Wow very very well done and even updated for Dark Brotherhood. Thank you for all of your hard work.

Amazing!! I love one stop shopping for information. I will for sure be coming back and using this as needed in the future!

The Guide to Enchanting has had a bit of an update. I was waiting to see the resolution of the issue brought up in the Official Feedback thread, which has still not been truly finalized but with the last statement by a GM there "Any changes to these crafting nodes will be after Dark Brotherhood launches, but we are working on it. Thanks for your feedback!" I probably should have made this update at that point instead of waiting to describe what will eventually be ZOS's "final" plan, but my guide is now updated anyhow.

The Guide now reads:

"After Dark Brotherhood, every runestone you find in the wild has a 1/3 chance to drop a potency rune in addition to its aspect & essence runes. Each time a potency rune does drop, it has a 50% chance to be based on character level and a 50% chance to be based on points in Potency Improvement. If you are unable to find the proper potency runes in the wild, you can now purchase them from a vendor."

and

"Every runestone should contain an essence rune along with an aspect rune since the launch of Dark Brotherhood. Essence runes are random; which area you farm makes no difference to the rune you acquire."

and

"Every runestone should contain an aspect rune after the launch of Dark Brotherhood; aspect & essence runes are found together in all runestones when they spawn. Aspect runes are random; which area you farm makes no difference to the rune you acquire."

Note that it is unclear whether there will come a time when potency runes are distributed this way only in battle-skilled areas rather than all nodes everywhere (GMs seemed to misunderstand the issue of concern in the official feedback thread). It is possible they may make gathering resources for enchanting more similar to gathering other resource nodes and make this 50/50 split only occur in battle-zoned areas (Cyrodiil & DLCs) with other areas (at least partially?) tiered to the level of the zone.

Was looking for something like this. Thank you!

You, sir, deserve an award. Awesome guide.

Tevalaur wrote: »

oneshot_onekill wrote: »

You, sir, deserve an award. Awesome guide.

Thank you, but I'm not a "sir"

Most of my characters are "Teva (Something)" and the "laur" part of my username here stands for "Laura" (my real name).

I could use a leveling buddy what system are you on?

I needed to remove the link to the overall 103-page PDF. It's simply too difficult to keep the cumbersome to re-combine file up-to-date after even minor edits to one section; each section still has its own associated PDF which is linked near the top of each webpage, just below the page title.

I've also reworked some of the sections and added an Introduction / Table of Contents which reads something like this:

Introduction to Crafting

Gear received as rewards or looted from dead bodies can be studied (trait research) or deconstructed for materials & crafting inspiration (leveling). Stolen items and items with a value of 0 gold will give far less inspiration than other items.

Style materials (and occasionally motifs) are typically found in furniture such as desks, cabinets, dressers, trunks, and urns. Provisioning ingredients can be found everywhere but abound in crates and barrels. If you kill an animal, you may find many items -- including a usable hide for leatherwork (not foul hides, sell those). During your travels gather nodes of ore, fallen logs, fibrous plants, runes, alchemical reagents and pure water.

Rough wood must be sanded, ore must be smelted into ingots, hides must be processed, and raw fibrous plants must be spun & woven before being used to create items. This is done in the "Refinement" tab at a crafting table. Each craft has its own crafting table, located in most cities throughout each region and at special crafting sites (oriented to crafting a particular set) which are scattered about the wilderness.

When ready to create an item, bring refined materials of the proper level, a style material, and a trait gem if you wish the item to have a trait (only items destined for a writ delivery or crafting buddy's decon should not have a trait). After gear is crafted it can be improved in quality or have an enchantment added or changed, but the trait, style, and item level cannot be altered.

Each character automatically knows how to craft in their own racial style, but must study before creating other styles. This is done by reading style motifs (books and/or chapters). The basic racial motifs (blue books) and the Imperial motif (gold book) can be learned immediately, but other motifs require an investment of skill points into the material tiers before they can be understood (except when purchased from the crown store).

Upon reaching character level 6, the game offers tutorial quests, started by approaching the "writ board" in your starter city. These tutorials cover these basics and, once complete, enable you to do crafting writs.


Gradually Invest Skill Points

This plan will help keep the points from getting out of hand when skill points are difficult to get in early levels. Eventually you'll find you have plenty of points to put in all recommended or desired skills.

Provisioning would be the first place to invest points in my opinion. Spending points in Connoisseur (to extend the duration of drinks) is essential before drinking Psijic Ambrosia (the experience booster). The ability to make food at your level (Recipe Improvement) in at least blue quality (Recipe Quality 2) is significant and should be invested next. While Brewer & Chef might also be handy, they are only absolutely necessary once using perfect roe to create recipes such as Psijic Ambrosia & Orzorga's Smoked Bear Haunch as other ingredients are relatively plentiful.

On a first character, invest one rank into Keen Eye for Blacksmith, Cloth, Wood, & Alchemy as soon as possible to learn what these materials look like and to begin gathering these resources as you play. Keen Eye is not necessary for Enchanting however; all runestones glow already and do not blend into the vegetation like many other collectible materials, so once you learn to recognize them they can be easily spotted from afar.

Always invest as rapidly in possible in the skills that reduce research time and allow simultaneous trait research studies. Further invest in your blacksmith/cloth/wood skills as you level, keeping your material tier useful to your most advanced character's level.

Early on I'd skip putting points into Enchanting, focusing on leveling enchanting through deconstruction. I'd also ignore Alchemy skills for a short while -- except for the 2 skill points that help effectively learn all traits while starting to level the craft nicely.

If you follow the recommendations in Sunshine Daydream's Guide to Crafting you'll eventually invest around 100 points for a well-rounded do-it-all crafter:

• 11 points Alchemy (plus 4 for consumers)
• 15 points Enchanting
• 14 points Provisioning (plus 3-6 for consumers)
• 20 points Blacksmithing
• 20 points Clothing
• 20 points Woodworking

Other Considerations

If you don't normally wear light armor but wish to level up the Light Armor skill line, craft a sash (light belt) to minimize the loss to your armor. If you don't normally wear heavy armor but wish to level up the Heavy Armor skill line, craft a cuirass (heavy chest piece) to gain the most armor rating. If you wish to level up the Medium Armor skill line, craft bracers (medium hands) if you typically wear heavy armor or guards (medium legs) if you typically wear light armor.

One trick I wish I had used when researching traits: study either light or medium armor (whichever you are more likely to actually wear) and heavy armor on your main crafter while initially studying on light/medium (the other option) armor and metal weapons on another character. Then consolidate traits by having that alt make study items for your main crafter. This saves no overall time, and eventually all traits are learned on your main crafter anyhow, but does greatly reduce the time before being able to make the best set pieces.

Motifs can be expensive! You'll only want to purchase one copy of these, so keep blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking on the same character for shared knowledge of style motifs. Some folks prefer to split off the consumables crafting (provisioning, alchemy, enchanting) to lower the percentage of skill points dedicated to crafting, but my main character is also my crafter (in all schools) and I like it that way.

If your playing characters know provisioning & alchemy you can always make food, drink, & potions when needed during your gameplay and without an interruption to change characters. Plus, unlocking the crafting level necessary for useful skills will be easily done while leveling the crafts anyhow.

Remember that while your main character(s) will eventually have plenty of skill points, it can be difficult to gather sufficient levels & skill points on a character designed solely around crafting. However, if you are creating a dedicated crafter, Orcs should be considered because they receive an inherant 10% boost to crafting inspiration. Also of note, high level Orcs can choose the Swift Warrior passive which increases sprint speeds while reducing sprint cost for faster gathering runs.

Gathering runs include lots of time sprinting. The Steed Mundus Stone's bonus to movement speed and medium armor with the well-fitted trait and stamina enchantments will aid in gathering runs. Consider using armor sets whose bonus includes a boost to stamina, such as Night's Silence, Hunding's Rage, and Eternal Hunt.

Have you just hit CP 160? Congratulations! Now prepare to spend a lot of materials to make your final gear... Each weapon or piece of armor can require most of a stack of rubedite ore, rubedo leather, ancestor silk or ruby ash wood. Age-old wisdom has it that weapons show the biggest difference, so first craft a gold-quality version of your weapon. Until you've gathered sufficient resources to craft CP 160 armor (or perhaps even longer) wear CP 150 armor pieces improved to purple quality.

If you have Champion Points to spend, place 30 thief points into Sprinter in The Tower and 10-75 points into The Lover. 30 points on The Tower boosts all crafting inspiration 20% and placing those points into Sprinter will help you gather resources faster. The first 10 points in The Lover grants Plentiful Harvest, which doubles the yield when harvesting from crafting nodes. If you place a total of 75 points in The Lover you reduce the time to actually gather from a node by 50% which can make it easier to grab materials before being attacked. If your character's main focus is crafting, consider focusing on the Mooncalf aspect of The Lover as it will allow you to sprint more while gathering resources.

Ditto, as a new crafter this is perfect. Thank you

Edited the original post today to add a link to the new page on Housing & Furnishings as well.

Typically I have drafts ready to upload upon the launch of a major update but I simply was unable to do so this time. Due to a death in the family in May, I was unable to prepare from the PTS so website updates were instead finalized in the first week of June, 2017. All pertinent information should now be considered updated!

EDIT: For example, changed lists of which furnishings could be purchased where and for how much, especially those with Rolis Hlaalu or the new vendors in Vvardenfell although some other vendors also gained an expanded inventory (i.e. the Dark Elf Column Lantern).

This weekend's edits:
EDIT: June 18/19, 2017 - 3 major edits:
1. Noticed that I'd not updated these links/overview to include the separate page on Craftable Sets and a few other recent layout changes/enhancements, so updated the overall list/links
2. Added Master Writs to the Alchemy Guide and enhanced the organization within the tables of alchemical recipes
3. Reworked the Styles page, publicly revealing the design of a long-planned and finally underway renovation of this section.

P.S. Will also add a sentence about Rapid Maneuvers to that paragraph on sprinting; thank you for the suggestion @drakhan2002_ESO

i know im late on ths amazing post but... link not found on any info posted
i would like to have at hand all the ingredients needed for any recipie or potion pls
be safe, stay home ...and play ESO