Is there a quick way to level excavation on an alt?

SilverBride

I reached level 5 but need to get to level 7 for the glowy treasure chests. Is there a quick way to do this on an alt? Because I no longer get a purple lead in each zone.

Any advice is appreciated.

Snamyap

If you have any you can do the scrying of higher level leads on your main and then switch to your alt for the excavating (and exp). Also, if you haven't yet done it: https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Blackwood_Tapestry

Paulytnz

I have got all 10 of my chars to lvl 9 for the full glowy chests.

If you want to do it quickly, my advice is to just farm it on Artaeum. It's a small map, there are no monsters to slow you down and you can earn some nice cash while doing it. I suggest having some good music or listening to a good podcast while doing tho, to beat some of the boredom/repetitiveness.

Below is a post I made last year with some info. Good Luck!

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/584669/whats-your-numbers-antiquities#latest

FrancisCrawford

Once you get to 5 on Excavation, you can realistically dig up gold leads, not just purple ones.

And the gold lead for the Void Crystal Anomaly usually comes very quickly when you pick flowers in The Hollow City.

Hvíthákarl

Coldharbour purple and yellow's motif drop rate is pretty quick, I leveled my (now main) alt's scrying by just picking mats and killing some random mobs that prevented me from doing so

ADarklore

I was just looking at the guide that I use... and there are several guides on the internet.

"Level 5-7 Grind
Here is where it gets a bit more interesting, the concept is the same, but now we are going through ALL the zones in The Elder Scrolls Online. We will once again start with Artaeum.
• Complete the green lead, obtain a blue lead from the reward, complete the blue lead, obtain a purple lead from the reward, complete the purple lead. That way you gain 9 experience points (1 from green, 3 from blue, 5 from purple).
• Both the blue lead and purple lead will disappear once you have completed them.
Now we have the problem that we can’t repeat this process, because the purple lead won’t come back! Only the green lead and the blue lead can be farmed like this.
Solution: Repeat the process in ALL ZONES. So we can do the green lead, blue lead, purple lead and move onto the next zone. That is possible because remember, we get a green lead in each zone as a “freebie”.
That should get you to level 7 for both scrying and excavation. Now you can technically already use gold leads, to get the different parts needed for a Mythic Item."

"Level 7-10
To make the last jump to level 10 we will already focus on getting gold leads (or any other lead). That way you can already be productive while you are grinding it up.
The best ways to farm leads:
• Treasure Chests
• World Bosses
• Psijic Rifts
• Public Dungeons (Bosses & Treasure Chests)
• Thieves Troves
• Random Monsters"

Hope that helps.

LannStone

ADarklore wrote: »

I was just looking at the guide that I use... and there are several guides on the internet.

"Level 5-7 Grind
Here is where it gets a bit more interesting, the concept is the same, but now we are going through ALL the zones in The Elder Scrolls Online. We will once again start with Artaeum.
• Complete the green lead, obtain a blue lead from the reward, complete the blue lead, obtain a purple lead from the reward, complete the purple lead. That way you gain 9 experience points (1 from green, 3 from blue, 5 from purple).
• Both the blue lead and purple lead will disappear once you have completed them.
Now we have the problem that we can’t repeat this process, because the purple lead won’t come back! Only the green lead and the blue lead can be farmed like this.
Solution: Repeat the process in ALL ZONES. So we can do the green lead, blue lead, purple lead and move onto the next zone. That is possible because remember, we get a green lead in each zone as a “freebie”.
That should get you to level 7 for both scrying and excavation. Now you can technically already use gold leads, to get the different parts needed for a Mythic Item."

"Level 7-10
To make the last jump to level 10 we will already focus on getting gold leads (or any other lead). That way you can already be productive while you are grinding it up.
The best ways to farm leads:
• Treasure Chests
• World Bosses
• Psijic Rifts
• Public Dungeons (Bosses & Treasure Chests)
• Thieves Troves
• Random Monsters"

Hope that helps.

This guide is only good for the first character on your account. Alternate characters no longer get the automatic purple leads after the green and blue leads in each zone. So, as been mentioned, the fastest way I've found is to get to Lv 5 in Artaeum and then pursue the purple and gold leads you get from farming resources in Coldharbour.

Sylvermynx

Flower picking in Coldharbour isn't the only way to get the Void Crystal leads - I've had them show up from every type of node, and the occasional mob kill as well, but not in chests. I did get a lead for one of the mythics out of a chest, and did scry/dig it, though I don't bother with trying to get all the mythic pieces for anything.

SilverBride

Snamyap wrote: »

If you have any you can do the scrying of higher level leads on your main and then switch to your alt for the excavating (and exp). Also, if you haven't yet done it: https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Blackwood_Tapestry

Oh I had forgotten about that! I will work on that today. Thank you.

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Once you get to 5 on Excavation, you can realistically dig up gold leads, not just purple ones.

And the gold lead for the Void Crystal Anomaly usually comes very quickly when you pick flowers in The Hollow City.

I can't scry these yet, but I can excavate them if another character scrys them first? I will test this today, too. Thank you.

WrathOfInnos

I don't think there's a massive difference in leveling speed between Green-Blue vs Green-Blue-Purple leads. Green and Blue are 1 and 3 experience, average 2 per lead, while the Purple cycle gives 1-3-5 to average 3 per lead. However the extra traveling, scrying time and digging makes the Purple grind slower per lead. You're probably best just doing the Artaeum grind.

RisenEclipse

I've done green, blue, and purple for each zone, including DLC zones, and I've gotten to level 8. The best thing you can do is grab the non zone specific purple leads, and then eventually gold leads until you make it up to level 10.

SilverBride

RisenEclipse wrote: »

I've done green, blue, and purple for each zone, including DLC zones, and I've gotten to level 8. The best thing you can do is grab the non zone specific purple leads, and then eventually gold leads until you make it up to level 10.

I can't do the green, blue and purple leads for each zone because I already did them on another character, and the purple leads from this are one time only. All I get now is green and blue.

Where do we get non zone specific purple leads?

freespirit

All base game Treasure Maps have a chance to drop Motif leads from which the resulting motif page is tradeable!

Those maps can be found pretty cheaply at traders and whilst traveling to the chest site pick up all nodes etc you see they can often have leads too and obviously loot normal chests as they can have leads in them

EDIT:- If you use addons may I suggest "Display Leads" addon as it has loads of info about where which leads drop

SilverBride

Thanks to everyone for all the great information. This should help a lot!

zaria

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Once you get to 5 on Excavation, you can realistically dig up gold leads, not just purple ones.

And the gold lead for the Void Crystal Anomaly usually comes very quickly when you pick flowers in The Hollow City.

For me I could no longer scry for gold leads at level 5. You could do earlier and leveled most alts to 9 with Void Crystal Anomaly, later could not, now you could have an level 9 scry and the level 5 excavate but this require lots of reloging.

ADarklore

LannStone wrote: »

ADarklore wrote: »

I was just looking at the guide that I use... and there are several guides on the internet.

"Level 5-7 Grind
Here is where it gets a bit more interesting, the concept is the same, but now we are going through ALL the zones in The Elder Scrolls Online. We will once again start with Artaeum.
• Complete the green lead, obtain a blue lead from the reward, complete the blue lead, obtain a purple lead from the reward, complete the purple lead. That way you gain 9 experience points (1 from green, 3 from blue, 5 from purple).
• Both the blue lead and purple lead will disappear once you have completed them.
Now we have the problem that we can’t repeat this process, because the purple lead won’t come back! Only the green lead and the blue lead can be farmed like this.
Solution: Repeat the process in ALL ZONES. So we can do the green lead, blue lead, purple lead and move onto the next zone. That is possible because remember, we get a green lead in each zone as a “freebie”.
That should get you to level 7 for both scrying and excavation. Now you can technically already use gold leads, to get the different parts needed for a Mythic Item."

"Level 7-10
To make the last jump to level 10 we will already focus on getting gold leads (or any other lead). That way you can already be productive while you are grinding it up.
The best ways to farm leads:
• Treasure Chests
• World Bosses
• Psijic Rifts
• Public Dungeons (Bosses & Treasure Chests)
• Thieves Troves
• Random Monsters"

Hope that helps.

This guide is only good for the first character on your account. Alternate characters no longer get the automatic purple leads after the green and blue leads in each zone. So, as been mentioned, the fastest way I've found is to get to Lv 5 in Artaeum and then pursue the purple and gold leads you get from farming resources in Coldharbour.

Argh... I forgot about that! I now recall having the same problem on another character and couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting any purple anymore. I just went back and updated my guide to note this problem for a future alt!! Thank you!!

runa_gate

I've gotten all 18 of my characters to 9 for "glowy chests" (Keen Eye for Treasure Maps level 2) and I can assure you, once you run out of purple leads in all the zones the only semi-efficient way to grind it is to go to Artaeum

SilverBride

I went to Blackwood and checked 2 of the places where the tapestry scraps are located but they weren't there for me. I didn't think this was a one time only thing but it looks like it may be.

katanagirl1

SilverBride wrote: »

RisenEclipse wrote: »

I've done green, blue, and purple for each zone, including DLC zones, and I've gotten to level 8. The best thing you can do is grab the non zone specific purple leads, and then eventually gold leads until you make it up to level 10.

I can't do the green, blue and purple leads for each zone because I already did them on another character, and the purple leads from this are one time only. All I get now is green and blue.

Where do we get non zone specific purple leads?

You should be able to go back and do the green freebie leads in each zone and that will give you a new blue freebie lead.

I have done this on one alt to get her leveled up enough to go dig up purple lancer leads and slowly working on another alt.

EDIT: typo

Amottica

Grinding Arteum until you can do purple leads then use that alt to do any and all purple and blue leads you get while playing the game.

This is not necessarily faster, but it is the sanest way I have found so far since the standard purple leads for each zone would have been burned up leveling this on the first character. I have done two alts this way.

spartaxoxo

I recommend trying to get sixth house ritual tables or seat of the snow prince leads. Those seam to have a pretty high drop rate and are purple quality.

merpins

You farm Arteum until you can do purple leads, then you do the free purple lead in every zone. Doing so gets you to level 8 or 9 plus you get a 100k gold lead for free.

AlnilamE

runa_gate wrote: »

I've gotten all 18 of my characters to 9 for "glowy chests" (Keen Eye for Treasure Maps level 2) and I can assure you, once you run out of purple leads in all the zones the only semi-efficient way to grind it is to go to Artaeum

I honestly didn't find level 2 worth it, so I only got my alts to 7. This is most useful in dungeons and dark places where you are close enough for level 1.

@SilverBride as others have said, the Void Crystal Anomaly is very fast, and the purple lead in Coldharbour also drops a lot.

What I did was farm chests and treasure maps in zones that dropped the motif leads (which can be green, blue or purple) and/or had a purple furnishing, like the Tall Papa's Lamp in Bangkorai, the Sixth House Table in Vvardenfell, the little Fox statue in The Rift, etc.

Then, once I had 5 leads that my alt couldn't scry yet in different zones, I'd hop on my main, scry all 5 (you can have 5 leads scried at a time) and then would hop on my alt to excavate them all.

I wasn't in a big rush to do this, but all my alts are level 7 now.

ADarklore

MovesLikeJaguar wrote: »

You farm Arteum until you can do purple leads, then you do the free purple lead in every zone. Doing so gets you to level 8 or 9 plus you get a 100k gold lead for free.

As others have said, and I forgot, you can ONLY do the free purple leads on ONE character- after that- no other character will receive a free purple zone lead; they are 'per account' not 'per character'. So if you've already used all the free purple leads in each zone and want to level Antiquities on an alt character, you don't have access to the free purple anymore.

Mik195

I don't know if the RNG goddess was watching me, but on Friday I did 3 delves in Cyrodil for the first time and got two purple and one gold lead from the bosses.

The_Boggart

It's a shame that the glowing chest doesn't go for treasure maps as well