Got for it, CheshKhajiit! A lot of things will make sense once you're clicking around in the game.

As soon as Khajiit gets back home he plans to start!

Yay!!


Under reduced settings, PC Jerric (and support team) made it out of the Wailing Prison.

But things often look a little different in this vision of his world.

*sings* All I want for Christmas is a new PC…

Lol. Buffy can't wait to get Jerric on PC NA. You know, so she can unload all those worms and guts and bug bits she's been saving up for him.

Created a Chinese-esque Male Khajiit Nightblade named Feng-Do. Bought the Imperial add on afterwards and now this one is working on a Female Imperial Dragonknight, no name as of yet. Considering doing something... weird.. with her look.

Have a look at what Starge did with his first character, (ESO screenshots thread, early in the thread)

*Looks at pics*
Hunh, well apparently what Khajiit was planing isn't as weird as he thought

BWAAHAA! I still have nightmares with her in them!

Heh heh Khajiit was thinking the Dragonknight should look a little... rougher, than say, a Templar, so he was going to do something very similar to the burn scarred character in those pics.

I agree, Dragon Knights are in your face - makes sense that they would get some scars in the fight.

No, not at all - but all the classes have their own set of spells that are custom to their class and are a part of your build. The Dragon Knight draws their power from the earth; the Templar draws from the sun; the Sorcerer from Daedric Power; and the Nightblade draws their power from the shadows.

So do you think they will make more classes at some point? Or do these four cover pretty much all possible bases?

I don't see them adding any more, but what do I know?

I doubt they'll add more, since the way classes work in ESO is different from usual MMOs.

Usually, in games like Guild Wars 2 or Lord of the Rings Online, your class determines which weapons and armour you can use as well as your skills. In ESO any class can use any weapon/armour set up, and each class has 3 different skill lines to play with. If ESO added a new class it would have to have 3 new skill lines, with actives and passives, and all other classes and abilities would have to be rebalanced to fit it in.

It's not impossible, but it would take a lot of time, effort, and money...and Zenimax would probably make us pay crowns to unlock it.

I would be a bit surprised to see more classes as well for some of the same reasons that hazmick said.

I guess MMO means everything has to balance or one class/setup becomes the one and only norm.

Also, the game has to support SP and MP. That means, on one hand, any char needs to be able to fully complete the pve content (SP) but it also must allow specialized builds (DD, Tank, Healer) to optimize grouping.

There are constant complaints on the official forum to nerf this or beef up that in the name of balance and I can't even imagine the 'herding of cats' choices Zen must make to keep all happy - with only 4 classes.

That all said, the classes are not optimized from my perspective. I wanted a mystic archer and, frankly, the game can't hold a candle to the 'bowazon' characater I played way back in Diablo II in that regard. Like a very long list of games that fill my trash bin, ESO got stuck in the mentality that 'if you pick up a bow you should be a rogue using daggers, not a silly wizard. So, sure enough, a stamsorc bow/bow char is fun but not really effective at high levels. The same stamina that drives her bow precludes her from being a great mage.

Happily, for me, the magic templar really struck the perfect chord for me. Staves and weightless spears of aedric light all wrapped up in a very potent healer. Fun, forgiving and really brings out the nurturing side of Buffy.

/ramble

Acadian, Buffy is so sweet to hold on to that gross bait collection for him. Jerric is already staking out beach party sites with cookpots so he can cook everyone fish!

I'm not holding my breath for it, but I really really hope they add a frost-based class to ESO some day. That's the missing element for me. My crazy dream is a nature-summoning forest ranger type class. Animal summons and frost magic. They already have NPCs using both. That would be so awesome. *crosses fingers and toes*

Heh, no worries as the ESO+ magic bag of craftibits is bottomless. If we ever take up provisioning or alchemy I think we'll have a lifetime supply of materials. I think she has, between grubs, worms and bug bits nearly a thousand pieces of bait in the bag waiting for Jerric. I've told her probably the best bait for Jerric is cooking up some stew. Or a scantily clad-beach Bosmer.

It would indeed be neat if Jerric could summon Itchycreek the Frost Astronaut and use a cold weapon enchantment that freezes or 75% slows foes.

They have a frost atranoch memento where you become the frost atranoch,

Question to those who play female characters:
Have you ever been harassed by other players in the game?

Plenty of people have complimented her, or her armor, etc. No one has ever gotten creepy or anything. My friend Aussie had a bunch of players in goblin morphs following her around calling her their queen because of her helmet once,

Cirinwe usually gets more players offering to group up with her than Haa-Rei does, though I'm not sure if that has anything to do with her sex. I have all chat (voice and text) turned off so nobody can talk to me anyway.

In my experience, lots of MMO players have both male and female characters.

Buffy's not been harassed in any disturbing way. She does get complements and flirted with sometimes but nothing creepy or in poor taste. She's been stalked and followed a couple times but nothing that a few minutes of ignoring has not stopped. I have noticed other players sometimes stop what they're doing when they see her but can't tell if that is because she is cute, so small or simply one of a tiny number of players that walks quite a bit instead of always running.

She did have one fellow dancing around doing mock attacks on her with an axe. Then he asked her to duel. No. Then he asked her again. No. Then he asked her again. No. (I intentionally keep auto decline turned off.) He then asked her to group. No. He then asked to be her friend. No! Then he, finally, went away. I chuckled at the poor fellow's impressive way with women.

When we get a group request before anyone sees her fight, I figure that if it is from a fellow there is probably some flirting going on as Buffy's looks/stature/gear certainly do not inspire confidence in her fighting abilities.

When we get a group request for the bowgirl after someone sees her in action, I generally think that is some protectiveness involved to help the poor archer who has to dance around to kill stuff. While the help is welcome in tight quarters, she is in no danger in open areas - just takes awhile to kill.

When we get a group request for the magplar after someone sees her in action, I detect no flirting there. Rather, after seeing her aedric spears and heal/buff spells in action, they want her along as a healer. Even without a group requests, we often notice a player or two choosing to travel near her through a dungeon. As a healer, it is her nature to heal/buff nearby friendlies whether grouped or not.

"Are you sure you don't want me to kill you? Aw shucks! Well then, can we play together? Huh? No? Well, uh...wanna be friends?"

BWAAHAA !!! Unsmooth Operator, lol.


Templar Buffy is up on the list of the better healers I've traveled with. I would choose her over one I've been playing with for over a year in a heartbeat. Acadian can't see how fights go when he isn't there with Buffy; but Bubba died in the Inner Sea Armiture - THE INNER SEA ARMITURE !!!!! Baby's first dungeon!!!! And NOT by the boss of the dungeon, but just a couple archers !!! And this was AFTER his tour with Buffy getting skyshards in Greenshade!

So Acadian can't realize how good Buffy really is at what she does, he only knows she enjoys it. But BOY is she good at it!

And as it turned out, Bubba was at over level 40 and wearing level 24 armor, so he was fighting with no protection when she was healing him too - she is an AWESOME healer !!!

This is encouraging. Khajiit doesn't remember having any trouble in WoW with his female Dranei character, but in Destiny one time this one was playing with his female human titan and some clown pmed him with some creepy and rather explicit language that he shall not repeat here. Yet another time with the same character Khajiit went to his mailbox to get something out of it. When he exited the interface there were four or five players kneeling down in a semi circle around him. Now, Khajiit is not really sure if they were simply using the mailboxes or being creepy, but there was plenty of room all around the mailboxes (they are arrange on a column in a wide open location), so why get right there close to this one's female character? Wasn't long after that this one stopped playing that game, lol

Aww, thanks for the kind and encouraging words, mALX!

I suppose I should say that Buffy's spirit really has fully migrated into the magical healing templar. Our stamina bow sorc still exists but is now devoted to being our crafter. As such, her playing is geared primarily to accessing set crafting sites and gathering skyshards. She is near mastery with her four chosen crafts of wood, cloth, metal and enchanting. So I basically think now in terms of Buffy (the healing magplar) and our Crafter (the bowsorc).

Buffy is pretty comfortable using her healing and buffs to augment her own survival and offense but was very nervous 'overwatching' for Bubba - afraid she'd let him down. The prospect of healing/buffing others who rely on her is still intimidating - as much as she believes that is her calling. Successfully helping Bubba gave her a massive boost in confidence. She still feels unqualified to advertise herself as a healer for real groups but her confidence is growing.

She is tilted just slightly toward offense as a healer. Of her 10 ability slots, 5 are pure heal/buff, 4 are combination offense/buff/heal and one is offense/debuff. She is gradually developing the ability to switch out skills to support particular group needs if she knows what those are in advance. In addition to the general purpose healer/solo abilities mentioned, she should develop the ability to go almost all heal/buff (at the expense of offense) as well as two additional setups to support/buff groups that are either stamina or magicka heavy users. It all seems very intimidating still!

I hear you, Buffy! When I was playing veterinarian, I often felt insecure in my healing skills, even though they were hard-earned and well-used!

Now I have some questions while playing with my three characters.

First, is it possible to go through the Mages Guild storyline as part of a group? The reason I ask is because when Mazul went up against the shield wives earlier this week, our group Champion showed up after she had killed them, and she was able to assist him against the respawns. It makes me wonder if a group is going through a quest together, they can then take on all the tough parts together? In other words, there are very few truly solo quests (like the MQ, which is always indicated by a SOLO tag)

Second, Alise has not yet started the MQ. Is there any advantage to doing that? Sooner, or later? Or can that be put off indefinitely if a character is not interested in getting her soul back?

Third, if one is crafting in all crafts, but choosing perks only in one or two, she will not be able to do more than the basic level stuff (i.e. maple in woodworking, Level 1 recipes in provisioning, and so on) in those craft lines she is not focused on?

Fourth, does one have to be UnDaunted to go into the big dungeons like Fungal Grotto or Spindleclutch?

I'm sure I'll think of more but I'm going to sign off and work with Alise in clearing the last few delves from Stonefalls. She only has four more to go (and only two have Skyshards she hasn't yet collected). Thanks in advance!

First - No, Mages Guild, Fighters Guild and Main Quests are all solo instanced. They're not difficult though, and definitely not as difficult as the Forge-Wives

Second - No pros or cons for doing/not doing the MQ. If you want to ignore it then that's fine.

Third - You can only craft at the level you have perks for. If you want to master all crafts you'll have to put the perks into it.

Fourth - No, you don't have to be Undaunted to enter the dungeons. Undaunted just gives you quests (and therefore rewards) for doing the dungeons. It's worth noting that all of those dungeons are end-game group content.

Thanks for the answers, hazmick!

Julian is finding the last book of the Mages Guild especially difficult! I think she needs to master a few spells first before she can complete this one. Fighter's Guild and MQ have not been especially hard so far.

What exactly do you mean by "end-game group content?" Best done with high level (i.e. Champion Level) groups? In that case Julian is not interested! Mazul, maybe . . . Alise has a long way to go, she just leveled up to 17.

Oh, and she took Buffy's advice and started working on her dual-wield by delving a couple of remaining dungeons as a stamsorc. So far she is doing well, and learning new skills while at it.

Oh, I keep forgetting to tell you, hazmick, how much I love your Silent Night!

Hazmick is our best answer reptile at Chorrol for ESO!

Rider - regarding the MQ, the only consideration that may be important is that the MQ gives you skillpoints every time you turn around. Basically every quest I think. So if you need perks, the MQ can be helpful.

Yeah, end-game is basically content that is designed to be difficult i.e at the end of the game when you have no more content to challenge you.

Regular Undaunted dungeons (like Fungal Grotto) just require you to have a decent group (I think it's 4 players maximum), decent equipment, and decent skills. Some dungeons have a more difficult veteran version. I'm not sure what the level requirements are now that Champion Points exist. Regular dungeons used to be level 45 and up, and veteran dungeons used to be Veteran Rank 1 and up.

Honestly I don't think there's much point doing Undaunted pledges unless you're after one of the equipment sets that they can reward you. If Mazul wants to try them though, I'm not gonna stand in her way

If one wanted to level up the undaunted skill line to gain some of the abilities/passive perks, could taking daily delves from them be a way of doing it solo? I don't mind grouping so much but don't want to drive my schedule.

Indeed, I always learn something from hazmick's answers to other people's questions! I'm curious about how a solo player gets into Undaunted content as well.

CheshKhajiit, I haven't been harassed in the game while playing female characters, but a few people have noticed my female sounding username and sent me PSN messages. Nothing too gross, just people looking for attention. People sometimes stop and look at Lil, but only when she has her hair in the less popular styles. On the PS4 it's unusual to see a Bosmeri lass without big boobs and long hair.

Jerric gets the most notice of my crew, funnily enough. Probably because he dodge-rolls all over the place and takes a long time to kill things which can be entertaining, plus anyone nearby gets splashed with his healing spells. Once he grouped with a guy in Craglorn and the two of them caused mayhem for a while. The other guy kept running off and doing who knows what, so Jerric just kept on killing but stayed in their group of two. Then the guy ran back up and said he wanted to turn Jerric into a vampire, he would go to the shrine and Jerric should follow. Jerric said no but thanks. The guy would not take no for an answer. He finally sent mail with money and weapons and stuff attached saying here is some gold, now travel to me right now I'm turning you into a vampire. So I rolled my eyes, returned the note with attachments, and logged off until the guy sobered up. Sheesh. He must have really wanted to bite a shirtless, sweaty Nord that night.

Acadian, Buffy's progress sounds marvelous. I am so delighted for her! My favorite thing at a World Boss is when a healer shows up. They change everything. She is the tiny elf with a golden glow surrounding her. I completely understand the pressure that she feels, though.

I have no experience with end-game group content. My characters all have solo PvE builds since most are still learning their skills and leveling, so they can get by well on their own but are not stellar at any of the group roles.

Hey, it's great to know I'm not alone in preferring to solo on my own schedule.

That said, it is fun to group up, either officially or spontaneously, at the world bosses. And if I encounter a healer, I tend to stick pretty close!

I'm pretty sure that Undaunted experience just comes from doing their daily pledge quests. It's not something I've bothered with myself, but I've heard that it's slow progress. You can also get some undaunted exp from completing the achievement that requires you to buy drinks for them in certain locations

The reason I asked on the daily delves for the Undaunted was after reading this in UESP wiki:

'Delve Dailies are repeatable quests offered by Bolgrul, located at the Undaunted Enclave in each Alliance capital. These quests will send you to a specific delve in the world. Similar to pledges these quests are only available from level 45 onwards[verification needed — see talk page]. Unlike pledges however, these quests can be shared with your group, and thus it is possible to do up to 15 of these quests in a day per character. These quests will reward Undaunted reputation, as well as small box of rewards. These quests are one way of obtaining the Draugr motif.'

Later the same article says you gain 5 points toward Undaunted rep for each one. The passives Buffy are interested in require Undaunted rank 9. That translates to 260 daily delves! If it is something she can do solo she might pick away at is as she quite enjoys delves and they don't give her any trouble. And as she progresses, she might even try a Pledge to see what they are about.

This was most helpful. Khajiit is planning on releasing his Imperial Dragonknight tonight and now thanks to you guys' sharing your experience, this one feels better about making it a female.

260? Eeep that's a lot of delving!

Woops, I'd completely forgotten that the Undaunted give you delve dailies now. Sorry about that.

The daily delves for the Undaunted are the same as daily delves that I do in Wrothgar (and used to do in Gold Coast). You'll have to go to a specific delve, kill the boss, and do a little side objective. These dailies can be done solo, unlike the dungeon pledges. Not sure what the rewards are for these daily delves - I shall investigate.

EDIT: Ok, just ran a daily delve each with Haa-Rei and Ciri. They both got 3 pieces of non-set equipment (ornate enchantment on all), some food, and some drinks as well as some gold and regular and Undaunted exp. However, the bosses you have to kill in each delve can drop set gear so you can get some good stuff. The Undaunted exp reward is really the only reason to do these dailies from a reward point of view (I do this sort of stuff for fun). That said, Haa-Rei just slotted an Undaunted skill into his front bar so it might have been worth it after all

hazmick, you are a star. After you explained it, Jerric did his first Undaunted daily delve tonight. This is exactly the kind of thing I have been making up for him to do, and here's someone who will actually hire him to do it! Woo!

Bonus that he already goes to the FG in Mournhold to get their dolmen jobs. Right around the corner.

Now I'm going to keep an eye out in guild chat for people looking for help with pledges. I'm sure there are folks already discussing them and I don't know what they're talking about.

Thank you, hazmick! Like Grits, this exactly the kind of repeating quest that is right up Buffy's ally! Like Jerric, she enjoys delves whether someone rewards her or not.

Bubba was seriously afraid of not being able to help Buffy and something happening to her (while she was there helping him) would be on him.

I do agree with you in not advertising yourself as a healer due to the pressure it would put you under to perform or actually being responsible for the other players. It would take the fun away from it and make it a chore - huge difference from just doing it out of the kindness of Buffy's heart.

I didn't want to make you or Buffy uncomfortable by asking for the help; but Bubba is just weak as a kitten - he needed a friend to help him.

I tried his upgraded armor, and it did help him a lot; but he is still not as good as Misa was at this level. Then again, she was at this level before the One Tamriel patch pumped up the enemy's abilities so badly. Misa used to solo take down the giant crab and the three netches in Stonefalls, now it takes an army for them.

I have no idea about grouping to do the Mages Guild quests, I just did them solo.

The only advantage I can think of for holding off doing the main quest is to get higher level quest rewards from the Prophet; but the enemies level to the player, so - not going to be any easier doing it later. Plus, they usually give jewelry. If you wait till the end and then do them all at once, you will have a bunch of jewelry, and only be able to wear one set of it. (and it is NOT a set, so doesn't give any bonuses).

I do them early on when the character needs the extra boost of that enchanted jewelry; but usually did them at the end of each province before I left. I always did the first easy one to get that first skill point and ring for my new characters, then cleared Stonefalls before doing the next; etc.

On the crafting - I never added skill points to leveling up my character's crafting skills until they reached level 50 in the craft; then I raised it to the top.

The reason I did it that way was for the ease of doing writs. If you are not doing writs, then you can spend skill points in them anytime you want; but if you are doing writs it messes you up when you raise your skill level because it starts ordering different mats that are not easy to come by.

If you deconstruct stuff that is a higher level than your character, they will level up that skill to 50 in no time at all; and then you can raise them to the highest level in one fell swoop. Anyway, that is how I did it, but others may do it differently. To me it always messed me up when I raised their level up partially along the way.

You do not have to join the Undaunted to go in those dungeons; and if you join the Undaunted you don't have to go into them either. Joining the Undaunted just opens up another skill line with spells you might like to have access to; and if later on you DO go into those dungeons = you get great bonus gifts for being an undaunted and doing an undaunted dungeon; including skill points and some fancy gear. So if you plan to do the dungeons anyway, may as well get a bunch of bonus stuff for it.

When you first join the Undaunted, they give you a task to go to Fungal Grotto, Banished Cells, or SpindleClutch - if you just go to those dungeons and get them on your map, they consider the quest completed. You can come back and be welcomed into their group. You do not have to clear that dungeon at all.

After that, they never bother you again, but if you ask them they will refer you back to that first dungeon again. But go to Mournhold or Eldon Root and find them, and you will see they have the arrow over their head to do quests - THOSE are group only dungeons. They cannot be done solo, and come prepared to die repeatedly even in a group - they are tough dungeons. I went through one without the Undaunted quest and it was really hard; came back with the Undaunted quest on it and it was awful, horrible!







You can't do them solo. And doing the daily pledges does gain your level in Undaunted, so does putting one of their skills on one of your hot bars and making sure it is active when you turn in quests - it will level up.

The pledges cannot be done solo; even in groups they are a die fest without a good healer and tank. But I have raised my Undaunted skill level by spending a couple skill points in their skill line and making sure those are in your active bar when you turn in quests or level up.

Misa has only done 3 pledges and is up to level 4 in her Undaunted; but she got up to 3 in it without doing any pledges.

Ooh, I didn't know about these. Any of the pledges I've been on could not have been done solo at all! I may have to start taking some of these with Misa if they can be done solo!

Are these the one that are 1 rep point; and the group ones are 5 rep points?

Yeah, the daily delves are for solo players. They're not pledges. You can pick them up at Undaunted enclaves from an Orc called Bolgrul, and he can send you to one of ~15 delves across Tamriel.

Not sure how many rep points you get, but I'd assume it's not many since it's easy content.

Oh, I'm going to have to try those out! I hate the pledges unless I go with an experienced tank and healer (and another DPS, lol. )

Okay, everyone kept going on about Stamina builds to me; so when I respec'd Bubba I tried it. I learned pretty quickly that a stamina build doesn't work well for a melee character. He was weak as a kitten and pretty much a one hit kill; unable to take on enemies at a much higher level than Misa was taking on at lower levels.

I didn't know how to do the attributes when I did Misa; and so spent her attribute points fairly evenly between Magicka, Health, and Stamina. She is tough in melee and can cast Mages Guild spells with no problems in combat and "spin to win" and cast her stamina based spells repeatedly.

Now, it is true that builds have changed since Misa was in those early levels due to the game updates changing so much from magicka to stamina, and urking up stamina regen. But I just don't think those all stamina builds are cut out for a melee character.

So I spent the in game gold and respec'd Bubba's attribute points today, then took him out for a spin.

Magicka - 10; Health - 25; and Stamina - 20. (He still has 9 more attribute points coming)

(Misa's is Magicka - 23; Health - 24; and Stamina - 17 because she was built back when most of the spells were magicka based - I need to respec her to have more stamina now that they changed all that).

Now, I am really unsure how I'm going to spend those next 9 points on Bubba. I know the boosted health has made one heck of a difference in his combat. He is no longer a weak kitten in a fight, but one tough badass that can take on a boss solo (like Misa).

So when you hear about stamina builds, before trying them out = consider what type of fighting your character does. Melee def needs some stamina, but if you put it all in stamina like the internet advises you will end up with a weak character that can DPS like heck but not take a hit at all. Unless you have a great healer along every where you go = not a good build.

I would be interested in hearing some builds on here that do work well for different types of combat.

Khajiit has been putting all of Mira's points in stamina. This one was thinking at first perhaps 1 health for every 2 or 3 stamina points would be a reasonable sacrifice to damage for a little more durability. Then he read a lot of people saying to focus on one attribute.

I put all 64 level up associated points into either blue or green. Then I augment base health via gear enchantments or set bonuses in a 'season to taste' manner.

My Crafter bow/bow stamsorc requires a bit more health on her gear since her self healing has either casting times or requires auras to be active. When forced to fight up close, she has to rely on a high crit chance, two auras being active and a volley of her own arrows on top of her - when all that comes together, she can generate 3000hp/sec self-healing. It isn't easy or pretty though.

Buffy the magplar requires less health augmentation because she can so effortlessly self-heal while fighting. In fact, when up close her primary offensive ability leeches life while killing. She only really needs enough health to take being stun-locked for a few seconds (unable to heal). And she is developing counter-measures to the serious threat posed by being stun-locked or disabled as she improves her in close fighting. Magicaka is super critical to the magplar because they go through loads of it and more = better healing and damage. And as a Bosmer, she will always have 10% less than a Breton or Altmer could get via racial bonuses.

In the case of both characters, neither of them need to go full health on their gear. There are 7 armor, 3 jewelry and generally 2 or 3 potential 'set bonuses' you can get to augment stats. Of this roughly 13 potential 'shots' of attribute boosting, I think the stamsorc uses about 6 for health, the magplar is doing well only using about 4 for health. All the rest augment their primary stat.

I imagine a group DD is going to be very low health and more reliant on tank/healer. Just as a group tank is going to be very high hp but very low damage. Happily, a group healer vs a solo healer is mostly a matter of just switching out a a few offensive skills to slot more support skills - attribute choices remain the same.

Personally I'd never waste attribute points on health since it's so easy to augment it using food, passive skills, active buffs, and self healing.

Everyone plays differently though, so what works for some people won't work for others, and what worked 6 months ago might not be viable now.

Oh, thanks for mentioning the chow. We always try to run a 35 min hp augment when it looks like things are challenging. Need to get better at doing that as we find more +hp food that we use so there's really no reason not to use it more than we do. That is just picking up food from loot without even touching the provisioning craft.