Do You Use Every Skill Point As You Earn It?

Starkman · April 2016

Hey all,

New to the game here.

In researching builds, something I'm not too clear on is how players manage their skill points as they create their builds. Since several skills don't open until higher ranks are achieved, one is obviously going to need non-build skills until the ranks open; that part I get. And it seems to be that there are plenty of points, when all is said and done, to go around; I get that too. In view of this do players still elect to spend points into just those skills necessary to hold them over until they absolutely need better ones, saving the rest of the points, while waiting for the build skills to become accessible, or do they not worry about it and put points into other areas of interest?

I want to craft on my character as well: clothing, woodworking and blacksmith. I'd like, therefore, to get some points into the crafting section early on, but I've seen conflicting beliefs about this; some say wait to end game, while say otherwise. Because, however, the game doesn't seem to favor buying better armor and weapons from vendors (am I wrong there?), and in that I've always been a player who monitors vendors like a hawk, bettering my stuff instead of waiting for it to come along, I'd like to begin early on substituting the loss of buying with crafting. Now, I understand that this isn't necessary, but it's enjoyable; however, again the question is will I be mismanaging points by adding a few into crafting early on instead of doing so later? If later, how much later? When my build is almost complete? Not sure here.

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks.

xxxdcxxx · April 2016

follow some guilds on builds , and u can even reset your skills anytime , so u can learn by testing yourself or following guides ,
In my opinion I would advice u to focus on weapon skills first and then on researching

wayfarerx · April 2016

For general purpose leveling, unlocking skills and leveling those skills up to the point where you can morph them is the important part of leveling a character. The best way to do this is to try and keep one skill from each skill line you want on your bar at all times and to always be swapping those out for new skills as they become unlocked. So if you're leveling two handed you start out with Cleave, then when it hits the point where you can morph it swap out for Critical Charge, then Uppercut and so on. I even level garbage skills like this (looking at you Healing Ritual) just in case they stop being terrible in a future patch. This strategy will drain your skill points until around level 25 or so after which extra skill points will start to accumulate.

As for crafting, it can wait until end game except for one part: researching traits. This takes months and months even if you're always on top of it, it took me almost 2 years with a more laid-back approach. The tricky part here is that the fifth passive skill in each equipment crafting line increases the number of traits you can research at once as well as the speed at which you research. So you want to start collecting items to research and researching as much as you can now, while deconstructing all the extra drops you get so that your crafting skill lines level up. As soon as you get access to the research passives take them.

Leveling up you first character and getting into crafting at the same time is difficult, but completely worth it. Just don't neglect your actual skills in favor of crafting, other people can make you some gear but they can't lend you skills.

Elephant42 · April 2016

I always try to keep one or two skill points free for when a new skill or morph is unlocked.

Lexxypwns · April 2016

No, but I do use drugs as soon as I get them

Mojmir · April 2016

while leveling yes,I use them all.after that I save them for morphs.once all important skills are done they get thrown into crafting.passives are important too.

Starkman · April 2016

Thanks all.

Oh, and...

Lexxypwns wrote: »

No, but I do use drugs as soon as I get them

Yeah, I could see the drugs being taken right away; you're an XBox player!
HA HA! (Kidding you. JUST KIDDING!)

Thanks again!

Danikat · April 2016

I use skill points as I get them, not because I know it's the best approach but because it's what I want to do.

There's more than enough skill points available for everything you could want, even on my crafter who is levelling all the crafts and needs enough combat skills to be able to get more XP and skill points, so the only tricky part is what order to get things in.

I prefer to keep it simple by just picking whatever seems best as and when I get a skill point. If I make a bad choice I only have to wait until I get my next one to choose something different.

Starkman · April 2016

Danikat wrote: »

I use skill points as I get them, not because I know it's the best approach but because it's what I want to do.

There's more than enough skill points available for everything you could want, even on my crafter who is levelling all the crafts and needs enough combat skills to be able to get more XP and skill points, so the only tricky part is what order to get things in.

I prefer to keep it simple by just picking whatever seems best as and when I get a skill point. If I make a bad choice I only have to wait until I get my next one to choose something different.

I like it. I like it a lot!

Thanks.

Lexxypwns · April 2016

Starkman wrote: »

Thanks all.

Oh, and...

Lexxypwns wrote: »

No, but I do use drugs as soon as I get them

Yeah, I could see the drugs being taken right away; you're an XBox player!
HA HA! (Kidding you. JUST KIDDING!)

Thanks again!

Confirmed Xbox NA > PC NA anyway. Only pc EU has a better, skilled, player base than us

Wrecking_Blow_Spam · April 2016

Some very good advice here, use it.

You mentioned you check vendors? I'm guessing you already know this but just incase... There's a relatively new weekly vendor who sells 2 piece monster sets. The vendor sells one piece a week - only on weekends . Reason this is great is because RNG. I've heard of people doing 100s runs with no helm etc. This week is a helm. It costs 100k gold or 200k AP either is worth it but I personally prefer AP as gold can buy you many more things where as AP not so much.

My final advice would be in terms of passives/end game etc. My main is a crafter in wood/cloth/smithing it has 24 points in each category. 72 total. It also has 50 in enchanting/provisioning/alchemy but big BUT if you were to have all skills in these as well as cloth etc then you would be missing out on many passives. So I have another character do all enchants/ alchemy/provisioning.
Also on your main you will likely want to use skills in alchemy and provisioning for longer food/drink and potions.

Bare in mind I have ALL the skyshards etc dungeons skill points....

I have passives from:
Assault
Support
Fighters guild
Mages
Legdermendarian (apologies for spelling)
Thieves
Undaunted
Light/Medium/Heavy (5-1-1)
Depending on build : destro/resto/SnB/dual wield/2 hander/bow
All passives from your 3 class skills and I probably missed some. That's not including morphs etc..
In short: Have 2 crafters. Or 1 main crafter...

Ourorboros · April 2016

Good advice from wayfarerx......start researching ASAP. You don't really need crafted gear until level 50. If you can craft some set items by level 40, that's fine. You don't really need to put any skill points into crafting to level them all the way to 50, but for researching, you will greatly benefit from SP in research passives. You can be selective about which crafts you level, and therefore spend skill points. For example, if you focus on magicka, work on Clothier. If you use staves and bows rather than 1H and 2H weapons, do Woodworking instead of Blacksmithing. You can always fill in missing skills later. For research, focus on preferred traits on preferred items first. For example, research INFUSED on chest, legs, helmet, shield. These pieces get the biggest boost from enchants. Research DIVINES first on the other equipment pieces. For weapons, preferred traits are PRECISE and SHARPENED. If you have access to it, do NIRNHONED on weapons only early, rather than last. It's too useful to have to wait 28 or more days for the research.

You will be starving for skill points even if you are careful how you distribute them, so know where you can get more. The main quests for every zone give SP. Each public dungeon Group Event and each Group dungeon gives a skill point the first time. Each PVP rank gives a SP. There are many skyshards. Actively seek them out rather than wait until you hit each zone. You may have to sneak a lot, and die a lot, but many of the shards are unguarded. Find a guild or friend at a higher level who can escort you in higher level zones. Don't forget about DLC and Cyrodiil.

For what it's worth, you are correct about buying from NPC vendors. That is a waste of gold. Just use gear from loot and quest rewards until you can craft your own. Gold should only be used on bag space and mount training until you have higher level gear that you will want to keep repaired.

Starkman · April 2016

EquinoxS wrote: »

You mentioned you check vendors? I'm guessing you already know this but just incase... There's a relatively new weekly vendor who sells 2 piece monster sets.

Nope, didn't know that. I'm only level 6!

EquinoxS wrote: »

My main is a crafter in wood/cloth/smithing . . . . I have another character do all enchants/ alchemy/provisioning.

That's what I'm doing: main does clothier, wood, smith (which I really can wait on); alt does the rest.

EquinoxS wrote: »

Bare in mind I have ALL the skyshards etc dungeons skill points....

Well, I won't be doing PvP...okay, I may cheese it by just doing it to get a skill point, but then I'm out! Otherwise, I have the addon for skyshards, so I'm watching that.

Ourorboros wrote: »

......start researching ASAP. You don't really need crafted gear until level 50. If you can craft some set items by level 40, that's fine. You don't really need to put any skill points into crafting to level them all the way to 50, but for researching, you will greatly benefit from SP in research passives.

You will be starving for skill points even if you are careful how you distribute them, so know where you can get more.

I've got research going -- had to do some research to find out what the hek traits were good and bad, but we're good now. As to being starving for points, that was why I asked for some strategies about spending them. I've opened all three Class skills, with skills from each slotted, and I'm leveling my staff and dual wielding (I'm a Breton/Templar), but I'm unsure about what skills to invest in while waiting for the upper skill level ranks to open; do I start opening every skill available? Do I get crafting going? Do I only choose the bare minimum of working skills I need until the build skills open? It's lack of knowing just how frequent skills come to you in the game that has me asking these questions.

Anyway, it's slowly coming together.

Thanks all!

Elephant42 · April 2016

Starkman wrote: »

-snip-It's lack of knowing just how frequent skills come to you in the game that has me asking these questions.-snip-

As you've already probably worked out, you get a skill point with every level up and one with every 3 skyshards. Each zone has at least half a dozen shards or more. What you may not realise is that the main quest line will also grant you two or three skill points in each zone. So by the time you get to the end of Cadwells gold you will have accumulated at least 45 skill points just from doing the main quests.

Then there is the Prophet quest line which gives a SP for each quest and each of the Fighters and Mages guild quests gives a SP.

Finally each group dungeon will give you a SP when you complete it for the first time (but you must remember to pick up the dungeon quest to get this).

You will have _plenty_ of skill points by the time you reach V16 just by doing the normal content.

Nestor · April 2016

Starkman wrote: »

As to being starving for points, that was why I asked for some strategies about spending them. I've opened all three Class skills, with skills from each slotted, and I'm leveling my staff and dual wielding (I'm a Breton/Templar), but I'm unsure about what skills to invest in while waiting for the upper skill level ranks to open; do I start opening every skill available?

Your goal during leveling is not to reach L50, but to reach L50 with a versatile character. This means unlocking skills you may not think are useful now, but will be once you an Morph them. Your off to good start.

Do keep one skill from each of the class skill lines on your bar at all times. Class skills level the slowest and you want them to 50.
Have one or two weapon skills on your bar at all times, even if your not using that skill (because you want to level it to Morph stage.
Have one support or flex skill on your bar to level that too. Flex means something you want to level, but your not using at the moment.

Being L6, you should focus primarily on Actives until about L20. From L20 to L30, add in some passives and take some Morphs if they will help you. From 30 to 50, you will have a better idea of what your doing with your skills, but this is the time to add in some Crafting skills, like the ones that help with researching traits and possibly getting things back from decon. You also want to start adding in your other Passives from the Class and Weapon and Armor skills as they become available. But, Actives are probably still more important pre-50 than after.

One other thing, while leveling, wear all 3 types of armor at all times, you want them to level to 50 now, rather than try to grind them up later. Armor is not that important while leveling, so take advantage of that to level your armor, even if you don't have an optimal gear set up. I have run Training on all my armors on the most recent leveling character, who is at L44 right now, and he still does not have all the armor skills leveled to 50. In other words, armor levels slowly, so you want to get it out of the way now. I have a Vet16 Templar and Sorcerer who are still leveling Medium Armor.

QuebraRegra · April 2016

depends on the surplus of skill points you may have... you can never have too many.

The crafting lines are real skill point sinks, but because research become really slow, yer going to want that investment at some point.

Resetting is a bit costly IMHO.

Don't forget you can get ESO PLUS for a month and farm the extra shards and quest points from the various DLCs.

Starkman · April 2016

Thanks very much, all. I've got a lot to go with. I appreciate it much!

StarkmanAlive