Welcome to our ESO Alchemy Guide. Here you will find the basics about alchemy, leveling the skill line, how your character can benefit from it and some powerful potions combinations. As I write this (May 4, 2016), Alchemy is becoming more and more important due to the Dark Brotherhood release at the end of the month. Therefore it’s time to learn all about alchemy and how it can help you.
Table of Contents
Alchemy Basics
Simply put, Alchemy is a crafting skill line that allows one to make potions and poisons. You’ll need only three things, Reagents (plants/mushrooms found in the world), waters (AKA solvents) and a crafting station. Reagents are found around the world, in delves, and there individual level doesn’t change (a columbine flower is always a columbine regardless if you find it on starter island or end game). The waters, however, determine the level of the potion or poison you can craft. Additionally, like previous The Elder Scrolls games, you do not innately know the ingredients effects. Only by mixing and trying different combinations will you unlock all the effects. Don’t worry, we’ll show you how to do this and more later on. In summary, you need water, two or more reagents, and an alchemy crafting station to get started making potions or poisons.
Alchemy Skill Line
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Only by leveling up the skill line can you learn higher level potions, which have a greater effect (more resources back, longer duration, etc). Additionally, Alchemy is the only crafting skill that provides a performance boost via Medicinal Uses. Longer lasting potions give more regeneration and with a cool down time of 45 seconds, VR 15 potions (or CP 150) will last longer than 45 seconds and can be used on cool down for massive regeneration or other effects. Below is a side-by-side comparison of a Tri-Potion and take note of the last effects.
[table id=3 /]Luckily leveling alchemy is a breeze which I’ll show you in a video below, but first we need to understand how waters work.
Waters
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NOTE: If you’re new to the removal of Veteran Ranks, essentially Champion Point (CP) 150 means Veteran Rank 15 (just take off the zero). So CP 10 is simply VR1 waters under the old system.
Above you see the list of waters and I’ve added the list of waters to make poisons as well. So where do you find these waters? The answer is just about anywhere. The easiest place I’ve found is in backpacks or down by a body of water. The Keen Eye passive will help you greatly if you’re new to looking for waters so I recommend investing in it after you’ve gained enough skill points. Remember that waters, unlike Reagents will be found based on the level of the mobs in your area. You will not find end game waters in a lowbie zone (some exceptions). When in doubt, go to an area with mobs at or around the level in which you seek to collect them.
Reagents
Reagents Prior to Dark Brotherhood
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Reagents Added on Dark Brotherhood
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These alchemy materials can be found throughout Tamriel pretty much everywhere. Eight reagents were added to the ESO Patch 2.4 Dark Brotherhood and are mainly useful for poison combinations. Below is a recipe to unlock every effect of all the pre-DB reagents. Simple mix two at a time working top to bottom, left to right and you’ll get plenty of achievements. And now you’re ready to level the Alchemy Skill line.
COMBINATION UNLOCK
Blessed Thistle + Stinkthorn
Blue Entoloma + Bugloss
Blue Entoloma + White Cap
Bugloss + Columbine
Columbine + Mountain Flower
Corn Flower + Lady Smock
Corn Flower + Violet Coprinus
Emetic Russula + Stinkthorn
Emetic Russula + Violet Coprinus
Imp Stool + Mountain Flower
Lady Smock + Violet Coprinus
Luminous Russula + Mountain Flower
Blue Entoloma + Namira’s Rot
Bugloss + White Cap
Columbine + Wormwood
Corn Flower + Wormwood
Dragonthorn + Stinkthorn
Dragonthorn + Water Hyacinth
Emetic Russula + Water Hyacinth
Imp Stool + Luminous Russula
Imp Stool + Nirnroot
Lady Smock + Namira’s Rot
Luminous Russula + Wormwood
Nirnroot + Bugloss
Namira’s Rot + Nirnroot
Namira’s Rot + Water Hyacinth
Namira’s Rot + Wormwood
Nirnroot + Violet Coprinus
Water Hyacinth + Wormwood
Below Courtesy of Qweezark
New reagent traits Unlock
- Nightshade + Fleshfly Larva + Stinkhorn
- Nightshade + Mudcrab Chitin + Whitecap
- Beetle Scuttle + Mudcrab Chitin
- Beetle Scuttle + Torchbug Thorax + Violet Coprinus
- Spider Egg + Butterfly Wing + Blue Entoloma
- Spider Egg + Mudcrab Chitin + Luminous Russula
- Scrib Jelly + Fleshfly Larva + Emetic Russula
- Scrib Jelly + Butterfly Wing + Blessed Thistle
- Butterfly Wing + Torchbug Thorax + Nirnroot
- Torchbug Thorax + Fleshfly Larva + Stinkhorn
- Torchbug Thorax + Corn Flower
Reagents needed for the 11 pots:
New Reagents: Old Reagents:
- 2 Beetle Scuttle 1 Blessed Thistle
- 3 Butterfly Wing 1 Blue Entoloma
- 3 Fleshfly Larva 1 Cornflower
- 3 Mudcrab Chitin 1 Emetic Russula
- 2 Nightshade 1 Luminous Russula
- 2 Scrib Jelly 1 Nirnroot
- 2 Spider Egg 2 Stinkhorn
- 4 Torchbug Thorax 1 Violet Coprinus
- 1 Whitecap
Where to get new reagents:
- Beetle Scuttle – Thunder Bug, Shalk, Assassin Beetle, Beetle (insect)
- Butterfly Wing – Butterfly (insect)
- Fleshfly Larva – Fleshfly (insect), Zombie
- Mudcrab Chitin – Mudcrab
- Nightshade – Plant, get from harvestable nodes
- Scrib Jelly – Kwama(scrib, worker, warrior), Scrib (insect)
- Spider Egg – All Spiders
- Torchbug Thorax – Torchbug (insect)
Where to get Oils:
- Netch
- Troll
- Deadroth
- Ogre
- Wamasu
- Haj Mota (beast in Hew’s Bane)
- Giant
- Mammoth
- Ogrim
All Mats (materials) are not created equal and this is no exception with alchemy. Columbine, Namira’s Rot and Mountain Flower are highly sought after due to there usefulness. I suggest collecting as many as you can early on.
Power Leveling Alchemy
The above video shows you how to power level alchemy in 50 in a matter of minutes. All you’ll need is a few hundred flowers or mushrooms and roughly 50 waters at each level. Once completed, you can respec your points and only use the Medicinal Use passive for a performance gain.
Powerful Potion Combinations
[table id=7 /]These are not the only useful potions, but a good start to help you maintain those helpful buffs.
That’s it for our ESO Alchemy Guide and one of the simpler yet very important crafting in the game. It will only get more important with the additions of poisons as I will be creating a separate guide on that in a future post.
A tip is some potions have sub reagents for spell power pot use water hylanth in place of namiras rot saves quite a bit of gold note that pots made with subs will not stack with pots from other combos
“Alkahest is a hypothetical universal solvent, having the power to dissolve every other substance, including gold.”
welp nothing like a good vial of acid to throw at my enemies
Also Deltia where do you find the oils? Seeing how the eight new reagents seem to be from creatures, do oils also drop from them?
Good guide Deltia! According to the official poison-making post on the forums, they report the oils drop similar to existing crafting mob drops (ie. meat, hides, etc.) and the level of the mob determines the level of the drop (ie. lower mobs will drop lower level oils). Happy crafting!
I am not Deltia, but I can answer the question. Yes, oils do drop from the creatures. I discovered this when I was killing mammoths in Wrothgar.
Please see above.
Where to get Oils:
Netch
Troll
Deadroth
Ogre
Wamasu
Haj Mota (beast in Hew’s Bane)
Giant
Mammoth
Ogrim
Should note that without keen eye, the water looks like large bubbling coming up to the surface rather than the splashes for a fishing hole. Also they can be found in water skins!
As usual, great guide! May I suggest that you re-designate the general term “waters” (cited above) to “solvents” and change to reference of ‘waters’ to “oils” when discussing poisons. This will make everything more consistent with what was said by Rich Lambert and less confusing to most players as well, imo. 🙂
Sure great suggestion.
Just one note. If you want to use that character as Alchemist up to level 30 use few plants that gives you potion. After that you can use all plants to discover every trait they have, you get more xp if you do it later and not at the start.
Other than that, it’s a great guide.
Deltia,great guide!I really need your help. I really like ESO but i cant find the class for me. I played them all and I leveled them to VR. I want something that can deal tons of damage and survive. What class
and what build do you suggest me to take? Please help me. Thanks
Well I like Templar or NB for that type of game play.
Thanks Deltia
Just gotta say I follow your guides and find them so helpful. However mines a little different. I use a two handed DK, heavy armour. I do understand the dps/tank difference but I deal well. He’s more general purpose in that area so I play to those strengths. I do put skills on health but mostly on stamina. But he’s in total my best. I do play around with others but for me it’s DK. But preference is key 🙂
Hi Deltia, What do you think is the most difficult Class to build?
You turned my game right around, I’m V16 DK Stam & its been awesome since I found you on Youtube & here, thanks.
Stam DK is hardest to play, easiest mag templar.
HI, thanks a lot for the great guide. I did run into one problem however, in the combinations unlock section “Nirnroot + White Cap”, the last one in the middle row, actually has no common traits so following the guide left me with white cap missing detection, and nirnroot missing lower spell crit. I’m guessing this is a DB change because the only other lower spell crit I found was butterfly wings, a DB mat. Otherwise great guide, thanks again.
He needs to update that match due to zos changing white cap. Double check the reagent you need the trait for and pair it off with another reagent in either torchbug thorax or wormwood for detection
This is a list of potions to make to learn all the new traits with as few potions as I found possible. If you have a shorter list let me know! This assumes you have Laboratory Use Skill.
MUDCRAB CHITIN + NIGHTSHADE + SPIDER EGG
BUTTERFLY WING + SRIB JELLY + SPIDER EGG
FLESHFLY LARVA + NIGHTSHADE + ENEMIC RUSSULA
SRIB JELLY + FLESHFLY LARVA + ENEMIC RUSSULA
BEETLE SCUTTLE + MUDCRAB CHITIN + WHITE CAP
TORCHBUG THORAX + FLESHFLY LARVA + WHITE CAP
BEETLE SCUTTLE + BUTTERFLY WING + VIOLET COPRINUS
BUTTERFLY WING + TORCHBUG THORAX + NINROOT
BUTTERFLY WING + SPIDER EGG + LUMINOUS RUSSULA
SRIB JELLY + BLESSED THISTLE
SPIDER EGG + BLUE ENTOLMA
*MUDCRAB CHITIN + WHITE CAP
*TORCHBUG THORAX + DRAGONTHORN
*Alternatively just eat the first ingredient
Awesome tyvm for posting.
Deltia – Just a quick note as I got done using your alchemy guides to bring mine to 50.
Nirnroot and Whitecap will not combine anymore. The effect on whitecap is now Decieve, which can be combined with another, I think Bugloss to make it work.
To get the final combine on Nirnroot, combine it with a Butterfly wing, and then you’re all set. You will want to update your guide when you have the chance.
Any questions, hit me up on the NA server – Char name Ja’Khil.
Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve updated it.
So… I think they changed Namira’s Rot as well because it doesn’t combine with Wormwood to create anything and I haven’t figured out what the last trait is or what to combine it with.
Very helpful!
The order in which you need to unlock the traits doesn’t matter, right? Thanks for the guide!
HI, so I was you using your great page and I discovered a couple things, Firstly: Nirnroot + Bugloss does not work, Sub bugloss for butterfly wing And secondly, you do not have Mudcrab chitin or Torchbug Thorax – but I was able to piece them together using the others, but for everyone else, here’s the combos!
The Unlocks for those are:
Mudcrab + Impstool, Nightshade(2 unlocks), Whitecap
Torch bug + Buttterfly wing, Nirnroot, Stinkhorn, Whitecap
Thanks again! <3
Thx
Totally vouch for this guide, on s whim thought i would try, 1 – 50 in less than an hour before downtime, mostly poisons due to all the solvents collected from the sky anchor things
I too vouch for the guide – even more so now that poisons are in the game – instead of the lowbie wasted pots, use poison oils and make semi-useful low level poisons to keep your weapons from wasting charges while you’re out farming for mats and just generally running around. I’ve done three different toons this way just to get the longer effectiveness time passive and higher level waters/oils to drop.
Deltia – have you done the poison guide yet? I’m interested in that one.
No I have not, there’s some good information on other sites regarding it.
Alchemy went from being my lowest skill line to my second skill to hit level 50! Thank you for this guide!