Some expansions:

5. Public dungeons: it helps to explain the distinction in dungones in this game:

Delves, the torch icon, are meant to be run solo, but are public instances so you will encounter other players and can run with them, or friends, or whatever. There are six per zone, and each has a sky shard. To clear them you need to kill the boss, and there's usually a quest that offers piddly xp. If the map icon is black, you have not cleared it. Once it is cleared the icon goes white.

Public dungeons, the stone arch icons, are also public instances where you'll find other players. They're much harder with many more monsters in each mob, and while they may be run solo they are intended for people to help each other out. There is one per zone, and each has a sky shard, several mini bosses to kill for achievements, and a big fight called a "group event" that awards one whole shiny brand new skill point. There are 1-2 quests inside each public dungeon that award big xp gains, and these are what you complete to clear the area and turn the map icons white. As a newbie these dungeons are the most "valuable" to you because there are 24 total skill points in the 18 public dungeons, and lots of leveling opportunity. You may run them solo, but if they give you trouble feel free to either group up, or just tag along with "older" players. Playing together makes xp gain faster, so most people don't mind a lower level toon hanging with them.

Group dungeons, arch icons with a plus, are four person group instances. Only your group, up to four players, will instance. These are very hard dungeons, each containing a quest that awards a skill point. There are no sky shards. Some have a second version of the dungeon with an additional skill point quest. They can be put on normal and veteran mode in your group menu...vet mode is way hard and meant to be played by 4 person vet groups with many, many, many champion points. These are also called undaunted dungeons, because once you get to level 45 you can join undaunted and do dailies that reward monter sets and other stuff.

Cyrodiil delves: these are just like delves, but the monster population is denser like a public dungeon. Each has a sky shard, there are no quests, and there are multiple (2-6) bosses you need to kill to clear them. They are also pvp zones, so other faction players can murder you.

7. To give you an idea of loot values, the only items of value to in-game npc vendors are stolen treasures. The quality of your drops from stealing from containers and picking pockets is determined by your legerdemain level. Most treasures are white, worth 40 gold. Greens are worth 100. Blues are rare, they drop for me 1-5 times per hour of stealing...worth 250. Purples are ultra rare, dropping once every couple of months, and are worth 1500. You can make a couple thousand an hour stealing once you're good at it.

Items that are desirable on the player markets can be worth much more. If you want to rack up the gold, this is the way to go. Browse guild stores at the guild trader stands...rawlkha, Wayrest and mounrhold are the biggest stores. This will give you an idea what is valuable, then you could go farm those items. For a beginner, I recommend farming motifs. Each drop in a specific way. I do a farm where I run my nightblade through some thieves guild and dark brotherhood repeatable/daily quests. In an hour I can nab 1-3 motifs from the thieves guild, abahs watch or dark brotherhood styles. Each is worth 25-40k in guild stores. And of course homestead items will be worth a lot for a while.

If you're going to farm and sell, you probably need to join a guild that consistently wins a trader spot. Many of these, especially in the desirable spots, charge a weekly "rent" to access their stores. 2k, 5k and even 10k per week are common. But if you're farming and getting those high-value items it's well worth it. I clear $200k per week in three trade guilds that all together cost $17k per week to access their stores.

8. Armor drops vary in racial styles. "Junk gear" refers to gear that does not belong to a set...just a rawhide jack of some sort...can drop in any racial style. Drop sets, which are labeled on the tool tip as such and offer increasing buffs depending on how many items frommthst set your wear, have a pre-determined style. For example, viper's sting is argonian...all pieces drop as argonian. There are powerful craft sets in the game, made at special craft stations scattered around. These can be made into any style. To do so, the crafter needs to have a specific number of traits researched per item and they need to know the style you want on the item. For example, Hundings Rage is a "six trait set." So to make a hollowjack medium chest, I need to have researched at least six traits on medium chests. Then I need to have learned the hollowjack chest motif.

9. Material drops are a bit complex in one Tamriel. What they're made of (iron, steel, orichalum, etc) are a function of both your character level and your rank in that item's trade skill. NOTE: trade skill level and rank are NOT the same thing. Trade skills have a level, the value of 1-50 on your skill menu, but they also have a rank determined by how many points you've spent in their first passive...the one that allows you to craft higher level items.

Nodes in the world drop 50/50 based on character level and trade skill rank. For example, when you get to player level 16 and can start wearing steel, half the metal ore nodes will be steel. But let's say you work up the smith level pretty high and spend points to be rank 4, which allows you to craft up to dwarven. The other half of the nodes will be drawrven ore. Item drops vary in materials. Drop sets will always be your player level so that you can wear them immediately. Junk items, like swords you steal off a rack, will be based on your trade skill rank.

You can therefore apply some strategy to your material drops. If you're going to craft your own gear, you will want to keep your trade ranks going up at about the same rate as your player level...or keep them one step ahead, so you can collect ore you need in the near future. Or race your craft skills ahead so you can collect the expensive high level vet mats to sell/horde.


Hope this helps. If you have any questions, respond using @davey1107 in the thread and I'll get an alert. Happy to assist with any beginner/intermediate/advanced questions.

Is there anywhere( a menu ) I can check what my character has researched and for which armor class

Not in your menu. You have to go to a crafting station and either scroll to that item/trait in the build menu, or go to research and flip through them.

Note - all motifs learned are listed in your journal, sometimes scattered about, but most are in the crafting section. That's not directly related to your question, but it might be helpful to know.


Trait research:

This is by character. If you are on 2 day research for light helm divines on character a, how long it takes character b to research the same thing is entirely independent and based on their own research list.

Research times get longer and longer per trait on that item. The first trait on an item takes approx 5 hours, the ninth takes 60 days. (!) You can speed this up in two ways. One, membership in ESO plus offers 10% faster research on everything, account-wide, no questions asked. Two, each skill line has a passive (i.e., metallurgy in smithing) that allows both faster research and researching more items simultaneously. There are four points in the relevant passive in each line, speeding things up by 5/10/20/25. The final point also caps the time at 30 days, which is relevant for the 8th and 9th traits researched.


Sneak attacks

Dark cloak is the skill you see making NBs invisible. Then the throats cutting is them using Blade of Woe from Dark Brotherhood. You get it free for completing the first quest in Gold Coast, no skill point required. An alternative is to use dark cloak and surprise attack from behind. Those skills pair and you should learn how to use them. My stamblade' average hit across all skills is like 12k...a good surprise attack from cloak can push 40k.

As for Blade of Woe, if you haven't purchased the DLCs, ESO plus gives you access...you can go in and get BoW. Then you don't lose the skill line, abilities, or progress if your subscription lapses. So I always advise new players asking about DLCs to try them first via ESO plus. If you love them, buy them. If you don't, snag all the good stuff in there while your plus is active.

Also, for someone who doesn't have any DLCs I'd recommend looking at the Gold Edition (which comes with four DLCs) and seeing what's cheaper...buying DLCs with crowns, or just getting a new disc. The disc is $35, it costs 5500 crows to buy the DLCs as a package, or 8500 crowns to buy them one at a time. Then the gold edition comes with a mount. (So did thenre-release of Skyrim, for anyone who bought that and didn't realize it).