I have returned, but……

Ulvich

Before I get into my reason for this thread I need to give a little back story, so please bear with me.
In November of 2013 I received a Beta key for ESO. A few months later I received a second. On April 03, 2014 I became an “ESO Member”. I continued playing ESO for about a year after, and now I have returned.
In March of 2017 I made an attempt to return but found that the game requirements have changed, and that my computer was no longer compatible. I had to upgrade.
After not logging in for about 6 years I found my characters are right where I left them, and still with all their stuff. However they are nowhere near what they once were. My main character was a Lvl 57VR Orc sorcerer. It is now a lvl 70 “champion”. I don’t remember the “champion” part.
Needless to say I have a ton of questions which is why I am here. And if anyone can help out it would be much appreciated. This whole new game is a bit overwhelming.

01) No more “VR” ranking system? Based on my new level I can only guess we are no longer using the old style. Is this correct?
02) My talent tree has changed completely. I am seeing settings that make absolutely no sense at all compared to what they were. And obviously all my talent settings have been reset, but I expected that. Now I have to figure out what the newest, and best settings would be for my build.
03) The whole UI has changed. I can’t even figure out who use chat, which might be a good thing.
04) What is a good site for add-ons? All of the add-ons I am currently downloading are outdated and won’t work.

If anyone would be willing to catch me in-game and help me out a bit I would be forever grateful.
I am on the NA server using my main ULVICH.

Tandor

The only advice I can give is to start over with a new character. Relearn the game from the ground up. This is not the ESO of 2014/2015, and it's pretty commonly agreed that it is a much better game, but it is a very different one in many ways. Once you're familiar with it, you can tweak your existing characters but for now that would be a really frustrating experience and one you'd probably give up on, which would be a shame. I'd also suggest you learn it for yourself, and don't spend time researching this and that, or trying to master someone else's build. It's a massive game now, immerse yourself in it the way you want to play.

Welcome back!

NettleCarrier

I went through this myself a few years ago, just start a new character as Tandor suggested. Champion points are account wide and you'll have 70 points to spend on the new character right away and once you hit level 50 with it you'll start to gain champion points for your account. It really beats having to retroactively learn an old character who has changed so much, and this game regularly rewards you for having multiple characters (daily writs, jubilee, random dungeons/battlegrounds, etc.) so it'll be a net positive even in the long run

DagenHawk

Start over Bro I did when I came back.

Tamreil is huge and is only going to get bigger...also you have more types of players now, luckily pretty much everyone gets along (emphasis on the "Pretty much")

VaranisArano

1. Veteran Ranks were all removed, but all the Champion Points you gained are still there. Once beyond level 50, now the level you'll see is your Champion Points.

2. Champion Point trees were reworked recently. Most skills have been tweaked in one way or another. So, yeah, you've got a fair bit of rebuilding to do. In a way that's good, because you get to start with a blank slate.

3. Chat should be /zone, /group, /say, etc. Guild is /g1 for guild #1.

4. I use https://www.esoui.com/addons.php for addons.

Welcome back!

Ulvich

I'll take all your advice and just go from there. I can't delete my main, though. Way too much work and frustration went into that.
I am currently trying to clean out one of my "bank toons" and restart with that slot. Back in the day I had a full house of "bank toons" and they all still have their stuff. I was a pack-rat.
One last question.... Do the game masters still appear once in while and kill off the bots? Watching that was so awesome.

Tandor

Ulvich wrote: »

I'll take all your advice and just go from there. I can't delete my main, though. Way too much work and frustration went into that.
I am currently trying to clean out one of my "bank toons" and restart with that slot. Back in the day I had a full house of "bank toons" and they all still have their stuff. I was a pack-rat.
One last question.... Do the game masters still appear once in while and kill off the bots? Watching that was so awesome.

Only we oldies have seen that, like you I found it great fun in delves. These days GMs can deal with most things remotely, but are believed to log in invisibly to monitor players' behaviour when necessary.

There should be no need to delete important characters, especially if you choose to subscribe even for a month or two while you make your mind up on the game. That will give you free Crowns with which to buy another character slot, and will also give you free access to all DLCs as well as the limitless crafting bag. Certainly worth doing before you consider deleting any pack mules, as their crafting mats will automatically go to the crafting bag on taking out the subscription.

Vevvev

VaranisArano wrote: »

4. I use https://www.esoui.com/addons.php for addons.

I believe even the Minion application uses that website for finding addons. The Minion App is pretty good at keeping everything up to date, and if you don't mind installing a third party application for managing addons it's a very useful tool.

https://minion.mmoui.com/

Vevvev

Ulvich wrote: »

I
One last question.... Do the game masters still appear once in while and kill off the bots? Watching that was so awesome.

I have never witnessed such a thing since I've started playing ESO shortly they dropped the mandatory subscription model after the Tamriel Unlimited patch.

SirAxen

Tandor wrote: »

The only advice I can give is to start over with a new character. Relearn the game from the ground up. This is not the ESO of 2014/2015, and it's pretty commonly agreed that it is a much better game, but it is a very different one in many ways. Once you're familiar with it, you can tweak your existing characters but for now that would be a really frustrating experience and one you'd probably give up on, which would be a shame. I'd also suggest you learn it for yourself, and don't spend time researching this and that, or trying to master someone else's build. It's a massive game now, immerse yourself in it the way you want to play.

Welcome back!

Pretty much this exactly.

Just take your time, immerse yourself in this wonderful universe and enjoy - worry about having "uber builds' down the road.

Gundug

There’s no reason why you would have to delete your character. Just take time to rebuild them if you like them. You may have some discontinued unbound items that collectors would value as well. It used to take ages to grind veteran ranks, but you will find you blow through Champion levels in no time for the next several hundred.

An orc sorcerer would probably serve you best using stamina weapons and skills. You can use any combination of dual-wield, two-handers or bows to good effect. An easy setup that I find works well for solo play is dual-wield front bar with a two-hander back. There are a number of good stamina sets you can use, but relatively easy ones to get are Vicious Ophidian from the Craglorn trials, which gives a good damage boost, and major sustain for solo play. Hunding’s Rage is a good basic crafted set for damage, and Night Mother’s Gaze is a good solo play crafted set.

For solo play stamina sorcerer, I like Bound Armaments, Crystal Weapon, Whirling Blades, Camouflaged Hunter, Barbed Trap, Flawless Dawnbreaker front bar. Back bar, I use Stampede, Brawler, Hurricane, Silver Leash, Critical Surge, Greater Storm Atronach. Front bar is for offense, back bar is for buffing and survival. You can look up the skill names online to see which skill lines they come from, and what skills they morph from, because I’m too lazy to type all that.

Bound Armaments charges up with light attacks, and once you have built a full stack, you can activate it for a burst of damage. Crystal Weapon is your spammable attack, that empowers your light attacks. It’s somewhat clunky if your timing is off, so you could replace it with a different spammable, like one of the morphs of the dual-wield Flurry, if you like. Whirling Blades is used as an execute damage ability against low health enemies, and erases clustered trash mobs. Camouflaged Hunter is on the bar for the passives it grants. Barbed Trap is used on cooldown to buff damage, and grants passive benefits. Flawless Dawnbreaker is there mostly for passive benefits, but can be used for damage, and boosts your other damage sources for a short period.

Stampede is a damage skill that is also a gap closer, and leaves a ground AOE that procs your back bar enchantment (weapon damage enchantment) while you are on your front bar, boosting damage. Brawler is mostly a survival skill that makes you extremely hard to kill if you spam it against large numbers of stacked mobs, as it damages them and generates a strong damage shield that is stronger the more enemies you hit. Silver Leash is a chain skill to bring distant mobs to you, instead of having to recast everything under each new enemy you fight. It’s more efficient to stack everything on you if possible. The skill also passively boosts back bar damage. Hurricane inflicts active damage around you, and increases your resistance to damage. Critical Surge heals you as you critically damage enemies, which means you don’t need to spam an active healing skill to stay alive, and it increases your damage. Be sure to maintain this skill for the entire fight. The Greater Storm Atronach is your main damaging ultimate, and if you have a buddy with you, they can synergize with it to increase theirs and the atronach’s damage while it lasts.

You can swap out a few skills, like Silver Leash, Hurricane, and Critical Surge for group play, if you find you don’t need those, in favor of other damage over time skills, or more passive damage skills. If you drop Critical Surge, do use Brutality Potions to make up for the damage loss. You can also use one or more of the sorcerer pets in place of skills on your bars, but I personally can’t stand the pets, and don’t like sacrificing utility, so I never use them.

ESOUI has plenty of addons, and you can download Minion to manage them for you.

gariondavey

Welcome back! Some great answers in this thread.

Nanfoodle

I only came back a few months ago after being away for a while. It took a few days looking and playing with builds to figure out the new trees. It's not hard to learn. I personally would suggest you watch some YouTube videos for newbs. Dotz Gaming is a good place to start. You will figure it out fast.

Redguards_Revenge

Youtube is your friend. I recommend

Deltias Gaming (Recently came back after a hiatus but not that far back)
Alcast
Nenfas
Fengrush (haven't been to his channel in a while though)

OR

Just type in champion point system explained.

You are going to love to know people who have 2K+ champion points.

Also find a guild online that is willing to teach you the ropes. ESO is a different beast now. Sets rule everything you do.

That's the good news though, put on certain sets and you can go from zero to hero pretty quick. There are people running around heavy attacking and letting sets do 90% of the damage.

HOWEVER DON'T INVEST INTO SETS UNTIL YOU ARE CHAMPION LEVEL/Point (CP) 160. Which was equivalent to VR 16. That is the top level sets can go to.

Raideen

Redguards_Revenge wrote: »

Youtube is your friend. I recommend

Deltias Gaming (Recently came back after a hiatus but not that far back)
Alcast
Nenfas
Fengrush (haven't been to his channel in a while though)

OR

Just type in champion point system explained.

You are going to love to know people who have 2K+ champion points.

Also find a guild online that is willing to teach you the ropes. ESO is a different beast now. Sets rule everything you do.

That's the good news though, put on certain sets and you can go from zero to hero pretty quick. There are people running around heavy attacking and letting sets do 90% of the damage.

HOWEVER DON'T INVEST INTO SETS UNTIL YOU ARE CHAMPION LEVEL/Point (CP) 160. Which was equivalent to VR 16. That is the top level sets can go to.

Could you list some of these sets please, and the corresponding set to be used with them. I am a complete ZERO in ESO PVP but need to be a hero to farm furnishing leads.

SeaGtGruff

Redguards_Revenge wrote: »

Nenfas
Fengrush (haven't been to his channel in a while though)

That should be NefasQS.

Also, I haven't checked Fengrush's YouTube channel, but on Twitch he seems to be all about New World these days.

SeaGtGruff

Raideen wrote: »

Could you list some of these sets please, and the corresponding set to be used with them. I am a complete ZERO in ESO PVP but need to be a hero to farm furnishing leads.

I don't kniw enough to list any specific sets, but from a general perspective I believe good PvP sets tend to be about dishing out and withstanding critical damage, so look for sets that-- among other things-- improve critical damage, critical chance, critical resistance, etc. The preferred gear trait for PvP armor seems to be Impenetrable.

Vevvev

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Raideen wrote: »

Could you list some of these sets please, and the corresponding set to be used with them. I am a complete ZERO in ESO PVP but need to be a hero to farm furnishing leads.

I don't kniw enough to list any specific sets, but from a general perspective I believe good PvP sets tend to be about dishing out and withstanding critical damage, so look for sets that-- among other things-- improve critical damage, critical chance, critical resistance, etc. The preferred gear trait for PvP armor seems to be Impenetrable.

Due to the amount of critical resistance going around sometimes it's better to build a high penetration build. People typically run around 20k penetration in PvP shredding most people clean of their armor with people stacking higher than that aiming at the 33k+ resistance players. It's an arms race to stack as much defensive strength as you can but leave room for a good burst option in your build so you can actually score a kill.

Dojohoda

There are many new things:

Champion points, as you discovered, replaced the VR ranks. We are now in the second version of Champion points. You will only earn champion points on level 50+ characters. Earnings are based on some factors including catch-up mechanics, but overall it is based on the XP that you earn.

Jewelry crafting was introduced with Summerset. If you have Summerset go to Alinor and get certified so you do jewelry crafting writs.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Jewelry_Crafting_Certification

We have a new skill line in "Guilds" called Psijic Order. This also requires Summerset.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Psijic_Order

We have a minigame called Antiquities which requires Greymoor. With it, you can find special gear and other stuff.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Antiquities

Sorc no longer has a 3rd skill bar.

Sorc continues to be a very good class, so no worries.

We have two new classes: Warden and Necromancer.

There are dragons in Elsweyr.

Gear caps at 160 CP, so you want to play on your main to get at least 160 CP (champion points) to get the 160 gear, but above all, you can do this by enjoying the game and there is no need to rush, you are almost there by having 70 CP.

Speaking of gear, we have a "Sticker Book" which is found under the "Collections Menu". With this wonderful system, the sets that we find and bind become ours forever by being recorded in this sticker book. Later, if you need to reclaim gear, you can recreate it with "Transmutation Crystals" at a Transmutation Station.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Transmute_Crystals (table of amount of crystals earned with activites)
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Transmute_Station (about the station and no worries gaining access to the station as many people have them in their eso homes.)

Speaking of eso homes, we can get homes and decorate them. Some functionally useful decorations are the aforementioned Transmute Station and others are crafting stations, target dummies, and mundus stones.

Welcome Back!

Fizzyapple

I suggest staying clear of YT tbh but to each their own. Anyway, if there is a specific craftable set you would like feel free to send me mail in-game and I would be happy to make it for you as a welcome back gift (free). For PVP the choice stamina damage sets atm are Clever Alchemist, Stuhn's, NMA and Heartland Conqueror to name a few.

FYI, there's a new rule that states "You should give gold to one Bosmer every Fridas for good luck." That's what I heard anyway. jk.

Welcome back!

starkerealm

Ulvich wrote: »

04) What is a good site for add-ons? All of the add-ons I am currently downloading are outdated and won’t work.

I realize this thread has been necroed a bit.

When it comes to addons, you may need to reconstruct your addon list from currently supported options. A lot of addons from back in 2014 haven't been supported in years (as the authors left the game.) A few, like Skyshards and Lorebooks are still around.

There are some, like the multi-quest tracker I use that have to be hand updated, and also a few (like the achievement tracker I used to use), that I've simply had to replace.

In some cases (Loot Drop, and Combat Cloud (I think) come to mind), the old versions dropped support because the functionality was baked directly into the game now.