A.

WhiteScythe

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Nestor

The new game is called One Tamriel which means you can go to any zone and start questing. You can do them in any order but the original alliance stories are still there so some order makes sense if you care about the story.

Don't get rid of your L50, as you can earn Champ Points on them, and all characters use Champ Points, even L3 scrubs. You can change appearance and race now, so you can fix them.

All zones drop nice sets for magic or stamina or tanking. So, gear is easier to get now a days, without outleveling it before you can use it.

If you want to avoid the questing but still build a well rounded useful character in a short amount of time, see the following guide. Little questing so you can go back and do the stories if you want later

Let me give you an example of what I did with my last two leveling characters.

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.

WhiteScythe

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Loc2262

Alcast's page is one of the default go-to places for builds. https://alcasthq.com/

Veteran Ranks are no more. You get "champion points" now once you reach level 50 that unlock additional passive skills. Like Nestor said, those CP are account-wide and shared among all chars, no more grinding up each char to VRsomething.

You don't "need" to do any quests really. Do as many or as few as you like. It's recommended to do the main quest while leveling up since it gives you nice XP and skill points. If you like story and lore, you can do faction quests or guilds or DLC (Thieves/Dark Brotherhood/Orsinium/Morrowind) if you like.