ESO: questions

Okay, so even when I've never used a weapon, I sometimes raise levels in it. I haven't figured that out, except for bookcases. It seems like wearing at least one piece of each level of armor, is a no brainer. This way you level all of them as you run around. Is there a reason to focus on just one weapon? I want to throw spells around, so I've been using a destruction staff and/or a restoration staff with an elemental damage proc on it. My altmer had a bonus skill for wearing light, but I'm not sure what dark elves get. I've just been playing the first zone with each of the 3 mage-type classes: Altmer/Dominion/Khenarthi's Roost--Breton/DC/Stros M'kai--and finally Dunmer/EP/Bleak something?

Let me know if I'm doing something tragically wrong. Again, my goal is to play it like an SP game. Wander around slowly picking flowers, cutting down trees, mining ore and looting treasure. I haven't stolen anything. Is there really a reason to do so? I want to do all the quests that I can in each area before moving on and I want to do as much as possible with one character; once I finally settle on one. Right now, I'm just goofing off.

Also, I bought a plus account for 3 months, so if that nets me some good stuff that I just don't know about, besides the crafting bag, let me know that too. Is there something that I should really buy in the crown store? I got 5000 crowns for signing up and I spent all of those on bank upgrades, so that it sits at 110 instead of 60 or whatever. I hate Pay2Win, but if I Pay2 deal with less tedium, that's okay Should I buy a horse with crowns or just wait till I can afford one with gold? Is it worth it to have a horse a few weeks early for instance....

Edit - Caveat to all this… My 3 toons are all ~20th level so I can't comment on late game content.

From my somewhat limited experience there's nothing pay to win in the store. It's all cosmetic or utility stuff. And I don't think it's really possible to go tragically wrong with a character build in this game (probably different story if you want to get into PvP or if you take your crafter into a dungeon). PvE isn't particularly hard and skill improvement happens with the skills you use so your toon will naturally progress based on what you do. I suppose trying to limit yourself to a few skill lines is probably best so as not to dilute your skill points. Plus you can only have 6 abilities slotted at any one time so your options are limited (something I really dislike about the game). You do get to slot a second set of 6 skills and another weapon set once you hit 15th level though.

There's passive skills associated with each armour line that encourage those armour types for certain classes based on the stats they buff. But you don't have to be locked into those.

I've seen people talking about focusing on one stat and selecting/morphing abilities to use it exclusively. From what I've seen I honestly don't think that sort of min/max-ing is necessary for PvE content.

Saving for a mount in game isn't difficult. Using crown store for one is purely a vanity thing IMO (I've got a bear). They're handy but you can fast travel either to or at least close to most places so not entirely necessary.

I've got 3 toons that I play with…. Dark Elf nightblade that uses medium armour, dual wield and the nightblade lines. A wood elf sorcerer who uses a bow (sometimes destruction staff), daedric summons and the dark magic line. And a nord sorcerer who wears heavy armour, uses 2 handed weapons, lightening and daedric magic I think. None of them struggle to complete quests. I suppose you could say the level playing field does let you build any sort of toon you like, I don't think any is particularly better than another, as long as they have some combat skills. Again I'm talking questing, PvE.

So for me and my gaming style and if you're going to just PvE single player (which is what I do), just play whatever type of character you feel like, try to limit yourself to a handful of skill lines and let it grow organically. It's modern MMO, everyone gets a medal, it's designed for you to succeed. Carry round a few soul gems and you can even respawn next to where you die.


Oh yeah you can respec for in game gold or crown coins if you get to a point and are unhappy with how things have turned out.


I find it's a relaxing, reasonably enjoyable game. Have fun.

If you have ability for a weapon line in your active bar when you gain xp then that weapon line will also gain its xp.

Its cheap to respec both stats and abilities with in game gold at any capital city so don't worry to much about misapplied points at this point.

Even without a horse I would start training horse storage at a stable as you can gain 1 inventory slot once a day for 60 more slots total. I didn't use my horse much at all till I was well past the initial level 50. Now I do but I don't pick up plants and such much anymore and ignore most chests.

Toff, what is motivation for playing at this point? I assume you've completed all of the quests at least once. What keeps long-term players invested in the content?

I still have quests to complete but I am getting close(ish). I am a quester and the amount of decent questlines here is very large. Some zones are of course better than others.

End game I'm not very interested in (I have done all the end game trials just for the experience but farming them I will not do) but am in 2 very good social guilds with good people. A good guild is always what keeps me in an mmo for an extended time.

KaosWarMonk said:

And I don't think it's really possible to go tragically wrong with a character build in this game (probably different story if you want to get into PvP or if you take your crafter into a dungeon).

Click to expand...

Oh, it IS possible. I had to mercy-kill (=delete) my very first character because of this. I'm one of those trial-and-error types (as opposed to the 'read every character build blog before even starting the game' types), and I managed to nerf my char so hard by distributing points evenly over all stats. By the time he reached level 21, he had become unplayable. Poor Ruul died so often in PvE combat that I didn't find it funny anymore. So I finally created a new character, distributed points between 2 attributes this time ... and I still play him. He's pretty good in PvE, and he can even win one or the other PvP battle (though I try to avoid PvP), at least if the others aren't 600 CP characters.
My first nightblade, on the other hand ... mothballed her only recently after barely getting through the Thieves' Guild content. She was a two-attribute-character as well, but I had built her for stealth, and in ESO, stealth is something I just have no patience for. So I recently started with another Nightblade - single-attribute this time, all stamina and weapon skills. A glass cannon, sure, but still seriously OP compared to the rest of my character gang.

Jaz said:

Oh, it IS possible. I had to mercy-kill (=delete) my very first character because of this. I'm one of those trial-and-error types (as opposed to the 'read every character build blog before even starting the game' types), and I managed to nerf my char so hard by distributing points evenly over all stats. By the time he reached level 21, he had become unplayable. Poor Ruul died so often in PvE combat that I didn't find it funny anymore. So I finally created a new character, distributed points between 2 attributes this time … and I still play him. He's pretty good in PvE, and he can even win one or the other PvP battle (though I try to avoid PvP), at least if the others aren't 600 CP characters.
My first nightblade, on the other hand … mothballed her only recently after barely getting through the Thieves' Guild content. She was a two-attribute-character as well, but I had built her for stealth, and in ESO, stealth is something I just have no patience for. So I recently started with another Nightblade - single-attribute this time, all stamina and weapon skills. A glass cannon, sure, but still seriously OP compared to the rest of my character gang.

Click to expand...

I have a lot of fun with rogue style very high DPS but total glass cannon type builds. My main characters in Skyrim and FO4 are both glass cannon types. Lots of risk but also just love the insane damage they can do.

Only difference - I have a lot of patience for stealth as I just love that type of combat.

Well, I love sneaker games where patience is a must. In RPGs, my main characters have never been damage dealers - they were either sneakers or tanks*. If you solo as a tank, patience is just as important, so I can't say I'm not patient. But … in ESO, I just can't bring myself to sit behind a hedge or desk for hours to remain unseen. My bows-and-arrows Bosmer tried and failed horribly. My two-weapons Dunmer doesn't even try, yet he's pretty successful as a thief. Perhaps my chars ust don't see the value of remaining unseen - it's way more entertaining to do a drunk dance in the marketplace, or to play the lute while waiting for a boss to spawn .

*My main Elder Scrolls characters were/are:
Arena - sneaky Breton nightblade, female (never had a second character in Arena)
Daggerfall - tanky Khajiit battlemage, male/sneaky Redguard Thief, female
Battlespire - tanky Dunmer battlemage (what else?), female
Redguard - …Cyrus, of course. Needless to say that we didn't get along very well. Playing him as a rather offensive character, I nearly killed the game.
Morrowind - sneaky Imperial agent, female/ tanky Nord knight, male
Oblivion - tanky Imperial crusader, female/ tanky Dunmer battlemage, male (had several sneakers in O. but no main)
Skyrim - sneaky Bosmer archer, female (have several other chars but no main)
ESO - tanky Imperial sorcerer of the summoning sort, male/ sneaky Bosmer nightblade of te bows-and-arrows sort, female / tanky Imperial templar, male

A lot depends on how sneak is handled. I haven't played enough ESO (only have a few hours in) to know yet if I will like it. I tend to like it in most Bethesda games and some of the earlier Bioware and Obsidian games.

Daggerfall - too long ago for me to remember.
Morrowind - Dunmer rogue (only character I played in it but I played him forever and this was before I even knew what mods were ... which didn't happen till Skyrim)
Oblivion - A mage but I couldn't get into this game and quit after about 30 hours.
Skyrim - Grimulfr, Wolf-Blooded Nord Ranger/Rogue and Werewolf. Son of Fenrir Wolf.

Fallout NV - Anti-Tech Ranger/Warrior.
Fallout 4 - Fenn Finn-Gall, Sniper, expert in stealth, rifles, pistols, and persuasive personality.

Welp, I'm an Altmer Templar at the moment and nearly all my skill points have gone into magicka. I'm probably less than level 10. I'm not having any trouble in PvE, but I'm only on the 2nd Island and messing around in the delves. I seem to be able to heal faster than things can hurt me, unless I get surrounded. I mostly die to inattention. I'm reading a book or something and realize that the screen has been flashing red for 5 seconds

I've got an old Belkin router and I'm not sure it is up to MMO's. I've bought a new one and it should be here in a day or so.

Dying to inattention - fine, happened to my sorc main pretty often. Mostly when reading interesting chat banter between a group of real roleplayers, and falling down somewhere . Or in Cyrodiil when trying to do the PvE stuff without looking over his shoulder every two seconds. But now that he is ~235 he's tough enough to adventure in his home country.

I'm of the vain sort, so most of my crowns went into pets, mounts, hair, makeup and costumes. For me, the best thing about plus (beside the crafting bag) is the ability to recolor costumes! You can pay for additional slots in the bank or inventory with gold, so I never spent any crowns for those. Spent some crowns on those atronach chests just for the thrill.
There are no game-changing things in the crown store I'd say unless you want to pay for a Vampire or Werewolf bite, but you can get those out in the wilds for free (though it can be quite tedious to get there if you don't want to ask another player to bite you). Vamps are self-healing machines if they skill up the right way (though vulnerable to fire) , and werewolves are stamina monsters (and vulnerable to poison).

About resetting skills and attributes, you can do that in your capital city at a special shrine, but it is expensive, the in game-gold cost depending on the points you already spent. When I had nerfed my first char so badly, farming for a reset was just out of scope for me because I had spent my ingame money on horses, and getting money was hard, But my new char was already at the same level just a day later, and I hadn't grown attached to my first one yet, so there.

EDIT
I'm at 1259 hours so far, and I haven't maxed (=600 CP) one of my chars yet.

Remember all that you can respec both attributes and skill points at any capital city for in game gold. Its not expensive either.

Toff said:

Remember all that you can respec both attributes and skill points at any capital city for in game gold. Its not expensive either.

Click to expand...

Good to know. I'm not big on MMOs, but this one seems to have a heap of SP-able content, so what the hell, I took the plunge.

Currently a 9th lvl Nord Dragonknight, messing around in Stonefalls (Morrowind?). Whenever I play a TES game, I play someone stealthy, but I wasn't sure how well that'd work in an MMO so I played it safe for the first attempt.

Dumb question: what's the best way to get good gear? Stuff being sold by merchants is crap, and I've been relying on random drops. Is crafting the way to go?

I don't know about high level, but i have a 2nd tier enchanter and the stuff is pure junk compared to what I find in chests. Also, there is no monetary bonus to enchanting gear you are selling. An iron sword sells for the same as an iron sword of godly damage and shielding. That is just weird.

Toff said:

Its not expensive either.

Click to expand...

I found it exceedingly expensive, but as I said, it depends on how many skill points /attribute points you already spent before resetting them, and on how easily you make money (my char didn't).

Shagnak said:

Dumb question: what's the best way to get good gear? Stuff being sold by merchants is crap, and I've been relying on random drops. Is crafting the way to go?

Click to expand...

Guild merchants. I search for anything using the level range from your level to a couple levels lower. I think you can make good gear yourself but you need to invest/find/research all the bits that go into making that good gear. I do make my own charms so as to change the buffs on the gear I find/buy to better suit my toons.

I don't think there's an individual auction house(?). Is a little bit of a disappointment when you get one of those good drops that you'll never use - like a purple dunmer double bed recipe… :s

The dye station is useful for making things look good.

Question on pets… do they do anything at all besides just looking cute?

The sorcerer daedric summoning skill line has scamps, clanfears, and twilights that will fight and heal.

Thrasher said:

The sorcerer daedric summoning skill line has scamps, clanfears, and twilights that will fight and heal.

Click to expand...

Hey how do you activate your pet to get the heal? I've tried a few times hitting the key it's bound to and it doesn't seem to do anything.

Oh well, perhaps I shouldn't have wasted those points on Blacksmithing then. Esp. since all of a sudden I seem to be getting the occasional decent drop: a couple of very good axes and a magic belt just from randomly killing shit for 15 minutes.

(I'll have a look at guild merchants next time I'm on)

KaosWarMonk said:

Hey how do you activate your pet to get the heal? I've tried a few times hitting the key it's bound to and it doesn't seem to do anything.

Click to expand...

Usually that's the way to do it - just hit the key you assigned the skill to. Provided you developed your summons as healers. You will see a bright light surrounding you.