Once again I have been slacking.
In previous years I participated in Blaugust, but I didn’t sign up this time around because my work and travel/vacation schedule for August would have made it tough to post more than a handful of times.
Anyway, I’ve started doing trials in ESO, and it’s been quite a lot of fun. Intimidating at first, but now after several dozen runs spread out over the various trials (except for Aetherian Archive and Asylum Sanctorium, I’ve been in all the trials at least once and some dozens of times).
It’s crazy that when I started up again with my friend, we were satisfied gearing up in normal dungeons. Now, we’ve obtained a few trials sets, have ventured into veteran dungeons, and that taste of power has us searching for more, haha!
Crafted and dungeon gear is still strong. The actual power boost from trial gear generally comes from the 3 piece bonus, which is typically Minor Slayer – adds 5% damage to dungeon, trial, arena monsters – for dps sets. For healing and tank sets, the bonus is (always?) Minor Aegis – reduce damage 5% from dungeon, trial, arena monsters. 5% isn’t huge but why pass up some free mitigation or damage?
Of course the 5 piece bonus can be very beneficial as well – e.g. the bonus for 5 pieces of Claw of Yolnakriin, a tank set, is buff group damage on taunt, which a tank should trigger non-stop.
Groups already have various strategies for each fight, so I just listen to the leader and do what they say. Sometimes, as above, it is hard to see anything due to all the monsters, players, and various effects going on.
I mostly play as a healer, although I have tanked a trial or two and dps’ed a few times as well. In ESO, a trial group is generally 2 tanks, 2 healers, 8 dps, with some leeway for certain situations (sometimes 1 tank, 9 dps).
MMO Juggler 