Power)- [*] Blur [*] Evasion (Unlock this by getting enough experience with Medium Armor [Thankfully you'll only need to spent 1 point to get the Ult, since you'll be 7/7 Heavy after that one point you won't want to unlock anything else in Medium]) [*] Regeneration [*] Force Siphon [*] Summon Shade [*] Consuming Darkness DW (Lifesteal Daggers)- [*] Teleport Strike [*] Flurry [*] Drain Power [*] Haste [*] Siphoning Strikes [*] Death Stroke 2 MP : 1 ST : 1.5 HP MP/ST will be kept up by Siphoning Strikes so you can focus most of your armor enchantments either into Power or HP. Force Siphon before haste+double dagger attacks are going to keep you alive (esp in heavy armor) for quite a long time.. pretty sweet resource synergy with those 3 abilities. Start by buffing yourself for the battle at hand with Resto Staff equipped. Swap to DW and apply Haste/Siphoning Strikes. For ~15s you'll be a badass in heavy armor who's hard to hit and pumping out a lot of damage through teleport strike + flurry combos. Keep your MP/ST up with regular attacks. If things stop going your way then switch back to Resto and re-apply the defensives until you are able to Consuming Darkness and escape. Say you activate Dragon Blood or Spiked Armor and then you change bars, do you still get +12% healing from the passive? It's a "while affected by an ability from this bar" rather than "while an ability from this bar's slotted" passive..so I'd assume so.

Effing amazing start!

Yeah, passives(slotted ones) would only work if they're on the active bar.. but hmm, that opens up a whole new world then. What do you mean by no cooldown? You mean abilities that end over time? Like, if you cast Molten Weapons it will stay on for 45 seconds even if you swap bars after you activate it? Hmm, so that's..pretty interesting. All of a sudden I like Sorc, NB, and DK more than templar a bit. lol

I'm sure you've changed your build by now, sorry for getting to this post late. I just wanted to make one point in regard to your build-- Having a "buff bar" for HOT's and pre-game doesn't work, because (it's my understanding) that when you swap bars the positive effects all disappear from both you and your teammates. (Effects on enemies stay though.) This is important to remember when making a build. As awesome as it would be...you won't be able to swap bars and cast Haste/Blur/Momentum/Evasion/Summon Shade/Molten Weapons/Surge/Etc.etc. before swapping back to your main-bar. That would be crazy cray, haha!

Which race and weapon combo do you think of when you think of a Werewolf, a Vampire, and the Emperor? THE WEREWOLF (A Hell Hound! AROOO) Khajiit – 2H I guess it'd be a hell-cat, haha THE VAMPIRE Dunmer – Dual Wield or Destro THE EMPEROR Redguard – S&S A DRUID Definitely a Khajiit & Restoration Staff THE HULK I picture a little Bosmer with a bow all of a sudden turning into a giant muscle-monster and smashing everything!! HAhaha! Wicked... Orc would be the obvious answer though, unless going for irony..Bosmer ftw, rofl.

I've been trying to make a sorc in Heavy but it just gets ugly each time. What weapons were you thinking for this build? S&S for PVE or would this be a tanky PVP spec?

Yeah, definitely dual rocking the daggers. This is especially true for your solo build with siphoning strikes on DW bar..but would be better if you went Khajiit! How can you like Dunmer more than Khajiit?! XD I get it, it's you...but Dunmer look just like everyone else now so it's not even cool anymore, haha

A list of my current favorite builds (Please critique)... Dungeon Builds with ***PVP skill swaps***: THE TANK DK – Dunmer – Heavy Armor – S&S + Fiery 2H S&S – [*]Puncture ***Fiery Reach*** [*]Low Slash ***Inferno*** [*]Ash Field ***Dark Talons*** [*]Spiked Armor [*]Obsidian Armor [*]Magma Armor Fiery 2H- [*]Fiery Reach [*]Reflective Scale [*]Molten Weapons [*]Cleave ***Uppercut*** [*]Reverse Slash [*]Ancestral Guardian (Tanks while you're helping DPS) ***Dragon Leap*** THE MELEE DPS NB – Khajiit – Enough Medium Armor – DW + Bow DW- [*]Agony ***Shadow Cloak*** [*]Veiled Strike [*]Summon Shade ***Teleport Strike*** [*]Flurry [*]Assassin's Blade [*]Death Stroke Bow- [*]Mark Target [*]Snipe [*]Volley [*]Haste [*]Siphoning Strikes [*]Consuming Darkness THE HEALER Templar – Argonian – Enough Light Armor to have MP efficiency, then Heavy armor – Resto + Destro Resto- [*]Soul Trap ***Siege Shield*** [*]Rune Focus [*]Blessing of Protection [*]Cleansing Ritual [*]Healing Ritual [*]Rite of Passage ***Hitskin*** Destro- [*]Entropy [*]Piercing Javelin [*]Sun Fire [*]Solar Flare [*]Force Shock [*]Soul Strike ***Warhorn*** THE MAGIC DPS Sorc – Altmer – Light Armor – Destro + Resto [*]Surge [*]Weakness to Elements [*]Lightning Spash [*]Daedric Mines [*]Mages Fury [*]Overload Resto [*]Blessing of Protection [*]Steadfast Ward [*]Force Siphon [*]Rune Prison [*]Dark Exchange [*]Negate Magic

Good call on Death Stroke affecting the passives, definitely better than Eye-- I totally spaced it. While soloing I agree it's good to have haste/siphon on the bar, but in a dungeon having Agony + Summon Shade are really really powerful for helping the group out. I see where you're coming from, it'd help you sustain damage overall, but I think having Agony + Shade in a dungeon is a lot more beneficial than haste+siphon. I totally see why haste+siphon is good to have on DW though, it'll keep things moving much faster than bar swapping to Bow and applying haste/siphon before shooting... but from the other group member's perspective.. Agony and Shade will make dungeons go so much smoother. XD

I'm thinking about a NB build that used DW + Haste + Siphoning Strikes as 2ndary bar, to recharge MP/ST really quick (with DW-Daggers)... But I can't make that bar work. It seems better to refill from a distance whether it's your main bar or not. I actually really like your build..a lot. The PVP bar you came up with is the exact one that I had posted a few times now, on page#2 it's the Khajiit's DW bar. I might even say..that it's...the most perfect build yet. PVP - Khajiit - NB - Medium Armor - DW + Bow DW- Shadow Cloak Veiled Strike Flurry Teleport Strike Assassin's Blade Eye of Fear (Either this or Death Stroke) Bow- Mark Target Snipe Volley Haste Siphoning Strikes Consuming Darkness - Poof! (Who needs heals when they can GTFO NP? Haha!) It's the most perfect build because of how well it all comes together. But, it doesn't support the group enough for it to be considered the best build for winning Cyrodiil battles. PVE Bars I'd recommend this: Don't worry about Strife, the heal's not great and the damage alone isn't worth it. With Consuming Darkness on Bow Bar you don't need to worry about healing in combat, just get out of combat and you heal up super quick. And I wouldn't worry about Haste/Siphon since it's on your Bow Bar--and you don't want to be in the fray while out of MP/ST anyway, so it's better to just refuel with Bow out. DW- Veiled Strike (Since you won't need Shadow Cloak to sneak up if the target's chasing the tank, the 4s stun's nice too, and they can't get out of the stun because they're off-balance. ) Flurry Assassin's Blade Summon Shade Agony Bow -Same bar as PVP, I've been trying to make it better for just PVE but I think it's spot on. All cleaned up: THE MELEE BUILD NB – Khajiit – Medium Armor – DW & Bow DW- PvP (PvE) [*] Shadow Cloak (Agony) [*]Veiled Strike [*]Flurry [*]Teleport Strike (Summon Shade) [*]Assassin's Blade [*]Eye of Fear Bow- [*] Mark Target [*]Snipe [*]Volley [*]Haste [*]Siphoning Strikes [*]Consuming Darkness

Yeah, definitely. I agreed with you from the beginning on this, dispel in PVP's an essential- I just wanted to know what you were talking about specifically. The difference is passive damage reduction through armor VS being able to spam more abilities, it's not as easy as seeing how much less MP you'll have and saying that Heavy Armor won't work. If you are able to cast X% more abilities then hopefully you take that same X% less damage (or close to it) rather than Y% less damage. I mean, if they make it so it's X% more abilities (which can be used to mitigate damage themselves) VS Y% less damage, then it wouldn't be balanced at all. Either X > Y or Y > X. So, really, they have to be X=Y to make it balanced... The PVP balance team isn't full of idiots (let's hope) so we have to assume that it will come out even. I like it, I would just say that Volley's a really good ability in PVP as well. It may be more beneficial to take Volley than Strife, and here's my reasoning: Your DW bar's your main bar, it'll do more single-target damage. So, you'll want to use your DW bar on single-targets, and then use your Bow bar when things are heavy on the front lines. Strife can only heal you for 30% of the damage done by the last Strife you cast, so while it's healing you there's no point of casting another Strife... So in group battles, Strife's not very important for the heal or for the damage. I know in 1v1 it's good to have, but you have your DW bar for that. I think having a ranged AOE is a really good idea for group fights, and the fact that Volley immobilizes enemies makes it really good for your group.A good Bow Bar for your DW might include Haste and Siphoning Strikes, they synergize nicely and allow you to refill your resources to get more volleys off. I'd keep Mark Target and Snipe because they're awesome. Agony is amazing as well though...Agony has a 1.5s cast time, so you'll probably get interrupted a lot in group fights, and then in 1v1 if the enemy has an interrupt then you'll never get it off unless you combo it with an incapacitate. To me it's more of a PVE move, (I mean, I know that Sheep in WoW is amaze-balls, but in this game you can get out of it just from spending some ST) Cripple/Strife are good for single target fights, for sure, but I think your DW bar's better for single-target fights anyway, so I wouldn't worry about taking them. I think this bar supplements your character a lot better. Use it to open, re-fuel before swapping back to DW, or AOE people down in group fights--you can also just pick people off with Snipe. It keeps you out of the fray when things are too hairy for DW bar, and when you feel like swapping back you just Haste/Siphon your way back to full then DW fresh as a mo! Bow- Mark Target Snipe Volley Haste Siphoning Strikes

Can you give us an example of something else that requires a dispel? I think you can break out of CC in this game, so there's no need to dispel each CC like in most PVP games. Entropy is the only option that a DK using a Resto/Destro staff has. So, you're saying that this build just wouldn't work at all unless you were in light armor? EDIT: At first I agreed with the above statement, but I have to take it back. If it wouldn't work, then Heavy Armor builds wouldn't work at all because it's either ST or MP you're sacrificing and there's not that many other ways besides through the armors to increase it. We haven't done the calculations as to which will cause us to lose more effect HP, going Light on an all MP build and being able to put more stats in HP --VS-- going Heavy and needing to take more MP than HP. It all depends on the numbers, but unless they messed up really badly--it should be fairly even. I think that overall for single targets Soul Strike > Leap. It depends on the situation, but it's quite a bit more damage overall than Leap is. The damage happens so fast that it's hardly a traditional DOT (not very spread out. It actually does more damage than Leap by 1.2s.) It also doesn't require you to move to their position (or be within 10-20m range to begin with). This is kind of what I imagine in a typical dungeon (Apart from the races being teamed. lol): THE HEALER Templar – Argonian – Light Armor – Resto [*]Entropy [*]Rune Focus [*]Blessing of Protection [*]Cleansing Ritual [*]Healing Ritual [*]Warhorn - U 2nd bar ideas: (Destro) [*]Spear Shards [*]Restoring Aura [*]Magelight [*]Eclipse [*]Wall of Elements [*]Impulse THE MAGE Sorc – Altmer – Light Armor – Destro [*]Surge [*]Weakness to Elements [*]Lightning Spash [*]Mages Fury [*]Daedric Mines [*]Daedric Curse [*]Overload - U 2nd bar ideas: (Resto) [*]Familiar [*]Winged Twilight [*]Rune Prison [*]Dark Exchange [*]Force Siphon THE MELEE NB – Khajiit – Medium Armor – DW [*]Summon Shade [*]Hidden Blade [*]Veiled Strike [*]Flurry [*]Assassin's Blade [*]Eye of Fear - U 2nd bar ideas: (Bow) [*]Agony [*]Drain Power [*]Haste [*]Snipe [*]Volley THE TANK DK – Dunmer – Heavy Armor – S&S [*]Puncture [*]Ash Field [*]Low Slash [*]Spiked Armor [*]Obsidian Armor [*]Magma Armor - U 2nd bar ideas: (DW) [*]Molten Weapons [*]Dragon Blood [*]Reflective Scale [*]Fiery Reach [*]Flurry [*]Twin Slashes [*]Whirlwind

This is highly possible, and probably why they put it in the PVP - Support tree. This healer might be alright though, and hope that someone else has purge or a temp's around: DK, Argonian, Heavy Armor, Restoration Staff = 26% increased healing taken + the ability to heal with high damage mitigation = heals are a big deal for this build. Resto- -Blessing of Protection -Spiked Armor -Obsidian Shield -Grand Healing -Regeneration -Magma Armor DW- -Fiery Reach -Entropy -Searing Strike -Twin Slashes -Inferno -Soul Strike

I agree that Focused Healer is a game-breaker for heals, I think it will be nerfed substantially. I think dispels will be good because it makes the enemy need to recast DOTs or DOT builds get rendered useless..but other than this and Daedric Curse it's not a real necessity to take. DOTs don't seem that OP so I don't think it's a huge problem, but it's definitellyyyy nice to have! Haha! I think DK can make a pretty good healer by giving the group some good buffs, mitigation, and then two heals and another buff from the Resto line, like this build here: But when it comes to actual healing power, nothin but Temp!! @ Irons, I want to clear the water-- I'm sorry that I got all butt-hurt over what you said. XD It made me say things about your build that I didn't entirely mean. I do actually like your DK build a lot. It's only affected me because I respect you. I know it's just one build, but there are a few statements you said that really wounded my pride. [paraphrased but not exhaggarated] 1) "My build's the worst dk pve tank build you've ever seen" - This is just asinine. 2) "That I didn't think about this build before posting it." - Of course I did. & "Because people respect my builds, I shouldn't have posted such a bad build." - This build's great...so...no. 3) "I ignored all of your points" – Simply wrong; in fact I thoroughly addressed every single thing you said, so that's ludicrous. It's especially ludicrous because you're the one who kept choosing not to address any of my points that I tried hard to explain. I felt like you weren't giving me enough information to warrant any of your points, I couldn't see your reasoning. I should have asked for clarification though, before I tried to defend things. Of course, the main reason that those are such ridiculous statements is because my build's nearly the same as yours. The few exceptions are that you're using Low Slash instead of Immovable and I'm using Obsidian Shield instead of Dark Talons on our S&S bars. Our DPS is similar, too, mine doesn't have a tank ability in it and mine's single target while yours is aoe. Since they're so similar, I don't see why you hate my build so much, I would have listened to your points more if you would have tried to give alternatives. The only thing that it felt like you tried to give alternates for while you were dissecting my build was my choice of Race. You actually made me think I might go with Dunmer instead of Breton on this build though, so thank you. I gave you my reasons to put Obsidian Shield on your S&S bar instead of Dark Talons. This is the only recommendation that I'd make for your build, other than this I think it's as perfect as it can get other than focusing the DPS bar with another DPS ability instead of Immovable. The debate between AOE vs Single Target doesn't matter, both will be needed in certain situations so both are just as good of a choice unless we find out otherwise. I'm trying to be constructive with your build by saying that one small change might make your tanking go a bit smoother, and that is by trading Talons for Obsidian. Another thing that may or may not be beneficial-depending on how important it is to overcome incapacitates in PVE-would be to switch Low Slash with Immovable, but then I saw your point that Low Slash affects the whole group—so I think that's the better choice for sure! Good call! I also think you should use Molten Weapons instead of Immovable on your 2H bar to give it more focus as a damage bar, but that's probably not too important. (Low Slash makes me realize that Summon Shade is really good to have in dungeons as a NB because it helps the whole group take less damage! I'll need to remember this while consulting my NB leveling partner. ^^) If it was anyone else, I wouldn't care if they said those things about this build.. But, honestly, for the purpose of this build (PVE dungeon tanking > Single-target DPS) it's actually a really really good build.. so I just don't think your statements weren't warranted. I sincerely apologize for any emotional rises I may have caused, and for the ones that I clearly had while replying to your posts before. I really do like your build and I'm only trying to be constructive. I hope you can see why I was immediately upset by your statements though. For real, I'm sorry for the rise in temperature. PS - Just updated my planned build in Original Post to: DW – [*]Focused Charge [*]Twin Slashes [*]Entropy [*]Sun Fire [*]Solar Flare [*]Warhorn (Nova in PVE) Resto – [*]Immovable [*]Rune Focus [*]Blessing of Protection [*]Cleansing Ritual [*]Healing Ritual [*]Barrier (Right of Passage in PVE)