Crafting in Elder Scrolls Online - Complete Guide

It is impossible to imagine an MMO game without items created by players. Crafting is a very important part of gameplay that makes the game more interesting. ESO allows players to create different items that will help you in the game.

All professions in the game are useful and items created by crafters will not disappoint you. Note: crafting is really useful. Each profession allows creating top-level items that can’t be received somewhere else. Bonuses from professions will really help you.

Introduction

There are five general professions that allow you to make your own gear, food, potions and so on:

  • Provisioning – allows to create food and other supply that helps you to restore health, magicka, stamina and can give temporary bonus to these stats.
  • Enchanting – allows to add special effects that make your items cooler.
  • Blacksmithing – profession that allows to create and improve heavy armor and weapon using different types of ingots.
  • Clothing – allows to create and improve light and medium armor.
  • Woodworking – allows to create and improve different staffs and bows using wood.
  • Alchemy – allows to create different potions that make you stronger in battle.

These professions cover everything you can craft in the game.

Blacksmithing Clothing Woodworking Alchemy Provisioning Enchanting
Items Heavy Armor, all metal weapons (1H and 2H). Medium and Light armor All Staves, Bows, Shields All Potions Food for buffs All Glyphs
Materials Different ores Different leather Wood Herbs Fruits, vegetables and so on Runes
Possibility to Deconstruct Yes Yes Yes No No Yes
Possibility to Research Traits Yes Yes Yes No No No
Possibility to Upgrade Yes Yes Yes No No No
Hierling (brings resources every day) Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Leveling Speed Slow Slow Slow Fast Fast Slow
Leveling Goal Create and Upgrade Item Sets Stronest Potions Best Food with multiple buffs Legendary Glyphs

General Goal

For Alchemists and Provisioners: the goal is to level up the profession to cap value, learn all the skills in order to be able to create coolest potions and food.

For Blacksmiths, Clothiers and Woodworkers: the goal is to level up the profession to cap value, learn all the skills and discover all traits in order to craft item sets! The amount of discovered traits affects the coolness of the sets you can create.

Producing new items in ESO looks very similar to Crafting in New World MMO https://NewWorldForge.com/guides/crafting. You can also make different things which are very useful for your character and which you can sell to other players to make some money.

Materials and Ingredients

First of all you need to collect required ingredients and materials. The more ingredients you have – the better. Resources for crafting can be found in different gathering nodes: alchemists need to gather herbs, blacksmiths - ore, and so on. Blacksmithing, woodworking, and clothing allow to deconstruct gear you find during exploration for getting extra resources and valuable materials.

In Elder Scrolls Online every player can gather any resource. You are not restricted by only one resource type. This allows you to progress in several professions simultaneously or to gather resources to share with your guildmates.

Gathering Tip: When you see a gathering node act fast. Other players may also want to benefit from it. But only the fastest will receive the resource. If you start gathering the resource faster than another player you will get it.

After you have collected enough resources you need to find crafting station. Blacksmith needs anvil and forge, Alchemist needs special Alchemist’s laboratory, Enchanter needs Enchanter’s table and Provisioner needs campfire or other fire. These stations are usually easy to find in large cities in every location. When you approach your working place press the E button and you will see the crafting interface.

Do not think that you will have to grind a lot in order to create something valuable. No, developers told that their goal was to make the game interesting for players. In general, crafting is based on exploration. In some professions like Alchemy, you will have to combine different ingredients in order to discover new effects. This process is interesting and you will have a lot of fun.

When you dive into The Elder Scrolls Online, one of the first things you’re going to notice is that there’s a lot of interactivity in the world. There are barrels around, there are crates around, and you’re like, “What’s going on here?” so you start to click on them and you say, “Oh! There are items in them!” There are fruits, there are vegetables, there are grains, but it’s not just useless stuff. You can take any one of these items that you find and it’s going to be part of a recipe; it’s going to be part of the crafting system.

Crafting Skills

Crafting skills allow you to unlock new possibilities within every profession. They can be found at the skills tab. You don’t receive special crafting points for leveling these abilities. You need to spend your general skill points in order to learn the skills of any profession. That means you will have to distribute points attentively – if you spend all your points in crafting you will probably be weak on the battlefield.

You have no limitations on how to spend points. Moreover, there are no limits on how many professions you can master. Just make sure you have enough skill points and materials. Such mechanics allows one character to master all professions in the game.

Creating an Item

Crafting interface may seem a little bit difficult to understand, but it is really comfortable and convenient. When you see the interface for the first time the game will show you a brief guide. Read it in order to understand how it works.

Deconstructing

Deconstructing is a very important part of profession system. This ability allows to destroy an item and receive some useful metatarsals out of it. Not all professions can deconstruct. For example Provisioners and Alchemists can't do this. But Blacksmiths, Clothiers, Woodworkers and Enchanters can.

Deconstructing is not only a good source of resources and tempers. When you destroy an item you also receive Experience within that profession. It's one of the best ways to level up your profession.

There is one thing you should know: deconstructing items created by other players give much more experience then destroying items created by you. This information is very important! If you want to level the profession fast, find another crafter and exchange items with him.

You may think, that Blacksmiths, Clothiers, Woodworkers and Enchanters can advance much faster because of the deconstruction ability that gives extra Experience. But that's wrong! Practice shows, that Alchemy and Provisioning (Cooking) is easier to level up because in these professions player gets much more experience per created item.

Researching Traits

Blacksmiths, Clothiers and Woodworkers have the ability to research new traits. If you research a trait you can use it later for your future items. Every weapon and armor type has independent list of traits.

Research is very important! The number of Traits you know for a particular item type affects your ability to make this item for different Armor and Weapon sets!!!

Every Set has "Trait Requirement" meaning you have to know certain number of traits in order to be able to crate an item from the set. For example Spectre's Eye Set requires you to know 8 Traits. If you discovered 8 traits for Dagger and 7 Traits for Two-Handed Sword you will be able to craft only Dagger. You will have to discover 1 more trait in order to make Two-Handed Sword for Spectre's Eye Set.

Items Quality and Upgrading

Each item in Elder Scrolls Online has different “quality”. You can identify the quality by the color of the name. The lowest quality is Normal – white title, and the highest quality is Legendary – yellow title. Legendary items are rare, strong and are very expensive.

  • White - Normal
  • Green – Fine
  • Blue – Superior
  • Violet – Epic
  • Yellow – Legendary

You can create items with different quality. For example provisioner can use recipes with different quality and thus produce food with different quality. An Enchanter can also create runes with different quality by using different rune stones.

Blacksmithing, Clothing and Woodworkilng allows you to improve items increasing their quality. That's not about crafted items only. You can upgrade any item you find in the game. For example a Woodworker can increase quality of any bow. Upgrading process will increase its characteristics. The greatest thing about this is that it’s possible to improve any gear you find.

Racial Motifs

Each race has its unique armor and weapon appearance. And it is not only about high level items. All armor and weapon in the game that can be crafted has racial styles. When you start playing ESO you can craft items using only one style of your current race. For example Imperials can craft only in Imperial style in the beginning. You need to discover other races’ styles in order to be able to use them in crafting. Explore the world and look for special books called Racial Motifs.

There are 14 Racial Motifs in ESO: 10 are motifs of all playable races + 4 rare motifs: The Ancient Elves, Barbaric, Primal, Daedric. When the Motif is learned you receive possibility to use new style in crafting.

Where to obtain?

  • You can get these motifs while exploring Tamriel. 10 basic motifs can be found in low level zones 1-50, while rare can be found in Veterank Rank locations only.
  • You can purchase them from other players. Basic racial styles are not expensive, but rare cost more money.
  • You can purchase them at Crown Store for real money. It's the easiest way but you will have to spend real money.

Leveling Tips

Every profession has independent Experience bar and can be leveled from 1st up to the 50th level. 50th rank is the cap value. You can't advance higher than this cap. Higher Ranks allow you to receive access to new Skills. For example Blacksmith can use high level ores and receive more resources from deconstructing.

You will receive Experience for most crafting action. You gain XP when you create something and you also gain XP when you deconstruct. Here is information that will allow you to understand how to advance faster:

  • Creating an item is not always the best way to advance. If the profession allows to deconstruct - don't ignore this opportunity. We advice to deconstruct all the items you can. If the profession doesn't allow to deconstruct - the only way to level it up is to craft again and again.
  • Deconstructing items, created by other players, is the best way to level up the profession. You will receive tons of experience points. That's why it's great to exchange with other players.
  • Quality of an item affects the experience you receive from deconstructing it. "White" armor, weapon and so on gives less experience than "Blue" or "Yellow".
  • Level of an item also affects the amount of XP you get from decostructing. It's always great to destroy Veteran Rank items.

Video Guide

The video below contains all basic information about how to create items in ESO. We recommend this video if you know nothing about this subject.

Comments ()

  1. Timmie Hemmingsson 11 january 2014, 17:17 # 0
    How do i even turn Raw Jute to only Jute? :P
    And stuff like rawhide scraps and rough maple? :P
    1. Gabriel Schamber 13 january 2014, 02:11 # -1
      WHOHOOOOO i know it timmie i used to have the same problem...but...if you go under exrtaction there is a tab labeled raw matriels
    2. Gabe Corrigan 09 february 2014, 03:12 # 0
      does anybody know how to research to use gems on armors and weapons by any chance?
      1. Logan Booth 10 february 2014, 01:47 # 0
        i do indeed. you need to first make sure you have an item in your bags (armor or weapon, whichever has the stat you want) and then go to the appropriate crafting place and go to the research tab. find the armor in this tab and you will notice that there will be a research available matching the stats of the item in your inventory. please not that once you research the stats, the item will be destroyed. also it takes 6 hours per research.
      2. Jari Ikävalko 10 february 2014, 09:58 # 0
        Have u managed to apply a Glyph to armor?
        1. Eric Westlin 12 march 2014, 21:31 # 0
          Ok, so I understand how crafting works, but how do you gather?
          1. Ambuaz 13 march 2014, 06:16 # 0
            There are a lot of different gathering nodes for different crafting professions. You will see the nodes while traveling in Tamriel. They can be found almost everywhere (except cities). When you see a node you need to approach it and take the resource. Once you take resource the node disappears and will respawn after some time.

            Some professions like Clothing may require materials that can be obtained from animals only. For example lather.
          2. Brian Stepherson 16 may 2014, 07:15 # 0
            is there a way to bring up a list of styles that I already found
            1. Ambuaz 16 may 2014, 07:34 # 0
              You can see all the styles you can use in your crafting interface. For example you can find Blacksmithing Station and see all your styles there (Creation Tab).
            2. Brian Stepherson 16 may 2014, 07:16 # 0
              I know I did I before but I cant figure it out for my life right now

              1. Anastasia Lazerbeam 15 june 2015, 20:10 # 0
                What is the point in developing your crafting skill if drops are always if not almost always infinitely better? I really love crafting, but a friend of mine said the developers even said that dropped will always be better, and when you go into a dungeon or group area is morally irresponsible for you to equip stuff you made rather then stuff you could buy or find that might be better. This totally sucks because I actually a sense of pride crafting, and thought i was keeping up with drops. I'm level 12, and i'm level 9 in most crafting areas. Also it really sucks that I have to choose skill points between bettering my battling skills and making it easier to craft things. Really in the middle about this considering re-specing could also prove to be very expensive. In the end game, does crafting pay off, or is it more of a waste of time money and resources?
                1. Ambuaz 15 june 2015, 23:22 # 0
                  My personal opinion: crafting is not so useful in the beginning but becomes more important at later stages.

                  1. It allows to upgrade items. Every player wants to wear legendary gear in the end game. But Legendary pieces are very expensive. You will have to spend a lot of gold for purchasing legendary items. That’s why it’s much better to upgrade gear on your own.

                  2. You can craft item Sets and then upgrade them. Item sets give great bonuses and some sets can be obtained from crafting only. This article contains more information: Item Sets

                  Of course you can buy great gear from Guild Stores but very often such gear is made by players. Moreover, at the late stages of the game you will have enough skill points for your battle skills and for crafting professions.

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