Opinions on Class Choices

[baratron]

While playing the beta the first time I especially noticed the class system... We aren't given many options... And to add to that, they're kind of odd in my perspective. Personally I think the game is laid out nicely; level up any skills, etc etc. But the class you choose determines the kind of abilities you use in combat, and also determines the title of your character.

We're given Templar, Dragonknight, Sorcerer, and Nightblade. Doesn't anyone else think they should have added to this?

The thread's moved on quite a bit from your first post, and I'm starting to think I might be the only other person who agrees with you at all.

The classes actually provide a lot more freedom than you originally thought, as everyone else has already pointed out. However, for the first time in an Elder Scrolls game that I've played, there are class-exclusive skills. And that's the constraint I'm feeling.

I intensely dislike that there are four classes, each of which has three unique skills. There are several skill lines that I love and others that I hate. I wish there were, say, more classes with the same 12 class skills in different combinations. The ideal class for one of my characters would be something like Draconic Power (from Dragonknight), Storm Calling (from Sorceror), and Restoring Light (from Templar). That isn't an option, so I'm left trying to squeeze him into Dragonknight (which isn't mage-y enough), Sorceror (which seems too focused on evil, with both Daedric Summoning and Dark Magic as skill lines), or Templar (which just... grates, for some reason. I think it's intended as the "good" mage class, but it seems more... Vigilant of Stendarr than I like).

I have noticed that there are a few things entirely missing. There are, for example, no Ice attacks except by use of a Destruction Staff. Sorceror uses Lightning, Dragonknight and Templar both use Fire. I'm wondering if a class will be added later which uses Ice.

[AngryNord]

Problem isn't necessarily what they're DOING, but the combination of 1) mobs being extremely unbalanced (a "Level 5" mob is likely really at least Level 10), 2) mobs having insane agility, meaning it is impossible to outrun them, 3) mobs spawning unrealistically fast and way too frequently, meaning that to traverse an area of perhaps 100 m you'll encounter at least 6-7 mobs, meaning insta-death at least as many times, or having to do a huge detour to get to the "target" area safely. Given that this will apparently be even worse in the final release, the only really viable character for playing solo would be a tank mage With lots of AoE and a destruction staff, and even then soloing would likely be almost impossible...

I'll be honest, I didn't experience any of what you're saying during my couple times playing as a single target melee dps 1-20~

Only one time did I hit a quest or location where mobs appeared to spawn too fast and would overwhelm me

Spoiler:

Auridon, near the northern end at an ayleid ruin. The task was to collect a series of artifacts (i think) from chests that apparently were unguarded (if you got to them first). Taking the quest item from a chest would spawn an elite ghost mob, that really was a step above everything else in the location and likely wasn't soloable for most people in the tight spaces around the chest (scamps everywhere to aggro on you). Thing was... there was apparently not limit on how many ghosts could be spawned by players and some people could simply flee from the ghost... so sneaky people would walk up, take the item and spawn another ghost (then gtfo) people who were bad at stealth got stuck with needing a group to clear the damned chests and instead of killing like 8 ghosts they had to wade through many and lots

And like deandra point out... blocking is a big deal (it unlocks opportunities to unload tricks to exploit and stun enemies for free hits.

Well, let's take an example, one of the quests in the Stonefalls area in the Ebonheart Pact questline: You are told by a woman to find her lover's grave. Fair enough, only problem is that the area where the grave is, is _swamped_ by Skeletons - I'd say at least a dozen, of which about 2/3 are archers. The quest is listed as level 7, I think, the skeletons are shown as level 6, which likely in practice makes them about level 20. You can't even enter the rough area where the grave is before getting set upon by at least two of these skeletons, with a couple more pretty quickly starting to shower you with arrows. My heavy armour 2-h melee character was finally able to go through the quest by taking a loooooooong shortcut to avoid the majority of the skeletons, but still got killed 3-4 times.

[Deandra]

I remember that quest and having no trouble with it at all. Without watching you play, I can't even guess what is causing so much trouble for you. If you're going to be playing the beta this weekend, maybe I can give you some tips?

[AngryNord]

Sure, tip away

[Tesknowitall]

roaming off topic now... but yeah Baratron, I feel ya. With our beloved skill system we can go any path thank goodness, but with the classes.... we are tied to these abilities they give us! Although lots of you say it's not really important.. for some people it is! There is, without a doubt, a lack of diversity in our class abilities. But, ESO is bound to add to this in the future of course. They will start seeing the oddness of these 4 classes.

Annnnd onto the Emperor subject, I'm glad to hear the campaign idea, as well as alliance points. This should stop the average go hard from not becoming emperor every session.

[AngryNord]

"Doshia was nerfed in the last update"... ROFLPIMP, the hell she was!! She is STILL unkillable...

[Yaije]

On Doshia, make sure you're popping those healing orbs she does

edit:

for some reason I can't get into playing as some form of 'wizard' as a sorc but I can with the other three... templar I just spammed light spears and orbs of fire (definitely a second or third alt)

[Tesknowitall]

So far the best character I made was my planned one! A sorc altmer with heavy armour and 2h weapon. Hits hard up front and finishes by zapping the enemy. Was very effective, especially with the storm calling sorc shield ability.

Although I love the aldmeri dominion, majority of my friends are playing Ebonheart so I'm going to side with them for my first character. Now, I've decided to make an imperial character dragonknight. Does anyone know if you can dual wield 2 longswords instead of just daggers? I think that would be cool.

[Elenath]

So far the best character I made was my planned one! A sorc altmer with heavy armour and 2h weapon. Hits hard up front and finishes by zapping the enemy. Was very effective, especially with the storm calling sorc shield ability.

Although I love the aldmeri dominion, majority of my friends are playing Ebonheart so I'm going to side with them for my first character. Now, I've decided to make an imperial character dragonknight. Does anyone know if you can dual wield 2 longswords instead of just daggers? I think that would be cool.

I never tried more than one sword, but I did spend most of my time with a sword and an axe. I don't see any reason two swords wouldn't work.

[Baloth-Kul]

So far the best character I made was my planned one! A sorc altmer with heavy armour and 2h weapon. Hits hard up front and finishes by zapping the enemy. Was very effective, especially with the storm calling sorc shield ability.

That's what I'm planning on playing, except zapping first, and bashing when they get close.

I was ORIGINALLY planning on Nightblade, but they/the stealth elements don't really seem too...useful. Magelight is a spell that virtually anyone can learn, and reveals stealthed players (And gives them a spellcasting bonus to boot, so why not have it on all the time during PvP?), so it seems to make stealth pretty iffy during PvP. With PvE, there are so many other players wandering about, that they'll easily blunder your planned stealth attacks--and it sounds like PvE is so easy, that there is zero point to even pulling off any stealth crits.
So Nightblades/stealth based characters seem to be simply less durable, less efficient melee guys. They have stuns and DoTs, but so does everyone else. Good for maybe ganking a stray noob in Cyrodiil, but absolutely nothing else. Which saddens me.

I'm not so happy they chose to have four classes that aren't terribly distinct. Seems too watered down to me. But hey, I'm still game.

[Deandra]

Magelight is a spell that virtually anyone can learn, and reveals stealthed players (And gives them a spellcasting bonus to boot, so why not have it on all the time during PvP?), so it seems to make stealth pretty iffy during PvP.

Don't you need to keep magelight slotted if you want to keep it on? I have much better things to waste a slot on than that.

[Yaije]

Magelight has a radius of 12m.... Charge attacks (teleport strike, focused charge, critical charge) and bow attacks (heavy/light, bow activated abilities) can all perform sneak attack from beyond the range of mage light's reveal radius. The sneak attack dampener would be a pain but then... you'd just wail on them during the fight.

If you're a ngihtblade, I think you have to remeber that you have some serious burst capabilities in melee (slot deathstroke and USE IT it's teh cheapest ult in game at a mere 50 ultimate). Teleport strike in, drop ult, smash face and gtfo. And remeber to pack some defensive tricks, armor activated abilities don't require their respective armors equipped and heavy armor has a CC protection skill that bumps your armor/sr.

[insert class]/[insert build title] doesn't say much with respect to ESO's build options. My nightblade assassin turned to be someone's idea of a tank with heavy armor and self healing to wade through a damage frenzy.