What separates ESO from other MMOs is that it is supposedly going to have a wide variety of playstyles(although I am slightly skeptical of just having only 6 skills at a time). I do enjoy the idea of not being restricted to certain weapons and that I can essentially make my character a melee or ranged type regardless of what class I choose.

However, one thing I noticed is that while ESO has a plethora of skill lines, ranging from class to guild, most of them are fairly linear with no opportunities to branch out, so to speak. At least this is the case with armours.

What I mean is that it seems like light armour is specifically designed for casters, medium armour is designed specifically for melee and ranged dps, and heavy armour is specifically designed for tanks. Maybe these skill lines won't have a huge impact during levelling or even a few starting end-game dungeons but once the min-maxing comes into play, I fear they might make a big enough difference to warrant that everybody in a semi-decent raiding or PvP guild will want to wear a specific set of gear for a specific role.

What made TES series somewhat special is that you could be a battle-mage wearing light armour or even heavy armour. At the same time you could be a heavy plate-wearing warrior or you could basically go full barbarian and not wear anything at all. My concern is that these choices will no longer be viable.

Sure you can put on heavy armour as a caster but if you look at the Light Armour perks it becomes increasingly hard to see how heavy armour would be viable for a mage at all, in the end. Heavy armour does what it does, offer protection but in ESO the cost seeems very steep compared to previous installments. And by the looks of it they've included the 5 set bonus in case you wear full heavy armour, for example, so there's little incentive to mix and match different armour types... which is something I actually enjoyed in Morrowind. I guess I'm the only one who is not a huge fan of set bonuses that are simply too good to ignore.



Anyway, what I wanted to ask is this;

a)What am I going to be wearing as a dps that uses a two-handed sword? The medium armour skill line seems like the obvious choice but it has some backstab and sneak bonuses which isn't usually something you do... with a in-your-face type of barbarian, like the arms warriors of WoW. The medium armour skill line seems oriented towards sneaky dual wield and archer builds. Heavy armour skill line seems to provide a small dps boost down the line but will it be enough?

b)Will rogue/assassin/rogue types be viable at all while wearing light armour(clothes) instead of medium armour(leather)? Can mages that don't want to be the main tank wear heavy or light armour without horribly gimping themselves in the long run? The sorcerer class has been known to be an armoured caster in previous TES games. Perhaps there are other passive skills in other trees that can compensate for armour skills that I've missed?

c)Will hybrids be viable? Will a character using two-handed weapons and heavy armour have his uses if he can't do as much dps as a medium armoured dual wielder or tank as well as that guy with a shield?

If you want to be a stabber while wearing robes, you can. But what that means is that you will deal more damage from class abilities instead of weapon abilities, because the magicka and spell bonuses from light armor apply to spells only.

This game gives you freedom, but there are still things that each armor type specializes in. Otherwise there would be no downside to going full heavy.

You can still enchant whatever you want on your armor though, like stamina bonuses and +crit damage on your robes for instance.