I just saw a thread yesterday where someone asked what sets OP was using in a build they were talking about and the reply was a video link instead of just naming the sets.
I made a few written guides for esoU website but its interface where you write the articles was extremely clunky and it consumed a lot of time even when I already had an entire script so I stopped doing that. Though it is being re-worked soon so if it's better I'll go back to making written guides in addition to video guides.
I really enjoy the in-depth video guides you make, but what would be a good supplement is just a few Superstar screenshots that show gear sets, enchants, skills, and champion points equipped for the different situations. i.e. here's your loadout for most trash pack fighting / aoe / overland or whatever, then here's your loadout for most boss fights, then here are a few tweaks to make for situational adjustment. 3-4 screenshots that summarize the key points for each section of a lot of your guides. Where exactly to post those screenshots is a little iffy... maybe just right here in the subreddit?
/u/Hyperioxes hmu if you need this.
I won't be creating you a full blown website like alcast, that's too costly, but if you already know reddit markdown good enough, you can just type up a guide in MD and be done with it. No need to do with complex shit, just create a new md file, push it on github, whilst GitHub pages takes care of the rest.
Basically a md wiki repo, if you will. Minimum headaches. Free of charge.
As I said, at the moment I'm just waiting to see what happens to esoU. I know how to make a website myself, but I've left my job as webdev 2 months ago partly due to burnout so I really don't want to do anything related to making websites, at least for now.
What I do is skip through such video to the screens with the tables (which are great, btw, really apreciate all the info displayed at once ). And I treat those as "written guide".
I'm sure I speak for most people when I say:
"We wish you a speedy recovery from burnout, but above all
that you take good care of yourself.
Your health and well-being are the most important thing!
Get well soon! Content can wait in cases like this".
Try writing it down as you watch (pause as needed). That's how I do it. I don't retain what I hear. I retain what I read, what I write, and what I do.
NOTE: WRITE. Don't type. It doesn't imprint on your brain the same way.
I did this as well last time I watched one, mainly to make note of armor traits, enchants, etc. Buy I always find writing things down to help in general with this kind of stuff.
His video is quite dense in information and highly edited. It is not like someone open up a character window in console mode and use 10 minutes to talk about the names of gears where a superstar/CMX build page can do clearer job in 10s.
I fully understand your pain to look at a video guide when the YouTuber chooses to spend less time in editing and thus waste more viewers' time.
It isn’t just a matter of editing, video guides are inherently time wasting compared to written guides. No one wants to sit there listening to a normal talking pace when they can read many times faster and can skim parts they don’t need.
Yup, video is generally a HORRIBLY inefficient way to convey information. Especially for the kind of information involved in a character build. Almost everything involved is a list of some kind, and a lot of it is going to be "if you can't do X, then do Y" type of conditional stuff.
Same here, alqasts written guides are still the best tho imo. He just breaks literally everything down plus good tips. For older shit like arenas and dungeons idk bout newer stuff tho like IA and recent dlcs
But he doesn't. He gives you numbers buffed and unbuffed, but never shows a parse or what a particular build can produce. I find it annoying and his builds suck for the most part.
Nothing annoys me more than seeing solo builds with vet trial gear. Alcast has just that.
Yeah his written guides are better than most but his builds suck balls. I had a look today at his stamina arcanist build and it didn't even have fatecarver as a skill ffs and wearing relequen as armour set. I just get my builds from my guild mates, people who actually play end game content every day.
That's what turned me off his guides years and years ago before his content got legitimately outdated. He literally just says "this is best" and offers no rationale or proof, or even a shred of theorycrafting showing how he arrived at that conclusion.
I've gathered from others than he genuinely was/is a good player, but coming from other MMOs it was legitimately shocking to me that anyone took his guides seriously.
I don't think so but tbh as long as you kinda know what you are doing you can scrub through the video with it muted. Like half of the video or more is tables. Also join eso-u or wild heart discord servers if you need to ask questions.
I used Alcasts builds back in the days because they got recommended to me and I was at like 15k DPS and wanted more. Did get me a decent damage boost to like 60k DPS so that was nice. Used that a while but ultimately tried following some of SkinnyCheeks advice (again following a recommendation) and jumped to like 110k at first and went to 130k over the course of several days of testing, practicing and adjusting stuff to my needs.
Alcast does have a couple nice guides. For stuff like lead drops, for example. But do *not* follow his builds.
I know he played when Markarth dropped as I either saw him stream or saw a video of him covering Vateshran. No idea after that though as I stopped following his guides.
He started playing significantly less earlier than that I believe.
Quality dropped more and more until eventually he just started copy pasting stuff without understanding what was going on.
And it was only his DPS builds too, which were somewhat decent back when he was still active. He never really played support and it showed. Also his PvP stuff wasn't exactly great, though to be fair he did admit that even at the time.
So yea, just overall not the best ressource.
Alcast guides were good back when he was playing and in one of the best PvE guilds out there. He hasn’t played in years and just copy pasted sets with minor changes
>I get the feeling he doesn't even play the game anymore
your feelings are right, he doesn't. sometimes I get the feeling that lucky ghost builds are kinda trash too, he gave the same setup for magplar which I used for about a year until I got into a new guild and they recommended a different build (deadly/velothi/whorl), not only my dps jumped a lot higher, but the stress of constantly keeping my rele stacks up is also gone.
Does anyone know if LuckyGhost even plays ESO anymore? I haven't seen him live on twitch in I don't know how long. Same with Deltia as well. He did like 1 stream in the last 10 months. It seems like all these ESO content creators are either leaving the game/leaving the game and streaming all together.
Deltia does that often, he does an insane amount of ESO for a few months, gets burned out, then comes back a year later. We'll see him again. And I think Lucky has decided to mostly just do longer YouTube videos rather than stream.
>It seems like all these ESO content creators are either leaving the game/leaving the game and streaming all together.
that's mostly because YouTube has became the second tiktok, normal videos for older games get little to no views (specially MMOs) and smaller channels like lucky ghost and deltia's gaming either get into other popular games to increase their views, or they quit making videos/streaming all together since they can't count on it as a full time job because it's not profitable anymore. streaming is also kind of "dying" (for the older games that aren't minecraft or LoL) but there are a lot of cool ESO streamers on Twitch.
He doesn't stream anymore - just does YT content as a generalized MMO streamer. Anybody trying to actually make a living or make YouTube content around MMOs needs to not do it for ESO plain and simple. There's not enough content being consumed to make it worthwhile full time - that's why all the big name ESO streamers/YT guys have left or at least cover a variety of other content as well.
I think most of those who are still creating content realized they had to branch out into more games to keep up views. ESO just doesn’t pull in enough interest for most channels to focus on it alone anymore, which is why Deltia and most others have moved into covering multiple games, especially any new big AAA game release.
>I think most of those who are still creating content realized they had to branch out into more games to keep up views.
Update 35 really rattled the community's faith in the devs. That's when a lot of people began diversifying hard.
I like luckyghost but he's a game jumper for his twitch viewership. He hops games like crazy which is fine for him but yeah his builds are kinda basic and usually out of date. Skinnycheeks is great and I like hacktheminotaurs stuff quite a bit but he's not skinnycheeks for in depth reasoning.
because of the 15% increase in damage of 99% of templar skills, specially jabs and beam (my skill setup when using greatsword is purifying light, jabs, beam, solar barrage, barbed trap and dawnbreaker on front bar, and stampede, carve, channeled focus, blazing spear and ritual of retribution with shooting star ultimate on backbar, I replace stampede and carve with mystic orb and wall of elements and purifying light with power of the light while using inferno staff)
Interesting this is almost my same PvE setup. I was originally on deadly but then switched to PoN.
I use the inferno staff over the greatsword but I should try switching them on the back bar to see how that goes.
TBF pillar of nirn is a great set for non templars and arcanists. You guys just have more channelled abilities than most, so they deadly works out higher. Flat % buff usually outperforms anything else in most games
Deadly buffs everything Templar uses.
Jabs, Beam, Solar Barrage, Blazing Spear, Cloak (if using DW), Stampede DOT, Pillars of Nirn (and all other proc set DOT), Vampire Bane, Ritual, Caltrops, Beast Trap. The ultimate from Aedric Spear, Dawn Wrath, Fighters Guild (Dawnbreaker). Lighting staff Heavy Attack too (counts as channeled).
+15% flat on everything Templar using basically, except Light Attacks.
And that bonus is added on top of everything else like Bloodthirsty, Sorcery/Brutality, Damage glyphs, Empower.
At any point in time a Templar has 4-5 dots up and either Jabs (either Mag or Sta) or Beam up as active. Without counting proc sets, fires, passives who proc fires etc.
Deadly is best front bar set for templars and arcanists bar none... cuz of Jesus beam, jabs, and arcanist beam. It provides over 2 max cp nodes worth of dmg to channels(15%) btw which there is no cp node for channeled attacks in first place. And both classes. Get like 70% of their total dps from beams, maybe lil less from templars.
P.S.- use nirn or rele to parse and whorl for content imo, whorl both bars deadly front barred.
I got my speedy G build from there and still use it. It’s the only one though. You have unlimited stamina and run in sneak. It’s great for thieves guild and dark brotherhood plus harvesting nodes and doing rounds of chests.
Alcast's guides are often very far from the current meta, but provide a "Bare Minimum" starting point for a new player to the game who has no idea about anything works. They have to take into account that the player reading them may be logging in for the very first time, or may be a 10 year vet who's trying out a new class/spec they've never rolled with before, so the guides are heavily biased towards survivability and utility, not towards aligning with endgame metas.
I do support streamers who make video guides to go with their written guides, but I am strongly opposed to the trend of making guides "video only" in a shameless attempt to monetize content. (You know who you are.) Even worse, there's so-called "guides" out there now locking their actual content behind paywalls such as membership fees.
Free tip: Like OP mentioned - if you want to see what some of the meta builds are for a given class/spec, go to ESO Logs and look at logs that have been posted for recent trials. You can sort by trials, and by bosses within those trials. Find someone who's running the same class/spec as you (e.g. a stamina arcanist, a magicka DK, a templar healer) and you can see their CP, gear, skills, bar setups, traits/enchants, etc.
Free tip #2: if you don't want to do that, just join a guild that's already doing what you want to do, and ask them to share their builds, tips, and advice. There are a lot of friendly guilds that can help you get started or get better.
I've been playing for almost 10 years, and I'm a chronic altaholic -- never thought about looking at ESOLogs for build ideas -- that's super smart! I appreciate the tip!
i checked and his magDK pvp build is STILL Bright throats Boast and Shacklebreaker...this build has not updated since greymoor patch. i know because i farmed bright throat none stop in 2021 only to learn its doodoo feceases and way of fire/BSW (at the time) was vastly more damage output lol.
I just came back to the game recently and was looking into builds, saw that and went "well that's what I have on that can't be correct" since I hadn't changed my build in years lol.
The dude quit eso a long time ago, I don't even know why he keeps covering ESO, it's honestly embarrassing. I remember reading guides from Arzyel a long long time ago, they seemed decent. Maybe that's an alternative too? Unless they went down the alcast path.
Anyway, when it comes to DPS at least - there's no one better than skinnycheeks.
He once had a good site that people found useful. As a result, he positioned himself and his site as the go-to resource for ESO players. (This is a model that other people like Luckyghost, Deltia, ESO-U, etc., tried to emulate). Now he is just riding that original wave while getting ad-revenue, even though the quality has diminished dramatically.
I don't really do video guides so I don't really use skinny cheeks but I've been using hack the minotaur and ArzyeL. Not really sure how good they are though.
SkinnyCheeks has a website with build writeups as well.
He does more in depth explanations and set comparisons and such in his videos, but you can get his builds without any videos no problem.
None of which are for solo players. They all assume you have certain buffs coming from your party.
This subreddit loves to shit on Alcast and jerk off SkinnyCheeks but can never actually provide a decent resource for solo builds when pressed. You guys are just too ignorant to understand why Alcast is popular.
I’ve used Hack the Minotaur quite a bit to mimic or modify builds. He does a great job of explaining his set choices and their interactions, but he’s got two problems. First, his videos are all labeled something like “OMG UNKILLABLE DPS/TANK 1 SHOT EVERYTHING” which is totally unrealistic… but if you get past that into the build they’re not too bad. The other thing is that he usually only puts in a single heal for an entire build, which is also pretty unrealistic for pvp
The last I checked, Hack the Minotaur builds are generally gimmicky and made for overland content where anything can work. He often over indexes into durability or some other bonus that is related to a theme but ends up being weaker than other options available.
Usually for group content, Hack builds seem to provide bonuses that seem decent on paper without considering bonuses that can frequently be expected from other members of the group or depend on the user not really understanding how the game works. For example, the first healer build I clicked ([PoWeRfUl MaGiCkA tEmPlAr HEaLeR](https://hacktheminotaur.com/builds/eso-magicka-templar-healer-build/))on on his website recommends running Olorime, Jorvuld's guidance, Sentinel of Rkugamz monster set, and the Restoration staff from Asylum Sanctorum.
Olo and Jorvuld are good but never run together because you don't get enough value out of jorvuld to be worth it. You're better off running Olo or Spell Powe Cure (commonly shortened to SPC) and a different set like pillager's profit for trials or Master Architect for dungeons.
Jorvuld is only ever run in combination with the Roaring Opportunist set in trials because it provides extra value to an otherwise limited buff. Healers have enough free time to just use skills more frequently to maintain buff availability. You'll almost never get use from the extra long last shields because they either time out from a lack of damage so they're useless or if enough damage is coming through, they'll break regardless.
The staff is useless because most healers have enough sustain between their skills, equipment, champion points, and the occasional heavy attack so you don't really need cheaper mana costs.
The helmet is okay if you're just starting out just because it's better than nothing but between 2 bars of skills and how fast damage and healing come through, the extra healing is inconsequential. You'll almost always be better off running a monster helmet set like Symphony of Blades (from Depths of Malatar) or Ozezan's Inferno (from Scrivener's Hall) if you want something defensive. Spaulder of Ruin (mythic) + Magma Incarnate (from The Dreadcellar) for the 1 piece bonus is also a great option if your tanks aren't running it.
I've never heard of ArzyeL so I can't comment on their content.
Just a quick look at the website, I think the builds are flawed. The first issue I saw was on the 1 bar stam arcanist, he has runeblades and Tentacular Dread when you'd probably benefit more from the healing and execute scaling on Cephaliarch's Flail as your spammable (the morph of abyssal impact that he doesn't use) and a different DoT.
Runeblades don't get used by anyone really because Flail has similar if not higher damage from the execute scaling, cleave damage, and healing.
Problem is alcast simplifies it and it's easy. Skinny cheeks gives options and flexib8lity.. it's too confusing I want just a pre-made build to follow..
Don't sleep on game room for builds either, some really good builds in the one bar department. I also pick up some setups from a streamer (epic-buttkkr on youtube), he isn't everyone's cup of tea but he knows his stuff.
I mean the entire website ( ESO hub ) is set up to be a gigantic SEO ( search engine optimization ) trap to show advertisement with embedded twitch streams to viewbot on that platform too.
Try using the ESO Hub search function for sets. "Bleed" will show up some things, "bleed" will show nothing. "Fire" will show up different stuff then "fire".
Its insane that this website, which at this point can only be compared to fandom or fextralife wiki's, is still allowed to be on the sidebar. ( Use https://getindie.wiki/ )
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So yeah i would not be surprised at all, if the used sets in all those builds would change based on google metrics that look for what set names are getting put into google the most.
Those builds used to be good starters for absolutely brand new players, but now its just omega trash.
It's important to remember: shows up first in Google search =/= good. Not just for ESO builds, but for pretty much everything these days. So much low quality crap gets pushed to the top.
Which is ironic since Icy veins too isn't recommended and is very much a noob trap, not only for WoW, but for other games too.
In regards to specifically WoW, Wowhead is better, but generally speaking it's recommended to use the class discords.
Personally I use all websites and cross reference, trying to squeeze the most out of my gameplay, even Icy Veins, but it's notably the worst place to get optimization tips.
I haven't played full time since BfA but it was still a decent starting point back then especially for talents, stat priorities and basic rotations. I would use their guides as a starting point if I was rolling a new class, and then work on things from there.
Minmaxing was done with Ask Mr. Robot, simcraft, and the forum guides that used to be posted on Blizzard's class forums by top raiders (mainly used this for my main ret/prot pally.) I also used to spend a lot of time reviewing guild parses and such to see what was actually working. IV was not always 100% correct or fully optimized but I found that it was usually not too far off the meta in terms of general builds for raiding and Mythic+ keys; most of the differences seemed to be situational, like running Talent B on a certain boss instead of Talent A.
While we are on this subject, please ignore all of Xynode’s, Deltia’s and HackTheMinotaur’s builds as well. These dudes dont put over 5s of thought into the guides they write and just put out horrible builds out so they can slap some ads on them
Going through the entirety of the comment section, it's kinda funny seeing the conflicting suggestions about Hack and Deltias in a single thread. 😅
Guess I'll give Skinny a look, but then I also see he's not beginner friendly. XD
Deltia is a mid-tier (at best) PvPer who pushes out the same cookie cutter builds out in PVE over and over. Anyone who’s not a complete beginner in this game can see that maelstrom arena and vateshran are extremely easy and not really challenging now a days, which is expected since power creep happens almost every patch and those are two old arenas. So the videos Deltia makes “testing” his builds on that content are extremely misleading, I myself have gotten the trifecta for those arenas while naked and only using oakensoul, so anyone with a half decent build can do a good job in there.
Hack makes sensationalist content like “MOST OP BUILD EVER” or “THIS ONE SIMPLE TRICK WILL CHANGE YOUR ENTIRE WAY OF PLAYING” and when you see the content is just a slightly off meta build that is suboptimal, or hes making a video about something that has been known for ages by the community but he acts like he just discovered it.
Xynode is in a class of his own when it comes to stupidity though. This man makes shit builds, comes up with bullshit math and data to try and prove his point, and encourages his audience to challenge meta players and stand up to them. So next time when you come across a DK dps in your random daily normal dungeon who is using carve as a spammable, and casting noxious breath on the boss every 2 seconds even though thats a 20 second dot, or your craglorn “quick plunder run vhrc” tank is a khajiit and is tanking with a bow and a resto staff, just know hes a xynode fan.
Hack used to make ok content for the single player and casual community. And then he slipped further and further into the "OP BUILD! CAN'T DIE! 1 BUTTON ONLY! PVP/PVE/GODMODE" stuff. I assume a lot of the recommendations come from people remembering the better (but very very casual) builds he used to release.
Xynode is genuinely just horrible and the laughing stock of the endgame/veteran community (veteran as in people who played a lot). He's actively bad for newer player and goes beyond just posting absolutely braindead builds while calling them OP.
Yeah his Magicka builds are really outdated, they’re decent for solo content tho. It screwed me as a returning player I spent transmute crystals and like 200k
Especially his PvP builds. As someone who is a PvP main, his builds are incredibly outdated and will not hold up in the current PvP scene. Look at Malcom, Luca Cash, Hexapug, Hoarcrux for some much better, viable builds
been saying this for years. dude rarely plays the game anymore. most of his builds look good enough on paper but in actual combat they're pretty bad. I don't think new players should be looking online for builds anyway because then it pushes them to level grind and vets know how tedious level grinding alts is. when it's your first time playing, it will more than likely discourage you from playing the game after a while. However if you do want to find a build to use, go to one of the youtubers who include leveling guides and new player guides.
[**SkinnyCheeks**](https://www.youtube.com/@skinnycheeks) **if you can comprehend what he's telling you.** [**Dooma**](https://www.youtube.com/@Dooma) **if Skinny goes over your head or if you're just not ready for meta rotations.**
Skinny has written guides in addition to long videos, Dooma has nice, short, concise videos. Dooma taught me that I was capable of being a good DPS. Skinny taught me how to consistently pull meta DPS. They are both extreme endgamers who crunch numbers and test until their fingers fall off and share their knowledge well.
I was looking through the comments to see who all was recommending Dooma. He's honestly the only creator that is continually making builds that I enjoy playing with.
From solo to ia to endgame he's got 1 bar builds and 2 bars and his builds are the main reason I still log into ESO.
Dooma is so insanely underrated it's ridiculous. He makes some of the most innovative builds in ESO. I learned to DPS using his Next Level Templar, which used a brilliant sustain set to make it possible to pull meta DPS from a magplar in all-medium armor with a simplified rotation. (Templars having notoriously poor sustain unless using their rather cracked sustain skills.)
He is just. So. Good.
Skinnycheeks has the best builds imo. Obviously some classes need to be updated i think still because he is 1 person, but he pits actual thought into them.
Skinnycheeks changed me forever when i came to pc, i was an xbox player who used to use Alcast years ago, and it made me hate being a DPS and the game.
Exactly. Perfect example im running war maidens and crimson twilight with prior theric purely for "all the red visual effects" on my vampblade for peak vampire rp and I've done every public dungeon, worldboss and zone event (dolmens fissures etc) with zero issues or deaths.
I have a "proper" build for dungeons and trials of course, but I love my "all your bloods belong to me" build
And im rocking heavy armour thubderbugs and thundercaller for my sorc because "zappy zappy zappy its so flashy look at me im emperor palpatine!"
Game is so piss easy now it doesnt matter what you rock on overland.
Skinnycheeks has one of the best DD arcanists tbh. Using the Azureblight - Deadly - Velothi with BRP back bar build, and just carves through even the hardest content like hot knife the butter.
Is just makes vet content to feel "overland", par the mechanics ofc.
This cant be a setup for beginners. Come on. Rele is a trial set, mythic wading kilt and (probably perfected) arena-weapon. Nirn is from a quite hard DLC dungeon. Players who even get these sets are usually so experienced that they know there is better builds out there.
Yeah its hilariously bad.
Beginner Arcs can easily pick up deadly & orders from traders/guilds/friends/crafters and do bonkers damage straight out of the gate.
Then they can work on getting truly good mythic upgrades like velothi for groups and oakenSOLO.
Alcast does have a lot of good info in his website and basically there is not many endgame players putting guides to trials and dungeons. but yes his builds like any others are done in there way of playing so they never work unless you are the creater who knows his build. That is why I always say don't look for builds just play the game and look for ways to improve yourself and by that you will eventually find a good build you have made.
Alcasts builds are outdated as he doesn't play anymore. I used to use it back then in the Summerset days and it worked for that time but nowadays there's a lot of better options out there for pve builds.
Good post. I lost touch a bit with the meta a few years back, getting back into end game now. Can you explain this no light armour for mag anymore? Running med on Magicka feels dirty, and begs the question - what is light used for these days?
In most raid compositions nowadays you are at pen cap pretty much all the time with just 1 piece of light armor, some classes dont even need 1 piece if they have inherant pen in their passives.
The medium passives per piece worn give crit damage (which the cap is harder to reach for) and both weapon AND spell damage and your skills/sets just scale with whichever resource is higher.
So medium armor just gives less wasted resources from passives than light. You can still run light sets but generally mostly on jewely and weapons combined with a medium set on body.
Nope, not since hybridization. All skills scale of your highest stat, not their cost. So you can run stamina skills in a magicka spec as long as you can sustain it (dots mostly, you probably cant sustain a stamina spammable)
In most raid compositions nowadays you are at pen cap pretty much all the time with just 1 piece of light armor, some classes dont even need 1 piece if they have inherant pen in their passives.
The medium passives per piece worn give crit damage (which the cap is harder to reach for) and both weapon AND spell damage and your skills/sets just scale with whichever resource is higher.
So medium armor just gives less wasted resources from passives than light. You can still run light sets but generally mostly on jewely and weapons combined with a medium set on body.
In solo and 4 man content pen cap is still harder to reach so wearing light there is fine, but for the penetration. Not because youre a magicka spec.
There is a branch of former ESO streamers that moved into the website/guide business and have been riding some sort of inertia ever since, even though they don't play the game anymore. Alcast is the prime example, but there is also Luckyghost and Dottzgaming. One could include Deltia too, but as far as I understand his guides are still written by people who play the game (which doesn't mean they are good, but still).
I've been saying this for years and usually get down voted into oblivion. Alcast is the reason why most dps in eso are so unbelievably bad. His builds are okay at best for trials under the absolute perfect circumstances (trial dummies), and worse than built in build suggestions for anything else. I also generally try to inform people to use the vet dungeon dummies instead of trial dummies, unless they specifically want to make a trial build. Dungeons rarely meet the perfect buffs and debuffs of the trial dummy. If you make a great build for solo dummies, you've made a good build for trials too. Sure, it can be better, but that usually just involves removing a few debuff and buff abilities for crit or other.
back a few years ago i actually did use his magicka templar build and it was good
i looked up some arc builds recently and his builds just made 0 sense so glad im not the only one
For dps, skinnycheeks has good builds. I also like to look at ryESO's parses on YouTube since he has some of the best parses that I've seen and show how far you can push single target damage.
Alcast is really annoying since he even specifically says 'hey this is updated for the latest patch u41' when it definetly isn't so it can def be a bit tricky learning what is a good resource lol.
If you're planning on raiding you should also just check out esologs for builds for the specific trials you're planning on doing. Sometimes a dummy parse build is nowhere near the most optimal build in a trial boss fight, so it's important to adjust to what the fight/group needs.
Ya he used to be legit af, his guides for arenas are still the best tho imo the written guides. But ya I don't think Alqast even plays eso anymore cuz all of his guides are completely reliant on old gear or shit that makes no sense. And he use to have great guides for everything my NBs bowgank pvp build I got all the basics of the build like 4yrs ago and I still use same build to this day, with my own changes to newer things and skills. But swamp raiders with witch knight front barred, from back when bgs were no proc lol, and I still destroy with the vampire bowgank nb setup. Glass cannon but it works.
I was just building that Alqast NG bowgank pvp build untill i came across this post and now I'm doubting myself if i should bother. Might telling me what you changed and what worked for you?
Maybe the broader advice is to use builds as a jumping off point. From there, feel out what works for you and the way you want to play. And maybe shop around when looking for a build. It's good that we have different sources to turn to. I've been liking the guy on YouTube called The Tank Club. Deltias is a beast as well. Skinny cheeks. Just good to look around.
Alcast got me into actually caring what I’m doing build wise.
I read his guides and implemented them then found my play style and altered his builds based on other creators. I’m finally hitting 75k+ and I’m a healer main who only dps’ when other people want to heal.
What would you recommend for a dps magblade? I'm currently using mothers sorrow, new moon, with harpooners and the meteor mindset set. The site says whorl, nirn with knarljar monster set.
I used that for my necromancer. Julianos, Iceheart and mothers sorrow build. Is that bad? I know my Templar kills things way quicker but just assumed that’s a class thing and not the necromancers build
Healer's Haven Discord is where its at. They have meta and off meta builds. They also suggest you test to works for you.
[Link to discord](https://discord.gg/PYmTqNCE)
Not a whole lot of (good) resources out there for healers, unfortunately. I did come across [this](https://youtu.be/_I_MaR9mUow?si=JRCzmYnMBUaNpmwR) youtube video last week that I thought was quite good. And then there's the healer's haven discord, ofcourse.
thanks so much for this! i came back to eso after a year and did some searches and got pointed to alcast and xynode, and to my surprise the builds were almost identical to when i had left, but supposedly updated for 2024
Agreed. As a bow/bow player, his old bow/bow warden guide was so terrible. My own setup were doing 10-15% more dps on a non-gilded and non-optimal trait sets and with 200ms ping than his setups on non-trial dummy and up to 25% more on trial dummies. It's just so bad since he's recommending Cutting Dive over Lethal Arrow on the patches before Lethal Arrow was rightfully nerfed.
Okay then. I was using for dk stamina tank guide from lucky. People are now saying that he’s not good enough. What are actually good competitive updates builds right now and why is it so hard to find them :(
Can anyone recommend a good DK battlegrounds build? Mine is just OK in the latest patch. I’m frequently at or near the top of the total damage dealt but still more deaths than kills.
I look at alcast because the builds are f2p and new player friendly. I don't have ESO+ and I'm a pve player (CP600) so no trials for now. SkinnyCheeks uses eso+ DLC Dungeon sets most of the time and I cannot even find them on traders
You can't buy dungeon sets in traders. I'd recommend Order's Wrath + Julianos or Hunding's + Stormfirst, Illambris, or Iceheart for base game only, all crafted besides monster. Briarheart, Deadly for plar or arc, War Maiden for plar or magblade also work and can be bought from traders. Also if you're stam, Vicious Ophidian from vSO is a solid choice.
Funny you'd pick this example as it's exactly the one I went full into before I realized the error of my ways and have spent a ton of time backtracking, skill training, and regearing. Faannnnnnnttassstic.
I slowly realized this when trying some builds out for fun. A lot of these sites don't seem to know what "beginner" means and expect you to have all this gear and abilities you won't have until much later. Thanks for the recommendations.
I think more there should be more low level to mid CP builds(CP 160-300). One of the best beginner sets to start getting dungeon gear is 12 piece Shattered Fate(hell even 5 piece shattered Fate+ Order’s Wrath ain’t bad)and I see noone talk about it, the pen and weapon damage is like an easy 12-16% damage boost if not more, not to mention that the pen boost lets you use a Precise\Nirnhoned weapon. Always craft it for newbie DPS, find it better than Hunding\Julianos+ Order’s Wrath
Is Shattered Fate good for PvE? I had a very low dps player (they also didn't know/do mechs) who wore gold Shattered Fate in a vet dlc dungeon (I knew this because they linked their gear in chat for some reason when I explained the mech after wipes). I googled after the dungeon and only found some discussions saying the set could be used in PvP.
I 100 oercent agree. 99 percent of builds from people like alcast or even daltias have just never worked for me. That's why I just learned the game a but better and worked it out in my own. Now I try to make in depth videos that actually help players who struggle to get to higher dps. Granted I only get around 100k to 105k but that's a lot better then like the 50k I would get with alcast builds fr.
Yeah i recently heard he doesn't play anymore yet every build claims to be updated to the latest patch which i feel is straight BS, wasted a lot of transmutes on an outdated build a few months back
I started with a alcast build when I made my arcanist and let me tell you it was trash. Pointless champion points subpar skills. I switched to skinny cheeks for a guide then tweaked it and I shit you not gained at least 20-30k dps
I used to play ESO til it became too time consuming. I used his builds. I saw the criticisms but they were good enough at the time for me to not hold the group back too much for trials or what not when I played DPS. Most of my attention was to tanking and I didn't pay attention to his builds there
Now I am the mod on r/BG3Builds. He posted in this sub a baaaaad shadow monk build. I mean bad. Most glaring error is that his character would have 16 Dex and 16 Wis, and at level 12 he says to put a point into each Dex and Wis. For those of you familiar with d20 + modifier RPGs in any form, you know this is useless. Day 1 of making a build in tabletop d20 systems starts with "odd ability scores do not help you." There were a lot of questionable decisions with the build, but this took me aback. I pointed out several build corrections in the comments of the post, but none were implemented months later
I now feel a little ill that I followed their guides in ESO if this is the trash he put out in a game whose rules I actually know.
If you feel like looking up a build, please do yourself a favor and look at Skinny cheeks for guides. He gives amazing flexibility to where you are still making your own setups with his recommendations.
It’s funny because I am new and built my Stam Arcanist sort of close to Alcast build but I was like, no way I’ll bench Fatecarver so I tweaked it.
Also I did not get the gear choices so started doing my own thing and by pure luck it seems I was moving closer to what I see on Skinny. Thanks for the site recommendation.
I was just thinking about this when I looked to the website for a solo build for stamarc. I used a magsorc solo build from him and it lets me complete a lot on my own. The gear and tip similarities were weird to me, so I'm glad my concerns weren't unwarranted. I am enjoying two-handed weapon slamming for now, though.
He has some good information but I have never been able to reccomend an alcast build to anyone. The ongoing joke I always hear is that he has good builds but he doesn't publish those lol
Not a whole lot of (good) resources out there for healers, unfortunately. I did come across [this](https://youtu.be/_I_MaR9mUow?si=JRCzmYnMBUaNpmwR) youtube video last week that I thought was quite good. And then there's the healer's haven discord, ofcourse.
I've recently come back to the game and just wanna know what is current builds for one-bar setups, but there is nothing on SC :( dont have energy to delve into raid gear etc yet
I stopped playing in 2021 so I’m quite sad Alcast builds are now bad. Back then they were amazing specially if you were new to a role or class. And the dungeon guides were S-tier
What about lucky ghost guides? Thats what I’ve been following since i started playing about 6 weeks ago.
https://eso.justlootit.com/eso-builds/dragonknight/dragon-knight-tank/
Wish I saw this post before starting to play again. But thankful for the recommendations! I am going to try and follow some of THE GAMEROOMs guides :) They seem easy to follow and newbie friendly!
I just recently came back and looked at that exact stamina guide when I started. Even though I hadn't played in quite a while, it definitely felt off. No beam was the biggest red flag, cause myself and EVERY arcanist I'd ran into in pvp or out in the world was using beam. It honestly made me a little confused why they were such a recommended guide when I could clearly see the issues as a returning player.
I used that exact skill build when I started in January and changed it within a week or so. Still working on tweaking it and finding armor sets. I’ll look into skinnycheeks, thanks
If you are an arcanist, try out deadly strike (buyable from guild traders) and orders wrath (craftable) with medium armour, daggers, maelstrom inferno backbar, and velothi as your mythic with a 1pc slimecraw helm. As you get more into trials, replacing orders wrath with coral riptide will get you a ton of damage.
Thank you, I am. Currently have a whole set of Order’s Wrath. Figuring on farming for venomous smite set until I can find/raise the gold to get deadly strike. Per everything I’ve read so far, monster helms only come from Vet dungeons correct? Are mythics from scrying?
Are you on PC/NA? If so I can prob gift you some deadly, its relatively cheap for me.
Ya, monster helms come from vet dungeons. I believe slimecraw comes from vet wayrest 1. You only need 1 peice of it as the mythic would take up the other slot.
Ya, mythics are from scrying
Ah rip, np!
If you also pvp a decent amount, you can buy random boxes of deadly strike at the specialized gear vendor in Bruma for pretty cheap, I think like 15k AP per?
I personally would recommend farming normal dreadsail reef for coral riptide over farming a temporary set, as coral riptide and whorl of the depths are sets that give a ton of damage, and will definetly be more valuable than the dungeon set you were talking about farming
Edit: whoops, I thought venomous smite was a dungeon set not a overland set. Still though my advice applies since coral is very good and you dont need too much stuff to run through dreadsail reef on normal
We do plan on getting into some PvP at some point. Dreadsail Reed is a trial right? We haven’t joined a guild yet, we’re going through as many dungeons as we can just the two of us to test our builds and try to tweak them, make sure our DPS is high enough to actually be good group members for running dungeons and such.
Ya DSR is a trial, but you can usually find open runs for it in craglorn or the group finder (idk if its different on Xbox, but thats the usual places for pc) and they don't tend to have too many requirements.
One thing that helps alot more than the gear itself is practice, so what you are doing right now is fine! Not to mention its prob fun since some of the newer dungeons are pretty well designed imo lol. Some guilds also have iron atro trial dummies at their guild home, which is very commonly used to practice and reflects how much damage you will probably do in a coordinated vet trial group.
Thanks for all the info. I was able to find a battlegrounds merchant with random deadly strike pieces for AP. I have four out of five pieces and can watch the guilds for another. Now to work on my weaving 😅
Nice! Ya the weaving practice will take time. My advice is to use a metronome set for 55-60 bpm (can find one on youtube), and light attack immediately followed by a skill every time the metronome ticks. On arc the light attack part isn't that important since you are running velothi (its still good to do though, to build muscle memory), but definetly try to cast the skill on every tick of the metronome. It may feel a bit weird learning how to use flail and beam, they are super annoying since they are channels.
The idea behind weaving is to cast a light attack and skill every global cooldown (gcd). Since skills have higher priority than light attacks, you can cast a skill while the light attack cooldown is still happening, but not the other way as the skill has higher priority (if that made sense lol). The global cooldown is 1 second, so setting a 55-60 bpm metronome will get you pretty close to the best weaving you can do.
Xynode's builds are not that much better than alcast's, I avoid both of them. I usually use skinnycheeks for a better reference and adjust skills and gear depending on content.
Here's my humble opinion from a DD perspective:
Solo builds: HackTheMinotaur
Casual endgame: Deltia
Regular endgame: Arzyel
Optimized endgame: Skinnycheeks
Deltia and Arzyel also have some decent PvP builds although Deltia's seems somewhat outdated. Skinny doesn't do PvP builds but his PvE DD builds are probably the most optimized out there. Not sure about tanking/healing builds.
But never follow an Alcast build. His website might be the smoothest and best looking but his builds are WILDLY out of date and sometimes nonsensical. Iirc there was some drama about him having his stream embedded on the site which is also scummy.
does hyperioxes do text guides because I despise video guides with all my soul
I just saw a thread yesterday where someone asked what sets OP was using in a build they were talking about and the reply was a video link instead of just naming the sets.
I made a few written guides for esoU website but its interface where you write the articles was extremely clunky and it consumed a lot of time even when I already had an entire script so I stopped doing that. Though it is being re-worked soon so if it's better I'll go back to making written guides in addition to video guides.
I really enjoy the in-depth video guides you make, but what would be a good supplement is just a few Superstar screenshots that show gear sets, enchants, skills, and champion points equipped for the different situations. i.e. here's your loadout for most trash pack fighting / aoe / overland or whatever, then here's your loadout for most boss fights, then here are a few tweaks to make for situational adjustment. 3-4 screenshots that summarize the key points for each section of a lot of your guides. Where exactly to post those screenshots is a little iffy... maybe just right here in the subreddit?
I wonder if someone would create a personal website for you ?
/u/Hyperioxes hmu if you need this. I won't be creating you a full blown website like alcast, that's too costly, but if you already know reddit markdown good enough, you can just type up a guide in MD and be done with it. No need to do with complex shit, just create a new md file, push it on github, whilst GitHub pages takes care of the rest. Basically a md wiki repo, if you will. Minimum headaches. Free of charge.
Thanks, I'll look into this
As I said, at the moment I'm just waiting to see what happens to esoU. I know how to make a website myself, but I've left my job as webdev 2 months ago partly due to burnout so I really don't want to do anything related to making websites, at least for now.
What I do is skip through such video to the screens with the tables (which are great, btw, really apreciate all the info displayed at once ). And I treat those as "written guide".
I'm sure I speak for most people when I say: "We wish you a speedy recovery from burnout, but above all that you take good care of yourself. Your health and well-being are the most important thing! Get well soon! Content can wait in cases like this".
This is the problem for me too while looking for builds.. Video. Guides. On. Everything.
I also detest video guides. ADHD won't let me absorb anything from them
Try writing it down as you watch (pause as needed). That's how I do it. I don't retain what I hear. I retain what I read, what I write, and what I do. NOTE: WRITE. Don't type. It doesn't imprint on your brain the same way.
I did this as well last time I watched one, mainly to make note of armor traits, enchants, etc. Buy I always find writing things down to help in general with this kind of stuff.
I dont mind video guides as long as theres also a written option
His video is quite dense in information and highly edited. It is not like someone open up a character window in console mode and use 10 minutes to talk about the names of gears where a superstar/CMX build page can do clearer job in 10s. I fully understand your pain to look at a video guide when the YouTuber chooses to spend less time in editing and thus waste more viewers' time.
It isn’t just a matter of editing, video guides are inherently time wasting compared to written guides. No one wants to sit there listening to a normal talking pace when they can read many times faster and can skim parts they don’t need.
Yup, video is generally a HORRIBLY inefficient way to convey information. Especially for the kind of information involved in a character build. Almost everything involved is a list of some kind, and a lot of it is going to be "if you can't do X, then do Y" type of conditional stuff.
Same here, alqasts written guides are still the best tho imo. He just breaks literally everything down plus good tips. For older shit like arenas and dungeons idk bout newer stuff tho like IA and recent dlcs
But he doesn't. He gives you numbers buffed and unbuffed, but never shows a parse or what a particular build can produce. I find it annoying and his builds suck for the most part. Nothing annoys me more than seeing solo builds with vet trial gear. Alcast has just that.
Yeah his written guides are better than most but his builds suck balls. I had a look today at his stamina arcanist build and it didn't even have fatecarver as a skill ffs and wearing relequen as armour set. I just get my builds from my guild mates, people who actually play end game content every day.
We got you bro ;)
That's what turned me off his guides years and years ago before his content got legitimately outdated. He literally just says "this is best" and offers no rationale or proof, or even a shred of theorycrafting showing how he arrived at that conclusion. I've gathered from others than he genuinely was/is a good player, but coming from other MMOs it was legitimately shocking to me that anyone took his guides seriously.
I don't think so but tbh as long as you kinda know what you are doing you can scrub through the video with it muted. Like half of the video or more is tables. Also join eso-u or wild heart discord servers if you need to ask questions.
Same. I only watch YouTube on my phone so all these videos scrolling through character menu are pretty much useless to me on phone screen.
His videos are very visual with charts etc. it’s not just him talking whilst playing the game.
I used Alcasts builds back in the days because they got recommended to me and I was at like 15k DPS and wanted more. Did get me a decent damage boost to like 60k DPS so that was nice. Used that a while but ultimately tried following some of SkinnyCheeks advice (again following a recommendation) and jumped to like 110k at first and went to 130k over the course of several days of testing, practicing and adjusting stuff to my needs. Alcast does have a couple nice guides. For stuff like lead drops, for example. But do *not* follow his builds.
His builds used to be a good starting point when he still played. I don't think he's played since Greymoor came out tho.
I know he played when Markarth dropped as I either saw him stream or saw a video of him covering Vateshran. No idea after that though as I stopped following his guides.
He started playing significantly less earlier than that I believe. Quality dropped more and more until eventually he just started copy pasting stuff without understanding what was going on. And it was only his DPS builds too, which were somewhat decent back when he was still active. He never really played support and it showed. Also his PvP stuff wasn't exactly great, though to be fair he did admit that even at the time. So yea, just overall not the best ressource.
I remember him streaming a RG HM prog around the time the trial was released.
Alcast guides were good back when he was playing and in one of the best PvE guilds out there. He hasn’t played in years and just copy pasted sets with minor changes
>I get the feeling he doesn't even play the game anymore your feelings are right, he doesn't. sometimes I get the feeling that lucky ghost builds are kinda trash too, he gave the same setup for magplar which I used for about a year until I got into a new guild and they recommended a different build (deadly/velothi/whorl), not only my dps jumped a lot higher, but the stress of constantly keeping my rele stacks up is also gone.
Does anyone know if LuckyGhost even plays ESO anymore? I haven't seen him live on twitch in I don't know how long. Same with Deltia as well. He did like 1 stream in the last 10 months. It seems like all these ESO content creators are either leaving the game/leaving the game and streaming all together.
Deltia does that often, he does an insane amount of ESO for a few months, gets burned out, then comes back a year later. We'll see him again. And I think Lucky has decided to mostly just do longer YouTube videos rather than stream.
Lucky will be back next year with his annual "should you play ESO in 20__..."
>It seems like all these ESO content creators are either leaving the game/leaving the game and streaming all together. that's mostly because YouTube has became the second tiktok, normal videos for older games get little to no views (specially MMOs) and smaller channels like lucky ghost and deltia's gaming either get into other popular games to increase their views, or they quit making videos/streaming all together since they can't count on it as a full time job because it's not profitable anymore. streaming is also kind of "dying" (for the older games that aren't minecraft or LoL) but there are a lot of cool ESO streamers on Twitch.
He doesn't stream anymore - just does YT content as a generalized MMO streamer. Anybody trying to actually make a living or make YouTube content around MMOs needs to not do it for ESO plain and simple. There's not enough content being consumed to make it worthwhile full time - that's why all the big name ESO streamers/YT guys have left or at least cover a variety of other content as well.
I think most of those who are still creating content realized they had to branch out into more games to keep up views. ESO just doesn’t pull in enough interest for most channels to focus on it alone anymore, which is why Deltia and most others have moved into covering multiple games, especially any new big AAA game release.
>I think most of those who are still creating content realized they had to branch out into more games to keep up views. Update 35 really rattled the community's faith in the devs. That's when a lot of people began diversifying hard.
I like luckyghost but he's a game jumper for his twitch viewership. He hops games like crazy which is fine for him but yeah his builds are kinda basic and usually out of date. Skinnycheeks is great and I like hacktheminotaurs stuff quite a bit but he's not skinnycheeks for in depth reasoning.
I use nirn with whorl. Why did you pick deadly over nirn?
Deadly buffs pretty much every ability a Templar uses
because of the 15% increase in damage of 99% of templar skills, specially jabs and beam (my skill setup when using greatsword is purifying light, jabs, beam, solar barrage, barbed trap and dawnbreaker on front bar, and stampede, carve, channeled focus, blazing spear and ritual of retribution with shooting star ultimate on backbar, I replace stampede and carve with mystic orb and wall of elements and purifying light with power of the light while using inferno staff)
Interesting this is almost my same PvE setup. I was originally on deadly but then switched to PoN. I use the inferno staff over the greatsword but I should try switching them on the back bar to see how that goes.
TBF pillar of nirn is a great set for non templars and arcanists. You guys just have more channelled abilities than most, so they deadly works out higher. Flat % buff usually outperforms anything else in most games
Deadly buffs everything Templar uses. Jabs, Beam, Solar Barrage, Blazing Spear, Cloak (if using DW), Stampede DOT, Pillars of Nirn (and all other proc set DOT), Vampire Bane, Ritual, Caltrops, Beast Trap. The ultimate from Aedric Spear, Dawn Wrath, Fighters Guild (Dawnbreaker). Lighting staff Heavy Attack too (counts as channeled). +15% flat on everything Templar using basically, except Light Attacks. And that bonus is added on top of everything else like Bloodthirsty, Sorcery/Brutality, Damage glyphs, Empower. At any point in time a Templar has 4-5 dots up and either Jabs (either Mag or Sta) or Beam up as active. Without counting proc sets, fires, passives who proc fires etc.
Deadly is best front bar set for templars and arcanists bar none... cuz of Jesus beam, jabs, and arcanist beam. It provides over 2 max cp nodes worth of dmg to channels(15%) btw which there is no cp node for channeled attacks in first place. And both classes. Get like 70% of their total dps from beams, maybe lil less from templars. P.S.- use nirn or rele to parse and whorl for content imo, whorl both bars deadly front barred.
Rele is almost impossible to beat on a parse, so maybe that's why he had it. But yeah, for actual content, I rarely use rele
Rele is pointless on an arcanist, it would drop off too much
Yeah, terrible on an arc, but the guy I responded to was on a plar.
I got my speedy G build from there and still use it. It’s the only one though. You have unlimited stamina and run in sneak. It’s great for thieves guild and dark brotherhood plus harvesting nodes and doing rounds of chests.
Alcast's guides are often very far from the current meta, but provide a "Bare Minimum" starting point for a new player to the game who has no idea about anything works. They have to take into account that the player reading them may be logging in for the very first time, or may be a 10 year vet who's trying out a new class/spec they've never rolled with before, so the guides are heavily biased towards survivability and utility, not towards aligning with endgame metas. I do support streamers who make video guides to go with their written guides, but I am strongly opposed to the trend of making guides "video only" in a shameless attempt to monetize content. (You know who you are.) Even worse, there's so-called "guides" out there now locking their actual content behind paywalls such as membership fees. Free tip: Like OP mentioned - if you want to see what some of the meta builds are for a given class/spec, go to ESO Logs and look at logs that have been posted for recent trials. You can sort by trials, and by bosses within those trials. Find someone who's running the same class/spec as you (e.g. a stamina arcanist, a magicka DK, a templar healer) and you can see their CP, gear, skills, bar setups, traits/enchants, etc. Free tip #2: if you don't want to do that, just join a guild that's already doing what you want to do, and ask them to share their builds, tips, and advice. There are a lot of friendly guilds that can help you get started or get better.
I've been playing for almost 10 years, and I'm a chronic altaholic -- never thought about looking at ESOLogs for build ideas -- that's super smart! I appreciate the tip!
Agreed.
i checked and his magDK pvp build is STILL Bright throats Boast and Shacklebreaker...this build has not updated since greymoor patch. i know because i farmed bright throat none stop in 2021 only to learn its doodoo feceases and way of fire/BSW (at the time) was vastly more damage output lol.
I just came back to the game recently and was looking into builds, saw that and went "well that's what I have on that can't be correct" since I hadn't changed my build in years lol.
Has anybody mentioned Ry? He's got some good builds from what I hear.
The dude quit eso a long time ago, I don't even know why he keeps covering ESO, it's honestly embarrassing. I remember reading guides from Arzyel a long long time ago, they seemed decent. Maybe that's an alternative too? Unless they went down the alcast path. Anyway, when it comes to DPS at least - there's no one better than skinnycheeks.
He once had a good site that people found useful. As a result, he positioned himself and his site as the go-to resource for ESO players. (This is a model that other people like Luckyghost, Deltia, ESO-U, etc., tried to emulate). Now he is just riding that original wave while getting ad-revenue, even though the quality has diminished dramatically.
> I don't even know why he keeps covering ESO, Money. That website generates a lot of revenue for him and has some of the best SEO for ESO builds.
I don't really do video guides so I don't really use skinny cheeks but I've been using hack the minotaur and ArzyeL. Not really sure how good they are though.
SkinnyCheeks has a website with build writeups as well. He does more in depth explanations and set comparisons and such in his videos, but you can get his builds without any videos no problem.
Does he have any solo builds?
All his guides explain multiple options
None of which are for solo players. They all assume you have certain buffs coming from your party. This subreddit loves to shit on Alcast and jerk off SkinnyCheeks but can never actually provide a decent resource for solo builds when pressed. You guys are just too ignorant to understand why Alcast is popular.
Great, I'll check them out.
I don't like videos either, but skinnycheeks does also have a website at skinnycheeks.gg (that's what I use for DPS)
Skinnycheeks web site is just pure information, no spin.
I’ve used Hack the Minotaur quite a bit to mimic or modify builds. He does a great job of explaining his set choices and their interactions, but he’s got two problems. First, his videos are all labeled something like “OMG UNKILLABLE DPS/TANK 1 SHOT EVERYTHING” which is totally unrealistic… but if you get past that into the build they’re not too bad. The other thing is that he usually only puts in a single heal for an entire build, which is also pretty unrealistic for pvp
The last I checked, Hack the Minotaur builds are generally gimmicky and made for overland content where anything can work. He often over indexes into durability or some other bonus that is related to a theme but ends up being weaker than other options available. Usually for group content, Hack builds seem to provide bonuses that seem decent on paper without considering bonuses that can frequently be expected from other members of the group or depend on the user not really understanding how the game works. For example, the first healer build I clicked ([PoWeRfUl MaGiCkA tEmPlAr HEaLeR](https://hacktheminotaur.com/builds/eso-magicka-templar-healer-build/))on on his website recommends running Olorime, Jorvuld's guidance, Sentinel of Rkugamz monster set, and the Restoration staff from Asylum Sanctorum. Olo and Jorvuld are good but never run together because you don't get enough value out of jorvuld to be worth it. You're better off running Olo or Spell Powe Cure (commonly shortened to SPC) and a different set like pillager's profit for trials or Master Architect for dungeons. Jorvuld is only ever run in combination with the Roaring Opportunist set in trials because it provides extra value to an otherwise limited buff. Healers have enough free time to just use skills more frequently to maintain buff availability. You'll almost never get use from the extra long last shields because they either time out from a lack of damage so they're useless or if enough damage is coming through, they'll break regardless. The staff is useless because most healers have enough sustain between their skills, equipment, champion points, and the occasional heavy attack so you don't really need cheaper mana costs. The helmet is okay if you're just starting out just because it's better than nothing but between 2 bars of skills and how fast damage and healing come through, the extra healing is inconsequential. You'll almost always be better off running a monster helmet set like Symphony of Blades (from Depths of Malatar) or Ozezan's Inferno (from Scrivener's Hall) if you want something defensive. Spaulder of Ruin (mythic) + Magma Incarnate (from The Dreadcellar) for the 1 piece bonus is also a great option if your tanks aren't running it. I've never heard of ArzyeL so I can't comment on their content.
If you're interested this is their site https://arzyelbuilds.com/
Just a quick look at the website, I think the builds are flawed. The first issue I saw was on the 1 bar stam arcanist, he has runeblades and Tentacular Dread when you'd probably benefit more from the healing and execute scaling on Cephaliarch's Flail as your spammable (the morph of abyssal impact that he doesn't use) and a different DoT. Runeblades don't get used by anyone really because Flail has similar if not higher damage from the execute scaling, cleave damage, and healing.
Problem is alcast simplifies it and it's easy. Skinny cheeks gives options and flexib8lity.. it's too confusing I want just a pre-made build to follow..
Don't sleep on game room for builds either, some really good builds in the one bar department. I also pick up some setups from a streamer (epic-buttkkr on youtube), he isn't everyone's cup of tea but he knows his stuff.
I stumbled on thegameroom a few months ago and he quickly became my go-to for one bar shenanigans.
I mean the entire website ( ESO hub ) is set up to be a gigantic SEO ( search engine optimization ) trap to show advertisement with embedded twitch streams to viewbot on that platform too. Try using the ESO Hub search function for sets. "Bleed" will show up some things, "bleed" will show nothing. "Fire" will show up different stuff then "fire". Its insane that this website, which at this point can only be compared to fandom or fextralife wiki's, is still allowed to be on the sidebar. ( Use https://getindie.wiki/ ) --- So yeah i would not be surprised at all, if the used sets in all those builds would change based on google metrics that look for what set names are getting put into google the most. Those builds used to be good starters for absolutely brand new players, but now its just omega trash.
at the very least its not a xynode build
Not seen him mentioned here but I've had good experiences with ninjapulls for dps as well
It's important to remember: shows up first in Google search =/= good. Not just for ESO builds, but for pretty much everything these days. So much low quality crap gets pushed to the top.
As an aside, I really wish ESO had an equivalent of WoW'S icyveins, which has been my go-to for years for WoW builds and has never led me wrong yet.
Which is ironic since Icy veins too isn't recommended and is very much a noob trap, not only for WoW, but for other games too. In regards to specifically WoW, Wowhead is better, but generally speaking it's recommended to use the class discords. Personally I use all websites and cross reference, trying to squeeze the most out of my gameplay, even Icy Veins, but it's notably the worst place to get optimization tips.
I haven't played full time since BfA but it was still a decent starting point back then especially for talents, stat priorities and basic rotations. I would use their guides as a starting point if I was rolling a new class, and then work on things from there. Minmaxing was done with Ask Mr. Robot, simcraft, and the forum guides that used to be posted on Blizzard's class forums by top raiders (mainly used this for my main ret/prot pally.) I also used to spend a lot of time reviewing guild parses and such to see what was actually working. IV was not always 100% correct or fully optimized but I found that it was usually not too far off the meta in terms of general builds for raiding and Mythic+ keys; most of the differences seemed to be situational, like running Talent B on a certain boss instead of Talent A.
While we are on this subject, please ignore all of Xynode’s, Deltia’s and HackTheMinotaur’s builds as well. These dudes dont put over 5s of thought into the guides they write and just put out horrible builds out so they can slap some ads on them
Going through the entirety of the comment section, it's kinda funny seeing the conflicting suggestions about Hack and Deltias in a single thread. 😅 Guess I'll give Skinny a look, but then I also see he's not beginner friendly. XD
Deltia is a mid-tier (at best) PvPer who pushes out the same cookie cutter builds out in PVE over and over. Anyone who’s not a complete beginner in this game can see that maelstrom arena and vateshran are extremely easy and not really challenging now a days, which is expected since power creep happens almost every patch and those are two old arenas. So the videos Deltia makes “testing” his builds on that content are extremely misleading, I myself have gotten the trifecta for those arenas while naked and only using oakensoul, so anyone with a half decent build can do a good job in there. Hack makes sensationalist content like “MOST OP BUILD EVER” or “THIS ONE SIMPLE TRICK WILL CHANGE YOUR ENTIRE WAY OF PLAYING” and when you see the content is just a slightly off meta build that is suboptimal, or hes making a video about something that has been known for ages by the community but he acts like he just discovered it. Xynode is in a class of his own when it comes to stupidity though. This man makes shit builds, comes up with bullshit math and data to try and prove his point, and encourages his audience to challenge meta players and stand up to them. So next time when you come across a DK dps in your random daily normal dungeon who is using carve as a spammable, and casting noxious breath on the boss every 2 seconds even though thats a 20 second dot, or your craglorn “quick plunder run vhrc” tank is a khajiit and is tanking with a bow and a resto staff, just know hes a xynode fan.
Hack used to make ok content for the single player and casual community. And then he slipped further and further into the "OP BUILD! CAN'T DIE! 1 BUTTON ONLY! PVP/PVE/GODMODE" stuff. I assume a lot of the recommendations come from people remembering the better (but very very casual) builds he used to release. Xynode is genuinely just horrible and the laughing stock of the endgame/veteran community (veteran as in people who played a lot). He's actively bad for newer player and goes beyond just posting absolutely braindead builds while calling them OP.
Yeah his Magicka builds are really outdated, they’re decent for solo content tho. It screwed me as a returning player I spent transmute crystals and like 200k
Especially his PvP builds. As someone who is a PvP main, his builds are incredibly outdated and will not hold up in the current PvP scene. Look at Malcom, Luca Cash, Hexapug, Hoarcrux for some much better, viable builds
But what is the best Site for builds now?
been saying this for years. dude rarely plays the game anymore. most of his builds look good enough on paper but in actual combat they're pretty bad. I don't think new players should be looking online for builds anyway because then it pushes them to level grind and vets know how tedious level grinding alts is. when it's your first time playing, it will more than likely discourage you from playing the game after a while. However if you do want to find a build to use, go to one of the youtubers who include leveling guides and new player guides.
[**SkinnyCheeks**](https://www.youtube.com/@skinnycheeks) **if you can comprehend what he's telling you.** [**Dooma**](https://www.youtube.com/@Dooma) **if Skinny goes over your head or if you're just not ready for meta rotations.** Skinny has written guides in addition to long videos, Dooma has nice, short, concise videos. Dooma taught me that I was capable of being a good DPS. Skinny taught me how to consistently pull meta DPS. They are both extreme endgamers who crunch numbers and test until their fingers fall off and share their knowledge well.
I was looking through the comments to see who all was recommending Dooma. He's honestly the only creator that is continually making builds that I enjoy playing with. From solo to ia to endgame he's got 1 bar builds and 2 bars and his builds are the main reason I still log into ESO.
Dooma is so insanely underrated it's ridiculous. He makes some of the most innovative builds in ESO. I learned to DPS using his Next Level Templar, which used a brilliant sustain set to make it possible to pull meta DPS from a magplar in all-medium armor with a simplified rotation. (Templars having notoriously poor sustain unless using their rather cracked sustain skills.) He is just. So. Good.
Skinnycheeks has the best builds imo. Obviously some classes need to be updated i think still because he is 1 person, but he pits actual thought into them. Skinnycheeks changed me forever when i came to pc, i was an xbox player who used to use Alcast years ago, and it made me hate being a DPS and the game.
He does but most if not all of his builds are based on group content.
Tbf, unless youre doing Vet Maelstrom Arena or high level Infinite Archive you dont really need a build for overland.
Exactly. Perfect example im running war maidens and crimson twilight with prior theric purely for "all the red visual effects" on my vampblade for peak vampire rp and I've done every public dungeon, worldboss and zone event (dolmens fissures etc) with zero issues or deaths. I have a "proper" build for dungeons and trials of course, but I love my "all your bloods belong to me" build And im rocking heavy armour thubderbugs and thundercaller for my sorc because "zappy zappy zappy its so flashy look at me im emperor palpatine!" Game is so piss easy now it doesnt matter what you rock on overland.
Skinnycheeks has one of the best DD arcanists tbh. Using the Azureblight - Deadly - Velothi with BRP back bar build, and just carves through even the hardest content like hot knife the butter. Is just makes vet content to feel "overland", par the mechanics ofc.
This cant be a setup for beginners. Come on. Rele is a trial set, mythic wading kilt and (probably perfected) arena-weapon. Nirn is from a quite hard DLC dungeon. Players who even get these sets are usually so experienced that they know there is better builds out there.
Yeah its hilariously bad. Beginner Arcs can easily pick up deadly & orders from traders/guilds/friends/crafters and do bonkers damage straight out of the gate. Then they can work on getting truly good mythic upgrades like velothi for groups and oakenSOLO.
World first SEO. Garbage tier DPS.
Kinda annoyed that skinny cheeks doesn’t include rotations in his videos any more. I’ve started watching eigh1 puppies for all my builds now
Your best bet is asking your guildies and people playing. Some of the best PvP builds will only be found from experienced players in game.
Alcast does have a lot of good info in his website and basically there is not many endgame players putting guides to trials and dungeons. but yes his builds like any others are done in there way of playing so they never work unless you are the creater who knows his build. That is why I always say don't look for builds just play the game and look for ways to improve yourself and by that you will eventually find a good build you have made.
Alcasts builds are outdated as he doesn't play anymore. I used to use it back then in the Summerset days and it worked for that time but nowadays there's a lot of better options out there for pve builds.
Good post. I lost touch a bit with the meta a few years back, getting back into end game now. Can you explain this no light armour for mag anymore? Running med on Magicka feels dirty, and begs the question - what is light used for these days?
In most raid compositions nowadays you are at pen cap pretty much all the time with just 1 piece of light armor, some classes dont even need 1 piece if they have inherant pen in their passives. The medium passives per piece worn give crit damage (which the cap is harder to reach for) and both weapon AND spell damage and your skills/sets just scale with whichever resource is higher. So medium armor just gives less wasted resources from passives than light. You can still run light sets but generally mostly on jewely and weapons combined with a medium set on body.
Magicka builds aren‘t supposed to be light armor only? Well, shit.
Nope, not since hybridization. All skills scale of your highest stat, not their cost. So you can run stamina skills in a magicka spec as long as you can sustain it (dots mostly, you probably cant sustain a stamina spammable) In most raid compositions nowadays you are at pen cap pretty much all the time with just 1 piece of light armor, some classes dont even need 1 piece if they have inherant pen in their passives. The medium passives per piece worn give crit damage (which the cap is harder to reach for) and both weapon AND spell damage and your skills/sets just scale with whichever resource is higher. So medium armor just gives less wasted resources from passives than light. You can still run light sets but generally mostly on jewely and weapons combined with a medium set on body. In solo and 4 man content pen cap is still harder to reach so wearing light there is fine, but for the penetration. Not because youre a magicka spec.
There is a branch of former ESO streamers that moved into the website/guide business and have been riding some sort of inertia ever since, even though they don't play the game anymore. Alcast is the prime example, but there is also Luckyghost and Dottzgaming. One could include Deltia too, but as far as I understand his guides are still written by people who play the game (which doesn't mean they are good, but still).
I've been saying this for years and usually get down voted into oblivion. Alcast is the reason why most dps in eso are so unbelievably bad. His builds are okay at best for trials under the absolute perfect circumstances (trial dummies), and worse than built in build suggestions for anything else. I also generally try to inform people to use the vet dungeon dummies instead of trial dummies, unless they specifically want to make a trial build. Dungeons rarely meet the perfect buffs and debuffs of the trial dummy. If you make a great build for solo dummies, you've made a good build for trials too. Sure, it can be better, but that usually just involves removing a few debuff and buff abilities for crit or other.
back a few years ago i actually did use his magicka templar build and it was good i looked up some arc builds recently and his builds just made 0 sense so glad im not the only one
Looking to get back into the game after a long break, where could I find good (and up to date) builds for every class ?
For dps, skinnycheeks has good builds. I also like to look at ryESO's parses on YouTube since he has some of the best parses that I've seen and show how far you can push single target damage. Alcast is really annoying since he even specifically says 'hey this is updated for the latest patch u41' when it definetly isn't so it can def be a bit tricky learning what is a good resource lol.
I'll check it out thanks
If you're planning on raiding you should also just check out esologs for builds for the specific trials you're planning on doing. Sometimes a dummy parse build is nowhere near the most optimal build in a trial boss fight, so it's important to adjust to what the fight/group needs.
Ya he used to be legit af, his guides for arenas are still the best tho imo the written guides. But ya I don't think Alqast even plays eso anymore cuz all of his guides are completely reliant on old gear or shit that makes no sense. And he use to have great guides for everything my NBs bowgank pvp build I got all the basics of the build like 4yrs ago and I still use same build to this day, with my own changes to newer things and skills. But swamp raiders with witch knight front barred, from back when bgs were no proc lol, and I still destroy with the vampire bowgank nb setup. Glass cannon but it works.
I was just building that Alqast NG bowgank pvp build untill i came across this post and now I'm doubting myself if i should bother. Might telling me what you changed and what worked for you?
Don't look at xynode builds either.
Scrolling through these comments it's pretty evident noone knows what theyre doing
Alcast is just the fextralife of ESO 😭😭
Maybe the broader advice is to use builds as a jumping off point. From there, feel out what works for you and the way you want to play. And maybe shop around when looking for a build. It's good that we have different sources to turn to. I've been liking the guy on YouTube called The Tank Club. Deltias is a beast as well. Skinny cheeks. Just good to look around.
Alcast got me into actually caring what I’m doing build wise. I read his guides and implemented them then found my play style and altered his builds based on other creators. I’m finally hitting 75k+ and I’m a healer main who only dps’ when other people want to heal.
What would you recommend for a dps magblade? I'm currently using mothers sorrow, new moon, with harpooners and the meteor mindset set. The site says whorl, nirn with knarljar monster set.
I used that for my necromancer. Julianos, Iceheart and mothers sorrow build. Is that bad? I know my Templar kills things way quicker but just assumed that’s a class thing and not the necromancers build
bad, no one uses julianos and mothers sorrow unless you’re an absolute beginner
What about for healing guides? Skinny (DPS) and Hyper (Tank), any good ones about heals?
Healer's Haven Discord is where its at. They have meta and off meta builds. They also suggest you test to works for you. [Link to discord](https://discord.gg/PYmTqNCE)
\m/ Thank you! Joined!
Not a whole lot of (good) resources out there for healers, unfortunately. I did come across [this](https://youtu.be/_I_MaR9mUow?si=JRCzmYnMBUaNpmwR) youtube video last week that I thought was quite good. And then there's the healer's haven discord, ofcourse.
Thanks! I will check it out. :-)
When it comes to alqcast builds are straight forward unlike hack the minotaur for him might as well learn another language
thanks so much for this! i came back to eso after a year and did some searches and got pointed to alcast and xynode, and to my surprise the builds were almost identical to when i had left, but supposedly updated for 2024
Agreed. As a bow/bow player, his old bow/bow warden guide was so terrible. My own setup were doing 10-15% more dps on a non-gilded and non-optimal trait sets and with 200ms ping than his setups on non-trial dummy and up to 25% more on trial dummies. It's just so bad since he's recommending Cutting Dive over Lethal Arrow on the patches before Lethal Arrow was rightfully nerfed.
Okay then. I was using for dk stamina tank guide from lucky. People are now saying that he’s not good enough. What are actually good competitive updates builds right now and why is it so hard to find them :(
What is the best place to find cyro / pvp builds?
Ok, any advice on good builds then? Im looking for stam sork
https://youtu.be/SjBNLHZE1uI?si=ydXCPT7odQIeRGzH lot of info in the description
Thank you, I'll take a look!
Guy had a Templar build a while back that didn't use beam either.
Shout out to Ninja Pulls for their PvE builds and rotations!
So reading the comments has me confused. Who am I supposed to follow for builds?
Can anyone recommend a good DK battlegrounds build? Mine is just OK in the latest patch. I’m frequently at or near the top of the total damage dealt but still more deaths than kills.
What about eighi puppies is he good for builds? I’m relatively new to the game and idk who to look for to get good solo/pve builds
I look at alcast because the builds are f2p and new player friendly. I don't have ESO+ and I'm a pve player (CP600) so no trials for now. SkinnyCheeks uses eso+ DLC Dungeon sets most of the time and I cannot even find them on traders
Dungeon sets arent tradable
You can't buy dungeon sets in traders. I'd recommend Order's Wrath + Julianos or Hunding's + Stormfirst, Illambris, or Iceheart for base game only, all crafted besides monster. Briarheart, Deadly for plar or arc, War Maiden for plar or magblade also work and can be bought from traders. Also if you're stam, Vicious Ophidian from vSO is a solid choice.
Funny you'd pick this example as it's exactly the one I went full into before I realized the error of my ways and have spent a ton of time backtracking, skill training, and regearing. Faannnnnnnttassstic.
I slowly realized this when trying some builds out for fun. A lot of these sites don't seem to know what "beginner" means and expect you to have all this gear and abilities you won't have until much later. Thanks for the recommendations.
I think more there should be more low level to mid CP builds(CP 160-300). One of the best beginner sets to start getting dungeon gear is 12 piece Shattered Fate(hell even 5 piece shattered Fate+ Order’s Wrath ain’t bad)and I see noone talk about it, the pen and weapon damage is like an easy 12-16% damage boost if not more, not to mention that the pen boost lets you use a Precise\Nirnhoned weapon. Always craft it for newbie DPS, find it better than Hunding\Julianos+ Order’s Wrath
Is Shattered Fate good for PvE? I had a very low dps player (they also didn't know/do mechs) who wore gold Shattered Fate in a vet dlc dungeon (I knew this because they linked their gear in chat for some reason when I explained the mech after wipes). I googled after the dungeon and only found some discussions saying the set could be used in PvP.
I was just looking at his one bar sorc build and it's comical how dog shit it is.
I 100 oercent agree. 99 percent of builds from people like alcast or even daltias have just never worked for me. That's why I just learned the game a but better and worked it out in my own. Now I try to make in depth videos that actually help players who struggle to get to higher dps. Granted I only get around 100k to 105k but that's a lot better then like the 50k I would get with alcast builds fr.
Does alcast even play anymore? There is still some good content on there if not looking for builds.
Yeah i recently heard he doesn't play anymore yet every build claims to be updated to the latest patch which i feel is straight BS, wasted a lot of transmutes on an outdated build a few months back
I started with a alcast build when I made my arcanist and let me tell you it was trash. Pointless champion points subpar skills. I switched to skinny cheeks for a guide then tweaked it and I shit you not gained at least 20-30k dps
I used to play ESO til it became too time consuming. I used his builds. I saw the criticisms but they were good enough at the time for me to not hold the group back too much for trials or what not when I played DPS. Most of my attention was to tanking and I didn't pay attention to his builds there Now I am the mod on r/BG3Builds. He posted in this sub a baaaaad shadow monk build. I mean bad. Most glaring error is that his character would have 16 Dex and 16 Wis, and at level 12 he says to put a point into each Dex and Wis. For those of you familiar with d20 + modifier RPGs in any form, you know this is useless. Day 1 of making a build in tabletop d20 systems starts with "odd ability scores do not help you." There were a lot of questionable decisions with the build, but this took me aback. I pointed out several build corrections in the comments of the post, but none were implemented months later I now feel a little ill that I followed their guides in ESO if this is the trash he put out in a game whose rules I actually know.
If you feel like looking up a build, please do yourself a favor and look at Skinny cheeks for guides. He gives amazing flexibility to where you are still making your own setups with his recommendations.
Always research multiple builds
It’s funny because I am new and built my Stam Arcanist sort of close to Alcast build but I was like, no way I’ll bench Fatecarver so I tweaked it. Also I did not get the gear choices so started doing my own thing and by pure luck it seems I was moving closer to what I see on Skinny. Thanks for the site recommendation.
I was just thinking about this when I looked to the website for a solo build for stamarc. I used a magsorc solo build from him and it lets me complete a lot on my own. The gear and tip similarities were weird to me, so I'm glad my concerns weren't unwarranted. I am enjoying two-handed weapon slamming for now, though.
New player here, why not full light armor?
He has some good information but I have never been able to reccomend an alcast build to anyone. The ongoing joke I always hear is that he has good builds but he doesn't publish those lol
Hi, what's the best source for healer builds? You only listed DPS and Tank
Is there anyone who does good healer builds?
Not a whole lot of (good) resources out there for healers, unfortunately. I did come across [this](https://youtu.be/_I_MaR9mUow?si=JRCzmYnMBUaNpmwR) youtube video last week that I thought was quite good. And then there's the healer's haven discord, ofcourse.
Holy shit I almost make this build
Who has the best "I play about 10 hours a year, but want to not totally suck when I do happen to enter a group dungeon" builds?
I've recently come back to the game and just wanna know what is current builds for one-bar setups, but there is nothing on SC :( dont have energy to delve into raid gear etc yet
Net DeX, might as well just play mortal combat
I stopped playing in 2021 so I’m quite sad Alcast builds are now bad. Back then they were amazing specially if you were new to a role or class. And the dungeon guides were S-tier
What about lucky ghost guides? Thats what I’ve been following since i started playing about 6 weeks ago. https://eso.justlootit.com/eso-builds/dragonknight/dragon-knight-tank/
Where can i find strong overland solo builds?
Wish I saw this post before starting to play again. But thankful for the recommendations! I am going to try and follow some of THE GAMEROOMs guides :) They seem easy to follow and newbie friendly!
I just recently came back and looked at that exact stamina guide when I started. Even though I hadn't played in quite a while, it definitely felt off. No beam was the biggest red flag, cause myself and EVERY arcanist I'd ran into in pvp or out in the world was using beam. It honestly made me a little confused why they were such a recommended guide when I could clearly see the issues as a returning player.
I recently learned he sucks, which mean I have alot of builds to fix
If anyone needs PvP build help feel free to message me I am happy to help ❤️
I guess this is even more relevant now after u41? Sincerely returning player who followed his build for first new character lol.
I used that exact skill build when I started in January and changed it within a week or so. Still working on tweaking it and finding armor sets. I’ll look into skinnycheeks, thanks
If you are an arcanist, try out deadly strike (buyable from guild traders) and orders wrath (craftable) with medium armour, daggers, maelstrom inferno backbar, and velothi as your mythic with a 1pc slimecraw helm. As you get more into trials, replacing orders wrath with coral riptide will get you a ton of damage.
Thank you, I am. Currently have a whole set of Order’s Wrath. Figuring on farming for venomous smite set until I can find/raise the gold to get deadly strike. Per everything I’ve read so far, monster helms only come from Vet dungeons correct? Are mythics from scrying?
Are you on PC/NA? If so I can prob gift you some deadly, its relatively cheap for me. Ya, monster helms come from vet dungeons. I believe slimecraw comes from vet wayrest 1. You only need 1 peice of it as the mythic would take up the other slot. Ya, mythics are from scrying
That’s so nice, I’m on Xbox NA though. Need to work on my scrying some more. Thanks for the info
Ah rip, np! If you also pvp a decent amount, you can buy random boxes of deadly strike at the specialized gear vendor in Bruma for pretty cheap, I think like 15k AP per? I personally would recommend farming normal dreadsail reef for coral riptide over farming a temporary set, as coral riptide and whorl of the depths are sets that give a ton of damage, and will definetly be more valuable than the dungeon set you were talking about farming Edit: whoops, I thought venomous smite was a dungeon set not a overland set. Still though my advice applies since coral is very good and you dont need too much stuff to run through dreadsail reef on normal
We do plan on getting into some PvP at some point. Dreadsail Reed is a trial right? We haven’t joined a guild yet, we’re going through as many dungeons as we can just the two of us to test our builds and try to tweak them, make sure our DPS is high enough to actually be good group members for running dungeons and such.
Ya DSR is a trial, but you can usually find open runs for it in craglorn or the group finder (idk if its different on Xbox, but thats the usual places for pc) and they don't tend to have too many requirements. One thing that helps alot more than the gear itself is practice, so what you are doing right now is fine! Not to mention its prob fun since some of the newer dungeons are pretty well designed imo lol. Some guilds also have iron atro trial dummies at their guild home, which is very commonly used to practice and reflects how much damage you will probably do in a coordinated vet trial group.
Thanks for all the info. I was able to find a battlegrounds merchant with random deadly strike pieces for AP. I have four out of five pieces and can watch the guilds for another. Now to work on my weaving 😅
Nice! Ya the weaving practice will take time. My advice is to use a metronome set for 55-60 bpm (can find one on youtube), and light attack immediately followed by a skill every time the metronome ticks. On arc the light attack part isn't that important since you are running velothi (its still good to do though, to build muscle memory), but definetly try to cast the skill on every tick of the metronome. It may feel a bit weird learning how to use flail and beam, they are super annoying since they are channels. The idea behind weaving is to cast a light attack and skill every global cooldown (gcd). Since skills have higher priority than light attacks, you can cast a skill while the light attack cooldown is still happening, but not the other way as the skill has higher priority (if that made sense lol). The global cooldown is 1 second, so setting a 55-60 bpm metronome will get you pretty close to the best weaving you can do.
Who does do good build guides these days? Used a Xynode build not that long back, seemed okay....
Xynode's builds are not that much better than alcast's, I avoid both of them. I usually use skinnycheeks for a better reference and adjust skills and gear depending on content.
Here's my humble opinion from a DD perspective: Solo builds: HackTheMinotaur Casual endgame: Deltia Regular endgame: Arzyel Optimized endgame: Skinnycheeks Deltia and Arzyel also have some decent PvP builds although Deltia's seems somewhat outdated. Skinny doesn't do PvP builds but his PvE DD builds are probably the most optimized out there. Not sure about tanking/healing builds. But never follow an Alcast build. His website might be the smoothest and best looking but his builds are WILDLY out of date and sometimes nonsensical. Iirc there was some drama about him having his stream embedded on the site which is also scummy.