Advice on character progression strategy

upquark

I've gotten to the point where I'm actually reaching out for help. >.<

ISSUE: weak PVE attack

RACE/CLASS: Dark Elf Dragonknight - solo player
LEVEL: 27
TIME IN GAME: Just over a month
MAGICKA: 15k
HEALTH: 18k
STAMINA: 15+k
ARMOR: 5 heavy/1 med/1 light
WEAPONS: usually either a destruction or restoration staff; prefer staff and bow. Enchanted when I've got the right glyphs
WEAPONS SKILLS: Destructive Staff Active: Force Shock IV, Wall of Elements IV, Destructive Touch IV, Elemental Drain I (I had an ultimate slotted but it no longer appears)
Destructive Staff Passive: Tri Focus, Penetrating Magic, Elemental Force (1/2 on all)

STRATEGY/PROGRESS: Jumped in game and explored for a long time. Took on quests, and just recently ended up abandoning the majority because, even as I leveled, I would go back to what was usually the end game in all major quests and couldn't finish it. Multiple tries with multiple weapon and skills configurations on each. Most of the quests I have completed were because there was another player fighting at the same time.

The current fun one I'm on is "A Bit of Sport" where you're trying to convince the Nords to join an alliance and you have to get drunk and prove your worth by fighting. I have just the Log Roller left and can't defeat them despite probably 20 tries and multiple weapons, enchantment, and skills changes.

QUESTION: is this about normal for my stats, or am I doing something wrong/not doing something I should be?

Thanks.

VaranisArano

So first, there are several quests that are simply a little harder than the rest. If you don't want to overhaul your whole build, I'd suggest:
1. Making sure your gear is close to your level so you get the most benefit from scaling.
2. Make sure you are using a food or drink buff, preferably something for health and whichever resource you use the most, magicka or stamina.
3. If you are running out of resources while fighting, try using light attacks to deal a lot of damage, while saving your resources for heals like Burning Embers or Green Dragon Blood.

If you do want to overhaul your build...

ESO is currently designed for players to use either Magicka or Stamina. Certain weapons and armor benefit from Magicka or Stamina, skills and light attacks hit harder with Magicka or Stamina. Unfortunately, trying to play a hybrid or a tank is not as efficient for questing unless you build for that specifically.

So if you want to mainly use magicka, I'd suggest putting most of your attributes in Magicka, wearing Light Armor and using the Destro Staff. Doing so will make your current Destro Staff skills and light attacks do more damage, while you can heavy attack to regain Magicka.

If you want to mainly use stamina, I'd suggest they most of your attributes go in Stamina, wear medium armor, and use a bow. Bow attacks scale up the more stamina you have and will benefit from medium armor.

Tactics: Here's my basic tactics for questing as a DK if you are struggling with running out of resources.

Spiked Armor for defense. Burning Embers for a self heal. Green Dragon Blood is also a good self heal if you have that unlocked. If Destro Staff: Wall of Elements. If Bow: Endless Hail.

Buff yourself with Spiked Armor. Use your Damage over time skills: Wall/hail + Burning Embers (also a self heal). Then, Light attack to do damage while conserving your resources until you need to refresh your Dots or heal yourself. I like to do a tight circle around the enemy to "kite" them if I'm taking too much damage. If you aren't running out of resources, you can light attack then Force Pulse until you refresh your Dots, or I prefer to spam Burning Embers so I stay healed.

Hope this helps!

SydneyGrey

Much of the damage you do will scale with your maximum magicka, so put all your points into Magicka if you want to be a magicka character. You don't need any points in Health or Stamina. Also, switch to 5 pieces of light armor, with either two heavy pieces, or one heavy and one medium. The light armor gives you a large jump in DPS, and you won't be as unprotected as you think once you get out of that heavy armor. I made the exact same mistakes when I first started playing, and used all heavy armor for quite a long time. Once I was brave enough to switch to 5 pieces of light, my DPS improved a lot. I was afraid it would make me too vulnerable, but it didn't make me as vulnerable as I thought it would.

Bow damage will scale off of your maximum stamina and will be weak with a magicka build, so use either a destruction staff front bar with a restoration staff backbar, or double destruction staves.

This is assuming you want your focus to be on magicka, which is what it seems like to me. It looks like you essentially are trying to play a hybrid magic/stamina character, but those tend to be weak for DPS in this game. To do better damage, you should go either all magicka, or all stamina.

If you want to play a stamina character, go with 5 pieces of medium armor (and 2 heavy, or 1 heavy and 1 light), all attribute points into stamina, and a bow backbar with either a dual wield frontbar, or a 2-hander frontbar. You could also go bow/bow, if you did a bow build.

upquark

@VaranisArano and @SydneyGrey both of you have provided invaluable information for me and I really appreciate it. There's a lot of strategic nuance you've both presented that I never thought about/knew about.

Thanks to both of you. I feel invigorated to jump back in with a ton more tools and knowledge than I had, and I have you to thank for it.

Time to experiment better!

ghastley

One thing the game doesn't tell you that it should, is that a hybrid jack-of-all-trades character is weak. The natural inclination of anyone coming in fresh is to distribute attributes evenly until they know what direction they're going, and that hampers you from the outset. The bars system does at least make you concentrate on one weapon type until you reach level 15, but that's only a couple of evening's play.

The advice to pick stamina or magicka and put everything there needs to come early. Getting a scroll to reassign them as a level-up reward was a great idea, so you can level as a DPS and become a tank or healer when you "graduate".

upquark

@ghastley that's exactly what I did, probably like many others. I'm going to guess the scroll is a level 50 reward, so something to look forward to.

@SydneyGrey and @VaranisArano I went back in game and swapped out the armor I could for light (sold a bunch of light armor not knowing any better) and, everything else being equal with equipped skills and buffs, had noticeably better combat endurance and effectiveness. Just with that one change. Amazing.

Thank you all!

VaranisArano

Glad to hear it!