NOOB needs some solid advice

cabwav

Hi All

I have been playing ESO for three months now and right now I am sorta stuck at CP300: too weak to participate in dungeon runs, not able to survive Cyrodill encounters more than two seconds, and basically no clue how to advance any further.

So I decided to do my homework and started reading forum threads and other stuff on the internet (if all else fails...). I found out that I basically made all the wrong choices regarding initial setup and gear (hence NOOB): I just jumped in, never thinking about "end game goals". I played Skyrim as a Nord so that was easy. Dragonknight because I like knights & dragons. I didn't want to die, so I spent most of my attribute points in health (37), very little in magica (4, "who needs magica") en the rest in stamina (23, "I wanna be able to keep hitting"). Developed the two-handed and bow skills because I like those. Went for heavy armor because I didn't want to die quickly. Searched every skyshard that I could find, and discovered all the sights. Changed my gear every time I found items that according to the stats were better or stronger. Focused on weapons and gear, totally ignoring food, drinks and potions ("who needs those"). Sold every recipe I found to Merchants because I didn't know what to do with it. Reached level 50 and began earning CPs. Spent them all over the place on every skill I thought would be benificial (but not REALLY knowing what these skills do). Switched to inferno staff because I kept dying in close range fights.

Reading the forums taught me that I DO need food and potions so I developed those skills. Because I read somewhere that it was better to focus on one or two things I already did a "constellation respec" and that improved things slightly. But I still die a lot. I can handle three to five enemies if they don't swarm me too much, but no way can I singlehandedly kill real world bosses and do dolmens as I see other people with level 15 do. Or kill 10 enemies in two sweeps.

So at the moment I guess I'm doing OK, but I suspect that I could do better. So what is the secret? Better gear? Then I have to do dungeons, but nobody wants to put up with a 300CP noob. And even then, which gear should I go for? When I read the forums I get confused because there are so many variables. Advice from one person seems to contradict the advice from someone else ("go for heavy impenetrable" versus "go for medium divines" or "5-1-1"). Also, advice seems to get "outdated" with every game update. At the moment, my bank & inventory are loaded with named gear that I would like to deconstruct to make space, but then I might destroy gear that would be better as a set (currently still wearing the "as high as possible spec" heavy set).

At this time I am thinking "craftable sets" because it seems to take forever to assemble a complete (dropped) set: bosses don't drop the items they are supposed to drop, or the traits are wrong etc. But then I hesitate to "try out" these "craftable" sets because I might spend my gold kutas, rosins and tempering alloys on the "wrong" set.

So my question is: can anybody give me some good pointers to improve my gear and general setup? I would very much like to:
- keep my Nord Dragonknight because I'd rather not spend the time to develop a new character from scratch (but I would if that was the only way)
- be able to survive in PvP combat long enough to at least hit back a couple of times
- do some real damage to mobs, underground en real world bosses, for solo play but also as a valuable addition to a group
- be better in close combat (I really like to get in the fight and brawl, rather than throwing stuff from a distance)
- do as much damage as possible, and at the same time being able to take some heavy hits (that's a tank I presume)

ANY advice is much appreciated!

Thanks in advance

https://flickr.com/photos/24275659@N08/25018400138/in/dateposted-public/

Turelus

To me the options you have are.

Nord Stamina DPS
Not as strong or sustaining as other races but with the right gear and skills will work.
Medium armour with 2H sword, Dual Weild, Bow as weapon choices, stamina morphs on skills.
Can PvE or PvP well enough but won't be "most optimal"

Nord Health Tank
Won't have DPS to solo content (world bosses) but will be great for group content.
Doesn't have much to do in PvP Cyrodiil solo, but can be great for battlegrounds tanking and group support in Cyrodiil.

You should not CP doesn't matter as much as gear/skills/knowledge. Watch and read more from various sources.

For builds you can check AlcastHQ (trials focused PvE mostly), Woeler (tanking builds), Deltia (various builds) or Tamriel Foundry forums (lots of min/max discussions). All of these should come up is hits on Google, some are link in my signature below.

You can also check YouTube for guides on various mechanics such as how damage scales, how to animation cancel etc.

If you have questions feel free to ask as people here can give you plenty more info. Also be aware above advice is only my personal opinions.

VaranisArano

PVP Advice: Read Joy_Division's guide: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/360956/joy-s-advice-for-midyear-mayhem-event/p1

She gives a super helpful guide to the basics of being effective in PVP. Then, you'l have to practice. I strongly recommend hanging out with a group or a "zerg" in the beginning. Its hard to learn anything about PVP when you die super quick, so hanging out with a group and being tankier than you might normally be is a good way to survive long enough to learn what works and what doesn't.

It take a lot of practice and a lot of deaths. That's okay! The learning curve is pretty steep in PVP and the only way to work on that is to experience it.

flailsmash

I had the same issues at first. I'm no PvP champ but I can survive a bit now after many try's and many fails. As a tank with nothing but health it's going to be able to do any meaningful heavy damage. I have 2 tank that can take a hit but I think sometimes they slap fight cause they don't do any meaningful damage. That said, I've seen some heavy damage done with nightblades and sorcs. I would suggest build a new toon to match the style you want and commit point to stamina so you can do sustained damage. The PvP portion takes a lot of practice. It's good if you have a guildmate that can show you the ropes and kind of walk you through that style of play. There are a few different build types for Dragon Knights so don't lose hope. I would suggest downloading "ESO database" app. It really helps when it comes to builds. For one of my tanks I used 5 fortified brass from clock and 5 Thunder bug. the last 3 are accessories. that will proc AoE while being hit which is a nice effect to add to your damage base if your tank slap fights like mine. Also, as a tank you want the ability to keep the bad guys focused on you. For that I use "Pierce Armor". Wish I had more time to respond to this but I hope what I did say helps a bit. Good luck man. There's also ESO pages on facebook you should get into if you haven't already. Take it easy and enjoy the ride.

Nestor

cabwav wrote: »

Hi All

At this time I am thinking "craftable sets" because it seems to take forever to assemble a complete (dropped) set: bosses don't drop the items they are supposed to drop, or the traits are wrong etc. But then I hesitate to "try out" these "craftable" sets because I might spend my gold kutas, rosins and tempering alloys on the "wrong" set.

The difference between Purple and Gold armor is depressingly small, weapons, it is worthwhile to improve to Gold. But, you can try out Purple set drops until you see if they offer benefit, then improve them if you want. Also, a Hundings or Julianos set is good for anyone doing Stamina or Magic respectively.

Dungeons are not the only source of good gear, zones can be just as good. Gear drops from Delves, World Bosses and Dolmens. Only WBs are not soloable for the most part.

JKorr

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Morkuldin

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Hunding's_Rage

I don't pvp or run trials for the monster sets. I am, however, having fun with Morkuldin's and Hundings, and Morkuldin's and Night Mother's Gaze on my stamina dk and stamina nb, respectively. I golded the weapons, but not all the armor as yet for the two. Blue health/stamina food works wonders, and weapon crit and increase weapon power potions are handy to have as well.

Join a guild; there are many out there with people willing to help with builds, help with learning mechanics, as well as crafting. Some crafters will make gear for guildmates for a reduced cost, or free if you provide the mats.

You can respect both skills and attributes, and reassign your cp points, too. The only things that seem to be non-negotiable are the faction you chose and your class.

Magdalina

Gear is only part of the equation, and besides, you absolutely don't need to run dungeons to get decent gear, you can just craft it or have someone craft for you If you're on PC I can probably craft you something fairly decent for free....wait seems you're on PC EU...I'm a pretty potato crafter there but still might be able to get something done(with mats provided) if needed.

Basically you just kind of need to choose what it is you wanna do. Your stam costing skills are being buffed by your max stamina, weapon damage, weapon crit and physical penetration. Your magicka costing skills are being buffed by your max magicka, spell damage, spell crit and spell penetration. Splitting between the 2 is generally suboptimal unless you're a tank whose main concern is utility/support rather than damage.

As been mentioned above you could be a stam dps, a tank or even a magicka dps. Nord may be suboptimal for dps but it's not like you'd be pulling 3 times less than optimal races or something, it's Idk maybe 5-10% difference at most.

Magicka dragonknights are also kind of melee fighters because most all their skills have melee range. To go that route you'd need 5-7 pieces light armor(crafted sets like Julianos or Seducer for sustain would be a good option, with Willpower for cheap jewelry), double staves, all/most your points into magicka, food buffing your health and mag(and maybe mag recovery), all the magicka costing skills on your bar etc. In this case your main surviveability would come from Annulment - light armor active skills, a damage shield scaling with your max magicka.

Stamina dragonknights are very strong now afaik, for that you'd want 5-7 pieces medium armor(crafted sets like Hunding's Rage/Night Mother's Gaze with Agility for cheap jewelry), bow/DW/2h for weapons, all/most points into stamina, food buffing your health and stamina(+stam recovery), stamina costing skills on your bar etc. In this case your surviveability would ideally come from the stamina heal called Vigor from the Alliance War skilltree, though you could also use the 2h heal and even profit from Dragonblood.

Dragonknight tanks are absolutely the best and Nords are actually a solid choice for that. Granted, tank is more of a group role(one highly in demand too) so for open world you'd either be going very very slowly or want to carry backup dps gear or something(you would never die in open world though). Tanking is a little bit more versatile than other roles but you'd generally want 5-7 pieces heavy armor, s&b on at least one bar, 25k+ health with food and all those wonderful DK tanking skills on your bar such as chains(great for pulling ranged ads in), talons(great for keeping mob packs in place) etc. In this case you'd be using Dragonblood a lot and generally be very sturdy.

You can try everything if you want, just don't bother golding out gear until you're sure that's what you really want. Besides, only thing that's really worth golding out is cp 160 weapons. You can use guides like those at alcasthq.com for more detailed guides+rotations instructions.

Nestor

cabwav wrote: »

I guess my preferred build would be stamDK DPS, so this is going to be my 'to do' list:
- respec for more stam and less health
- armor 5-7 pieces medium armor (crafted sets like Hunding's Rage/Night Mother's Gaze with Agility for cheap jewelry)
- weapons bow/DW/2h, meaning that I have to develop DW (already have 2H and bow maxed).
- join guild
- download ESO database app
- develop Vigor from the Alliance War skilltree (but I'm afraid that will take a while...)

You can level a skill line by just equipping the skills on your main bar, but still use your current weapon and skills. As we all know, for most trash mob fights, you need a 2 skill rotation for that, so that means you can load your other 3 slots with the new weapon skills and that will level that up. Especially if you find a nice grind spot somewhere.

Don't be afraid of the Training Trait on gear while you are below the cap. Even 2 or 3 pieces can have a big impact on your leveling of skills.

Siphoning Strikes from the DW line can keep you in Health if your paying attention until you get Vigor. There are ways to PvP without sticking your neck out too far to gain AP to get Vigor.

As far Attributes, you really need to go all in on Stamina in your case if you want to play a Stamina character.

Here is a good leveling guide if you decide to level another class, as once that character reaches L50, they are Champ Ranked too, and they can use the Champ Points you have already earned as soon as you roll them. This will take you about 20 to 30 hours but you will have a character with 120 to 150 skill points when you are done, and that is something you can work with. Of course you can follow a dolmen zerg around and level to 50 in about 6 hours, but guess what? You still have to get Skyshards and Lore Books etc, so your going to spend the time anyway.


Leveling

1. I collected all the Skyshards in the zone. I avoided any and all quests other than those that show up in the delves that have skyshards. These quests do not give set items for rewards so no loss there.
2. I would farm the dolmens a few times to get set jewelry that helped my character
3. I would do the Public Dungeons including all the bosses
4. Then I would move to the next zone.

In doing this, I could fully gear up my character with level appropriate stuff, and it was helpful gear. May not have been the best, but you don't need the best while leveling. Any gear I farmed from Dolmens or PD's is repeatable, so I can get it at CP160 by just repeating. Then, I had all the content quests left for me once I reached CP160 as those can give you sweet Set Drops in good traits you want. And, Quest Experience is huge for gaining CPs once your past CP160. Kind of a waste before that.

In about 8 zones, I would be fully leveled in Mages, Fighters, Class, 3 Armors and Weapon Skills. Leaving only Undaunted to level, although I would get to almost 3 in that from Dungeon Achievements.For most efficient Lore Book collecting, stick to one Alliance's zones for the first 5, then farm other zones.

Combat Basics

Combat in this game comes down to Skill Rotations, with Light or Heavy Attacks interspersed. So, it's more like 1,2,3,4,1,2,3 dead. Pick your skill rotations so that one skill will set up or buff another skill. For example, use a skill that Snares, then a skill that gives Damage over Time to an area so the snared mobs spend longer in pain, then use a spam damage skill. This is just one example.

Once you learn a good rotation, then you can weave in light or heavy attacks between the skills to extend the resource pool you play from. So it's more like 1, LMB, 2, LMB,3, LMB, 4, LMB, 1 Dead. Then once you learn how to weave attacks, then you can start animation canceling to up your DPS.

So, attacks are not just a spam of the Left Mouse Button, but an application of your skills and weapon attacks.

You add in Blocking (reduce damage), Bashing (interrupting a caster or heavy attack wind up), Dodge Rolling (double click on a WASD key to avoid damage and get out of red quickly). Throw in some terrain advantage, and your basically a Mobile, Agile and Hostile wrecking machine.

Magdalina

cabwav wrote: »

@Magdalina : I'd like to take you up on your offer if you don't mind. I would be grateful if you could help with the gear. I still have a lot of researching to do... Please let me know what materials you would need and how this would work.

Again, thank you all very much for the feedback!

Damn. I'm afraid I can't help you with stam gear My main is on NA so I don't have all of the research on EU yet, my light and heavy armors are mostly done but medium is barely started. Sorry.

Perhaps someone else here can help you, or if you join a friendly guild you could just ask in guildchat. If you provide mats a lot of people craft for free. Otherwise you can hire a random crafter in zone but they'll likely want a tip.

In the meanwhile this is Alcast's stamknight guide, I don't have much experience with stamina as a whole but his guides are usually more than decent. Scroll down to beginner gear section for gear and notice the skills/rotation layout. Do keep in mind though that's endgame group content oriented guide so you'll probably end up changing a few things here and there for better solo surviveability/sustain etc, but the basic idea should be good.

Good luck!:)

cabwav

Thank you all for your valuable advice! That's a lot more reactions than I hoped for...

Eye-openers:
- blue or purple gear is good enough
- CP doesn't matter as much as gear/skills/knowledge

I guess my preferred build would be stamDK DPS, so this is going to be my 'to do' list:
- respec for more stam and less health
- armor 5-7 pieces medium armor (crafted sets like Hunding's Rage/Night Mother's Gaze with Agility for cheap jewelry)
- weapons bow/DW/2h, meaning that I have to develop DW (already have 2H and bow maxed).
- join guild
- download ESO database app
- develop Vigor from the Alliance War skilltree (but I'm afraid that will take a while...)

Please feel free to comment or add to this list.

@Turelus : I have visited the sites that you mentioned, but that is what I meant by "confusing" and "seem to contradict". But thanks anyway!

@Magdalina : I'd like to take you up on your offer if you don't mind. I would be grateful if you could help with the gear. I still have a lot of researching to do... Please let me know what materials you would need and how this would work.

Again, thank you all very much for the feedback!