All your class skills will require mana. So your mana requirements depends on how many class skills do you want/need to use in your build. Mana also gives a damage bonus to your class skills.. Most of the time you want to have as much mana ,health and stamina as possible. You get that trough the points but also trough gear. many people just pick one of the traits and put everything in health and balance other needs with gear.

As a beginner you probably should go with half of your points in health and the rest put in the other two as needed. Also you can change traits at any time for some gold so don't be to afraid to experiment.

I can't really say that not putting points into a stat is ok because I have not tried it. If you don't use them already I would suggest learning how to use the block, interrupt, and dodge combat mechanics. Even at low level I have rarely had trouble fighting 2 mobs at my level. By the time my toons are level 15 they can usually take on 2 level 20 mobs.

Perhaps you could tell us more about the problems you are having? It would help us help you.

RatsnevE wrote: »

I was playing a Nightblade...

...

Excellent examples (darn, I threw away my notes on particulars of my old--now deleted--character) are the boss that turns into a snake/serpent--this one produces gold orbs that you can attack and gain health from instead of the snake but the problem is that I don't even survive or do enough damage to the snake to get to that point.

...

I'm trying to figure out if there might be a PC build/method that will keep things simple and understandable and _successful_ starting out very early in the game that I can still build into a successful PC up to level 50. I don't want to start yet another character every time I run into a brick wall I've created.

I have been a nightblade tank since I rolled my character. I am now Vet 1 (Level 50). I rolled with heavy armor from the moment I got my first armor piece all the way to level 50. Same with sword and board. I made one or two attempts to try other weapons, but I was already committed (skillpoints) in sword and board and well...just good at it.

Blocking in ESO is huge. Blocking with sword and board passives is godly. For most fights I can just stand in the red as long as I'm blocking. I move out when convenient but if I think I might not make it I just brace myself.

The first Siphon skill for Nightblade is also amazing. It's a life leech attack and I can't imagine not having it on my bar. The damage is decent and so is the heal. The Assassin finishing attack can be morphed to give you 15% health back on kills. Combined with my survivability from heavy armor and sword and board these two skills keep me going through some pretty bad situations. People say that NB have a harder time because they don't have AoE, but I don't buy it. NB are great at single target and once you have that healing finisher you can mow down groups of mobs one at a time, getting a decent heal for each killing blow while keeping your leech heal over time ticking the whole fight.

http://tinyurl.com/mjp26vp

Shrunk url out of necessity. That's my basic build and you can get it rolling very early on.

Slot 1: Puncture (1h/shield), morphed to Pierce Armor. Originally the skill only lowers the target's armor. The morph makes it lower spell resist too. This makes your leech do more damage, and the health returned is based on damage dealt. It's a small amount but every bit helps. Also, this skill is great in groups because since you are debuffing the mob instead of buffing yourself it ups everyone's damage.

Slot 2: Low Slash (1h/shield), morphed to Deep Slash. The original skill here lowers the target's weapon damage. The morph makes it lower ALL damage. Very useful, especially when you already have decent mitigation from heavy armor and blocking.

Slot 3: Strife (Siphon), morphed to Swallow Soul. The morph gives you a buff to all healing received, at all times while slotted. This skill is going to account for most of your magicka usage, as the only other magicka skills you have are an opener and a finisher. During easy content I use it for damage. On harder fights I make sure I keep the heal going.

On that note, install this mod. --- http://tamrielfoundry.com/ftc/
It will let you see when your buffs and debuffs are up and how long they have left. Useful for all three of the skills I just covered.

Slot 4: Assassin's Blade (Assassin), morphed to Killer's Blade. This is your finishing move (deals more damage when mob is below 25% hp). The morph makes it also restore 15% of your HP on kills (up to 18% later). There is also a passive in the same line that makes kills with skills from this line give you mana back, making this finishing move basically give you back its casting cost. This skill is invaluable when charging into a large group of mobs. It also makes that last 25% on bosses a breeze.

Slot 5: Veiled Strike (Shadow), morphed to Concealed Weapon. The morph here just gives you a movement speed buff while sneaking at all times. I just liked the convenience of it, as the other morph is an armor debuff and we already have that covered with our first skill. The major note of this skill actually comes with the basic skill; the large stun when executed from stealth.

Originally the 5th slot was going to be for Summon Shade > Dark Shades, but I am still not there at level 50 (unlocks at Shadow 42) since I didn't have a Shadow skill slotted for a very long time while leveling. I have read that the damage on Summon Shade is horrible, but I am honestly more interested in stacking the 15% damage debuff with Puncture (the first skill up there), which also has a 15% damage debuff.

I will note that I am a khajiit in heavy armor, and the racial stealth bonus allows me to successfully use sneak attacks without relying on the medium armor passive to get stealth radius down. If you wont be using stealth, swap in whatever you want for this 5th ability. Honestly, for the first 40 levels or so I just used the 5th slot to dump in skills that I wanted to level up.

For my mundis stone effect I went for Spell Resist and didn't look back. You'll be hitting the Armor softcap already while leveling in heavy armor, and spell damage is everywhere. After I got up over level 40 and started making heavy use of stealth attacks I ended up swapping it for movement speed. That's purely convenience though.

Edit: Just wanted to note that this is very much a PvE build. I rely on pure mitigation, blocking, and getting the hell out of the way to keep me alive. If you want to PvP then I am not the one to help you as I am very much a carebear.

Another note, use your bash (click attack while holding block) often. As soon as you see the red marks around a mob showing a spell being cast, bash the living hell out of that mob. Doesn't matter what the spell is. Run across the combat zone if you have too. With the 1h/shield passives your bash is a beast, and mobs casting never ends good for you. Also block all heavy attacks, but resist the urge to slam the mob down while it is dazed unless you want to focus on that mob or it is already your target. You are a single target character, and taking mobs down one at a time is more effective than bouncing between them. Let the mob stand there swaying on its feet while you go back to whatever mob you were already killing, or switch fully to it. Don't bounce between mobs.