Welcome to the ESO Beginner Guide, with this guide you will successfully start your journey in the Elder Scrolls Online. The game is very complex, therefore it is important that you are aware of the basic mechanics that I will explain in this Beginner Guide for the Elder Scrolls Online.
I highly recommend reading this before you go into the specific class sections on how to level up your character. Once you are done reading this, you will find links to different classes and how to efficiently level them up (at the bottom).
Note: If you have any feedback for any of the beginner topics please post it in the feedback channel on our AlcastHQ community discord.
Overview New Player Beginner Guide ESO:
- Part 1 – Before We Start
- Part 2 – The Beginning
- Part 3 – Skills
- Part 4 – Basic Game Mechanics
- Part 5 – Crafting, Inventory & Food
- Part 6 – Champion Points & Follow-up Guides
Part 1 – The Basics
Key Bindings in ESO
There are a few things that I do recommend changing. The Key Bindings layout of ESO is pretty good. However, there are ways to improve certain bindings. These here are only recommendations, I will also explain why I set them up differently so you can understand the thought process behind it
- Block and interrupt
- Weapon Swap
- Dodge Roll
Block and interrupt
Block and interrupt are two very important mechanics in ESO. The default setting is right click to block and while you hold block down, left click to interrupt. I do recommend placing those two on different buttons. Now you can interrupt without holding down block. In my case I have interrupt on the right mouse button and I have block on the side button 2 on my mouse.
Weapon Swap
Weapon Swap is a necessary mechanic that you will get access to with level 15. It allows you to have two full bars ready by weapon swapping. The default setting is usually the middle cursor on the mouse. I placed it on the mouse side button 1 to more easily access it.
Dodge Roll
Dodge Roll is required to avoid high impact damage, the default setting is set to double tap WASD move buttons. I set this to the letter T, because having to double tap WASD does not always reliably work. Plus you would have to stop for a split second every time you try to double tap dodge roll, this is not the case when you bind it to a separate key.
Character Creation
The character creation of The Elder Scrolls Online is huge. You have tons of choices that you can make.
The most important thing in the character creation screen is what race you want to choose, everything else is just cosmetic and won’t impact your gameplay. You can play any race with any class. However, there are preferences depending on what type of setup you want to play.
You can find a detailed ESO Race Guide where you can check out the different max-level passives of each class to give you a good oversight. I will also give you some recommendations depending on what setups you want to play on.
Leveling Rewards
Leveling Rewards have been introduced a while ago. This helps new players progress and keeps them entertained at the same time. The system is very clever and you should always take a close look at what you are getting. For example, on level 10 you get a horse that you can use to travel faster, on level 15 you will get a second weapon and they will tell you that you can barswap from now on. Stuff like that is what makes this tool very special and helpful at the same time.
To quote Zenimax: “This new system is designed to teach new players about the many facets of combat and progression in ESO. It contains useful rewards for new and veteran players alike as you progress from levels 2-50, and every five levels, you will receive a milestone reward with something special such as a mount, Crown Crate, costume, or a helpful weapon. Simply open the Character UI to claim your rewards! Below, you’ll find the list of milestone rewards:”
Combat Ability Bar
The default option for your combat ability bar is set to “hidde”n outside of combat. However, we do recommend turning the combat ability bar on all the time. This is especially helpful when you are about to enter a fight. If you have the default option (hidden), the combat ability bar will only show up after you entered the fight, which already puts you at a disadvantage.
You can find it under Settings > Combat.
Combat Cues in Elder Scrolls Online
You can adjust the brightness settings for combat cues. I highly recommend turning the slider for “Enemy Brightness” to the max setting of 50. This will make it easier to spot enemy attacks in ESO.
Guild Finder – How to join a Guild in ESO
As a new player it is often hard to find a new guild in a MMO. ESO gives you an easy way to find the right guild for you via the Guild Finder tool. Navigate to the “Guilds” tab and then select the “Guild Finder”. Browse through the different categories to find the right type. You can join up to 5 different guilds at the same time in ESO.
Guild Finder Categories:
- Trading
- Group PvE
- Roleplaying
- Social
- PvP
- Questing
- Crafting
We do recommend joining a Social Guild if you are a new player in The Elder Scrolls Online. Social Guilds do like to help new players and guide them through the game. Especially important at the start because there are so many things to learn. Often Social Guilds also give you free items to get you started.
Important: When you apply to a guild make sure to tell them that you are a new player. Don’t apply without writing something in the application message. If you don’t write anything Guilds often just decline because they think you are a bot.
Part 2 – Where Do I Start in ESO?
Starter Town and Main City for your Alliance
Each alliance has a starter town and a main city. However, if you have the newest Chapter or any of the DLCs that were previously chapters, you will start in a different location.
Main City (Per Alliance)
The main cities are located in the second zone of each alliance in ESO.
- Wayrest in the Stormhaven Zone for the Daggerfall Covenant
- Elden Root in the Grahtwood Zone for Aldmeri Dominion
- Mournhold in the Deshaan Zone for Ebonheart Pact
High Isle DLC
You will start your journey in Gonfalon city in the High Isle and Amenos zone when you own the High Isle DLC.
Blackwood DLC
You will start your journey in the Leyawiin city in the Blackwood zone when you own the Blackwood DLC.
Greymoor DLC
You will get directed to a boat that will lead to the main city Solitude once you own Greymoor.
Elsweyr DLC
Riverhold will be your starter town this time and the main city in this area is Rimmen.
Morrowind DLC
Seyda Neen will be your starter town this time and the main city in this area is Vivec.
Summerset DLC
Shimmerene will be your start town this time and the main city in this area is Alinor.
Fighters Guild, Mages Guild and Undaunted
The most important thing to do with a new character is to acquire the Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, and Undaunted Skill-line when you enter the starter town. That way you can already partially level them up while you are leveling your character. Rather than doing that after you leveled up your character in ESO. This will save you A LOT of time.
All you need to do is talk to the right person and you will get a quest. Below you can find an image for each alliance and where the guilds are located. (MG = Mages Guild, FG = Fighters Guild, UD = Undaunted)
Level-up process:
- Undaunted: To level up Undaunted you need to complete dungeons and do Daily Pledges.
- Fighters Guild: To level up the Fighters Guild you need to kill Undead, Daedra, or destroy Dolmens.
- Mages Guild: To level up the Mages Guild you need to gather lorebooks that are spread throughout Tamriel.
How to level up and gain experience in ESO
There are a lot of ways to level up and gain experience. You get experience from questing, completing achievements, challenges, and grinding. I do recommend playing through the storyline as a new player, the quests are fabulous and you gain plenty of skill points. If you are more of a grind person, then you can also only grind.
You can find a full Grind Guide in case you want to check it out, there are a lot of good beginner-friendly grind spots that you can use. Grinding might be difficult at the start as you lack area-based damage. I do recommend completing a few story or zone quests first to get some skill points and some character levels to gain access to area-of-effect attacks.
As a new player, the easiest way to level up is through Dolmen grinding.
Part 3 – Skills
Skill Points & Skyshards in ESO
In order to unlock more skills, you need to obtain skill points. You will obtain skill points through leveling up, completing story quests, zone quests, or via gathering Skyshards. I do have a detailed video about how to find Story and Zone quests.
Skyshards are spread everywhere in Tamriel, once you collect three Skyshards you will get one skillpoint.
Resetting Skills in ESO
In each Major City you can reset all your skills for a certain price. So don’t hesitate to test out skills, you can always reset them! You can find out more in the ESO Respec Guide.
- Wayrest in the Stormhaven Zone for the Daggerfall Covenant
- Elden Root in the Grahtwood Zone for Aldmeri Dominion
- Mournhold in the Deshaan Zone for Ebonheart Pact
DLC Zones
- Vivec City in Vvardenfell (Morrowind)
- Alinor in Summerset (Summerset)
- Rimmen in Elsweyr (Elsweyr)
Skill Advisor & Unlock Skill-lines
Skill Advisor
The Skill Advisor system makes recommendations on how to spend skill points based on the build you select. You can use this system to prepare your character as you’re leveling up. The Advisor will outline abilities and morphs that you should choose depending on the build you selected. You can also turn the Skill Advisor off if you want.
This is an important tool and can help you make the right decisions. In the end, I recommend leveling up as many skills as possible, you never know when you want to change your character and try something new.
Unlock Skill-lines
When you start a new character, you won’t see many available Skill-lines. To be able to see all the Skill-lines you need to do certain things. For the weapon skill-lines you need to find a Weapon of that type and kill a monster with it. Once the monster is dead the new Skill-line will unlock.
When you want to get armor types unlocked, you need to make sure to slot at least 5 pieces of the same armor type, otherwise the armor type skill-line will not be shown. For all the crafting skill-lines you need to visit the correct crafting station and then the crafting skill-lines will show up. How to unlock the different guild skill-lines will be shown in a later part of the New Player Beginner Guide ESO.
Skill-lines
Morph example of Bolt Escape
You can also find a guide which explains how morphing works in detail.
Skills Scaling
What do you need to do to increase the effectiveness of your abilities? The most important thing that you need to remember is, that when you increase weapon/spell damage or magicka/stamina your tooltip will increase. Yes, magicka and stamina also boost the effectiveness of your abilities. Other than that there are a lot of Major and Minor buffs and other modifiers that can increase the effectiveness of your abilities, but for now it is enough when you know that your resources also help increase the effectiveness of abilities.
How do Skills and Skill-lines level up?
Skills
Skills level up when you slot them into your skill bar. So whenever you place a skill onto your skill bar, it will start gaining experience and slowly level up. The most important takeaway from this note is, that you can wield a destruction staff, but slot restoration staff abilities and the restoration staff abilities will level up as well, along with the skill line. As long as you have a skill of a skill-line slotted, then the skill line will also level up automatically.
Skill-lines
Most Skill-lines level up by simply slotting an ability on your frontbar, from whatever skill-line you want to level up. However, there are some exceptions:
- Fighters Guild: Level up by killing Undead & Daedra
- Mages Guild: Level up by gathering Lorebooks
- Undaunted: Level up by getting Dungeon Achievements and doing Daily Pledges
- Werewolf: Level up by the number of monsters killed, have to be in Werewolf form to level up
- Vampire: Levels up with experience gained automatically.
How to use Skills
Using skills is essential to succeed in combat in the Elder Scrolls Online. While leveling up, you will unlock more and more skills and it might get a bit confusing because there are so many possibilities to choose from. Most important is that you always have skills slotted that you can use for combat. I will dive more into this subject in the beginner guide for each class.
Part 4 – Basic Game Mechanics in ESO
Light & Heavy Attacks, Block, Bash and Dodge Roll explained
There are a lot of different mechanics in this game. I will explain the most important combat mechanics in this section of the guide for ESO. I also highly recommend checking out the very in-depth “Weaving Guide”, which explains the very controversial animation canceling!
Light & Heavy Attacks in ESO
Light and Heavy Attacks deal a lot of damage and are therefore essential to do good damage, healing and tanking. They also proc enchantment effects. A lot of new players struggle with Light & Heavy attack weaving. Basically in this game what you want to do is: “Light Attack > Ability > Light Attack > Ability > Light Attack” and so on to maximize damage.
Between each Ability a Light or Heavy Attack needs to go out to increase your damage in combat. We will also dive into animation canceling later in a different guide, but for now, that would be too complicated. As long as you try to weave Light or Heavy Attacks between abilities you are good to go for now.
Heavy Attacks also restore a lot of resources, so make sure to Heavy Attack when you are low on resources!
Block
Blocking is the most important mechanic to mitigate damage. When you are blocking you are only taking a fracture of the damage that is applied to you. However, this will also slowly drain your stamina. While you are blocking you will also not regenerate any stamina through stamina recovery, so only block when necessary.
Bash
When you bash an enemy that is channeling an attack you can interrupt him. You will see a charge effect on enemies, which means that you can interrupt their ability and they might get stunned. This is important because you can avoid high-impact damage that might be channeled by enemies.
Dodge Roll
Dodge rolling is another important mechanic. When you use your dodge roll button or double tap into a direction, you can avoid enemy abilities. This way you can mitigate a lot of damage, when you know you will soon get hit by a strong enemy ability you can simply dodge roll it. Most single-target abilities are dodgeable, most area-of-effect abilities are undodgeable. There are a lot of exceptions that you will learn during your journey in Tamriel, you will find that out soon while playing.
Different Types of Attacks
There are a lot of different attack types in Elder Scrolls Online. I will go through the most important ones, so you get a good oversight.
- Basic Attack Type
- Light Attacks
- Heavy Attacks
- Bash
- Magicka Attack Type
- Magic Damage
- Frost Damage
- Fire Damage
- Shock Damage
- Stamina Attack Type
- Physical Damage
- Poison Damage
- Disease Damage
- Special Attack Type
- Oblivion Damage
- Bleed Damage
Part 5 – Crafting, Inventory & Food
Crafting in the Elder Scrolls Online
Crafting is one of the important parts of the game. I do recommend deconstructing most white items to level up your different crafting skills. There are a few different crafting skill lines, I do have guides for all of them:
- Crafting Writs Guide (How to Guide, can be started with level 6)
- Blacksmithing
- Woodworking
- Clothing
- Enchanting
- Provisioning
- Alchemy
- Jewelry crafting
All of those professions are leveled up differently. Blacksmithing, Woodworking and Clothing are the easiest ones as you just need to keep deconstructing gear. Enchanting can be leveled up by creating or deconstructing Glyphs. Provisioning can be leveled up if you cook food once you found the right ingredients and recipes. Alchemy can be leveled up by crafting potions once you farmed enough flowers and jewelry crafting requires you to find jewelry crafting materials and either deconstruct or craft jewelry to level the skill line up.
Gear, Sets & Monster Sets
There are a lot of different gear sets in the Elder Scrolls Online. For the start of the game gear isn’t that important, just use what you can find. Later on, especially once you reach Level 50 and 160 Champion Points you want to start getting your gear setup together. We are going to take a closer look at that in the follow-up guides but here are the basics. If you want to check out all the special gear sets that exist in the Elder Scrolls Online check out ESO-Hub.com. You can find all sets and skills there and they are always up to date.
5 Piece Sets
Most of the game sets consist of so-called 5 piece Sets. They basically have a 2, 3, 4, 5 piece bonus as you can see.
Monster Sets
You can also acquire so-called “Monster Sets”. The Heads drop in specific Dungeons and the shoulder piece drop from the Undaunted Daily Chests. Once you reach 160 Champion Points I do recommend starting to farm these Monster Sets. You can find a full List in the Monster Set section of the ESO-Hub.com website.
Buff-Food & Drinks
The most important thing to increase your character stats is Buff-Food and Drinks. Buff-Food usually increases max resources and Drinks usually increase recovery. There are a few exceptions, like newly added festival drinks. I will show you some examples of the most commonly used Buff-Foods and Drinks.
Witchmother’s Potent Brew Drink
This drink can be used at any level, it is used on a lot of magicka builds.
Dubious Camoran Throne Drink
Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables
Melon-Baked Parmesan Pork
Longfin Pasty with Melon sauce
Inventory, Bank, Pack Merchant and Horse Carry Weight
Inventory and Bank
Two things you need to get used to are your Inventory and your Bank. All items that you pick up will be stored in your Inventory. At the start, you will have 60 slots for your Inventory. But after upgrading it can go up to a maximum of 200. Every time you buy an upgrade pack the cost will increase. I recommend upgrading to 90 slots, as this is still pretty cheap but after that, it will get too expensive and we can spend money on something more important.
The Bank has a lot of space to offer, make sure to deposit your treasures there, that way you will always have enough space to pick up loot when you travel around in Tamriel. You can also upgrade the bank but for new players, this is quite expensive. The Bank is account wide so you can transfer anything that can be stored in the bank to another character if you would like. You can also create a so-called “bank character” where you just put all your stuff that you think you might need in the future.
Pack Merchant
The Pack Merchant will increase the size of your inventory. The start inventory space is 60 and you can buy Pack upgrades up to 140. I usually do recommend saving some money to get the first three upgrades (Which cost 8300 Gold in total) Here is the list of how much each increase will cost:
- 70 – 400 Gold
- 80 – 2000 Gold
- 90 – 5900 Gold
- 100 – 11’000 Gold
- 110 – 19’200 Gold
- 120 – 30’700 Gold
- 130 – 46’000 Gold
- 140 – 64’500 Gold
Horse Carry Weight
To get to a total of 200 Inventory space, you need to make sure to feed your horse every day in the Carry Weight category. That way you can get an additional 60 slots to a total of up to 200 if you have all the upgrades of Horse Carry Weight & Pack Merchant.
- If your focus will be on PVP I would recommend leveling up Stamina & Speed first.
- If your focus will be on PvE I would recommend leveling up Speed & Carry Capacity.
ESO Plus
When you have ESO plus, you will get a separate crafting bag that will store all your crafting materials. This will open up a tremendous amount of space in your main inventory, which is why I really recommend getting ESO Plus (monthly subscription). On top of that ESO Plus will also double your banking space and it has some more perks to offer. But those two things are the most important perks and that is also why most off ESO players actually subscribe.
Part 6 – Champion Points & Follow-up Guides
By reaching Level 50 in the game, you will now gain access to your Champion Points.
You can access the Champion Points ingame by clicking + (default key). If you haven’t bound a key to it, or want to bind another key to it, you can do so when you press ESC on your keyboard and choose “CONTROLS”. There under User Interface, you find the entry “Champion”, which is where you can set your keybinds. On controllers, there is no Gamepad Default for accessing Champion Points.
When you open your Champion Points for the first time, you can see three different images. A green, blue and red avatar of the celestial alignments.
Each celestial stands for the focus of your Champion Points.
- Green stands for Craft.
- Blue stands for Warfare.
- Red stands for Fitness.
The maximum amount of Champion Points that you can now reach is 3600, with you being able to distribute them all in the trees, meaning 1200 Champion Points per tree. Though, you can not have all perks active at the same time. In order to have a perk active now, you need to add it to the Champion Bar in ESO (Elder Scrolls Online).
How to build your first character in ESO
In this Beginner Guide for ESO I explained most of the important things that you need to know before starting ESO. Once you have read all the info and created your character, the next step will be to check out the follow-up guides for your class to efficiently level up your character.
Class Beginner Guides
- Necromancer
- Sorcerer
- Dragonknight
- Nightblade
- Templar
- Warden
