A few questions from a new player

castem

I'm new to the game, and I have some questions I was hoping someone could answer.

I've already decided that I want to be a Breton Sorcerer with Heavy Armor and a Sword/Shield. I plan on using a mix of magic and my S&S (and its abilities) to take on enemies at close range. I want to participate in all aspects of the game (so both PvE and PvP) eventually, and I don't mind if I'm not the most optimized as long as I can still be an asset to my allies.

1. Does max stamina affect weapon damage (i.e. regular and power attacks), or just stamina-based abilities? (Will my weapon strikes still deal good damage if I go for a magic build?)

2. Does max stamina affect my Sword/Shield powers' effectiveness (stun duration, armor given, etc) or just their damage?

3. Does max stamina affect blocking effectiveness, or just how many times you can block? (Is increasing stamina needed for blocking a lot?)

4. Given my build, what should I go for attributes? I was thinking 4 health / 2 magicka / 0 stamina every 6 points, but I don't know if that'd be okay or not for later on. (Would my build suffer too much without much stamina?)

5. What in this game can be respec'd/reset? What can't be? (I'm wondering about things like skill points, attribute scores, etc.)

6. I've heard that it's good to specialize in a particular role for PvE. Given that, would tanking or DPS be my best bet if I wanted to be an asset to others in a group? (Also, are tanks useful at all in PvP? If not, can you switch builds easily?)

7. Should I get the first mount I can, or save up for a better one? (I don't have the imperial edition.)

8. Can I get one mount maxed out in all attributes, or do I need to specialize it?

9. Is becoming a vampire or werewolf a good idea (for my build)?

10. I'd it alright if I only use one weapon for both weapon 'sets'? The S&S has a ton of good abilities, and I could easily see myself spreading then across two hotbars.

Thanks in advance for any help!

wayfarerx

FYI, a heavy armor hybrid sorc is going to perform pretty poorly at everything. Heavy is good for tanking and not much else, and hybrid stamina / magicka builds are severely handicapped versus builds that just stack one of the two stats.

1) I think only weapon damage affects your basic attacks.
2) Only damage.
3) Only how often you can block.
4) Way too much health unless you're going for a niche health build.
5) Only things you cannot change are race, class and alliance.
6) You can switch around, tanks are rare (and thus highly sought after) in PvE, not so much in PvP.
7) Buy the 10k one or one from the crown store, they are all the same besides how they look.
8) You can max everything.
9) Some people like it, I've never really taken to it.
10) You can, but you'll get more utility with a different weapon on your back bar (i.e. two handed has better DPS and a self-heal).

davey1107

Welcome to the game. ESO academy was a great site when I was a newbie, a lot of your questions are addressed there. But some basic info:

1. All attacks, light, heavy and abilities scale off max stam/mag and weapon/spell damage. So, a sword light attack gets stronger as you increase your stam, and also as you increase your weapon damage. Staffs do that for max magic and spell damage. Abilities scale the same way, based off whether they cost stam or magic. Watch your morphs! Many have both magic and stamina variants (not so much w/ sorcs).

2. Mostly max stam affects damage. But you can bash more if you have more stam, so in that sense you attacks get stronger.

3. Blocking costs a lot of stam. You need a lot more stam if you want to block more. My Nightblade with all attributes in stam can block maybe 20 times in a row...my magic Nightblade with all in magic like 3-4. There are passives and champion points that reduce cost of block, which can help magic toons out a lot.

4. Too much health. Generally, lean toward what you use most of - probably magic for you. If you start to die a lot, put some in health. Don't stress about attributes...each is worth a measly 115 points. When your a vet, you're going to have 20,000 health, so five points either way isn't going to change much. And on your first character you'll likely re-attribute when you get to vet, once you really know the game and know what that toon needs. So just have fun and dump mostly into magic for now.

5. As of today, you can respec attribute points, skill morphs or all skill points. (Skill morphs returns one skill point per morph and undoes that selection, all skill points returns every single one you've spent). Vet toons can respec champion points. The cost is based on how many you've allocated. A level 40 character would probably spend $700 for morphs and $5000 for all skills. My v16 with 300+ skill points spends $1200 for morphs and $10k for all.

Note - ZOS has confirmed that a "barbershop" will roll sometime this year, probably in the fall. They have confirmed that you will be able to respec appearance and RACE. They confirmed you will NOT be able to respec class. So that's coming.

6. A sorc tank would be odd, but it could be fun. Here's the thing with your race/class choice - I'm not sure where that toon will end up. This will entirely depend on your play style. You might decide that tanking is fun, or you might evolve into a hard-to-kill dps. Yes, it's easy to shift roles as you grow a character. If tanking doesn't work or gets boring, throw on some light armor and go dps. To make your toon more flexible, work up several of his skill lines. Don't max sword and board to 50 and just play that all the time - work up sword and board, resto staff, destruct staff and maybe dual wield. Or maybe two handed. Mix up your armor - wear at least one piece of each. when you get to V1, all your armor lines should be leveled over 40 and you should have several weapons at max level. You don't have to spend skill points in these lines...just level the line itself toward 50. This strategy means that once you're vet, you can quickly switch between play styles.

7. Ugh. People always give misinformation on mounts. No, THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. So, some tips. You can upgrade your mount once per day for $250 each time - speed, stamina or carrying space. Any upgrade is good for ANY mount on that character. So buy the cheap one as soon as you cam, and start working it up. It take about six months to max them.

Second tip - any mount you buy can be used by any character on your account, although they don't get the upgrades. If you buy midnight steed on your sorc and upgrade it to speed level 30, then you start a Templar, that Temp,ar will have access to the Midnight Steed, but will start at speed level 0 and will have to feed it daily to level it.

Third tip - the mounts DO HAVE DIFFERENT STATS. When the game came to console something got messed up in the stat tool tips so that there's no numerical value listed for the faster horse. But read the description - of the three $40k mounts one is faster, one has more stam and one is a blend. My friend and I have tested this. Mounts bought in the crown store tend to be superior to stable mounts. And these differ from each other - my friend's leopard is faster than my jaguar.

8. You can spend 60 in each of speed, stam and space. You can max all with 180 upgrades.

9. Don't have experience w werewolf. Maybe try vampire once you know the game. That character would get faster sneak speed (would be as fast as reg walking) and 10% more stam and mag regen. Takes More fire damage, and health regen slower. Vampire is pretty fun to play. But I'd recommend getting him up to like level 30+, not so much because you need to be that high but because I think it would help to know the character well without vampirism before you add it so that you can judge if it's working.

10. You can put the same weapon type on two bars, but not the same weapon. Huh? What I mean is that if you want two sword and board bars you need two swords and two shields you can't put the same shield on both bars. Don't focus on just one weapon as a new player, for a couple of reasons.

For one, you'll miss out on learning a lot of important stuff on weapons you'll want to someday use. A sorc needs a staff eventually, in most cases. They restore magic w heavy attacks and have some other uses besides abilities. Secondly, if you double bar sword and board you'll work it up to 50 really fast, then your other weapon types will be behind. Mix things up and level multiple lines. Feel free to favor sword and board, but don't overuse it so that you're missing out on leveling other weapons. The best abilities unlock at high skill line levels - maybe you don't want the low resto staff abilities, but you might need the one that unlocks at lvl 42.

Tip: you get a lot of Xp when you turn in quests. If there's a weapon or ability you don't really love using but want to level, equip it upon quest turnin. Boom - leveled without using it. And guess what? Abilities you level this way don't have to match the weapon. You can equip a resto staff but put a bow ability on the bar, and level both when turning in a quest. Double tip: complete a bunch of quests but don't turn them in. Then, create a "fighting bar" (your sword and board) and a "level bar" (a weapon you want to level, and a bunch of abilities). Then turn them all in at once, fighting to the turnin with you main bar but equipping the leveling bar at each turn in. This is a good way to level lines and abilities that are behind. Go buy a psijic ambrosia to drink for you run and you get 50% extra xp - now all the time you spent completing 14 quests to do this becomes the xp reward of 21 quests.

Have fun with the game!

wayfarerx

davey1107 wrote: »

7. Ugh. People always give misinformation on mounts. No, THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. So, some tips. You can upgrade your mount once per day for $250 each time - speed, stamina or carrying space. Any upgrade is good for ANY mount on that character. So buy the cheap one as soon as you cam, and start working it up. It take about six months to max them.

Second tip - any mount you buy can be used by any character on your account, although they don't get the upgrades. If you buy midnight steed on your sorc and upgrade it to speed level 30, then you start a Templar, that Temp,ar will have access to the Midnight Steed, but will start at speed level 0 and will have to feed it daily to level it.

Third tip - the mounts DO HAVE DIFFERENT STATS. When the game came to console something got messed up in the stat tool tips so that there's no numerical value listed for the faster horse. But read the description - of the three $40k mounts one is faster, one has more stam and one is a blend. My friend and I have tested this. Mounts bought in the crown store tend to be superior to stable mounts. And these differ from each other - my friend's leopard is faster than my jaguar.

This is simply not the case. When the game first launched the mounts were different, yes... but at the time you could not max all the stats on a single mount. You could feed each mount once a day and upgrade their speed, stamina or capacity. Since you could not max a single mount it was common for people to have a couple mounts with different stats, i.e. a speed mount for PvP and a capacity mount for leveling.

When the game went B2P and they started selling mount skins in the crown store things changed. Feeding mounts changed into training riding skills and the skills themselves became bound to the character not the mount. This was to encourage people to buy lots of mounts with real $$$ without having to level each mount up on each character.

Now, there may be animation-related bugs with regard to how different mount skins perform in different types of terrain (or at least I've seen reports of such here on the forums), but in no way are the skins themselves given different values for the standard speed / stamina / capacity attributes. Any tool-tip text that claims that to be the case is simply a hold-over from before the game went B2P.

davey1107

Oh yeah, and leveling multiple armor/weapons is way easier if you get a friend to make you gear w the training trait. This doubles (or more) the xp funneling into the weapon and abilities. So, that psijic ambrosia strategy where 14 quest turn in become 21 quest worth of XP? A training resto staff that increases experience by 100% now makes that the equivalent of 42 quest turn ins for your staff line and abilities.

I have a leveling guild - Fighting to Fifty. We help players learn stuff like this, and dungeon runs, and making gear. Shoot me a message in PSN or email in game if you want an invite. I might not see a response here.

davey1107

Wayfarers appears to be mostly correct about differences between mounts. It was many, many patches ago that we did our tests, so I ran a quick comparison. Same character, fully maxed mount, three types: $10k basic house, $40k midnight steed and crown store black panther.

Chose a long, flat road in Craglorn. Tested 60 second trot and then 30 second gallop. The mounts all performed equally on 60 second trot. On the gallop, my panther made it about 10% further twice. I'm not sure this means it's faster in a gallop, but the mount types seem to perform slightly different based on terrain - my cat gets kicked out of gallop by a rock a lot less than the horse. This might be a cause of the performance, even though none were kicked out of gallop in this test.

The mounts do appear to be set to equal speed and stamina, with the appearance and minor performance issues now the only difference.

castem

Thanks for helping me out everyone. I've got a much better idea of what I'm going to do while leveling up and which mount I'm going to get yet.

Not quite sure what I'll be doing at max level, but I'm guessing I'll have a much better idea of what I'll want to do once I actually get there.

There's just one point I'm still confused on: weapon damage with light/heavy attacks.

I looked at ESO Academy, and it seems there's conflicting information.
On the 'Damage in ESO' page (http://esoacademy.com/damage-in-eso/), it says: "The amount of damage that you deal with Light Attacks is determined by your Max Magicka or Stamina and then by your Spell or Weapon Damage.". In short, Stamina affects the damage of light attacks. (The page didn't mention whether it affected heavy attacks, although I assume it would if it affected light attacks).
On the 'Health, Magicka, Stamina' page (http://esoacademy.com/health-magicka-stamina/), it says: "Note: Max Stamina does not effect your Weapon Damage stat at all. It does effect the actual damage of your Stamina abilities." In short, Stamina doesn't affect weapon damage. (It seems to draw a distinction between stamina abilities and attacks that aren't stamina abilities.)

Is there a definitive answer on which of these is right?