If you really sit down and think about it most mmo's you played you cycle through the same 5-10 skills. So having 10 with 2 ultimates is about right.

That said morphing skills can be different. When i first heard of morphing i thought for sure it was taking two skills youve been using and morphibg then together, giving you an extra spot for a new skill. I kinda wish they went that way. There are quite a few skills that can be put together.

Honestly though im so sick of playing games with skill cluttered screens. I like the simplicity.

Here we go again. People need to make the choices and what do they do? they complain.

Consoles have nothing to do with this, the 5 abilities are there so you have to actually switch your brain on and choose the best tools for the job. It helps diversity because this means same class can have totally different loadouts.

1 for PvE single target

1 for PvE AoE

1 for PVP single target

1 for PVP AoE

1 for Castle Defence

1 for Castle Assault

Now I understand some people are upset because not everything is easy and straightforward - I actually love it, finally there is some challenge.

I would like to see more hotkeys as well. Not a crapload but possible 8 or 9 including the "special" attack whatever that was called.

I am fine now but once I get to where I can equip two weapons I know I am going to end up feeling squeezed for space. I figure two slots for each weapon and that only leaves you with one slot for you class skills.

Could someone confirm that if you swap out weapons it will remember what skills you had equipped for it and automatically change them or do you have to do that manually. If indeed the game autoswitches skills with your weapon swap then its less of an issue with me. Thanks in advance.

Basically when you gain the second weapon you have a second skill bar. When you swap weapons, the skill bar change. You can out anything you want on the skill bars, skills can be the same, you're not forced to put any weapon skills if you don't need to.

You could have a sword, a bow and both skill bars filled with Sorcerer skills.

Also, you can equip the same type of weapons in both slots if this is to your fancy.

Ok that actually sounds fine then. I was worried that I was going to have to swap out my skills manually when I switched weapons like I do on my current characters. Good to know. Most likely will be doing to restoration staffs then. Not sure why since I never play healers but I really love resto staffs.

Those add-ons won't be in. they are looking at making basically all add-ons impossible, including a simple combat log.

I try to think of it like this:

You have 5 slots + ultimate x 2.

Then you have potion slot.

Then there's light and heavy attack.

Then block.

Then dodge.

You also have interrupt/CC break (Left click while active blocking.)

And there's sprint.

Most of these things would typically be tied to a slotted ability, in other games. So in essence, it's a lot more than just the 12 abilities on your bar.

Well its because they want money from the console crowd too... so they can`t have more that this due to the number of buttons on the controller.

This was designed to be a Console MMO first and made to work on the PC too i guess...i feel they were wrong about this but nothing we can do now really.

If it fails and people quote the "not enough skills" thing when they leave i hope they will make the next MMO`s with more skills. If its a success expect this to be the norm as everyone will copy it.

hmm about the only button I miss on my bar that would be useful is soul trap, which to me is a common utility type skill and should be able to be cast without having to have it in a slot.

Blocking and dodging isn't that impressive in this game. It feels pretty clunky at best. Maybe if it was anything close to how it was handled in Dark Souls or even closer to how it worked in Skyrim I wouldn't have even felt the need to make this thread. Sadly it feels like they tried to combine MMO elements with action game elements and it feels like both sides remained largely unpolished.

This is why I brought in my anology with the rogue although I did not quite go into details.

A good rogue is capable of executing AoE dps, single target DPS and CC as well as some good utility such as Tricks of the Trade(increases damage of an ally for a short period of time) and Smoke Bomb on demand.

How much of that could a good Nightblade do without swapping his skills? It just feels limited to me. And as mentioned by some people another problem are the resources. Like I said in my OP I picked all the class abilities for my Nightblade and they all use MANA. While I can easily kill 2-3 mobs I run out of mana after that and I'm stuck with my mouse buttons.

Theoretically I could put all weapon skills on one bar and then all my class skills on my second bar once I'm 15. However, this just seems so gimmicky. Am I meant to wear a shield with my class spells then, just for that extra bit of defense and block? Makes total sense - shields are meant to provide more defense after all.

Anyway, I am not asking for 40 skills to be available at one time. I'm just saying that having 7-10 skill slots, or even 6, would make a huge difference to me. I can appreciate the system they are going with just that 5 abilities at a time feels too limited. Guild Wars 2 actually had more because of cooldowns and nifty utility. In case of ESO you don't have any extra slots for utility, like summons and buffs, you have to use up one of your precious 5 slots. I don't mind the 'no cooldown' approach either but the game does have its fair share of utility spells that might get neglected eventually.

Those 'choices' you're speaking of will eventually be dictated by the top PvE and PvP players. Of course there's always the players that like doing their own thing and experimenting around... hence I'm one of those people who think that the new talent system in WoW wasn't as good as the last one despite the inevitable rise of cookie cutter builds.

However, here's the irony - you think having just 5 skill slots makes the game more interesting and challenging I think having 7 slots would be much better in terms of challenge and gameplay.

I think it's fine. Between two skill bars with 5 abilities each, ultimates, basic attacks, dodge, block, sprint, jump, interrupt, potions, and movement--my fingers stay busy. I'm personally not looking for another game where I have to bind my entire keyboard.

Also, it seems some in this thread are comparing max level WoW gameplay to level 10 ESO gameplay. How many buttons do you regularly use at level 1-15 in WoW?


Finally, if you're running out of magicka and thus can't use any more abilities, try putting a stamina using weapon ability on your bar. That way you can use some of your stamina as an ability resource.

The amount of skills is just fine.

10 skills + 2 (OP) ultimates + normal attacks.

In fact there may even be too many.

Why do you want more active skills?

So that you would have a tool for every job at any given time?

That's not challenging of even fun.

With a limited amount of skills you need to make choices and compromises.

You may run into situations where you don't have the right tool for the job because of those choices.

In that case you will have to improvise, instead of just having a button to do it for you.

A common argument that we have two hot-key banks bringing the total up to 10. If that's *truly* how you feel, then give other players the option of getting rid of the weapon swap ability and giving 10 hotkey and one ultimate. If your answer is no, that two key banks are different from giving one bank with more options, then lets never mention the second one in this type of discussion.

edit: To clarify, if we need to weapon swap, using the same damn weapons we normally use, just to get 5 new hotkeys, then what is the purpose of weapon swap?

Yea! And you should get 6 strikes in baseball. 3 feels too limiting.

Are you really going to bring up a boring sport to defend your position? Fine, let me stand in a single per-determined spot, and hit one of two buttons. Either a hit or a miss. That sounds like fun.

I'd much rather play football, and have more options of dealing with the other team.

That's the point. If you don't like the fundamental rules of the game, play a different game.

You know, I never have understood WHY people have such a big problem with this. Just like in real life, specific circumstances have specific ways of being dealt with. Those who learn those ways often manage to deal with those circumstances with relative ease.

If people end up stacking the same skills, it's because those skills work best for the situation they are dealing with. It would be different if the game automatically stuck you with those skills and you didn't have a choice in terms of what to slot. But it doesn't. We have a choice.

I prefer to have all my skills available at all times and then choose when to use them. It is mind boggling for me to think I have to know, in advance, what I am going to encounter and then spend time arranging buttons... Doesn't it make more sense that if I have a skill, that skill is available to me because I have the skill, not because I had forethought and moved around some buttons?

When i played Vanguard i had so many skills on screen, and half of it i didn't even know it's use for. In fact i found myself using only 5-6 which where good enough to get the job done.

Use cricitcal change, smoke bomb, backstab (if chained more backstab goodies), lacerate, smokebomb appear behind target, backstab blablabla

I find 5 skills and an ultimate and eventually a 2nd weapon with also 5 skills and an ultimate more then enough. Plus the "sprint" which is used by pressign shift, blocking, dodging are also skills but used not from hotbar but quickkeys.

Skill swapping isn't likely to come up for every encounter, but it may be something you do when entering a specific area or environment. If you're going into somewhere with a lot of daedric or undead enemies then it's worth loading some Fighter's Guild powers onto your action bar (and you'll be using them regularly while there), but you probably don't want to keep them on your action bar when you're in a kwama mine or goblin cave, since they're not particularly useful there.

Exactly. I don't there I've ever played an MMO where I used more than 12 abilities. This is one of those issues where people THINK they're limited, but they're really not.

In WoW your spec determined what spells you could use. If you were a fire make you used your 5 fire spells. If you were frost, you used your 5 frost spells. That's it.

Wait you get two ultimates? Can you slot two storm atronachs?

Yes... but they would share the same cooldown

I have a hard enough time not accidently pressing my emergency potion or wasting my ult. 5 is enough for me!

Personally, I feel like having just one more skill slot would be about right, but the way it is now works OK too.

It feels rather like Secret World, only with a smaller skillbar, and way, way, WAY less skills. Seriously, SW has an enormous number of skills, way too many to keep track of.

Is it uncommon for people to use both magicka and stamina abilities on their bar? My first thought on seeing the way that worked was: "Oh, sweet, I get two separate resources! That means I can spam abilities more without running out!"