Where should I begin with my new character?

Nic727

Hi,

I've been playing at ESO launch, but One Tamriel broke my character so much that I took a break for a couple of years. I was playing a wood elf templar and was around level 40, but I was getting kill so much by NPC that it wasn't fun at all. I was maxing out all my skills and gears, but I was so weak against about anything... Even rats...

Now I want to start again, because I don't have much choice, but I'm not really sure what would be the best class/race combination.

I love playing one handed & bow and I also love being a support (healing), but also dealing damage to enemies. I love playing in the Imperial city, but I was way too weak to survive alone more than 1 second. I love wood elf, because of the lore, the fact they are stealthy and fast. I also have the Imperial race available. Not sure which class I should choose right now. Templar, Warden or Nightblade???

Thank you for your recommendation.

I'm just a bit sad that I will loose every achievements and special ones I did as part of events...

etchedpixels

The game has changed hugely, so you may want to fish your templar out and give it another go. Templar is probably still the easiest character to play reasonably well because there are easy one bar builds, and you've got lots of strong heals, shields and damage skills. If you are still struggling it's worth taking a look at some of the builds - you don't need an optimal build but if you are struggling on other things maybe it helps a bit. I'd also consider joining a new player focussed guild as you should be able to find people who can help you with skills/techniques and also run content with you.

Note also that they changed the wood elf passives long ago so that they are good at seeing stealthed and moved the stealthy ones to Khajiit.

A lot of ESO performance is down to how you play and the gear you have, but for overland gear shouldn't matter that much.

Of the classes - magicka templar can do almost anything, stamina templar is great for the one bar one skill builds. Wardens make very strong healers, good tanks and can be excellent group buff providers. Nightblades require a lot of light attack weaving, clever use of skills and strategy and are probably one of the hardest to play well.

You could of course make one of each, play em a few levels during this double xp event and see what clicks.

If you want to do well in IC you are going to need to spend a lot of time in PvP zones, with PvP guilds, dying, learning, duelling and practising. It's not a learning curve, it's a cliff 8-)

El_Borracho

I'll second what @etchedpixels said about templars. My magplar right now is my favorite DD for PVE as its so versatile. It might be the easiest DD to play in PVE. But I could see a bosmer stamblde ganker being strong for PVP, especially Imperial City

Nic727

I guess I’m gonna start two characters and see what I like the best.

At the moment I have a Bosmer Templar, but my character is glitched and I can be easily kill by starting area NPC… And I’m level 40…

I will try Imperial Templar/Warden or Bosmer Templar/Warden.

Just not too sure which class. I mostly play now/arrow and one handed/shield (could go dual sword) and I want to heal people with the possibility to deal more damage than what I do at the moment. It’s a bit harder to play a mixed build… Is Warden easier for a stamina/magicka build?

etchedpixels

Nic727 wrote: »

I guess I’m gonna start two characters and see what I like the best.

At the moment I have a Bosmer Templar, but my character is glitched and I can be easily kill by starting area NPC… And I’m level 40…

I will try Imperial Templar/Warden or Bosmer Templar/Warden.

Just not too sure which class. I mostly play now/arrow and one handed/shield (could go dual sword) and I want to heal people with the possibility to deal more damage than what I do at the moment. It’s a bit harder to play a mixed build… Is Warden easier for a stamina/magicka build?

The ESO slogan may be "play as you like" but the game mechanics simply don't make hybrid builds that effective except for tanking. You can however build a stamina healer although it'll be weaker on heals than a typical magicka dps.

With a templar it's hard to get to work well as a pure healer because the class healing skills are all magicka based, but as a sideline you can run almost entirely stamina skills for damage and so be able to drop heals as you fight. The fact it's magicka skill based and you have lots of skills that don't need a resto staff does make templar interesting for tanks that also carry heals.

Wardens can be true stamina healers using a mix of stamina and magicka skills to balance out the character. Whilst it's build from before this update take a look at things like

https://dottzgaming.com/build/vigorspam-warden-healer-pve-build/

That build is a pure healer and buffer with a fancy gear and all the skills, but for the general game content you can see it is a guide to the sort of skills you can run in combination with your bow. If I remember rightly the endless hail bow skill (and variants) will proc the winters respite set as well.

A stam healer is good enough to do normal trials and most vet dungeons. As stam warden running green lotus with a good uptime and dealing lots of damage can also take a chunk of pressure off healers. So unless you are worried about hard end game content you'll be just fine.

Sword/board healers are unusual in PvE - but common in PvP often using sword/board and restro staff so still magicka based. In PvE sword/board plus something tends to be more about soloing harder content - so you've got a defensive bar to fall back onto.

TheImperfect

I just made a bosmer warden. I'm going pretty hybrid (I have a mag and stam of each class already). I'll probably be wearing Stuhns and Diamonds Victory and getting weapon and spell damage as high as possible instead of focusing on crits. It's just an experiment I feel like playing around with. If she is really awful then I'll just respec her.

votan73

I second etchedpixels, too.

Additional:
Do the guild dailies, incl. undaunted, to get the skills and passives.
Do public dungeons to complete your sets book for sets giving crit. Like mother's sorrow.
Try maelstrom arena. Getting the mealstrom flame stave is not that awful as it was. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/406521/traits-and-maelstrom-staves

Go for skyshards and do some stories for skill points.

Nic727

Ok I just started playing. Build a new Warden Wood elf.

Where do you see stamina healer with Warden or Templar since all skills require magicka?

I don’t play with staffs and mostly with weapons requiring stamina attack. So it’s kind of mandatory to split skills between magicka and stamina.

Edit: Nevermind, it’s all about morphing into stamina skills… But I remember Templar I was choosing Magicka because it was looking better… need to go see that.

etchedpixels

Nic727 wrote: »

Ok I just started playing. Build a new Warden Wood elf.

Where do you see stamina healer with Warden or Templar since all skills require magicka?

I don’t play with staffs and mostly with weapons requiring stamina attack. So it’s kind of mandatory to split skills between magicka and stamina.

The game starts a lot of skills as magicka skills and when you get them to rank 4 some have two morphs one of which is stamina based. They don't all work that way. Some stay magicka only, some are stamina only (including echoing vigour for stamina healing). Fungal growth becomes soothing spores and is your spammable heal.

You also have a magicka and stamina pool even if you put any points into one. If you are not using both pools you are missing out on a lot of resources. Thus it's quite usual to have some magicka skills on stamina toon. A magicka heal on a stamina character can in fact be very useful because when you run out of stamina is when you are in trouble. In the case of a stamina healer you've got echoing vigour and soothing spores as stamina, plus a bunch of heals that are magicka but long duration so cheap to cast, and a bunch of debuff/buff skills (which for a healer are important) like growning swarn and lotus, plus long duration ones you can cast from your magicka pool. You can also use winters respite weapons and jewellery for a healing circle.

The same theory is used the other way - some magicka healers carry the stamina echoing vigor skill so they can at least put out some heals if they are low on magicka and need to get it back.

The other way people build weapon wielding magicka users is a bit different. They stack class skills not weapon skills on the bars and dual wield daggers. That gives them much weaker light attacks but as you level up dual wield you get twin blade and blunt to rank ii. That gives you 4% extra critical damage and another 1624 crit which offsets the weaker light attacks.

Stamina healing does tend to get into some strange build choices because it's not really the way the game was built. A stamina damage dealer who can heal on the side is rather easier to achieve and to be honest for most non vet content a lot more useful.

Nic727

Thanks. I was just looking through my skills. Seems like all my skills got reset. So I checked all morph for Templar and like expected, magicka morph deal more damage and are healing more than Stamina. Also all healing skills are magicka only while Warden have stamina healing skills.

On the other side, looking on internet, Warden morph seems to be even between stamina/magicka build, so I guess I will go with Warden instead of Templar even if I really liked all the light stuffs. Guess Templar is more oriented toward magicka characters who play with staffs…

Ilsabet

If I'm remembering my ancient history reading right, the original four classes (templar, sorc, DK, and nightblade) were not designed with stamina builds in mind, which is why so few morphs lean to the stamina side. Warden and necromancer were added to the game later, so they were designed to be more flexible and friendlier to stamina builds.

fiender66

@Nic727

I have a Bosmer stam templar who is terrific at damage, with 2H on both primary and back. She is a tad squishy, but this I remedied using honour the dead, which is a mag skill that does not reduce stam sustain.

That said, pls consider that a good healer does only that: healing and support. A healer that wants to do damage is a curse in every group.
Warden are the most often encountered, but IMO magplars can be really good healers

Nic727

Ok thank you!

etchedpixels

fiender66 wrote: »

That said, pls consider that a good healer does only that: healing and support. A healer that wants to do damage is a curse in every group.

That is very situational. In normal dungeons they are usually a big win. In a trial or veteran DLC content they are indeed a curse 8)

Nic727

Kind of complicated to be optimal in ESO lol.

I just started an Imperial Warden. I will go full stamina since I can also heal people.

However, I was also thinking of redistributing my attribute points for my current Templar, but I don’t use staff and my playstyle is more about melee weapon (stamina) and healing (magicka Templar or Magicka/Stamina Warden). I could put all my attribute point into magicka, but I guess my melee attack would be very bad and couldn’t use any weapon skills.

So I think Stamina Warden would be the best choice for me, but I love how Templar skills looks like compared to fungus/Morrowind visual of Warden.

I also looked at skills there https://eso-u.com/skills/browser/Warden::Winter's Embrace and 75% of morphs are magicka only. Still better than Templar (90%).

Also, just to see, I thought Dragonknight was mostly stamina, but looks like it also use lot of magicka skills. Now I just feel like Zenimax want us to play full magicka…

fiender66

etchedpixels wrote: »

fiender66 wrote: »

That said, pls consider that a good healer does only that: healing and support. A healer that wants to do damage is a curse in every group.

That is very situational. In normal dungeons they are usually a big win. In a trial or veteran DLC content they are indeed a curse 8)

In normal nonDLC dungeons healers and tanks are optional. In some DLC dungeons, even on normal, a good healer (and a real tank) is more than useful, think of Mazzatun, Falkreath, or Maarselok. OFC, if there is one dd with monstrous dps, who could solo but stays in group for any reason (I've met more than one in pugs), roles have little meaning.