Best thing you can do is find like minded people to do things with. Find a leveling guild and group up with people from the guild especially since they will know you are newish. Im sure some experienced players can tell you how to do certain contents.

I haven't joined a guild. The two I joined asked me for a fee and kicked me when they found out I didn't have gold to pay. Even know I told them I was new and didn't really have money to throw around for a fee. I chose Templar and because I wanted to be a Khajit and also something that could classify as tank. I just feel like dungeons are a free for all. There is no AoE threat from what I've seen and the AoE skills I do have do very little to gather them up. But it doesn't seem to matter much. Bosses seem to toss around just as easily from one target to the next. I've slotted both threat skills that I'm aware of and they don't seem to do very much? I mean joining a guild is all well and good but I can't really expect them to take me through everything. I want to learn the game, not be carried. Otherwise I'm just going to get to end game and be kicked like I am from leveling dungeons, because I don't know mechanics. But I don't even know where to start for mechanics. There are so many dungeons to keep track of...Thanks for the response btw I appreciate it.

Thanks guys, I'll try to find a more welcoming guild and work from there. I really just want to learn the game and not feel like I need to look up a guide for every dungeon. Maybe try some class guides as well. Thanks again.

It sounds like you've just had awful luck with teams and guilds, I'm sorry for that. I assure you not everyone is like that. Perhaps you could try the guild recruitment section here on the forums? There should be plenty of guilds friendly to newcomers and willing to help and share knowledge(unfortunately I'm PC so can't help you personally there).

Dungeons wise, tanking is pretty easy aside from maybe endgame(vet dlc dungeons, trials). There is indeed no aoe taunt; there're 2 single target taunts - Puncture in s&b tree (you want the debuffing morph, Pierce armor) and the ranged one - Inner fire in Undaunted skill tree(you level that tree by doing dungeons achievements). Frost staff heavy attack also taunts (which a lot of people still don't know and might accidentally end up stealing agro as dps/healer) but personally I think it's very slow, clunky and not worth it.

You don't need aoe taunt because you only really need to taunt the big hitters - obviously the bosses and heavy hitting ads, it's usually fattest biggest ugliest monsters, if humanoids then ones with 2h or s&b. The 25 little ads jumping around? Don't waste resources, there's no way nor point to taunt them all. Ideally you want to cc (crowd control) them as a tank but templars don't get too many options there. If you keep going that route, look into Swarm Mother monster set when you hit vet - it'll at least let you pull ranged mobs to yourself and the group.

If you taunt boss and the big hitting ads and your team complains about things attacking them, it's most probably not you being a bad tank, it's them being idiots.

There're however a few bosses in game who are partially or completely immune to taunts. Pre-Gargoyle boss in Volenfell(2h guy), 2 of the Centurions (last boss) in there, Planar Inhibitor in WGT(will follow whoever closes pinion in the centre of the room, not taunt), Drodda - the last boss in Direfrost, DC I last boss in the spinning stage etc. You'll learn them eventually, it's simply on the team to survive this. You should try to ad to dps or healing while you can't tank anyway.

Some general tanking tips - you generally want to face the boss away from your team because a lot of them have frontal conal attacks that can hurt your team otherwise. What you do NOT want to do is run the boss around unless it's absolutely required by the mechanics - you're considerably lowering your team's dps by doing so because a lot of our dps currently comes from ground-based skills and you'd be running the boss right ought of them.

Also, normal dungeons ARE for new players and at least beginning to learn the game. Kicking people from there for being new is well...it's a jerk move. Most all mechanics can safely be ignored on normal anyway. Keep in mind not all dungeons are the same though, dungeons with II in their names are usually harder/more mechanics heavy and dlc dungeons (White-Gold Tower, Imperial City Prison, Ruins of Mazzatun and Cradle of Shadows, soon to be joined by 2 more with the next dlc) are definitely the hardest (though again you can ignore most mechanics on normal).

Sorry for the wall of text and good luck on your journey

Also, here's a long guide you might want to take a look at. I gathered different tips from different players when I was new and tied them together.

QUEST REWARDS

Most rewards are scaled to your level. Some rewards items are valuable set pieces and you can only turn in the quest once. So, you may want to consider doing certain quests (main story, mage guild, etc) till after you reach higher levels (CP160+) so that you’re guaranteed reward piece is at max level. Note: many of the rewards are pieces to the Overland sets.

GRINDING

For grinding build I would just use any sustain sets ( Seducers, Magnus, Willow's Path, Alteration Mastery, Lich, Transmutation, etc), ideally everything with Training trait and upgraded to purple quality. You can get 80-90% XP boost from all purple training gear, 50-150% boost from scrolls or XP potions, 10% ESO Plus, 10% from being in group with 2 people, 10% from pledge of Mara and up to 13% XP boost from Enemy Keep bonus if you are in Cyrodiil. Grinding is always fastest (Skyreach, Imperial City Sewer, Cracked Wood Cave, Dolmens, public dungeons etc), but there is a catch up mechanism now, so you earn them pretty fast when you have low CP just by playing the game normally in PVP, dungeons, quests etc. It's not necessary to grind anymore unless you are in a hurry to reach CP cap.

CRAFTING

Blacksmithing / Clothing / Woodworking

1.) When you start, you can only craft gear of your own race's style. Therefore, you'll need to find additional motifs. Motifs are books that teach your character how to craft in other (racial/exotic/rare) styles.
- 1a.) You'll need to obtain specific style gems to craft anything in any particular style.
- 1b.) Motifs can be found (at random) pretty much anywhere or bought from Guild Traders. Style Gems can be bought from Vendors, found by breaking down items, found at random, or bought from Guild Traders.

2.) Trait research is super easy. You just need to find an item with a trait on it and then visit the appropriate crafting station. Once there, you select "Research" and select the item. While this does destroy the item, your character will obtain the knowledge of how to make an item with that particular trait after he/she finishes "researching".
- 2a.) Trait research is very quick for the first few traits, but it quickly slows down.
- 2b.) Trait gems can be found at random, found through breaking down items, or bought from Guild Traders.

3.) Leveling your craft comes in a few flavors; Creation, Deconstruction, Refinement, and Improvement. Deconstruction grants the largest bonus to exp gained, and thus that will be the primary way in which you level your craft. Deconstructing items made by other players will grant quite a bit of bonus experience.

Enchanting

1.) Enchanting requires three types of runes to create a single glyph. One rune determines the quality (Color; White/Green/Blue/Purple/Gold), these are your Aspect Runes. One rune determines the effect that the glyph produces, these are your Essence Runes. One rune determines the level and type (offensive or defensive), these are your Potency Runes. Combine the three and you will create a glyph. Anyone can use glyphs regardless of enchanting level, but only a crafter can create a glyph.
- 1a.) Leveling crafting is very similar to leveling Blacksmithing/Clothing/Woodworking.
- 1b.) Runes can be found in the overworld within the glowing runestones, alternatively you can break down glyphs or buy them from Guild Traders.

Alchemy & Provisioning

1.) Alchemy is pretty straight forward. You find ingredients which may be mixed together to create potions and/or poisons. Simply visit an Alchemy station and get to mixing. Making new potions/poisons is the only way to level this craft, and reagents can be found scattered across the overworld or bought from a Guild Trader.

2.) Provisioning requires you to learn recipes in order to make ANYTHING. Once a recipe is learned, you need to merely create food/drinks and your provisioning stat will level up. The higher level item you produce, the more experience you will gain from it (that goes for all crafts by the way).

Crafting Tips

You can create an alt dedicated for crafting. Spend a little time running around the first few zones collecting sky shards, and maybe do some dolmens and random stuff to get to level 10-15, you should have more than enough points to get started.

The fastest way to increase crafting lines is to deconstruct most of the dropped stuff from enemies. Although it is tempting to sell that for quick gold, I believe in the long run you are better off deconstructing them until you max your crafting skill lines, and then you can begin selling the white items.

Basically the way I do things is anything I want to research or deconstruct, I put in the bank (if I find it on my non crafting chars). Then maybe once a day, I log on my crafter, go to each of the 3 stations, check what is available to research, and then deconstruct everything else. If you run short on bank space, take items you are storing for research and put them in the bag of your crafting toon.

Which traits you research doesn't really matter, but to save yourself some headache later, the "best" traits to research are Divines, Impenetration, Infused for DPS type builds, Sturdy and Reinforced for tanks, and then Sharpened, Precise, and Defending (again for tanks) for weapons.

Hirelings are useful because they can bring legendary quality mats. Plus refining any quality raw material can net you legendary quality mats as well so it’s worth it.

In my opinion, the non-gear crafting lines should be prioritized as: Provisioning, then Alchemy, then Enchanting. Provisioning is easy to upgrade and you’ll want to be able to make your own food. Food ingredients are ridiculously easy to get. Alchemy is second in importance since you’ll need potions for veteran dungeons and PvP. And, a very important Alchemy passive called Medicinal Use allows you to extend the duration of all potions up to 30% longer. It’s like Viagra for your potions. All players need this at end game. Enchanting takes the longest to level and you only enchant occasionally.

I find that writs (daily crafting quests) are well worth it. They can provide gold upgrade materials, maps for rich nodes which can result in more upgrade mats when refined, and gold as a reward.

Please read this: Even if you don’t want to deal with the research of traits, which can take over a year to master, I believe all serious ESO players should level up their armor and weapon crafting skill lines. Why? Because you will want to unlock the passives that allow you to upgrade armor/weapon pieces to blue/purple/gold quality. Dropped pieces in dungeons cannot be handed to your friend to upgrade the quality and then hand back. Any upgrade of Dungeon pieces immediately binds to his account preventing him from giving back to you. Also, you will want the option to incrementally upgrade your CP160 armor pieces as you gradually obtain your gold upgrade mats. As I said, not everyone wants to deal with learning traits. But everyone should be able to upgrade their own item’s quality.

Also, you want the passives that increase the chances of you obtaining upgrade materials when you refine your raw stuff. All players should have this. Way cheaper than purely buying Tempering alloys at guild traders. Get some yourself from your own refining. Again, you'll need max level crafting skill lines to do this. You do not NEED any researched pieces to get this passive or the one I mentioned above.

In summary: all players need to level their crafting lines. Only serious crafters need to research and obtain all the motifs.

BOUNTIES & MAKING MONEY

Make sure in your game settings that you turn off auto loot on stolen items, and that you turn on "prevent attacking innocents". These two settings will really help you from getting unintentional bounties. If you want to steal things to make money, do the following first:

- Max out the passives in the legerdemain and the thieves' guild skill lines that make stealing much easier. Everyone gets the legerdemain line, but you need the thieves' guild DLC to get their skill line.
- Make a set of medium armor to put on while stealing. There are medium armor passives that make you a lot harder to detect. There are also gear sets that make you harder to see while stealthed.

As for bounties, you never have to pay them. Bounties go down over time, even when you are logged out. If you rack up a bounty, go get a bite to eat, or play another character for a while, or go somewhere where there are no guards. There is a passive in the thieves' guild skill line that makes your bounty go down much quicker, and is definitely worth getting if you intend to steal a lot.

Fastest way to make money is going around to all the guild traders in the world, buying stuff that is on sale below avg price and reselling. However easiest way for a new character to make money is probably resource farming. You would be surprised at how much materials sell for (some herbs like corn flower, columbine, nirnroot sell for over 200~300g each, and are always in demand). Install the add-on TTC (Tamriel Trade Center), as it will show you the market value of items when you look at them in your inventory. For even more money, up your crafting skills, and put points into the refining passive for ore, wood, and cloth/leather. Refining raw materials gives you quite a bit of legendary crafting mats, which sell in the 1000's. Even refining tier 1 mats will give you these legendary items. As a side note, the best way to level crafting is deconstructing all your drops. Never try to level your crafting skill by creating things.

Another easy way to make money is to do the daily fighter/mage/undaunted quests (note that I said quests, not pledges). They are very quick to do, and give you a lot of ornate items as a reward that vendor for quite a bit of money. Plus you have a chance to get a Draugr motif page that sells for over 10k.

SKILL POINTS

Total Available Skill Points before Morrowind: 368

Skyshards: 127
Reach character level 50: 64
Reach Alliance Rank 50: 50
Complete all main story quests: 11
Complete alliance storyline quests: 49
Complete Imperial City DLC: 1
Complete Orsinium DLC: 3
Complete Thieves Guild DLC: 6
Complete Dark Brotherhood DLC: 8
Read the Folium Discognitum in the Mages’ Guild storyline: 2 (irreversible choice during quest turn in, be careful)
Slay group bosses in all public dungeons: 18
Complete quests in normal difficulty group dungeons: 16
Complete quests in veteran dungeons: 8
Complete Imperial City DLC group dungeons: 2
Complete Maelstom Arena in Orsinium: 1
Complete the Shadows of the Hist dungeons: 2

Total Available Skill Points in Morrowind: 12

Morrowind skyshards: 6
Complete Morrowind tutorial: 1
Complete Vivec quest line: 1
Complete Morag Tong quest line: 1
Complete Telvanni quest line: 1
Complete Morrowind public dungeon event: 2

Total Available Skill Points as of Morrowind update: 380

Total points needed to complete all skill trees: 526 (541 if Vampire, 548 if Werewolf)

WHAT TO KEEP, WHAT TO SELL

Any CP 160 set pieces with ideal traits. For the moment Sharpened for weapons. Divine (PvE), Impenetration (PvP), Infused (healer), Sturdy (Tank), Well Fitted (some build) depending on the build.

Any raw materials you get (iron ore, raw jute, leather scraps), you'll want to save for now. You can refine those materials, and once you level up Smithing, Clothing and Woodworking, you have an increased chance to obtain high level upgrade materials. Any refined materials you have (Jute, Iron Ingots, Leather), you can sell through guild trader or NPC if you want to clear up some bag space and make a little gold.

Cooking materials are dime a dozen, and there are buttload of different ones. Without the craft bag, saving all the cooking stuff would be tricky, unless you made a dedicated chef character. Do not sell Bervez Juice, Frost Miriam or Perfect Roe however.

For the Runes, some you can dump, some you should keep.

- Potency Runestones, you can sell (these are the square, bluish-purplish ones). You can buy hear from Enchanter vendors for relatively little gold. Once you reach CP160, save the level 10 Potency Runestones.

- Essence Runestones, these are the greenish-yellowish, lopped off triangle shaped ones. Some you can sell, some you should keep, depending on your build. Again, this is only if you want to set up for the long run, you can buy these from Guild Traders for not too much. I would recommend saving any Okori Essence Runes you find, they're really good, and kind of pricy. Same for Makderi and Tader, and Kaderi.

- Aspect Runestones, the orange circle shaped ones, there's only 5 different kinds. The most common is Ta, these you can sell unless you want to save some for doing the Enchanter Dailu Writs with. Jejota is also pretty common, these I'd sell, you probably won't ever use them as they're not really worth using. Denata's are worth saving and using readily if you want to put new enchants on gear as you level, or if you make alts. They're common enough that you'll find them regularly, but they're not good enough for end game, so not really worth hording for end game gear. Rekuta and Kuta you will want to save and stockpile, especially the Kutas. Or you can sell Kutas to other players, they fetch a nice chunk of gold.

For the gems, it's a similar story - save some, sell others. I'll just list the ones I think you should save, they're the most commonly used and in-demand.
-Fire Opal (Sharpened)
-Diamond (Impenetrable), this is only for PvP
-Sapphire (Divines)
-Sardonyx (Reinforced) for tanks
-Quartz (Sturdy) for tanks
-Fortified Nirncrux (Nirnhoned)
-Potent Nirncrux (Nirnhoned)

The rest of the gems, I'd say you can sell. At least sell them for now until you have time to set up some bank alts and get your system organized and sorted.

Again a similar story with Style Materials. These determine what your Armor looks like. If you go to a crafting station, go to Creation, then down 3 clicks to Style. Starting from the left, the first 9 materials are the racial motif style materials - these you can sell, you'll get them everywhere. Anything to the right of Khajiit (Moonstone), I recommend keeping, as most are pretty rare. If you have no desire to wear crafted Armor, you can sell all these and some do sell well to other players.

ADDONS

First of all, please install Minion, which is a must-have program that download and manage your addons. Once installed, it will ask you the file where to put addons. Not only it provide a list of (all?) available updated addons, with information such as most downloaded ones, but it will also automatically install and update the last version of each addon, so you don't have to check the version at every update of TESO. Super useful. Go here: minion.mmoui.com/

Sites to get addons from, if you wish to install them manually:
ESO UI
ESO Addons Sub Reddit

Install repertory for Addons
Find the ESO Directory:
- Windows: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\
- Mac: ~/Documents/Elder Scrolls Online/Live/

Locate the addons folder, if it does not exist create one.
Drop the Addons folder you downloaded into the folder. Note that MINION will automatically put the addons file here.
When starting the game, you should see the list of addons at the character selection page.
In game, you may change the parameter by accessing the menu (Social/addons). A list of your addon appears and their status.
If an addon is indicated as "obsolete", you want to remove it from the addon folder, or check for an update, as it may causes errors.

SOME GOOD BASIC ADDONS (alphabetical order) (last update: March 2017)

Advanced Filters - provide useful filters to find out the object you want in your bank, inventory, etc… very useful.

Alpha Gear - or Wykkyd Outfitter to save and change your armor sets quickly !

Awesome Guild Store - upgrade of interface for merchant pnj (similar to Advanced Filters), proposing category filters for level, price, quality filters, per unit price display, etc.

Destinations - (not updated since Oct. 2016) additional markers for your map - some altars, dwemers ruins, some quest givers, etc.. very useful.

Dustman - get rid of some items in an automatic manner (selling, throwaway,etc.).

Harvest Map - add resources coordinates on your map when you get one (ore, plants, wood, ...)

Horse Timers– to take care of your horses. My wife wishes I had such a timer for her.

Greymind Quick Slot Bar - provide hotkey for Potions, etc. Good for PC users, as the wheel interface is a pain in the ...

Inventory Grid View - my favorite. Put your bags content as a grid. so useful for your bank !

Inventory Insight - to get track of the inventory of your other characters!

Lorebooks- indicates the location of books on the map. I find it useful but one may prefer to explore to find those. You can also find more letters & books in trials and dungeons that are not indicated by this addon.

Master Merchant - for people interested in selling their goods in Trade Guild. This must-have addon displays the average value of items and number of items sold so far.

Multicraft - Allow to craft more than 1 item at the time (put several in queue), for all kind of craft.

Minimap by Fyrakin - A very useful map a honestly a must have for most player. (obsolete on March 1st 2017)

Potion Maker - very helpful to save the “best combination” you found. It also give the effect of each alchemy materials.

Research Assistant - a must have for crafting : it indicates on each item if you need or not the traits for research (smithing, woodworking, & tailoring).

SkyShards - arguably the most downloaded addon out there. It locates all(?) shard of the game. Very useful but few players will find it more rewarding to discover shards as it goes.

Sous-chef – a very useful addon to track recipe between your characters (which has which), ingredients needed for recipes and furniture, and also, it indicates in your cooking list the recipes needed for the daily craft quest. (obsolete on March 1st 2017)

Srendarr – a good addon to track the Aura, Buff and Debuff... I think a must have in mmorpg.

ThiefHelper – if you plan to get rich by stealing.

Votan’s Fisherman - Very helpful addon which indicates the type of bait you should use for which environment. Smart and simple.

Wykyyds Toolbar - a small bar giving useful info like horse timer, gold, area, research timer, etc.

ADDONS FOR IMPROVING YOUR BUILD (alphabetical order)

Combat Metric - This must-have addon provide a small rectangle that display an overview of how good you do damages, tanking, or heal (in value and %) by comparison to the group. In addition, you can display a report to see in detail how your skills and abilities performed well. I love the possibility to compare skills and also to see how the sequence of your skills in battle will improve your output.

Itemization Browser - indicates where you can get the armor pieces you need for your set, and all armor sets of the game. Very useful for max level player.
(obsolete on March 1st 2017 but you can make it work)

Combat Log Statistics (CLS) - to have a description of the combat skills and clear idea of what skills do what, if you want you can test them 1 by 1 on a random mob, or a training (in homemead next February).

Superstar - give an overview of your build/template and help you to compare build and make the good choice. Note that My Build is a similar addons but it gives me error every time I launch it (Jan 2017).

T's Combat Stats - to have a more precise description of each skill and its chance to critical strike.

SOME GOOD ADDONS FOR GROUP PLAY & RAID

Auto Recharge – To keep your armor shiny and weapon charged. Smart.

Lionas's Food & Drink Reminder – because it’s a must a have to get a beer before a fight.

I would also add Combat Metrics, described above, to compare yourself with other members of your group.

Noob Filter – this one is kind of cruel but it may be needed to get track of raid members.

ReadyCheck - lets you type /ready to do a ready check instead of fumbling with the group UI.

Trials Weekly Reset Tracker - Always good to now when it is time to go to trials (raid 12).

WPamA (What Pledges at my Alts). To follow which are the daily group dungeons and world boss available.

ADDONS FOR PVP

Cyrodiil Alert 2 - suggested below, war alliance notification, including objectives in progress. Also includes notifications for your position in the campaign queue, and if you log in directly to Cyrodiil, it tells you which campaign you're in.

No Thank You - Hides annoying alerts such as guild member that finished a raid, etc..

Rainbow Reticle - codes the cursor by target type, and puts their name & stats above it. Much less intrusive than a full combat tracker.

Megabear wrote: »

Also, here's a long guide you might want to take a look at. I gathered different tips from different players when I was new and tied them together.

Huge post of information.

What I have skimmed through looks good, but a reminder, he is on PS4, no addons.

That said.. wow.. thats a lot of information.

Pentrep wrote: »

I'm relatively new to the game, and I feel like I'm lost in the shuffle. I am not having a problem leveling in so much as I am having grasping the dungeons. Every time I do my randoms, it feels like it's a 50/50 tossup. I liked tanking in other games but in this game it feels clumsy at best, though it's entirely possible I haven't learned it yet. I go into dungeons...tell people I've never done them. Then they proceed to yell about how I don't know mechanics. I am on PS4, I don't know how people expect me to research every fight in every dungeon before entering it. I don't know what end game is like but I'm at a loss for what to do. I want to give this game a chance but without support what I am supposed to do? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

consider group dungeons to be more mid/endgame content. Nobody wants a level 12 with outleveled gear running around in WGT, LA, queuing as a healer or tank to fool the group finder and generally being a nuisance.

The whole game world is wide open, go exploring.... there's huge amount of content besides just dungeons. At level 10 or so, go try the non-vet PVP (so you will not blow quests until yer a higher level, etc.).

If yer really hung up on dungeons, do all the public dungeons first (no mechanics). If yer unwilling to learn group dungeon mechanics then GTFO. I'm sorry, that's as nice as I can say it.

Totally said tanking wasn't for me above and I preferred tanking. Dd I meant I preferred DD. Dur!