As someone who plays this game primarily to do RP/questing, I'll tell a few stories about my own experiences going through various characters. There really isn't a "right" way to do this - depends on your needs.

Most of my characters I have not leveled to max before starting their journeys (aka, questing and stuff). There are a few advantages to doing this:

• One, it creates some sense of progression of your character as they go through their story. For some stories, this is paramount and power leveling your character will destroy most sense of progression.
• Two, it allows you to experiment with some different gear sets and abilities as you level and play content to test if they'll really work as you think they'll work. There have been a couple times where a set or ability I thought would work really well for the character just... didn't. It's much better to learn this sooner rather than later, because there are times it might make you rethink the entire character concept from the ground up.
• Lastly, if you've never played through the story content in that area (or perhaps even visited it) you will avoid spoiling aspects of the story and the exploration prematurely. This is an especially important consideration for players new to ESO who want to experience the story as originally intended by the developers.

Just to see how it would work, I did use an alternative method on a few characters - leveling a character to max before starting their journeys. This is similar to what you're currently thinking and has its advantages too:

• One, you begin your character's story with them already being a skilled individual. For some stories, a sense or progression isn't important or even an obstacle to telling the story the way you want it to be told.
• Two, it allows you to test the final load out for your character more quickly to see if it will work in the manner you hope it will work. Sometimes the key abilities for your character don't unlock until late, and you can't really tell how they will handle until everything is unlocked for them. On the minus side, if you really haven't tested any of their abilities or their "feel" at all, you might be in for some unpleasant surprises.
• Lastly, you shouldn't run into problems having too few skill points to distribute into the abilities you need because you've been going after skyshards as part of your power leveling activities. This can make aspects of character development less painful.

I've had a couple experiences trying to retrofit a mag character to stam (or vice versa). I don't recommend it. It's very jarring to go from playing a character in one way and then doing a one-eighty to play it entirely differently. It means you will not have any feel for how they will play once you hit max, because you aren't using the abilities they'll actually use once they're done as a character. You also won't have any experience in the skill lines you need either, because you will have wasted it on skills you won't actually use and have to re-level skill lines all over again. It's just not worth it, especially since it's not difficult to max level a character in the skills you actually intend to use for them.

With respect to leveling ledgermain, I've never ground that because it's just a pain, but if I did, I would definitely not wait to do the Thieves' Guild quest line. You're going to want that extra gold from selling fenced items, and you're *really* going to want the help clearing your bounty timer. It's doable without, but dang... takes some dedication there.

qbit wrote: »

Don’t farm gear until cp 160. Just use whatever until you get to that level. Preferably training traited gear.

Training gear will really help with leveling, the extra XP from kills is significant.

Like suggested above if you follow the main quest line and clear each zone (dolmens, dungeons, skyshards, world bosses etc.) you'll be well on your way to CP160 already by the time you beat Molag Bal. At that point (usually right around level 50 or early CP), you're just about done with 1/4 of the base game. If you have any of the DLCs there will be even more to do.

Anyways, my point is, CP160 is fairly easy to reach without any mindless grind. The gear cap is at CP160 and any set gear you find at that level will stay use-able indefinitely.

Depending on how you play. If you can tolerate the grind that a lot of peeps do like with the endless train at the Alikr dolmen or Skyreach, you'll hit level 50 and beyond fast. If you're not the grinding type, you can still hit level 50 fast by doing dailies and just go out and unlock all areas with all map zones. You don't even have to do any quests to reach CP 160 and beyond. Either way, this is one of the better time to level up new toons and skills as the double XP are enabled for this current New Life Festival; which we have, what, 13 more days left. Double XP with XP pots and/or XP scrolls, you should get anywhere from 100-200 CP by the end of this event.

Now, for the gear, to me, it's preference. Others will say don't worry about dropped gear pieces and use crafted gears until you reach CP 160. Hey, nothing wrong with that, but again to me, it is much better to get and use the drop pieces. One, it's abundant from chests, kills and reward drops. I rather use those than relying on someone else to take their time out and get to a crafting station and constantly have to craft. Of course you'll need higher gears as you level up. I find all my gears from treasure chests, kills, drops, dolmens, delves, dungeons, whatever and on my own terms; not having to rely on and wait on somebody crafting it. Plus, to me, it is just a waste of mats crafting for toons that are leveling to CP 160.

Non-crafted gears aren't hard to find at all. That is if you are willing to put in the work and farm it. Hell, I just pick up drops from kills, rewards from dailies and all treasure chests that I find. It is easy. Plus, I'm leveling up skills, getting shards, lorebooks and skillpoints as well as leveling up my legerdemain and others like Fighter, Mage and Undaunted skillsets. Also, you're getting trash pieces needed to decon and mats to refine to level up crafting and research.