yerion

Allright guys! Let the theorycrafting commence! The biggest source of ESO skill information has just been updated (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArII4nGY0Yf3dGlrY2IzSzlFZXhrZ3V5MDRwb2lmMEE&usp=sharing#gid=0).

- Most numbers of skills have been tweaked (adjusted to lv 1 value)

- Several morphs have been added

- All passives have 2 ranks, and racial passives 3 ranks

- Emperor skill lane added (only passives)

- Undaunted skill lane added

So lots of new information to keep us theorycrafters happy!

You can only get so far with theory crafting. At this point we need more data. I look for new stuff almost every day. But until there is actually something new, no more theory crafting for me .

Thank you for all the responses. It is good to put things in perspective once in a while. I normally try to have no expectations of everything that I deal with in my life, that way I never get disappointed (it really works, I happily surprised by alot of things). But I could not help myself this time. I had very high expectations for Skyrim, and the game managed to exceed them. Oblivion and Skyrim are the best games I have ever played (eventhough I mostly like online pvp games).

I do no think I will be disappointed by ESO. I know it is not skyrim, but alot of changes that are made compared to skyrim are actually improvements imo. I know that some mmo aspects of the game can not be avoided. I still like the feel of MMOs, and will accept this trade-off.

 

 

know they've said somewhere that they didn't want it to just be people working on a cd cycle but 6 skills feels like it could get very monotonous. Especially in PvP when you need to have different skills for different situations

As reaction to Kaloom; Do no think of the combat system of other MMOs. Combat in ESO is not about autoattacking and keeping up a spell rotation, while saving a few defensive cooldowns for dire situations. ESO combat is about using your resources at the right time. The more I read about the combat system the more excited I get. Imagine if you spam a single target ability, e.g. poison arrow,  that just does damage and yourstamina is depleted. This means your block will mitigate a lot less damage, this means you can not interrupt your opponent anymore, you can not dodge to avoid a ranged attack, you cannot sprint away from a charging warrior, you cannot break free of cc using only stamina. Resource management will be VERY important. It will be a dance of normal attacks, blocking, using situational abilities and heavy attacks. 

Actually block reduces spell projectile damage (and ranged attacks). This amount mitigated can be increased by 15% by a passive in the sword and board skill line (not the mages guild). My source is ask us anything combat 2 (elderscrollsonline.com):

"Ranged physical attacks and spell projectiles can be mitigated with a block, but all other magic will go right through. You have the chance to interrupt some magic spells, though" 

This leaves us with the question, what are spell projectiles. Are those the normal and heavy attacks from destruction staff and resto staff? Or are they also single target spells (think of skyrim's icespike). I think they will mitigate both damage attacks with the two staves and from single target spells that do damage on impact.

This would change the whole problem with armor needing to mitigate magic.

Today I was reading searching for leaked footage. Eventhough I could not find any leaked beta footage, I did find some 7 months old reactions of people to the leaked beta footage video's. And these reactions were not positive at all. I was a bit disappointed after reading most of the comments, because I have been really looking forward to this game. Personally I liked almost every piece of information that has come out, wether it has been abilities or combat mechanics. I have really high expectations for this game and I thought most people thought this way. But all the reactions to the beta gameplay were really negative. They stated things like "terrible graphics", "cookie cutter mmo", "Boring as fuck" and "How is this Paid 2 play"  

I have not seen this gameplay footage (from 7 months ago). And maybe some of these people have changed their opinion. Personally I am an optimistic person. This was footage of very early beta, and at this stage gameplay is much more important than polishing graphics and the smoothness of the game. I was quite happy with the graphics that I have seen so far (it looks  a little worse than skyrim, which is awesome for an MMO in my opinion). Zenimax promised interesting quests instead of generic quests, like "kill 10 bears". But I saw comments of play testers who say there are still grind quests. I hope that those quests are just a few among the numerous really awesome tes-like quests. But I fear they might not be able to polish everything in time for the game release. They told us about so much awesome PVP and combat gameplay, but we have not seen any previews of pvp gameplay as of yet. 

I really want to know your opinion about what you have read about the game and how you think the game will turn out.

 

Xenon

I just hope combat will be more interesting when playing the game than when watching others play.

 

1) doesn't seem to be any collision detection (you can run straight through your opponent - but you get stuck on small rocks and other environmental debris)

2) either the game have [or at least had back in September] serious latency/netcode/hitreg issues or everyone have huge hitboxes that let you hit even when you visually are several meters away from your target.

3) game also seem to have "auto aim" (or at least soft aim or aim assist) where you "lock" on a target and your arrows connect even if you aim is [slightly] off.

I think they will fix the above issues before the actual game is released. I do know that there will be a soft lock to counteract lag. Otherwise the game will be very unbalanced for people with latency issues. But I really did not like to read on the official elder scroll website that when you aim (and lock) at somebody with a bow and another person jumps in between you and your attacker you still hit the person that you locked on. I hope you can dodge arrows around the corner, like you can do in Skyrim.

Yes Draconian, that is why I think armor will not mitigate spell damage. It never worked like this in any other elder scroll game (nor in most mmo's).

I also agree with musclemagic. We do not have much information at this point. To many people on this forum ask about "hard facts". Just read whole topic and see that this is all theory crafting mixed with specualtion. Reasons why this is better then waiting around for hard facts:

- This way people can share their ideas and maybe give others ideas about how the game could work ( I learned a few ways of how game mechanics could work, that I had not thought of myself).

- It keeps you busy. I, for instance, enjoy thinking about this game and theory crafting (even with uncertainties) is highly entertaining.

Do we have any cold, hard numbers showing how much damage light and heavy attacks deal?

No. But what I mean was you will be doing normal attacks for a reasonable amount of time during each fight. 

Sources (elder scolls online offcial website):

"Our shortcut bar is a tool more than a means to define our combat. Our combat is based more on what you’re seeing in the world and how you react to situations." 

Tamriel foundry:

" Your five class skills seem designed to supplement, rather than replace, normal weapon attacks" 

On second thoughts I think your bow bar (allthough not really important) can really have some changes. You really underestimate the damage of light and heavy attacks. Abilities without utility will be somewhat stronger then normal attacks, but you can only keep that up when you have a high amount of regen. Because you have so much regen with your passives on the resto bar you will not need that much regeneration echantments etc. Thats why I think its better to have 1 aoe ability and 1 single target ability and the rest utility abilities in pvp. You dont want to use all your stamina for single target and aoe. You want to be able to block, dodge, escape from cc (cost stamina) and sprint. 

Thats why i would say drop the arrow spray and drop the piercing javelin.

I also think comboing abilities like this will have a huge impact on pvp.

But about solar flare. People seem to forget it has a cast time. Casting can be very risky in pvp because of the melee bash interrupt that every player has, which means you get cc ed for a short period of time and this gives the enemy time to knock you down with a heavy attack.

That will not happen very often to good players, because they dont cast this when being attacked by a melee player, but there are also some ranged interupt spells that will stun you when interrupted.

Ok, i forgot about this. On Tamriel foundry it says the following:

While in active block mode, the player can shield (or weapon) bash by left clicking to interrupt enemy spell casting or to break free of crowd control effects.

This was also stated on ask us anything combat 2. I had completely forgotten about this. This makes cc effects so much less effective in pvp and it also makes stamina in pvp so much more important and it makes immovable less of a necessity.

Have you ever played any of the other elder scrolls games? You can attack with a mouseclick (which is a normal attack) and you can hold the mouse button for an empowered attack. In ESO these are called light attacks and heavy attacks. With every weapon you can do these charged/heavy attacks.

Edit: I found this on tamriel foundry --> Blocking an enemy’s power attack will stagger the foe for a brief time. This was said in the context of a pve situation, but I think it also counts for pvp. So heavy attacks do more damages, but you charge them giving your opponent a time to react (this can really backfire in pvp). Both types of attack do not cost stamina.

Those changes are definitely an improvement. I like the mage light on the bow bar. But I am a big fan of blessing of protection. I would have kept the siege shield on the bow bar instead of piercing javelin. I do not think you need the extra regeneration.

Why do you take piercing javelin over scatter shot? Mainly because of the the resource type (M instead of S)? Or because it is more damage. Because I think for single target damage poison arrow will do more. That means that scattershot has the same effect + a 5 seconds disorient.

Depends if you are on skype with your teammates or not. Serious PVPers will play with coordinated groups. I want to join a serious PVP guild right before launch. But then I will defnitely start using those combos with my (5? man) squad.

I 

 

Breton Templar - 5 light 2 heavy (mp & power), Resto (power), Bow (fire- I think Fire's more damage, Shock will take away MP, Frost will slow. I just want extra damage, but power might actually be better in this case as well.)

Resto-

Immovable

Rune Focus

Blessing of Protection

Cleansing Ritual

Healing Ritual

Bow-

Siege Shield

Poison Arrow

Sun Fire

Entropy

Solar Flare

Ult- Barrier

Very solid build. I have not thought much about Templars, but after looking at all their skills it seems like their 3 skill lines are very distinct and do not interact much. There are some combinations possible, but not as much compared to mage or nightblade.

You might wanna consider changing the cleansing ritual for purge if the radius of rune focus is about 12 yards too (for the 100% more healing). because purge gives you another 10% mana regen, and besides cleansing (a player that is cc ed for 14 second cannot remove the cc with the synergy of cleansing ritual) it also reduces the duration of negative effects on nearby allies by 50% for 5 seconds.

The other thing is, I dont really think that the entropy is a good pick. You allready have alot of heals on your other bar. You might want a defensive ability like scatter shot on your bow bar.

But I think this is a really strong build. I dont think there is a better healer build possible (op templars)

I meant early-game for what you're going to use from the early skills in the trees, in order to reach the end-game things in those trees. Leveling up you're going to use things you have access to while keeping it spread between the 3 class trees mostly. I just want to get an idea of what you're planning, since level 50's hopefully at least a few weeks of gameplay away.

Eventhough I am all about PVP, I do love the skyrim feel of elder scrolls, and might just enjoy the leveling experience. I think i'll use whatever ability to unluck summon shade, and then use summon shade untill I unlock everything.

(maybe ill do some lv 10 PVP and use shadow cloak + veiled strike)

Edit: Are you sure armor protects again magic damage?!?!

Ahaa, okay, I see exactly where you're coming from! I like it, and I love that you use Aspect of Terror because I think there's going to be a pretty wicked morph for it. XD

 

I just don't think that Mark Target will help against armor. I think it's strictly a Magic Resistance remover. If this is the case, then I think replacing Mark+Blade with Haste+Siphoning Strikes would be better. But, if you're right that Mark Target removes armor then this would be epic.

 

I like your 2nd build a lot. I'd actually take Mark Target instead of Haste on your Bow bar for your Breton build if Mark is anti-armor, I think it'd give you more damage where you need it-against heavy users. Well, maybe even then Haste might be better against more people.

 

Anyway, I think I can see how you play and I like it. I'm looking forward to seeing a more final build from you when we're closer to release date.

 

Edit: Leveling up for Terror and such will take a while. Any plans for an early-game build?

Marked target says: "Your attacks ignore all of the target's resistances, but their attacks ignore all of your resistances". In most games armor is physical resistance. I hope this is the case. I originally had marked target on the bow bar, but it might replace haste, or I might even use both if aoe isnt that usefull in PVP. 

The newer spreadsheat that was link in the where do you get your info from section did give me some insights. Arrow spray seems stronger since there it states it is 20 y range instead of 12. It also showed the poison arrow change. That seems like a usefull single target damage ability (I would use the 250% damage increase, because almost every spell is instant). At least this answers you question about the early game build (poison arrow instead of immovable or something). But remember, early game doesnt mean anything its all about the lv 50 end game.

Also it states that evasion is 25% dodge now, and blur 22% miss. So I realy think blur will be better and that it works against something extra compared to evasion.

And it states that the breton ult " dragonskin"  works only against magic damage (it is a huge amount though) and only stays for 3 seconds. In that case I might use soul tear on the Bow bar, if mages seem to not be a weakness to the bow build. 

Edit: Soul Strike, not Soul tear. And it increases damage to chilled targets. Making this a good combo with the frost enchant on the bow.

I do agree that if marked target is only magic resistances I wouldnt use it. Now, I think I might even replace Assasins blade if the combo of TP strike + deathstroke + flurry + blade doesnt kill someone). So thanks for the tip. 

If buffs like blur or evation stay and marked target stay when switching bars, then that would be even more epic for this build, because it opens up more slots.

I have a question. Most healing abilities are "on lowest health ally in front of you" or "Heal nearby wounded ally". So how do you heal yourself? Maybe heal a nearby wounded ally also counts for yourself, but what about "in front of you"?

 

It's the same thing, but the Weighted Shot is from a Morph and the option for more damage is there as well. I like it, it just sucks that it's magic damage because there's more mitigation against it.

But does it only stun when you interrupt something? They way its phrased makes you think it stuns always (compare it to force shock of destruction tree). But that doesnt make sense, since a stun interrupts automatically.

Musclemagic asked me for my nightblade build. I know that options on certain abilities differ. But that happens when we dont have all the information. Builds will change when the game is released. As for now, I do agree with musclemagic that its good to have mostly buff abilities or situational abilities in your build and one bread and butter damage skill.

This is a nightblade build is something made mainly for AvA battles. The Idea behind this is fight at the backline of a small group in order to take hold of structures and important objectives in cyrodil.

Depending on the faction that I will play, I have two options:

Nightblade – Kahjit – 5 medium armor, 2 heavy armor, 30% MP, 50% stam, 20% health (Khajit passive to increase 10% critt damage helps + 20% increased critt from nightblade tree. this build will focus on critt + 5% critt bow passive + 6% increased critt rating passive from assassination tree)

Main bar – Bow

Consuming Darkness Ultimate  (escape ability + option to swap to 2^nd bar and kill counters of the bow bar)

Blur (or evasion) - M    (Protection against both ranged and melee)

Haste - M  (attack speed increase)

Aspect of Terror - M   (2 target fear, good when jumped by melees)

Arrow spray/volley - S     (aoe damage + 50% 5 s slow, or long ranged aoe ability)

Immovable - S    (invulnerable to cc and 20% damage reduction)

Also the itemization will focus on critt. I think normal or empowered attacks are a very important source of damage, and in most cases the main source (unless you have really high regeneration). From a distance, bow users will be able to repeatedly normal attack without being under pressure. Haste will be a major damage increase. With this build you do not need much regen, and can focus on power. If untargeted, arrow spray or volley will help with aoe, if this is needed.

The kiting comes from aspect of terror in combination with a dodge roll (and passive to get 70% movement speed for 2 s)  plus combination with immovable if needed. Then after the roll, arrow spray can be cast to do damage and slow the targets again . I think that aspect of terror will be more than a 2.75 second fear for two targets, because abilities level up. Since this ability does no damage, the fear duration must increase on level up making it a perfect ability to get at a distance again. Also the bow will be enchanted with a frost enchant.

The advantage of this build are:

-   You don’t need much stamina for abilities, which means more dodge rolls or constant immovable

-   You can kite multiple people

-   Lots of damage if untargeted

Secondary bar – Dual wield daggers

Death stroke - Ultimate (high single target damage, anti healer)

Mark target - M    (Tank destroy ability)

Assassins blade - M (finisher)

Teleport Strike - M (Gap closer)

Flurry - S (High damage ability)

Immovable - S  (unkitable)

Khajist is just too good for this second bar. The secondary bar is just high damage and chasing potential vs targets that would be the weakness of the bow bar. This bar will only be needed if you are up against a high burst mage, or a tank. The mark target will be very important to take down tanks. If it is a high damage reduction tank, it will not do much damage, meaning that you will kill him very quickly while he will not kill you very fast and won’t be able to cc you because of immovable.
Against mages it’s just teleport strike + Flurry + death stroke + assassins blade = dead in 4 seconds, then swap to bow again.

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The second build is better, I think, since it increases the survival against Mages. It is overall more defensive.

Nightblade – Breton – 2 medium armor, 5 heavy armor, 50% MP, 30% Stam, 20% HP (The Breton class is very nice against spells because of his ultimate, passive spell resistance and extra magicka, which helps for the Mage bar and also makes hunter abilities cheaper)

Main bar – Bow

Dragon skin - Ultimate   (increase survivability)

Blur (or evasion) - M   (Protection against both ranged and melee)

Haste - M      (attack speed increase)

Aspect of Terror - M (2 targets feared, good when jumped by melees)

Arrow spray/volley - S (aoe damage + 50% 5 s slow, or long ranged aoe ability)

Immovable - S  (invulnerable to cc and 20% damage reduction)

Second bar -  Resto staff

Barrier – Ultimate  (good pvp aoe shield)

Immovable - S (invulnerable to cc and 20% damage reduction)

Evasion  - M   (Protection against both ranged attacks and melee attacks)

Blessing of Protection - M   (Good aoe instant heal + a lot of extra resistances)

Cripple (or agony)– M    (kite ability + 8% max magicka from siphoning passive)

Regeneration – M  (Heal + Hot)

So this build, is almost the same for bow. Except that it’s better against mages. And the second bar can be used to bring support and healing to your frontline if needed, while also being able to kite. You will be more tanky overall with 5 pieces of heavy armor and the ability to selfheal.

 

Resto- Buff Bar

[*]Siege Shield or Rapid Maneuver (Siege Shield will give you +10% MP Regen, but Rapid Maneuver might be better for your group because more people will be taking Siege Shield and it's kind of your responsibility as "the rogue" to take Rapid Maneuver. I'd take Maneuver.) - Supports Group

[*]Force Siphon - Huge self-heal as well as helping the group against hard-to-kill targets. This, the fact you'll be on the front line, and that you're the best single-target nuker, is why you'll be responsible for PVP target-calling. Unlike a lot of Nightblades, you won't be stalking around not doing anything. Because......

[*]Evasion - 

[*]Blur -  Because, with Evasion and Blur you'll be very tanky when you want to be, compared to pretty much anyone else.

[*]5th Slot- I'd go either Summon Shade, Mark Target, or Agony depending on the situation and what else you're taking. There's a few other options too that I don't even list below.

Can you help me understand your resto bar? Why do you only pick as a resto ability? I assume that you only use this as a buff bar, since you have no healing ability at all, besides siphoning. Using only Siphoning as healing ability has some weaknesses:

- You cannot swap to this resto bar when you are getting low to heal yourself up and survive. All your (small) heals come from only autoattacks.

- Its a cast. If you are in melee range people will most likely interrupt your cast and then you die. 

- Its only one target. 

Furthermore I see no protection against ranged magic attacks. Playing against a mage with unmoveable will be really hard, since you cannot sutn him with teleporting strike, and he can interrupt your flurry. 

Also I do not know if you can keep your resources management up. Everything is based being able to get alot of auto-attacks on enemy players. We will find out when the game is released. It all depends on how much mana your teleporting strike and unmoveable will cost to be able to stick to your target.

I recommend at least one extra resto heal ability/shield ability so you can swap to the resto bar and survive some "O shit!" situations.

I have a question about blur and evasion. I think that blur might also cause 22% of the spells to miss you. If thats the case ill take blur over evasion everday (and maybe even both). What do you think? Or could it be that evasion only causes auto attacks to miss and blur counts for abilities too. 

Great idea. This will help the forum alot. So Veteran points, which catagory is that? Or do you want to leave it out until that patch is actually implemented, since it won't be in there during release?

But maybe you should add an "other"  catagory. Also "guilds" (for players) would be a nice catagory to add.

Are dawn's wrath abilities considered fire or just magic abilities?

I think only Sunfire has an fire damage dot, while the tooltips of other abilities only say magic damage.

The sunfire tooltip says:

- deals 11 magic damage and an additional 9 fire damage over 5s

 

EDITED(for clarity): The only thing that having buffs/debuffs stay would give are advantages for specific builds. It might not be a huge advantage, but it's an unfair advantage that they can't balance around without messing a lot up for casual players who aren't thinking about that (Because if you were to weaken the numbers of some thing, just because they're too good in conjuction with specific things like maybe Haste + Momentum, while someone using DW doesn't have Momentum...I mean, it's okay if it takes up a place on your bar, but if Haste is just an extra spot on another bar--and even if you can only use it for ~15 seconds because the first 2 seconds get eaten and you don't have time to re-apply it in combat, it's still a big advantage). I guess that's the whole point though, to add diversity and such, making people think more about synergy...but it seems unfair for builds that don't have the ability to do so, simply because their class or weapon choice isn't good for it. It'll turn people cookie-cutter in no time for their class, because there'll always arise a perfect synergy system that gives the maximum buffs for that class. For example, Templar passives for healing are pretty beastly as they are...so it might end up being balanced anyway if someone does takes healing as their 2ndary, or even off-healing..but do you see how they're kind of forced into that role? XD But, who cares about noobs anyway?!! No matter what it ends up being like, we're going to come up with some kick ass builds either way! ^.^

Yes, good point. But I think that will mainly be an advantage in PVE. Passive attack speed buffs will have way more impact in PVE compared to PVP. In PVP you might need to block, dodge, interupt, etc., and you might get kited or whatever. In PVE all extra ways of doing extra damage matter, making bar swapping important. But since I do not care much about PVE, I think that having one buff on a secondary bar will open up a few good strategies. But 2 viable roles does seem stronger in my opinion (see previous post).

About the balance of class buffs:

I do not think that summon abilities stay after swapping bars, since it is not a buff. 

It does not make sense to remove dots when swapping bars. Since you used resources and a global cooldown to cast it. The results is more damage then an instant abilty, but the damage is spread over a period of time. If you remove it when swapping bars, instant abilities will be alot stronger.

Furthermore, about petrify. It has a very long stun, but no cast time. It seems to me that cast abilties will get interrupted most of the time, making this abilities so much better then Agony or Runic prison.

Also marked target seems really strong to me. Many post on this forums stated that tanks might be really strong in PVP. Marked target removing all resistances will be the ideal tank kill ability (making it a staple for all my nightlbade builds) and it has 50 yards range.

Because it will turn people's second bar into a buff bar rather than a bar for different situations, meaning people will only be really good at one specific thing. This isn't necessarily bad in itself, but it means that specific things in the game will be better than other specific things due to the amount of activated duration-type abilities.