Over 100 bite-sized tips for Elder Scrolls Online – Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips you wish you knew. This page will always be updated

If you spotted an error, please let me know in the comments.

You can purchase Soul Gems much more cheaply at Guild Stores rather than at merchants
There is no central auction house in Elder Scrolls Online. Instead you sell via guild traders/kiosks located in all zones. Guilds compete to blind bid on the trader every Sunday. High traffic zones such as Elden Root, Mournhold and Deshaan have many guilds competing for them every week – bids can go up to millions of gold. This is why most guilds will have a minimum selling requirement every week for its members
1. UPDATE: There’s now a unofficial PC add-on called Nirn Auction House that provides a central auction house!
You cannot drop items into the ground from your inventory unless it is a requirement for a quest. You can place sieges in Cyrodiil areas (and they will slowly deteriorate if left unused) and some abilities such as Trap Beast allow you to place something on the ground for up to 60 seconds
You cannot place items in containers/dead bodies in the world. But you can selectively loot only items you want.

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Everytime you upgrade your mount skills at the Stablemaster, it will apply to any mount you use on that character
Cold siege weapons have a chance to drop in Cyrodiil dolmens. Cold fire siege weapons can usually one-shot low health player in non-cp campaigns and cause massive damage in the cp-enabled campaigns. The best siege weapon is the Cold Fire Ballista but be sure to repair them frequently as they degrade quite fast. They’re also expensive in guild stores
An Ultimate’s damage (if it has one) scales to the highest of your magicka/stamina stats
The Nirnhorned trait can only be crafted with Fortified Nirncrux and Potent Nirncrux stones. These can only be found to drop rarely in resource nodes and monsters located at Craglorn
The Impenetrable armor trait is useless against AI/PVE enemies as they AI mobs do not crit. It’s used only in PVP (player-versus-player) combat to reduce the critical damage you get from other players. Every 100 critical resistance reduces crit damage you receive by about 1.5%. Details
In my personal experience, you get higher chances of getting blue/purple treasures from pickpocketing people and breaking safeboxes. Higher Legerdemain level gives a higher chance of a blue/purple/gold stolen item
Many abilities’ damage are affected by your Max Magicka/Stamina, Spell/Weapon damage. Shield strength is influenced by your health ppol. Armor/Weapon/Jewellery proc sets can also be affected by CP. Use this online tool to gauge how they scale
You should aim to equip only Training traited gear until you reach CP160 as they will scale down in damage/resistance/enchantments/etc as you level up.
You can start doing Crafting Writs only when your reach level 6. And you should do them daily as they give valuable rewards.
Those Survey rewards you get from crafting writs? And those treasure maps? Only you can see them at the location. Other players cannot loot them. Use Lost Treasure add-on as they’re located all over Tamriel and you’ll have a hard time tracking each of them.
If you find Aetherial Dust, you can sell it for about 80K gold. The Aetheric Cipher though, can go up to 2 million gold as it is extremely rare. They’re used to create potions which increase the XP you gain
You can find guild store listings online at tamrieltradecentre.com. But expect a few hours delay of data from the actual live data
ANY purchase you make at the Crown Store including DLCs can ONLY be used on the server you purchased it on. So if you purchase the Orisium DLC pack on PC-EU server, it will NOT cross over to PC-NA server.
1. Furthermore, the crowns deduction will apply accountwide – i.e. the new crowns balance will be reflected on both NA/EU servers but the purchase will only be tied to the server you bought it on
2. Buy the Gold Edition and the purchase of the extras that come with the Gold Edition will be reflected on both NA/EU servers
3. ESO Plus will also be reflected on both servers
You can queue for two (Home/Guest) Alliance campaigns at the same time
You can exit Cyrodiil/Imperial City no matter where you are by simply joining another alliance campaign. You’ll need to be in a low population guest campaign for this to work or else you will end up in queue. Alternatively, try typing “/stuck” in the chat window (note: this will halve your telvar in Imperial City). Otherwise, you can try suciding (note: this will halve your telvar in Imperial City).
You can spend real-life (RL) money in the Crown Store to do the following that will otherwise take up a year or two to complete/earn all
1. Reduce traits research time – they can take at least 350 days
2. Horse speed/capacity/stamina upgrades – about 90 days
3. Inventory Space upgrades – limited by gold
4. Bank Space upgrades – limited by gold
5. Storage chests – tel var stones / writ vouchers
Crowns go on sale every once in a while.
ESO Plus never goes on sale (as far as I know), but you get a fixed discount when you purchase more months in advance. Buying 6 months of ESO Plus nets you almost one month free.
1. If you buy one month of ESO Plus only, take note that it automatically renews unless you manually disable it in account settings!
The Steam client also comes with the standard launcher which accepts a username and password (if you own multiple accounts). Just find it at C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Zenimax Online\The Elder Scrolls Online\game\client\eso64.exe
You should level up multiple characters and research traits/horse as they are used in determining crafting writ rewards.
How to power level crafting skill lines
1. Clothing/Blacksmithing/Woodworking: Decon any gear with traits. Intricate ones give more inspiration. Sell those non-trait loot for gold. You can also find a partner and decon his crafted weapons/armor.
2. Enchanting: You can level another character’s Enchanting level by crafting green/blue/purple (purple runes are best) runes with a different character and extracting them with the character to be levelled. Otherwise, you’ll have to buy them at guild stores
3. Alchemy: Craft as many poisons you can. Invest the skill point in Solvent Proficiency as you reach the required level. This add-on can help
4. Provisioning: Craft the highest level green food/drink you can. Provisioning ingredients are cheap! This add-on can help
5. And while doing the above, try to unlock “Inspiration Boost” CP passive! Remember, your CPs are shared with all characters even if they’re not level 50
6. Use Multicraft to automatically craft multiple times
Most of the quests you come across will not grant a Skill Point unless they have the special zone-quest icon instead of the standard icon.
There are several ways to level up much faster
1. Port to Alik’r Desert, type “x”(NA) or “+dolmen”(EU) in chat and you’ll be invited to join a group to grind dolmens (XP shared).
2. Craglorn Skyreach dungeons require a high level player to accompany you to a dungeon which spawns many hard to kill mobs but awards lots of XP (you may die but you’ll gain XP)
3. While doing the above, you should be in training gear as well as dunked an XP potion such as Psijic Ambrosia for maximum benefit
You can travel to almost anywhere for free if you are in a guild. Simply go to the guild roster and right-click on any player to “Travel to Player”. Use EasyTravel add-on to make this easier
Use this add-on to mark all the resource nodes you find so that you can easily rediscover them later. Take note that it can increase loading times
To sell in guild stores, you should use Master Merchant to find the average selling value of an item. You will need to join some trading guilds for it to gather some data
You can use the Skyshards, Lost Treasure and Lore Books addons as they require lots of time to collect and exploring to find each manually
- UPDATE Mar 2019: ESO Live has revealed that an option to purchase skyshards may arrive in Crown Store with the Elsweyr update. This requires you to have unlocked the Tamriel Skyshard achievement in at least one character
In ESO, you are given the freedom to explore any zone you want, take any quest you wish, complete the quests in any order you wish. So if you started out in Stros M’kai, you can port to anyone in Craglorn and ESO won’t stop you. Although you’ll probably die fast to the mobs there.
Use the Dustman add-on to automatically destroy, mark-as-junk and sell items when you loot. You don’t want to carry around those zero-value Spoilt Food, weapons and armor.
Use Bank Manager Revived add-on to automatically synchronize your bank
Use Advanced Filters add-on to help you to categorize your items when you view your inventory
Assist Rapid Riding add-on can automatically add Rapid Maneuver to your ability bar when you are mounted.
Use Auto Recharge add-on to automatically recharge your weapons when their charges drop too low
Use AwesomeGuildStore add-on to make your search at Guild Stores much easier
Discover your DPS (damage-per-second), HPS (heals-per-second) and group damage with Combat Metrics add-on
Group Loot Notifier shows you what other group members have looted. Useful in trials and dungeons
Inventory Insight is a great add-on to view your inventories, guild bank, other characters, bank and more
Having trouble finding a player’s dead body to rez? Use Merlin’s Rez Helper to help you
Prevent accidental stealing with the NoAccidentalStealing add-on
Find out the AP you have earned in Cyrodiil noted in the chat log with PvP Journal add-on
Should I Drink or Eat (Food and Drink Buff Reminder)
Enable the built-in inventory search box with this add-on
Automatically repair your items when you visit a merchant with this add-on
When killing a world boss creature, you only get loot if you are among the top 12 participants based on contributions for damage and healing. You’ll also need to deal a minimum of 3% damage. Finally, you can loot bosses only once every 5 minutes.
“Maintenance” and “Patch Maintenance” are usually on Mondays. “Maintenance” usually takes a shorter time of about 2 – 3 hours. “Patch Maintenance” can take up to 5 hours
Your characters are not shared between the PC/EU servers. If you earn CP200 in PC-NA server, it does not carry over to PC-EU server.
You are allowed to own multiple accounts/copies of Elder Scrolls Online. You’ll have to buy each account though and maintain a separate email address for each.
You should not enter veteran dungeons until you are at least CP160 and have properly geared up. Otherwise, you’ll incur other players wrath and may even get kicked out (sometimes within the first minute of entering the dungeon) and be penalized with a wait timer.
DLC normal/vet dungeons (e.g. Ruins of Mazzatun, Bloodroot Forge) are much harder than the usual dungeons, even in Normal mode.
You should select the role (tank/dps/healer) you wish to be in before queuing for a dungeon in the dungeon finder. It’s found on the left side of the Dungeon Finder interface
The dungeon queues for tanks are much faster than queueing as a DPS. Healers are somewhat in the middle.
If you’re CP160, properly geared up and can handle Public Dungeon bosses on your own without dying, you can queue as a Tank for normal non-DLC dungeons. Just be sure to slot Inner Fire to get the boss to attack you and save your other mates from dying and slot some heals/resistance abilities if you can.
If you are in queue for more than 5 minutes in the Dungeon Finder, you should requeue again (leave queue and join queue)
If you want to play around and try some risk-free activity in the game without having to grind, you can play on the PTS server which offers unlimited gold, crowns and golded pieces of ALL sets in the game!
1. You’ll need to create a new character but it’ll be fully levelled up for you. There will be a dropdown in the new character screen top left corner and it will be carrying the goodies when you start playing it
2. The main catch is that the PTS resets every once in a while, and there are many other small catches such as being a test ground for changes and very few players playing on it
3. In fact, you can even purchase anything from the crown store for free while playing in the PTS. Except for crown crates and ESO plus
The easiest way to make gold in Elder Scrolls Online is to sell raw materials and alchemy items in guild stores. Do not refine them, sell them unrefined even if you have the 9 skill points and leveling to invest in the Extraction passives as the chances of obtaining the Gold improvement material on refining is quite low
To level a ability, you need to have it slotted in your ability bar when gaining XP. So before claiming your quest rewards, switch the ability bar to abilities when need to gain levelling. You can use Iakoni’s Skill Changer add-on to save ability bar presets
To level a weapon skill level, you need to the weapon slotted and/or related abilities slotted in your ability bar when gaining XP.
You can only have one food/drink buff active at one time. The only exception is Psijic Ambrosia which can co-exist with other food/drink buffs.
The best way to increase your DPS is to place lots of DOTS (damage-over-time) in your enemy.
For DPS, if you use mostly Stamina abilities, you should place most of your attribute points in Stamina. Likewise for Magicka builds. You should never place more than 10 points in Health unless you are a tank.
The Two-Handed skill-line is used mostly for Player-Versus-Player (PVP) combat. This is due to its high burst damage. For Stamina PVE builds, you should go Dual-Wield and Bow
The frost staff’s heavy attack can taunt a monster if you have the passive unlocked. Do not use a Frost staff if you’re not a tank or you’ll get the boss to attack you!
You should research/decon all weapon/armor you get in the game until you reach CP160.
1. Use training gear when possible until you reach CP160
2. Even most CP160 gear are useless for selling except for research
Gold jewelery can be gotten in vet hard mode (HM) trials, the Adhazabi Aba-daro The Golden and/or if you place tops in leaderboard rankings
All sets pieces earned in dungeons and trials are bind-on-pickup – which means you cannot sell them to other players. However, you have 4 hours to trade/sell them with other players in your group if you wish
Frost Mirriam and Bervez Juice drop only in crafting writs and from provisioning hirelings. You can buy them in guild stores too
Hakeijo runes can only be bought via tel var stores in Imperial City. You can buy them in guild stores too and they sell above 10,000 gold. They give
If you need to learn the Hakeijo and Kuta runes, you should craft something useful “Truly Superb” item out of them rather that some low level rune. You can sell them at the guild store
Golding your armor does not give you much extra resistance ( just 232 more resistance for heavy if you gold everything from purple) BUT they do increase your traits effectiveness and 2 -4pc set bonuses (the tooltip numbers appear in white colour). Do note that minor/major buffs will never stack or increase in effectiveness even if you gold out a armor/weapon. Use this page to find the differences before golding them out
It’s worth to gold out your weapons.
The best-in-slot (BiS) weapons for Elder Scrolls Online are found at Maelstorm Arena (part of the Orsinium DLC, which comes with the Gold edition). They even come golded out
You can retrait your weapons at a Transmutation Station and it will require 50 Transmute Crystals per retrait. They are only found in Clockwork City or in guild houses. And you will have to have researched the new trait.
Here are some things you can do for more storage space
1. Start a new character (instant 60 slots), level them in horse (60 slots over 60 days) and upgrade their backpack (instant 60 slots, costly)
2. Buy storage chests with crowns or writs or level up rewards (Level 18, 30 slots)
3. Buy a new ESO account (you cannot trade bind-on-pickup items this way)
4. Buy ESO Plus (good to store materials only)
You can buy multiple quantities of an item at a merchant by right-clicking the item, then clicking Buy Multiple
Basic Style stones are usually cheaper when bought at merchants than at guild stores
The best armor trait for DPS is divines for the small pieces (pauldron, boots, waist, bracers) and infused for the large pieces (chest, head, leggings). This is in my opinion. Other traits such as Study, Invigorating, training, well-fitted are not recommended

Do you have more to “add-on”? Comment below!

Updated April 9, 2019

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