Hey everyone. I've been spending a little time theorizing a character build I'm interested in playing. This is a step away from how I usually build characters. Most of the time I pick whatever abilities sound like fun and just cobble them together. Or I look on the message boards and steal some idea someone else had. In this case I came up with a class I wanted to emulate and am trying to build a character that implements it. So I present to you:
The Traditional Shaman (link to build is here)
Background
By "traditional" I mean a Shaman similar to the classes defined in Dark Age of Camelot and Rift - a hybrid spellcaster/melee character that wears medium armor and focuses on elemental (mostly lightning) based attacks, damage over time abilities, and who wields a 2-handed weapon. The DAoC Shaman was a buffer/debuffer who used a 2- handed hammer and lightning spells. Shamans in DAoC also had a healing line, so they were backup healers. In Rift, the Shaman was once more using a 2-handed hammer and lightning spells, but instead of healing capabilities the Rift Shaman used shields to mitigate damage.
The ESO Shaman would serve as a front-line shock assault troop who moves in, does dependable damage, softens up the enemy lines and uses mobility to move on. The goal is to be reasonably good at killing mages and stealthers, and to survive long enough against more tanky characters to get outta dodge when things go south.
The ESO shaman design below tries to stay as true to the lightning-damage spells / debuffer / 2-hander concept as possible.
Race
Nord
Passives: Robust (health regen in combat), Resist Frost (increased cold resist, increased health), Rugged (increased armor)
I chose Nord as the race to pay a bit of homage to the "original" Ebonhart Alliance. There are many appealing racial choices, including Orc, Altmer, Breton, Imperial, Redguard and Dunmer). I'm not particularly looking to min-max this decision so the race choice will be a last minute thing depending on how I feel.
Mundus Stone
The Atronach: increased magicka regeneration
I'm going to have stamina regen from gear and my back of the envelope calculations indicate that the stress on stamina and magicka are about the same, so I thought I'd pick the Mundus Stone to even up my regen.
Class
Sorceror
The Sorceror is the only class that has the lightning-based spells we need, so we gotta go this way. I briefly considered DragonKnight, since they have some interesting shielding capabilities (and I still may do that someday!), but for me right now having a lightning capability is a must.
Armor
5 Medium/2 Light
Armor related passives: Dexterity, Wind Walker, Agility, Athletics, Evocation, Recovery, Spell Warding, Concentration
highlights: +20% stamina regen, +10% 2-handed weapon damage, +15% physical critical strike chance +8% magicka regen, -4% magicka cost
Quickbars
Bar 1: the charge in and smack-em in the face bar. This bar is oriented towards assaulting groups of enemies, and is used in the initial assault.
Abilities used, in a rough order of how they'd be used:
* Critical Surge (Storm Calling Surge Morph): Weapon damage buff, heal with critical strikes
* Critical Rush (2H Critical Charge morph): Charge in, deal critical damage
* Brawler (2H Cleave morph): Deal damage and inflict bleed to multiple opponents. Generate damage shield on self
* Lightning Flood (Storm Calling Lightning Splash morph): Put down an AOE field that shocks enemies standing in it
* Degeneration (Mages Guild Entropy morph): deals damage, returns health, chance to restore more health on weapon critical
* Energy Overload (Storm Calling ultimate Overload morph): Light and Heavy attacks are replaced by empowered versions that deal more damage and restore magicka.
Theory: buff myself, then charge in, do a couple of Brawlers and drop the Lightning Flood to damage everyone in the area. Degenerate one or two people to start my health regen. One more Brawler for a little damage shield. Switch to bar 2.
Alternates for Critical Surge: Shuffle (Medium Armor Evasion morph): increases dodge chance and removes snares (1 snare per piece of medium armor equipped). I may use this in AvA because my bet is there will be a lot of snaring/kiting going on. Harness Magika (Light Armor Annulment morph): Magicka absorbing shield that restores Magicka when spell damage is absorbed
Alternate for Energy Overload: Summon Charged Atronach (Daedric Summoning ultimate Summon Storm Atronach morph): Another AOE that can be dropped.
Bar 2: The focus on single targets bar. Again, in rough order of how the stills will be used.
* Dizzying Swing (2H Uppercut morph): Knockback, stun, enemy does 20% less damage for 7.5 sec
* Velocious Curse (Daedric Summoning Daedric Curse morph): This is an exception to the "lightning only" rule because this spell is so good. Instant damage after 3.5 seconds; nearby enemies take some damage too
* Executioner (2H Reverse Slash morph): deals damage, more damage the lower the target's health is (up to 300% damage). While slotted, 2H abilities do 18% more damage to targets under 25% health.
* Endless Fury (Storm Calling Mage's Fury morph): Shock Damage, additional damage if target falls below 20%. Killing enemy with this restores 130 magicka.
* Streak (Storm Calling Bolt Escape morph): Shock damage, movement ability. Used to escape a bad situation, or to move to the next group of enemies, where you'd switch back to bar 1.
* Absorption Field (Dark Magic ultimate Negate Magic morph): Dispels enemy effects. Restores health and
magicka for each effect dispelled.
Theory: when I swap, a couple of people should be low health. Pick one. Dizzying Swing one, then Curse then Executioner, then Endless Fury. After the curse pops, they're hopefully low health, which should kick Executioner/Endless Fury into high gear. If they're not dead, Executioner/Dizzying Swing/Endless Fury until they are. Pick a second and do the same. If there's still a crowd here, pop Absorption Field.
Passives
Daedric Summoning: Power Stone
Dark Magic: Unholy Knowledge, Blood Magic, Persistance
Storm Calling: Capacitor, Energized, Disintegrate, Expert Mage
2H: Forceful, Heavy Weapons, Balance, Arcane Fighter, Battle Rush
Mages Guild: Mage Adept, Everlasting Magic, Magicka Controller, Might of the Guild
Highlights:
Ultimate ability cost -15%
Magicka/Stamina costs -5%
Dark Magic spells heal for 5%/Duration +20%
Magicka Regen +10%
Storm Calling +5% damage/-10% cost
2H abilities deal 25% splash damage/-20% cost feats/increased status effects/killing enemy increases
stamina regen 50% for 6 sec
So that's it. I tested this build a couple of times at low levels and it seemed to work fine, but I didn't do any AvA with it so that's a big question mark.
So this build is (almost) completely theoretical. Which leads to a couple of questions.
- I feel like this build has a synergy to it, but since it's driven by a concept, I wonder: am I deluding myself? Does it make sense to anyone else? Does it NOT make sense to anyone else?
- Is there some glaring weakness with the build that I've completely overlooked?
- I see very few builds that use Medium Armor. Everyone seems to go 5 heavy/light for melee and 5 light/2 heavy for casting. If I use Medium armor will I be dead before I can pull all of this off?
- Am I (unnecessarily) limiting myself by sticking to just 1 weapon and using it on both bars?
- Will being dependent on both stamina and magicka be good (meaning there's always some action I can take) or bad (2 resources to manage)?
- My thoughts that in AvA standoffs I'll be either using Velocious Curse and Lightning Flood or Endless Fury and Degeneration to deal ranged damage while waiting for an opening. So either bar will have 2 spells I can cast on it. Will that be sufficient contribution (and will my magicks hold up?).
