In this guide, we will share ten tips that you can use to help you level up your characters quickly in the Elder Scrolls Online.
These can be used for creating a new character entirely from scratch and getting them to max level as quickly as possible, or just for rapidly grinding a particular skill line to its max rank (normally 50).
Slot Skills from Many Skill Lines
This is a trick that helps you to level up certain skill lines more quickly, due to the way in which XP works in ESO. Whenever you gain XP, a portion of it will go towards each of the skills you have slotted on your currently active bar - improving both the rank of that skill, and the rank of the skill line that it is associated with.
You can take advantage of this in a couple of different ways - either slot skills from several different skill lines to level up several of them at once, or if there's a particular skill line that you want to level up really fast, then slot as many skills as possible from that skill line.
You can even level up weapon skill lines without having that weapon equipped, by leaving some skills from that weapon slotted. You won't be able to use the skills, but they will still get XP.
This works for most skill lines, except for those that are leveled up in a special way, such as Fighters Guild and Undaunted.
Craft Training Gear
If possible, you should craft training gear for your character. This means armour and weapons with the Training trait. Each Training item equipped gives a small bonus percentage to your XP gains, and wearing several will substantially improve your leveling speed.
If you're not able to craft the training gear yourself, try asking a friend or asking in a guild, there's often players willing to help out with this, although some may charge a small fee for crafting services.
It's also a good idea to craft the training gear in armour sets that increase your damage output - sets like Ashen Grip and Innate Axiom are good choices for beginners. This allows you to dispatch enemies more quickly, which will also improve the speed at which you gain XP.
Get a Mount
If you're new to ESO, it's highly advisable to obtain a mount as soon as possible. The cheapest way of doing this is to save up 42,700 gold and visit any stablemaster in the game (you can find one in most major settlements). However you can also purchase a mount from the Crown Store, but this costs real money. Sometimes you might have a mount available already, depending on which version of ESO you bought. Some versions of ESO Chapters also included mounts.
This will allow you to move around a lot more quickly, reducing the travel time between quests.
Use the Correct Skills
When leveling up by yourself, the most efficient way of doing this is generally by getting into combat with crowds of enemies and dealing with them all at once, before moving onto another crowd.
Even if you aren't deliberately doing that and are only questing, you'll still be outnumbered by enemies in most engagements.
Therefore it helps to dedicate at least a couple of your skill slots to skills that will help you with this. Slot a good AOE skill for dealing with multiple enemies, and a self-heal to make sure you don't die.
For example if I am leveling up a Magicka Dragonknight, I would slot Wall of Elements and Dragon Blood as soon as possible to cover these areas.
Find a Good Grind Spot
This is optional and really depends what your priorities are in ESO at the moment. For example if you are new to ESO then you might want to use questing as your primary way of leveling up, in which case you can probably skip this step.
But if you're not interested in questing and just want to level up quickly, then it is a very good idea to find a grind spot.
Here are five grind spots that you might find useful for this. If you don't like any of those options, then you can try grinding Dolmens (it's very common to find groups in Alik'r Desert doing this) or find your own - basically any area with lots of groups of enemies that respawn quickly can work as a decent grind spot.
When coming up with your own grind spot, it helps to figure out a route to run - if your grind route is a good one then you'll find that by the time you've done a full circle, the enemies will have already respawned, so you don't have to spend time waiting around.
Do a Random Dungeon
Doing a random normal dungeon each day is a quick and reliable way to get an extra chunk of XP. The XP gain is reduced if you do more than one random dungeon per day, so you might want to limit it to only doing the one.
To participate in a random dungeon, simply open the Dungeon Finder tool and queue for a random normal dungeon. Sometimes the queue can take a little while, so you can continue doing other activities in the meantime.
Invite a Friend
If possible, it can help to invite a friend. This not only makes the XP grind experience a little less boring, but can also help you to try out more difficult grind spots that can potentially reward you with more XP if you're able to handle them, such as Skyreach Catacombs in Craglorn.
Use XP Scrolls
It's a good idea to keep claiming your daily rewards in ESO, because over time they tend to reward you with loads of XP scrolls. These scrolls give you a 50% XP boost that lasts for two hours. Simply use the scroll from your inventory to activate the XP boost.
If you don't have any XP scrolls at the moment, then you can buy Psijic Ambrosia from Guild Stores (or craft them yourself if you have the recipe and ingredients). These are basically potions that give you a 50% XP boost for 30 minutes.
There's also the Aetherial Ambrosia (100% boost) and the Mythic Aetherial Ambrosia (150% boost), but these are very rare and expensive to get.
Keep an Eye Out for Events
Periodically, there are in-game events in ESO that typically last for a week or two and provide an easy-to-obtain XP boost that can be refreshed as many times as you want for the duration of the event. Not all events have an XP boost, but those that do include the Witches Festival and the New Life Festival.
You can check out our Events page to find out which Events are coming to the game soon.
Be Oppurtunistic
As you get more experienced at the game, you may start noticing little ways to increase your XP gains via minimal effort and time investment. An example of this would be "tagging" enemies that are already in combat with other players (i.e. hit them with a light attack and then continue about your business), which will reward you with some of the XP when the enemies are killed by the other player.
Another example is keeping an eye out for nearby world events that don't have much travel time to reach and will give you a useful XP boost for participating, such as nearby Dolmens in the base game zones, Harrowstorms in Western Skyrim or The Reach, or Dragons in Northern Elsweyr and Southern Elsweyr. Joining the fight against nearby World Bosses who are already under attack from several players can also get you a quick little boost.
The XP gain from most of these won't be huge, but if you're trying to get to max level as soon as possible then it all adds up.
We hope you enjoyed this guide about leveling up in ESO. The Elder Scrolls Online is a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) developed by Zenimax Online Studios.
