I recently leveled another character to veteran rank in Elder Scrolls Online. I didn’t grind this time, instead I took a different route. First, thanks to Deltia at Deltias Gaming for the insight and the build guidance.

Before getting into my plans for veteran content, I got to VR1 by doing the following:

Faction Quests (solo)
Each zone has three quest lines that line up with achievements to “clear the zone. They line up with Cadwell’s Silver and Gold in the veteran zones
I did only these quests, plus a few that were around these that I could easily complete at the same time
Dolmens and World Bosses (with a friend, but can be soloed)
Cleared all dolmens and world bosses
Important for xp gain, plus for Fighter’s Guild rep (dolmens)
Dungeons (friend/solo)
Cleared all – again, important for xp, but also each one has a sky shard
Public Dungeons (friend)
Five total – one in each zone, plus one in Coldharbour
Important for several things – xp obviously, achievements and Undaunted rep, plus a skyshard in each one, and each public dungeon has a special challenge that awards a skill point
Can be solo’d, especially when other random people are running, but better and less stressful with a friend or group
Kill all the bosses and do both quests in each one
Once everything is done – do the Harborage Questline
Note – I did no Mage’s or Fighter’s Guild quests, nor did I do any group dungeons – saving those for post main story
Cyrodil –
I did go into Cyrodil and Imperial City some – I gained a total of two levels while I was there. I mainly went in for lorebooks and to get the Assualt and Support skill lines.

That’s it – and I was able to get to VR1 in no time. No real grinding, no fuss, and no B.S. quests to make me feel like I was wasting my time. That being said, if this is your first time through, you should do the side quests, etc to get the story. However, if this is your third or eighth toon, this guide will work. Two notes, I am a ESO Plus member, so I did get that 10% xp bonus, but I did not use any xp potions or scrolls until I was lvl 49, and if i didn’t use them, I still would have hit VR1 before reaching Molag Bal.

Important Notes:

Dolmens will help with Fighter’s Guild Rep, Public Dungeons will get you into rank 2 in Undaunted, but to get Mage’s Guild up (if you need it for the ultimate0, you have to find books. It’s a grind, but not impossible. Dulfy.net is a good place to start, but they do not have every one, and for some, you will need to go into Cyrodil.
When starting out – figure out the type of build you are going to want and determine what type of weapons and armor you are going to use. Craft, or have someone craft for you, a armor and weapon set with the training attribute on them. Make sure you place one skill from each class skill line in your bar, and what I like to do is open up the skill line for what my secondary weapon is going to be and place a skill on my bar for that as well. Though I can’t use it, it allows it to gain xp and level up.

Now, you have killed Molag Bal, saved Nirn, blah blah blah, now what? Well, remember those Mage’s and Fighter’s Guild quests? Now that your VR1, time to do them. MG is important to open up Eyevea, plus you get four lorebooks and completes a set – a total of 40 reputation points. Both the MG and FG questlines will give you some decent jewelry pieces as well, and they will scale to your level. Completing these will also get you close to VR2, plus almost one champion point per quest completion. Once you have this, you are ready for the next step!

In my next post, I will detail out my plans for running veteran levels, but for now, I will leave you with some tips:

Get your initial gear set – with training attributes, and plan on getting a new gear set every ten to fifteen levels. What I did was the following: Level 4, left prologue, equipped gear set (Hunding’s Rage and Night Mothers for stamina Templar), level 15 new gear set (still with training attribute), level 30 new gear set (I changed my attributes to divines on armor, piercing on weapons as per Deltia’s build), level 40 new gear set, and then finally a VR1 gear set.
Set up your action bar with one skill from each class skill line, one from your eventual secondary skill line, and i personally put soul magic on until its rank 4 then put a primary weapon skill on.
Once you get a secondary weapon and action bar – travel and turn in quests with your secondary bar active while fighting with your primary bar.
a) you are used to your primary bar – and now you can remove that secondary weapon skill and level something else
b) you are effectively leveling your secondary bar and skills without having to get used to something different
Once you clear a zone’s faction quest, go back and get any remaining sky shards and books – you are still “at level” so the enemies will still give you xp. Going back later isn’t a bad option except you will probably not get xp because you are over leveled.
If you are going to be magika based – put all skill points into magika. Likewise, if stamina based, put them all in stamina. Use food for health boost.
Try to get the exploration achievement for each zone – it helps with both sky shards and lorebooks, but it also gives you a little more xp.
play Cyrodil at least a little – Setup your home campaign in a contested server, set up a guest campaign in a server that your faction controls if possible. This allows for two things: You get to actually PvP and get a feel for it, and you have a guest campaign where you can get lorebooks and more sky shards more easily if you need them.

That’s all for now – I will be posting a post VR1 guide soon. if you have any questions or comments – changes or suggestions, please let me know in the comments. You can follow me on twitter – @jzhnutz, and when I stream, I normally do it on the Phantom Forsight YouTube.

As a final note, I play on Playstation 4, we have a small, but active guild in Ebonheart Pact. My psn is jzhnutz.