ESO Getting out of your comfort zone.

   Hello all.  First let me say that I hope everyone that has been in beta enjoyed it as much as I did.  Second a quick description of what I aimed for.  I personally went into beta wanting to try as many combinations of skills as possible and see how it worked out on all four classes.  That stated here is what I have learned.  All four classes provide a fun and unique experience and can be used in many different ways. 

   I started with a Sorc. I found that 2hand and CC Dark Magic lines worked really well together.  The Nord passives are really good for melee as well. Using abilities that knock back or disorient such as Crystal Shard with Critical Strike was a good low level combo that seemed to level those skill lines quick to open up more abilities.  Storm calling has some good damage to use on melee targets before they get to you and the above mentioned Critical Strike might be the best way to close the gap to casters that I've seen.  Not to mention the potential with a destruction staff and the Deadric summoning lines.   

   The Dragon Knight was next.  This my be the best all around class in game in my opinion.  I went with a Dunmer, (I refuse to say elf)  The Dunmer passives are very good for any fire based magicka damage, which the Dragon Knight has plenty of.  Regardless of what weapon you use, Fiery Grip and Stonefist is a great combo at low level for leveling those lines.  Pulling the enemy to you then knock them back is a great way to start a fight.  The dragon knight has plenty of survivability and damage output.  The class will be really good for those wanting to experiment with many different ways to play.

   The Templar is a misunderstood class I think. But I found two really great things about this class.  First, Aedric Spear and Dawns Wrath have some outstanding skills. Lots of knockbacks and snares and some decent damage over time.  Piercing Javelin and Focused Charge are just to fun.  Second and maybe most important, this class is not just a healer or a tank.  I used a Destruction staff and went full caster at one point.  The damage I could deal out was amazing.  Even more than the Sorcerer caster.  This is something worth looking into if you like to play casters.

    Ah yes.  The Nightblade.  What a class.  This will be without a doubt the most difficult class to get just right.  Shadow is not all that great for PvE. But PvP it should do really well.  Siphoning is great, period. Assassination has some good skills for what ever you choose to do.  I went with a Bow only and found that the Bow and Siphoning skill lines went well together.  This class can be anything you want it to be.  Even more so then the other classes.  What will be hard I think is transitioning it from PvE to PvP.  I really had a great time on my Nightblade and I think there should be some discussion about this class in the family to help others figure out what works in what situation.

    Most importantly this is just my experience this weekend and not by any means meant to be a standard for these great classes.  Everyone will be able to find that one way to play that one class that really fits them.  The developers have done a great job making these very unique classes.  Just thought I'd share my perspective so far. Feel free to share yours.  Add input.  Or tell me I'm crazy and need to stop playing games.

    I will be posting this to Facebook as well.                                                                                                                                                                           Phaewolf Dearg

This is helpful... thank you.

• I enjoyed Templar the most. I played an Argonian caster with a Restoration Staff. My thought was that the Argonian racial skills would compliment a healer build... but in hind sight, I'll play a similar set up as a Dunmer - the Magicka management is superior and would allow me more flexibility. I found the Templar to more 'high' damage than I thought it would be and can only imagine what a Destruction Staff would be like. I envision a light armor, caster Dunmer with a Destruction/Restoration Staff set up.
• I also enjoy my Sorcerer quite a bit and leveled the highest with him. Chose Dunmer in light armor with a Destruction Staff. I felt pretty much indestructible and got high off the power. Leveling went quickly and there was pretty much no situation I encountered that I couldn't handle - especially when I summoned my Storm Atronach. Crystal Shard is strong. I coupled that with Daedric Curse and my staff and bad guys exploded in a very gratifying manner. Can't wait to add Mage's Guild skills here.
• I then played a Nord Dragonknight - as a caster. Bad choice. Like you, I used Fiery Grip and Stonefist... but as a caster, only used Fiery Grip to get to other fire skills. Stonefist was excellent defensively if bad guys got too close. But you really need Magicka management at some point and this class screams for melee play. I think a dual-wielding Dunmer would be a natural fit here... but I'm told any race can play any class. Dunmer seems best suited imho.
• Finally I played a Khajiit Night Blade. I didn't go very far because I'd wanted the other alliance areas to be fresh for down the road. I was a dual axe-wielding sneaker and found it to be alright. Didn't spend enough time with it to really get a good feel for this class. Arguably, there's no better race for a Night Blade than Khajiit.

Overall, I had some issues with melee. Even though I built a Nord melee class (Dragonknight), the melee play seemed a bit slow and somewhat awkward after GW2. It's something to get used to I suppose. My number one desire with this game was to build a Nord, heavy armor, single axe-wielding Dragonknight. Unfortunately, I never went that far with that type of build and play style to really become comfortable with it. But I'll give it a serious shot in game when it's released.

Overall, I had a lot of fun! Everything was beautiful and pretty polished for a Beta. My only qualm was with character creation - I didn't feel there was enough to make truly unique characters... but I'm ultra picky and GW2 spoiled me a bit there. Also, (minor wish) I'd love for there to be one or two other classes. I'd love a Necromancer class and maybe a Barbarian class - something that can freak people out as a melee brute (very little casting). But that may not be in the cards in the storyline, history, or universe. Anyway... my 2 cents.

This was very helpful, to hear another view of all the possible combinations in ESO! There are so many ways you can build what and who you want to be that I envy folks like my wife, Mealla, that always knows she is as strong & powerful a caster as possible! Makes life so simple :) while I spend hours turning into days working late into the night searching for the one answer.... sorry I got carried away :)

BUMP.

Yes, thank you for this post.  I wish these guild forums had designated areas for class discussions.  I'm sure this post will spark many more similar type posts.

Phaewolf: For your Nightblade what race do you think is the best?  I was thinking Dark Elf myself, but I think there is another race that has +bow exp.

Tohr:  I also came to the same conclusion about playing Argonian Templar.  I'll definately pick a different race for my Templar.  

I'm torn on what race to play for Nightblade.  I can't decide between Dark Elf or Khajiit.

I started my adventure with a templar with great sword.  Along the way I tried a few weapon combinations but didn't get to try alot of class skills because I went resto.  I focused less on different playstyles mostly because I knew what roles I want to play for my main two characters.  Since I generaly don't pvp, I didn't push to get to where I could try that.  However, I am sure i will do some pvp since they have a giant pvp siege map, and I prefer seiging keeps as a group and working as a team towards goals in pvp over the straight, let me see how many kills I can achieve.  

Anyways, I did learn that I enjoyed using the two hander, which is a first, I normally hate the 2h weapon lines in most games.   I also enjoyed the staves, as well asthe sword and board.  i was not thrilled with the dual wield however, mostly cause I died alot with that combo, but the ranks were low and I just didn't live long enough to really level it up any.   I didn't try the bow, but to be honest that was because I usually don't play archers in most fantasy games.  I was really surprised by the resto staff.   When I dabbled on a mage, I used the resto staff, the idea was to provide the glass cannon archetype with some healing, but I didn't get far with the mage, and only dabbled in the spells.    I tried the dragon knight early on, and I personally loved the combination of yank and knock down.   I found alot of fights this meant easy win, but I was also fascinated with how the stonefist worked well to prevent heavy hits and spell casting on trash mobs.  It was just easier than blocking those abilities, which I was still trying to learn the timing on the block. 

As I said, I spent more time learning the crafting, and less time learning the skills varieties.   This is cause I plan to make a full on healer, and a full on tank.  Those are the two roles I prefer to play usually, so its what I focus on.  Its rare when I get to field a full on dps, more often than not I have to support the team and help keep everyone else alive and well, or the mobs focused on someone else.  

Garyc Bosmer has the bonus to the bow line. Here is a good link to use when looking up skills http://esohead.com/calculator/skills

Wow, great posts.  Having only played MMORPGs for about 3-4 years, starting with LoTRO and Rift, I feel I have a lot to learn about spec-ing out a character and really finding a play style that suits me.  I tend to go with the obvious combinations to overcome my lack of overall skill.

My favorite was my Altmer sorcerer with a destruction staff using Dark Magic.  I like the crowd control aspect of the DM skill line.  I did find myself a bit squishy, though, which may have come from the fact that I was usually questing 3-4 levels above my character level.

I couldn't do Balreth solo at quest=character level, nor could I do the mage guild quest (I think) where you have to get some books for Shalidor.  There were two many potent mobs for me to handle at once.  Of course, I'm not the sharpest sword in the rack when it comes to battle strategies.

I tried nightblade, templar, and dragonknight as well--I always wanted to play a tank, but had a tough time with melee; I could probably use a little training up in this area.

For whatever reason, the thought of a caster style templar never came to my mind! That sounds like an awesome combination! Definitely something I'll have to try. 

I have spent a lot of time working on build combos and yet what I have learned the most is that I need to forget what I know from the past 15 years. OH Yes, you can create the classic Tank or classic Cleric but, there are so many more ways to go that it's mind boggling at best. Sorcerer Tanks and Templar Casters and DragonKight Healers plus so many more are all viable possibilities!

I spent most of my time in the beta before last working out builds for a Nightblade but I couldn't seem to find the sweet spot. I found myself dying an awful lot in medium armor.  I spent the last beta playing a Templar and found it much more straightforward and enjoyable. That being said, I still want to work on a proper Nightblade for pvp. There's something that's very attractive about this class and I think it is really going to shine in AvA. 

Combos I have tried and loved-

Dark elf Dragonknight with a fire staff (burn baby, burn)

Sorc  with a bow and stormcalling/dark magic

Nightblade with a two-hander, teleport strike

Overall I would say don't worry about the bonus experience you get for being a certain race. You will get your primary weapon maxed out plenty fast.

Honestly, i would have to say that we could most likely re-create "almost" every Class Archetype from Dungeons & Dragons; and for those who remember, there's a lot of them.

Now the only thing we need is the Devs to get on board with this awesome idea:  "Create every weapon type from Dungeon's & Dragons" -Because i really would like to build a: Whipsinger.

*Throws money at Bethesda and Zenimax* Make it happen!

I would have liked more base line classes, like a rogue, warrior, Sorc... well they have that. But one of the things that kinda annoys me is that every class that is available is a off branch of a mgic user, or a hybrid mage as you will. Even if you dig into the old ES class system you will see that every one of these classes that Zenimax has released are Intelligence/X stat and normally under the magic proficiency.

Don't get we wrong, I think they've done a wonderful job with what they've done, but no matter how you build these classes you will be gimping yourself if you don't take any of your class abilities no matter what.

Also as a side note, bring back spears/pole-arms.

Ugh! *facepalm*  I must be the oldest noob in the book.  Of course, use the summon pet skill from another skill line to help fight the battles a squishy mage can't fight alone.

I could ask, "Why didn't I think of that," but I'm not sure I really want to know the answer.

I spent this beta just experimenting with other NB builds.

I had gone more traditional in the previous betas experimenting pretty much down traditional class perspectives, with a couple exceptions.  I had used 2H wpns with my Heavy Armor NB previously and found it quite fun.   But I had mostly focused previously on NB, DK & Sorc - enjoying all 3 classes pretty substantially.

This time the class/wpn combo I mostly focused on was NB Resto Staff Light Armor.  Although I had been familiar with some of the skills from previous betas, the combination tho initially strange really seemed to work well.  I'm not sure it's the best combo, but it was a fun combo.  It's nice having both siphoning and aoe heals that give you kick backs in mana.  The ranged ability of the staff can be combined with DW for short range and the feel for the class worked well.  I did spend a bunch of skill pts in the passives to keep mana available which worked to the combo's advantage.

I hope there are more betas soon so I can further explore combinations.