Crafting for beginners In the Elderscrolls Online
Everything you need to know
By Aurora Arrowsong
In Elder Scrolls Online, there are seven crafting professions to choose from. Don't worry, you are not tied down to just one—you can try them all or just focus on a few.
We recommend you to prioritize the skills you will use the most (say, if you are a sorcerer, you can focus on clothing making and enchanting), but trust us, building a jack-of-all-trades crafting character (officially called “Master Crafter”) will pay off later on.
To craft, you will need to find the right crafting station and materials (which are gathered from the world or looted from enemies). Aside from making gear, you can extract materials or research traits (which does destroy the items, so... careful!). Some skills even let you upgrade your gear. Time to get crafty!
List of Professions:
⦁ Alchemy: Mix Reagents with a Solvent to make potions and poisons.
⦁ Blacksmithing: Forge and upgrade heavy armour and metal weapons.
⦁ Clothing: Craft and improve light and medium armour.
⦁ Enchanting: Create Glyphs to boost weapons, armour, and jewellery.
⦁ Jewellery Crafting: Craft and enhance jewellery (this profession was added with the Summerset chapter).
⦁ Provisioning: Cook foods and drinks to boost stats.
⦁ Woodworking: Shape raw wood into staves, bows, and shields, or upgrade them.
Crafting Stations are items where you can work on your crafting professions and they are scattered across towns in Tamriel. Different stations are found in specific stores: alchemy at apothecaries, blacksmithing at smithies... and so on. Hidden in the wild are special crafting stations where you can forge unique gear sets with special traits. These exclusive sets can’t be looted from monsters, only a master crafter can create them. Time to go on a crafting treasure hunt!
At a crafting station, you can refine raw materials, craft new items, deconstruct items to recover components, improve item quality with resins, or research traits. Your inventory and bank are merged at the station, so you can pull materials from either (keep in mind that the inventory items are used first).
All crafting skills in ESO level up with “Inspiration”, the game’s crafting XP. Sadly, Ambrosia Drinks or Crown XP Scrolls won’t boost it. There are two ways to speed it up: a 10% boost with ESO Plus, or a 30% boost with the "Inspiration Boost" Champion Point passive. To get that 30%, you will need to spend a total of 240 Champion Points in the green Craft tree. There are no shortcuts, but you need just a little patience and smart CP spending!
How do you level up in blacksmithing, clothing, jewellery crafting, and woodworking?
The skill lines for clothing, blacksmithing, jewelry crafting and woodworking are unlocked the first time you activate the corresponding crafting station.
After you harvest raw materials from resource nodes, these can be refined at crafting stations. You will need 10 raw materials to refine them into 7-10 refined items, which are then ready to be used in crafting.
Every time you deconstruct items at a crafting station, you will earn inspiration. The better the item quality, the more inspiration you get. Items with the “Intricate” trait give you extra inspiration when deconstructed, so keep an eye out for those if you want to level up faster! These items can drop from overwold mobs and can also be purchased at guild stores.
Inspiration can also be earned while improving, extracting, refining items, and completing writs. Each activity adds to your crafting experience!
What are traits?
Traits are special features that can show up on weapons, armor, and jewelry. Each item can have one trait, and it's also pretty common to find items without any traits at all. To craft an item with a specific trait, you’ll need a special tertiary material. You can get these ingredients by deconstructing items that already have traits, or by refining raw materials.
Since this guide covers the basics, we won’t dive into every trait here. But don’t worry, we will have a more detailed explanation in a future guide. If you have any specific questions, feel free to hit us up in the game chat or on Discord!
Trait research
To craft specific sets from those hidden crafting stations we mentioned above, you will need a certain number of traits researched. Start researching traits as soon as possible, because while early traits are quick, the last one can take over two months without passives. Prioritize the more useful traits so you can start crafting with them sooner. Time is of the essence!
How to level up Enchanting?
Enchanters mix up mysterious runes (Potency, Essence, and Aspect) to create glyphs that give new properties to your weapons, armor, and jewelry. You will need at least one of each rune type to make a glyph at an Enchanting Station. You can also extract runes from glyphs you come across.
Every time you craft a Glyph or deconstruct items at the Enchanting workbench, you will earn inspiration.
The best way to get inspiration is by working with items crafted by other players, especially high level Glyphs. Deconstructing items always gives more Inspiration than crafting them from scratch. If you are playing with friends, group up, craft some Glyphs, trade them and deconstruct! You will level up enchanting pretty fast!
Pro-tip: Keep in mind that each piece of equipment can only have one enchantment at a time. So if you apply a glyph to an item that already has an enchantment, it will replace the existing effect permanently!
How to level up Provisioning?
Provisioners can craft food and drinks that give you great buffs. Leveling up Provisioning is quite simple, all you have to do is cook! First off, you will need to grab a recipe. You can find these at Chef and Brewer vendors scattered around towns in Tamriel, or you can also buy them from Guild Traders. Once you have got a recipe, just track down the ingredients it lists and toss them together at a cooking fire.
A quick note: the buffs from food and drinks don’t stack. If you eat or drink something new, it’ll replace the effects of what you had before! There are a few rare exceptions, like Psijic Ambrosia, that can be used alongside other food buffs.
How to level up Alchemy?
Leveling up Alchemy is pretty straightforward. All you need to do is craft potions or poisons. To get starterd, harvest or buy some flowers or mushrooms and head to an Alchemy Station. There, you can mix the reagents and solvents you’ve collected to experiment and discover new potions. Each reagent can have up to four possible effects that can either match with or cancel out effects from other reagents.
And don’t forget, the Alchemy system also lets you brew up poisons! By using oils (dropped by monsters) instead of water, you can create poisons that you can apply to your weapon sets. Beware though! Any equipped poison will cancel the current weapon enchantment.
Useful add-ons
If you're looking to improve your crafting experience, these add-ons will become your best companions!
Potion Maker for Alchemy Crafting:
This add-on simplifies alchemy by showing you all possible ingredient combinations for crafting potions. You can search by specific effects or by the ingredients you already have, saving you time and removing the guesswork from potion-making.
CraftStore Harrowstorm:
CraftStore is an all-in-one crafting management tool. It helps you keep track of your materials, recipes, learned traits, and those you still need to research. It also provides an easy interface for crafting, upgrading, and deconstructing items.
ESO Master Recipe List:
This add-on provides a comprehensive list of all the recipes in the game, tracking which ones you’ve learned and which ones you still need. It also helps you easily find ingredients for each recipe and keeps your culinary crafting organized.
Harvest Map:
Harvest Map keeps a record of all the resource nodes (like wood, ore, and herbs) you gather in the game and shows their locations on your map. It’s especially useful for gathering efficiently, as it helps you plan routes for resource collection.
Trait Buddy:
Trait Buddy helps you track all the traits you’ve researched on your crafted gear. It shows what traits are available, which ones you’ve already learned, and what you still need to research, making trait management a lot easier.
And that’s a wrap on our beginners crafting guide!
Whether you’re brewing potions, enchanting gear, or cooking delicious food, now you know everything you need to get started! Remember, practice makes perfect, so don’t be afraid to experiment and have fun with it. Happy crafting!