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Harvesting Guide for beginners

Originally written by @Blaize_0 and recreated with permission.

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Resource Types and where to find them

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  • Ore used in Blacksmithing (Heavy Armour and Weapons) and Jewellery crafting

  • Wood used in Woodworking (Staves and Shields)

  • Cloth used in Clothing (Light Armour)

  • Leather used in Clothing (Medium Armour) Leather usually only comes from animals that have a leather type skin eg durzogs, wolves, mudcrabs

  • Runes used in Enchanting (Glyphs)

  • Alchemical Reagents (Flowers) used in Alchemy (Poisons and Potions)

  • Style Materials used to create different styles of gear. These are found in places such as wardrobes, looting enemies and resource nodes in certain zones

  • Trait Gems used to give traits to weapons, armour and jewellery. These are found by deconstructing gear and looting enemies.

  • Bait used in fishing. These are found in bugs, grub baskets/bowls and zombies.
     

Resources used for crafting clothing, weapons, glyphs, poisons and potions can be found all over Tamriel. Materials can be found in harvestable nodes as well as from killing enemies (wolves can drop hide scraps, beetles can drop beetle scuttle etc) and containers (crates, chests, barrels etc). All of these respawn after a short time.

 

Heavy sacks and chests can contain

  • Raw crafting materials

  • Alchemy materials

  • Enchanting runes

  • Provisioning ingredients

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Survey Maps

Survey maps can be rewarded by completing daily crafting writs. They give you the specific location of a collection of high yield nodes. These nodes are of the same type as specified by the type of map eg Alchemist Survey (flowers), Blacksmith Survey (raw ore), Jewellery Survey (raw dust) etc

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Zones

Finding the perfect zone to farm is the most important decision to make. There are a few things that will need to be considered when deciding on which zone to farm.

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  • Node Density – You will waste valuable time if the density is low

  • Terrain – If the zone is mountainous or has large bodies of water this will also take extra time to navigate.

  • Population – If the zone has a large player population this may cause competition for the resource nodes.

  • Enemies – Enemy density and difficulty will also impact the time it takes in between harvesting nodes.
     

 

Starter zones are a great place to start harvesting. They have a good density of nodes and low level enemies.

  • Khenarthi's Roost

  • Bleakrock Isle

  • Bal Foyen

  • Stros M'Kai

  • Betnikh
     

 

Other great zones to farm are the rest of the base game zones.

  • Alik'r Desert

  • Auirdon

  • Bangkorai

  • Deshaan

  • Eastmarch

  • Glenumbra

  • Grahtwood

  • Malabal Tor

  • Reaper's March

  • Rivenspire

  • Shadowfen

  • Stonefalls

  • Stormhaven

  • The Rift
     

These above zones are great as they also give you a chance at harvesting Aetherial Dust which is a very valuable and desired material.

 

Other notable zones

  • Craglorn – a chance at harvesting Potent and Fortified Nirncrux

  • Summerset - a chance at harvesting Clam Gall and Powdered Mother of Pearl

  • Artaeum – High density of nodes and no enemies

Addon
Addons

 

Recommended addons for Crafting and Farming  located here. 

 

One of the most recommended add-ons to use is HarvestMap.

 

This add-on places a pin on resource nodes, chests, heavy sacks/chests and fishing spots that you have already harvested from in the past. HarvestMap also has a function that allows you to plan and follow a harvesting route. This is the most effective way of resource gathering. The Addon also allows you to hide/show resource types. This is helpful if you are only looking for certain materials.

HarvestMap works best when used in conjunction with a Mini Map add-on

Character and build info

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It is best but not essential to use a character that has unlocked the following Crafting Passives for the maximum level crafting materials.

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  • Metalworking

  • Woodworking

  • Tailoring

  • Recipe Improvement

  • Solvent Proficiency

  • Potency Improvement

  • Engraver

 

The keen eye passive is extremely helpful to spot the nodes from farther away. It is also beneficial to turn off grass in the Video Settings.

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Settings > Video > Graphics > Grass - On or Off 

and also adjust your viewing distance 

Settings > Video > Graphics > View Distance - 0 to 100

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Speed and Movement Bonuses

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Some races have passives that give extra speed. This is beneficial to harvest as quickly as you can.

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  • Wood Elf – Increased Stamina, Stamina Recovery and Movement Speed Bonus

  • Orc – Reduced cost of Sprint and Movement Speed Bonus

  • Khajiit – Reduced Detection Radius
     

 

Some classes also offer Movement Speed Bonuses in their skills and passives.

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Dragonknight

  • Fiery Grip
     

 

Nightblade

  • Path of Darkness

  • Concealed Darkness (Sneak)
     

 

Sorcerer

  • Hurricane

  • Boundless Storm
     

 

World Skills that offer Movement Speed Bonus

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Vampire

  • Dark Stalker

  • Accelerating Drain

  • Elusive Mist
     

 

Werewolf

  • Werewolf Transformation

Your Character

Equipment skills and passives that give Movement Speed Bonus

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Medium Armour – Athletics

One Hand One Shield – Battlefield Mobility

Dual Wield – Quick Cloak

Bow – Hasty Retreat

 

Other Skill Line skills and passives

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Psijic Order – Accelerate (either morph)

Assault – Rapid Maneuver (either morph)

Assault - Continuous Attack

 

Some of the following armour also has Movement speed buffs that will help get to the speed limit

Armour that Ignores the Sneak speed penalty

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Mythics that offer speed bonus

  • Ring of the Wild Hunt - Increases movement speed by 15% when in combat and 45% when out of combat.

 

Mundus Stone – The Steed offers 10% movement speed

 

Currently the speed limit is 200% Your current speed bonus can been seen on the character information screen (default press “C”) under Advanced Stats

 

Champion Points

The following slottable perks are recommended

  • Master Gatherer – reduces time it takes to harvest by 10% per stage

  • PlentifulHarvest – gives a 10% chance to gain double the yield from normal resource nodes per stage.
     

 

There are several dedicated harvesting builds available online if you are interested in creating a dedicated gathering character.

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inv space
Inventory Space
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If you are planning on farming materials it is important to have somewhere to store it all.

 

Pack Merchant -At the Pack Merchant you can purchase bag space for gold. To gain the maximum (from the pack merchant) of 80 bag spaces it will cost 179,700 gold. This is character based and not account wide. Bag space upgrades can be purchased by Crowns. If you plan on using crowns to buy bag space it is best to wait until the last ones as it costs the same amount of crown no matter the level of the bag space but if buying with gold the cost increases with every level.

 

Bank Space – At the Banker you can upgrade your bank space to 240 slots with 768,500 gold. Unlike the bag space, bank space is account wide. If you plan on using crowns to buy bank space it is best to wait until the last ones as it costs the same amount of crown no matter the level of the bank space but if buying with gold the cost increases with every level.

 

Mount Training – At the Stablemaster you can upgrade your mount carrying capacity by 1 point every 20 hours for 250 gold. This can be upgraded to the maximum of 60 spaces. This will cost 15,000 gold. Riding lessons are available from the crown store but this costs real money. 10 lessons for 1,000 crowns. This is character based and not account wide.

 

Non-Combat Pets – These are available in the crown store so cost real money. They cost 1,200 crowns each. Purchasing the pets increases your bag space by 5 slots each on all characters account wide. If you own pets your bag space will be increased by 5 spaces and there is no need to equip them.

 

ESO Plus – By subscribing to ESO Plus one of the benefits is that your bank space is doubled to 480 slots. Another great benefit of ESO Plus is the crafting bag. All of the crafting materials that you collect will automatically be added to your crafting bag. This bag is unlimited and will not be counted towards your bag or bank space.

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