Help with picking a better class?

Sovrath · September 2014

So when the game launched I picked Templar as it was closer to the character I play in the Elder Scrolls games.

However, I don't really want to play a tank in groups and would prefer a melee damage dealer.

I tried Dragon Knight (didn't get it that high as of yet) but I'm still not doing so well on damage.

Can anyone give me some advice on the Dragon Knight at higher levels? Can it do better damage and be considered a melee damage dealer? Any idea on decent builds?

Has anyone played a Templar in more of a damage dealing role (again, any suggestions for decent builds)? Though I suspect that when one joins a group as a templar one is expected to tank/heal.

Any other thoughts that could possible create a melee damage dealer? Though I would prefer heavy armor I'm sort of "getting" that medium armor really is the way to go for melee/stamina.

I suppose in the end I don't want to bring another class into the higher levels and be disappointed again.

Especially because this is a quest based game and doing the same quest lines over several times in such a short span of time will be tiring.

fivoroth · September 2014

Bare in my mind that I haven't checked patch 1.4 so I don't know if anything has changed.

If you want to dps, Templar is the LAST class you want to play. Their dps is NOT bad but the other classes dps is just way better.

Dragonknights are amazing at dps. When I was playing last month, dragonknights didn't actually tank. The reason for it is quite sad though. It's because they would be wasted on tanking where they are much better off dpsing. The highest dps build for dks though was the flame/destro staff build.

If you want a melee dps class go for either Dragonknights or Nightblades. However, Dragonknights are way more OP both in PvE and in PvP. Sorcerers are not a good choice if you want to melee dps. They can do it but they are much better played as casters.

grimal · September 2014

I don't have many high level characters at the moment, but all the different classes can be built to do anything. I currently have a 25 DK that uses a 2H and I literally kill everything I run into.

I'm also playing a 25 NB with DW/Bow combo. I've also heard of Sorcerer 2H builds. They are constantly changing stuff, so I think it's really fine to go with any class at the moment. Find the one that appeals to you most. I did a lot of searching for other builds and here is a great website with some build theorycrafting: http://tamrielfoundry.com/

Scot · October 2014

NB then Sorcerer for damage.

PioneerStew · October 2014

When I last played it was a NB with 1h and shield. Does that still work as a class/ weapon combo?

Sovrath · October 2014

Well, thank you all.

I actually went to the "official forums" as no one had submitted input to this thread for a bit. However, what you are all saying is 'about' what some there said.

Nightblade consistently came up as a good choice.

There was a poster who gave advice on beefing up my templar as a 2 handed warrior and I've had decent luck but it's clear, at least at level 42, that there are other classes that out damage him.

I've started a Nightblade so will also experiment with that.

Keldien · October 2014

Melee is a bit less forgiving in veteran content than resto staff, but entirely viable as long as you keep some kind of crowd control - either Agony from Siphoning or Volcanic Rune from Mage's Guild - on your bar, along with Strife for healing. You might also consider one of the Siphoning Strikes morphs - one gives you health back on every basic hit, the other gives you stamina/magicka back 15% of the time on ability casts and basic hits, which helps a ton with sustaining damage throughout a fight.

If you do intend to go melee, I highly suggest spending some time murdering undead and daedra at your level to raise Fighter's Guild up a bit, so you can get access to the Dawnbreaker ultimate - the morph gives you a sizable (13% I think) weapon damage increase. That increase to weapon damage cuts the weapon damage reduction from using Siphoning Strikes in half. Your other options for ultimates with Nightblade are the standard Soul Strike - when you've finished the story - or Consuming Darkness' morph: Veil of Blades. Veil is one of the more powerful ults in the game, as it gives a fairly large bonus to damage reduction while damaging anything within the AOE range - and one of the biggest advantages of Nightblades is that they can raise ultimate charge faster than anyone if you have the Siphon tree passives.

Also keep in mind that Assassination passives work well along with Medium Armor to raise your critical chance to a pretty insane level for melee - especially if you grab the Thief mundus stone.

If you have any specific question, ask away. I don't normally run my NB as melee, but I leveled the trees to max, so I have a bit of experience.

Sovrath · October 2014

Originally posted by Keldien
Melee is a bit less forgiving in veteran content than resto staff, but entirely viable as long as you keep some kind of crowd control - either Agony from Siphoning or Volcanic Rune from Mage's Guild - on your bar, along with Strife for healing. You might also consider one of the Siphoning Strikes morphs - one gives you health back on every basic hit, the other gives you stamina/magicka back 15% of the time on ability casts and basic hits, which helps a ton with sustaining damage throughout a fight.

If you do intend to go melee, I highly suggest spending some time murdering undead and daedra at your level to raise Fighter's Guild up a bit, so you can get access to the Dawnbreaker ultimate - the morph gives you a sizable (13% I think) weapon damage increase. That increase to weapon damage cuts the weapon damage reduction from using Siphoning Strikes in half. Your other options for ultimates with Nightblade are the standard Soul Strike - when you've finished the story - or Consuming Darkness' morph: Veil of Blades. Veil is one of the more powerful ults in the game, as it gives a fairly large bonus to damage reduction while damaging anything within the AOE range - and one of the biggest advantages of Nightblades is that they can raise ultimate charge faster than anyone if you have the Siphon tree passives.

Also keep in mind that Assassination passives work well along with Medium Armor to raise your critical chance to a pretty insane level for melee - especially if you grab the Thief mundus stone.

If you have any specific question, ask away. I don't normally run my NB as melee, but I leveled the trees to max, so I have a bit of experience.

This is great, thank you. How do you use your Nightblade and what do you use for both weapons?

Keldien · October 2014

Personally, I run shield and resto staff. My NB is built with ability points toward health, armor pieces toward magicka, jewelry toward magicka cost reduction. I use five pieces of heavy armor and two pieces of light armor for the bonus spell resist, magicka regen, and a few other light armor passives.

For tanking, I spam the Power Drain morph from the Siphoning tree - it gives you bonus weapon damage for every target hit, and it heals both you and your group for a decent amount of the damage done. I also run Siphoning Attacks - the morph of Siphoning Strikes that gives magicka/stamina back on ability use - so I can keep my stamina topped off for blocking and keeping Unstoppable up at all times.

Nightblades - because of Siphoning Strikes - have the unique ability to forego worrying about resources as much as the other classes. This means we can keep Unstoppable - the Heavy Armor +armor/spell resist skill - up indefinitely.

It also means that resto staff becomes one of the - if not THE - most damaging weapons for us. Resto staff has a passive that gives 10% bonus damage to abiltiies - this allows us to just spam the crap out of Strife as a primary damage dealing ability, while clipping in light attacks; then when a mob is at low health, we can almost endlessly spam Impale from the Assassination tree.

I usually don't run actual resto abilities on my staff bar, but I have the option if something is seriously wrong in my group. It also allows me to use Force Siphon's insta-cast morph while tanking - and I've found that to be pretty popular among the healers I run with.

Sovrath · October 2014

Thanks, that's actually very helpful.

Scot · October 2014

Any weapon will get you to V10. Group content after V10 expects players to use more optimal weapons.

So level up with your favourite weapons and on the other bar have one Restro Staff ability at least. Make Restro your alternative weapon. Once Restro has levelled at least until you can pick the last ability, swtich to Destro, then Bow for PvP.

As a NB I have done a Craglorn delve as a tank. It was painful but you can do it, so One handed and Shield was needed. Maybe you are now getting the idea, level every darn thing

Sovrath · October 2014

Originally posted by Scot
Any weapon will get you to V10. Group content after V10 expects players to use more optimal weapons.

So level up with your favourite weapons and on the other bar have one Restro Staff ability at least. Make Restro your alternative weapon. Once Restro has levelled at least until you can pick the last ability, swtich to Destro, then Bow for PvP.

As a NB I have done a Craglorn delve as a tank. It was painful but you can do it, so One handed and Shield was needed. Maybe you are now getting the idea, level every darn thing

Yeah, it seems that way.

are you sure about both Destruction and Restoration staves for pvp? It seems that some of the videos I see are dragon kngihts and Night blades as melee.

Tamanous · October 2014

Originally posted by Sovrath
Originally posted by Scot
Any weapon will get you to V10. Group content after V10 expects players to use more optimal weapons.

So level up with your favourite weapons and on the other bar have one Restro Staff ability at least. Make Restro your alternative weapon. Once Restro has levelled at least until you can pick the last ability, swtich to Destro, then Bow for PvP.

As a NB I have done a Craglorn delve as a tank. It was painful but you can do it, so One handed and Shield was needed. Maybe you are now getting the idea, level every darn thing

Yeah, it seems that way.

are you sure about both Destruction and Restoration staves for pvp? It seems that some of the videos I see are dragon kngihts and Night blades as melee.

If using only class skills both DK and especially NB can still play melee. NB's most powerful attacks are technically melee (they go against armor and use melee crit) and therefore the most effective way to use those abilities is to be a mage build. If you see a NB using a 1h+shield in pvp they are often just a mage build and only use support skills from the skill line and mainly benefit from the passives.

Scot · October 2014

In PvP dual blade is very good for solo kills, One handed and shield for staying alive and distracting the enemy from squishes. So we are back to level everything! But you wont be able to do that so stick to the plan I outlined. You might want to replace bow with dual yield as a NB, if you do that your other set in pvp will probably be one handed and shield or restro staff. If you stick with bow, probably restro staff or destroy would be on the other set.

You can do some weapon levelling when farming at top levels so you do get the chance to put them all up, but it takes ages. Putting them up while questing is far quicker.

HabitualFrogStomp · October 2014

It's almost hilarious DK's are still the alpha class in this game. How many months has it been now? Does ZOS just have some sort of illogical man crush on the class? Did everyone who is not a DK already quit the game?

I played a NB at launch and I did 'ok' and even managed to refine tactics to kill melee DK's with a good success rate, then they all just move to staff based and I just couldn't be bothered with this virtual arms race where you're always handicapped because one particular class is more flexible and all encompassing than everyone else.

Raquis · October 2014

what is happening with you happened with everyone,you play the game then you see others with nice looking powers and you think the game will feel better but even if you play all the classes it feels like something is missing-I got bored in 3 weeks.

rather play dark souls 2 or wait for EQN.

Sovrath · October 2014

Originally posted by Raquis
what is happening with you happened with everyone,you play the game then you see others with nice looking powers and you think the game will feel better but even if you play all the classes it feels like something is missing-I got bored in 3 weeks.

rather play dark souls 2 or wait for EQN.

I don't really see it as that. I'm certainly not bored.

I just prefer being a Damage dealer.

I continue to play though and enjoy the game for what it is. I just want to do more damage than not.

Moar61 · October 2014

I wouldn't necessarily give up on your Templar yet, especially if you're using 2h (2h is gonna get a buff up pretty soon). Another thing that can really change the game is the fact that ZOS is looking to allow stamina builds be equally as powerful as magicka builds. As of now almost every class needs a decent amount of magicka, but they are making changes to that. NB is still the underdog class but with these updates I expect it to become very viable.

And as others have said before, between level 40 and vr14 there's lots of time to level up different weapons/playstyles. As a Temp healer I can also use bow and 2h for dps. Once you get to the trials/dragonstar arena groups will expect you to use the optimal setup, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try other things along the way.

Originally posted by Raquis
what is happening with you happened with everyone,you play the game then you see others with nice looking powers and you think the game will feel better but even if you play all the classes it feels like something is missing-I got bored in 3 weeks.

rather play dark souls 2 or wait for EQN.

DK isn't enough OP that you can't do anything about them. I've played a temp healer/dps and manage just fine on my own and have since early access. Most of the classes are well balanced atm with the exception of NB falling a bit on the weak side.

EQBallzz · October 2014

I have a VR7 Templar and I have no problem with DPS. It may not be the highest DPS but I like the flexibility and survivability of the class. My first character was a NB and I leveled that to V12. The NB seemed to have good burst dmg at the start but my DPS would fall off dramatically and my survivability was poor. I know some have better experiences with NB but I was only interested in a stamina build so it wasn't working that well for me. It may improve in the near future, though.

As for the Templar I primarily set it up as a healer but have leveled up not only resto staff but also shield, destro staff and 2h. My favorite is using resto with 2h and all light armor or 5 light/2 heavy. My single target DPS isn't great but using a combination of Templar and 2h abilities on groups of mobs gives pretty decent DPS and survivability. I can solo all public dungeons (frequently the group challenge as well) and dolmens even in the veteran areas and I solo the majority of world bosses. Even with the reduced difficulty in vet areas I'm certain I couldn't do that on my NB. This setup will only improve with the buffs coming to 2h.

Most of the time I don't even swap to my resto staff unless the fight is exceptionally long and I need to heal or get magicka back but the majority of the time I can keep myself topped off with puncturing sweep since it heals me more with additional targets and the dmg shield of blazing shield. The combination of puncturing sweep and blazing shield is quite good. I typically just stand in the middle of red AE dmg and purposely don't interrupt spells/thrown daggers with blazing shield going so it reflects back more dmg on the attackers when it expires. That combined with cleave, 2h light/heavy attacks, critical charge and solar barrage works pretty well. I also use the cleave morph that builds ultimate + crescent sweep which fills ridiculously fast (only 75 ultimate) and does decent dmg. Not as high as other ultimates but it's always back up so fast so it's almost like having another regular ability with good dmg on your bar.

I may not have great burst or single target dmg but the ability to take on huge groups or bosses with confidence is nice and feels much more powerful than my NB ever did. I'm mostly waiting for the stamina changes to return to the NB but for now I'm content with the Templar as a healer or steady DPS that won't die easily.

Carnicide · October 2014

Originally posted by Sovrath
So when the game launched I picked Templar as it was closer to the character I play in the Elder Scrolls games.

However, I don't really want to play a tank in groups and would prefer a melee damage dealer.

I tried Dragon Knight (didn't get it that high as of yet) but I'm still not doing so well on damage.

Can anyone give me some advice on the Dragon Knight at higher levels? Can it do better damage and be considered a melee damage dealer? Any idea on decent builds?

Has anyone played a Templar in more of a damage dealing role (again, any suggestions for decent builds)? Though I suspect that when one joins a group as a templar one is expected to tank/heal.

Any other thoughts that could possible create a melee damage dealer? Though I would prefer heavy armor I'm sort of "getting" that medium armor really is the way to go for melee/stamina.

I suppose in the end I don't want to bring another class into the higher levels and be disappointed again.

Especially because this is a quest based game and doing the same quest lines over several times in such a short span of time will be tiring.

OP stop playing a different Class Templar is more than okay. Goto this link.......

http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/crusader-templar-2h-pve-melee-dps-800-1400-single-target/

Thats a 2hander DPS melee build for temp does amazing damage.

here's a video of the damage he does

Both of these are amazing. I use the same concept for my DK and do great dmg.

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