How to Make ESO Builds
With update 29 of the Elder Scrolls Online, making and building a character the way you want is a little broader and confusing now because you have many more options. In this guide, Brah We Got This will break down each tip and explain for beginners if you are making your first character. If it's a vet character that you are respecting from the new update, this guide will show you what you should do for each side of things. Thus, this guide will be helpful for both Vets and beginner players.
When building your character, the first thing you need to decide is what race and class you want to play. For most new players, when you start, you aren't going to know what you want to play. So I always recommend playing a class that is appealing to you because, for most people, you will get more enjoyment and longevity out of this game if you play a class and race that you enjoy over something that is just the meta.
I'm not saying that playing the meta builds, classes, and races are dumb because some people will enjoy and want to play the meta. My point in saying this is that if you play a class or a race that you enjoy, you can make it your own meta. Every class and race in this game can play every role. It doesn't mean that they will perform better statistically, but if you enjoy it, there's no issue.
The meta does change, so the foundation that you should build your character on should be something that you enjoy, regardless if it's the meta or not. Ask yourself this question: would you enjoy this build or class if it drops out of the meta? If the answer is yes, then that is a great starting place to build a character for a new player. If it drops out of the meta, it's not entirely useless. You can clear a lot of content with anything you play, as long as you understand the basics of your character and the game.
10. Picking a Class
Firstly, you need to find out which class interests you the most:
• Templar does Healing, Magicka/Stamina DPS well. Tanks are usually the weakest for the most part.
• Nightblades excels at Magicka and Stamina DPS and Tanking. They can do solid Healing. Thus, it's an all-around great class.
• Dragonknight makes an excellent Tank, and it's good at Magicka and Stamina DPS. It's not as great as a Healer, though.
• Sorcerers are MVP for Magicka DPS and decent Stamina DPS. They're great Tanks, and they're good Healers.
• Necromancers are good at every role. Unlike the other classes, you need buy Necromancer in ESO from other players with your gold or from the Crown Store with Crowns.
• Wardens are amazing Healers and Tanks, and they are pretty good Stamina and Magicka DPS characters.
9. What Race Should You Play
All races can play every role, but some are going to do better. ZOS updated the races a decent bit. For veterans, if you are already playing the meta race for your build, it probably won't affect it much because you're already playing something great for that role.
For people who have a character already built out, if you don't like the racial changes and want to play the meta race for your build, you can always buy a Race Change Token. For new players, if you just are sold on a race, play it. But below is my quick analysis of each race:
• Nords are great Tank races with great Ulti Regen and good Stamina characters.
• High Elves are great Magicka-based characters and now do decent with Stamina characters.
• Dark Elves are the jack-of-all-trade race, and they can do Tanking, Healing, Magicka, and Stamina classes. They are also great hybrids.
• Argonians are great Healers and Tanks.
• Bretons are amazing with Magicka.
• Imperials are good Tanks and Stamina classes. They are also good all around.
• Redguard are great Tanks and Stamina races.
• Orcs are great Stamina classes and farming classes.
• Khajiits are good, all-around Stamina classes, crit builds, stealth, and some Magicka as well.
• Wood Elves make great Stamina classes, stealth, bow builds, and they're very fast.
8. What Attributes Should You Use
In The Elder Scrolls Online, you have three main attributes: Health, Magicka, and Stamina.
Suggestions for Beginners
• Magicka DPS – all points into Magicka
• Stamina DPS – all points into Stamina
• Tank – split between Health, Magicka, Stamina. You could put all points in Magicka or Stamina when starting out
• Healer – all Magicka
• If you are a new player, with Update 29, you have more options with attributes since you will gain Health, Stamina, and Magicka from the CP trees a lot more, and your base stats were bumped up. But if you want to build a Magicka DPS, I would still recommend staying with 64 points in Magicka.
• If you want to build a Stamina DPS, put 64 points in a Stamina.
• If you want to build a Tank and are under level 50, put points into Magicka, Stamina, and some into Health because you're going to have plenty of Health already from buff food that you need to be able to use your ability.
• If you're a Healer, put 64 points into Magicka.
Suggestions for Veterans
For Vet players, if you already have built characters and wonder whether you should do the normal 64 points into Magicka and Stamina for in-game builds, the answer is – yes. But I would recommend trying out different things because you can get a high Magicka/Stamina/Health pool without having all the points in the Magicka/Stamina/Health now. This can be achieved due to the CP system and the stat increase. You can try out anything with that. You can try and see what you can get by putting your points into other attributes.
For Vet players' Tanks, this is going to be based on your build. You could put all points into Health and get your Stamina and Magicka from Glyphs and CP passives. You also have a lot of versatility. If you want to be safe, do the normal 64 for the DPS classes and Healing.
7. Mundus Stones
For beginners, I recommend activating your Mundus Stones. You need to go up to one and accept the sign, which gives you various bonuses based on the effect.
Suggestions for Beginners
• DPS – Shadow or Thief
• Tank – The Lord
• Healer – The Ritual or The Lover
For DPS, you could choose Shadow or Thief for crit damage or crit chance; For Tank, you could select the Lord that increases Health; For Healers, you could go the Ritual or the Lover.
Suggestions for Veterans
For players with already built characters, it's worth noting that you should consider changing your Mundus Stone or playing around with it because, with the new changes, you have so many options. If you want to make a crit build, you need to spec into it. You might need the Thief stone over the Shadow to get that high crit chance you used to have. Doing this allows you to have more choice, so take a look at them and see what you want to build.
6. Skill Lines and Passives
Each class has three skill lines and a set of passives. When first starting, I would suggest leveling up each of those lines together. This allows you to play a different role in the future on that class, and all you need to do is respec your skills. But if you only level up one line, you won't have access to that quicker.
For players that already have built characters, I would suggest leveling up the lines if you haven't done that by doing random dungeons, Battlegrounds, or Dolmens.
How Skills and Lines Are Leveled
As a new player or a veteran, the more skills a line on your bar when you turn in a quest, defeat a creature, complete a dungeon, etc., the faster that line will level.
For instance, you could slot three Ardent Flame abilities and two Draconic Power abilities for the DK on your skill bar, and you would level the Ardent Flame faster than the Draconic Power because there are more skills on the bar for Ardent Flame. So I recommend putting one skill of each skill line on each of your bars and the weapon skills or guild skills on the rest.
For passives, I recommend holding off until you have the skills you need while leveling. For veterans that already have built characters, you have a complete reset now. Therefore, you'll want to go through your passives to see whether you really need this passive. If you don't need it, don't put points into it. Doing this will allow you to save a lot of skill points.
How should you spec your bar for each role in the game? This is going to be your preference, and it changes based on your build. But I want to give you some general advice for each role to help you succeed on a ground level, and the advice applies to new players and Vets that already have their builds and want to spec it again.
Tanks
• A taunt
• A pull skill
• A CC skill
• A self heal
• A shield skill
For Tanks, you'll want to have a taunt first. A taunt that every class will get is in the Sword and Board skill line called Pierce Armor, and this is a great skill that all Tanks should have. You can use Inner Range (a ranged taunt) and the frost staff taunt.
As a Tank, you'll want some form of CC (Crowd Control) skill on your bar. CC skill allows you to inflict status effects that could help you mitigate some damage from the enemies or slow them, which helps your team out.
Some great CC tools for Tanks are:
• Unnerving Boneyard from the Necromancer skill line (it applies Major Breach and Frost Damage)
• Choking Talons from the Dragonknight skill line (it roots and applies Minor Maim).
• Gripping Shards from the Warden skill line (it applies frost damage and reduces their movement speed).
• A pull is another skill that is nice to have on your bar. It pulls enemies to you to group up enemies tighter for more efficient and quicker DPS. Dragonknights can use the Unrelenting Grip. Wardens have the Frost Gate skill, and all Tanks have access to Silver Leash from the Fighters Guild skill line.
• A Self-heal is also nice for Tanks on their bar. Wardens have Polar Wind, and Nightblades have Dark Cloak.
• Another skill that would be nice for Tanks is a shield that helps mitigate damage.
Healers
• A heal over time
• Burst heal
• A buff skill
• A debuff skill
• CC skill
For Healers, having an HoT (Heal over Time) that can heal all of your allies is helpful. Healing Springs from the Restoration Staff Skills Line is a great one of these. Almost every class has a Heal over Time. Burst heal is also one that should be on your skill bar. It is a quick heal that heals someone from nothing to full Health quickly. Combat Prayer is a great burst heal from the Restoration Staff Skills Line that everyone has access to. All classes have access to some kind of burst heal. For a buff or debuff, Combat Prayer and the Elemental Drain (from Destruction Staff line) would be great skills for Healers. A CC skill is also nice for a Healer. The Elemental Blockade gives great Crowd Control for your teammates.
DPS
• Single target
• AoE damage
• Sustain tool
• Spammable
• Shield or heal
You'll want to have single target skills for bosses and an AoE skill for Adds or Damage over Time abilities. You'll also want to have a spammable skill, which can be used over and over as your main damage ability. Force Pulse is an excellent spammable for Magicka DPS. For Stamina DPS, you could use Whirling Blades – a dual-wield skill that's a good spammable. Every class has a spammable to use.
You can slot a shield or a self-heal for harder content or solo content, and this will allow you to stay alive longer as a DPS. You'll also want some skills for resource regeneration and management. For those reasons, Consuming Trap is a solid one from the Soul Magic skill line, and Equilibrium is a great one in the Mages Guild line. Some classes have them as well in their class lines.
5. Open Your Guild Skill Lines Up
There are many skills and passives in the skill lines that are great for every role, so I highly recommend going and unlocking these as soon as you get in the game.
You can go to Solitude to unlock the Fighter's and Mage's guild, or you can go to the starting city for each Alliance.
Fighter's and Mage's Guild
AD – Vulkhel Guard – Auridon
DC – Daggerfall – Glenumbra
EP – Davon’s Watch – Stonefalls
Undaunted
Talk to Turuk Redclaws at the Salted Wings tavern in Vulkhel Guard
4. Armor, Traits, and Enchantments
Suggestions for Beginners
For new players, the traits aren't going to matter much. For Enchantments, most of the armor you get will have decent enchants in the ones you want on them by default when they drop. When building out your character, you can have someone make training armor to help you level. You can also have people make you crafted sets to give you good bonuses early on to help you sustain. Therefore, for Magicka classes, you could have Julianos and Magnus' Gift. For Stamina, you could run Hunding's Rage; For Tanks, you could run Torug's Pact; For Healers, you could run Magnus' Gift, Seducer, or Julianos.
Suggestions for Veterans
For veterans who are building their characters, the in-game Armor, Enchantments, and Traits do matter. There are so many possibilities now that you can do with the new CP system. For veterans, I highly recommend trying different things that you like, and I will give you a baseline:
Magicka DPS Armor
5 Light, 1 Medium, 1 Heavy or 7 Light
Magicka DPS Traits
Divines on All Armor – Bloodthirsty on Jewels
Precise/Sharpened/Nirnhoned on Weapons
For Magicka DPS, I believe that you can still use five light armor, one heavy armor, and one medium armor. But I have been using seven light, so I don't have the heavy armor penalties. For the traits, Divines is good on all Armor; For enchants, I choose Max Magicka; For Jewelry, Bloodthirsty is a good trait with Magicka recovery enchants; For weapons, Sharpened and Nirnhoned traits are great with various enchants. You could switch some of this up. You may not need all Max Magicka enchants, but this is going to be case by case.
Stamina DPS Armor
All Medium Armor
Stamina DPS Traits
Divines on All Armor – Bloodthirsty on Jewels
Precise/Sharpened/Nirnhoned on Weapons
Tanks Armor
5 Heavy, 1 Light, 1 Medium or 7 Heavy
Tank Traits
Sturdy, Reinforced, and Infused on Armor
Infused on Head, Chest, Leg
Infused on Jewels
Decisive, Charged on Weapons
For Tanks, you are looking for five heavy, one light, and one medium. You can also use all heavy armor, and that's what I've been doing; For Traits, you can use Infused on the chest, head, and leg pieces because those pieces give the biggest enchantment bonuses. On the other pieces of armor, you can have Sturdy and Reinforced on them; Enchants can be a mix of Tri-stat glyphs and Health, Magic, and Stamina. But, put your most important glyphs on the Head, Chest, and Legs because those pieces have the Infused Trait and the biggest bonus. However, this will change per your build, and you have so much flexibility as a Tank.
For Jewelry, it could be whatever fits your build; For weapon traits, you could use Decisive on Sword, Sturdy on Shield; For Staves, you could choose Charged to increase the status effect.
Healers Armor
7 Light
Healer Traits
Infused and Divines Armor
Infused on Head, Chest, Leg
Infused on Jewels
Powered on Resto, Charged on Destro
You can use light armor for Healers, and you can use a mix of Infused and Divines Traits with Max Magicka enchants. For Jewel, you can use Infused. For Weapons, you'll want to use Powered for your Resto weapons to increase the Healing done and use Charged on the Destro Staff to increase the status effects for Lightning or CC. For both new players and veterans, make sure you are utilizing your armor sets efficiently. If you're using a five-piece bonus set, you need to have all five pieces to get that bonus. Here is my tip:
Slot a five-piece armor set on the Chest, Legs, Gauntlet, Belt, and Gloves. Then, for your other sets, you can use either three pieces of Jewelry, Shoulders, and Helmet. Or, you could have three pieces of Jewelry and Weapon slots. Because Destruction staves, Resto staves, two-handed weapons, and Bows count as two items in a set. You could have Burning Spellweave rings and the Inferno staff and have the five-piece bonus.
When you switch to your back bar, you will have three pieces if you don't have a Burning Spellwave Staff. To be efficient, you could put a Willpower Staff or Maelstrom staff on the back bar, and those would give you a two-piece bonus for each of those.
Those are all things that will give you efficient armor setups. New players stick to five body pieces, three pieces of Jewelry, Shoulders, and Helmet. Then, for your weapons, you can use some of the item sets you already have. But, eventually, you'll want to transition to having a Monster set on head and shoulders, five body pieces, five Jewels or weapon slots, with one weapon being an Arena weapon or a Willpower weapon.
3. Upgrading Your Items
As a new player, if you're below level 50, you do not need gold weapons, Jewelry, or Armor. You may not even need purple because blue and purple will suffice.
When you get to Vet, I only recommend having purple Armor and Jewelry and golding out the weapons. Golding out the weapons is only worth it for min-maxing because the bonus from purple to gold is significantly more than purple to gold armor.
When farming for a set, you can get all purple gear in dungeons on Veteran Mode. If you need Jewelry, I recommend doing the dungeon on Vet so it will drop as purple. If you just want to get item sets like body pieces or weapons, you can farm it on normal to get the blue and upgrade it to purple. For Trials, when you do it on Vet, you can also get gold Jewelry.
My last advice for upgrading your items is that if you love the build, and you're playing and will always play it, you can gold out everything. But, it will cost a lot of ESO gold. I never recommend players golding out Jewelry because of the price. But if you want to min-max, then you can gold out everything. Do not gold out weapons until you are satisfied with your build. Also, do not gold out weapons and armor if they are below CP 160.
2. How Long Should You Try Out a Class
Should I make another character if I'm not enjoying my character? This is a question that I get a lot of times. It's hard to answer because, sometimes, when leveling a character, you don't get to see its effectiveness until later in the game. Plus, there are some skills and passives that you haven't unlocked yet. For those reasons, I recommend that you follow my last eight tips, which will minimize this question as much as possible.
If you get bored easily with one character, you can create another character. But I think you should level a class to level 50 and CP 160+ to see if you would like to play it. In that way, you'll have some semblance of what to expect.
If you don't like the skills and the class, you can start to play a different one. But, at the beginning of creating a new class, you should ask yourself whether you will keep playing it if the meta changes. Doing this will help you a lot because picking something that interests you is the first step. I have been playing the game for over six years. I did a lot on my main account, and I enjoyed it. If I had picked a class that I didn't like, I would not have played that long. I like the way that I've built a character. Thus, don't be afraid to respec and try something else.
If you level up all your lines and do all the tips before, it will allow you to try other forms of your role if you don't like the initial one. If you don't like the class you're playing, you can make another character, but I think you need to give it a good bit of time, especially to level it to 50 because, for some of these classes, you will see the fun in them after level 50.
1. Champion Points
The ESO Champion Point system has been completely changed in Update 29:
• The Warfare (blue tree) consists of many different active and passive effects that can improve your Damage, Crit, Healing, and Mitigation abilities.
• The Craft (green tree) is about Crafting and non-combat.
• The Fitness (red tree) affects Utility, Cost Reduction, Roll Dodging, Blocking, etc.
Within these trees, you have passive skills that you will automatically get for the number of points you put into them.
Some starts have a different color, and you need to slot them on the bars above to get the effects. You can only put four of these into the slottable stars, so you need to pick them wisely. My recommendation is to try a mix and match of each of them as you play your character.
For instance, as a Tank, you can try Mitigation, and when you level up higher, you can put some points on the DPS side and slot some of them if you can mix and match it. As Healers, you can do the same thing. Try all Healing, then try mix and matching.
It is going to be a trial and error process for everyone. Everyone's CP trees are going to be a little different because they can be so customizable. The passives are things that everyone will get as they level up, but you can try different things. As a low level, don't worry about this too much until you get into these levels.
Those are the ten tips about how to build your characters successfully in ESO. If you like this video, please like and subscribe to Brah We Got This's channel. MmoGah will also share more guides related to ESO builds on our ESO news page.
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