1. I'd select a race with bonuses that are relevant to your build. Dark elf is fine for a caster. ESO gets min/max-y at the trifecta and score push level, but other than that it's a horizontal progression game with loads of options and wiggle room for build choices. You will never not be able to complete any piece of content because you are the wrong race.
2. Minion
3. There are 558 skill points in the game. You'll be fine.

1: Don't worry, go Dark Elf if you want, it is a great starter race and a Jack of all trades. It is good at magic and melee builds. Races only become optimal for end game/high level builds. Something a lot of us don't care about.

2: As already stated Minion is the place to go.
https://minion.mmoui.com/?download

3: Don't worry about skill points, there is plenty for you in the game. It just takes a little time to collect them all. As for gear, it only becomes relevant at Champion Point Level 160. That is when it becomes maxed out. What happens when you reach Level 50 you will then move on to the Champion Point system. The gear that you pick up as you level up to CP 160 will be just fine. Don't worry about gear builds until you reach CP 160.

As an aside, when I started ESO from Skyrim and Oblivion ten years ago I also found it a bit overwhelming. I am quite certain that many others did as well. There is quite a steep learning curve to ESO, so don't run before you can walk.

It is good you are researching crafting but you need to concentrate on your skills first. Crafting becomes more relevant at CP 160. Levelling your skills will make you stronger, gear becomes more relevant at CP 160.

Some handy web sites:-
https://alcasthq.com/
https://hacktheminotaur.com/
Or this on YouTube, but it is rather long:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkgnts69xQo&t=117s

Most importantly have fun.

FlameDark wrote: »

1) I am really confused on builds tbh. I played TES games in the past and I adore the Dark Elves. But I really want to play a mage build, and I am leaning towards Necromancer. But I keep finding builds suggesting using either Bretons or High Elves. Will choosing Dark Elves really hinder me from doing high level content later? I don't know how min/max this game is tbh...

2) I noticed an Add On section, and Im not sure where to get Add Ons and which are really that helpful or not. I just kinda want things to help give me more direction on where to go and what to do. So far I've just been ignoring everything expect the main quest marker lol

3) I've been putting a lot of skill points into crafting so my gear doesn't suck. But it feels like there isn't enough skill points in the world to keep up with everything. Does that get better later? Or is this a game where I need to have a dedicated crafter and then my PvE character because there isn't enough skill points to go around? I don't want to use them and find out that I am now stuck being helpless in a fight, but able to make some sweet armor... I would rather not be dying but still styling.

Any help would be VERY appreciated. There is a lot going on at once while I was playing and I am really enjoying the game. But I feel very confused and am just running around hitting things like a angry toddler.

1) You're in luck, Dunmer excel at pretty much everything except tanking (not that they cannot). Dunmer's duality allows them to switch between magicka and stamina focused builds easily and with hybridization of skills it is ever more so.

2) Minion is any players ESO buddy. There are too many addons to list, but my MVP choice for new players is Code's combat alerts. https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1855-CodesCombatAlerts.html - Also consider an autobind addon to progress your stickerbook(set collections). Even if you're busy in combat and forget, or in a group rushing to victory, you will automatically progress your curation. https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info3217-AutoBind.html - Also make sure you get any of the required libs for said addons you want to install.

3) There are a TON of skill points you can get in the game, many are locked behind PVP progression and skyshards. Early on it can be a struggle with skill points. An addon like: https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info3989-TagarnsSkillPointAlerts.html can help fill those in over time. It will automatically give you a sound alert and a compact little UI, click on the delve or public dungeon and it will teleport you to your friend or guildmate for free.

Join a guild, if you're on PC-NA Maxwell House Gamers family of guilds (I think it is up to four now, all of which try to keep a guild trader. Sifu is a madman, and dad joke enjoyer) has a great discord with events for all ranges of players. Intox does public dungeon run events where the group goes through all the vanilla dungeons for skill points and skyshards with no level requirement. I think that can net you around 20 skill points or so in under 30-60mins. Progressing a crafter and focusing that character for trait research early on is a great idea. Eventually those timers scale up pretty high, I'd start off with traits like divines, infused, charged, reinforced, sturdy, etc first.

Find a guild, any guild that you feel at home in and will help you progress. Working together with players that you actually may do content with again is a rewarding feeling.

I found the main quest (you are the vestige working with the prophet to take down Molag Bal) and the original zone story quests for the base zones ( https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Zones -- note that Craglorn is self contained and irrelevant to the main quest and the base zone stories, that Craglorn can be rough going for a new player because much of it was originally designed to be played by groups, and that Cyrodiil is a Player versus Player zone and, again, not part of the main quest or any base zone story) provided a really good structure to hold your hand while you got used to how the game works.

They let you focus on what the story is asking you to do and tune out the rest of the game's noise until you're ready for it. And also give you time to digest the insane outpouring of gobbledegook jargon and very confusing concepts that the game hurls at you (eg style motifs, which at this point in the game really don't matter, the difference between gear and cosmetic clothing, that "block", "blocking" and "bracing" all mean exactly the same thing). Each individual quest awards you a skill point and you're levelling up as you go.

Note that, unless ZOS have finally fixed it, the zone stories in the base game actually follow on from each other but the game allows you to play them completely out of order, which can turn the experience into a nightmare and make the game play like it's bugged. All the base zones are grouped into one of the three alliances (Ebonheart Pact, Aldmeri Dominion, Daggerfall Covenant) and all the zone stories in each alliance are part of that alliance's overall story. It's well worth looking up online just the chronological order of the base zone story quests, without spoiling the plot details, just to make sure eg that you haven't already killed a story's big bad before you've even done that story's opening quest(!).

On skills, as others have said I would start by focusing on skills that allow you to take on the enemies you encounter. Maybe spend a few skill points on crafting, but the immediate priority should be having enough skills to defend yourself in the game's open world.

There is no point in holding back on the main quest either. The first half gets you 6 skill points I think. It is also fairly quick to do. (The Harborage Missions).

1. I run an Argonian DPS in the top-end (trifectas and good scores). Yes, I've been kicked and denied from groups due to nothing more than my racial choice, and it does lower my damage ceiling by about 5% compared to some of the meta races, but it didn't stop me from getting the top public Count Ryelaz and Zilyesset boss parse on ESOLogs, which sat there for a month and a half before someone on EU beat it.

Also, Dunmer are literally one of the best races for damage dealing, so you'll be fine if you ever want to get into content where that difference actually matters. Besides, you're probably looking at some outdated guides if they're mentioning just Altmer and especially Breton; those races are more Magicka focused while Dunmer (and Khajiit) can spec into either Stamina or Magicka builds, Bretons aren't even good at dealing damage (they have a lot of Magicka sustain which isn't really necessary for DPS in the end-game), and there's been a shift towards Stamina builds quite a while ago with the release of Arcanists.

Again, though, the racial differences are around 6% at max (that is, if you're comparing Altmer at the top and Nords at the bottom for Magicka builds), so for you, it really won't matter. If someone gives you flak for running a "bad race" and you're not trying to push for world records, tell them to pound sand.

2. ESOUI is the de-facto website where you can get all the addons you will ever need. It's part of the MMOUI addon community, so everything works even better through Minion, their addon manager where installing new addons is just one click, and addons can be automatically updated whenever you open it.

To get you started, I highly recommend just downloading and setting up Minion, hitting the Find More tab, and sorting by Downloads. As a quick warning, there has been a shift these past few years where addon authors have been choosing not to include the libraries necessary for their addons, so you'd have to check your addon dependencies and install the libraries through Minion as well.

If you want to know where to go, funnily enough, the in-game Zone Guide works really well to get you started in each zone, and each zone's story will lead you into the next zone and so on. Feel free to pick up any of the side quests on the way; there's no time rush to complete the main quest or the zone quests. If you want to know where you can get those quests, the Quest Map addon can help.

I highly recommend going through the quests in its intended chronological order. Since you want to go Dunmer and I assume you don't have Any Race Any Alliance unlocked, your zone order would be Bleakrock > Bal Foyen > Stonefalls > Deshaan > Shadowfen > Eastmarch > The Rift > Coldharbour. Just go through the Zone Guide for each of those zones and you won't have to worry about missing anything.

3. At the start, you won't have enough skill points to do crafting and have enough for a good damage setup. The good news is that you don't even need crafted gear to be able to just do quests; any looted gear will do you just fine. All that being said, I highly recommend you get started on trait research as soon as possible.

With enough playtime, you will get enough skillpoints to be able to max out crafting and dps builds. However, even for an experienced player like me, getting a character up to that point (around 200 skill points and unlocking everything in Fighter's Guild, Mages Guild, and Undaunted) will still take many hours.

There is a workaround: the Armoury Station! AFAIK, you can get one free from the Crown Store and place it in any player home, or you can access one in someone else's home. Armoury Stations let you save different setups, so you can have a DPS setup and a crafting setup that you can switch to any time you travel to your home. Even better, keep a fully empty setup saved in the Armoury station, use an addon like Caro's Skill Point Saver (takes some learning), and you have free and near-unlimited respecs into any build at any time; I use that trick for any time I want to switch between Vampire and non-Vampire builds.

Finally, a free tip: join a big social guild. You can access the Guild Finder and filter for guilds that you'd perhaps like to join. In a guild, you'll be able to easily find friends to help you out with quests and builds!

Joining a good beginner focused pve guild can also be very beneficial when first starting out.

Additional to all the advice here, immediately join the Fighters Guild as you will level that naturally through killing daedra and undead. FG has some needed passives once leveled up.

The only thing I'd like to add to the great advice that everyone else has already given is to remember that you can create more than one character, and you can also make changes to a character's attributes and skills if you feel you've put points into the "wrong" attributes or skills, so don't worry about getting your first character "perfect" and just use it as a way to see how the game works and get your footing.

Then, if you decide you aren't as happy with your first character as you'd hoped you'd be, you can either change specifications for whatever can be changed, and/or create another character using different choices for those things that can't be changed. If you do opt to create a new character, you don't need to delete your first character-- unless you want to-- but can instead use it for some specific purpose.

For example, it can be a good idea to have one character who's a dedicated crafter, so you can benefit from the advantages of crafting and certain passive crafting skills, but won't need to spend skill points on crafting on all your other character(s).

And if you do decide to take up crafting on multiple characters, you might want to consider having different characters start out by specializing in different crafting lines, so each character can spend skill points on just the one crafting line it's focused on. Then, after each character has eventually gotten enough "extra" skill points to begin spending them on optional skills, you can start thinking about having each character branch out into an additional crafting line.

Note that I'm not talking about the daily crafting writs, because you can do all of the writs on each character if you've done the quests to become certified, but rather I'm specifically talking about how you spend each character's skill points. It's still a good idea to have one character who's a dedicated crafter and who is putting skill points into all crafting lines, but for any of your other characters who take up crafting you can have each one focus on just one crafting line at a time so they can spend most of their skill points on other types of skills.

In any case, it's a good idea to research traits on all of your characters, even if they aren't going to be crafters, because that will be beneficial whenever they need or want to use a transmute station to reconstruct gear or change gear traits.

Greetings OP,

There are some good responses on here and other threads, of course it's very important to try and get things inline and organized from the start, things like joining the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild soon after you get started is a great idea. Recently I made a couple new characters and having training gear helped, also being a Master Crafter helped considerably. Others have given some great tips as well.

*Take it slow. It maybe goes without saying but taking it slow, enjoying the game, the scenery, the quests all of it is very unique experience and especially if you happen to be new to Elder Scrolls lore it helps explain things a bit better along the way.

*Make friends. The same holds true for any MMO. That said, people do come and go, there's nothing you can do about it.

*Commerce. The name says it all, do yourself a favor early on, get to know things like Tamriel Trade Center on google search. Learn what things actually cost rather than always relying on an addon. Don't neglect your economy, your money is perhaps, your best friend (or one of them at bare minimum).

*Online Resources. Some quests and trials and such have walkthroughs online and so in many instances (especially in recent times), I find it helpful to watch someone else fail once or twice (or not at all) before I go in there and spend potentially hours failing instead.

*Change. As with any MMO, things are subject to change at any time, so if you're serious about staying on with ESO, best to keep with knowledge regarding any upcoming changes.

Ok so that's the light version, most of this you may already know. I had intended to keep going but I think that was getting too wordy and maybe too deep for right now. Because of time constraints (and the fact that I have so much to deal with these days), I'm really not on the forums (or even in game) as much anymore however if you need help with something or need build advice, please feel free to message me and I'll be happy to help in any way I can. Been with the game for over 10 years now so if you can't get help anywhere else feel free to look me up as I still login here periodically.

*Good Synergy. I feel it's important to just mention this one more time, when you're building something, everything counts. If you min/max then obviously in this instance we are measuring buffs based on some goal or priority. There is another concept that I call 'Good Synergy' and so this involves ensuring that you are being gainful from everything, nothing race, class or skill wise is really completely 'worthless'. Everything is important, if not but sometimes in its own way. Now how this everything stacks and behaves with in-game formulas is another matter entirely and is also somewhat dependent on each individual update. Not paying attention to detail can introduce waste into your build and you only have so many sets to cram in there, test, try to get working together so things that don't belong (or are not used) need to go, sometimes minor buffs can stack. Testing is really important though and so I encourage you to test things out on the PTS or in your own personal research 'laboratory' as well. Hence, having a Master Crafter character makes life so much easier, combined with a good economy to get the things you need.

Be wise, be strong, be prepared and ... welcome to ESO.

1. No. Race only gives a small boost and will not keep you out of any content at all. If you're trying to be the absolute best of the best (example leaderboards) then every tiny bonus starts to count but it doesn't matter for anything else, even just regular completion of the hardest raids. In other words, there is no content you won't be able to do just because you're a dark elf.
2. Sorry, cannot help you with add-ons as console doesn't have them yet.
3. You'll have more skill points than you'll know what to do with eventually.

I found this link which may be useful to you if you prefer slides over text or vids.

I'm mostly in the 'don't worry just have fun' camp myself, however there's a few things that are useful to know even then:

Do's
- skyshards: these are your most dependable source of skill points. All delves have one (torch symbol on the map), and more are scattered in the open world. The game itself gives hints about where they may be (under achievements iirc), but if that takes too long, you can indeed use an addon to reveal them.

- Main story: also awards skill points. It has diamond shaped quest markers. These should guide you through the zones in the correct order.

- buy a horse and level up speed

- research armor and weapon traits: Time wise this is a real bottleneck. So even if you are not sure about the build of your first character, it is worthwhile assuming they're going to be your dedicated crafter. There are advantages to learning all crafts on one character!

Don'ts:
- prologue quests: these quests were added later to introduce new DLC zones. So they can throw you 'off course'. Not sure if they have a special marker yet (they should IMHO), but you can check if you have accepted one in your diary/log. I'd avoid them until you've completed the base game zones.

One of the pve guilds I am a member of is very welcoming to new players and run all different kinds of events is a great group of players on PC-NA, guild name is we went elsweyr.