Leveling skills and skill lines
 

I want to figure out the most efficient way to level my skills and skill lines while leveling. So what I do know (I might be wrong though):

1. Passives do not affect skill line leveling process. It does not matter if I have invested one skill point into Spear Wall, Aedric Spear skill line won't get any benefits from that while leveling.

2. Using active abilities has a tiny benefit both to skill itself and corresponding skill line.

3. Whenever I get experience from any possible source all skills slotted in the action bar receive their income as well as their corresponding skill lines. The same is applied to armor skill lines which have their corresponding armor items equipped on the character.

What do I want to know:

1. Does it matter how many skills from the same skill line are currently slotted. Assuming I've slotted Puncturing Strikes and Piercing Javelin, does the Aedric Spear skill line receive double experience income? Or maybe every next ability slotted contributes less experience to its skill line (e.g. 1 - 1x, 2 - 1.5x, 3 - 1.75x, 4 - 1.875x erc.)? Is there any multiplier cap? Or is it all linear (x6 at 6 skills from the same line slotted)?

2. The same questions for armor pieces. Do 7 pieces of the same type of armor grant 7x experience income to corresponding skill line?

3. Do I get any exp for corresponding weapon/armor skill lines when I produce a swing, block or receive a hit? Does crit affect the amount of exp?

4. What's special about world/guild/pvp skill lines?

5. Do AoE/self-target spells contribute when you don't hit/heal anyone or possibly even out of combat at all?

From what I do know atm I can make the following conclusions. If you're a minmaxing type of guy, you would do the next while leveling:

1. Avoid investing skill points into passives until you get all 5 slots occupied.
2. Prepare skill point for your 1st ultimate beforehand.
3. Replace skills that you've finished leveling with new ones. It also requires you to prepare skill points beforehand.
4. Probably fill all possible slots of armor asap.
5. Switch to another type of armor once you've leveled the previous one.

Looking for aditional thoughts and information.

1. sounds right.
2. sounds right, although you might still kill faster with another weapon skill (like a knockback or stun) over the ultimate (depending on which it is).
3. Yep
4. Yep. Generally you should just craft it from found/deconstructed materials.
5. I think you probably want to wear all types of armor you plan on using simply because it's better to have a little bit of two levelled over most of one levelled for the same time invested. Having a few points of each allows you to pick some good passives early on that could be synergistic with all your skills. I guess if you're getting close to one of the abilities you want, you could swap it out to a single type.


That raises another question... should you read books early on, or wait until later? If you read a medium armor book and go from 1 to 2, is that worse than not reading it until your medium armor is at level 40 (so that you can go to 41, which takes much longer from 40 to 41)?

The armor question really depends on the experience distribution formula.

1. If the amount of items does not affect the output value then you should simply put 5 pieces of armor you really need and 1 piece of each two other groups. But this one is most likely a false statement.

2. If each next piece contributes less than the previous one (the same 1, 1.5, 1.75... thing) then you should get 3 pieces of armor you really need and 2 pieces of each two other groups. I really need someone to confirm that this statement is false as well.

3. Otherwise do what you want. Basically you really need a good timing on when to level certain types of armor with weapons. E.g. leveling heavy type of armor with destruction staff is not a great idea... Putting all possible types of armor won't synergize really good with your current weapon unless you are constantly swapping.

Books is a good question and I need some more info about it to be able to discuss. Do you know total amount of books for each armor type and their locations?

P.S. Btw since I've been in beta only once and haven't got that much experience, I have probably a really dumb question. How to level a restoration staff? Just have it equipped as a second weapon and swap to it before turning in quests, right?

Bookcases open a random book for you. I believe there's a book that can level each skill, but probably only once. I haven't confirmed this, though.

I'm pretty sure you just use it in battle, or wield it when turning in quests, or have one of the skills on your hotbar. I never checked if secondary bar gets levelled when turning in quests.

Only once? So after you get 6 levels for crafting skill lines, 6 for weapons and 3 for armor, you have no reason to open any bookcases unless you really want to read something? Sounds boring, really hope that this isn't true.

I read other stuff that implied there are several book skillups per skill. One guy said he was level 6 in alchemy but had only ever crafted 2 potions, due to skill books he kept finding.

But reading stuff also counts towards achievements.

I suspect that there are different types of books that can be read and probably you can only benefit from the same book once. So it may be name specific or location specific but I wouldn't expect to be able to read the same book and get the skill bonus a second time if I got it the time before.

Another three questions:

1. Is my morph progression stored after respec? If I've leveled both Empowering Sweep and Crescent Sweep to rank IV, am I able to choose any of these after respec without need to level it again?

2. Do I need specific skill level to learn certain recipes or it's required only for crafting?

3. Do I lose any trade skill knowledge (recipes, styles, traits etc) after respecing?

P.S. Basically I'm trying to figure out if I am able to max out everything.

I suspect the progression of morphs is stored so that if you're planning on rebuying it, you don't have to restart the progression. I don't believe levelling (of anything--skills or tradeskills or recipes known) is reset when you respec, or you'd be pretty screwed respeccing at 50. There would've been a ton of complaints and I never heard of anything like that. E.g., someone fixing a misspent point losing his level 50 blacksmithing or 100 recipes would hit the ceiling, and there would be endless posts on forums about this... so I can pretty much claim that I'm sure it doesn't get reset. I do not have first-hand knowledge, though... I never used the shrine.

I've heard certain found recipes require a particular character level (some of the motifs), although I never came across any recipes that had a prerequisite. Crafting higher level items does require more points invested.

Yay, good news for me, thank you!