I have seen a lot of tips out there.. but I am going to go one further here.
When you first log into a MMO, no one really knows what is going to be good and what is gonna be garbage. The people in beta have an idea, but once launch happens and the patching begins, we just don't really know.
And when you throw in that we are limited to about 300 skill points (sounds like a lot right? Wrong) then we need to figure out what we want to do. Just class skills alone you will need something like 20 skill points per skill line. So 60 points for class skills.
Some players have elaborate plans, while others just wing it.
This short and simple guide will throw some tips out there on how to decide for yourself what you should do or go when starting out with that. Some may find it insightful or useless, but if it helps just one person! Then my work here is complete.
First question. I am XYZ Class, what armor should I use?
This will be a two part answer...
First is, get the class stuff out of your head. Classes only add the flavor of combat tactics to TESO. You dont hit harder because you are a Dragonknight or regen magicka faster because you are a sorcerer, no. The class skills mostly all do the basic of things... damage and crowd control, which dragonknight and Templar have tanking and healing skills respectively.
And remember, you can only have 5 active abilities and 1 Ultimate and 1 usable item. So 7 buttons other than your left/right mouse buttons to worry about in the game.
Chances are you might have 1 or 2 class skills in your hotbar at any given time. So classes are not of huge importance.
Second, your role will matter more than anything else with what armor you will wear.
If you are tanking, you wear heavy, if you need stamina and/or stealthing, you need medium, and if you are using class skills like a beast, light armor. I am not gonna get into the 5/2 split, as there are other guides out there.
So the answer to everything? Wear them all! If you have a piece of armor on, you get xp for it from exploration, combat and quests. So if you have 1 light, 1 medium and 1 heavy armor , you will get xp for all three armor lines.
Why is this important? Each skill requires a certain level and each skill has independant levels from xp you earn. If you have light, medium and heavy armor at level 40 each.. that gives you a LOT of flexibility, because if you were to respec, you still have those levels and you dont have to worry about leveling those skills up.
This all goes into our next question...
What weapon do I use?
Like the armor the more you use the weapon, the more xp you get, which means you have access to more "powerful" skills and passives for that weapon.
But what you might not know is, if you have a skill from a weapon on your hotbar, you gain XP for that weapon, even if you have another weapon equipped.
Yes.
I know your mind is blown, but let me continue.
What skill should I learn?
The VERY first thing you should do while in ColdHarbor and you get your first skill point is your class skills. You must do this and you must choose one class skill from each line.
Why? Because you earn XP for that skill line if you have the skill on your hotbar. This is important because it allows for you to choose the more powerful skills in the future. It does not matter if you don't use two of your skills, just keep on the hotbar. You will thank me later for it.
You can gain experience for a weapon or skill that you don't want to level with by equipping it or putting it on the hotbar right before you turn in a quest.
Hawke, What is the point of this?
New games get "nerfs" to skills, weapons, powers all the time. If you focus just on cloth armor, you later say "I want to wear plate mail" you are pretty much screwed until you level up heavy armor skill to get the right passives and/or ultimate for that skill line.
The same holds true for weapons and skills. You should be leveling them up for nothing else than the ability to respec into using them in the future.
It isn't true futureproofing, but it might save your sanity.
So if you enjoyed this or not, please be sure to give me a thumbs up, agree, insightful or just laugh your butt off.
Thank you for your time in reading all of this! Bump it or not.
See you in Tamriel!
***Edited added the ability to put the skill in the hotbar before quest turn in for xp
Edited by Hawke on 1 April 2014 15:52