I Keep Dying. Any Tips?

Epona222

My tips are:

- go to the starter islands, even if you do not complete the quests you can practice your combat skills with low level enemies. You need to actively dodge, block, and interrupt, you can't stand still and rely on HP to keep you alive - and as it's action-based combat, practice makes perfect.

- Look for the 'tells' on your enemy - red cone, rectangle, or circle on the ground, indicating an upcoming area attack - when you see this, use dodge (double tap a movement key in default keybinding) to roll out of the area of attack. If an enemy has whitish coloured thin lines radiating out of them, they are doing a special magic attack that could snare you (or incapacitate you in some way), when you see that happen you need to interrupt by pressing RMB and LMB together. When they swing at you with a weapon, hold RMB to block. It's action combat, this doesn't happen automatically based on skills or attributes, you need to get used to combat tells so that you can do the right move at the right time. Blocking and interrupting also have the bonus that if you time it right, it will sometimes finish off an enemy already at low health, or stun them for a couple of seconds - giving you valuable breathing space.

- craft some level appropriate gear - even coming straight out of the tutorial, you have the ability to make low level armor and weapons, so don't stay in your prison rags - wander around in a low level area looking for resource nodes, or you can deconstruct loot gear to get materials. There is no reason for you to be wandering round a couple of hours after you finish the tutorial still wearing your prison rags - go get some materials, find a workbench, and get crafting. You can use the map to find crafting areas, there is always a merchant nearby selling the stone you need to craft in your racial style (or any others that you have learned from books), and each crafting table has a book nearby explaining how to craft.

Edit to add: Also it is a ton easier playing in 3rd person and zoomed out quite a way. Far easier to see markers on the ground and dodge, easier to see tells, easier to kite/strafe without running backwards into another mob and adding that to your problems

Soracia

I had a lot of trouble in the beta on my sorcerer around level 8-10; partly because I was trying to spec into healing and partly because I misunderstood Crystal Shard, now I consider it a must-have for any low-level sorc.

I am now running around with a restoration staff (but a destruction staff or a bow would work just as well with this playstyle). I do have the unstable familiar, although it's more of an unstable nuisance at times, other times it saved me. Restoration staff allows you to have some healing skills as well as doing comparable damage to destruction staves.

I open up a combat with Crystal shards, it does good damage and knocks your opponent over to boot, then I follow up with a heavy staff attack and finish them off with Mage's Fury.
If the enemy is especially tough, I will fire as many Crystal shards as I can first, then move to weapon attacks, all the while dodging/parrying when necessary, and as soon as they are at 20% it's Mage's Fury time. Elite enemies are marked by some little fancy decoration on their health bars. The more diamonds around it, the harder it is, and if it's two or more - avoid, on your own.
When facing multiple enemies, I will focus a ranged one first if possible. I survey them first by mousing over them, then use Tab to focus the one I want to kill first, and then go heavy on it while trying to avoid or dodge its companion or any area-of-effect stuff that they put around me.

Another very good skill to have is Lightning Form - a boost to your defenses, but you'll need to save some mana for it.

The best ultimate for soloing is definitely Storm Atronach. Keep the unstable familiar on your bars even if you don't like it until you unlock this beauty and use it on tough enemies or groups of 3, or if you get unexpectedly attacked when low on HP/mana.

As for gear, at low levels it is much more cost-effective to go out and get some jute (or iron) and make yourself some new white armour instead of spending a lot of gold on repairs. (Or you could gather and sell jute, wood and iron and pay to repair if you have good green items)
I prefer light armour to level it up quickly and get the reduced cost on spells, but if you die a lot, absolutely do consider heavy armour.

feniks31_ESO

I had difficulties with this mob either, its cast cant be interrupted and you can't escape it. On my vet 1 rank I have like 1.5k hp and its aoe cast deals 2.5k. The only solution I've found is stun while it casts after it pulls you to itself

Censorious

Some good advice in this thread.

I would say though that Crystal Shard isn't as good as it looks at first because it's a very slow cast and quite expensive on magicka for the damage done. Several smaller hits can be more effective and a LOT faster.

I prefer to open with a heavy staff attack, which uses stamina and saves magicka. Then I hit with V. Curse (morph from Daedric Curse), more staff, maybe another curse and finally Mage's Fury.
That means I have plenty Magicka in hand for Lightning Form and Lightning Splash and maybe Encase as defensive moves if things get tight.

The Unstable familiar is a wonderful Tank. It will keep a mob fully occupied while you burn it down from range. It doesn't do much damage itself but it can take endless punishment that would certainly kill you if you had to tank it yourself.
Don't underestimate the little fellow.

rarefy77ub17_ESO

I'm horrible at combat mechanics and love the sorcerer (probably because it's an easy class to play for bad people lol). This makes resto staff a good choice for me. I've been leveling this way for a long time. It should work for early levels too. The pet levels really fast so morph it as soon as possible. Then just keep dumping points into resto staff as well as light and heavy armor passives. Keep heals slotted and heavy attack everything while it beats on the pet. If stuff comes after you, just kite and keep up heals. Killing takes longer but this strategy works for not dying. Toss class and other weapon skills on the secondary bar at 15 and level those up. It becomes easier to do so once you have an arsenal of heals with passives as well as some Daedric Summoning.

Reiterpallasch

Gedalya wrote: »

I've been playing the game today and while I have been enjoying it there has been one road block; I keep dying. Are there any tips anyone can give me regarding playing safer?

Don't let your health reach 0. I used to let mine reach 0 and it would always kill me! Once I stopped letting my health hit 0 however I lived significantly longer!

jesterstear

I get this feeling your death is REQUIRED , on a frequent basis perhaps to add a sense of danger/difficulty.

Up to level 15, I died quite a lot just running landscape quests on level, on Audirion. I didn't have this problem on the starter island, nor (so far) in Grahtwood, being now at level 21.

The main issue seems to be that running away from a loosing battle tends to be impossible. Four legged mobs are quicker than you, most humanoids have snare skills that slow your run speed, many have powerful ranged attacks that take you down in one or two hits if not interrupted, a few have stuns. In trying to run you're offering free hits on your back and not dodging / interrupting any of the specials. You have your sprint but if you've been fighting, there won't be enough to run with. You cannot use a door in combat. Perhaps you can run from a single melee mob but any group of mobs that you might want to run from (melee, archer, caster) will take you down before you can escape.

In this game, if you pull a mob, you kill it or die trying.

In Grahtwood you also encounter groups of three mobs but your health and stamina pools are large enough to run out of agro range if you choose. Combat has been taking longer to resolve which gives you a chance to run if things aren't going so well.

Before you say "get some better gear" etc.

I did repair every time I died (had no money up to level 15) and crafted a new set every time I levelled up. Played a sword and board Templar in heavy armour with the restoring light skill line for a few extra heals, but still got killed every couple hours. It's not something i'm used to and I don't react to it well.

I don't mind my male characters dying frequently but I find it really upsetting when a female does - despite making her as tanky as possible it seems it can't be avoided. End up raging severely, punching the keyboard so that keys pop off, then when I've put them back on again swearing a lot in the chat channel, fortunately no-one nearby to hear it.

Tandor

A critical point for the sorcerer is definitely to make sure you are using a destruction staff and not a healing one, the difference in damage done is considerable.