New player hitting a wall; help requested

sillyrobot

G'day Folks,

I found almost all combat in the game to be a cakewalk. Then I walked into a wall.

My character is a Khajiit Nightblade. I entered a new territory (Greenshade) at level 29 and the quest climax fights are too tough for me to handle. My usual tactic is to back up, gain a bit more experience and equipment then try again. Two levels later with a some gear upgrades and I'm not seeing any improvement in my results. I am turning to the wisdom of the veterans for ideas of what I need to change.

If it matters, the quests I cannot complete are regional quests Right of Theft (a section of Shades of Green), Amronal of Valenwood, and the main quest Valley of Blades.

About me
I started play a few weeks ago. I'm new to this game, but not to MMORPGs, having cut my teeth on Asheron's Call in the 1990s and playing more than a few since with the most recent being The Secret World. In my teens, my reflexes were average. They are no longer that good, but aren't terrible. I am somewhat colourblind and often miss the red danger markers on the ground – in fact I didn't know they existed for the first dozen levels or so.

Character
Khajiit Nightblade level 31. 8 picks on Health, 31 picks on Stamina.

Best skills Assassination (38), Siphoning (35), Dual-weapon (35), medium armour (38)

Mana 13K maximum/1K recovery, Health 15.5K/1K, Stamina 18.5K/1.3K

Magic damage 1.5K / 16% critical, Weapon damage 1.75K / 24% critical

Resistances 13.5K spell /16.5K physical / 0 critical

Passive skills:
All medium armour purchasable
All racial purchasable

Class skills

• Master Assassin – 2
• Executioner – 1
• Pressure Points – 2
• Refreshing Shadows – 2
• Shadow Barrier – 1
• Magicka Flood – 2
• Soul Siphoner – 1

Weapon skills

• Dual wield expert 2

Slotted skills

• Strife (instant damage combined with vampiric heal for 10 seconds)
• Ambush (teleport to target, instant damage and short stun)
• Killer's Blade (instant damage finisher with contingent heal if target dies)
• Blood Craze (instant damage plus damage over time and heal over time)
• Agony or Mark Target (either a single target snare or a resistance reduction depending on situation)

Ultimate: Death Stroke (large damage, 6 second damage boost, target suffers healing reduction)

Typical rotation:
1)Ambush
2)Agony (if more than one enemy)/Mark target (against single target)
3)Death Stroke (if available)
4)Blood Craze
5)Strife
6)weapon attacks for 6-8 seconds if target has more than 25% health otherwise Killer's Blade
7) go to 2 or 3 as needed

Gear
I'm working with gear I found or was granted by quests. 5 pieces of medium armour, 4 four pieces of heavy. No more than 2 in a single set currently. Gear grants me 3 stars out of 4 on the character screen.

All ideas appreciated.

Rosveen

Valley of Blades is hard, I had to attempt it a few times too, but I don't remember what exactly the Grahtwood quests entailed. Some general advice then: first off, where's your secondary weapon? You unlocked weapon swap at level 15. Furthermore, try Blur or Evasion for dodge chance, useful if you're having trouble in melee range. Try also Veil of Blades for mitigation, it's an excellent nightblade ultimate and usually the first one I unlock. You don't have any spammable skill; I'd replace Ambush with Rapid Strikes or Surprise Attack. Well, I'd actually throw out Strife instead, but maybe the little bit of extra healing is important to you, even though it's not such a strong skill when you're stamina-based.

wayfarerx

Question #1: Are you only using 1 bar and 1 weapon?

At level 15 you unlocked weapon swapping, you should have a whole extra bar to slot skills on. If I were you I would slot a bow on your second bar and start leveling it up as well.

Question #2: By "weapon attacks" do you mean light and heavy attacks, not skills?

You should be weaving light attacks between your skills that you cast. Look around youtube for tutorials about animation cancelling or light attack weaving. At no point should you be spending 6 seconds just light attacking.

Finally, your rotation leaves a bit to be desired. You are missing Surprise Attack which is likely to be your best bet when it comes to a skill you can spam over and over. Steel tornado from dual wield and Endless Hail from bow are also great for taking out groups. So maybe something like:

Single target.

1. Mark target.
2. Agony.
3. Ambush.
4. Surprise attack / light attack weave until 25% then Killer's Blade.

Multiple targets:

1. Mark one, a healer or mage is best.
2. Endless hail.
3. Ambush the marked guy.
4. Steel tornado, steel tornado, steel tornado.

Another tip, the Nightblade cloak skill makes it easy to run away from fights when things go south.

As for gear, having crafted sets on can make leveling SO MUCH easier. If you're on PC/NA feel free to hit me up if you need help crafting something up.

Danksta

So the problem you're having is most likely due to the fact you're not getting enough bonuses from your set armor. This is probably a common problem for new players because they haven't leveled up their crafting and you're leveling too fast to acquire a 5 piece dropped set close to your level. I would suggest finding someone to craft you some gear, maybe a guildmate if you're in a guild. If you're on PS4/NA I could help you out. If you're having trouble finding a guild in game there's a section on these forums for guild recruiting.

PSN-BacKinTackWarDs

sillyrobot

Rosveen wrote: »

Valley of Blades is hard, I had to attempt it a few times too, but I don't remember what exactly the Grahtwood quests entailed. Some general advice then: first off, where's your secondary weapon? You unlocked weapon swap at level 15. Furthermore, try Blur or Evasion for dodge chance, useful if you're having trouble in melee range. Try also Veil of Blades for mitigation, it's an excellent nightblade ultimate and usually the first one I unlock. You don't have any spammable skill; I'd replace Ambush with Rapid Strikes or Surprise Attack. Well, I'd actually throw out Strife instead, but maybe the little bit of extra healing is important to you, even though it's not such a strong skill when you're stamina-based.

Thanks.

Up until now the secondary bar is set up with a Restoration staff active skill (to gain some levels in the skill) and other utility class skills (Mark Target, Invisibility, etc.) to use in a pinch.

I haven't really examined bow. Most of the class skills require melee range so I've been sticking to melee.

I'll look into Rapid Strikes and Surprise Attack. My tactic until now has been layer the HoTs and DoTs and overwhelm incoming damage. I'll look at converting it to mitigation and see if that helps.

sillyrobot

wayfarerx wrote: »

Question #1: Are you only using 1 bar and 1 weapon?

At level 15 you unlocked weapon swapping, you should have a whole extra bar to slot skills on. If I were you I would slot a bow on your second bar and start leveling it up as well.

I have my second bar set up. It currently has an active Restoration staff skill (to try to get some levels in the skill) and more utilitarian class skills (Mark Target, Invisibility and a couple of others). I typically fight off the single bar.

I haven't given much thought to bow since pretty much all my class skills require melee range.

Question #2: By "weapon attacks" do you mean light and heavy attacks, not skills?

You should be weaving light attacks between your skills that you cast. Look around youtube for tutorials about animation cancelling or light attack weaving. At no point should you be spending 6 seconds just light attacking.

Yes, light/heavy attacks are what I was writing about. I'll take a look at weaving//cancelation.

Finally, your rotation leaves a bit to be desired. You are missing Surprise Attack which is likely to be your best bet when it comes to a skill you can spam over and over. Steel tornado from dual wield and Endless Hail from bow are also great for taking out groups. So maybe something like:

Single target.

1. Mark target.
2. Agony.
3. Ambush.
4. Surprise attack / light attack weave until 25% then Killer's Blade.

Multiple targets:

1. Mark one, a healer or mage is best.
2. Endless hail.
3. Ambush the marked guy.
4. Steel tornado, steel tornado, steel tornado.

Another tip, the Nightblade cloak skill makes it easy to run away from fights when things go south.

As for gear, having crafted sets on can make leveling SO MUCH easier. If you're on PC/NA feel free to hit me up if you need help crafting something up.

Thanks for the rotation examples. I'll take a look. My main problem seems to be 'boss' single fights, so I''' start with the single target one.

Thanks for the help

WuffyCerulei

It'd also help to have some gear crafted in either Hunding's Rage or Nightmother's Gaze. If you join a trading guild, there's usually a few master crafters who could help you.
Also, have a food buff. If you need some and are NA PC, I can make ya some for free!
Also! For a stamina NB, pour your points into stam, and the food buff will help you with health.

JasonSilverSpring

Tell is about your gear including level and quality. When you view character how many stars does it show? With 1T gear is more important than it was before.

scorpiodog

A few things you are missing:

1) Buffs & debuffs
2) AOEs and DOTs
3) Damage Dealing that heals

1) I see "Mark Target" mentioned above as a debuff, but the next skill "Grim Focus" gives you +8% damage. I often put this on my "buff bar". What is a "Buff Bar" you ask ... well it's one of your weapons where you put all the skills you activate before and during combat to make you more powerful. Siphoning strikes - never run out of stamina.
Also pay attention to the passive buffs: You want at leas one shadow skill on each bar and as many assasination skills as possible because of the "Pressure Points" passive. And speaking of Crits, you want your Crit % to be as high as possible. A Kajiit noob goal should be about 70% crit chance.
Look at the "Shadow" Passives - Nice survivability if you go with heavy armor, but that will reduce your crit %. So you have to decide durability (heavy armor) vs crit damage (med armor)

Dual Weild - "Whirlwind" is good, but don't forget "Blade Cloak", which deals damage and also protects you from AOE. and "Flurry" for single targets gives you a heal while you deal damage.

My Sam NB has dual wield on both bars. Sometimes I also slot the Fighter's guild "Camoflaged Hunter" and at that point I'm often able to 1-shot kill NPC's from stealth with all the passives that stack up (even before the proc sets came out). Consider grinding your Fighter's GUild skill up to get "Dawnbreaker" for the 5% damage buff.

If you go 2-handed there is "Rally", a very powerfull buff.

Restoration staff - As a Stamina build (assuming you are because of Kajit) - ditch the staff and use Nightblade and weapon skills that give you back health when you cause damage. If you are still having problems use soul strike or veil of blades when you get into trouble. You will want to go into Cyrodil for a few days and get enough AP to get "Vigor" (almost required for a stamina build).

With boss fights as a Nightblade you are probably running into problems with combat that lasts for more than 15 seconds. With these cases you have to back up a bit, re-activate your buffs and drink a stamina potion, then go back in. Shadow cloak is good for this, because it uses Magica to give you some time while your Stamina regenerates. You should be able to apply shadow cloak at least 3 times, which gives you about 8 seconds free of being attacked. Combine this with going behind a pillar or something to get out of the Boss's line of sight while you recover Stamina. Speaking of Stamina regeneration while you are hiding - consider becoming a Werewolf and slotting the Werewolf ultimate on your back/buff bar for the stamina regeneration.

Armor set - go back to Auridon and do Public Dungeon Bossess, Delve Bosses and Dolmens until you get two 5-piece sets. One in Auridon gives you 25% more damage and the other builds your ultimate faster.

Soella

There is no quest bosses with damage check. No quest bosses require set gear. Don't be fooled by such advice. You need to understand boss mechanics and interrupt and roll/dodge when needed. T. I don't remember bosses you mentioned, but google suggestions for specific fights, watch them on youtube.

Level cooking and make blue food - this is only thing you should improve if you have 3 star gear apart from changing rotation and learn mechanics.

Rosveen

Danksta wrote: »

So the problem you're having is most likely due to the fact you're not getting enough bonuses from your set armor.

No, it isn't. Sets are useful, but the content can be done without them, it's not a game-breaker. The problem is that the OP doesn't yet know how to effectively play their chosen class. The color blindness is also a problem, as mobility is quite important in ESO.

As a stamina build, you don't get much out of restoration staff. It can be helpful in a pinch until you get better healing options, but you're not going to be using it for long. You will eventually need to learn to play off both ability bars - you can still use one as your main source of damage, but it's important to keep up buffs and make them a part of your rotation. You think bow doesn't fit your melee abilities, but in reality it complements them very well. Examples:
1) Before you approach a group, you buff up with Grim Focus (as soon as you unlock it), use a defensive buff if necessary, drop Endless Hail on them, then swap bars and move into melee range with Whirlwind. You can also immobilize the mobs first with Bombard, giving you a bonus to dual wield damage via the Ruffian passive.
2) A certain battle is easier fought from range. You buff up, send Shades and keep up Poison Injection while attacking and kiting.

Veil of Blades doesn't only give mitigation, it also does very good damage. It's a brilliant tool in AoE situations or if you need extra defense in a melee boss battle.

As a stamina nightblade, you don't have any solid sources of healing aside from Rally and Vigor, so I second the suggestion to spend a while in Cyrodiil unlocking Vigor. But if you really dislike PvP, you can live without it.
Using food is also an excellent advice.

sillyrobot

Danksta wrote: »

So the problem you're having is most likely due to the fact you're not getting enough bonuses from your set armor. This is probably a common problem for new players because they haven't leveled up their crafting and you're leveling too fast to acquire a 5 piece dropped set close to your level. I would suggest finding someone to craft you some gear, maybe a guildmate if you're in a guild. If you're on PS4/NA I could help you out. If you're having trouble finding a guild in game there's a section on these forums for guild recruiting.

PSN-BacKinTackWarDs

I thought of it, but I'm burning through material tiers pretty quickly. I thought about building myself a Death's Hand set when I found that crafting location, but I wasn't thrilled with the set bonuses and I am leveling Blacksmithing rather than Clothier which means I'd have to build heavy armor when I prefer medium.

sillyrobot

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

It'd also help to have some gear crafted in either Hunding's Rage or Nightmother's Gaze. If you join a trading guild, there's usually a few master crafters who could help you.
Also, have a food buff. If you need some and are NA PC, I can make ya some for free!
Also! For a stamina NB, pour your points into stam, and the food buff will help you with health.

I'm leveling Provisioning and have a few blue drinks available. Food recipes seem more rare or the RNG has struck again, whichever.

My food buffs tend to be catch-as-catch-can right now. I recognize the value of the buff.

sillyrobot

JasonSilverSpring wrote: »

Tell is about your gear including level and quality. When you view character how many stars does it show? With 1T gear is more important than it was before.

As mentioned in the OP, my gear is giving me 3 out of 4 stars. Looking at it more closely, I have 2 purple, 3 blue, and the rest green with the lowest level being 24 and almost all the levels being 28+. Jewelry seems to be the hardest to keep up.

sillyrobot

scorpiodog wrote: »

A few things you are missing:

1) Buffs & debuffs
2) AOEs and DOTs
3) Damage Dealing that heals

1) I see "Mark Target" mentioned above as a debuff, but the next skill "Grim Focus" gives you +8% damage. I often put this on my "buff bar". What is a "Buff Bar" you ask ... well it's one of your weapons where you put all the skills you activate before and during combat to make you more powerful. Siphoning strikes - never run out of stamina.
Also pay attention to the passive buffs: You want at leas one shadow skill on each bar and as many assasination skills as possible because of the "Pressure Points" passive. And speaking of Crits, you want your Crit % to be as high as possible. A Kajiit noob goal should be about 70% crit chance.
Look at the "Shadow" Passives - Nice survivability if you go with heavy armor, but that will reduce your crit %. So you have to decide durability (heavy armor) vs crit damage (med armor)

I can't get Grim Focus for another 11 levels.

My second bar is my utility bar right now. I have no idea how to raise Crit % other than through the Pressure Pointspassive which I've maxed and maybe a set bonus which I don't think I've seen.

Dual Weild - "Whirlwind" is good, but don't forget "Blade Cloak", which deals damage and also protects you from AOE. and "Flurry" for single targets gives you a heal while you deal damage.

I've morphed Flurry into Blood Craze and it's part of my main rotation. I've been looking at Blade Cloak. Currently, almost all my fights are 1-2 opponents and I shut down the second with Agony until I've dealt with the first. The few times I need to face 3 opponents or more they tend to be weak and drop really quickly. One of the quests I can't beat Amronal of Valenwood sees the main opponent both summon weak minions and split into 3 copies of herself so it might do some good there. I get my butt handed to me too quickly for the extra damage to be sufficient in and of itself though.

My Sam NB has dual wield on both bars. Sometimes I also slot the Fighter's guild "Camoflaged Hunter" and at that point I'm often able to 1-shot kill NPC's from stealth with all the passives that stack up (even before the proc sets came out). Consider grinding your Fighter's GUild skill up to get "Dawnbreaker" for the 5% damage buff.

That would be a lot of grinding. I'm at rank 4 with the Fighter's Guild and Dawnbreaker requires 10. Dawnbreaker doesn't list a damage buff; it seems to be a cone attack and DoT. At you thinking of the passive Slayer? The lowest rank provides +1% per Guild ability slotted which would be zero currently.

If you go 2-handed there is "Rally", a very powerfull buff.

Restoration staff - As a Stamina build (assuming you are because of Kajit) - ditch the staff and use Nightblade and weapon skills that give you back health when you cause damage. If you are still having problems use soul strike or veil of blades when you get into trouble. You will want to go into Cyrodil for a few days and get enough AP to get "Vigor" (almost required for a stamina build).

I'm working on the other weapon skills slowly which is why I have a Restoration staff slotted in the second bar -- I'm not using the weapon, but was the lowest ranked as I found exactly zero books that raised the skill in bookshelves. Every other skill has seen some leveling from books. I'll probably slot Bow next as it is now the lowest and I do see the value in a ranged attack.

With boss fights as a Nightblade you are probably running into problems with combat that lasts for more than 15 seconds. With these cases you have to back up a bit, re-activate your buffs and drink a stamina potion, then go back in. Shadow cloak is good for this, because it uses Magica to give you some time while your Stamina regenerates. You should be able to apply shadow cloak at least 3 times, which gives you about 8 seconds free of being attacked. Combine this with going behind a pillar or something to get out of the Boss's line of sight while you recover Stamina. Speaking of Stamina regeneration while you are hiding - consider becoming a Werewolf and slotting the Werewolf ultimate on your back/buff bar for the stamina regeneration.

Stamina exhaustion hasn't been much of a problem. Between Soul Siphoner and a large set of light/heavy attacks in each rotation I typically break even on stamina and magicka during fights. With the advice to use a spammable skill instead of (or in addition to if I understand weaving correctly) a light attack, it may become an issue.

Armor set - go back to Auridon and do Public Dungeon Bossess, Delve Bosses and Dolmens until you get two 5-piece sets. One in Auridon gives you 25% more damage and the other builds your ultimate faster.

My main issue with this is I'm burning through material tiers pretty quickly still. By the time I manage to complete one 5-piece set, I'll probably need to start over -- let alone two. Such gear grinding feels more typical of early end game, no?

Rosveen

sillyrobot wrote: »

I've morphed Flurry into Blood Craze and it's part of my main rotation.

These are two different skills. Blood Craze is morphed Twin Slashes, mainly used as a DoT/HoT. Flurry morphs to Rapid Strikes (increased damage) or Bloodthirst (heal on last strike) - that's the one you can weave. You could also use Veiled Strike from your Shadow class line (morphed to Surprise Attack).

sillyrobot

Soella wrote: »

There is no quest bosses with damage check. No quest bosses require set gear. Don't be fooled by such advice. You need to understand boss mechanics and interrupt and roll/dodge when needed. T. I don't remember bosses you mentioned, but google suggestions for specific fights, watch them on youtube.

Level cooking and make blue food - this is only thing you should improve if you have 3 star gear apart from changing rotation and learn mechanics.

I agree it's probably the rotation/mechanics I am most lacking. I've been resistant to watching others fight since part of my enjoyments comes from doing it myself, but with pretty much all the quest bosses beating me down, I'll go that route if the advice in this thread isn't sufficient. Though, I must say I've learned a lot from the thread so far and I think the advice will help me break through my issue..

Reacting to the world is a bit of a problem since I tend to miss the "react now" signal. Why do all developers choose dim red as a signaling tool? I had the same trouble in The Secret World, my last MMO. Some surfaces I'm OK with, but other areas I can't even see the "interrupt me because I'm casting" red swirl around the opponent.

sillyrobot

Rosveen wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

So the problem you're having is most likely due to the fact you're not getting enough bonuses from your set armor.

No, it isn't. Sets are useful, but the content can be done without them, it's not a game-breaker. The problem is that the OP doesn't yet know how to effectively play their chosen class. The color blindness is also a problem, as mobility is quite important in ESO.

As a stamina build, you don't get much out of restoration staff. It can be helpful in a pinch until you get better healing options, but you're not going to be using it for long. You will eventually need to learn to play off both ability bars - you can still use one as your main source of damage, but it's important to keep up buffs and make them a part of your rotation. You think bow doesn't fit your melee abilities, but in reality it complements them very well. Examples:
1) Before you approach a group, you buff up with Grim Focus (as soon as you unlock it), use a defensive buff if necessary, drop Endless Hail on them, then swap bars and move into melee range with Whirlwind. You can also immobilize the mobs first with Bombard, giving you a bonus to dual wield damage via the Ruffian passive.
2) A certain battle is easier fought from range. You buff up, send Shades and keep up Poison Injection while attacking and kiting.

I don't use the staff, I was just tired of seeing it at rank 1. It's up to 10 now so I'll move a bow and a bow skill to that bar.

Grim Focus and Summon Shade are far away for now. My Shadow rank has been lagging. I've since added both Surprise Attack and Veil of Shadows to my main combat bar so that situation should start to improve.

Veil of Blades doesn't only give mitigation, it also does very good damage. It's a brilliant tool in AoE situations or if you need extra defense in a melee boss battle.

I switched to Veil as my ultimate. Mitigation is probably better than remedy in the battles that are giving me trouble.

As a stamina nightblade, you don't have any solid sources of healing aside from Rally and Vigor, so I second the suggestion to spend a while in Cyrodiil unlocking Vigor. But if you really dislike PvP, you can live without it.
Using food is also an excellent advice.

PvP makes me want to throw up, literally. I have always been terrible at it (as in "fill an average-sized room of people who have never played before; I'll be the worst and barely improve" terrible). I'll give it some thought if all else fails.

I've been training provisioning so it's up to the RNG what recipes and ingredients I find. I have a few blue drink recipes, but no blue foods yet. I tend to eat/drink whatever is in my inventory so I'll make an effort to find useful food.

sillyrobot

Thanks to everyone.

I have a lot to review and work through!

Andohir

I don't know whether ESO supports color blindness or not, but there's a lot of red color in this game, that indicates danger or the focused target.

Imo the most important thing in combat is blocking to avoid status effects like being knocked down or getting dots. Even if you block an otherwise interruptable attack it's much better than doing nothing. To make combat a bit easier for colorblind players, I recommend to activate combat tutorial tooltips to be inserted all the time. If you stay in blocking stance and press the 1-5 keys, after the attack you'll return to block instantly. Though this will suck your stamina away pretty fast. You can block with any weapon.

When you use a single bow attack or the first fighter's guild skill afair you can aggro one mob without aggroing the whole group, even if they are close together.

Use soul siphon as ultimate and oh sh*t emergency self heal, once you're stronger later, you can change the morph at the shrine.

As mundus take the first stone you found in Auridon, that increases your physical defense. Regarding armor equip one heavy piece (chest) and one light piece too to level all three armor types.


I remember there are some pretty tough quests in the Dominion, imo harder than any other faction quests and 1T did not ease them at all, especially the one with the three quest bosses at a dolmen in front of a church one has to fight at the same time (forgot its name and where it exactly was).

Syrani

I bet you anything that I am a worse PVP player than you. I am very very terrible - I last about 1.5 seconds against enemy players. However, I needed vigor on my stam character, so I found a way to get that, even being terrible. I didn't bother getting special PVP armor, or even crafting impen sets - I just used what I had since I knew I couldn't beat other players anyway.

What I did was buy siege equipment from the vendor. I bought a wide variety - some for destroying keep walls and doors, some for repairing keep walls and doors, and some for doing damage to players. When one of my faction's keeps was under attack, I would set siege equipment up on the upper level of the keep, and fire it off at the attacking players. If the attackers ended up getting repelled, I would jump down and repair walls and doors.

When my team went on the offensive, I followed along. When they encountered an enemy group, I would hang at the back and fire off siege weapons at the enemy. When they went to take a keep, I fired siege weapons at the walls and doors. If we took the keep, I then repaired those walls and doors.

It really didn't take all that long to get vigor doing it that way. I am sure people can get it much faster if they are good at PVP, or run with a large group all the time, but it was good enough for me. Once I got it, I deposited all my left over siege equipment into a guild bank and never went back to PVP land.

If you do this, you just have to accept that you will die a lot. It happens, but if you keep at it, you will get vigor, then you can walk out of Cyrodiil and never go back.

Syrani

Oh, one more thing. If you want to use medium armor, you need to start leveling clothing now, and start researching traits right away. Some of the traits will take 30 days to research. You can be researching traits on blacksmithing, woodworking, and clothing at the same time.

Using the proper crafted set will make a big difference in your ability to kill things, to survive better, and to sustain better. You will out level them quickly, so just make a new set every 10 levels or so. It will help you out a lot.

You can look up build ideas here: alcasthq.com

You will need to decide if you want to be magicka based or stamina based - hybrid builds are not very effective, and can cause you to have a hard time.