New player - question regarding skills and dungeons

arunt · September 2020

I started playing around 3 weeks ago. I have mainly been doing the quests as that is my primary interest and crafting writs for gold. I am 70% through Glenumbra, and have finished the main quests available on this zone. I am currently level 26 and trying sort of a magical templar build.

Skill point situation - I have unlocked some class skills, one each of destruction and restoration staff skills. I also have about 9 points in provisioning and clothing. I know I need more points in passives, but I just don't have the points for that. I can see my stats decreasing with level, which is strange but related to scaling, I guess.

I have a few questions:

1.Should I be unlocking all the class and staff skills and leveling them up? Do I stop at all 4 of a skill or morph it and then lvl that as well. Or should I just level the skills that I am using, morph them and then level them to the max?

2. Do I lose the leveling up of skills if I respec? If so, then leveling up skills that you aren't using currently seems a waste, right? Am I bothering too much about unimportant things?

3. How easy are public dungeons if you queue? Does queuing even work at low level? I queued for 10 minutes but didn't find a match.

4. For specific dungeons, will queuing work? I mean with respect to time of course. My interest is mainly the Skyshards, but a bit of change of pace might be nice as well.

I do have ESO plus, if it helps.

juliandracos · September 2020

I am pretty new to the game as well, but I do have a few more months on you. I can at least help with some things:

1. Go do the main quest. I think you need to leave your starting zone for it to pop up. The main quest gives you so many skill points. It will make things a lot easier.
2. If you respec a skill, then you do lose progression. For example, I had to respec one of my morphs due to a change. It started back at level 1 for the new morph.
3. When it comes to respec, you can respec everything or just a single skill (like I did with the morph).
4. The dungeons you que for are not public dungeons. The one's you que for are ground dungeons. They are private instances. Public dungeons are found in the open world. It is list it as a public dungeon and it has like a cave looking icon on the map. Public dungeons are a shared space that anyone in the zone can enter.
5. If you want to do group dungeons (I do not think they have skyshards), your role matters. DPS are the most common in ESO, while tanks and healers are much less. So, healers will get groups a lot faster than DPS.

Parrot1986 · September 2020

1.Should I be unlocking all the class and staff skills and leveling them up? Do I stop at all 4 of a skill or morph it and then lvl that as well. Or should I just level the skills that I am using, morph them and then level them to the max?

Whilst levelling I’d focus on priority skills you will use and levelling each tree. For magika Templar having skills from each of your class trees and something from destruction is advisable so each tree levels evenly and gets to 50 around the time you do. You will eventually get more than enough skill points to max everything out so don’t worry about trying to do everything at once.

2. Do I lose the leveling up of skills if I respec? If so, then leveling up skills that you aren't using currently seems a waste, right? Am I bothering too much about unimportant things?

If you take a skill change the morph you start that morph back at the first level, if you change back to the original morph whatever you got experience wise on that remains so there isn’t really any risk.i wouldn’t worry too much about this though as you level but it does take a lot of the risk out if you make a mistake or want to try things out.

4. How easy are public dungeons if you queue? Does queuing even work at low level? I queued for 10 minutes but didn't find a match.

You can’t queue for public dungeons? These are just larger delves with 4 or 5 bosses, 1 of these is a group boss which grants a skill poly for 1st kill. These should be fairly easy solo especially in Templar which has nice self healing but it comes down to how well you rotate skills and avoid damage tbh.

4. For specific dungeons, will queuing work? I mean with respect to time of course. My interest is mainly the Skyshards, but a bit of change of pace might be nice as well.

Queueing will work for group dungeons that are 4 man instanced, you might find it takes 10-20 mins of a DPS but for most part it’s quick I’d recommend at least doing a random normal per day.

Overall I’d say don’t worry too much about respecs there are so many skill pints eventually available in the game you are rarely restricted by what to chose. For first time playing definitely do all the quests in areas and dungeons too as you go but take that as easy as you want. These are always relevant whether you’re level 40 or max cap CP. explore and get sky shards and you will soon find you can try out lots of stuff,

The games very forgiving with that and you can flex stuff quite a bit with it just costing gold. At your level I just wouldn’t do it too much.

Nestor · September 2020

You don't lose the progress in a skill if you respec, you just don't get to use that skill until you put a point back into it.

Here are a couple of guides I wrote long ago, they still apply today. The first is for, well, your first character in the game. You can do this while playing content, or doing the Dolmen Zerg:

First leveling character? Forget about Builds right now. No need, your handicapped anyway by the game so you are way more powerful than you need to be. Instead take advantage of this buff to properly level your character so you can be deadly when it matters later on when you are not buffed by the level scaling. In other words, you can create a rotation that makes you think your all that and a biscuit because of the scaling buffs, then get a rude awakening come Champ Ranks when you are on your own.

In other words, right now if your wearing any gear, the mobs will die.

1. Have one class skill on your bar at all times, swapping them out once the skill reaches Morph stage. Worry about your Morphs later.
2. Have one weapon skill on your bar at all times, again until Morph stage
3. Wear a mix of all 3 armor types so they all level about equally
4. From L1 to L20, invest in attack skills and actives
5. From L20 to L35 start investing in Passives and Support Skills
6. From L35 to L50 start investing in Morphs (but only if all your class skills are at the Morph Stage), Passives and Crafting Skills
7 From CP10 to CP160 try out dropped sets to see which ones fit your playstyle, don't worry about traits right now, fill in passives and actives you may have missed
8. Grind on Dolmens to level your Fighters Guild, or find the Lore Books to level Mages Guild
9. Do some stealing to level Legerdemain, best source for money in the game
10. Decon every piece of gear you get that you are not going to use immediately to level equipment crafting, no need to invest skills points until Champ Ranks.

And, for Leveling Alts, this is the most efficient way to create a flexible character while leveling:

While leveling you should be preparing your self for the future, not your build (as that will change). So:

1. While leveling, have one class skill from each class on your bars at all times. Classes level the slowest, so get them done now.
2. Have at least one weapon skill on your bar at all times
3. Have a flex or support skill you want to level at all times
4. Once the skill gets to the Morph stage, then put another one on the bar to level that rather than take the morph.

Your not going to have the best DPS now, but you will have the most flexibility later. You can apply this to both bars equally or some other way, but this is the best method while leveling 1 to 50. Reason, the game handicaps you right now to make you stronger than you really are. So, take advantage of that. You don't need the optimal skill load out, you need the optimal leveling load out.

Also, try to wear at least one of each weight of armor to get all those lines leveled.

Once you get up to or near 50, you should have all the skills that matter at Morph stage, your armors at 50 and most important, your classes at 50. Then, you can optimize your build.

arunt · September 2020

juliandracos wrote: »

I am pretty new to the game as well, but I do have a few more months on you. I can at least help with some things:

1. Go do the main quest. I think you need to leave your starting zone for it to pop up. The main quest gives you so many skill points. It will make things a lot easier.
2. If you respec a skill, then you do lose progression. For example, I had to respec one of my morphs due to a change. It started back at level 1 for the new morph.
3. When it comes to respec, you can respec everything or just a single skill (like I did with the morph).
4. The dungeons you que for are not public dungeons. The one's you que for are ground dungeons. They are private instances. Public dungeons are found in the open world. It is list it as a public dungeon and it has like a cave looking icon on the map. Public dungeons are a shared space that anyone in the zone can enter.
5. If you want to do group dungeons (I do not think they have skyshards), your role matters. DPS are the most common in ESO, while tanks and healers are much less. So, healers will get groups a lot faster than DPS.

Thanks a lot. This was quite helpful, and I cannot believe I missed the bits about dungeons and respec of single skills only. Based on this, I guess I should unlock all class and staff weapon skill and level them to 4. But morph only those that I am actively using.

Can I do public dungeons without joining a group? Or is it impossible for new characters? I am thinking impossible, but there is no harm in asking

Once again, thanks a lot!

DarcyMardin · September 2020

Also (not a new player but I am leveling new characters in a new account), in case you don’t know, all the public dungeons not only have a skyshard, but also a skill point event. One of the bosses will trigger a group event (usually can be solo’d, but maybe not at low level) that nets a skill point. So doing the main quests in the Harborage and running the public dungeons will yield lots of valuable skill points.

If you pick up the daily Mage’s guild quests in your character’s alliance capital city, these will send you to collect some relic (usually) in the public dungeons. The item you need to collect will be located in the same room as the skill point event boss. Doing the daily also gives you Mage’s Guild rep.

In addition, each zone’s main quests usually result in at least 3 skill points. Side quests don’t give skill points, although they do flesh out the zone story.

There’s usually a skyshard either in or just outside each major city, so jumping around the map even if your questing hasn’t taken you there yet will give you some skyshards.

Group dungeons, which you can join via the group finder tool, don’t have skyshards but they do have a dungeon quest that gives you a skill point when you turn it in at the end of the dungeon.

Enjoy the game!

juliandracos · September 2020

arunt wrote: »

Can I do public dungeons without joining a group? Or is it impossible for new characters? I am thinking impossible, but there is no harm in asking

Yes. One thing to keep in mind about ESO, is that they scale everyone up. What happens is that once your equipment is like 4-6 levels below you, then you do not receive the max benefit.

So public dungeons have group mobs, high HP mobs (100k), and like 3ish bosses. The issue, at least I had being a squishy caster, were the number of mobs. I would get too many on me at once and that led to death. I was not able to handle that at lower levels. Upper levels I was able to. Most bosses were too hard until I hit 50.

What level you can handle and how much you can handle will depend on your build, equipment, and how you play. You may be able to do it now, or you might need to wait 5 levels. I suggest you go try. If you die a few times too easily, then wait a few levels and try again. There are often groups running around.

arunt · September 2020

juliandracos wrote: »

arunt wrote: »

Can I do public dungeons without joining a group? Or is it impossible for new characters? I am thinking impossible, but there is no harm in asking

Yes. One thing to keep in mind about ESO, is that they scale everyone up. What happens is that once your equipment is like 4-6 levels below you, then you do not receive the max benefit.

So public dungeons have group mobs, high HP mobs (100k), and like 3ish bosses. The issue, at least I had being a squishy caster, were the number of mobs. I would get too many on me at once and that led to death. I was not able to handle that at lower levels. Upper levels I was able to. Most bosses were too hard until I hit 50.

What level you can handle and how much you can handle will depend on your build, equipment, and how you play. You may be able to do it now, or you might need to wait 5 levels. I suggest you go try. If you die a few times too easily, then wait a few levels and try again. There are often groups running around.

Thanks, I will try that. It is hard to get out of WoW mindset even though I haven't played it since 2012. Levels were extremely important there and gear didn't matter until you were max level, unless you had BoA equipment meant for alt leveling.

The bit about gear level is also interesting. I do try to keep my gear updated, but I am also trying to have all armor types balanced in leveling up, so it can be a bit tough. Not to even mention using some gear to research traits.

It is a bit much, but I guess that is one reason why we play MMOs - there is always things to do even if you play regularly.

arunt · September 2020

Parrot1986 wrote: »

1.Should I be unlocking all the class and staff skills and leveling them up? Do I stop at all 4 of a skill or morph it and then lvl that as well. Or should I just level the skills that I am using, morph them and then level them to the max?

Whilst levelling I’d focus on priority skills you will use and levelling each tree. For magika Templar having skills from each of your class trees and something from destruction is advisable so each tree levels evenly and gets to 50 around the time you do. You will eventually get more than enough skill points to max everything out so don’t worry about trying to do everything at once.

2. Do I lose the leveling up of skills if I respec? If so, then leveling up skills that you aren't using currently seems a waste, right? Am I bothering too much about unimportant things?

If you take a skill change the morph you start that morph back at the first level, if you change back to the original morph whatever you got experience wise on that remains so there isn’t really any risk.i wouldn’t worry too much about this though as you level but it does take a lot of the risk out if you make a mistake or want to try things out.

4. How easy are public dungeons if you queue? Does queuing even work at low level? I queued for 10 minutes but didn't find a match.

You can’t queue for public dungeons? These are just larger delves with 4 or 5 bosses, 1 of these is a group boss which grants a skill poly for 1st kill. These should be fairly easy solo especially in Templar which has nice self healing but it comes down to how well you rotate skills and avoid damage tbh.

4. For specific dungeons, will queuing work? I mean with respect to time of course. My interest is mainly the Skyshards, but a bit of change of pace might be nice as well.

Queueing will work for group dungeons that are 4 man instanced, you might find it takes 10-20 mins of a DPS but for most part it’s quick I’d recommend at least doing a random normal per day.

Overall I’d say don’t worry too much about respecs there are so many skill pints eventually available in the game you are rarely restricted by what to chose. For first time playing definitely do all the quests in areas and dungeons too as you go but take that as easy as you want. These are always relevant whether you’re level 40 or max cap CP. explore and get sky shards and you will soon find you can try out lots of stuff,

The games very forgiving with that and you can flex stuff quite a bit with it just costing gold. At your level I just wouldn’t do it too much.

Thanks for the detailed answers. They will prove to be very useful.

I checked out the differences between skill levels 1,2,3,4 in the wiki and it seems that:
1. The difference between each level of skill is small. So, not a great deal if you respec and lose the progress in a skill.
2. Morphed skills take a lot longer to level up.

arunt · September 2020

Nestor wrote: »

You don't lose the progress in a skill if you respec, you just don't get to use that skill until you put a point back into it.

Here are a couple of guides I wrote long ago, they still apply today. The first is for, well, your first character in the game. You can do this while playing content, or doing the Dolmen Zerg:

First leveling character? Forget about Builds right now. No need, your handicapped anyway by the game so you are way more powerful than you need to be. Instead take advantage of this buff to properly level your character so you can be deadly when it matters later on when you are not buffed by the level scaling. In other words, you can create a rotation that makes you think your all that and a biscuit because of the scaling buffs, then get a rude awakening come Champ Ranks when you are on your own.

In other words, right now if your wearing any gear, the mobs will die.

1. Have one class skill on your bar at all times, swapping them out once the skill reaches Morph stage. Worry about your Morphs later.
2. Have one weapon skill on your bar at all times, again until Morph stage
3. Wear a mix of all 3 armor types so they all level about equally
4. From L1 to L20, invest in attack skills and actives
5. From L20 to L35 start investing in Passives and Support Skills
6. From L35 to L50 start investing in Morphs (but only if all your class skills are at the Morph Stage), Passives and Crafting Skills
7 From CP10 to CP160 try out dropped sets to see which ones fit your playstyle, don't worry about traits right now, fill in passives and actives you may have missed
8. Grind on Dolmens to level your Fighters Guild, or find the Lore Books to level Mages Guild
9. Do some stealing to level Legerdemain, best source for money in the game
10. Decon every piece of gear you get that you are not going to use immediately to level equipment crafting, no need to invest skills points until Champ Ranks.

And, for Leveling Alts, this is the most efficient way to create a flexible character while leveling:

While leveling you should be preparing your self for the future, not your build (as that will change). So:

1. While leveling, have one class skill from each class on your bars at all times. Classes level the slowest, so get them done now.
2. Have at least one weapon skill on your bar at all times
3. Have a flex or support skill you want to level at all times
4. Once the skill gets to the Morph stage, then put another one on the bar to level that rather than take the morph.

Your not going to have the best DPS now, but you will have the most flexibility later. You can apply this to both bars equally or some other way, but this is the best method while leveling 1 to 50. Reason, the game handicaps you right now to make you stronger than you really are. So, take advantage of that. You don't need the optimal skill load out, you need the optimal leveling load out.

Also, try to wear at least one of each weight of armor to get all those lines leveled.

Once you get up to or near 50, you should have all the skills that matter at Morph stage, your armors at 50 and most important, your classes at 50. Then, you can optimize your build.

Thanks @Nestor. I am sure this will be very useful not only for me, but for others a well. I think I am kind of trying to do what you said in your last paragraph. My class, armor and weapon skill lines are close to each other and close to my overall level.

I am doing it in a weird way perhaps, but this is how I have set up my skill bars since the last 2-3 days:
1. One of them has the skills that I am using currently, including a couple of morphed skills. It has destruction skill as well. So, when I kill mobs and generally gain xp while playing, these level up.
2. The second bar has skills that I am not using, but need to be leveled. So 3 class skills, 1 each of weapon skills, and 1 ultimate. Whenever I am turning in quests, I switch to this bar, so these skills and skill lines level.

This way, I don't handicap myself while playing, but also level up other skills. I hope this is not a bad idea. I don't have a flex/support skill though, or maybe I do don't know what that is.

I am going to take your advice and stop putting points in crafting for now. I am also not seeing any benefit to it now as I am using mob dropped/quest gear only.

What you mentioned about scaling - it was disorienting for me. As I leveled up, I was actually losing my attributes. Stamina especially dropped like a rock from level 1 to level 26. It also made me skeptical of the value of putting attribute points into magicka - I mean, what is 1 point for 111 magicka when I already had 20000? Now, I see the difference between my Magicka and Stamina and I can understand the value.

I hope I haven't learned other wrong lessons due to scaling!

JKorr · September 2020

arunt wrote: »

juliandracos wrote: »

arunt wrote: »

Can I do public dungeons without joining a group? Or is it impossible for new characters? I am thinking impossible, but there is no harm in asking

Yes. One thing to keep in mind about ESO, is that they scale everyone up. What happens is that once your equipment is like 4-6 levels below you, then you do not receive the max benefit.

So public dungeons have group mobs, high HP mobs (100k), and like 3ish bosses. The issue, at least I had being a squishy caster, were the number of mobs. I would get too many on me at once and that led to death. I was not able to handle that at lower levels. Upper levels I was able to. Most bosses were too hard until I hit 50.

What level you can handle and how much you can handle will depend on your build, equipment, and how you play. You may be able to do it now, or you might need to wait 5 levels. I suggest you go try. If you die a few times too easily, then wait a few levels and try again. There are often groups running around.

Thanks, I will try that. It is hard to get out of WoW mindset even though I haven't played it since 2012. Levels were extremely important there and gear didn't matter until you were max level, unless you had BoA equipment meant for alt leveling.

The bit about gear level is also interesting. I do try to keep my gear updated, but I am also trying to have all armor types balanced in leveling up, so it can be a bit tough. Not to even mention using some gear to research traits.

It is a bit much, but I guess that is one reason why we play MMOs - there is always things to do even if you play regularly.

Try to find a good guild. Usually there are helpful people who don't mind answering questions, and crafters happy to lend a hand. Researching traits can be a lot easier when you can ask for the traits you want instead of hoping the traits you need drop. Crafters can also help with keeping your gear "in the zone", so to speak. I'll make under cp160 training gear for guildmates for free, every ten levels of so if they want it. I think the under cp160 time is a good chance to play around with the crafted sets to see what works for you.

arunt · September 2020

JKorr wrote: »

arunt wrote: »

juliandracos wrote: »

arunt wrote: »

Can I do public dungeons without joining a group? Or is it impossible for new characters? I am thinking impossible, but there is no harm in asking

Yes. One thing to keep in mind about ESO, is that they scale everyone up. What happens is that once your equipment is like 4-6 levels below you, then you do not receive the max benefit.

So public dungeons have group mobs, high HP mobs (100k), and like 3ish bosses. The issue, at least I had being a squishy caster, were the number of mobs. I would get too many on me at once and that led to death. I was not able to handle that at lower levels. Upper levels I was able to. Most bosses were too hard until I hit 50.

What level you can handle and how much you can handle will depend on your build, equipment, and how you play. You may be able to do it now, or you might need to wait 5 levels. I suggest you go try. If you die a few times too easily, then wait a few levels and try again. There are often groups running around.

Thanks, I will try that. It is hard to get out of WoW mindset even though I haven't played it since 2012. Levels were extremely important there and gear didn't matter until you were max level, unless you had BoA equipment meant for alt leveling.

The bit about gear level is also interesting. I do try to keep my gear updated, but I am also trying to have all armor types balanced in leveling up, so it can be a bit tough. Not to even mention using some gear to research traits.

It is a bit much, but I guess that is one reason why we play MMOs - there is always things to do even if you play regularly.

Try to find a good guild. Usually there are helpful people who don't mind answering questions, and crafters happy to lend a hand. Researching traits can be a lot easier when you can ask for the traits you want instead of hoping the traits you need drop. Crafters can also help with keeping your gear "in the zone", so to speak. I'll make under cp160 training gear for guildmates for free, every ten levels of so if they want it. I think the under cp160 time is a good chance to play around with the crafted sets to see what works for you.

I have been thinking about it. What is the best way to find a decent but laid back guild? I was searching in-game, but maybe should check in the forums instead for more details? I definitely do not belong in a hardcore guild - I have done enough of that in WoW in the past and while it was fun, it was like a job!

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New player - question regarding skills and dungeons

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