The Elder Scrolls Onlineoffers a wealth of content for you to explore. Whether you’re diving into dungeons, knocking out a few solo quests, or engaging in competitive PvP, there’s no shortage of dangerous situations to get lost in.
Outside of combat, however, you have just as many options — all thanks to the robust crafting system. ThisESOcrafting guide will teach you the basics of its intricate system, including how to deconstruct unwanted items, improve your favorite gear, and explain why crafting is so important to theESOexperience.
Further reading
ESO crafting overview
Crafting is a core part ofThe Elder Scrolls Online. You can certainly choose to avoid it — but you’ll be missing out on a lot of gold and tons of great gear. It’s also a great way to keep your equipment up to date and recycle unwanted loot.
In a nutshell, crafting lets you construct new items, deconstruct unwanted gear, and improve the quality of your favorite equipment. Crafting can only be performed at designated crafting stations — typically found in each major city — and what you can craft is heavily based on your skill level. Regardless of whether you’re building or destroying equipment, however, you can rest assured that your crafting level is slowly increasing.
Crafting skill lines in ESO
No matter what you’re interested in making,ESOgives you the ability to make it. From heavy armor and helms to mage robes and potions, here are the different crafting skill lines inThe Elder Scrolls Online —along with the items they’ll let you create:
Beyond those six basic crafting systems, DLC content and expansions offer up the following crafting options. These function in a different fashion than the six listed above but still offer a great way to customize and upgrade your character:
Gathering resources
Before you’re able to actually start crafting, you’ll need to venture out into the wild and collect the necessary resources. Ore, runes, ingredients, and everything else required for crafting can be freely collected by roaming the streets and dusty roads of Tamriel. However, you’ll need a sharp eye to find the resources you’re looking for — they’re often off the beaten path and blend in with their surroundings. Thankfully, each crafting skill line offers a few abilities to make this task easier.
The first is Keen Eye. This passive skill will highlight nearby resources, making it hard to miss them. As you improve this stat, the radius in which resources illuminate will slowly grow. If you love to explore each region and harvest items yourself, this is a must-have skill.
ESOalso offers up another passive for each skill line — Hirelings. Spend points leveling up this skill, and you’ll find a message in your mailbox that contains various components every single day. Rank the skill up, however, and you’ll earn more frequent drops and higher quality resources.
Find a crafting station
Once you’ve gathered all your resources, it’s time to head to a crafting station. Most major cities have a section with a crafting station for each of the crafting skills, although you’re able to also find cooking stations at campsites scattered throughout Tamriel.
Once you’ve found a station, interact with it to pull up the crafting menu. Crafting works in largely the same way for all skills, although there are minor variances between them. Regardless, here are the main options you’ll have when trying to craft:
Refine is the first option in the crafting menu. It’s also the first step in creating an item from scratch. Refining is used to turn raw materials — such as iron ore — into iron ingots that can be used as the building blocks for new gear. You’ll often need multiple components to refine them, so make sure you stock up before trying to start the process.
After refining raw materials into something usable, you’re ready to craft. The creation tab will give you a variety of choices to make, including the type of item you wish to construct, the material it’ll be made from, the style of the item, and any included traits. Here’s a closer look at each:
Deconstruct
After playingESOfor a few days, your inventory will likely be bogged down by hundreds of unwanted items. Instead of selling them, consider deconstructing them. Not only is this a great way to level up your respective crafting skill line, but you’ll walk away with plenty of useful crafting components.
If you have the right resources, you can improve gear quality through crafting. Whether you’re improving Superior to Epic or Epic to Legendary, you’ll need very specific components — listed on the crafting screen — for a successful upgrade. Failing the process will destroy your item, so be very cautious when using this powerful feature.
Researching an item is an alternative to deconstructing it. The gear will be consumed in the process, but you’ll walk away with knowledge of a trait that can later be applied to anything you craft.
Craft furnishings
Some crafting skill lines will let you craft furniture for your personal home. You’ll first need to find or purchase the furnishing plan, then ensure all your skills meet the minimum requirements for crafting. Then, gather up the required resources, head over to a crafting station, and build the item like you would anything else.
How to quickly level crafting skills in ESO
If you’re looking to level up your crafting skill lines as fast as you can, you’re not alone. Most players in ESO are trying to power-level their lines to create more powerful — and lucrative gear — that’s only accessible to high-level crafters. While there’s no true shortcut beyond putting in the hours, these two activities tend to be the most popular:
