Welcome to the game, and wardens. A stam warden can be a tanky death dealing machine with super heals...lets get you on the right path. I love my stam warden.

Game basics

In regard to the skills issue...your class and weapon abilities (the attacks) level as you earn xp while they are slotted. Let’s use the bow attack snipe as an example. If it’s on my bar when the little green xp icon shows up in the lower left screen, the ability is getting some of the Xp to level. If however it’s on my back bar when I earn the so, it does NOT get any Xp.

The skill lines themselves (animal companions, dual wield, etc) level somewhat similarly. They get xp as you earn if for each ability from that line that is slotted. If I kill an enemy with only snipe slotted from the bow line, bow gets a little leveling. If I have three bow skills slotted, bow gets three times as much leveling.

Leveling Tips

- don’t stress too much about it. When you get to vet your xp earning shoots way up, and it’s easy to level anything that fell behind.
- People are saying to slot at least one ability from each class skill line. This keeps them all working up so that you’re able to unlock the powerful abilities up in the tree. Ultimate abilities count for this as well. Try to do this, but again don’t feel like you have to. If a line falls behind (like if for some reason animal companions is five levels behind the others), just slot like 3-4 abilities from that line when you turn in quests and it will catch up.
- You can try a different bar setup for grinding than you do playing. What I mean is that maybe when you’re l,aching you use the setup you really like, but maybe it doesn’t have skills from all the lines. Then when you go run in a dolmen circle for an hour you use a bar that you don’t necessarily love, but which helps level skill lines you need.


Wardens and classes

Your warden is getting to a level where you can get a pretty good idea how they play, but realize that any class isn’t going to come fully into their class until they’re vet. This is because some of the best abilities unlock well down the road.

But you’re right that you might enjoy other classes. It’s why you have eight character slots. Feel free to roll another class and give it a go. It might take 2-3 characters before you find which class you want to use as your main. And if you stick with the game, you might end up playing several characters. I main a stamblade, but I also heavily play my magplar, stam sorc, stam warden and magblade.


Weapons

A stam warden is great with weapon flexibility because they get their buffs from class skills. You can (should) learn and level dual wield, bow and 2h. You can play with 1h & shield if you like, but it’s less important.

You can succeed in PvP and PvE with any combo of the first three weapons on that list. Play what you like for now, level them all a bit, and as vet you’ll likely use all of them from situation to situation.

Armor

You’ll want to level medium and heavy, so wear a bit of both for now. Medium is for increasing damage, and heav tanks you up. Most vets wear a combination, and want both lines fully leveled with most passives unlocked.

Bar setups

Alcast does make solid builds. As a new player, it might be more helpful to discuss why he selects the skills he does...or why any build maker does.

Your back bar is generally for buffs, shields and heals. Alcast is using shimmering shield as a...duh...shield. Lotus is an amazing heal. Cloak is a good shield with a bit of dps. And bird of prey...when you get this, read each buff and look them up to understand what it’s offering.

Your front bar is for dps, generally. That’s pretty straightforward.

Important buffs: the most important buffs for any stam character is major brutality and major savagery. These increase your damage significantly. You’re getting to a level where you are unlocking abilities that offer these...learn how they work, and how to keep the buffs up.

PvP

You’re probably getting wrecked because you’re a newbie. We’ve all been there. You’ll get slaughtered in PvP a lot, but over time you’ll get better abilities, and learn the ropes. You can definitely contend and have fun in PvP...just also understand that you’ll be five times as tough one day when you’re a vet character with 300+ champion points. (It won’t take as long to get there as it might sound).

In the meantime, my recommendation is to play Cyrodiil in your server’s busy campaign in a group. Put out an LFG zone chat and find a fun, chatty group. You’ll learn a ton in a good group, and earn good AP. Use the opportunity to start learning how much damage you put out and take. Make sure your combat text is on, so you can see what attacks work best and which flop. When you die, look over the recap and see why. Some time in Cyrodiil let’s you learn the PvP basics in a larger team, so they can pick up some of the slack (and Rez you, lol). This is good experience for later battlegrounds and sewers.

And if you get really frustrated in PvP with a warden, try a nightblade. The cloak can be invaluable for newbies. Or if not a nightblade, at least carry some invisibility pots so you aren’t always getting chased down. Blessed thistle, blue enteloma, namiras rot. Lifesaver, lol.

Have fun. If you have question, when you reply make sure to use @davey1107 in the reply so the system flags me. That’s a good rule any time you ask follow up questions in these forums...a quote or @player reference gives us an alert so we know to come back to the thread.

On any platform, when in Cyrodiil put out a zone chat. Go to social...text chat...then type /z LFG.

You’ll probably always get an invite. if you want, feel,free to elaborate - LFG. Stam Warden noobie, learning PvP. Then anyone inviting you knows to give a little extra instruction.