I researched the list of ingredients, and after hours of comparing traits and eliminations came out with an awesome recipe - wrote it up and went right to Jerric's notebook page to list it and looked at your post first - it was there already, Jerric's first potion on the list,


Oh well. But I'm wondering if any of the perks you can get for Alchemy will make it where you can use the same ingredient twice like that one ability in Oblivion when you reached like Master level in Alchemy? Because if so, Columbine + Columbine would be like going into God Mode, lol.

Anyway, I am going to try making a potion (next time I get to play) now that I have a little more insight into it.

I just found this article and thought it would be good to post it here where I can find it again; it goes into explicit detail on every aspect of Blacksmithing; but does so in an orderly fashion and in laymen's terms so even I can understand it:


http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/di...o-blacksmithing

He used a trait which increased weapon enchantment effect, but it wasn't enchanted so it was a bit of a waste
If it had been enchanted with, say, shock damage, then the trait would have boosted that.

I'm not sure how enchanting works yet. Haven't tried it out.

Jerric has no head for enchanting, so he buys his glyphs from a merchant. As far as he can tell there are weapon, armor, and jewelry enchantment glyphs. He thinks this because he bought a glyph and tried to use it on everything he owned to no avail until he finally found a necklace. You enchant from the item’s entry in the inventory menu, not from the enchanting station.

The enchanting station is where you combine the glowy runes that you find in the wild to craft a glyph which you can then use to enchant an item. You discover the different rune properties much the same way that you discover alchemy reagent properties. You can also deconstruct glyphs, but that sort of nonsense is for elves and Bretons (says the Nord).

mALX, Jerric’s potions still sell for 1 gold each. He has made more money and gotten some good benefits by completing supply writs for Alchemy. He even got three nirnroot as a reward, and he hasn’t found any nirnroot in the wild yet. So at low levels I’d say supply writs are the way to earn. And also keep making potions that you use for practice.

hazmick, thanks to Haa Rei’s excellent Handy Crafting Guide, Jerric figured out how he made that one good sword that he couldn’t use yet but then everything else was crap. I must have bumped the number of ingots up while figuring the controls out. Now that he knows how to make better iron gear he can make a few new items to wear and boost his armor rating. Thank you!

Here is the best description I've found on how to do it:




http://tamrieljournal.com/crafting-and-pro...ons/enchanting/





I've made several glyphs just by guessing and testing; if there is a way to optimize them I haven't figured that out yet.

If you have any glyphs and want to enchant something you just go to that item in your inventory and Right click on it; and choose Enchant - then go down the list of your glyphs and decide which you want to use for that item.

I've got all my armor in Health/Magicka/and Stamina enchantments; and all my weapons in shock and fire - just made an ice glyph today, but haven't applied it yet.










Oh, one tip I don't know if it is in that page or not: When you are at the Enchanting station, it defaults to "All" items; meaning you are left guessing what is what.

Instead of that, it is much easier to go to the top right of the enchanting window and find the icon for "All" - the next three icons to the right of it are the separate rune folders. (Potency, Essence, and Aspect).


Click on each of those and it will show Only the runes for that category. Select any one you want by activating it; then go to the next icon, do the same, then the next = same.

When you have all three runes showing you click on "Create Glyph."

From then on you will know what properties each of those runes you used has, so the next time you do it choose up so you learn more; then you can begin planning to make a more powerful item by juggling them as per the lists on that link I posted on enchanting.



I haven't figured out how to optimize them yet, for all I know I could be making better and more powerful glyphs - I really need to check it out, lol.









Oh good info, thank you for the tips!

Yes, thank you big time for those instructions Hazmick! I made my first items today thanks to your tips - 3 metal daggers (then I ran out of racial stones). Your instructions were clear and concise, just perfect!

And thank you for these tips, Grits! Okay, I picked up one writ today and didn't even look at it, I most def will.

I leveled up today and it put me above the level of my quests on my list so they all turned green, darn it! So I'm not sure if I should hurry through doing them to get them off the list or do the ones in yellow first so I don't level up again and ruin the leveling on them too. Urk.

I’ve read somewhere that green is the right level quest for you, yellow is still OK but will be harder, and the ones that go grey are too low so you will get the reward but not get the experience from it. Jerric has been following his green quests and doing the yellow ones he comes across as he passes, and his results are consistent with the advice he was given. He’s only had one quest go grey on him, and he still got the reward for it. Some gold and an item that he sold so he could feed his horse.

Hmm, so I've been doing yellow ones up till now, and now the Davon's Watch quests are all green, but the new ones I'm being given after I complete those are yellow.

My son has been doing quests above his head, so he must have it wrong. Is there any written in white? I thought I saw some white writing today.

And darn it, I forgot to check out the store today.

Here's one thing I found about the quest colors. That info is from the fall, so I would go with what you have observed in your own game. Also the PC and console UIs are different, so my grey might be white to you for visibility on the PC screen.

I always just do a quest as soon as I receive it, otherwise I'll probably forget about it and only remember once it's gone old and grey

All Haa Rei's current quests are yellow, though we had a red one before. Completed it anyway since it didn't require any combat.


Oh by the way mALX, if you're looking for race stones to do more crafting then all crafting merchants (woodworkers, carpenters, blacksmiths etc.) will sell them. They'll usually be hanging around near crafting stations.

Glad my guide was helpful

Okay, this is good news. That means I'll still get the appropriate XP and loot! Thank you nGrits!

What I've been doing (and I'm not happy with this system) is to pick up all the quests I can in an area and then do them in the order I come across them so there is very little going back and forth repeatedly.

It seemed to work well in Bleakrock, but in Bal Foyen it began to interfere with my enjoyment of the quests.

Now in Davon's Watch I have numerous quests, and all those quest markers everywhere are getting confusing.

I think from now on I'm going to only accept one quest at a time and complete it before accepting another - much better for roleplay that way too.


Yes on the tip for buying the stones - that is how I got them, lol. (Thank you, because I didn't know that; just happened to notice when I was unloading junk, lol).

I’ve started pacing myself with the quests by doing crafting writs in between. There’s less sense of rushing around this way. Using the wayshrines to travel back and forth to the bank also helps. I rarely fast travel in the real TES games, but in this one it helps make the world feel less cramped.

I always gather ingredients and materials as I walk around anyway, so haven't changed that - but I did start specifically doing one quest only until completion to get it off my journal; and from now on will only take one quest at a time and complete it before taking another.

What got me confused and adding so many quests at once before was that the game puts a marker on quest givers that hangs in your face on your compass until you have picked them up - so many times I have ended up following one of those markers and talked to the NPC thinking it was part of my quest and ended up picking up another quest instead.

The next thing I know I've got seven open quests and don't know what anything is, so I end up just following markers till I see an arrow - that was ruining the roleplay for me.

Well, I found a way to fix that; I've been selecting which quest I want to complete and clicking "show on map" - when it shows it on the map you click "F" to set it as your destination. Now that quest marker is the only one on your compass that shows in blue, so you can track down just the quest you are on and ignore all the other symbols on your compass (except the SkyShard ones, of course, lol).

*


Right from the start I had wanted to try out every Class and every Alliance to see which one I like best so I can make an informed choice for one ultimate character to play through the whole game with).


So far I've tried the Templar (in Ebonheart Pact), and the Nightblade (in the Daggerfall Covenant).

So last night I made a new character to test out the Aldmeri Dominion; and chose the Sorcerer Class to test next.

(Have not tried the Dragon Knight yet, but will).


The Classes in the order I liked them from best to worst:


#1 = The Nightblade was my favorite of all. He has died the least of all my characters, and has been in the highest level dungeons of any of my characters.

He was cleaning house with enemies way above his level right from the start. Many of them he can kill before they can even reach him unless they are using long range spells.

His main weapon is the very first spell he got in Coldharbour (with one morph now). It syphons 30% health from the enemy and gives it to the Player at 25% (after morph it ups to 33% healing on Player or you can choose to still heal at 25% and also heal your Allies).

That is usually the only weapon he needs, but in case it isn't he uses Duel Wield; which from what I've seen has the best spells to make it the deadliest melee attack in game.




** A side note: I haven't scoped all the spells available for every weapon in game yet; but my Templar has used a great spell for the bow that poisons the arrows and morphed is extremely deadly. She also has used a couple decent spells for two-handed weapons; making her a very versatile melee fighter as well as having her Templar combat magic.



#2 = The Templar - 2nd most powerful in combat.

She went into level 10-12 dungeons at level 7 and survived and even completed some very tough quests at those levels, though not without dying several times. She is very good in combat, but not as good as the Nightblade.



# Last so far = The Sorcerer. So far the Sorcerer is the weakest character I've had in combat. She is at level 6; her spells are at level 11 and she still can't beat enemies at her own level - or even some at lower levels than she is.


In writing, her spells look to be extremely powerful, but the enemies seem to take little or no damage from them at all! (sort of like the Experimental Fat Man in Fallout 3 that shot out 8 mini-nukes at once - but everyone was still walking in full health when the explosions cleared).

The Sorcerer's spells look spectacular visually when cast (though they are very slow to cast compared to the Templar or Nightblade); but they use a ton of magicka, meaning that after shooting off two spells her combat ends up being melee rather than sorcery - go figure!) - but the spells just don't seem to do the damage to the enemy that their stat numbers state should be happening.

I deliberately chose a High Elf for the Sorcerer because they start out with 10% more base Magicka and 9% more base magicka regeneration.



** (based on this ESO Race Guide):



http://elderscrollsonline.info/races



The familiars at this early level do minimal damage (32 DR against enemies that are doing 392 DR).

You really have to wear light armor or a robe to regenerate magicka properly, which leaves you virtually unprotected; so even if you sink all your level points into magicka to be able to cast more spells before running out, you will die anyway because your health base level is so low.

Which means you also have to sink skill points into armor and melee fighting skills; which negates the whole reason you chose to be a sorcerer (I would think).



I'm really disappointed in the Sorcerer when compared to and after the Templar and Nightblade; but I have seen so many people with Sorcerers (you can tell by the familiars they travel with); and I can't imagine they would be so popular if they couldn't own a dungeon even at their own level.

So really just not sure what is not working about my Sorcerer, but I'm all but at the point of dumping her off in the bank to use for storage and test out the Aldmeri with a Dragon Knight instead, lol.



*

I know what you mean about the sorcerer. It doesn't seem to pack the punch the other classes do. If Haa-Rei didn't have his summoned creatures he'd never have made it this far, and even then he has a bow and medium armor for combat. A pure mage build would be tricky. It wasn't an issue at lower levels, but he's at Veteran 4 now and he can't do public dungeons or group levels at all.

It wasn't too noticeable until I brought Trivea into ESO,. It was immediately obvious that her Nightblade skills were powerful, and once she levels up and morphs them I wouldn't be surprised if she can solo most things.


Weapons also play a huge part in things of course.

Bows and dual-wielding seem to dish out a nice amount of damage, and the latter also has a good speed.

I've found one handed & shield to be a bit disappointing - it does less damage than two handed weapons, but doesn't make up for it with speed like dual wielding does. The shield also doesn't block much damage so it's just dead weight.

Restoration staff is good for a mage, since heavy attacks refill your magicka, and they seem to do a fair amount of damage. The healing spells are a bit weak (at least in my experience) and would only really come in handy in a PvP support role.

I used a destruction staff once, for about 10 minutes, and it felt quite powerful. However it was ponderously slow to do heavy attacks.

I'm glad to know it wasn't just me on the Sorcerer thing. If I had played it first I may not have loved the game. Really glad I tried the others out first.

By the way, in game I noticed a lot of beggars asking for money when you pass, and in Davon's Watch at the gate from Bal Foyen a woman trying to save her husband asks for your help - I've stopped to talk to them to see if there was a way to help them and nothing showed in dialogue at all for either situation.

But today I happened to see there is an achievement for giving coins to beggars - Huh? How do we do it, if not through dialogue?

Do you know?

i'm pretty sure i've given coin to beggars before just through dialogue, but i can't remember where. They're certainly not as common as they are in Oblivion and Skyrim.

But how did you give them the coin? Did you get a dialogue to? Because talking to them isn't bringing up any dialogue to give them a coin for me.

Darnand is a pure mage, and he has indeed been a bit tricky. There is a huge learning curve with all of the abilities, equipment enchantments, equipment traits, and elemental effects that are available to build your character, and many of them are designed to fill a group-role need rather than serve the solo player.

Darnand needs space and magicka to win fights, since he has only light armor and no melee skills. So I’ve put his points mostly into magicka with only two so far into health and none in stamina. He needs to control the battlefield and not waste magicka or get hit, so his flavor of sorcerer is all about precision. He uses his familiar to distract while he attacks, since they’re sturdy but don’t deal much damage. (Although Darnand’s clannfear Duchess occasionally gets the killing blow in with her tail whip. )

Some of the Sorcerer abilities are useless unless they’re put to their specialized purpose. For example if you use Mage’s Fury (the first shock spell in the Storm Calling line) on an enemy with full health, you use up a bunch of magicka and do very little damage. However if you hit an enemy with it when they have low health it triggers an explosion that can sometimes kill nearby enemies as well as the target. In Stros M’Kai Darnand was getting ripped to shreds by the wolves. He would get in a fight with two who would then howl and call three more. Then he learned to use his Shards spell from the Dark Magic line on one wolf and then hit the same wolf with Mage’s Fury as soon as they called their buddies. The resulting explosion would kill all of the wolves.

His weapon is of course a staff. That lets him keep fighting when his magicka runs out, but now with only one weapon skill bar it’s difficult to manage. Once he gets his second bar he can switch from a Destruction staff to a Restoration staff depending on the tide of the battle. The Restoration staff abilities are still a little unclear to me. At this point they seem designed for a mage in a support position and too weak to use solo. The Destruction staff abilities are neat. Darnand likes fire for the knockback/down effect. When he’s facing a group he can keep one knocked down, let Duchess the clannfear distract another, and then kill the closest one to him as fast as possible before they get in his face.

Darnand has not yet had to face multiple archers. He is going to need to find some kind of shield ability for that, hopefully a passive that he won’t have to cast.

So anyway I guess my point is that there are far too many variables in what the game provides as well as the ways I’m playing my different characters for me to compare the classes, but so far each class has had tools that pair well together with other class skills and with skills from the weapon lines to support solo play.

My biggest disappointment has been One-handed and Shield. It feels very much like a tank-only line, which makes it hard for Jerric to kill anything big by himself with a one-handed sword. He can do it, but it’s frustrating to spend ages wearing away half of the health bar only to have some Dragonknight kill it with one hit while they’re running by. As a result I’m putting a big focus on Stamina (points, enchantments, food, the works) to see if that helps. He’s been wearing five heavy armor with one each light and medium to level them all while he decides. I think he may switch to five medium with one each light and heavy and see if that makes a big difference, other than him dying faster.

Regarding beggars, Jerric gave a coin to one and then can’t get dialog from any of the others. Does the Achievement look like it’s for coins in different areas, or is it the number of coins or beggars that you need?

Well heavy armor has the best protection; and if you can get it built up to 22 the Ultimate opens up and it creates a circle of shield around the Player that makes the player nearly indestructible. But a Mage's magic regeneration is thwarted by heavy armor.

Medium armor is great for sneaking, and has some passive perks you can purchase with skill points that help not just with the sneaking and detection, but with the regen of health and magicka too.

Bubba had very few fights with wolves in Stros M’Kai; although they were everywhere there. Usually if it was just one or two together, he could run past with or without sneaking and they would give an initial snarl and charge and then go back to the carcass they were gnawing on.

If they got close enough to snap his heels (and Bubba is not a fast runner), one spell cast from Bubba would send them yelping back to their den.

The ones that howl and call in the whole pack are the larger/tougher/more aggressive wolves and I think they are probably the pack leaders. Those will fight to the death, and usually take their pack down with them.

Bubba loved Stros M’Kai, and is hoping to go back there to fish along the beaches. I got several screens of him enjoying them and those gorgeous Sultanish style towns.






Okay, this is all I could find out about the beggar achievement:



http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/di...or-lightbringer

Tanking build hints from the Foundry:



http://tamrielfoundry.com/2014/03/tanking-primer/

Been a while, but Haa Rei is back in Tamriel. We tried to do the Imperial City DLC, but the PvE element is Veteran Level 16, and our Argonian friend is only Vet 5. The difference 11 million xp can make... The City itself looks pretty fun though, so we'll just have to grind until we get there. I still have more or less the whole Aldmeri Dominion questline to battle through, but it's fun so far. We're currently in Auridon, which is a Vet level 6 area.

In order to try and make it less mind-numbingly difficult I did a big overhaul on Haa Rei's skills. I realised that I'd been all but ignoring the fact that he's a sorcerer, so I opened up the Dark Magic skill tree.

The first spell you unlock - Crystal Blast - is really handy, and seems to have a good magic use to damage ratio. We've actually been using it in place of a weapon for the most part. We're trying to unlock the Dark Exchange ability, which trades stamina for health and magicka.


So Haa Rei's current skill set up is: Unstable Clannfear, Velocious Curse (soon to be replaced with Dark Exchange), Summon Twilight Matriarch, Bound Armaments, Crystal Blast.

He uses the Greater Storm Atronach and Pack Leader Werewolf ultimate abilities, and wields either a bow or a restoration staff. I plan to unlock more dark magic spells so I don't just have the same skill set when I switch weapons.

I'm also going to experiment with destruction staffs. Restoration staffs are nice and all, but all of its abilities are about healing other people, which is completely useless for a solo player. Up until now I've just been using res. staffs because Argonians get a boost in weapon xp for them.

After travelling a while with Ciyenna we have uncovered some memories from her past.

Ciyenna Mae has been a bow for hire since the age of 14, the age her mother died.

Her mother was constantly suffering physical abuse by Ciyenna's step father, and Ciyenna could do nothing, apart from hiding in her bedroom with her 10 year old sister Mahri.

The abuse was constant, and consistent for years, all though their four year marriage. Ciyenna had grew up knowing she was helpless to help her mother.

So she did something about it.

One day whilst cleaning the attic Ciyenna came across her birth fathers precious bow, a keepsake Ciyenna had assumed her mother had kept as a keep sake. A reminder of happier times.

The next time her step father would attack her mother would be the last. Once again her step father was savagely beating her mother, but instead of hiding out of fear, she drew the string of her fathers bow and threatened him a single time. Her step father said that 'a little girl like her couldn't hit air with a weapon like that.'

She shot him in the head. Her first kill, and she felt no remorse.

She immediately went to her mother, but unfortunately this last beating was the one that would kill her. Ciyenna held her mother in her arms, with her eyes tearful. 'If only i was stronger... if only i was braver...' Ciyenna said.
It was then she decided she didn't want this for anybody else. She wanted to help people in need. So after two years of marksman training and raising Mahri, under the guidance and adoption of an old bowman in their village named Jak, she became a successful, and locally renowned, bow-for-hire.

My long wished for (two years, according to the first post!) pear-shaped Argonian with blue feathers and a charming smile has finally hatched in the Ebonheart Pact. He is a Restoration Staff wielding Sorcerer, but his main focus is resource management and research. All I know so far is that he is quite young, free born, adventuresome, and it seems equally happy in sand, snow, and ash. He had a number of poetic names in mind for himself when he came of age, but the one that stuck was Stays-Up-Late. Stays made a last ditch effort to be known as Greets-the-Dawn instead, but the others felt that translation implied the virtue of early rising when instead Stays had been persistently naughty and ignored his bedtime.

Stays is still a bit naughty. He loves to steal things from the Dark Elves. Not because of the tension between the races based on generations of slavery, but because he thinks they sound funny when they get all uptight.

Stays-Up-Late is helping Jerric’s crew with their equipment research. Jerric and Lil both have many months’ worth of traits to study on items cluttering up their inventory. (Darnand only has two at the moment, and besides he is unwilling to admit that a Saxhleel teenager could do a better job keeping him organized than he can.) The plan is for young Stays to research their last traits as his first and then pass back easily identifiable items for them to hold on to for the weeks or months until they can research them. I’m sure there’s an Add-On that allows you to mark items in the PC game, but as far as I know we console players have to deal with the shuffle every time we enter the bank or merchant menus. Hopefully Stays will make this less of a pain.

I think I got a cute screenshot of him, but I won’t be able to tell until I get the sneakernet between PS4 and laptop sorted out. I am utterly charmed by the ESO Argonians.

Somehow I didn’t get that you can use gold at the shrines in the different capitals to respect skills and attributes. I thought you had to buy scrolls from the Crown store with real money. *palms face*

Yesterday Jerric (Templar, sword and shield with dual wielding backup) moved most of his points to Stamina. It was hard to decide between Stamina and Magicka. He loves the Templar spells, but he loves to bash with a shield even more. So he decided he’s a warrior with a side of mage rather than a mage who carries a shield around for some reason.

So far he hasn’t faced any bosses by himself, but the difference with the usual riffraff is amazing.

Lil respeced her skills and harvested a few points from Alchemy and the sillier-looking bow abilities that she dislikes. She put them into passives and changed one of her spell morphs to make damage scale from her Stamina (instead of Magicka). Hopefully she will be able to do some more exploring now. As a dedicated Stamina archer she is having the hardest time. The spells from her Nightblade class that I am counting on for her are still out of reach.

Oh, and the plan for Stays-Up-Late to help with trait research is working out beautifully. The level one items made by Stays are easy to see grouped together in inventory, so holding onto them for months is no problem.

Heh. Took me ages to figure out those shrines too.

Haa-Rei is a stamina build (Sorcerer, bow, 2H weapons) and the improvement over his previous magicka set-up was amazing. There are a few spells that let you use stamina to cast them instead of magicka, so it's worth looking in detail at all the abilities and their upgrades. Such is the case with the Thundering Presence spell (Increases physical and spell resistance, damage and movement speed and applies shock damage to nearby enemies).

One of the 2H weapons abilities acts as a healing spell, and with the recent addition of the Clannfear healing ability Haa-Rei's survivability has gone right up.

Is this Thundering Presence something that all Nords temporarily receive after eating chili?

Or perhaps after one too many meads.

Ha! Jerric claims Thundering Presence as a Nord's birthright. (Others blame the cabbage biscuits.)

Silly question perhaps:

Does stamina increase bow damage?

Edit: Oh, and it seems that Buffy's bow quite a short range unless I'm missing something?

Yes, Stamina increases your bow damage and Magicka increases your staff damage, if you use one. That was a big adjustment for us.

The bow does have a short range. It gets a little better.

Gaah, I have to go right now! Good luck and good hunting!!!

I think the bow distance increases with your skill leveling up; because I'm sure Misa can shoot further now than she could when she first started using the bow.


Also, I think the strength of your character may have something to do with it. Example = check your race passives and see if any add strength. Both my Imperials and Nords have some race passives that increase their strength; buillding up your race passives is important for your character to reach their potentials for their builds.


C = opens up the character menu
K = opens up the skills menu

(so you can stay on top of your stats if you want)

J = opens up the Journal to scan through your quest log.


Oh, and by the way - if I'm not mistaken, you can get a longbow as a quest reward in some quest in the Aldmeri, because Pantsless Calia got one in Auridon!

Let me look in my inventory and see if it isn't bound to Calia, if it isn't bound I'll enchant it and send it to you.

As far as I know, bow range doesn't scale off anything and is the same for everyone. The Snipe skill has an increased range, and there are some passive bow skills and at least one item set that increase range a little bit too.

Bow range is short because it's an MMO with PvP. It would be beyond ridiculous if it used Skyrim range and let players attack each other from so far away with the game's soft lock targeting system. Once Buffy gets used to it, and used to using skills, you'll both be more comfortable with it.

Thanks, and I agree. Buffy's tended to rely on either illusion or conjuration to back up her bow. The NB's magicks are similar in ways to illusion whereas the sorc has conjuration. So without deleting NB Buffy, I've just created a Sorc Buffy and am nearly through the tutorial. Absolutely loving it so far.

Conjuration better suits her when forced into can't pause/skirmish archery (ESO) whereas illusion works great in support of the ultra range sniping that Skyrim offered. Between her tendency to panic when things get closer, her lack of skirmish instincts and my old slower fingers, I think conjuration will make for a better primary support skill for Buffy's bow. So far so good and ESO looks like a keeper!

As a Sorc Archer, Haa-Rei's scales have been saved more times than he can count by his summoned creatures.

Buffy might want to look into the other Sorcerer skill lines too - some really handy skills in there. For example: Encase and Dark Exchange from Dark Magic, and Lightning Form and Surge from Storm Calling. Some of them can be morphed at higher level to use stamina instead of magicka, so there'll be little or no need to put any attribute points into magicka.

Thanks! The new character is up and running now. She's swapped key things via the bank with her predecessor and is nearly to the same point now. Loving it so far. Yes, I'm using the dark magic tree also. Hadn't thought about the elemental tree since her bow is her damage dealer but I will take your advice and review those skills.

I even figured out how to move Superian from one char to another. And the summon has a big bonus I hadn't thought of - very handy for nuisance pests on the road while riding.

Those conjures are amazingly tough! I've played my son's Sorc and never lost one - took him into some heavy battles, too.

I tried to build a sorc on my own and didn't do well, so I won't try to give advice on that, lol.

Yes, already Buffy is feeling more. . . 'relaxes' and less panicky with something in front of her. So her skirmish efforts are focused on moving around to ensure the summon is engaged even as she's shooting, and then she can keep shooting instead of stopping shooting to fumble for spells. And there are some disabling, buffing and disabling magicks available to her as a sorc.

I’m glad to hear that the Sorcerer class is a good fit for Buffy! Darnand fights in a similar way only with his staff instead of a bow. He uses his clannfear’s healing ability (it’s one of the morphs) a lot.

Lil has high hopes for her NB Summon Shade ability, but she is still not very close to getting it. I’ve been trying out some of the melee/blade-y NB abilities with different characters, and they are great! Just not at all what Lil would ever do. It’s been rough going as an archer NB.

Misa (NB) actually does as well with the bow as she does with the duel wield; and we've come across some bosses in the Undaunted Pledge dungeons that could only be beaten with ranged combat (bow or spells). She only has one active perk in bow on the hotkeys, but I did do the passives on it (and her bow is an awesome one, but the enchantment on it is the same as the one on her blades).

That’s great, mALX! Lil has been able to solo a few world bosses, but there’s no way she could kill an Undaunted boss by herself. Even dolmens are tough unless there’s someone there helping her. What does Misa use for healing? I’d love some tips, Lil is questing in an area right now that’s tough for her.

Oh, I didn't take on the Undaunted bosses alone, no way! Bwaahaa! There were three of us and we (all) died numerous times - finally beat them.

On the healing - I made my own "Absorb Health" enchantment for my weapons - haven't had to drink a potion yet to heal.

For the enchantment glyph take the highest negative (subtractive) Potency you can use for the weapon you are enchanting:

Use this guide:

http://tamrieljournal.com/crafting-and-pro...ons/enchanting/


Of course, the essence would be health = "Oko"


For the Aspect you want the highest you can get. If you know anyone who can go as high as Kuta - ask them to make the glyph for you. (I can only go as high as Superior (blue); but I have a friend from Australia who made my glyph Legendary for me. (I provided her the Kuta runestones).

With the absorb health on the weapon - every time I hit I'm gaining health as they lose it. I've got the bow and both my duel wield blades enchanted with it = have never had to use a potion in most fights.

Now, fights like with that Undaunted boss - no amount of potions help you because they kill you too quickly; the only way to beat them is ranged with bow or spells; so no need for potions there either because either you are alive or dead, no inbetween. May as well hang onto your potions in that case.

Also - going into a bad fight my character always eats a good meal because they last longer.

Thank you, mALX! Lil will put an Absorb Health glyph on her next bow. Darnand can make purple glyphs, but his Enchanting is at 49 with about half of the bar full, so maybe he'll be making the gold ones soon.

I'm digging through the crafted armor set descriptions for one that increases weapon damage for her. I’ve been using Tava’s Favor for both Jerric and Lil since it improves all attributes and gives you Ultimate when you dodge. They both need all attributes and dodge a lot, lol.

Kvatch Gladiator looks good, and Night Mother’s Gaze gives a weapon damage boost with only three items, so I might be able to use five Tava’s and three Night Mother. Or maybe five Hunding’s and three Night Mother. Hmm.

Misa wears a full set of 5 Night Mother's (I think Gaze) = Weapon Crit, Spell Crit, Weapon Crit, and a high shield; I think her other pieces are a partial set of Whitestrake. But the Whitestrake is regular level 22; the Night Mother is regular level 45. Misa is at Champion level 75; so this armor is way behind her. So far it has hung in there, but I've bought her a new set (if she ever reaches Champion 140 she can wear it) = dropped Viper (5 piece) & Construct 2-3 piece.

Viper gives Weapon Crit, Stamina, Weapon Crit; and Construct gives Physical resistance and spell resistance. I have two spots left for something and need to get some Spell Crit in those two slots.

What Mundus stone are you using?

Hmm, too much of a newb to know so thought I'd ask for thoughts here.

I wonder if it would be a reasonable idea to have an additional 'tinker' character. One who focuses on the crafting skills and whose job would be to provision any other characters you have. This character would basically anchor in a city that has a bank and all crafting stations. Only a basic combat ability (to sometimes relocate to another city perhaps) would be necessary and gained by merely using a few combat skills but not dumping skill points into them. Materials would come from one's adventurer character(s) gathering and supplying them. The tinker would focus leveling and skill points into the crafting skills. Objective would be to have a character that could supply other ongoing or new characters. One question is can a high level tinker still craft lower level weapons/armor (like for newer characters)?

I guess this stems from the fact that Buffy will not be a particularly strong build and it seems she should really focus all her energy and skills into the more direct killing and surviving skills. We have always wished she could simply pay someone to provision her rather than breaking nails on a variety of work benches.

Trouble is I don't have enough ESO experience to know if this is a dumb or good idea.

mALX, Lil is using the Lord to make up for little health, but I think she’ll try the Steed to help in her many escapes. There’s a crafted set that removes the stealth movement penalty that I also want to try for her, but I can’t remember the details right now.

Acadian, that is a very good idea! Yes, a high level tinker can continue to make all of the lower level stuff. My Saxhleel lad Stays-Up-Late is training to become my crew’s sole equipment provider. Right now Jerric, Lil, and Darnand each handle two crafts. They will probably keep one craft each unless Stays has enough skill points to do it all. I picked an easy build for Stays (magicka only-staves-Sorcerer) and have had no problem with his combat when he has to get out in the world. He only has a few points invested in his class and weapon skills. The crafters do need to skyshard hunt and quest/level to get their skill points to use in the crafting skill lines, but that’s very doable especially if they do it while other players are around to help.

I’d consider two things with crafting.

One, it could be helpful to have two crafting characters if you’d like to do all six crafting skills. One could focus on the Consumable crafts (Alchemy, Enchanting, and Provisioning) while the other commits to the Equipment crafts (Blacksmithing, Woodworking, Clothing). That way their skill points won’t be spread so thin.

Two, if you become an ESO monthly subscriber, you get among other things the crafting bag. This is like cloud storage for your crafting materials. Without it Buffy has to find a bank to deposit her jute, flowers, ore, food, and the like so that your tinker can use them. With a crafting bag all materials go straight into the bag at harvest and never take up an inventory slot. Bagged materials are available from the crafting stations just liked banked materials. If inventory management is an issue (and for me it is!), this helps lots.

Thanks, Grits. I'm sure I will upgrade to ESO Plus before long. Regarding that crafting materials bag, if one char gathers something it goes in the bag. When you switch over to the tinker character and they go to a craft station, they have access to that same common bag. All correct? Oh, good point about skyshard hunting. Otherwise their skill points would be kinda thin and limited mostly to one with each level up I guess.

Another unrelated question. A summon dispels if their spell is removed from the five hotkeys. When I get to level 15 and have the ability to switch weapon setups, I figure the summon spell would need to be on that bar as well. Does an active summon survive the weapon switch as long as their spell is on both bars?

Yes, as long as it's on both bars. If you only have one summon spell then it's not so bad, but if you use Clannfear and Twilight summons, for example, then you'd be using four slots over both bars which is pretty crazy.

Acadian, that’s exactly how the crafting bag works. It’s shared between all of your characters.

Some quests reward a skill point when you complete them, so that's another source of points for the tinker.

My sorcs use the same button on both bars for their clannfears, both to keep them summoned during a weapon swap and to keep me from forgetting where they are on my controller.

In Nightblade news, Lildereth got Mark Target (a nice big heal when the target dies) this morning. It changed things for her immediately. She is a happy elf today.

She is also a naughty elf. She is in no shape for PvP, but she wants to go back to Cyrodiil and prank players by Marking them.

On my son's, he has got both his summons on both bars; because they primarily keep the enemy's focus; but he uses different spells on the second one to develop other skill lines.

I have trouble in combat "accidentally" hitting the tilde key without knowing it and suddenly I've switched weapons,

Acadian = what you are talking about doing; having one character do nothing but the armor/weapons crafting - see, in order to develop those skills a character needs skill points to spend in them. The skill itself needs to reach certain (number of experience points) to level up (just like Oblivion skill leveling it takes progressively more repetitive use of the skill to grow it).

Plus = you will need to have skill points to spend on them even then, and a girl sitting in a bank won't have skill points to spend. They won't level up quickly enough standing in a bank doing nothing but crafting stuff; meaning you will have to take them out and get sky shards or actively play them to gain the skill points needed to spend in the crafting.

Imho; the best thing to do is to grow up your crafting by having Buffy the Slow do it - but don't spend any skill points in it until later when Buffy can more easily handle the other provinces of your alliance; because when you level up your skill in crafting the writs will start sending you to other provinces than your home/starter area; and Buffy is not equipped to handle those other provinces yet.

And what Grits said is true; when you are working on crafting, you need a lot of inventory space for your crafting gear and items.

Misa is a champion level 75 and has been doing Blacksmithing; Woodworking; Clothier; and enchanting since the day she came out of Cold harbour. She is level 36 in everything but the enchanting, level 18 in that.

What happened - I spent a whole lot of skill points on different weapons; on crafting, on a bunch of spells, etc. She was spread out too thin - jack of all trades/master of none type thing. So on one of the DLC installs the game reset my skill points used to zero and handed me back all my previously used skill points to reset my character - I was really mad at the time, but when I rebuilt her I focused on passives for her race and everything she used frequently; and didn't waste any skill points on a bunch of spells I couldn't use this time =

Each hot key bar only holds 5 spells and one ultimate. So in order to grow you are going to end up with some skill points spent in spells that you have "outgrown." You no longer need them because you have reached the higher level and much better spells down on the bottom level of that skill tree. So all those wasted skill points were needed at the time, but now could be used somewhere else (like on your crafting) if you reset your stats.

Also, now that you can go to all the other provinces at any level = you have an unlimited access to other skyshards.

So use early Buffy's skill points to develop her into the fighter she needs to be first; while building up her skills THROUGH PRACTICE high enough in crafting without wasting the skill points on crafting. Then when you reach a point where you are comfortable with Buffy's fighting skills and have extra points to spend - then start sinking some points into them.

Also when you gain skill points and are spending them in spells - don't feel you have to sink points into a spell just because it has opened up. Some of the spells lower down may not be as good as the ones you are already using.

Example: The Fighters Guild crossbow is their very first spell on their skill tree. I got the upgrade on it and it is still my primary defense - sits in the number 2 slot on both my hot bars. Same with the first syphon spell on the Nightblade tree (NightBlade) it remains on the 1st slot of both my hot bars.

Several spells below them on the tree have opened up, but since these are my primary spell weapons I don't want to give them up or make my hot bar unbalanced with too many Fighters Guild spells. So I've kind of backed off getting any more from them.

(so if you are using something that works really well; don't feel you need to change it just because something new opened up.)


Your hot bar helps develop the skill tree of any spells in it - not just as you use them, but every time you complete a quest. (so when you have 2 hot bars it is important to alternate your hot bar before talking to the person at the end of the quest every now and then to ensure all your skills are growing.


You will always have some spells active that you don't use for periods of time on your hot bar; then you may switch them around and use them again (to level up that skill or retest that spell, etc).

Example: I have very little need of the Soul skill line since I've topped out the passives on it and have a ton of soul gems. But it has an Ultimate that I want badly; so even though I don't use it much - when I'm about to complete a quest I'll stick it in my hot bar for a minute to get it to level up till I can get that ultimate (and maybe upgrade it)

Much later on down the road you may want to respec - before you do, make a list of the spells you want and those you don't need or want so you can optimize Buffy's build and free up some of those skill points being wasted. Plan it out carefully before respec'ing if possible.

That respec may have been forced on me, but building up Misa's passives and cutting out all those wasted things has made her a powerhouse in a fight; so now I can concentrate on building up her crafting with all the new skyshards available to me since they opened up the borders to the other Alliance territories. WOO HOO!

(I got 9 skill points to spend just last night going to the starter zones, lol).





I've been back and forth between the Shadow (Critical increase) and Thief (critical chance) - changing from the shadow to the Thief = I could feel the drop in power in my fighting, so went back to the Shadow.