During the Murkmire main quest in Elder Scrolls Online,you may have ran into some confusing quest markers -- specifically during The Swamp and the Serpent quest! After you stumble through it, and later go to complete some Root-Whisper village dailies, you may have found youself with the Offerings That Hide daily quest -- with those same confusing quest markers! This guide shows you the correct way to go in both those quests!
Some of the links included in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
I have updated my Quick & Basic Alchemy Guide for Elder Scrolls Online! In this quick video about alchemy in ESO I show you how to gather resources for the craft, as well how to actually create potions and poisons!
This guide is very short and basic, if you’d like to take a look at the skills in the Alchemy Skill Tree in ESO, or maybe find out about poisons, please check out my Extended Alchemy Guide!
As you know I was invited to zenimax online studios in Baltimore earlier this month to preview the upcoming ESO Elsweyr chapter. These are my random 3 favorite things!
ESO has been lacking a guild finder for a long time. There was no official way to list your guild, or search for one! I’m so glad they decided to add one in the game! I have both a youtube video and a written article about this feature, so go check those out!
If you play a lot of Elder Scrolls Online, especially trials, you will have heard of the Vicious Ophidian set. Though not used as often in a trial setting, this set is often use for VMA due to it’s great sustain! Finally in Elder Scrolls Online Elsweyr chapter we see a magicka version of this set available!
This ultimate found in the Living Death skill tree from the brand new Necromancer class is a game changer for dungeons! This ultimate will actually resurrect 3 allies! All those moments where there is only one person left standing at 3% on a crazy hard DLC hard mode fight? Reanimate and see victory!
Some of the link included in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
As you may know, I was invited to Zenimax Online Studio’s in Baltimore to preview the upcoming Elder Scrolls Online Chapter – Elsweyr! As a guild leader of Lone Wolf Help – an often full guild that has been up and fully running since May 2014, any quality of life change to the guild system are near and dear, so it what I decided to first focus my Elsweyr coverage on!
I would like to remind you that what I saw was pre-release and any or everything could have changed – and therefore my information be slightly off. I believe this is less likely to happen with a feature such as the guildfinder, than with something like Necromancer class skills though.
Also keep in mind I was not allowed to take any pictures etc to show you, so any images in this article that appear drawn on.. are actually screenshots of the current game with me drawing on them to help explain!
Guild Finder? What’s that?
In ESO we currently have no in game way of searching for guilds, applying for guilds, or having an application process to approve or deny a applicant. A guild finder encompasses all of this, and is included in the ESO Elsweyr chapter base game update.
Do I need to own Elsweyr to use the guild finder?
No, the guild finder is part of the base game update that happens when Elseweyr does, so everyone has access!
What features are included in the ESO Guild Finder?
Listing of your guild
Listing your guild so it can be searched is an option now available to you! If you have a private guild with friends you definitely can choose to not list it so you are not bothered with applications.
To list your guild you will go to the new Recruitment section of the guild menu, which is another button alongside ones such as Roster and Ranks.
In this same window, you will need to select from a variety of information to allow people to search for your guild.
Recruitment Status:
Primary Focus: Select a primary focus of your guild!
Secondary Focus: Select a secondary focus (none is an option)
Additional Activities: Here you can check as many boxes as you like for additional activities your guild partakes in from.
Roles: This displays the same icons that are used throughout the game (such as in the current group finder) where you select what roles you are looking for. All can be selected.
Min. Champion Points: You can enter the minimum champion points you expect members to have
Play style: (dropdown)
Language: Select the language the guild uses most often. Options are all the officially supported languages of the game, plus another option for “other”.
Core Hours (in your local time): This gives you two drop downs to select the busiest hours for your guild, so people can find guilds that are active during their usual playtime!
Recruitment Headline and Description: Headline and description people will see when searching for your guild.
Searching for a Guild
If you are not in any guilds yet, opening up the guild menu (default keybind G) will default to the search for a guild screen. If you are in a guild already, you will need to select a guild name in the guild window to open up the guild dropdown and select Guild Finder. Did I say guild enough?
You can use all the filters from the Guild Listings to search for guilds, PLUS:
Alliance: Especially important for PvP guilds to know the guilds alliance!
Active Members: this would be how many members have been active in the guild in the last 30 days. Helpful if you’re looking for a super busy trading guild, or maybe prefer a quieter more tight knit guild.
When searching for a guild, you won’t always find it suggesting the same 5 guilds. The game will try to offer you different guilds that fit your criteria with some behind the scenes wizardry!
How To Apply to a Guild
Once you have found a guild you are interested in joining you just need to select it to apply! You can send them a note with more information. You actually can even have a “default” note that auto-populates whenever you apply to join a guild. In order to apply for a guild you must be in 4 or less guilds.
Approving Guild Applications
When someone applies to your guild, if you have permissions to approve applications, you will receive a notification in this existing notification system in game.
Who can approve guild applications?
Whoever the guildmaster wants to. There is a new permission called “Manage Applications” that you can attach to any role for your guild. Obviously that role must already have the “Invite Members” permission. Anyone with this permission will receive the notification above.
How do I approve/deny applications?
In the “Recruitment” tab of the guild window, there will be a section for applications where you can review all applications and either approve or deny them.
What information about the applicant is given?
When you see the application you are told:
When hovering over the applicants info, a tooltip popup will also tell you
Guild Blacklist
You will now have the ability to blacklist people from your guild!
What does blacklisting someone do?
The blacklisted person:
It’s worth noting, that if someone does try to invite a blacklisted member, their screen will tell them the invite has been sent, but the blacklisted member will just never receive it. This could lead to people thinking their invites are bugged, but it’s a fine line between that and allowing people to know who is blacklisted.
How do I blacklist someone?
You blacklist people from that same “Recruitment” section of the guild menu, but select Blacklist on the side!
What new permissions are there?
The new permissions that you can assign are:
Have any questions about the upcoming guild finder in the Elder Scrolls Online Elsweyr Chapter? Ask in the comments below!
It’s that time of year again for the ESO Jester’s Festival! This holiday event always takes place over April Fool’s day, and this year event tickets are involved!
You know your rotation, you’re weaving, have the basics down and you even have some pretty decent gear -- but what else should you be leveling and why are you using these abilities? Let’s find out!
I’ll go through each section of abilities and split everything into a few categories. Must have, good and icing on the cake. Obviously focus on using skill points on the must have abilities and passives first, and as you get spare skill points -- add some icing on the cake. The order things are listed within their category isn’t important -- I mostly just went through them in the order they are in the game.
Class abilities are definitely important to unlock and use! Which ones should you focus on early, and what passives are actually important?
Dark Magic is a bit of an odd skill line. You don’t want many of the active skills, but the passives are great so you definitely want to level it up all the way!
Crystal Shard > Crystal Fragments -- This is a bread and butter skill of magicka sorcs. For beginners it may be best to avoid this skill as it messes up an otherwise static rotation, but it holds a big punch and allows the passives of this skill line to get unlocked and levelled.
Unholy Knowledge -- This passive directly helps with sustain, and does not require a skill from the skill line to be slotted.
Blood Magic -- This passive only comes into use when using one of the abilities in this skill line. If you are using Crystal Fragments you definitely want this skill, but if you’re not -- you can pass it over for now.
Exploitation -- This passive does require you use a skill from this skill line, but it’s great as it’s the only source of Minor Prophecy other than poisons -- which are generally not used in PvE. This not only gives you the Minor Prophecy buff -- it also gives it to your allies!
Persistance -- This allows an ability to cost less after blocking. In group content you don’t do a ton of blocking so it’s an okay passive for DPS.
This skill line is obviously focused on pet sorcs. My recommendations here are from a non-pet sorc point of view.
Daedric Curse > Haunting Curse -- This is a must have skill for magicka DPS sorcerers in ESO! It’s a bit of an odd skill, containing both single target and AoE damage. It’s also not a DoT -- but it takes time for the damage to be fully done.
Bound Armor > Bound Aegis -- This skill is an active skill -- but you use it only for it’s passives. This will give you both your minor resistance buffs, ensure the Daedric Protection passive is active and give you 8% extra magicka! Since a lot of your damage scales from how much magicka you have, this is a big buff that shouldn’t be ignored!
Daedric Protection -- This passive increases your recovery (by 20%!!) while an active ability from this skill line is slotted. It’s definitely a huge help in sustain!
Conjured Ward -- This is a class shield that is a fantastic option to have. You have choose a morph that allows for a larger shield that the light armor skill version, or one that helps with sustain!
Power Stone -- This passive decreases the cost of your ultimate by 15%! That applies to any ultimate, not just sorcerer ones.
This is where most of the lightning comes from in the Elder Scrolls Online Sorcerer class! We’ll make use of quite a lot of these abilities!
Mage’s Fury -- This is your execute! Although some builds do offer rotations without your class execute, this skill is important to unlock and level so you have it available if you do need it! One morph does more damage which is normally preferred, but if you tend to do overland content where there are lots of groups of mobs -- the recovery morph is decent as well.
Lightning Splash > Liquid Lightning -- This is one of your bread and butter skills -- this being a DoT (damage over time!). You want the Liquid Lightning morph so it matches up nicely with your wall of elements DoT, and gives more room for other skills while it runs.
Capacitor -- This passive increase recovery. I know it seems odd we have so many things to help with sustain, but I promise you -- you will appreciate all of them!
Implosion -- This is like a built in passive execute! As you will always be using Liquid Lightning -- this passive always has a good chance to proc on low health mobs!
Expert Mage -- This increases your spell damage by 2% for each sorcerer class ability slotted -- not just the ones from the storm calling skill line. After all those recovery passives -- we want to do great damage too!
Surge > Power Surge -- This is a great skill to use during normal dungeon or out in the overland where you do not want to use expensive crafted potions -- but still want the benefits of the Major Sorcery buff. This also has a heal that is good enough to be my only heal in VMA! Having a constant small heal up can be a huge help -- especially when venturing solo!
Energized -- This passive becomes more important if you use a lightning staff. This increases the damage you do with any shock abilities!
Lightning Form > Boundless Storm -- This ability is great for shock themed builds, gives you both major resistance buffs and gives a short speed buff! This is a very fun and useful skill to use when you are venturing solo, as it does damage to enemies all around you and makes you a bit tougher to kill!
The only weapon you will be using is destruction staves.
All this applies whether you use 2 inferno staves, or 1 inferno and 1 lightning staff.
Force Shock > Crushing Shock -- I can’t stress enough how much more utility Crushing Shock has than Force Pulse. So many times (especially in trials) it’s extremely useful for DPS to have a ranged interrupt -- and what better than it to be your spammable! This ability hits enemies 3 times with one click of the button!
Wall of Elements > Elemental Blockade -- This is a bread and butter skill for all magicka DPS in ESO -- whether you are a sorcerer or not. You do want the longer lasting morph to simplify your rotation and allow other skills to be used while this runs.
Penetrating Magic -- This passive is like a secret boost to your spell penetration -- but only works with your destruction staff abilities.
Elemental Force -- This increases the chance of you applying very useful secondary effects such as burning -- which add more free damage!
Ancient Knowledge -- This is the reason it’s important your spammable/front bar is an inferno staff! This passive makes whatever staff is currently equipped the one that makes a change. While on your lightning staff back bar -- your AoE’s (like elemental blockade) are doing more damage, but once you swap to the front (fire) bar -- elemental blockade is no longer doing extra damage -- but crushing shock is!
Weakness to the Elements > Elemental Drain -- You honestly won’t really use this in battle, but it’s an important skill to have unlocked if you like to practice your rotation or test your dps on a target dummy while solo.
Tri Focus -- This makes your fire heavy attacks do more damage, and adds that cool splash damage to lightning staff heavy attacks!
Destruction Expert -- Remember how I keep saying sustain? Yes, this is another passive to help it.
You’re wearing 5 pieces of light armor, so pretty much everything is important -- but I’ll still let you know what is most important!
Annulment > Harness Magicka -- This shield is available to anyone wearing at least 5 pieces of light armor, but is incredibly useful. I prefer to take harness magicka here with helps with sustain, and when I need a shield where there is no incoming magicka damage -- I used hardened ward for a larger shield! This allows a large shield and a sustain shield being available to you without respeccing any skills.
Evocation -- Sustain sustain sustain.
Prodigy -- This increases your spell critical rating, which means your spell will crit more often!
Concentration -- Increases your spell penetration! Especially important when playing solo!
Spell Warding- This allows you to be slightly more resilient again magicka attacks.
Grace -- This is probably more useful in PvP, but snare reduction and cheaper sprint is nice to have!
You’re wearing one piece of it, so might as well take advantage! There are no must have’s in this section though!
Athletics -- The main reason I list this as good to have is the reduction in roll dodge cost. As a magicka DPS character, you have not invested anything into stamina -- so the amount you can roll dodge is pretty limited.
Wind Walker -- This is definitely an ‘icing on the cake’ type of passive. Normally percentage bonuses are amazing -- but due to our limited stamina recovery this doesn’t do anything huge -- but could make a difference in you being able to do that live saving roll dodge or block!
Improved Sneak -- There is exactly 1 dungeon in the entire game that this will prove useful in a combat type situation, but it’s nice to have for completing some of the sneakier DLC and quests.
Oddly, the heavy armor skill line has a few passives that will definitely help you out -- even though you are only wearing one piece of it!
Juggernaut -- If you get any odd passive -- make it this one. This passive increases your max health by 2% per piece of heavy armor warn, that means for you -- 2%. This sound small, but when we want enough health to survive but don’t want to give up glyphs that would otherwise be magicka -- this passive can make that difference!
Constitution -- I struggled with whether this should be must have or good to have. It’s not as important as Juggernaut, but is definitely more inmportant than resolve! Health recovery isn’t something we put into anywheres else, and it can take us off the edge of death while we resurrect our healer, plus has a small sustain bonus built in!
Resolve -- This passive makes us a bit less squishy!
Don’t worry about focusing on levelling this skill line up, just unlock the skill line by joining the fighters guild -- and this skill line will level up naturally as you play!
Banish the Wicked -- Every time you kill an undead -- you gain some ultimate! There is a lot of undead in this game, especially in dungeons so it really helps build ultimate up faster!
Meteor -- I’ll let you pick the morph you choose, but this is often put on a bar to benefit from the mages guild passives rather than to be used. The ultimate definitely it useful though!
Inner Light -- This not only makes sure you benefit from Mage’s Guild passives, but also increase your magicka by 5%!
Magicka Controller -- This passive is active on any bar you have a mages guild ability slotted. This increases your max magicka by 2% and increase your magicka regeneration by 2% Definitely a big help!
Mage Adept -- As per my 30 second testing on the PTS -- this passive does not actually change the cost of meteor and it’s morphs. You may actually wonder why I bring it up at all. At some point -- you will accidentally press that inner light button and swear to yourself for how much magicka it just consumed. At least acccidentally pressing it now won’t consume at much.
You level up undaunted by completing group dungeons and group dungeon achievements! You also can level it up by going pledges and daily undaunted quests!
Undaunted Mettle -- This passive is practically the entire reason we are wearing 5-1-1 armor weights. It helps all of your stats, just grind it out and get it.
Undaunted Command -- Once you play at a higher level, you’re going to be hoping to be seeing orb or shard synergies to synergize on cooldown to help you sustain. This will help those synergies help your sustain even more!
If they say something about magicka, or spell something -- get it. It’s important.
It’s surprising that you’ll appreciate leveling crafts on your main DPS character as well. I didn’t split the crafts up since there are so few skills though.
Alchemy -- Medicinal Use -- This makes your potion effects last longer. On a standard Spell Power potion that is crafted -- the effects of the potion will actually outlast the cooldown -- therefore allowing 100% uptime!
Provisioning -- Gourmand/Connoisseur -- Which one of these passives is more important to you depends on if you use a food or drink. It’s nice to be able to have your buff food/drink last longer!
Here’s some skills that you are super confused as to why I suggest you level them -- but they might actually come in handy some day and you will be glad you leveled them up! These are definitely not as important as what’s listed above.
Alliance War -- Purge > Efficient Purge -- A few different dungeons and trials have effects that you want to purge (or in some cases -- absolutely must) and it’s great for some DPS to have it on their bar too!
Fighters Guild -- Silver Bolts > Silver Leash -- In a very very limited set of cases, it’s handy for DPS to be able to pull adds in because the tank just can’t. Your group will thank you.
Are there any skills or passives you feel deserved to be on this list but wasn’t? Let me know in the comments below!
