ESOFollow

I need to make a Templar. Then I might answer. Kind of stuck on my DK this week so far. :)

And speaking of horses, don't forget to feed your horse at the stable! They really start to seem more useful at about 20% speed. I don't really need more bagspace after 80. I sell and repair anytime I see a merchant.

My templar is ranged/light armor (bow/resto staff), the very thing you hate. You could certainly make it work with a melee weapon (I did some dual wielding with mine, worked just fine), but I can't imagine healing would work well without light armor. Maybe if you did 5 light/2 heavy but wore heavy in the chest and boots, so you looked like you were in heavy armor?

Plus BAT WINGS! DK's still have the coolest ultimates of any class I've played. A shame all their attacks are short ranged; I love the class but I love the bow more and they just don't work as well together as some other combinations.

My bow/resto staff nightblade is now level 17 which is, like, really high for me, you guys. She may actually end up being the one who gets leveled, but we'll see. It all works really well together and is fun to play besides. A lot of the NB skills are bugged too so who knows how much more awesome she'll get when things actually work properly.

OTOH I am still so low level it's really impossible to know anything. I hear the NB skills scale very poorly at veteran levels, but I'm sure that they're tweaking everything for the 1.1 update and no doubt we'll be on 1.7 or so by the time I'm actually veteran rank.

Still have not tried any PVP, but now that I have a resto staff and can heal, I'm in my comfort zone and will probably check it out soon just to see what it's like and try to figure out if it's got the potential to be as awesome as everyone says. I don't want to do too much of it while leveling though - those things where they scale you up to play with the big boys never seem to work well. I ended up with a bad overall impression of GW2's PVP because I just went in there too soon and it wasn't fun.

I used the bat wing ultimate as an opener pretty often. Fly into a big pile of mobs, follow up with some AOE, they all fall down. Was mostly for fun though versus being practical, I agree. I used Magma Armor when I needed a srs bsns ultimate. Magma Armor is WIN.

I've only just discovered all the beauty of the resto staff for soloing with a magicka based build. Not only can you throw a couple of heals on your bar for a bit of extra longevity, but since the heavy attacks restore 10% of your magicka (which I did not know until recently, guess I haven't been paying attention) you can just swap to it whenever you're running low. It's a very nice secondary weapon IMO. I don't use most of the active skills apart from mutagen, though I've been picking them up so I can switch up my bars for healing in a group type situation (which I too am rarely in).

Edit: that dirty dusty lava thing is the exact reason my family and I didn't end up EP, even though we originally intended to be. And the mushrooms! Hot Filthy Zangarmarsh, while it would be a great guild name, is not my thing, aesthetically.

Edited, May 5th 2014 1:23pm by teacake

So yeah DK. Now level 20. Almost feels like cheating a little.

It's not that I think DK is OP, I can still die if I am not paying attention. But I could never be as cavalier on my NB as I am currently on my DK. Everything just works, and works well together. I decided to drop resto staff because I got a shiny blue shield and dragon set sword. Wow SnB at level 16 + when you actually have enough support skills and gear is amazebrawls on DK.

I respecced to tighten up eveything and now have Fire Destro staff set up for massive AOE and SnB set up for tanky single target. I only actually use Peirce(Taunt Debuff) from SnB set the rest is Unstable Flame (DPS), igneous Weapon (Buff), Unstable Armor (Buff), Green Dragon Blood (godly self heal + stam). Sometimes I drop Peirce for Dragon Breath for variety.

I really only need to use the AOE staff for fun because the tank set can out last and destroy everything. 5 light for magica and 2 heavy for looks. You softcap on armor no problem everytime you pop unstable armor. Then you light them up withthe debuff peirce to resist and nail them with the unstable flame dot. Most things just give up right there while melting.

But because you can throw in some light/heavy/bash while mostly blocking with shield the entire time you can throw down extra DPS to preserve some magica with your stam pool.

Then you pop green dragons blood and regen massive health and stam.

I killed 7 level 20 mobs in a quest dungeon by accident because I managed to pull a patrol and two groups of 3 at once. Mind you these were full humanoids not weak pack mobs. And I was in my SnB not my AoE mode and just went with it.

I'd still play both toons if I had time. :) Very different play style and both fun. But yeah DK might be a smidge easier. (big smidge to be honest)

I'll probably drop off on the DK then sing the praises of sorc next. Or maybe jump back on NB, get hooked and push her to VR+. I do lurv my NB still. I like high skill classes and thematically she is just perfect.

I just tend to jump around a lot because it's about the journey to me before I push to endgame and get stuck with a progress wall that is group/raid/nolife only.

I like leveling! It's weird to some but unlocking skills, trying new build and classes, and that lovely level up are some of my favorite RPG things.

Endgame lootgrind is a younger mans game. I did my time.

* oh and I forgot to say I agree about the healing. Before I dropped resto staff I healed one of the Dolmen chain things just for fun. Felt right in the action. Much better than wakamole on healbot and panic when a bar drops off the charts while you are whacking another.

Edited, May 7th 2014 6:05pm by Shojindo

Welcome back to Tea and Sho talk ESO!

Next week we cover Glow Bugs and if you should really grab them. Stay tuned!

I keep checking this thread on the hope that someone posts a question about some obscure lore and I can jump in with my huge nerd hat.

That doesn't happen, though.

I'm sure I will have plenty of lore questions, as I'm pretty bad about reading all the books on the shelves. One problem is this all takes place so much earlier than the single player games, and I know there's been some, erm, adjustments versus those games anyway - not sure anything I know from Skyrim will really be helpful.

OTOH the quests, if you're the type to actually read/listen, give you a lot of backstory in addition to explaining the current issue.

Sub day! I subbed for 3 months. I expect to let it renew for another 3 after that, or at least go month to month but keep playing for a while longer. Then we'll have to see.

Still loving the game. Fell into a bit of alt-itis for a while - a west coast friend and I have created an Ebonheart Pact duo (his Templar (Dark Elf) and my DragonKnight, Haemish Darkstout (Nord)) and it's been a lot of fun - we play with a Vent server I subscribed to. We're both level 11 at the moment (as is my Templar main).

I am completely charmed by the Argonians and Khajiit NPCs, so I made some new characters (both NBs, since they are fun). The Argonian's name is Swoops-A-Lot and the Khajiit's name is Ashe Greypaw.

On the lore side of things, when I was working on my Nord Templar one night, I stumbled across and had a brief chat with M'aiq the Liar - I hadn't seen him since my Morrowind days, so that was cool.



Edited, May 10th 2014 9:52am by Snorre

Short version: Dark Elf Dark Brotherhood.

Long version: SpoilerWhen the Chimer originally left the collective Altmer group to form their own small faction, the Daedric Prince Mephala, Prince of Secrets, murder, and sex, taught the Chimer how to evade their enemies and how to kill them in secret. Early in the first Era, Mephala founded the Morag Tong, an assassin's guild in Morrowind.

Dunmeri culture in Morrowind is weird. They have several competing Houses, and in order to prevent all-out civil war amongst the Houses, the Morag Tong were given complete legalization. Anybody could higher a Morag Tong assassin to kill somebody, and the Morag Tong would accept as long as the payment and methods were proper. The target would be assassinated, and there would be no legal repercussions for anyone involved. The assassins even carried special writs that were essentially licenses to kill, giving them complete legal absolution. They were expected to give themselves up to law enforcement upon a successful assassination, though, allowing the law enforcement to verify that, yes, this was a sanctioned murder. Any assassin who failed to give themselves up immediately to law enforcement were deemed suspect by the Morag Tong as a whole. The Morag Tong "did not harbor criminals."

They were wildly successful in the First Era, culminating with their assassination of the Emperor Reman Cyrodiil III, bringing an end to the First Era and allowing the Akaviri Potentate to take over and rule for a period in the Second Era. During this heyday, their influence spread all over Tamriel, though their legality remained exclusive to the Morrowind territory. Eventually they grew to be too successful, eventually assassinating the same Akaviri Potentate that had previously hired them to kill the Emperor. They grew prideful and sloppy, even going as far as to scrawl "MORAG TONG" on the walls in the Potentate's blood. Not cool. (This is ~250 years before the start of ESO, by the way).

This was when the rulers all across Tamriel realized how much of a threat the Morag Tong had really grown to be. They immediately outlawed the Morag Tong everywhere (except Morrowind, where the Tong might have switched from worship of Mephala to worship of Vivec in exchange for survival) and began a witch hunt. The Tong was hunted across the continent, until they eventually were a shadow of their former selves. In Morrowind, business continued as usual - the territory was at times kind of its own little world, and the Tong there kind of just stopped contact with their other "chapters."

During this time the Dark Brotherhood formed. We're not exactly sure how or why, but about 25 years after the assassination of the Akaviri Potentate, and about 225 years before ESO, we have the first mention in writing of the Dark Brotherhood. It's likely that when the Tong switched to worship of Vivec in Mephala's place, there was a religious schism. Many probably wanted to continue their worship of the Daedric Prince, and there's a strong possibility that this faction broke off into a splinter group known as the Dark Brotherhood.

But wait, you say, the Dark Brotherhood doesn't worship Mephala! They're all about Sithis! Which is true, except for the shadowy figure who still leads the Dark Brotherhood - "in Sithis' name." There's a leader of the Dark Brotherhood even into Skyrim's time period who's always there, always watching, and guides the Dark Brotherhood with secrets, murder, and sex. It is very likely that the Night Mother we all know and love is actually the Daedric Prince Mephala, guiding the Dark Brotherhood to continue its murders as it sees fit (Sithis doesn't come into play here, it doesn't exist as the Dark Brotherhood know it - but that's a story for another time).

Anyways, the Tong did not like this upstart group at all. There is evidence of a huge secret war going on between the two groups behind the scenes during this time period, though evidence is scarce. When murder isn't legal, it's a mortal sin to leave any evidence behind. Anyways, the end result is that by the time ESO rolls around the Morag Tong were greatly diminished outside of Morrowind, where they remain in power. However, outside of Morrowind the Dark Brotherhood became the go-to assassin's guild, and remain so to the present day. That's not to say they ever reached the success the Morag Tong enjoyed at its peak - the Dark Brotherhood didn't. However, you don't hear about the Morag Tong nearly as much as you do the Dark Brotherhood by the time of Oblivion/Skyrim. And there is further evidence that there are still members of the Morag Tong running around trying to continue this "secret war" between the guilds.

Sorry for all the edits - if a guild is created, I'll set us up with a Vent channel for guild members once that comes to fruition.


Edited, May 10th 2014 9:55am by Snorre