Today I found out that it's pretty mixed. This morning I found someone offering Bows for various motifs, one of them being Shields (but i decided I wanted to do as many writs as possible that morning so I ignored it). Later I got Legs from someone for the Shields, instead. I already have legs, but I figure they're a better bargaining piece. Probably. Especially since I haven't gotten Chests yet. I find it unlikely that things like belts and shoulders would be that rare, yet I haven't seen a single one. :v

In all honesty, though, I'm happy having SOMETHING, so that I can either trade or sell, even if it means paying extra to get what I want. I'm just exhausted. not as bad as last year but close.



So as Lucius quickly reaches level 50, I have to think about what he's gonna wear as an outfit. Since I'm not ready to make a set of cp160 armor yet and I don't think I'll ever be ready

I could have him wear something practical, as it's the type of person he seems to be, or I can get flashy before he's actually used.

I was thinking maybe recreating one of my recent Dragonborn? The gladiator aesthetic does suit his fighting style, and i'm just coming to the realization that they both actually share quite a few things in common, combat-wise. (Sword+Board and dual-wield, Fire, mix of metal and leather armor, Dragons. Actually that Dragonborn was Nibenese, so I think I may have subconsciously made Lucius' previous incarnation in Skyrim because I couldn't wait to finally put him in ESO. To my knowledge, Lucius wasn't an archeologist, though.)

Anyways, I can always just go and make him a Steel Imperial set for him to wear as an outfit. It'll most likely be the cheapest option.

Maybe a mix of OotH and Minotaur?

^Probably, yeah

I'm so Tired (I actually got a swords this morning. I've only ever gotten 2 motifs from regular dailies so I'm probably not doing them anymore)

Gah!

Worm Cult Motif completed, thanks to trades from a few people across Craglorn and Vvardenfell. Watch me get the pieces I was missing either tomorrow or Monday morning :T

But hey, it helped someone. Still have Helmets and Bows.

That aside, I wonder if I should take Lucius for Skyshard hunting in Bangkorai and The Rift. He's at level 48 and I'd have to have to farm more materials for the last 2 days of the event. I know Fjotreid desperately needs skill points but the only place left for him is Craglorn.

Welp, thanks to an unexpected generous deposit from our government, I was finally able to replace my 10 year old beast with a new computer. It’s a desktop with a 5K display and double the video RAM of my old computer. While it has only 8 GBs of RAM, I’m comfortable with it at this time, and I know I can always add more down the road. Likewise, the graphics can not be swapped out in this model, but it CAN support eGPU’s, which means I can hook up some seriously powerful GPUs and run the crap out of this 5K display . . .

Anyway, I finally got ESO loaded up, my game files transferred over from the old computer, and — damn.

Been running ESO at medium graphics with the view distance set to 36. Not happy with the fog, especially from one of the myriad vantage points you come across in this game. But putting this game up to ultra high puts the view distance at 100, and man oh man, it is gorgeous. And smooth. Unbelievably so. And I now have God Rays and DOF, things I had been accustomed to in Skyrim.

So far in the short time I”be been playing ESO on this new computer, I’m very pleased with my purchase.

Nice! Congrats!


Congrats!

Sounds nice, Rider. Glad the transition went smoothly and the results sound great!

So glad you were able to make the jump to a more modern machine, haute. This game can be really pretty.

Today I spent several hours buying up discounted motifs because I'm a lost cause. Two more hours for one last session of crafting hell, since i'm pretty sure I won't be able to make it to the last few hours of the event tomorrow.

Look, I like free things.

My Jubilee event is over, as I had to go to work. I ended up with nine of the Worm Cult pages, but the scattering of other motifs was more important to Laurie, as she was starting from zero on most of them. She has over 50% of that vast array filled in, which gives her a decent chance to make master writ requests. In only a week, she'll have the trait researched for her second one! (OK, the first was Alchemy, so no research needed).

I took Minx the Dunmer, specially rolled for PTS, to see Morrowind and Summerset, while I have the chance.

Vaardenfell feels scaled down, which may have a lot to do with walking/running, but Vivec City amplifies that for me. Suran felt larger. She only did a couple of quests there, so far.

She's busy furnishing the Golden Gryphon Garret, the free inn room in Alidon, since it costs nothing to do so on the PTS. She wanted to put in a jewel crafting station, but they forgot that option. It has a very high ceiling, so she may try adding an upper floor. She's done a delve, made a ring and an amulet, and got herself killed at one of those Geyser things, because there weren't enough people there to help.

Summerset architecture can be summed up in one word - unstable. Everything looks like it would fall down in real life. It's the exact opposite of their Nord style, which is over-braced. Minx hasn't explored everywhere yet. There seem to be areas that are quest-gated, so she can't reach them yet. I created her at low level, rather than as a template character, so she has difficulty storming in under her own power.

No "hide" options in the Outfit Station. I always look, whenever there's a new patch. I do hope they didn't find an insurmountable problem with it in development.

Lmfao, I was right. Last batch of dailies gave me some more pieces. Quite a few of them, in fact. All that's left is to sort out all these materials and motifs and life can return to normal. With all but one of my storage boxes filled up, I wonder how long that will take. :v

Lucius hit 50, and now I gotta worry about equipment for him. I have 2 crafted sets in mind, since unlike the Crafting Monkey and Fjotreid, he didn't really get to adventure in a zone of his own so he didn't get any sets as he adventured. I don't wanna farm for them, but i may consider it

The problem is I'm not sure if I want to go through with the mixed armor thing, and which pieces he'll use. I want to say primarily medium with some heavy, but obviously trying that out with cp160 armor will be...expensive. Maybe I should do cp150 for a test run? Or recreate him in the PTS? (Especially with the overhauls on the way)

I think I'm committed to making him a Stamina DK, so at least there's that.

With the possibility of all-crafted on the horizon, you also need to plan for that. Even if he gets a farmed overland set, it could well be swapped out when the jewels can be crafted, too. Laurie is holding off for lack of Rubedo Leather, so her choices are simpler right now.

Lildereth just got her grownup suit. She picked Hunding’s and Spriggan’s Thorns with a pair of Night Mother’s Gaze bows in case she decides to swap out for that set instead (with Agility jewelry). She might also go back to Tava’s Favor. She leveled mostly in Tava’s and Hunding’s with assorted jewelry.

If anyone is looking for a particular dropped set, please speak up! Thanks to the generosity of Argis and Buffy, Jerric hunts for treasure chests all the time. Every chest has a set piece in it. A lot of them get ground up for mats since his crew is mostly geared up now. He would love to pass them along to friends instead.

Grats to Lil! Hundings + Spriggans is just what Buffy wears when wielding her bows - great combo.

Unna has five pieces of purple Hunding's too, but since she uses a two-hander we went with Sword Singer as the dropped set. She's almost caught up on Medium, having started with Heavy just for looks, which she can now do with an outfit (except for pants). Laurie is still collecting hides for her set, especially after the long jubilee event using up so many normal mats, and returning obscure ones. She's been in Medium (plus one heavy, one light) since the start, but may switch from sword+board to dual-wield (as may Taminwe). Cat Man Dhou will be the Heavy tank guy, once we can give him some attention, and raise his level.

Blossom was forced to go and cash in the Clothier surveys, too, which took her to several zones she'd not visited before. So a lot of time was also spent collecting wayshrines to help with future visits. Unna will be next, doing the smithing surveys to finish off the last couple of levels in that.

The crew in general has been making iron/homespun/maple items to fill in Laurie's trait gaps, and she's been making stuff for them to deconstruct, using the second-level mats that Blossom has outgrown. Blossom herself will get the drops from Unna's Cadwell's Gold quests, currently about half-way through in Greenshade. There will be even more of those once Unna completes Smithing.

And Minx is exploring Summerset, and Jewel Crafting. As a fresh-made character, she doesn't know much of the land outside Summerset, so can't go back to use facilities she's never seen. Joining the Mage's Guild sent her to Davon's Watch, but did at least open the wayshrine there. You can probably sail to other places, but I haven't checked that out yet. She did a bunch of other start-up stuff while there, like crafting certs, joining the Fighters' Guild, etc. which probably can't be done on Summerset.

We're about to start furnishing the inn room in Auridon again (lost to patch refresh) as the 1 crown prices can't be beat. I'll try and use as many new items as will work in a single room. I just hope I don't get too attached to the place - or Minx.

Ghastley, sounds like your crew is busy! Thank Minx for venturing into PTS land and sharing some of your findings.

I'm looking forward to gaining an extra gear slot when bows/staves become two slots. And also the additional options from being able to craft set jewelry.

I'm still a little leery until it all goes live and I can try out the final stuff. I'm still smarting from the 'change trait' ability that I ended up writing off as it requires grinding content I'm not interested in.

Knowing some of what's coming is definitely inhibiting for the present. Unna is hoping that the greatsword becomes viable relative to dual-wield for DPS, once it's two slots of a set. She likes its skill line abilities, but the single slot was the big downside. (And of course she still wants hidden pants, instead of just none).

I have two sword+board characters who did that for solo survival at low levels who may switch to dual-wield, but I'm waiting on the community to evaluate the jewelry possibilities first. Cat Man Dhou actually prefers mace+shield to sword, and he'll stay there.

I'm not happy with the way ESO ties the magic you use to the weapon you wield, but them's the rules. You can at least train up multiple skill lines and switch when you need to do so. It just takes forever to get there.

This is actually what I was counting on! 'Course I have to wait for Jewelry Craftng's release to finish them (although they'd only be missing one piece).

Also, funny you should mention Spriggan's, Grits. It's actually what he's using so that he isn't murdered in his Ebony-tier equipment. He's only got 3 pieces so far, but I think I might actually use that instead of Hunding's. Maybe alongside it? I was gonna do that and Tempered Brass but idk. He's also not using Champion Points yet.

Got Lucius outfitted in Hunding's Rage and...Fortified Brass because I like gimmicks I guess. It works well enough, I suppose.

Now I just need to get a Warrior Poet Maul for Fjotreid to complete his set. I just remembered that there's an NPC class called "Thundermaul" in the game itself, so he's got more of a reason to use a 2-handed hammer as a staff (even if he's just holding it). Only he'd be a, what, Frost Hammer? idk

EDIT: Got a battle axe. Not a maul but it's a start. I couldn't find a maul for sale in guild stores.

Got Eolan to do something he should have finished years ago: get all the Skyshards in Cyrodiil and complete the Nirnroot Wine quest.

I usually hold off on forays into Cyrodiil until the day of expansion releases but today I though "frick it". He got everything without any issues, though he did scare off 2 Dominion players doing the same thing he was. One of them jumped into slaughterfish water. :/ If they hadn't run off suddenly they would have gotten the Skyshard without any bother from him.

Well, that's one thing that's been bugging me cross off the list. All that's left is the Jewelry IC stations.

Just finished Cadwell's Gold with Unna. Now she can take a rest while we try and get Blossom up to L50, and crafting mastery. Unna's hit 50 in Blacksmith, mainly from keeping herself equipped before Laurie could, but we're not in any hurry in the others. She' sent a few skill points in crafting just because she hasn't much else to do with them.

Blossom hasn't done much adventuring, just going off collecting surveys and skyshards, but she has quite a bit of the land mapped out, as we always try to discover all the wayshrines as we go. Hopefully that will help her get through the questlines a bit quicker as we level her up.

We're also getting close to having enough gold to but Mathiisen Manor. Then Laurie can use some of the larger furnishing pieces she knows, and we'll have somewhere to put crafting stations.

Grats to the new Golden Girl!

HHHHHHHHHHH

So now I'm getting Hates to complete the Imperial City questline. I would have done all 4 districts I had left to do at once, but I thought going into the Imperial Prison dungeon and leaving would speed up the process of me returning to the Alliance Base. All it did was send me back to Shadowfen. :v

So I only completed the Noble's District. Tomorrow (or later, depending how I feel) is the Arena, since IIRC it's the OTHER annoying one to complete, and then the last 2.

After that, the only thing I have to cross off my "Should Have Done This Years Ago" list is complete the White Gold Tower dungeon with all 3 Squad members. Just for the story.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I guess I'm finishing it today.

After my time in Cyrodiil, listening to all the NPCs and the quests, I honestly have to wonder what the point of the Alliances is anymore lol

The game seems to have forgotten about them, too, since they dont' seem to be a concern past PvP as far as the player character and the storylines are concerned

I guess it's time for Laurie to start researching Nirnhoned. I have several Nirncrux from the Jubilee boxes, so can someone convert my mats to research items, while I go foraging for more Nirncrux?

And while I'm asking, what's the best strategy here? I'm thinking that I first do the research on a character that can do so quickly, as it's their first trait, and then have them pass it on. So my calculations should include an extra Nirncrux for that "first crafter" to use up, as well as the ones the master crafters will want.

Since Nirncrux is so expensive and rare to find in the world, I only taught my Master Crafter the Nirncrux traits; but that is just me.

You'll need 12 Potent Nirncrux (7 Blacksmithing, 5 Woodworking) and 22 Fortified Nirncrux (14 Clothier, 7 Blacksmithing, 1 Woodworking) for a single character, which costs almost 200k gold altogether if you don't find it yourself. (At around 12k for Potent and 2.5k for Fortified)

Unless you're wanting the trait as soon as possible, it's probably best to stick to a single crafter. When I learned the trait, I was exploring Craglorn so I got free pieces to research as well as the material from farming. You get a grand total of one random piece per character for completing the entire Craglorn questline. (MUCH easier to do these days, but Lower Craglorn still has Grouped content to deal with)

I'll have to check, but the Jubilee event gave me about 6 Fortified, and 3 Potent. I haven't found any from harvesting, despite several trips for surveys. So I guess you're right about not using any more than I need to.

Apart from the one item per character I can get from doing the quests, which with my luck will be the same one each time, do I have to trade for all the research pieces?

You can either buy pieces to research at guild stores or you can get any one of us that knows the trait to make you a research piece in exchange for the corresponding Nirncrux (so, like, asking for a Nirnhoned heavy chest and giving a Fortified Nirncrux to make it with). I had another player make most of mine using this system. :U Because I just remembered I never actually finished Craglorn before I completed my research LMFAO pre revamp Craglorn was so bad

EDIT: Y'know, I never got to experience the game before Nirnhoned was as widespread as it is today. I get the feeling the new traits for Jewelry Crafting will be just like that when it finally drops. At least for people like me that don't participate in too many game activities beyond questing and crafting.

No, as long as you have the nirncrux for each piece you want to research, any of us will be glad to make you the pieces you want next. Acadian writes to me once every month or so and gives me the nirncrux in a PM telling me what pieces to make that he is going to research next = I just make them and mail them back to him in a PM. That is how I learned too; a friend from the TESAlliance site made them all for me, I just sent her the nirncrux.

Wow I wish there were a way for you to decide what Champion level you shoot up to when you hit 50.

Barring that I wish there were a way for you to exclusively find the lowest tier of material that will spawn for your character.

Overleveling thanks to the event is starting to show its downsides.

Unna needed a bit more mahogany than she had for her crafting writ, so we decided to go to Craglorn to look for some, as we might pick up a bit more Nirncrux in the process. Got a lot of Rubedite, Ancestor Silk, Ruby Ash, Rubedo Leather Scraps, and alchemical ingredients, runestones etc. but neither of the things we went looking for.

Where's a good place to look for something else, and end up finding those?

Blossom's doing the Wrothgar quests, as well as trying to catch up to Laurie in the crafting skills. Now that Laurie doesn't need the inspiration from deconstruction, she's getting all the crew's collection, and advancing quite well. We just have to make sure she has enough of those CP10-140 mats that nobody ever uses, so she can do the writs for the levels she passes through. Like monkey, we have the problem of nobody else collecting them but Blossom, and when she goes up a level, the timing has to be right. The only saving mechanism is the returns from higher-level writs. Unna (metals only) and Laurie both provide some, although rarely the right ones.

And one more milestone: 1 million gold in the bank! Mathiisen Manor is getting close!

Late edit: The bank is empty and MM is ours (No, Taminwe, you have to share!) Of course, it's rather empty right now.

I'm sure that frequency of requests represents the drop rate for Nirncrux.

Since I got the 6 fortified +3 potent from the Jubilee boxes, I'm at a bit of a loss as to the best way to use them. Laurie has a master writ for a shield that could pay for her next crafting station, but I can't decide if we should start research on other items asap, or wait for writs that need it. I can see a case for learning it on the items she can do so fastest (i.e. the ones she knows least traits for), as the writs requiring other traits would be lower value.

I don't think it has to do with the drop rate as much as how slow researching goes at the later stages when you've learned almost all the traits for each item.

But you can research nine at a time, three each for woodworking/smithing/clothier. The month the final trait takes would overlap with other items. Of course, only Acadian would know the whole story.

I'll likely send you a request for that shield tonight. Still trying to decide which other pieces take priority.

Today I discovered that Lucius has run out of Skill Points, and there are no Skyshards or Public Dungeons left to grab them from save for Cyrodiil Skyshards.

Ugh. Summerset is still a few weeks away.

EDIT: Time for a trip to a Plane of Oblivion :v

I need to find out how to convince the RNG gods that I'm not looking for something. I still haven't got any Nirncrux from harvesting in Craglorn (just from the Jubille boxes), and I'm having almost the same luck now with Rogues' Soot in Hew's Bane, which is an ingredient for the Jester's Pavilion. (Taminwe would like to use that for the crafting location at Mathiisen Manor.) Laurie went hunting for over an hour and got precisely one. She did come back with a large selection of other materials, so we're not complaining.

She made Blossom a new set of Medium Hunding's Rage Training, so she'll be properly equipped for the Guild meet. That replaces a set of Death's Wind Heavy, which was good for keeping alive while foraging, but wasn't otherwise appropriate.

Having some chapters of the Outlaw style learned increases the chances of finding the soot, if you didn't know already. Getting anyone who's learned at least one look for them increases the droprate a bit, IIRC.

=

So after quite a bit of grinding this past week, Lucius finally mastered the equipment crafts. Sad thing is that he didn't exactly lack any materials thanks to what went into grinding them in the first place: trawling Craglorn for nodes and chests. At least that's over, and now he only finds one type of node.

Gonna keep having him do writs until he masters the consumables and gathers enough gold to buy his last backpack upgrade. Racists that they are, the people who hand those out give him six more gold than a non-Imperial would get from writs, which does build up.

With that out of the way, I have to think about making someone other than the Crafting Monkey my main Jeweler. He's still the "main" crafter, but his inventory is already cluttered up, and I'd also like to have at least one other character do the dailies, well, daily. (He's also "canonized" as the guy who makes their furniture.) I sort of wanted to make Ruben the Squad's jeweler, but I sort of prefer it if it's someone I already log onto daily. I've also considered Jo'zira, but I'm waiting to see if Spellcrafting's going to happen after all. Eolan's 100-Strength hotdog fingers probably aren't up to the task, so maybe Xochtl?

Since Laurie only has the three Outlaw Motif pages we got during the Jubilee, we thought we'd better get some more. Syvarra of the Deep killed her several times, and then dropped a duplicate page. Laurie stomped off in disgust, and found some Rogues Soot on her way back to Hew's Bane. Still a bit short, will have to try again, so we did a delve instead, (Sharks Teeth Grotto) and got nothing but the achievement and a skyshard. I think I missed looting the boss, because he was buried under the sub-boss.

Laurie got re-spec'ed (via level-up scrolls) after that, as she'd rather have been a tank all along. She made herself some Heavy Song of Lamae, and farmed for some Green Pact, as she was doing that area for Silver. I took her back to Syvarra, to see how she'd do with the new build, but nobody else was around, and although she lasted much better, she got ground down for lack of offence. We did pick up another Soot on the trip.

Taminwe is going the other way, and dropping the shield for another blade. Since she's still low-level, I'm not going to do a re-spec, and she'll just pick up the other skills, like Unna did with Medium Armour. I need to design a build for her that suits better than the stealth-oriented one the Level-up Advisor wants to use. She likes being conspicuous. I'll have Laurie make her some new gear, especially the swords. She's outgrown her current things.

So last night I had one of the worst nosebleeds in years (I suffered an accident when I was 3 that made me get chronic nosebleeds up until a few years ago), and while I was waiting for a blood clot to form for a second time and thankfully final time because my nose was like a leaky faucet, I decided to pass the time by farming in Craglorn.

Long story short I found 7 Nirncrux in under 30 minutes and I feel better about losing 4 hours of sleep. I doubt RNG will be this kind to me for a while now, though. :v

The RNG appreciates your inadvertent blood sacrifice and rewards you accordingly.

Do you realise that he's just used up everybody's RNG luck for the next month or more? Blood rituals should get you banned.

My bathroom wastebin is a weird place to file these sacrifices but I'll take it.

Made another visit to Hew's Bane, and got the last drop of Soot we needed. Now the Manor has a Jester's Pavilion in the grounds, and I'm trying to decide if it shelters the crafting stations, or gets used for entertaining guests (tables of food and drinks).

Laurie is busy grinding up her Ardent Flame skills so she can have Fiery Grip. Previously, she hadn't used any of them, so she's starting from a very low level. Still, with her other lines giving her great protection, she can stand and spam the weak stuff as much as she wants. The skeevers guarding resource nodes have been very welcome, especially now they drop Rubedo scraps.

She needs to make some new gear for Taminwe, to help with her swap to Dual-wield from Sword-and-board. Matching swords, at least.

---

We'd gone to Hew's Bane in the first place to gather Soot, in order to make the Jester's Pavilion furnishing. That got Laurie into collecting pages of Outlaw Style, and I note that there are 14 pages, as usual, but only 4 bosses that drop them. Is that the normal situation for DLC motifs? She'll be trying to collect all the ones she needs for master writs, and needs to know about thing like that.

We put the duplicate page she got before into the Guild Bank, in case anybody else needs it. I'm not currently planning to save them for a second crafter (i.e. Blossom), but that could change.

Today in Tamriel . . .

. . . Or rather yesterday in Tamriel . . .

Phae convinced Julian to go to Hew’s Bane to check out the Palace there. As soon as Julian walked in the main gates she was enamored with the place. Just as I knew she would be.

Fortunately I had been saving the crowns for this place since Phae first visited it and declared that it would be an ideal Conservatory (the botanical kind).

So say hey to House No. 27! As for furnishing it, that will take a long time. Conservatory may not be open for business until some time next year.

#27?!?

'Grats and enjoy the long decorating process for this new palacial place!

Nice! Congrats! Can’t wait to take the tour!

If you've hit 27, isn't it getting close to the point where you count down, instead of up?

Lol, indeed