Up and Coming! What is my next step?

Sunderling · August 2020

Hi everyone.

I am what I would consider still a noob.

I'm just about CP 230 and have a Level 50 DK (who I intend to use predominantly as a Tank) and a Level 50 Stamblade who I intend to predominantly be DPS/PvP. I think I want to focus my Stamblade. BG's are really fun and the prospect of OWPvP excites me, especially on a character that can "hide".

I've managed to get my hands on some crafted gear sets. On my Stamblade specifically I followed Alcast's guide:

Chest Eternal Hunt Heavy Impenetrable Tri-Stat
Belt Eternal Hunt Medium Well Fitted Stamina
Shoes Eternal Hunt Medium Well Fitted Stamina
Pants Eternal Hunt Medium Impenetrable Tri-Stat
Hands Eternal Hunt Medium Well Fitted Stamina
Head Balorgh Medium Impenetrable Tri-Stat
Shoulder Balorgh Medium Well-Fitted Stamina
Necklace New Moon Acolyte Jewelry Infused Weapon Damage
Ring New Moon Acolyte Jewelry Infused Weapon Damage
Ring New Moon Acolyte Jewelry Robust Stamina Recovery
Weapon 1 New Moon Acolyte 2H Nirnhoned Drain Health Poisons IX
Weapon 2 Caustic Arrow Bow Infused Weapon Damage Enchantment

For the items bolded on the left, I have not gotten those yet. Instead I am using Selene's Hat and Shoulders and for the bow I'm using a NMA. For the descriptions bolded on the right, I am actually not sure what those are or mean! I've had a lot of help in putting this together. What are they? I've properly enchanted the gear with stam, weapon dmg, tri stat, etc...

For skills, I am more or less following his guide with some tweaks, the same with CP, more or less.

So, what I am interested in is what is next? I am still unlocking some Vet Dungeons, but as far as gear goes is Trial gear next? What should I really, really be aiming for with the intent to kick major pvp butt?

I find I am still being absolutely melted by some people, heck if not most people. Is this something that will resolve itself as I continue to gain CP?

I am just trying to learn my path and what I should look at for min/maxing. Am I on the right track?

Thank you.

UntilValhalla13 · August 2020

The stuff on the right are armor/weapon traits. Hopefully, whoever made your gear didn't leave that out. Otherwise, they would all be useless.

Sunderling · August 2020

Wowowow, I'll have to check. To be honest I haven't looked terribly closely. If that's the case and I am lacking those, is it too late to add them? Do I need to start from the bottom up?

Sunderling · August 2020

UntilValhalla13 wrote: »

The stuff on the right are armor/weapon traits. Hopefully, whoever made your gear didn't leave that out. Otherwise, they would all be useless.

Sunderling wrote: »

Wowowow, I'll have to check. To be honest I haven't looked terribly closely. If that's the case and I am lacking those, is it too late to add them? Do I need to start from the bottom up?

Looking back, I believe they do have traits but I don't think some are the proper ones. Mostly Divines, Infused and nirn but I don't know if all of them are correct.

I appreciate the clarity this helps.

zvavi · August 2020

BG has CP disabled. So it doesn't matter in there.

Sunderling · August 2020

zvavi wrote: »

BG has CP disabled. So it doesn't matter in there.

Ya that's a really good point. I haven't had a chance to double check my traits yet and having double checked a few other things I realize I'm still missing a couple of important sustain skills and a damage skill or two. I'm in the process of building up my 2h set and skills..

but more to the point! My path: As I am working on completing/getting into the last few Vet Dungeons and building my CP up, Trials would be next on my list of to-do's right? And they drop gear as well, I assume? I'm just not sure what very end game looks like!

Cheers

UntilValhalla13 · August 2020

You would probably have to swap out some gear for normal trials and harder dungeons. New moon is fine for starting out but eternal hunt is not really great for group pve. You could use hundings rage or something instead, which is also crafted; preferably all medium weight Divines trait for stam.

You would also try to work on a rotation, which is using certain skills in a particular order. If you don't already, work on light attacking before every single skill. Learn the timing of it slowly (on a training dummy if you have access to one), then start to speed up when you get familiar with it. I could go more into detail, and also link relevant videos if you need help in that department.

Yes, trials do drop gear, but there's really only a handful of sets that are actually worth running. Down the road, you could work on farming Vicious Ophidian from normal Craglorn trials, (ideally hel ra citadel or aetherian archive) for more of a starter trial set which has great sustain.

Sunderling · September 2020

UntilValhalla13 wrote: »

You would probably have to swap out some gear for normal trials and harder dungeons. New moon is fine for starting out but eternal hunt is not really great for group pve. You could use hundings rage or something instead, which is also crafted; preferably all medium weight Divines trait for stam.

You would also try to work on a rotation, which is using certain skills in a particular order. If you don't already, work on light attacking before every single skill. Learn the timing of it slowly (on a training dummy if you have access to one), then start to speed up when you get familiar with it. I could go more into detail, and also link relevant videos if you need help in that department.

Yes, trials do drop gear, but there's really only a handful of sets that are actually worth running. Down the road, you could work on farming Vicious Ophidian from normal Craglorn trials, (ideally hel ra citadel or aetherian archive) for more of a starter trial set which has great sustain.

Hi, been a bit.

The Eternal Hunt and NMA are for PvP. For PvE I use Hunging/Briar. Both sets with Selenes. I LA pretty well now, my traits are done mostly well-fitted and impen for pvp and divines for pve.

So that's all in order now!

Sunderling · September 2020

Hunding*... wish I could edit posts.

Astrid · September 2020

Stuhns is also hella nice on Stamblade when you set people off balance with surprise attack or roll dodge an attack should you want another option to play with.

Sunderling · September 2020

Astrid wrote: »

Stuhns is also hella nice on Stamblade when you set people off balance with surprise attack or roll dodge an attack should you want another option to play with.

Stuhn's Favor
LEVEL 50 - CP 160
Type Craftable
Set bonus
(2 items) Adds 129 Weapon Damage and Spell Damage
(3 items) Adds 1487 Physical Penetration, Adds 1487 Spell Penetration
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon Damage and Spell Damage
(5 items) When you deal damage to an enemy who is Off Balance, your Physical and Spell Penetration is increased by 5312 for 10 seconds.

That does look pretty good. Something I have been thinking about is pen/resist. I'm not sure what the values I should be going for are. I'm at a point now where I think I am going to have to start really min/maxing. I like that that set appears to be useful to me whether I am stamblade or magblade and I would not have to swap it off if I were intending to change my build.

If I ran this set, I would probably use it over NMA, but keep EH. The stamina on EH is nice for me as an amateur and I am not sure about managing my resources in BG's without it as we don't get our CP in BG's.

Eternal Hunt Gear
Stuhn's Accs/Weapon
Selene's Hat/Shoulder (I am thinking of replacing this as well. I just got CP 300 so more dungeons are available to me to run for sets).

For PvE I'm using Hunding armour, briar DW/Accs (blood thirsty) and still Selene's. Divine and Blood Thirsty traits. Nirn and infused weapons.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2020

You are ahead of most. Alcast is certainly not the end all be all, but it's a heck of a place to start. You are generally doing the right thing. Take one of his guides, give it ago, and look to adapt to your build to your playstyle.

In terms of gear, I would highly suggest that you not spend too much time at your level worrying about the gear grind. Trial gear is rarely useful outside of trial or PVE dungeons. You will want DPS sets for your PVE builds, and maybe some tanking stuff from them, but you dont need it to get started.

If I were at your level and CP and I knew I would be in things for the the long haul, this is what I would do. The reality is that gaining CP is going to be more beneficial (outside of no CP PVP) than gaining better gear. On that note, I would roll a magic nightblade or maybe a magic sorc. A good self sufficient magic DPS for various uses, farming gear sets, grinding CP, and perhaps, learning to play a bit.

Some will disagree, but one of the best ways to learn to play is to tackle Vet Maelstrom Arena (solo Arena). There is some nice gear in there, but I promise you are a much better player on the other side of it. There is also a new solo arena coming out next patch. Magic Sorcs and NBs will have the easiest time. It is also never too soon to start practicing rotations on target dummies. Nothing is more important to a DPS than rotation, not CP, not Gear, not anything. Rotation, rotation, rotation. Nobody pulls 90k without practice.

If someone deleted my account tomorrow, and assuming I planned to get back into eso, first thing I am doing is rolling a mageblade. They are the best farmers, and the best PVE DPS. They do have the highest skill threshold to play, but if you can master a magic NB rotation, you can master any rotation. People laugh, but its almost like lifting weights. Practice a NB rotation for a while and a sorc (or any other) rotation will feel trivial.

The next thing I am doing is leveling a crafter. Nothing terribly difficult here, it just takes time. Start researching traits, so you can transmute, and next patch, reconstruct items you might want. Ultimately you want all 9 traits on everything researched. To get started, you should prioritize the following:

Armor: Impenetrable (PVP) Divines (PVE), and maybe infused(Head chest legs) and sturdy (tanking).
Weapons: Precise, Infused, Sharp, Nirnhoned.
Jewelry: Robust, Arcane, Bloodthirsty, Infused.

The first few traits dont take too long to research, but the more you know, the longer it takes. That is why you should prioritize. You could add training to that list, you definitely should have one DPS set in all training until max CP, but I would make the magic sorc or NB first, and any crafter can make you one set of training gear. Pretty rare you will actually transmute something to training.

I would also make an effort to start taking a stab at daily dungeons, start with normal, then work to vet. Nice thing about a DK tank, you will never wait in line. Tanks are very desirable. That said, I generally recommend you DPS a dungeon first, but certainly not a hard and fast rule, especially if you really want to just be a tank in PVE>

Sunderling · September 2020

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

You are ahead of most. Alcast is certainly not the end all be all, but it's a heck of a place to start. You are generally doing the right thing. Take one of his guides, give it ago, and look to adapt to your build to your playstyle.

In terms of gear, I would highly suggest that you not spend too much time at your level worrying about the gear grind. Trial gear is rarely useful outside of trial or PVE dungeons. You will want DPS sets for your PVE builds, and maybe some tanking stuff from them, but you dont need it to get started.

If I were at your level and CP and I knew I would be in things for the the long haul, this is what I would do. The reality is that gaining CP is going to be more beneficial (outside of no CP PVP) than gaining better gear. On that note, I would roll a magic nightblade or maybe a magic sorc. A good self sufficient magic DPS for various uses, farming gear sets, grinding CP, and perhaps, learning to play a bit.

Some will disagree, but one of the best ways to learn to play is to tackle Vet Maelstrom Arena (solo Arena). There is some nice gear in there, but I promise you are a much better player on the other side of it. There is also a new solo arena coming out next patch. Magic Sorcs and NBs will have the easiest time. It is also never too soon to start practicing rotations on target dummies. Nothing is more important to a DPS than rotation, not CP, not Gear, not anything. Rotation, rotation, rotation. Nobody pulls 90k without practice.

If someone deleted my account tomorrow, and assuming I planned to get back into eso, first thing I am doing is rolling a mageblade. They are the best farmers, and the best PVE DPS. They do have the highest skill threshold to play, but if you can master a magic NB rotation, you can master any rotation. People laugh, but its almost like lifting weights. Practice a NB rotation for a while and a sorc (or any other) rotation will feel trivial.

The next thing I am doing is leveling a crafter. Nothing terribly difficult here, it just takes time. Start researching traits, so you can transmute, and next patch, reconstruct items you might want. Ultimately you want all 9 traits on everything researched. To get started, you should prioritize the following:

Armor: Impenetrable (PVP) Divines (PVE), and maybe infused(Head chest legs) and sturdy (tanking).
Weapons: Precise, Infused, Sharp, Nirnhoned.
Jewelry: Robust, Arcane, Bloodthirsty, Infused.

The first few traits dont take too long to research, but the more you know, the longer it takes. That is why you should prioritize. You could add training to that list, you definitely should have one DPS set in all training until max CP, but I would make the magic sorc or NB first, and any crafter can make you one set of training gear. Pretty rare you will actually transmute something to training.

I would also make an effort to start taking a stab at daily dungeons, start with normal, then work to vet. Nice thing about a DK tank, you will never wait in line. Tanks are very desirable. That said, I generally recommend you DPS a dungeon first, but certainly not a hard and fast rule, especially if you really want to just be a tank in PVE>

Thank you,

I do my daily dungeons/BG's almost every day and then some, between those I quest. I have absolutely been thinking of going Magblade. I have started researching traits (I have quite a few including blood thirsty) and I figured out how to transmute which I've done a fair bit of already.

I haven't done Maelstrom yet but I know I want that bow. I had also thought about scrying for Hircine's ring...

I have a magsorc that is lvl 50 today, actually, and I have his set(s) ready. Mother's Sorrow, Julianos, + my selene's hat which I'll be farming for something else, likely Balorgh and will use it between a couple characters. The Magsorc has been really fun and powerful feeling so far! It's what I've been playing the most lately.

I have some changes I will make on my stamblade for now, before I decide if I want to swap to magblade... that infinite stealth for ganking seems unparalleled for places like Cyro!

I've had help with all the crafted gear I have so that hasn't been a problem and I figured it would be more like a starting place than an end game build.

My DK Tank I've been on the fence about. Originally he was my DPS, first character and I felt useful and strong in BG's. I wanted to swap him to a tank because I previously tanked in Aion and I like Sword and Shield but I was a little thrown off that the meta is staff/magic for taunts... wanted to use a greatsword too but eh lol.