I’ve been playing The Elder Scrolls Online since January 2015, originally starting on PC and playing there for about a year, before moving over to PlayStation so that I could play ESO with real life friends. About two years ago I returned to PC so I guess technically I now play on two platforms… but hey, it’s the MMO of my soul, so that doesn’t seem particularly excessive, right? Right?!

There is no point in me writing up a beginner guide for ESO when there are a bajillion other articles, websites, YouTube channels and Discord servers dedicated to new players. But I thought it might be useful to post a few tips, tricks and discoveries I’ve gathered over the many years – just a bunch of random things that made my experience in ESO a little easier or more fun.

Just to reiterate: these are not beginner-specific player tips. There are many, many other articles online for those.

Farming Materials

I have a couple of good crafting material routes that I don’t see many people talk about.

Clothing Materials: Rivenspire – In the North-East of Rivenspire there’s an area called Northpoint. It’s this town and the surrounding area that’s abundant in clothier materials. I start my circuit at the Fell’s Run Wayshrine and then make my way down the river towards the coast, then circle the coastline until you reach Northpoint. Head into the town and circle around the outside edge. You’ll also find many chests on your way so make sure to pick those locks too for zone gear pieces.

Chest Route – Malabal Tor – I used to run this chest farming route all the time back in the early days. The gear sets you get are not BiS or even that wonderful, but you will be able to break them down and use the materials, plus it’s a good way to practise lockpicking if you really, really hate the idea of stealing and fencing items.

Chest Route – Wrothgar – This is fairly well-known so chances are if you’re playing at a popular time you’ll have some competition for the chests. There are a couple of decent gear sets you can get from Wrothgar too, which only adds to this route’s popularity.

Alchemy Materials – Starter Zones – The starter zones (Khenarthi’s Roost, Stros M’Kai, Betnikh, Bleakrock Isle and Bal Foyen) are riddled with materials. I imagine this is to help new players get a fair start in the game. I usually go to these zones very late at night to farm alchemy materials as they are abundant, plus these zones are far smaller than regular zones so quick and easy to navigate. The downside? They’re heavily populated during daylight hours due to them being the zones that all new players are directed toward. I’d also implore you if you’re a seasoned player to not take resource nodes if you see a new player nearby. Let them have it as they probably need it more than you do.

Alchemy Materials – Coldharbour – The respawn rate and amount of plants makes Coldharbour an excellent place to farm for alchemy ingredients.

Alchemy Survey: Get the Plants You Want

This one is quite known already, though honestly I didn’t find out about it for many years and felt like a total doofus when I learned it. If you have an alchemy survey active and you find that the plants aren’t that great, simply hop on your mount and run away for a short distance, then go back to find that the plants have respawned and are different. This is an excellent way to manipulate your surveys to give you Columbine, Cornflower or Lady’s Smock.

Farm Furnishing Plans

One of my favourite places to farm for furnishings is in a Dwemer delve or Dwemer-themed group dungeon. Basically anywhere you can find loads of pots and urns, you’ll be swimming in materials and furnishings. Some of my favourites are Nchuthnkarst in Greymoor Caverns (you’ll need the Western Skyrim DLC to access this one), and Bthar-Zel in Arkthzand Caverns under The Reach (you’ll need the Markarth DLC to access it). But there are Dwarven ruins all over the place, from Alik’r Desert to Deshaan, so base-gamers are covered too.

Stealing! Another place for furnishing plans is in the main DLC cities. You’ll have to steal them from chests, cupboards, barrels and crates, but it’s worth sneaking around. Check the NPC houses, and any open areas where you don’t have to pick locks to get in like quest-related houses and castles.

Ride Faster

As soon as you can go to Cyrodiil, go to Cyrodiil. Even if you’re not a PVPer or you hate PVP, just go there and tag along with others or fix some keep walls until you reach Assault Rank 3. Pop a skill point into Continuous Attack and you’ll get a permanent 30% mount speed increase. You don’t need to put the second skill point in as that will not make you go any faster – just invest that one skill point and you’re good to go.

Squeezing Out a Bit More Damage (Magicka Toons)

This one is probably not much of a secret anymore, but it was a few years ago and it was generally only used by the score-pushing community (at least on PS-EU it was). Magicka users: if you use a poison glyph on either (or both) of your weapons, make sure to put champion points into Battle Mastery and Mighty, both within the Extended Might sub-branch in the Warfare tree. The poison on your staves will get a small boost and give you a little bit more DPS.

The Advantages to Running Dolmens in Alik’r Desert

Yeah I know, it’s helluva boring when you’ve spent time in Alik’r running the dolmen route to level a character, and doing the Blackrose Prison XP grind is definitely a faster way to level up. However, there are additional advantages to running dolmens. Let me break it down:

• You get a bit of XP. Not a ton post-50, but you’ll slowly level while you do the grind, especially during XP events or when you have an XP scroll active. This is still a good way to get a new toon up to level 50.
• You get a butt-load of jewellery. That’s a lot of necklaces and rings you can deconstruct for jewellery crafting materials. The blue and purple sell well on all platforms. Never sell your rings etc to an NPC vendor – break that shit down and sell it on guild stores!
• You get a lot of Companion gear from the final dolmen chest, if Companions are your jam. You’ll probably never have to buy Companion gear from a guild trader.
• You get a load of generic gear that you can also deconstruct for materials. Those materials can be used to craft or upgrade, or you can sell them on guild stores.
• You often complete Endeavours while running dolmens. A lot of the Endeavours are quests like “Kill 30 foes with weapon abilities” so it’s, like, totally easy to complete them without even trying.

This post will remain on-going and I’ll add more stuff as I find it. If you have any other ESO tips that you think would fit here (not the obvious beginner ones), please drop a comment!

I’d like to thank my friends and fellow players for sending me some of their own tips and tricks to include in this post:

AJ Snake Gaming (PS-EU)
Blu3Raven (PS-EU)