WHAT IS THE BEST SYTLE FOR THE ARENA?
​

There is no hard and fast answer. There are three core styles, warrior, mage and heavy weapons and then within these broad classifications there's also a huge variety of options. There are no 2 weapon builds available in ES Blades, but a shield is a type of second weapon, as bashes can cause significant damage as well as stunning and incapacitating abilities. 

​

An almost an infinite variation of weapons, shields, armour and jewellery is possible, so there is no definitive perfect set or ultimate set of gear and that's what makes the arena experience so interesting, unique and challenging.

​

Quite often it's a case of rock, paper, scissors as it is a matter of your setup compered to your opponents. There is no set of gear or setup that will guarantee you a win against everybody, and every setup is beatable as it has both weaknesses and strengths.

​

However, the longer people have been playing, the better their gear will be, the more experience they'll have and the harder they'll be to beat.

 

The first basic style is a warrior with a shield and a one handed weapon (versatile or small). Typically, they will be stamina heavy and use multiple strikes, bashes, defensive spells, and often one attack spell. Their build focus is on regenerating their stamina and using stamina based abilities.

 

A mage will also have a shield, use small or versatile weapons and usually two powerful attack spells. Typically, they will be Magika heavy with a build focused on Magika regeneration, and they will use spells to incapacitate or condition you (to increase their weapon damage) and destroy your health with spells.

 

The last is heavy weapons, typically stamina heavy and focused on manual play, trying to hit massive critical hits and combos.

 

However, this can vary considerably. There have been heavy weapon users with Magika and attack spells, warriors with Magika armour pieces etc. and you can meet someone in the arena that uses all 3 styles in a match! Humans are very unpredictable and that is what makes the arena such a unique experience!

​

 

SO, WHICH IS THE EASIEST? WHICH IS THE HARDEST?
 

Well, again there is no definitive answer. Many say the heavy weapons is the hardest, though it is the easiest to get suitable gear, so you will probably progress quite quickly at first, but it relies heavily on manual skills and without a shield you are quite weak defensively and brittle.

​

A warrior is the most popular style, great defensively, doesn’t require great jewellery and can inflict a lot of damage. They are the most common style in the arena.

 

The mage is also strong defensively but requires more specialised jewellery, which can take some considerable time to acquire. If you've got a bad ping, you live a long way from the servers, have a poor internet connection, or are older with poor reflexes then a mage can be quite a useful option, as by using spells to do a lot of damage you can use fewer manual skills. Remember whatever your style, there will be occasions when your primary resources are drained/ravaged, and you have to fight manually. Manual fighting will always be a needed skill.

 

However, to rise to the top of the table in any of these styles will require great gear, great manual skills and experience, all of which requires a lot of patience.

 

There are strengths and weaknesses in each style, there are different strategies for play, gear setups and play styles that you can put together. It's an almost infinite array of setups. Which makes the game reasonably well balanced.

​

You can get to be grand champion in any one of these three styles, and there has been grand champions in each one of these styles historically.

 

Though the grand champion podium has been dominated by the warrior style, this is mainly because it is the most common style as it is the easiest to get started with, plus the game tends to push you in that direction during early game play, so it is the most common payer style. It really depends on you the player and what you enjoy, so you should follow what you enjoy the most, what you feel comfortable with, and then read through these guides and work on out the gear you need to put it together and then make a decision long term.

​

We have put together a range of styles, with details of how to achieve the build style along with objectives. But these are opinion pieces where we have tried to be a broad as possible, not necessarily the only or definitive way of putting builds/styles together. They are a guide to try and help, provide logic and thinking to your options and help you set goals, but at the end of the day, each character will be unique, with unique gear and builds. Combined with your unique thinking and physical skills, your character will be unique to you. The best place to work on your character and discuss is Discord, where you can meet experienced players, discuss the gear you have, how to best use it etc.