Best Way to Manage Gearsets, Accessories & Weapons Early On

Niko1987

I'm still a fairly green player (level 22 - Dragonknight), and I'm noticing my damage taken/given isn't all that great sometimes. But it tends to fluctuate of course.
I figured since I'm still under 50 I can splurge on gear or craft it, enchant it, slot it, etc, or use what I get from Questlines on the path to 50.

Is there an ideal scenario for building a better DK or a better way to maximize my overall character in the early stages of leveling? Thanks!

CubanRay

I did get around that level with DK ,then I realized how hard sustain is and erased.Not the best class to start to be honest,I'm new too 1 month ,recommend Templar or Nightblade,they have been the easiest by far.
Gear wise,I think is useless to grind at this level. Anyway
Resource cost reduction is good
Max magic or stamina depending of your character.
Food for max health stamina/magic.

davey1107

Is your DK stam or magic? I'll give tips that apply to either, but maybe update your signature to specify because it helps see that when we write advice. Sometimes it's an easy guess, but Nords work well as either.

Damage is going to be your primary concern / handicap as a DK. Honestly, they're probably the hardest class to make your first character...although they are not a bad class at all. (Why are they easier if they're not your first toon? Usually players get to vet and earn a bunch of Champion Points, which are account bound and apply to all characters. So when I rolled my first DK she was a level 6 with 500+ CPs...that REALLY helps with dps.)

But...for your dragon knight and damage, some general tips:

1. While sorcs are all about keeping wards up, DKs need to learn to keep damage buffs up. You increase your damage by 20% if you have major brutality (stam) or major prophecy (mag). There are several abilities that offer this. You'll probably start with igneous weapons (it gives both). Many stam DKs eventually move to Rally (2h ability), which offers brutality plus heals. Keeping up these buffs is what being a good DK is all about...learning to slot these on the back bar, and cast them every 30 seconds while fighting. Critical hit buffs are also important. Major prophecy/savagery ups your crit strike chance by about 15%. This is roughly worth 7.5% more dps...not bad. As a DK, you get both with Flames of Oblivion on your bar. You don't even need to cast it...you just need it on your bar. Lava whip also offers some damage boosts.

The bottom line is that you probably don't have access to all the buffs yet, but as you learn the character make sure to read your skill and ability tooltips (or read online build advice) to equip your bar in a way that maxes your damage potential.

2. In One Tamriel, your resistance and damage will plummet the more outleveled you are to your armor. For example, say you're wearing level 20 gear and you're a level 22. This is okay, but if you're still wearing that gear when you're a level 30 you will be squishier and putting out way less damage. That's the cost of the new One Tam mechanics. For vet accounts with CPs, I recommend replacing armor every 10 levels. For you without CPs...if you can afford it, replace every 5-6 levels. Green quality is fine...maybe blue after level 40. But wearing way underlevel gear will make your toon stink.

3. Don't underestimate armor sets. Your character has 11-12 slots (7 armor, 3 jewelry, 1-2 weapons). On my sword and board DK, they wear two complete 5-piece sets and two monster helm items. That's 7 moderate buffs and 3 major buffs. Sets are very, very powerful - these buffs probably represent 1/3rd of their total power. At a low level, you don't have to maximize like this, but you should try to wear one complete craft set, then maybe play dolmens and get a jewelry set. At level 22, you're about right for your first set. Gather the mats and ask someone (guild or zone chat) if they'll make you 5 piece Hundings Rage (stam) or Julianos (Mag). These are dps sets...they will help. These are my go-to sets for grinding any toon up to champ. If you want to be even stronger, there are powerful drop sets in One Tamriel and you can pretty easily get a second set to add you your hund/Julianos. Look up a list of drop sets, choose one (you want one that drops in an overland zone, and one that adds max stam/mag and helps with damage), then grind dolmens, delves and world bosses until you have five pieces. See if Alik'r has a set that works for you...the dolmen zergs will help you get your jewelry in like an hour, lol. Or Bangkorai. Some ideas: seventh legion from bangkoria, spring and from bangkorai or sword singer from alik'r. These aren't particularly awesome...it's just that people Zerg the dolmens in these zones, so you can get your gear quickly by running with the Zerg.

4. Enchant your gear. Your damage is a factor of your max stam/magic, plus your weapon damage / spell power. You are a Nord DK, you don't need no stinking health, lol. Your armor should all be add max stam or magic. Your jewelry can be stam/mag recovery, but if you're good with resources you might want to re-enchant jewelry to weapon/spell dmg. On my two vet DKs, they need damage enchants on all three jewelry pieces. At low level, white/green glyphs are fine...don't spend a fortune on this, but do enchant your gear.

5. Oh yeah...diversify your armor type. Heavy armor makes you tankier, medium increases stam damage and regen, and light increases mag damage and regen. Wearing the right weights and turning on the right passives is helpful. If you're a stam build, you need to level heavy and medium. Heavy and light if you're magic. Armor weight buffs come in two varieties, either a buff per piece, or a big buff for wearing five of that weight. For this reason, many, many end game builds are a 5/2 variety. For DKs: 5 heavy, two medium - stam tank. 5 medium, 2 heavy - tanky dps. 5 heavy, 2 light - mag tank. 5 light, 2 heavy - very sustainable mag dps.

If your medium or light skill line level is way behind, get some training gear so it can catch up and you can start activating passives. These will help. If your end game goal is to be a tank, then you're ultimately going to wear 5 heavy...maybe even 6 or 7 heavy. HOWEVER, overland content is not that hard, doesn't require tanking, and you're pretty sturdy as a Nord anyway. When the content isn't killing you, you might play in 5 medium (stam) or 5 light (mag). In fact, once you've leveled heavy you can probably wear 7 medium/light and survive just fine. Either way, as you activate passives, this will really up your damage. Rough ballpark...wearing 5 med or light increases your damage output by about 20%.


Hopefully this helps. If you have any questions on this deluge of random tips, reply but include @davey1107. That'll ding my account with notice of the post.

Niko1987

@davey1107 Your response was fantastic! I've saved it for later referencing. A lot of what you've mentioned I didn't even know about.

1.) I'm looking to maximize Stamina and I also added that to my sig. I'm afraid to admit that I don't have any buffs on my bar. I suppose because my mindset has it where Physical attacks do damage. But in seeing how you broke things down, I'll go back and reevaluate my bars and see what I can switch up.

Now, I have the 2nd bar via Add-On. So, my bar looks like this:
Add-On Bar | Main Action Bar

I have potions and food on the Add-On bar. Will placing Buffs here work? Or does this bar not work the same way as the Main Action bar? Oh, if it helps, these are the Add-Ons I have: Azurah - Interface Enhanced and AUI - Advanced UI.

2.) As far as gear-sets, enchantments, etc., I do pay attention to when my sets need to be repaired and/or upgraded. I either craft them myself if I don't have drops that are sufficient enough or wear something a level behind and hit quests until I find something to replace them. I do find it difficult to find gear for my level as most either don't have the stats I'd like or are just out of reach (i.e.- a level or two above mine) Most of my gear currently are from different sets and Blue.

3.) I have never heard of Hunding Rage gear, but I will definitely look into asking some guildies to craft some for me. I try to find good gear-drops whenever I'm out and about. I haven't done many dungeons (Maybe 2-3 of them) and last night was the first time I did a Dolmen Grind. I know you mentioned locations make a difference in set drops, is there somewhere online for a resource I can use to find the best spots? I actually haven't been to Alik'r yet... I heard they have good Dolmens, but have yet to find the person for the quest.

On a side note, one of my guilds announced a Sky Shard Hunting trip in Cyrodill soon and that they'd help anyone who needed tips or guidance. I haven't even been to Cyrodill... u.u Furthest I've gotten so far main quest-wise is Tharn Speaks? Or something... the quest takes me to the Auridon area. (This is where I was grinding last night and got some pretty good gear/accessories.)

4.) I have been enchanting gear myself this far for the most part. Does it make a difference if someone who say, for example, is a Master Enchanter does it instead? I have yet to ask my guildies to craft/enchant for me as I'm trying to do that myself for the time being to better understand it and level my proclivities. I have lots of Glyphs (White, Green, Blue so far) and make sure to keep the ones I want to enchant.

Also, I've recently found out that deconning gear that I don't need, raises trade level. (Previously, I've always just sold off gear or put them in the bank for my other toons.) I got to Blacksmith 6 finally after deconning a lot of scrub gear I had from another toon that I don't use and gear from when I first started. Someone I recently traded with alluded to me that trading gear that we craft and no longer use to another player and THEN deconn actually adds more experience. I haven't done this yet either, but if true, I have a lot of gear to trade off.

5.) I've never thought about mixing gear-sets! I've always just went with Heavy Armor all the way. Knowing this, I'll go back and switch things around and see what works best according to your templates that I can follow. Do you have any recommended Medium armor sets or pieces that would benefit me? Or a good resource that I can go over?

You said this:

Why are they easier if they're not your first toon? Usually players get to vet and earn a bunch of Champion Points, which are account bound and apply to all characters. So when I rolled my first DK she was a level 6 with 500+ CPs...that REALLY helps with dps.

What do you mean when you say 'roll your first DK?' Do you mean that after reaching 50 and obtaining Champion Points, any other toon I may create will start with CP?

I guess the way I read it, I was thinking about FFXIV, where once you hit 50, any other toon on your account got an increased percentage of experience. Is this how ESO works or what you meant?


Thanks for your suggestions!

davey1107

1. When people talk about two "bars" we mean your two weapon bars that you can switch between. I wasn't sure if you're talking about the same thing with "add on bar". You might be thinking of the quick slot wheel, where you put potions. So, let's back up a step.

You have two weapon bars...like you can equip dual wield, then switch over to a two handed sword. You can put different abilities on these bars. Most experienced players usually set these up as an "attack" bar and a "retreat" or "back" bar. The attack bar is where they do most of their fighting, then the back bar is for things like buffs, or heals, or secondary abilities. (Although you can definitely put attacks on both, and how you manage your bars is up to you. ESO is about flexibility).

So, an example for your specific character (although you may not yet have these skills). A stam DK might use a 2h sword on their back bar...very popular choice. On this bar you can slot either igneous weapons or rally (a 2h skill). Either of them offers major brutality for about 30 seconds. Major brutality increases weapons damage by 20%. So, to keep dps maximized, a stam DK will want to learn to switch over to their back bar every 30 seconds and recast this ability. That's what I mean by "buffs". At lvl 22 you don't need to obsess over stuff like this, utmof you're wanting to hit harder this is the first way to do that.

2. Crafting your own gear is awesome...you'll learn a lot by doing that. Don't feel you have to make new items every level, lol, but keep it within like 5-6 levels. So when you're level 30, wearing a range of 24-30 level gear is fine. And the only reason to replace it is if you feel weak and squishy. If not, feel free to wear it longer.

3. Big tip: join a large guild. You can free fast travel to any online member. They don't even know when you do...just go into social...guilds...roster, find someone online (they're highlighted as online, and it says where they are) in an area you haven't opened and click on them, then choose "travel to". No cost, poof, open wayshrines. Or do it the old fashioned way and explore...up,to you. On my first toon I wanted to explore on foot. Now I use the guilds to open shrines for new characters.

So...set drops. After One Tam, there are a bazillion sets that drop. Each zone has three sets that drop in the overland areas, a magic set, stam set and health (tank) set. Jewelry for these sets drops in dolmen chests. World bosses drop certain pieces. Delve bosses drop others. And yes, thankfully there's a list:

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Sets

At your level, it doesn't really matter which set you look for...you just want a complete set of something to give you a boost. So, for example, Twin Sisters drops in Auridon. Hey...that's a good set for a tank. And auridon is busy, so there's people at the dolmens. Let's say you decide to try to collect it...let's hit the road. First, you want to get the jewelry. That drops at dolmens. So run Auridon dolmens over and over until you get two Twin Sisters rings and a necklace. It might take closing 10-15 auridon dolmens. No worries...it's good xp. Once you have jewelry, go do delves and kill bosses for two more pieces. Anything you pick up will be your level...that's the great new thing about these sets.

Once you have five pieces of Twin Sisters, or whatever, you can then go fill in the rest of your armor with a craft set. If you get a Twin sister chest and boots to go with your jewelry, have someone make Hundings Rage helmet, pants, shoulders, gloves and a sword...or,whatever...so that you get all the buffs of the five pieces of Twin Sisters and all five from Hundings. You'll be super strong. (For five levels...then you can replace).

Note - if you don't want to collect drop sets, you don't have to. It's a fun way to explore and level, and it gives you objectives. But You could just have someone craft five pieces of a stam set, then four pieces of another craft set. When I grind a tank, I wear five hundings rage and five song of the lamae:

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Set+Bonus+Crafting+Locations

Whatever you decide, the point is to start wearing more complete sets because they're very powerful. At level 25 it's not imperative that you focus on gear, but if you want to learn the game's mechanics this is a good time to start.

Cyrodiil: this is a pvp zone, so other players can and will kill you, lol. It's also huge. A sky shard hunt with experienced players is a great way to learn some cyrodiil basics and explore.

4. There's no benefit to having others make glyphs for your gear. If you're a level 22 newbie and you understand how to craft a glyph for your chest piece, that's awesome...you're ahead of the curve. The only reason you might need others to craft is if you need stronger glyphs than you can make. This might happen...enchanting is a slooooow grind. So you might hit level 40 and find you can only craft up to 30, so you wind up needing help. For now, just follow a few general enchanting tips:
- deconstruct most everything you find in the world to level the enchanting line.
- Don't create and decon your own glyphs to try to level, this awards 1/20th the xp and is a waste.
- If you get super eager to level enchanting, trading glyphs you make for ones someone else makes and tearing those apart is great Xp.
- Don't try to grind enchanting super fast or you'll get pissed, lol. It takes many, many, MANY deconstructions.

Gear deconstructing: this is how you level wood, cloth and smith. Gear other players make is better xp...yes...but honestly, you can go run some delves and come back with 50 junk pieces, so mostmlevel this way. Deconstruct everything you pick up when adventuring, and you'll get to 50 in these lines pretty fast. But don't rush grind these lines, either. Your toon is picking up level 22 gear. When he's level 40, it'll be level 40 gear, and worth more xp to Decon. So no need to spend hours and hours finding level 22 gear to rush your smithing to 50. If you tear apart all the junk your first character gets...given you'll probably explore more on him...you'll get to 50 in the trade skills around the time you're characters main level is near 50.

Tip: daily quests called writs in all six trade skills are available. Go to the mage and fight guild in your starter city and you can get trained to start doing these. Like a "cloth writ" is a daily quest that says like "make 2 maple bows and 2 maple shields". You craft this, turn them in and get xp, gold and a reward box. High level writs offer very good rewards. They aren't essential...if they're boring to you skip them...but if you want to learn crafting they're a good option.

5. Gear sets and weights. Yes, you can mix sets and you can mix weights. So by mixing sets I mean that sets in the game offer buffs for up to five pieces. Your character has 12 slots. So you can wear more than one set, getting even more buffs.

Armor weight it different. You balance this based on how tanky you want to be. The more heavy, the tankier you are. Replacing some pieces with medium armor will make you hit harder. For a Nord DK, there are times you want to tank up, but try out wearing 5 medium and 2 heavy and see how it goes (after you open some medium armor passives). This will make you hit waaaaaaaay harder, and makes DKs less dull.

ESO Academy might be a good site to start at. They have guides.

6. Champion points: sorry for the advanced player slang, lol. So...once your character hits vet (level 50), they open the champion point system. DO NOT try to learn this now. It will be a confusing mess to you, lol. All you need to know is that vet characters earn champion points as they earn xp, which are like "mini skill points". You get to choose what to spend them on in the champion point tree...tiny buffs like increasing stam recovery by 0.3%. But as you get hundreds of champion points these tiny buffs add up and make a big difference.

You inferred correctly - champion points are ACCOUNT bound. So if your account has 200 champion points, you get to allocate 200 PER CHARACTER, even non-vet characters. My account is at the max - 561 champion points. So if I create a new, level 3 character today, they get to allocate and use 561 champion points. This makes them about five times stronger, so if you see characters lower level than you kicking butt, this is probably why.

Niko1987

@davey1107

Thanks so much for your very detailed breakdowns of everything. I'll probably read up on the l links you gave me so I can play later tonight.

davey1107

You're welcome!

FYI, when in doubt, or if frustrated by complex game systems...just play how you want. My tips are long and complicated. They'll help you maximize your time. But there are few "musts" in ESO, and no way to screw up anything permanently. So there's no pressure to learn this stuff. (Although if you're a FF player, you probably will stress and obsess, lol).

WillhelmBlack

Put your points into only one attribute. Stamina or Magicka. When you have decided what you want to be just collect armour along the way that boosts your type of damage. When you get gear of a higher level, unequip the old stuff and research it at a crafting station.

Don't worry about set pieces til you're CP160, like I said just make sure it's of decent enough level and quality. Blue armour, as long as it is of the correct type (compliments your attributes) is sufficient. Try to get purple weapons.