Beta Character Composition Experiments

I spent the last 2 betas just messing with character composition mostly.  Of course, there was enjoying PvP, the emergence of Deshaan, the testing of the other dungeons, etc., but I also wanted to experiment with some class / weapon combos while doing those ops.

I have played each of the character classes, but for the past couple betas, I've been focusing on Nightblade.

Not surprisingly, DW has been my melee choice for the most part, although I do have to say, I enjoyed working with 2H wpns as well.  One of my characters actually switched between DW & 2H, taking advantage of some of the differences between the two.  For instance, I would use 2H for AOE instead of Whirlwind, but focus my extra DW skill pts on Blood Craze, but also on Sparks/Ember Explosion - which is quite fun in PvP.  It was also nice having Uppercut/Wrecking Blow as a 2H add-on to really blast the fallen foe.  It's also hard to deny Momentum if you're on a roll.  When I did run the DW/2H NB, I took no points in Shadow, which honestly I did not miss.  I know it can help with added burst damage, but it's nice having the added mana around for non-stealth operations.  Once you decide you won't be stealthy, you find yourself with more mana to spend on offense.

I did try the standard DW & Bow combo, which does allow for the expected decent burst damage and the ease of short & long range choices.  I did use Shadow with this build to decent effect.

I still have questions about Shadow and its overall usage.  I enjoyed it, but in many PvP cases, it seemed not as useful as I thought it would be.  If people have other experiences with it, I'd love to hear that.

Anyhow, this past beta I went for the weird dps/support role of DW/Resto Staff.  I have to say I enjoyed it.  I'm not sure it makes the perfect most optimum NB that there will ever be, but it was fun and useful.  I kept people healed and gained lots of alliance points in PvP land.  I was able to keep people alive while running dungeons and when my mana was low (or I just wanted to have fun), I could jump in and start wailing with my stamina-based DW attacks.  Also, by morphing skills to be more group oriented (like the siphon skilsl Soul Siphon, Funnel Health), the leeching actually plays to the group heal aspect.   I also was participating in Shadow, so I morphed the Ultimate into Bolstering Darkness for the invis + heal ability. To further support the group effort, I picked up the Siege Weapon Shield from the Alliance War group.  I could protect the wpns and folks from flaming oil and then switch over to DW for some slicing and dicing.  Good times.

Anyhow, if anyone has some enjoyable compositions or complete fails, feel free to post!

Shadow Cloak to me seems a bit broken.  Any sort of damage breaks it.  So if you have a DoT running on you it is essentially useless for escape/evasion.  The only thing it is useful for is to sneak up on someone for the back-stab.  I will probably start with a offensive sorcerer that will minor in healing.  I will eventually level a nightblade, but not first off.

I tried a few different set ups. Like you I went with a DW/Bow NB thinking that it would make the best archer style game play ( I love my archers). Though I was having fun, it's a build that takes a long time to develop into any sort of power house, though it still does decent dam at the early levels. I did find that shadow was kinda lackluster for this set up as well and ended up not using it.

I also tried a DW Dragonknight and I have to say that I was really surprised on how well this worked. I'm actually going to run this set up for live I loved it so much. The set up is simple and very effective early on with great burst dam. It set up with having your first weapon bar as your Single target set up and the weapon swap to AOE. Though this means I'll need to get 2 sets of DW weapons. I have yet to see how great this is for PVP though and I might go with a DW/Bow or DW/2H for PVP... or maybe a 2h/Bow set up (flash backs of Warhammer seiges as melee..... (stand around waiting for tanks to get the door down).

The 3rd set up I tried was my version of the Battle mage I designed in previous ES games. It uses heavy armor augmented with + magicka and Magicka regen and 2H/Destro staff. It was surprisingly fun and worked very well. With lightening armor you had a mini sprit of sorts will still having gap closers and knockbacks (used firestaff).

My favorite beta build has been my bow/1h shield templar build. You can see the build on the class builds forum. It's surprisingly effective at any range, and even has a bit of healing to boot.

I was thinking about trying out a tanky sorcerer as well. When you compare Dragonknight and Sorcerer skills the Sorcerer seems to have more armor and resist abilities as well as the life/magicka healing Dark Exchange. 

So I was thinking heavy armor, use the first ability from 1-hander and shield for attacking, and then the other slots filled with the various damage mitigation abilities. Of course Dark Exchange and one of the armor boosts are level 30 so while leveling up you'd fill those slots with something else.