I made a scribing guide to help others find the best bits

runa_gate

Here's my scribing guide. I finished all scripts on all 20 characters about 2 months ago.

Before you start the scribing quests you can go to Mages Guilds to pick up 9 free ones:
On ONE character you can take the script, put it in your bank, it'll respawn, and you can pick it up again to pick up all 9 for your alts without repeatedly going to each mage guild on each character:

Glenumbra - first floor straight in
Stormhaven - upstairs on the left
Bangkorai - first flooor straight in
Auridon - upstairs on the left
Grahtwood - upper level to right side mage's guild door, the to the left of the right side ramp going up
Reaper's March - outside, back and to the right of the downstairs area under a plant
Stonefalls - downstairs right side staircase
Deshaan - outside on the north side
The Rift - upstairs on a shelf to the right up high

You need only do ALL the scribing quests on one character, then the "intro" quest which takes only a couple minutes on each alt, though doing all of them on an alt gets you 12 Inks which is nice



There are 9 daily activities which you can do for scripts, the first per day per account is guaranteed, the drop rate for subsequent ones is 25%

Focus Scripts = Rewards for the Worthy, Mage's Guild, zone delve dailies

Signature Scripts = world boss dailies, Cyrodiil "capture" dailies or town pve dailies, fighter guild dailies

Affix Scripts = dolmens ("world events") dailies, Undaunted daily, Imperial City dailies



Some scripts are available for purchase at the vendor in the Scholarium so that alts can simply purchase them, and then each Tuesday morning both that vendor and Filer Ool in Infinite Archive change their weekly offering of scripts you can buy on each alt as well

Note that when doing dailies do them on an alt that doesn't already have all scripts, so that you get NEW ones as they will not be "curated" on characters that already know them all



for IA builds the most important tip is likely that Assassin's Misery can be applied to these three Grimoires:

Trample = Concussion, Sundered Hemorrhaging,
Traveling Knife = +100% status affect for 10 seconds
Elemental Explosion = Burning, Chill, Concussion

Trample is an Assault Skill and Elemental Explosion is a Weapon skill so are buffed by the applicable Verse



Since there's apparently 4000+ combinations available with Scribing those new to it, without Scripts, have trouble knowing what Scripts to pursue
here are some general tips:

Wield Soul has Major Breach, Major Cowardice, Major Defile, Major Resolve, Major Main and Major Vitality
Vault can have Major Evasion
Shield Throw can have Major Evasion, Major Maim, Major Vitality and Major Cowardice
Trample can have Major Expedition, Major Heroism Major Protection (if you don't want to slot Blinding Flare for some reason)

Most people seem to think of Scribing as a way to give classes major/minor buffs they lack, but really they can replace many entire Sets, and there are some completely unique effects as well, some of which lie outside the major/minor buff/debuff system and thus stack with them. Some scripts work differently depending on which skill they're applied to, which can be confusing.

Some scripts are also Grimoire-specific, such as:
Smash with Wayfarer's Mastery "grants you the Follow Up passive" which gives 10% damage bonus with 2H skills for 4s without actually having to do a heavy attack
Vault with Wayfarer's Mastery "grants you the Hawk's Eye passive" +5% Bow skill damage for 5s, stacking up to 5 times (with other procs from LA/HA)
Traveling Knife with Wayfarer's Mastery "grants you the Ruffian passive" for 6s which gives +8% damage versus stunned, immobilized or silenced enemies (unlike the passive, presumably this just gives +8% damage vs. any opponent, the script acting as the buff condition)




Here are some of the more unique combinations of scripts I use:

Shield Throw - Multi-Target > Wayfarer's Mastery (increase bash damage by 333 or 5 seconds) > Interrupt (for a necro ulti bash build)

Shield Throw - Taunt - Fencer's Parry (reflect the next attack within 3s > Major Main or Major Cowardice (ranged taunt with an option to queue up immunity to anticipated big hit)

Shield Throw > Multi-Target > Knight's Valor Bash and does 4218 physical damage > Interrupt (ranged, multi target interrupt, very handy in IA)
also, for the second script you can use Lingering physical damage, which kinda uniquely procs your weapon enchant

Trample - Dispel (removes one shield from enemy player) > Wayfarer's Mastery (adds 30s to your existing Continuous Attack every 1 minute) > Off-Balance (unique PvP skill)

Contingency - Immobilize for 6s > Warrior's Opportunity (adds 2000 damage to next attack within 7 seconds > Minor Vulnerability for 20s (finisher burst queued up for 22 seconds)

Contingency - Damage shield (6800 damage shield for you and allies) > growing impact > minor vulnerability (queue this skill up so that the next skill or even dodge roll within 22s deploys shield, and the middle script makes the minor vulnerability an AoE, great support option)

Torch - Generate Ultimate (generate 1 ultimate for you and your allies per sweep, 3 sweeps possible) > Crusader's Defiance (remove 1 negative effect per sweep) > Minor Heroism 20s

Torch - Stun (first sweep snare 40% for 4s, 2nd sweep immobilize for 3s, 3rd sweep stuns for 3s, in a cone) > Gladiator's Tenacity (reduces your damage taken by 30% for 2.2s > Minor Vitality
(great "oh no" skill against onrushing big groups of mobs, of mitigating a big boss attack)

Healer's Bond - Damage Shield > Knight's Valor (increase block amount by 8% and block cost reduction 8% for targeted ally and all in the beam) > Minor Protection

Elemental Explosion - Flame Damage 10k > Warmage's Defense 4800 damage shield for 6s, shield strength +20% per enemy hit) > Minor Cowardice

Traveling Knife - Multi-Target (2400 physical damage and 3700 to those around them) > Warrior's Opportunity (enemies hit take 8% more Martial damage for 5 seconds > Minor Berserk (the 2n script is a unique multi-target debuff a must for physical/poison/disease/bleed users or support for group members)

Soul Burst - Healing (6k to you and allied in an AoE) > Anchorite's Potency (in combat consume a soul gem to get 3 ultimate, one per 5s) > Minor Courage (for you AND allies, great support buff)

Smash (2H skill) - Damage Shield (7k for you and allies) > Fencer's Parry (deflects next attack within 3s, can be used every 3s) > Minor Force (includes allies) (nice stam-bases damage shield)

Trample - Trauma (3897 Heal absorption) > caltrops snare > minor defile 20s (use to prevent healing, the snare names a pretty zigzag pattern of purple and black with abstract white caltrops)

Soul Burst - Immobilize (for 3s, big aoe centered on you > Anchorite's Cruelty (consume a Soul Gem deals 2.8% of enemy's max health as Oblivion damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds, up to 2800 damage - up to 100% more damage under 50% Health, can occur once every 10 seconds) > Interrupt (both an AoE interrupt and a DoT execute to stack with others, such as Poison status effect now that it has execute scaling)

Shield Throw - Pull (3000 physical, pulls target to you, soft taunt) > Thief's Swiftness (upon shields return can pass through enemies for 5s > Major Evasion -20% AoE damage for 20s (unique no-collision effect for huge mob pulls, PvP or just racing through content with a gap closer and running through things)

Vault - Poison 5200 damage AoE > Thief's Swiftness (removes a stack of Roll Dodge cost penalty and reduced fall damage taken by 15% for 20 seconds) > Minor Lifesteal for 20s (heals attackers for 6000 health every 1 second - unique Roll Dodge cost doesn't mitigate but gives back the cost after the next roll dodge is completed, good for Senche/Way of Air users or other dodge roll builds, and Bosmer Shadow Image-using nightblades who jump off high stuff to trick those chasing them)

Trample > Knockback (4k physical damage and knock back all struck 8m) > Thief's Swiftness (+15% movement speed for 10 seconds for YOU) > minor expedition +15% for 20 sec (for allies) fun way to clear a path and make a speedy pathway for your allies to follow which I use mostly because I like the minty green/neon green zigzags ground rectangle it makes)



The second script can also be the Class Mastery script, and presumably you already know if your class's script is good. Sorc's certainly is not.
Necro's "create a corpse" is nice when using Corpseburster set, for instance, the whole description is "Once every 3 seconds, increase your Health, Magicka, and Stamina by 2% for 10 seconds for each corpse within 12 meters, up to 10 times. While in combat, if no corpses are nearby, create a corpse." I use this in IA a LOT for the stat bonuses.


For those who do not yet have all the scripts, and do not have sufficient Ink to play around, it's not obvious that you can fill your skill loadouts with many Grimoires, each of which can have 3 useful effects, which when combined can create some extremely strong and otherwise accessible buffs, debuffs and other effects

For instance, 2 button presses for a Damage Shield, 30% damage mitigation, Major Vitality, Heal, Major Resolve, restore 600 magicka and stamina.. something totally unavailable from Class skills and the kind of thing that makes theorycrafting very fun

Rikkadir

Awesome guide, can't believe there's been no acknowledgements for your effort.

runa_gate wrote: »

Before you start the scribing quests you can go to Mages Guilds to pick up 9 free ones:
On ONE character you can take the script, put it in your bank, it'll respawn, and you can pick it up again to pick up all 9 for your alts without repeatedly going to each mage guild on each character:

So are you saying that if a script is used, it won't respawn?

Thanks again for the guide.

runa_gate

Rikkadir wrote: »

Awesome guide, can't believe there's been no acknowledgements for your effort.

runa_gate wrote: »

Before you start the scribing quests you can go to Mages Guilds to pick up 9 free ones:
On ONE character you can take the script, put it in your bank, it'll respawn, and you can pick it up again to pick up all 9 for your alts without repeatedly going to each mage guild on each character:

So are you saying that if a script is used, it won't respawn?

Thanks again for the guide.

One thing I missed up top is for your FIRST character you have to do the Dragon quest before being able to get all the Mage Guild free scripts (since I wrote it all down long long long after I'd completed it many times, mostly so I could do this and show all the interesting, easy to overlook bits)

Ishtarknows

Rikkadir wrote: »

So are you saying that if a script is used, it won't respawn?

Thanks again for the guide.

It won't respawn for that character. If you read it on your main you can still send another character that doesn't know it to pick it up. Putting them into your bank for all your other characters saves doing the rounds up to 20 times.

Ilumia

Ishtarknows wrote: »

Rikkadir wrote: »

So are you saying that if a script is used, it won't respawn?

Thanks again for the guide.

It won't respawn for that character. If you read it on your main you can still send another character that doesn't know it to pick it up. Putting them into your bank for all your other characters saves doing the rounds up to 20 times.

Great info for convenience. It would be so tedious to have to jump around to all those places 20 times.

Sleepsin

If on PC, the add-on scripttracker is very good. It shows which script each character has and which needs to be collected.

LootAllTheStuff

Bookmarked - thank you! I've been steadily collecting scribing materials on my main, but looking at the options for actually scribing skills has been a bit overwhelming. This definitely helps.

TaSheen

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

Bookmarked - thank you! I've been steadily collecting scribing materials on my main, but looking at the options for actually scribing skills has been a bit overwhelming. This definitely helps.

Absolutely! Thanks so much @runa_gate!

runa_gate

Rikkadir wrote: »

Awesome guide, can't believe there's been no acknowledgements for your effort.

runa_gate wrote: »

Before you start the scribing quests you can go to Mages Guilds to pick up 9 free ones:
On ONE character you can take the script, put it in your bank, it'll respawn, and you can pick it up again to pick up all 9 for your alts without repeatedly going to each mage guild on each character:

So are you saying that if a script is used, it won't respawn?

Thanks again for the guide.

If I remember correctly, it won't respawn but you can just swap to some other character that hasn't done it. I VERY quickly did this once someone taught me this trick for my last 4 characters... of 20. I really ran them all to the guild halls prior to that.

I hope I save some people that painful nonsense.

I will say out in Tamriel I see some people who "get" what scribing offers, sometimes seeing people doing rotations which include 4 to 5 grimoire skills though it's a little hard to tell the scripts used unless you memorize the many colors... like multi-target/minor vulnerability's light turquoise color. I really wish ZOS published a guide for colors that effects cause for each skill. Strangely, the barely-useful Trample snare or speed boosts (there's 2 different ones) make the prettiest, zigzag colors though I only ever see my own effects, never seen them even in PvP where they potentially have a use.