Overview

More than anything else in the game, skills are what define a character. They determine how your character battles enemies, whether they can heal or offer group support, how they interact with NPCs, the type and quality of items they can make—virtually everything about the way a character performs is determines by the skills you choose to invest in.

Skill Lines and Abilities

The Skills menu contains all of the skill lines currently available to your character. Each skill line contains a selection of specific abilities. Every ability in the game falls into one of three basic categories:

Ultimate Abilities are uniquely powerful abilities that slowly charge as your character performs light/heavy attacks, heals allies in combat, and dodges/blocks attacks. Once you’ve generated enough Ultimate, you can use the ability to devastating (or miraculous) effect. Your Action Bar can only hold one Ultimate Ability at a time.

Active Abilities account for the bulk of your character’s damage, healing, and utility. Activating one of these abilities usually consumes either Magicka or Stamina. Your Action Bar can hold five Active Abilities at a time.

Passive Abilities affect your character in subtler ways. A Passive Ability might boost your character’s Attributes, change the way an Active Ability functions, or trigger new dialogue options while conversing with NPCs. Some Passive Abilities grant persistent bonuses, while others only grant benefits when certain conditions are met. Passive Abilities are never placed on your Action Bar—they simply provide the specified benefits.

Finding the right mix of Ultimate, Active, and Passive Abilities is the first step toward discovering your playstyle.

Unlocking Skills

A new character begins with only a few skill lines. You can unlock additional skill lines by meeting certain conditions. Each skill line has its own perquisites. Some skill lines are unlocked when you complete certain quests; others are unlocked by equipping items or speaking to NPCs.

Skill Progression

Just as your character gains levels, skill lines and the abilities they hold can progress during your time in the game. As a skill line progresses through available ranks, more of its abilities become available. Once a desired ability becomes available, you can unlock it by spending a Skill Point.

You can progress most skill lines by earning Experience with one or more of its abilities slotted on your Action Bar. However, some skill lines only progress under specific conditions.

Ability Progression

Like skill lines, slotted abilities can be ranked up to offer new benefits. With the exception of Werewolf abilities (which only progress during Werewolf Transformations), ranking up a slotted ability is just a matter of earning Experience—as long as the ability is on your Action Bar, it advances each time you gain Experience.

In most cases, abilities gain slight improvements as they increase in rank. A Rank 2 ability might do slightly more damage, last a bit longer, or gain a bit of range. The changes are subtle, but they add up over time.

At Rank 4, an ability can be morphed in exchange for a Skill Point. Morphing an ability can dramatically change its function. A damage effect might morph into a heal; a channeled ability might become an instant cast. In many cases, a Magicka ability can morph into a Stamina ability. Each time you morph an ability, you’re able to choose between two possible results.

While all Ultimate Abilities and Active Abilities can be progressed (and morphed), this isn’t the case for Passive Abilities.

If a Passive Ability features more than one rank, it simply means you can invest additional Skill Points to increase its effect. To do so, you must first progress the skill line until the Passive’s next rank becomes available.

Which abilities you unlock—and how you use them—are entirely up to you. Experimenting on your own will often yield better results than trying to utilize another player’s build. However, a few common practices might be of some benefit to new players:

• Unlock and slot at least one ability from each of your class skill lines. As you grow more familiar with the game, you might find your preferences have changed or that a game update has made a specific skill more appealing. Keep your character prepared and your options open.
• Unlock all armor skill lines as early as possible by equipping three pieces of each weight. Continue to level the skill line by having at least one piece of each armor type while you level your character. Progressing all three armor skill lines makes it much easier to adjust your Attributes or experiment with new builds.
• Seek out Skill Points. The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind currently contains 379 Skill Points—only 11 of those are to be found in Vvardenfell. Complete the main quest, along with quests for factions and guilds. Explore delves and dungeons, collect skyshards, and spend time in Cyrodiil. The more Skill Points you collect, the more flexibility your character will have.

Class Skill Lines

Every new character has access to three class-exclusive skill lines, and the abilities they contain are all that distinguish one class from another. Each class skill line has its own focus—and all class skill lines have their uses—but no character is defined by these skill lines alone. For more information about these skill lines, refer to Classes chapter. For information about other available skill lines, read on.