Stealth Stun Stab

Five posts in. I suppose I should talk about some of the game aspects of this game.

My first impression of the combat in Elder Scrolls Online was that it reminded me a lot of the combat in Dungeons & Dragons Online and Neverwinter. This was certainly influenced by the fact I run a Rogue in all three games, and having played a bit more now I'll drop DDO from the comparison. DDO has action combat elements but I can't really think of it as an action combat game as such. The Neverwinter comparison still stands though.

The number of abilities I can slot in ESO is fairly limited, which is very much the norm with action MMOs. This hasn't been a problem though, because in any non boss fight I'm mostly only using three abilities plus basic attacks. In a one on one fight, Stealth + Stun + Slash Slash Slash + Stab = dead mob.

There's also dodge rolls, which I use quite often, and blocking, which I don't. Oh and there are heavy attacks, which I mostly find too slow to be useful. Most fights are over fast, which does mean I'm passing up on DoT attacks because the target is usually dead before these run their course.

That's one on one. Where it gets more interesting is against multiple opponents. So far the difficulty level has been very low - I was 13 hours into the game before anything managed to kill me - but I've had some tough fights against groups of three when they were melee, ranged and caster. So often in MMOs being outnumbered is nothing more than an opportunity to break out the AoEs but I really felt a couple of those fights and that's a good thing. My stealth skill did come in handy when I had to back off, heal up and come in to finish off the last of them.

That stealth skill - Shadow Cloak - is very effective. It can be activated in combat, has little to no cooldown, and in addition to the damage bonus on coming out of it, allows me to drop aggro on any/all enemies I'm facing. It only lasts 3 seconds so it's very much an in-combat ability. It's very good. Maybe too good.

It's worth saying that all of this is based on my new to the game experience with a highly unoptimized character, equipped with quest rewards and drops.

The frequency of combat encounters is generally less than in a lot of other MMOs. While enemies can be quite densely packed in quest locations I've yet to find myself hacking through mob after mob just to get to those locations, which shows some welcome restraint on the part of the devs.

ESO's combat is growing on me. Sure, it doesn't measure up to Neverwinter, but my Rogue in that game remains my gold standard for MMO combat so I won't hold that against this game. A better comparison would be Secret World Legends, as in this is how I feel my Neverwinter Rogue would play in that game. It's also possible I'm thinking of SWL because I've just come out of a ghost haunted desert ruin. As much as I've tried to stay in Ebonheart Pact territory recently, the quests continue to hurl me halfway across the map at every opportunity.