Skill leveling and general questions

RocketManRod · May 2016

Let me start by saying that I like playing many different toons. It helps me get a sense of the capabilities of all the different classes. So this issue is very poignant to me, may not be to someone that has just a main character and has leveled them to max. Woo-whoo your done congrats!.

Playing many different alts it makes my eyes roll back into my head thinking about how much time I need to spend just leveling skills. I am not blaming anyone for that, it my decision to level a bunch of different characters/toons.

I do have some questions though:

1) Even after leveling several characters I still can't get a handle on the experience needed/required for skills. It seems very inconsistent. I PVP to get vigor, get it, step on a spider, I get a message Vigor is ready to be morphed (not that quick but you get the point). However I spam, use Necrotic Orb for hours/days/weeks, it is still only rank 2 on the base skill. What the heck is up with that? Is there an internal computation, "this skill is too powerful so slow down the leveling of it"? Why aren't the skills set to level with the exact same experience requirements?

2) Why do we (still) have base skills? When you start a new character and you skip the tutorial, you start at level 3 and you have a couple attribute points and three skill points. I have to make decision right there what type of character I am going to play, a magicka based character or stamina. However I may have to use a magicka based skill before I can get to the morph that allows me to use stamina (if that is where I chose to put my attribute points). That is more than just at the start of the game. I won't get some higher level skills until I level the character more spend more attribute point in specific attributes and the problem is exacerbated. My perception is this is more of an issue for stamina builds than magicka builds. Would the game be harmed critically if base skills were removed and all skill immediately allowed you to morph them upon selection? I don't think so, do you agree/disagree?

3) (Dragonknight specific question) Within Dragonknights CLASS SPECIFIC SKILLS, why is there no execute skill? Sorcs have one, Templars definitely have one of the most powerful in the game, and Nightblades have one. I don't see one in the Dragonknight skill tree. This is my newest alt so maybe I am just missing it. Again I am not talking weapon skills just CLASS.

Bottom line, I'd like to see skills level consistently. I think that might help new players coming to the game (might). You could know if I do x number of quests or PvP or whatever and the skill will level.

I'd like the base skills to be removed. They simply add confusion at lower levels, since the end game skill you will be playing with may be completely different in effect and cost.

Thoughts?

wayfarerx · May 2016

1) Skill that are higher in a skill line level slower than ones that are lower and some skill lines level slower overall than other lines. That's just how it is at the moment.

2) At low level stamina characters should keep some class skills on their bar so they can level those lines and get the skills up to the morphing point, but should probably focus on weapon skills to start. Additionally, at low level the difference between your stamina/magicka and weapon/spell damage is so small you're not really a "stamina build" or "magicka build" yet.

3) It because they try to keep classes non-homogenized. Nightblades have no shields, DKs and templars have no mobility, sorcerers have no spammable single-target ability, etc.

s7732425ub17_ESO · May 2016

Preface: I have leveled three alts and have maxed out *every* (yes, every) skill in the game on *all* (seriously, all) of my alts (and my main as well).

PC addons let you know how much exp is required for each skill level. The exp required for each skill is actually very consistent across the entire game. There are tiers of exp requirements, and once you learn which skills fall into which tiers, you have a general idea of how long they will take to level. (I really should do a detailed writeup on this because most people don't know this).

Using a skill does not give you exp.

Whenever you gain exp such as turning in a quest or killing a monster, all skills on your active bar gain exp. This means that if you have a "back" bar, where you put all your buffs and stuff, these skills will barely get any exp because you will usually be on your "front" bar when killing monsters.

Tip: it is easiest to max skills while grinding. Why? Because, while grinding, you really only use one or two skills at a time. This means you have space on your bar to put three or four skills that you want to level up. To max all skills on my alts, I rotate these filler spaces until all skills are maxed. The grind from VR1 to VR16 literally has enough exp to level up, morph, and max out all skills in the game.

RocketManRod · May 2016

1) Understand that part of it but Magicka Detonation (a skill at the bottom of the Assault PvP tree) levels almost as quickly as Vigor does. That seems out of whack.

2) Agreed but that time should be spent on the morph (in my opinion) not the base skill. that is just plugging up one of our 5 slots.

3) This locks the DKs into using specific weapons to have an execute. That seems unbalanced to say the least. I get not homogenizing classes but some things should be consistent.

RocketManRod · May 2016

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Preface: I have leveled three alts and have maxed out *every* (yes, every) skill in the game on *all* (seriously, all) of my alts (and my main as well).

PC addons let you know how much exp is required for each skill level. The exp required for each skill is actually very consistent across the entire game. There are tiers of exp requirements, and once you learn which skills fall into which tiers, you have a general idea of how long they will take to level. (I really should do a detailed writeup on this because most people don't know this).

Using a skill does not give you exp.

Whenever you gain exp such as turning in a quest or killing a monster, all skills on your active bar gain exp. This means that if you have a "back" bar, where you put all your buffs and stuff, these skills will barely get any exp because you will usually be on your "front" bar when killing monsters.

Tip: it is easiest to max skills while grinding. Why? Because, while grinding, you really only use one or two skills at a time. This means you have space on your bar to put three or four skills that you want to level up. To max all skills on my alts, I rotate these filler spaces until all skills are maxed. The grind from VR1 to VR16 literally has enough exp to level up, morph, and max out all skills in the game.

With the removal of VR1 - VR16 do you think this will drastically change skill leveling? People will be in end game content faster right?

If you have a write up that would be super. What add-on tells you the experience? I would love to get my hands on that.

DurzoBlint13 · May 2016

they removed DK's execute when DB dropped and they redid the skills. Molten Weapons used to have a large damage buff when attacking anyone under 25-30% health.... I forget what the exact value was

Duiwel · May 2016

RocketManRod wrote: »

With the removal of VR1 - VR16 do you think this will drastically change skill leveling? People will be in end game content faster right?

Not really because unfortunately it will increase the inexperience of players, thus they will be "max level noobs" which is not really a good thing imo. Now this is a generalisation and many will be fine and probably level their skills faster however MOST will not understand their class properly and thus still gain exp slower.

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Tip: it is easiest to max skills while grinding. Why? Because, while grinding, you really only use one or two skills at a time. This means you have space on your bar to put three or four skills that you want to level up. To max all skills on my alts, I rotate these filler spaces until all skills are maxed. The grind from VR1 to VR16 literally has enough exp to level up, morph, and max out all skills in the game.

can confirm I also have a fully maxed char and many many alts and I do this on all of em for the skills I want ( the grinding with fillers ) as well as when questing or dolmens I use the back bar before the large exp reward.

Some additional info:

When you slot a weapon skill to your active bar even if you are not using that weapon you will gain exp.

Nadar · May 2016

I'm in the process of leveling all skills on my alts but the way I handle this is use the addon that allows you to change bar definitions with a single click. So whenever I turn in any quest, I quickly switching to my 'leveling' bar that is filled with unleveled skills. After I get the quest XP, I click once more to return to my regular bar setup. Once a skill is fully leveled, I switch it out for the next one I want to level.

BTW, this addon is great for when I want to quickly switch between healing and DPS or between my general trash mob setup and boss mode.

The addon is Wykkyd Outfitter.

Enodoc · May 2016

If you're interested in how much XP is required to level up a skill line from 1-50 (or 1-x, depending on the skill line), have a look here: http://esolog.uesp.net/viewlog.php?record=minedSkillLines

I don't think we have details on how much XP is needed to go from Rank I to Rank IV of a single skill though.

Cryptical · May 2016

I'm on console. I use the cyrodiil town daily quests to grind new skills, because it's easy to grab a chunk of xp all at once, rather than try to remember during storyline quests or in the heat of battle.

Get the quests from the two quest givers, go do them, come back, switch to the bar full of unleveled skills to turn in the quests, and there's at least 22k xp to applied to them. More if you use xp potions or scrolls. Someone needs to check the math, but my impression is that I can go from zero to morph of some skills in just two towns worth of quests in a single day.

I just started a new char, a Breton Templar, and this time will be paying a lot more attention to what skills need leveled as I go along.

RocketManRod · May 2016

Thanks everyone for the tips on level skills these will be helpful. It does seem a little goofy to me that you don't get some experience for just using the skill but I could also see how that could be abused easily as well. Anyway...

Just one last thing, I would like to get some thoughts on is removing the base skills from the game. My impression is that they are a useless time-suck that only adds confusion to the game. Additionally, they could be incongruous to your chosen attributes, i.e. playing through a Magicka ability to get the Stamina morph, while choosing to play a Stamina build.

Thoughts?

wayfarerx · May 2016

RocketManRod wrote: »

Just one last thing, I would like to get some thoughts on is removing the base skills from the game. My impression is that they are a useless time-suck that only adds confusion to the game. Additionally, they could be incongruous to your chosen attributes, i.e. playing through a Magicka ability to get the Stamina morph, while choosing to play a Stamina build.

I don't see any real reason to remove them, they let you learn and work with the basic aspects of a skill before moving into a more specialized version. And as for magicka / stamina, like I said above most of the times you're using an unmorphed skill you're too low level to be a real "stamina build" or "magicka build" yet. If you are high enough level to have specialized then you're likely earning enough XP to burn through the unmorphed phase super quick.