How to level up Antiquities on second character?

Mariusghost84

From my understanding, there is 1 purple lead pr zone - which ive "used up" by leveling up antiquities on my first char. How would i approach leveling up my second char? I managed to get up to lvl 5 but from now on it gets tricky since i dont get purple leads.

Have i misunderstood something?

Dropstitch

Cycle through green to purple in Artaeum until about lvl 7, then do all the green to purples in the various zones.

ApoAlaia

Nope, you have not misunderstood.

What I did was a combination of farming purple leads and repeating the 'infinite' green and blue ones.

I have done this 10 times so you can imagine that I have spent a lot of time in Artaeum

After hitting 7 things open up a bit. Hang in there!

SerafinaWaterstar

It’s a bit silly that you only get the one purple lead per zone for one character. It would not make the grind that much less grindy to have them available for each separate character.

Dropstitch

Although leads are account wide, so realistically you only need lvl 10 on one toon.

DinoZavr

it takes like 3 hours to reach level 5 at Artaeum.
for reaching level 7 (which is perfectly enough for mythics) i stay at Artaeum doing green-blue cycles for another 3 hours. This is (imho) faster, than doing other overland zones as Artaeum is compact and free from agressive mobs.

ApoAlaia

Dropstitch wrote: »

Although leads are account wide, so realistically you only need lvl 10 on one toon.

I did it to 10 in two - turns out that in my 'excitement' when it was released it did not choose the most practical character to level up first - and to 9 in the other eight character because I really like the treasure chest passive.

Only 8 more to go

zaria

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

It’s a bit silly that you only get the one purple lead per zone for one character. It would not make the grind that much less grindy to have them available for each separate character.

Yes, this is even more true if you did them all on one character trying to get to 10.
Previously you could start with gold leads at level 5 so you could go to coldharbor and was able to do this on most of my alts.

Everstorm

Dropstitch wrote: »

Although leads are account wide, so realistically you only need lvl 10 on one toon.

I would love to have the treasure chest marking passive on more than one character though.

ghost_bg_ESO

at every zone one of purple leads had high drop rates, (i don't know if they still are) some from nodes some from bosses, coldharbour - crystal anomaly, western skyrim - snow prince throne (?), auridon - serpent. vvardenfel - table....

FrancisCrawford

For my first antiquarian I did green/blue/purple in every zone. (A bonus to doing that is the lead for the 100K coin. Presumably the very newest zones aren't needed for that.)

For my next two I cycled green/blue in Arteum until I got up to Rank 5. Then I farmed Void-Crystal Anomalies (scryed by a different character) to get me the rest of the way. (Key point: If you're at the level where you "should" only be able to handle purple antiquities, you can in fact also excavate gold ones.)

And of course I also always dug up any leads that arose in the ordinary course of adventuring.

Stanx

This is one skill line I would actually buy from the crown store after levelling it on a main and an alt.

I used to love artaeum and now I'm sick and tired of it. No way I'm gonna repeat it for all of my alts. FYI I've done psijic and mage guild on multiple toons, but this one is just toooooooo much.

ApoAlaia

Stanx wrote: »

This is one skill line I would actually buy from the crown store after levelling it on a main and an alt.

I used to love artaeum and now I'm sick and tired of it. No way I'm gonna repeat it for all of my alts. FYI I've done psijic and mage guild on multiple toons, but this one is just toooooooo much.

Shameful as it is I must say I would do too.

Even if it was 6K crowns (3K per line) I would still probably buy it.

I have probably spent in the region of 80-90 hours doing this for my various characters, and most of it was Artaeum and Coldharbour.

For comparison it took me 101 hours to 100% Death Stranding. So that is almost one entire game's worth of time doing this one activity over and over again.

Mariusghost84

Thanks for all your input guys. I would def buy this even if the cost was 6k or more. This grind is brutal, but i freaking love my NB so much im making it my main...and i want to be able to do anything on my main char.

Darkspecialist

well really its how we go about leveling. im assuming many many people grind to 50 first and everything after that seems like a chore because you want all the skills at max asap.

vs if you were to level as you level. Like i made a new character when the last xpac released and there are a lot things im going to have to regrind. Insted of being in a rush to 50 I am questing and taking my time and doing things like battle ground once a day cause i dont like pvp or antiques a couple times per zone im in. doing it this way so that the time im near done doing all the quests in this game those skills will be max or near max and then doesnt feel like its a chore.

Firstmep

Darkspecialist wrote: »

well really its how we go about leveling. im assuming many many people grind to 50 first and everything after that seems like a chore because you want all the skills at max asap.

vs if you were to level as you level. Like i made a new character when the last xpac released and there are a lot things im going to have to regrind. Insted of being in a rush to 50 I am questing and taking my time and doing things like battle ground once a day cause i dont like pvp or antiques a couple times per zone im in. doing it this way so that the time im near done doing all the quests in this game those skills will be max or near max and then doesnt feel like its a chore.

Hey that's fine, after 12 toons I really don't care to do the same quests over again.

cyberjanet

I am levelling character 8 of 9 through antiquities. Here's how I did it.

Character 1 does the scrying. I go around finding gold leads where possible, and he scries them. He scries the blues and purples too.

The remaining characters scry the first green one, but after that they just go and excavate the blues, purples and golds, in no particular order. You level by excavating, not by scrying. The more golds you can excavate, the faster you level, and you don't have to waste skill points on scrying.

FrancisCrawford

cyberjanet wrote: »

I am levelling character 8 of 9 through antiquities. Here's how I did it.

Character 1 does the scrying. I go around finding gold leads where possible, and he scries them. He scries the blues and purples too.

The remaining characters scry the first green one, but after that they just go and excavate the blues, purples and golds, in no particular order. You level by excavating, not by scrying. The more golds you can excavate, the faster you level, and you don't have to waste skill points on scrying.

I don't know how to get enough blue leads w/o doing the zone freebies that have green leads as a prerequisite.

But then, I don't know how to excavate gold leads until I'm Rank 5 in Excavation.

Amottica

Do Arteum until you can do blues. Then do treasure chests to get leads as iirc, many are blue. This and continue Arteum until you can do purple then do pretty much any purple lead you get to continue progressing. This is what I did with my second character.

jle30303

I scry on one, then excavate on the rest.

Green and blue leads, I can excavate, right off the bat.

Purple leads, I can excavate once I have 1 point in Trowel, which requires level 2 excavation.

Gold leads, I can excavate once I have 1 point each in Trowel and Heavy Shovel, which requires level 4 excavation.

That's before I can actually *scry* purple leads on the second character, which requires level 5 scrying (which I got just after level 5 excavation), and master leads.

The only points I have spent in the Scrying tree are the ones in Antiquarian Insight, just so I don't have to switch characters so often to scry, plus two in Coalescence as soon as I'm up to scrying for purples and golds.

And the only points I have spent in the Excavation tree are 1 each in Trowel and Heavy Shovel, plus 2 for Keen Eye: Chests.

Ultimate leads, I have more difficulty with, and sometimes take more than one attempt to actually scry for or dig up, even on the main, so I've spent a few more skill points on the antiquities line there.

Abigail

I've got four alts to level 10 in scrying and excavating. All of it was done in Arteum. Takes two days of concerted effort, but I also gathered a ton of materials and made 300K gold on each. Maybe some will find this boring as hell, but I don't mind -- it's mindless and I can listen to audio books and music.

renne

Furnishing leads and stuff in purple and higher drop pretty reg. Do them once you can do purple. It's a pain but it works.

cyberjanet

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

I don't know how to get enough blue leads w/o doing the zone freebies that have green leads as a prerequisite.

But then, I don't know how to excavate gold leads until I'm Rank 5 in Excavation.

I have had the occasional blue lead from something, but usually I scry the green item with the next character in order to get the blue. As for excavating, I brush until I get a point to put it into trowel. I can't do gold without a trowel. The first few times I tried gold with just a trowel, it was a disaster, but once I got the hang of it it became a lot easier and I get more successes now than I do with my Maxed Excavator who has all the tools and breaks them far too often.