Your weapon or magic damage scales off your total stamina or magicka, so you should either put ALL points into stamina, or ALL points into magicka, and nothing into health (unless you want to be a tank).

It helps a LOT if you can find a few pieces of a matching armor set, so you can get the bonuses from that set. That makes a huge difference. Later in the game, you'll be able to craft your own armor sets, so it won't be an issue.

But yeah, starting out is tough.

You've been getting lots of good hints already. My two cents are mostly that I agree with self-heal and -protection being the most important thing when struggling with survival. Magicka Nightblade is a good class to play there, since your primary AoE and Direct Damage class skills heal you in the process, and you have the light armor shield with helps a LOT.

Next best choice is Stamina Warden which has a strong stamina-based self-heal and is overall versatile.

Leandor is right though, up to a certain level you don't need to really make that stamina/magicka distinction. All class skills start out as magicka, and some of them get stamina morphs later on. So while leveling up, if not a Warden and Vigor from Alliance War is not available, using magicka skills (additionally) is recommended.

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Edit: i'll just stop here.

I did. It's why I offered advice on the specific fight in Cheesemonger's. The remaining advice regards suggestions on morphs/skill/passive choices when skillpoints become available. it the same advice I've given to lots of new people and it's still sound.

I've also offered up to go into more detail about any fight/class in question, should the OP need it. Without a bit more info from the OP, it's hard to give more than general advice.

That's a far cry from your implication that I'm just blowing it off. For the record, I added the last part on my reply to you because I expected someone to come on here with "You're CP XXX, how can you know?" not as a "git gud" post, as you put it.

But I'm not here for you. I'm here to help the OP.

That being said, I reiterate, OP, I'm happy to offer more detail if needed. The more detail you provide, the better we'll be able to help.

Idk's suggestion of guild assistance is priceless. You can get specific detail about class, role, and fights in real time.

Thanks for the advice everyone, I do appreciate it! It's heartening to see a community that is welcoming and helpful to newbies.

I'm still trying to figure out which class I can play properly, or at least die less with! I just want to be durable and sustainable so I'm not in constant fear of death or struggling to get through solo quests.

Stam DK: I'm stumped on which skills should be on my bar. I started with two-handed weapons with the idea of eventually having Momentum and Green Dragon Blood to hopefully stay alive well, but I read that dual-wield is generally considered stronger so I switched to two daggers. I just can't figure out what my rotation should be, especially since I only have 10-15 in most class skills and even less in dual-wield.

Mag Sorc: So many skills! I can't figure out if I should be using Destruction Staff or Storm damage spells, and at lowly level 11 it feels like I have too many damage options and not much to keep me alive. My pet seems mostly useless and I'm not sure if there's a trick to making it a more effective tank.

Mag Templar: I read lots of posts about the benefits of dealing damage and healing at the same time, so I equipped a destruction staff and Puncturing Sweeps but it feels like my damage is really low. I'm not sure if I should be opening with Dark Flare or just spamming Sweep until I run out of resources. I'm on the quest "The Dangerous Past" and I've died several times to the darn spheres.


A more general question: Do you split your crafting among several characters or try to level it up all on one? Should I be working at it as a newbie, or look for others to craft gear and put all my focus on leveling and worry about crafting later? I know in some systems the time / resource ratio is off enough that the time it takes to find materials and craft is better spent killing stuff and getting gear from quests or other players.

Thanks!

Combat Tips:

Combat in this game comes down to Skill Rotations, with Light or Heavy Attacks interspersed. So, it's more like 1,2,3,4,1,2,3 dead. Pick your skill rotations so that one skill will set up or buff another skill. For example, use a skill that Snares, then a skill that gives Damage over Time to an area so the snared mobs spend longer in pain, then use a spam damage skill. This is just one example.

Once you learn a good rotation, then you can weave in light or heavy attacks between the skills to extend the resource pool you play from. So it's more like 1, LMB, 2, LMB,3, LMB, 4, LMB, 1 Dead. Then once you learn how to weave attacks, then you can start animation canceling to up your DPS.

So, attacks are not just a spam of the Left Mouse Button, but an application of your skills and weapon attacks.

You add in Blocking (reduce damage), Bashing (interrupting a caster or heavy attack wind up), Dodge Rolling (double click on a WASD key to avoid damage and get out of red quickly). Throw in some terrain advantage, and your basically a Mobile, Agile and Hostile wrecking machine.

Crafting Leveling while building your first character:

Here is the thing about Crafting, you don't need it until End Game (post CP160) but you can level it in preparation with few to no skill points invested. Crafting can eat up 122 Skill Points to fully invest, so this will gimp your combat while leveling. Best to invest as few points as possible while levleing your character and crafting.

Equipment Crafting

Decon all mob loot other than what you are using to research traits. Research traits, learn two on all items you would use, then learn 3, etc. Focus on Divines, Infused and Training for your first three for Armor, Sharpened, Precise and Training for your Weapons. Then go for the other ones. Nirn is expensive, and a lot of people suggest putting a priority on that, I can't see why. The Trait is all but useless for Armor or Weapons. Best place to find Mob Loot is Public Dungeons, then over land grind spots. Grind on mobs until your bags are full, then go on a decon fest. Remembering to save the ones you need or want to research. Use the Lock Function and or an Inventory Mule to hang on to those. Only invest Skill points while leveling it into the Research and Extraction Passive, the last really only needing one point.

Enchanting

Ignore all the "advice" on the web about using an enchanting partner. First, use Mob Loot decon to raise this up to a point. Later on as you approach end game have some some gold, then start making Green, Blue or Purple Glyphs on one character and decon them on an Alt. You will level Enchanting faster than trading the glyphs with another player, which is tedious by the way. (like pull out your hair and make a doily tedious). Use Green up to about L15 in the Enchanting Skill, Blue up to about L30/35 and Purple up to about L46/47. Then learn the runes you don't know, you should be at or near 50, if not, make/decon some more Purples.

Provisioning and Alchemy

Don't worry about these, you can level these professions in about an 20 minutes, for both. Just collect the Various Solvents and Reagents and Provisioning Ingredients/Recipes as you go along. Once end game, then you can level it. Use Mushrooms to level Alchemy, or Flowers that make potions you won't use. Make sure you grab solvents (waters) as your leveling as they can be rare to find in the guild stores. For Provisioning, make the highest level Green Recipes you can make. Blue or Purples do not give any more inspiration than Greens, so save those for character use.



Yes, use Drop Sets for now, and Yes, level your crafting skills and do the Trait Research. Traits are why you craft as they allow you to make Special Crafted Sets. There are two sets in the game that your going to want to make, Julianos for your Magic Characters, and Hundings Rage for your Stamina Characters. There are no better sets in the game to have 5 pieces of. Period. Well, Twice Born Star is great to, but your a year out from making that. But you need to start learning your traits now.

Leveling Equipment Crafting is easy, just decon the mob loot you are not either selling to cover repairs or using to research traits. No skill points needed while leveling it, other than maybe a point or two into the Extraction Passives.

Back to the Crafted Sets, it takes 6 traits known to be able to make Hundings or Julianos, 9 Traits for Twice Born Star. You don't need to know these traits on everything, but you do need to know them on the items you will use. So, start learning those traits. Focus on the gear you will use first, then fill in the rest later. This means:

Casters
Heavy Chest/Legs
Light Feet/Hands/Waist
Shoulders and Heads are good to, but there are 2 Piece Monster sets that can take up those slots. So learn the traits on these pieces, but prioritize the ones above.
Staves (all 4 of them)

Stamina
All Medium Armors
Daggers, Swords, Bow and Shield

Learn Training, Divines and Infused on the Armors first, Infused, Sharpened, Precise and Training on the Weapons. Powered is good for the Healing Staff, Defending is good for Sword or other one handed Melee. Then fill in the rest until you have 6 or eventually 9 traits. Some people recommend Nirn as an early trait to learn. Unless they change it, don't listen to them. You might use it on a Shield or a Weapon but that is about it. You need it someday, but it's expensive and you need your gold for other things.

Invest the skill points into the Research Passives. I can't stress enough how much of a time sink Trait Research is. Be able to learn more than one at a time, and reduce the time needed. Get an addon for Trait Research Tracking, I recommend Craft Store. If your on the Consoles, find one of the spreadsheets out there or make one to track this. Have I mentioned you need to learn your traits?

Doing this you will be ready to invest skill points into Crafting when it matters and not have to spend months getting ready. Did I mention Trait Research and how much a time sink it is? The last two traits will take you a month each to learn, on each item you learn them on. Get started now, yesterday would have been better.

From my own experience, since I learned some clues about mobs heavy attack and some special heavy hit skills, and learned how to block, bash and dodge roll, it just get a lots easier. For example almost all mob use 2 hand weapon will have the same "charge up" heavy attack animation. Almost all Harvester do that frontal push back and summon the healing orbs. Almost all dual wield mob have the "sharpen the knifes" animations before they whirling/cloak and stun... Once you get used to the animation, you will know how to block/bash/dodge at the right time. This game is not like other MMO when you just stand toe to toe with the mobs and press button. You need to block heavy attack, bash the cast skills, dodge the red circle...

There's nothing wrong with putting points in two or all three attributes, it all depends on your intentions and purposes.

It's true that for an endgame "minmax" build, you go for a specific role and try to do that as good as possible, so you e.g. want to maximize your damage output as a DD. So you put everything into stamina, leaving health at the bare minimum to not get one-shot by each and every mob/boss attack. You rely on your tank to keep the boss off your butt, and your healer to restore your health when you get damaged.

For solo play, especially at low levels, for which this game offers a huge amount of material, you need to survive on your own, so it's very much okay to both increase your health beyond the "endgame DD" level, and also make a "hybrid" build by using both magicka and stamina. You won't do maximum damage with either resource then, but you don't have to. Surviving and having fun is more important.

For harder solo content, just make your build the best at its role. Your tank must be tanky, your healer must heal lots, and your DPS must have high DPS.

If you've been doing as much research as you have, it sounds like either that isn't really the issue for you and it's just a little healing you need (so get something, anything, if just one thing, to self heal. Do that, see if it works, if not, do more of that) or the research isn't helping you, in which case work out your own build instead of using others' (it's as simple as finding out what stats you want, find out how to get those stats with equipment and buffs, then find other abilities to fill out your bar).

Also general things might help - use food, potions, make sure you're wearing appropriately leveled gear (having gear from 10 levels ago won't do you any favors), etcetera etcetera. And hey, finding a group to run with is good too, if that's an option for you.

Yeah @JKorr is right, it doesn't really matter how you get to the resource figures you want, be it through attributes, armor enchantments, buff food etc., as long as you reach the number you're comfortable with.

While leveling up, attribute points is probably the easiest and quickest way. Glyphs are a little harder to come by. Talking strictly solo here, of course you can always ask a friend/guildie/in zonechat for a nice person to craft you stuff. This is an MMO after all. There's lots of players that will even do it for free when they can help a newbie. Like, it'll cost a high-level player nearly zero resources to craft something for a low-level player, so the "be nice and social and make friends" aspect clearly wins out here.

Note that it costs gold when you later on want to reset and reallocate the attribute points.

can be a real pain i have just come back and would say this join a social guild or 2 and 3 trade guilds first can have 5 guilds you can be in.
i am in 2 social guilds and 3 trade guilds , would also suggest ask others to team up and do some things together , if you want a far easier life then every 10 levels get a very good crafter to make you complete sets of armour weapons .

there are a few main sites that have good builds advice since i joined a guild that is a part of dottz gamiing i havent looked back .

if you need help questing jst ask me i come and help does get a bit boring playing solo most of the time