Can anyone confirm that the XP awarded when turning in quests gets allotted only to the skills on the current bar? I've noticed that Unna's back bar skills are levelling slower than the others, which may be because I keep her on front bar to react better to the unexpected. (And that may be the wrong thing to do, too).

In particular, caltrops is hardly moving. I tried exchanging the sequence of caltrops and endless hail, to see if that had any effect, but caltrops remains slow to level. I'm sure the DW characters aren't having the same issue, so it has to relate to play mechanics for 2H front.

In contrast, Floozie's Sun fire levelled to morph in the span of a single quest, without actually using it. Just being on the bar was enough. That's a low-level skill, on a low-level character, so the comparison doesn't mean much.

Yup, confirmed.

When I am turning in a quest, I very often back out of the dialogue and check my bars. Only skills on the selected bar will level up when you turn the quest in. Buffy the Healer leveled up the undaunted orbs that way - just slot it on the selected bar when turning in quests.

Another trick is you can actually slot a weapon skill without having the weapon slotted and level up that weapon line and the selected skill that way. Buffy the Stormsorc has the full resto line maxed and has never touched a resto staff. Similarly, Buffy the bow/bow stamsorc has DW fully leveled up but has never touched a (eww) melee weapon.

Yeah, you can be creative when turning in quests. Just remember to reset things after you turn in the quest.

I wasn't certain, because of the skills that operate even when they're slotted on the other bar. And there are ones you slot on both bars, but may never use, because you just want a buff from them.

@ghastley, honestly I have no idea how that works, as I’ve never paid much attention LOL

I have a question of my own - just downloaded the PTS and set it up. I thought my characters and achievements, etc shouldn’t be available on the PTS, and yet I can see my existing 7 toons and log into them; when I created a new toon just for the PTS, she has access to all the accountwide achievements and mementos, etc in my collections. How does this work?

When the PTS is on the NA server, you can see your toons. They take a snapshot of all the accounts right before change over from the European server to the NA, and vice versa. (so it will be a little bit behind what you see on your Live server account).





The PTS is best for practicing build changes; practicing decorating your houses to perfect stuff without messing up what you have in the live game.

What is on there is NOT locked in; one day you will get on there and all your changes there will be gone; so take screens if you want to keep a memory of the decorating; of your character's stats with the changes; etc.




Also; when they change to the European server and your characters aren't showing = you can play with a "Template Character." Start a new character; but then look up on the upper left of the screen = there is a tiny drop down list. It isn't easy to see it. Choose what you want from there; then make the changes you want to the character.

Those Templates come with 10 million in gold; all available CP points; and you can just add the skills you want without raising them up first.

Oh = and anything you do on the PTS server cannot be transferred to the Live server; none of the Guild stores work on the PTS; etc.

Okay, that makes sense, because I’m seeing guild MOTD from November!

One more question - how can my PTS toon learn furnishing recipes?

No need to learn furnishing plans. All items can be bought for 1 crown, and you get 5500. With no home having >700 slots, you won't use them all. The house will cost the same.

I haven't tried installing EHT on the PTS, but I'm wondering if the save feature would let you resume a house project after a PTS reset. It might be worth experimenting (or just asking).

On the bar-swapping topic, I'm now trying to make Unna adopt a habit of swapping to her bow bar when idle. She took up bow rather late, and needs to ramp up all those skills faster than normal. But she's resisting me, feeling uncomfortable without her greatsword on her back.

I fear that I may have similar issues with the DW characters, but their situation isn't quite the same. They tend to roll/dodge out of harm, and re-apply dots before leaping back in. Unna's habit is to stay close, as more of her offensive skills are weapon ones, rather than class spells, and she's reluctant to swap back to bow. I'll have to do some more dummy practice to change that.

Another one to throw out there. What levels of training equipment provide the best bang for the buck? I've seen some making a set at every ten levels, while others suggest a wider gap, and so fewer sets. ZOS seem to be suggesting 24, 34, 44, as those are the top levels of each material rank. Maybe in blue, purple, purple?

We have five pieces of L34 Training purple Hunding's saved away that each of the stamina DPS characters have used, (but didn't do the same for mage gear, or tank). That got Taminwe and Minx through their last levels before 50 fairly well, but I'm thinking a slightly higher level might have worked even better.

I'll probably have Laurie or Blossom make Floozie a set of Julianos L24 Training, and improved to blue only. The remaining question is when to replace it. Twice at 34/44 or once around 38-40?

I just change up the training gear with the next update in materials; and the armor is blue/weapons purple. The only reason to change up sooner would be if your character is dying too easily between times; and with the "Under Level 50 Buffing" in ESO; you shouldn't have any problems with that.

She's not dying. I get the impression that magicka characters could survive naked, and the equipment is really just there to boost max magicka, and regen. She probably has enough of those from CP, so we need the training trait most of all. And that's why I'm wondering about replacing/purpling for stronger trait.

Oh, I see. Truthfully = not sure how much percentage purpling would add to the Training trait (if any). There has to be some criteria on that; I'm sure others have wondered the same thing. Most people I know just use the blue gear and drink XP potions or use scrolls, etc.

Unna was wandering around Malabal Tor yesterday, completing the explorer achievements, when she unintentionally ran into a World Boss. Since it was unexpected, she didn't get off to a good start, but nevertheless she came close to winning. Having just upgraded her Poison Arrow to Poison Injection may have helped with that. More DoT's is always good.

Which has me thinking that she should try to intentionally solo a WB soon. Which is a good one?

Easier WB's? It can depend on the nature of your character but here's a few recommendations for 'baby's first solo WB:

Ratmaster's Prowl in south/central Eastmarch. A single archer who summons very weak rats.

Shipwreck Strand west of Davon's Watch in Stonefalls. A big blue mudcrab who summons a few weak baby mudcrabs.

Grove of the Abomination in SW Deeshan. A single corpse husk mage who fights somewhat lethargically.

I wasn't just thinking easier, as much as available to solo. The easy ones tend to get a lot of other players swarming in, which makes it harder to evaluate how you're doing.

That's especially true of the lurker near Daggerfall. Every time I think I have him to myself, someone comes along. Floozie duo'ed him last week at level 24, but I didn't notice what level the other player was. She wasn't planning on getting involved, just passing by on the way back from Silumm, but he got led down to her by a kiting strategy on the other player's part. Laurie attempted him a few times, but she's slow (being a tank) and never manages to finish him before someone sees an easy kill.

Shipwreck strand I've done a few times, but never solo. Again it's lack of opportunity. There's something in the game that only gives you solo chances when the character isn't ready for one. The Abomination I've only attempted with Cat Man Dhou while he was levelling, because we wanted the drop. That time we'd have preferred not to do it solo, and we failed.

Unna has been weak against them in the past, when I was trying to persist with 2H/2H, but now she has some bow skill, she should do better. Keeping the legs slot unused limits her a bit, and her Hunding's/Sword Singer combo is not the best, but I'm anxious to keep a lot of 2H in her rotation, so the 2h bonus from SS may be helping with that. The Alcast 2H build only has one 2H skill, and that's not in the rotation. It also uses Summerset skills and sets that aren't part of my game.

If you are playing a Tank, WB's are good for learning how to sustain; practice your rotations and self healing till they can't kill you (because the way Tanks are built, they probably can't kill the WB without converting some of their sustain out for DPS).

Laurie's my primary tank, and she does have that issue with WB's. When I've tried taking one on in the past, we've always attracted attention from other players before managing to get a result solo. Cat Man Dhou needs a bit of re-spec work, and re-allocation of CP's before he tries one again. I had him trying to farm WB's for weapons in Deshaan for the Plague Doctor set, but he didn't have the sustain to finish them, and never got help when he needed it.

Testing Unna against the Precursor dummy has shown that we need a lot of rotation practice first. And she has a bad habit of dodging late, hoping to get her execute in first.

Yeah, I have died a bunch of times by trying to drop my ultimate or getting that one last hit in before a roll dodge, lol.

Needing pointers for building my bow/bow character. She's an Imperial because I didn't have one, and a Dragonknight to balance the numbers there (and I don't have Warden). I expect to use DK skills only when they get too close, but the Standard of Might Ultimate is also a decent placeholder before I reach Dawnbreaker/Ballista.

The discussion of builds here tends to talk about the end-game, rather than how to get there. I need hints on what to get first, especially things like when to go off to BG's for Vigor and Caltrops. Should we actively do FG stuff, or just let dolmens build us up there? We're likely to farm them for set jewelry anyway.

The ZOS in-game advisor tells her to use DW, so it's useless. Its choices aren't that good for that build, anyway. What it does attempt, that nobody else seems to cover, is skills to use now, but drop later, when you get access to a better one. E.g. she won't have Poison Arrow until much later, so how should she use that slot now?

Well, some thoughts on bow/bow, trying to bear in mind that Bo’s a DK.

Consider Flawless Dawnbreaker on both bars for ultimate. Not a bad ultimate, cheap and has great passives.

An opening burst from stealth with snipe + poison injection is a wonderful thing. Crowd controlling trash with Bombard (Arrow Spray morph) is also a wonderful thing. But, if you ever solo big bosses (Buffy routinely does with bow/bow) it gets down to the necessity to keep the boss inside your ground placed dual killing zone of Volley + Caltrops. Kiting a WB is counterproductive since you simply pull him continuously out of your AoEs (and piss off any other players around). That means your archer has to be able to deal with a boss in her face – tanking for herself as it were. For a DK that means spiked armor. It also means plenty of damage to help kill quicker so that means major brutality from ignacious weapons. I don’t know if you can sustain obsidian shield but would be nice if possible. I’m sure you’ll give consideration to some of the DK’s close range abilities perhaps as well.

DK with bow/bow does not have a neat ‘heal while killing’ spell like sorc, warden, NB (or even a DW life leach skill) do so that means having some extra toughness and slotting Vigor.

As far as gear, I like the very easy to get combo of Hundings, Spriggans and Slimecraw.

As far as what to slot while leveling, that is a great time to build your skills and experiment so you have flexibility later. Not prudent to try soloing WBs or even dolmens while leveling.

The thread you linked is a good one. Since Buffy tends to run solo and likes both WBs and group dungeons, survivability while killing with a boss in her face is critical. Therefore, she’s found that sorc as bow/bow works better for her than warden or NB. We find bow/bow warden complicated (too many buffs) and bow/bow NB squishy. Have not tried other classes as bow/bow.

Can’t help on BG vs Cyrodiil since I’m comfortable getting vigor/caltrops from Cyrodiil only and have zero BG experience. My tip on timing if you do go to Cyrodiil is wait until you have 60 in horse speed – otherwise, even with the go fast alliance skill, you won’t be able to keep up with any group you ride with.

I'm not about to try soloing dolmens with her, but joining the trains, and picking up some FG points while she collects useful jewelry (e.g. that Spriggan's) is on the list. Right now, she'll be happy with Twin Sisters, as she's outgrowing gear as fast as she gets it anyway. We have two pieces, and a bow, at the moment, so one more's a set (briefly).

Doing BG's instead of Cyrodiil does mean that riding speed isn't an issue, and Floozie (healer-to-be) did it early for her Warhorn. Caltrops and Vigor take longer, and Bo may wait a bit before trying for those.

Initially, she did well with StoneFist laying her enemies down while Volley landed, but that loses effectiveness at higher levels. I suspect that holding them in the DoT area will become even more important as she gets more of those to use. Characters with bow only on the backbar have the option of dodging into their own DoT's, and daring them to follow, but I'd imagine Bo won't do that. And so far, she only has Volley (just morphed to Endless Hail). So she may start to use Talons to keep them in place.

There's a set of purple Hunding's at level 34 sitting in a storage chest waiting for her to reach it. Minx used it before her. We haven't kept any Overland stuff, as it was always at mixed levels, and many bits were just green. The same chest has a lot of Undaunted shoulders to choose from when she get to L50.

When SneakyBo was helping me build a Tank, they had me bring her up from level 11 to 50 as a DPS; wearing DPS gear. (She wore Thunderbug and Viper for DPS gear; and still carries that set in case she needs to DPS through something).

When she reached level 50 (she instantly became level CP160 then) = then they had me take her out of the DPS armor and put her in Tanking gear. They had me respec her Attributes and CP points to cut away any set up for DPS or PvP and build her for strictly Tanking. Then they started bringing me to Veteran dungeons to practice Tanking with her in groups; teaching me what to do on the spot as things came up.

The reason for raising them up in DPS gear and build is because if you build them as Tanks from the start and try to train them in everything they should know = you would be there forever; because the Tanking gear and Attribute/CP Point setup is all aimed at sustaining; not doing damage. Adept enemies can heal faster than a Tank can take them down - but stick that Tank in DPS gear and change a few CP Points around and they can wipe the floor with the enemy (but no longer have the sustainability).



SneakyBo gave me a list of skills they wanted me to have by level 50/CP 160; then told me to come back when I had everything. Of course = you don't have to wait till you are CP 160 to start Tanking; but Tanking armor is VERY expensive; so there is really no point spending all that on Nirncrux (etc) while they are rapidly changing levels.

Starting at level 11 = the skills they had me train her in were:


DK Class Skills & Sword and Board (of course on both those)


2 Handed & Bow = Both of these are for PvP; to use just for getting your Alliance Skills that you need. As soon as you have these 2 skills where you want them for the Battlegrounds = go to the Battlegrounds for the Alliance Skills. When you are done or later when you respec to morph into a Tank = you CAN drop these when your DK reaches level 50 and is ready to be morphed into a Tank; but you don't have to. I kept them just in case I needed them later.


Lightning Staff = This is invaluable to a Magicka DK; but Stam DK's can use it too if you have a big room to aggro. (Lay down Blockade to aggro; then drop your DK traps down to hold the mobs in one spot while you focus on the boss).


Heavy, Medium, and Light armor skills = Only take the passives that don't require 5 pieces in the Light and Medium; take all the passives in the Heavy.


Undaunted = The "Spit" Taunt ("Inner Fire") and the two passives.



The Alliance skills: Bring the Alliance War Skill Line to at least level 6 = Vigor; Caltrops; War Horn; Barrier; and Purge.

Caltrops = to aggro a whole mob to start the fight; but if you are facing a singular Boss or Tanking for a Veteran group or Trial you won't need them in the fight itself unless your DPS are floundering and need help. Then you can lay them down around you and yank the mobs into them using your DK "Chain" or the Fighters Guild "Leash." I used them when I first got them a few times; but they never worked as good as the Undaunted "Spit" and S&B "Puncture." I have Caltrops if I need them; but so far haven't needed them.

Vigor = DK's have the Green Dragon Blood; but that is a heal over time = you still need Vigor for a burst heal and because Vigor heals your whole team in Veteran Dungeons and Trials).

The Tank's Ultimates in group play should be War Horn and/or War Horn and Barrier = to support the whole team. The DPS should be the ones using DPS Ultimates; they SHOULDN'T need the help from the Tank's Ultimates for DPS = but they might run out of Stam/Mag; and that is where the Tank's Ultimates keep them working at their peak level. Especially if the DPS are taking a beating and the Healer is losing Magicka fast trying to keep them alive; the Tank using War Horn replenishes the Healer. (And Barrier heals while it protects your team; so I use it on my back bar and War Horn on my front bar).

Purge = you shouldn't need Purge if you travel with a good Healer; but if your Healer isn't able to negate the ill effects on your team (or if your team can't reach the shards the Healer drops) = Purge is a burst that cleanses your entire team within its range; no shards to grab it just does it.






*

Well, Bo's getting on with filling her bars, and just needs the Ultimates. Dawnbreaker is a long way off, as she's only at level 5 in FG, but she's closing in on bow level 50, when she'll get access to Rapid Fire, which morphs to Ballista. She has Standard of Might, and Corrosive Armour as placeholders, in case enemies get too close.

We're taking passives fairly indiscriminately in the skill trees she'll be using, but leaving things like Heavy and Light Armour ones alone, as they depend on 5 pieces worn. She's also taken a couple of the crafting ones to help research, as there wasn't a competing use at the time. We probably have one unused skill point right now.

With bow skills on both bars, I'd have expected it to go faster, but that equally means half of them are on the other bar, too. At level 34, her bow is 44, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Everyone else was able to swap bars to favour one skill or another, so they had more control.

Can't do much about riding and research, as they're purely waiting games. She's only ten days old, so that horse is so slow!

That is another advantage of going after Vigor/Caltrops via Battlegrounds vs Cyrodiil. During the last PvP event I took a young version of Buffy through Cyrodiil much earlier than normal to take advantage of the double AP the event offered. Thing is she only had about 15 on her horse speed. Even with the PvP 'ride faster' skill she could not keep up with any group she rode with and often missed resource captures and such. Never again will she go to Cyrodiil without 60 horse speed!

HOLY CRAP! How did you reach Level 34 in just 10 days????

Long days? There's a long weekend in there when I did little else. That accounts for a lot of it. And she had all the left-over XP scrolls the others could scrounge up.

Wow, that is some hefty gameplaying!!!

It helped that it was snowing outside.

Bo is now at level 43, and that level 34 Hunding's/Spriggan's gear is beginning to look weak. But she's reached bow level 50, and has the Rapid fire untimate, which will soon morph to Ballista.

We just spent some time in Coldharbour, gathering Skyshards, and hoping to raise FG with all the Daedra we're killing. However, that's only at level 6, well short of Trap Beast and Dawnbreaker. I'm not sure what is the best way of advancing FG, other than ignoring it, and letting it take care of itself, which was Unna's approach.

Laurie started her last couple of researches for Clothing, and Blacksmith ones are just over a week away. We have the pieces ready, just need the open slots. Since there's some spare Fortified Nirncrux in the bag, and most of her Nirnhoned writs want Potent, (except a couple that want the pieces she's still researching), we're considering making a couple of items for Blossom to research. There are three more characters that have level 50 in all their equipment crafting, but haven't got the skill points to advance their ranks. If I have them chase down some skyshards, we can do more max-level writs. With the change in writ returns in the latest patch, the dailies should be self-sustaining at that level, so we won't run out of ruby-level mats all the time.

Furnishing the houses is still going slowly. Minx has guest beds, but we haven't found a big one she likes. Her Ald Velothi Harbour House also needs a lot of other items, but we're undecided whether to stick to Dunmer styles or go eclectic. Mathiisen will be the latter, as it has rooms that could be "themed" separately. But that's waiting for centerpiece items to become available. All the others are gradually acreting pieces as we come across the plans. At least everyone has a bed in their own home.

There are two dungeons that are awesome for Fighters Guild raising because they are loaded with skeletons and respawn at a really fast rate.

Forgotten Crypts in Deshaan is the best one. (group dungeon) Just keep going for the skeletons; they attack in groups of at least 5 and respawn like crazy. Also; if you group with any others to do it; you get credit for all their kills too (when you loot the bodies). You can raise your Fighters Guild up really fast in there.

Low level characters can try Enduum in Glenumbra; it is all undead. Any undead dungeons will do; the skeletons seem to rise FG level up quickly.

Dolmen do raise your Fighters Guild up; but it does it much quicker if you are doing a new Dolmen you haven't done before (rather than repeating the same Dolmen over and over like the Alikr route does. I usually go to the starter zones and do each Dolman once; then move up to the next level zones and do each of theirs; etc. (your Achievement journal will tell you which Dolmen you are missing; and it also gives you achievements for completing zones that way).

We did a quick run through Enduum, and decided there just aren't enough skeletons there to make a decent rate of progress. But since she's doing the Stonefalls quests at the moment, there were enough Daedra and undead along that to progress nicely, and she's getting the quest experience thrown in to help level in general. So she's level 44 and FG 6 right now, trying to reach level 50 and FG 8 at least by Friday for the guild meet.

That might mean giving her a few CP to help her move faster through the quests. She's run out of XP scrolls, so when this last one expires, she needs to do more quests, instead of getting more XP for each one.

Oh, if the Guild Meet is this Friday; why don't we all go to that Forgotten Crypts with our lower level characters that need Fighters Guild points? We can group up and get credit for the whole groups kills; it will bring our characters up to FG 10 in no time! We could even switch out characters if we have others that need it after one of ours reaches 10!

(I mean, if anyone else wants to build up their FG)

Forgotten Crypts most def respawns fast and has a ton of skeletons = plus several undead bosses! A younger character might be overwhelmed there solo; but in a group they would be fine!

Just for the closure: Bo reached level 50 just before the guild meet, and rather than send her in the outgrown equipment she had while levelling up, she borrowed Cat Man Dhou's gear and went as a (fake?) tank. As a DK, she had Choking Talons - which is a nice skill for holding mobs in the area of her bow AoE's - and it took about five minutes to get a sword and board taunt in her front bar.

Having a good healer made all the difference, as she could rush in to a group and Talon them, stab any boss with Pierce Armour, and then generally block and bash until the others burned them all down. We got her FG up to the mid-seven range fairly quickly.

Since then, we've been collecting her bow/bow equipment, and she has a Spriggan's bow on the front bar to make a set with her jewelry, and a generic one is on the back bar. That is where a Maelstrom bow will go when we can arrange it, to get the benefit it adds to Endless Hail. She doesn't yet have Trap Beast, for the back bar, or Dawnbreaker for the front, so there are placeholder skills (such as Standard of Might) in use now. Her other set is Hunding's Rage, and she's using a random Undaunted shoulder with it all, picked for weight more than anything else, so she continues to level the Heavy and Light lines.

I'm just letting her explore now, as she has enough equipment to PvE comfortably solo. Mostly, we're building up her wayshrine and Skyshard collections for later.

And on the subject of wayshrines: I've had a couple of recent instances where one of my characters wanted to visit a zone for the first time, but had no known wayshrine, or player home, to enter through. In a couple of cases, I was able to go to the wayshrine nearest the "border crossing" in the adjacent zone, but the in-game maps don't help much in seeing where those crossings are. Does anyone know of an add-on that contributes that nugget of extra data?

If there isn't one, I may have to investigate writing one.

Go to your Guild Rosters or Friends Lists. Find someone in the zone you want to travel to; Right click on their name; and "Travel to Player" = takes you to the wayshrine nearest that player.

Or you can hop to Players houses on your friend's list's or Guild Rosters too (as long as you have permissions on that person's houses you can exit the house and end up in the new zone).

What we used to do before Housing came out was to group with whoever needed to set up wayshrines on a character; and one Player who had all the wayshrines would hop to the main city's wayshrine in each Province; then wait till the group all "Traveled to Player" to them. Players could also just ask for certain wayshrines if they preferred too (rather than the major city ones).

We did it all the time for each other back then; you would see people asking for it in the chatbox all the time; and other Players would just volunteer to help them.

I do those when I can, but the unwritten laws dictate that nobody's around where I need them, and everyone has the same houses that I do. The border crossings get marked when you have a quest in the zone, but strangely they're not at other times. You'd expect them to be constant markers, like the wayshrines showing in black before you find them.

There aren't many times I've needed that missing function, but they've all been in a bunch recently, probably because I'm trying to complete everyone's skill-sets, and they all need a few more skyshards.

I've found the navigators and boatswain systems to be fairly helpful (albeit sometimes a bit convoluted) in getting to an unvisited zone. More info - https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Transport

And they're part of the same problem. They show on the map when you have a quest out of zone, but don't always take you closer to the quest. I'd really like them there all the time, with a tooltip that indicates where they take you. The carts have the same issue. I've often seen those on my map as exit to a quest I know isn't in Craglorn, for example. If it just said "to Craglorn" it wouldn't be so misleading, as I'd look elsewhere for the direct route. The game often helpfully sends you out the wrong door from walled towns, too, if they're closer to the straight-line path to the target.

But this is somewhat mixing two separate problems. One is hiding the zone boundaries when they're not being recommended, and the other is marking the wrong one(s). Fixing the first part should be much easier.

Laurie needs new tanking armour, so she can start doing a few more dungeons. She's running Sword and Board on both bars, and they're currently Green Pact because they were easy to get. Her body set is Song of Lamae, which was useful while she was solo questing, but she needs something better now.

The obvious choice is Ebon Armory, but that's only useful as a full set, which comes with the unfortunate persistent visual effect, which we'd prefer to avoid. So we're considering Torug's, Fortified Brass, and others. Any opinions?

Fortified Brass is Awesome for Tanking.

And you are right; Ebon armor is really only going to support the whole group if you wear the full set. (otherwise you may as well wear something else).

Armor Master and Song of Lamae are both great Tanking armor; but if you have a full set of Fortified Brass you can mix sets for the other pieces rather than go another full 5 piece set.

You want to balance out your CP Points and Armor stats to get the highest health; protection; and stamina (for blocking) = without going over the ceiling for any of them (so you aren't wasting any of those assets).

Example: If you have reached the ceiling for Physical and Spell resistance using Fortified Brass and 2 pieces of another Tanking gear like Armor Master or Song of Lamae = that means you can either adjust your CP points to put more into stamina for blocking or breaking free (add more to Shadow Ward and Warlord) or health and recovery = or juggle around other pieces of armor to give you more health or stamina rather than adding any more protection that can't be used because you've reached the ceiling on what the game allows.

Since Cat Man Dhou has a set of Fortified Brass (made by Laurie) she can swap with him for a test run. She currently has more health than she really needs, and that resistance might be more useful. On the other hand, it may go past the cap if any group contributions add on.

I think Glirion has Crypt of Hearts up tonight, so we may chase some Ebon anyway. Unna might like any Leviathan that drops, too, so they may both go (separately, of course).

Is that the hip new way to say he's wearing an athletic supporter?

Acadian (DK tank) is wearing Warrior Poet x5, Seducer x5 and Mighty Chudan x2. He has a full set of Ebon Armory sitting in the bank without interest in using it. He is absolutely an unapologetic 'selfish tank'. With just his tristat food buff, his stats are 42k health, 22k stam, 21k mag, 33.5k dual resists. Nice thing about unbuffed max resists is that it is one more buff he does not have to cast. Being able to drop the DK spiky shield spell freed up room for Caltrops which is a great opening 'grab aggro' spell that still allows S&B on both bars.

Being so durable and with good sustain & heals really lets him focus on keeping taunts up, debuffs active and keeping adds pulled in and locked down. His own survival takes little attention. At least for me, that really lets him focus on controlling the fight. For our purposes, which don't go beyond non-DLC casual group dungeons (usually pugs), he works well.

Well, since Glirion was doing Crypt of Hearts I, I sent Unna, Blossom and Laurie through. Half-hour queue for each of Unna and Blossom, ten seconds for Laurie.

We got seven pieces of Ebon, only four different. Of course the reward greaves for the quest were the same each time, but girdles dropped just as much. Three pieces of Leviathan armour and two weapons. All of which conflict with Unna's Hunding's and she's looking for an alternative to the Sword Singer. All except the guards, of course. We got two pairs of those.

But Bo did her very first Master Writ, adding a huge 5 vouchers to our collection.

@Acadian: Mighty Chudan does look like a set Laurie would want. How hard is it to get the helm? Although she might not need one. She's at about 30k resists already, so the shoulder alone takes her close to the 33k cap.

From another thread:


Beyond the general levelling considerations, I'm finding a few specifics for Jewel Crafting. One is that the traits don't drop on loot in the same way. With other equipment, all the traits except Nirnhoned can be found on generic loot. Jewel Crafting has six of the traits behaving like Nirnhoned, and dropping only in special circumstances (if at all), so I'm expecting a lot more research from specimen pieces. The trait materials are a bit the same way, with the ones for the three common traits coming from refinement, and the Nirncrux pattern in place for the others. Special locations, or special activity to get them. So I'll have to decide on who and how for the gathering.

Laurie is getting all the Intricate jewels passed to her, so she can get ahead on inspiration. Blossom has her Orc crafting bonus, so she's close behind. The others are all doing daily writs to keep it moving, and researching the traits they can, when they can. Since a number of the characters need FG, we'll probably start doing daily dolmens to guarantee a steady flow of jewels to deconstruct for a while. But those will all be the three common traits, so another strategy will be needed soon. Probably several, as each of the extra traits looks like it needs its own.

You are exactly right on that. The ones that drop most are the Arcane, Healthy, Robust. If you get Psijic Portals you can get plenty of Infused; and rarely Swift. For the other Jewelry traits I went to the Guild Traders and bought the ring or necklace with the trait I wanted to research. They ran between 11,000-25,000 depending on how rare they were.

I've got extra "Infused" rings and necklaces if you need them!

Does anyone here know if the “Martial Training” passive under Redguard Skills counts for destruction staff too?

Yes, it will affect staff, but It's not clear if all the skill line's abilities count. I found references to various of the skills being counted as "weapon abilities" as mentioned in that passive in patch notes, but it wasn't clear if some had been buggy, and others hadn't, or if some should count and others shouldn't.

Wall of elements was one specific skill that was mentioned as being a "weapon ability" that got fixed. It makes me think that all the staff ones should be, but it may not be that simple.