Newb questions on skills, crafting and gear

Araneae6537

Hello! I just started ESO this past week, had to finally try the game when I learned I could visit Morrowind (my first RPG)! I’ve made a templar, sorcerer and nightblade and enjoy all three and will try to level them together (in part because I enjoy it but also because they can swap armor and other gear drops). I have some general questions on skill progression and gear:

1) Is there a cap on overall skill levels or a point (level 50?) when I will no longer be able to level skills? Or could I get every skill line available to a character to max level?

2) Related to the first question, is there a reason that I should level skill lines that I don’t intend to use? Should I put at least one skill point in all three class abilities? Should I mix armor types while leveling to advance my skill in two weights? If I know I want that character to wear light armor, for instance, is there any benefit to also leveling medium? Or would I progress light faster by wearing all light armor?

3) What penalties are there for wearing heavier armor? I would assume from previous experience penalties to spell-casting, stealth and perhaps stamina, but I haven’t seen any indication of this in game.

4) Considering the low low price one gets from merchants for most gear, should I be deconstructing most everything I don’t need?

On an unrelated note, does joining a fight affect the other player’s XP or loot drops? My impulse is to help but I certainly don’t want to be a leech if it in any way works that way.

Thank you for reading this and any guidance you can provide is much appreciated!

Starlock

1) Is there a cap on overall skill levels or a point (level 50?) when I will no longer be able to level skills? Or could I get every skill line available to a character to max level?

ESO is very flexible on letting you design your characters. Provided you earn the experience needed to rank up a skill or a skill line, you can level as many of them as you want. Not all skill lines level in the same way. Crafting, for example, is leveled using an experience type called "inspiration" that is only earned by crafting items, deconstructing items, or doing daily crafting quests. For combat skills, you generally need to have a skill from that skill line active on your bar for it to level and earn experience from monsters/quests to level it up.

2.1) Related to the first question, is there a reason that I should level skill lines that I don’t intend to use? Should I put at least one skill point in all three class abilities?

It's really up to you and how you want to design your character or what your gameplay priorities are. For folks like me that focus on character design and RP, it's pretty normal to not put skill points in things that would be out-of-character. If you aim to get into the competitive gaming scene, however, you'll probably want to have access to everything for different situations.

2.2) Should I mix armor types while leveling to advance my skill in two weights? If I know I want that character to wear light armor, for instance, is there any benefit to also leveling medium? Or would I progress light faster by wearing all light armor?

This is another one that's really up to you. Most of my characters use 5-pieces of medium or light depending on whether they are stamina-focused or magicka-focused and then 2-pieces of heavy for the added defense. As such, when I leveled them, I had multiple armor types equipped and they leveled up together. The more pieces of that type you have equipped, the faster it will level up.

3) What penalties are there for wearing heavier armor? I would assume from previous experience penalties to spell-casting, stealth and perhaps stamina, but I haven’t seen any indication of this in game.

There really aren't any. What you'll want to look at is what the passives do for each armor type. Basically, by giving up 7-pc light armor for 5-pc light and 2-pc heavy, you are giving up 2-pc worth of bonuses from the passives of light armor in exchange for gaining the 2-pic worth of bonuses for heavy armor. Whether or not that's worth it to you depends on your character design and what you do in the game.

4) Considering the low low price one gets from merchants for most gear, should I be deconstructing most everything I don’t need?

It depends. How much, if at all, do you plan to use the crafting system? Deconstructing blue gear and above is useful for obtaining materials for crafting, but whites (other than intricate gear, which level crafting skill faster when deconstructed) are something I always sell. Some set gear, though, you might want to keep or trade to other players.

On an unrelated note, does joining a fight affect the other player’s XP or loot drops? My impulse is to help but I certainly don’t want to be a leech if it in any way works that way.

It doesn't. Well, it doesn't so long as they've gotten a hit in. If they haven't gotten a hit in before you kill the monster, they'll get nothing. For things like world bosses, IIRC the game only gives loot to the 12 people who damaged it the most. Others who know better on this can clarify.

Nestor

1. You can level any and all skills to 50. What you may not be able to is invest in all the skills at the same time. While there are enough skill points in the game to most or all of then at once, most people dont collect that many. Reason, you can respec and redistribute skill points if you want to change builds. A good target is 120 to 150 skill points for a viable flexible combat character. A crafter can use up 140 or so skill points on crafting alone. So to have fighting crafter, you can do the math.

2. You should level most or all your 3 class skills, 1 or 2 weapon skills then what ever support skills you may want to use, like say Inner Light from the Mages for a Magic Character. You should fully invest in your main armor passive skills, and invest in the first 3 passives for your off armors. Most casters wear 5 Light and 2 Heavy, most Stamina go with all 7 pieces, and Tanks go T least 5 Heavy and may mix one light and one medium in.

3. Magic Light, Stamina Medium, Tank Heavy. However, for PvP, people are using Heavy on their Magic or Stamina for some builds. So, basically, level all 3 armors, then pick what you need for your build.

4. Yes during leveling decon anything your not using or researching traits on. You can level all gear crafting skills and Enchanting from decon alone. Actually, that is the fastest way to level them.

5. Try to get one character to CP160, then every other character you level to 50 is automatically at CP160. This way your gear drops are all end game capable and you can farm for gear on all characters.

Nestor

There is no experience stealing in this game. So tag as many mobs as you can. You do get a bit more exp if your grouped with one other, and a little less of your in a group of 3 or 4, and somewhat less if your in a zerg.

However, there is tons of exp in this game. Just play the game group or don't, it will all work out in the end at about the same rate. Unless your obessive about being as efficient as possible. Which to me is a waste of stress. I have leveled 18 characters in this game, some fast, some slowly. The ones I leveled slower I had more fun with.

Araneae6537

Thank you both for the thorough replies! I’m not worried about maximum efficiency or optimization at this point, but at the same time, didn’t want to unintentionally set myself back based on assumptions such as I was setting out to do with armor class!

Two further questions:

1) If I want to research a trait on gear, is that done by deconstructing the item with blacksmith / tailor or do I need to extract or something to study / deconstruct with the enchantment skill?

2) Is it generally recommended to go all stamina or all magicka on a character? I was thinking it could be beneficial to have a mix in some builds, but might that limit the max level ability one could use in either? If my nightblade uses stamina for weapon and stealth, is there any reason to keep the class abilities magicka? Or better to morph them?

Thank you again!

VaranisArano

1. To research, you need an item with that trait. Then go to the research tab at the crafting station and choose to research that item/trait. This will destroy the researched item.

2. As a damage dealer, unless you specifically build to be a hybrid (often using the Pelinal's Aptitude set), it is almost always more effective to go all stamina OR all magicka. Your light attacks with staves and most magicka costing skills increase in damage with the more magicka you have, while heavy attacks with staves restore magicka. Your light attacks with weapons and stamina costing skills increase in damage scaling with your max stamina, while the weapon heavy attacks restore stamina.

Nestor

Here is a primer on leveling crafting and efficient trait research:

Here is the thing about Crafting, you don't need it until End Game (post CP160) but you can level it in preparation with few to no skill points invested. Crafting can eat up 122 Skill Points to fully invest, so this will gimp your combat while leveling. Best to invest as few points as possible while levleing your character and crafting.

Equipment Crafting

Decon all mob loot other than what you are using to research traits. Research traits, learn two on all items you would use, then learn 3, etc. Focus on Divines, Infused and Training for your first three for Armor, Sharpened, Precise and Training for your Weapons. Then go for the other ones. Nirn is expensive, and a lot of people suggest putting a priority on that, I can't see why. The Trait is all but useless for Armor or Weapons. Best place to find Mob Loot is Public Dungeons, then over land grind spots. Grind on mobs until your bags are full, then go on a decon fest. Remembering to save the ones you need or want to research. Use the Lock Function and or an Inventory Mule to hang on to those. Only invest Skill points while leveling it into the Research and Extraction Passive, the last really only needing one point.

Enchanting

Ignore all the "advice" on the web about using an enchanting partner. First, use Mob Loot decon to raise this up to a point. Later on as you approach end game have some some gold, then start making Green, Blue or Purple Glyphs on one character and decon them on an Alt. You will level Enchanting faster than trading the glyphs with another player, which is tedious by the way. (like pull out your hair and make a doily tedious). Use Green up to about L15 in the Enchanting Skill, Blue up to about L30/35 and Purple up to about L46/47. Then learn the runes you don't know, you should be at or near 50, if not, make/decon some more Purples.

Provisioning and Alchemy

Don't worry about these, you can level these professions in about an 20 minutes, for both. Just collect the Various Solvents and Reagents and Provisioning Ingredients/Recipes as you go along. Once end game, then you can level it. Use Mushrooms to level Alchemy, or Flowers that make potions you won't use. Make sure you grab solvents (waters) as your leveling as they can be rare to find in the guild stores. For Provisioning, make the highest level Green Recipes you can make. Blue or Purples do not give any more inspiration than Greens, so save those for character use.

Yes, use Drop Sets for now, and Yes, level your crafting skills and do the Trait Research. Traits are why you craft as they allow you to make Special Crafted Sets. There are two sets in the game that your going to want to make, Julianos for your Magic Characters, and Hundings Rage for your Stamina Characters. There are no better sets in the game to have 5 pieces of. Period. Well, Twice Born Star is great to, but your a year out from making that. But you need to start learning your traits now.

While it takes 6 traits known to be able to make Hundings or Julianos, 9 Traits for Twice Born Star. You don't need to know learn all of these traits on everything before you craft anything. In fact, there are nice sets that you only need to know 2 or 3 or 4 traits to make. So, learn 2 traits first, then 3 etc. This way you can be making set items in just a few days. So, start learning those traits. Focus on the gear you will use first, then fill in the rest later. This means:

Casters
Heavy Chest/Legs
Light Feet/Hands/Waist
Shoulders and Heads are good to, but there are 2 Piece Monster sets that can take up those slots. So learn the traits on these pieces, but prioritize the ones above.
Staves (all 4 of them)

Stamina
All Medium Armors
Daggers, Swords, Axes, Bow

Tanks
All Heavy Armors, Sword and Shield and maybe Staves (Ice is your tanking stick). Can add in Axes or Maces for the weapons if you want.
For Armors, Sturdy, then Divines, Infused, Reinforced. Same with Shields but Nirn can be nice on a Shield.
For Weapons, Infused, Sharpened, Defending. Charged for the Staff

Learn Training, Divines and Infused on the Armors first, Sharpened, Precise, Infused and Training on the Weapons. Powered is good for the Healing Staff, Defending is good for Sword or other one handed Melee. Then fill in the rest until you have 6 traits on each piece of gear you will use. Eventually you will learn all 9 traits. Some people recommend Nirn as an early trait to learn. Unless they change it, don't listen to them. You might use it on a Shield or a Weapon but that is about it. You need it someday, but it's expensive and you need your gold for other things.

Invest the skill points into the Research Passives. I can't stress enough how much of a time sink Trait Research is. Be able to learn more than one at a time, and reduce the time needed. Get an addon for Trait Research Tracking, I recommend Craft Store. If your on the Consoles, find one of the spreadsheets out there or make one to track this. Have I mentioned you need to learn your traits?

Doing this you will be ready to invest skill points into Crafting when it matters and not have to spend months getting ready. Did I mention Trait Research and how much a time sink it is? The last two traits will take you a month each to learn, on each item you learn them on. Get started now, yesterday would have been better.

Araneae6537

Thank you @Nestor, @Starlock and @VaranisArano for all the helpful information!

Part of my confusion was thinking traits and enchantments were the same thing, so my one question seems odd now that I understand the difference!

Am I correct in assuming that all traits researched and recipes learned by a character are known only to them and not all characters that have the requisite skill in the craft?

Thank you so much for the in-depth crafting guide, @Nestor! I will prioritize those traits once I have options (didn't take long to research what little I’d accumulated) so I’m glad to know this information from the start! I’m sure it won’t be long before I have more loot and the research takes longer so I’ll be sure to allocate skill points when I can.

VaranisArano

You are correct that trait research and recipes/motifs learned are unique to that character for crafting purposes.

However, for using the Outfitting Stations, any motif/style you learn on any character is unlocked account-wide.

Nestor

And, you only need one character learning traits, and motifs for that matter. That character can craft for any alt.

Although, I have started Alts learning some of the popular traits so they can transmute if they ever need it.

Araneae6537

How many crafts do you learn on per character? Since it will take skill points, I was thinking two should be the max. I was also going to have only one character learn each craft, but I saw that furnishing recipes require more than one, so I have both my blacksmith and tailor learning carpentry, but only one of them needs to research traits for weapons... Unless I should only research traits and allocate skill points in one craft per character, at least for enchanter, tailor, carpenter and blacksmith, so as to not limit myself in either crafting or gameplay in the future...

Watchdog

ErinM31 wrote: »

How many crafts do you learn on per character? Since it will take skill points, I was thinking two should be the max. I was also going to have only one character learn each craft, but I saw that furnishing recipes require more than one, so I have both my blacksmith and tailor learning carpentry, but only one of them needs to research traits for weapons... Unless I should only research traits and allocate skill points in one craft per character, at least for enchanter, tailor, carpenter and blacksmith, so as to not limit myself in either crafting or gameplay in the future...

I would advise having a "main crafter" character, trained in all crafts, and concentrating all Motifs, recipes and furniture plans on this character. If you can, make your crafter an Imperial, because you get the full expensive Imperial Motif for free on that character.

If you feel you lack skill points, just do some delves, dungeons, main zone/DLC/chapter quests, do the main quest, and just travel around Tamriel and beyond, unlocking wayshrines, collecting Skyshards.

There are over 400 skill points for grabs out there.

Araneae6537

The crafting writs are daily — is that one per character? One per craft? Or one per character per craft?

Watchdog

ErinM31 wrote: »

The crafting writs are daily — is that one per character? One per craft? Or one per character per craft?

Daily crafting writs are per character. Each character can do all daily writs. A full round of daily writs on a fully levelled character (even if untrained in the crafting skills) will give you around 5k gold just in direct gold rewards and drops. You may also get some surveys, crafting materials, and treasure maps.

You can pick the daily writs today, do them tomorrow, and immediately do a full round of tomorrow's writs. You may pre-craft the items, such as consumables, because they stack. Doing daily writs on my 12 characters, 10 of which are level 50, gives me over 100k gold every two days.

One of the tricks is to keep all characters except your main crafter untrained, because the materials rewarded allow a large degree of self-sufficiency for your "writs factory", while you can pick the surveys with a fully trained crafter, making the resources top tier.

Araneae6537

@Watchdog thank you! One point on which I am confused — what is the benefit of keeping characters other than a main crafter untrained?

Watchdog

ErinM31 wrote: »

@Watchdog thank you! One point on which I am confused — what is the benefit of keeping characters other than a main crafter untrained?

Higher tier writs require more units of material per item. Like 15 per item or so. Your reward container will only give you 20 or 25 I think. You have to create three items per weapon/armour writ. At the lowest tier, the items cost much less, and the rewards cover much greater portion of the cost.

Gold rewards only depend on character level. Surveys and treasure maps are not character bound, and their yields depend on the character collecting them (your main, fully trained crafter).

Araneae6537

Watchdog wrote: »

ErinM31 wrote: »

@Watchdog thank you! One point on which I am confused — what is the benefit of keeping characters other than a main crafter untrained?

Higher tier writs require more units of material per item. Like 15 per item or so. Your reward container will only give you 20 or 25 I think. You have to create three items per weapon/armour writ. At the lowest tier, the items cost much less, and the rewards cover much greater portion of the cost.

Gold rewards only depend on character level. Surveys and treasure maps are not character bound, and their yields depend on the character collecting them (your main, fully trained crafter).

Ahhh, I see, thank you! The other characters would eventually get to a higher crafting level just through fulfilling the writs though, right? Do use some character slots to replace as necessary low level crafters?

Also, how do the surveys work? Surely they aren’t just maps showing where there are more nodes that may or may not already be harvested?

Watchdog

ErinM31 wrote: »

Watchdog wrote: »

ErinM31 wrote: »

@Watchdog thank you! One point on which I am confused — what is the benefit of keeping characters other than a main crafter untrained?

Higher tier writs require more units of material per item. Like 15 per item or so. Your reward container will only give you 20 or 25 I think. You have to create three items per weapon/armour writ. At the lowest tier, the items cost much less, and the rewards cover much greater portion of the cost.

Gold rewards only depend on character level. Surveys and treasure maps are not character bound, and their yields depend on the character collecting them (your main, fully trained crafter).

Ahhh, I see, thank you! The other characters would eventually get to a higher crafting level just through fulfilling the writs though, right? Do use some character slots to replace as necessary low level crafters?

Also, how do the surveys work? Surely they aren’t just maps showing where there are more nodes that may or may not already be harvested?

I have one Master Crafter, and 11 characters slowly training the crafting skill lines by daily writs and deconstructing Intricate gear and trash drops. I do not plan to train the main crafting passives on any alts, but the other passives are useful - extraction, multiple Alchemy and Provisioning crafting, hirelings and such. I plan to keep my writs factory going. You see, I only ever need one fully trained crafter.

A survey is a simple map, that will lead you to a spot with six very rich resource nodes, spawned only for you. Nobody else can see them. Do not underestimate their importance. You see, with the extraction passives trained, refining raw materials has a good chance to drop rare crafting materials, such as those needed to upgrade your gear.

wenchmore420b14_ESO

@ErinM31
Can't see what platform you play on.
If you are on PC/NA, we have a wonderful little guild that would love to help you out on these things.
Contact me if you would like an invite.
And welcome to Tamriel! Here's your Fishy Stick!
Huzzah!
~Wench~

Araneae6537

@Watchdog I understand what you were saying about not leveling up crafting on your other characters and why my question made no sense! I was thinking of the XP/skill bar rather than what you assign points to. Crafting is rather more complicated in ESO than any other game I’ve played — not that that’s a bad thing!

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

@ErinM31
Can't see what platform you play on.
If you are on PC/NA, we have a wonderful little guild that would love to help you out on these things.
Contact me if you would like an invite.
And welcome to Tamriel! Here's your Fishy Stick!
Huzzah!
~Wench~

Thank you! That would be lovely!

zaria

ErinM31 wrote: »

How many crafts do you learn on per character? Since it will take skill points, I was thinking two should be the max. I was also going to have only one character learn each craft, but I saw that furnishing recipes require more than one, so I have both my blacksmith and tailor learning carpentry, but only one of them needs to research traits for weapons... Unless I should only research traits and allocate skill points in one craft per character, at least for enchanter, tailor, carpenter and blacksmith, so as to not limit myself in either crafting or gameplay in the future...

Generally most players has one character who all the quests and explore everywhere.
He will get way more skill point than he can use, think I have 30 free but has all the skyshards and done alk dungeons and quests.

You are unlikely to do this on all future characters but make some for purposes like being an tank for group dungeons.
So making your main your crafter makes sense, also as down the line you will get expensive armor styles and might want to make furniture for you home and this is better done by one single character.

However don't worry about this now, you might want to make some extra characters just as training riding takes forever and they can help store stuff.
----

Best advice is to join an social guild down the line, no hurry if you are very busy doing the quests but its something you want to look into. It the main asspect of game as I see it doing all sort of events and doing dungeons, they are also helpful and can craft gear for you and other stuff