Combine skills from up to three different skill lines when subclassing arrives in The Elder Scrolls Online in Update 46. The team is diving into the new feature, how the new build customization options work, and even some of the design philosophy behind introducing it now.
As long as you have at least one level 50 character on your account, when subclassing arrives, you can unlock it after completing a short tutorial quest. Once you’ve done that, you’ll have access to all 21 skill lines to combine and max out as you wish, with a few limitations. If you want to take two or more skill lines from a class, you have to be that class. It’s up to you to figure out what your goals are.
System designer Carrie Day says, “In ESO, players can change their appearance, names, races, and even faction, but this has not been true with class”. Now, this is about to change since you won’t have to start on a completely new character just to experience a new class’ combat. Outside of just trying new skill lines, the system also makes you think about them and how you might want to combine them, as a new way to tailor your experience.
If you prefer to simply keep playing a pure class, the team is looking out for you too as in they make it a point to say there’s no effort to devalue or reduce their effectiveness. There are built-in trade-offs, as Day notes. “By taking all damage skill lines, you are more reliant on your team for support healing, shielding, and protection”, and so on.
With access to all of these new possible combinations, the topic of balance also comes up, and the team promises to keep an eye on these combinations as well as listen to feedback.
Update 46 launches June 2 on PC/Mac and June 18th on console.
