ESO Sourcing Provisioning Ingredients

The Wayrest market was bustling with activity as I took in the sights of the city before heading back on the road. I overheard a heated argument by the grocer and customer complaining about the high prices of ingredients.  I thought to myself, “there’s an opportunity to write a guide on how to find your own ingredients”.

Summary

This guide book provide tips and tricks on how to locate larger quantities of provisioning ingredients. “Where is Red Meat?”, “Where is Garlic?”, “Where is White Meat?”, and similar questions could be a questions of the past.

Sources of Ingredients

The following list summarizes the common sources of ingredients in Tamriel

  1. Purchase
  2. Hunt and Fish
  3. Loot delves and hostile camps
  4. Stealing in friendly areas
  5. Hirelings and provisioning writs

Purchasing

Merchant Stall
Merchants, Trading Guilds, and Adventure often have what you need (for a price).

A provisioner can purchase ingredients from two sources: a guild trader or a grocer.  Purchasing from guild traders is often an unreliable source as merchants prefer to use their precious stall space (selling item limit) on more profitable items. It is not impossible but some legwork may be needed.

Grocers are reliable source of items but their selection is limited and expensive.  For a list of locations and ingredients refer to my Grocer Locations booklet.

Hunting and Fishing

Cuts of meat from a pig
Meat! Meat! Meat!

For the outdoorsperson, hunting game is a good way to stock the pantry with various types of meat and bananas. However, not every kill will result in obtaining meat but the type of meat is consistent and often result in obtaining materials for crafting (clothing) or fishing.  Care should be taken in civilized areas as the local townsfolk don’t like outsiders “hunting” their livestock. etc.).

Poultry can be found on chickens, bantam guar, scuttlers, and fellrunners.

Small game can be found on smaller game like rabbits, rats,  and snakes.

Game can be found on larger passive creatures like deer and camels.

Hdgs_FishingWhite Meat can be found on horkers, pony guar, monkeys, and daggerbacks.

Red meat can be found on common livestock like cows and bulls and larger aggressive animals like Alit, Katgouti, and Mammoth.

Fish can be found reliably by catching fish and filleting (skinning) the common (white) fish caught. Another source of fish are Dreughs which are often hostile. Refer to my fishing guide on tips to catch fish.

Bananas can be looted off of the passive monkeys that inhabit the Grahtwood forest.

Looting Delves and Hostile Camps

th4RNEDCDGIf a provisioner is in search of a particular item, a targeted search of particular containers will yield more of what is needed if space is a constraint. Baskets tend to hold meat and food related items. Barrels often hold beverage-related items.

Often overlooked are items left on shelves, tables, and hanging on the walls. Many a looter has missed some garlic that was hanging on the wall or beets in a box on a shelf.

When farming in an instance-based zone, like delves, or even a building in town that you have to go through a door to enter, you can log out and re-log back in to replenish items in that location, i.e. water skins, food crates, weapon racks, desks, nightstands, etc. Dwemer ruin have a reset timer of 1 hour to discourage the farming of Dwemer motifs.

Stealing

188-2dthe-2dtower-2dof-2dlondon-2dwallpaper-20pd-20wwwfromoldbooksorg-small1In civilized neutral or friendly areas, containers and items are often owned. If the theft is seen by a witness, they will report you to the authorities and/or attack the thief onsite.  Take caution while stealing within buildings as once combat begins escaping from the building is not possible. The thief will be killed by a resident guard or forced to kill their attacker.

Hirelings and Provisioning Writs

A journey begins with a single step
Faceless hirelings head out to do their master’s bidding.

Hirelings is a passive way to receive ingredients in the mail by investing points into the hireling passive found in the Crafting/Provisioning skill line. I usually receive 20 x 2 ingredients and an occasional 4 – 6 x 1 rare (purple) ingredient. The value of this investment is disputed but if you have some spare points, why not?

Provisioning writs often reward the contract with 10 of 3 or 4 ingredients, and recipe. On occasion, the writ will provide a fragments (xp consumable) and/or rare purple ingredients. Refer to my provisioning writ guide for more information.

Favorite Farming Spots

Generally speaking the better locations will contain numbers crates, barrels, and sacks.  In populated areas, these include markets, port / docks, inns, keeps/castles, and guild halls. Delves with bandits or large number of humanoids (goblins, humans, elves, orcs, etc.) tend to have more containers. Below are some popular spots shared on the forums,

Malabal Tor, Velyn Harbor, Bank (Harbor Customs Hall): Upstairs in a hallway, across from a wooden counter, hanging around a stone hearth are 2 – 3 ropes of garlic. There’s also white meat, pumpkin, jazbay grapes, saltrice, apples, melons, cheese, small game, potatoes, carrots, and beets in this location, all of which you won’t have to steal. Log out and log back in. Rinse/repeat.

Malabal Tor, Dra’bul (Orc Camp): Shaman Glazulg’s hut in the eastern part of the camp has poultry and game hanging over the fire pit. Follow the fork in the road right, past the shaman’s house, north out of camp, and to the shore. To the left as you reach the shoreline there is one group of two orcs by a wooden cart and another pack of three orcs guarding a boat by a campfire. There is a makeshift shack in between these two groups with fish, potatoes, flour, and beets. Log out and log back in. Rinse/repeat.

Glenumbra, Ilessan Tower (Delve): You can find this delve east of Daggerfall. This is a good go-to dungeon for farming a diverse selection of provisioning ingredients. If you’re in DC, it’s also one of the lowest level delves, which means you can plow through everything with reckless abandon and farm to your heart’s content.

Reaper’s March, The Vile Manse (Cave/Public Dungeon): You can find this public dungeon northwest of the Fort Grimwatch wayshrine. The kitchen on the first floor has 2 – 3 ropes of garlic, beets, flour, saltrice, carrots, and some crates and barrels. The first and second floors of the main house area also have a number of desks, wardrobes, trunks, and other containers. The entrance to the actual dungeon portion is to the left of the cooking fire in the kitchen.

Kvatch (Gold Coast): There is a flour mill where you can loot flour.

While various containers, crates, and barrels can be found throughout the entire instance, the very first area of the basement you enter has the highest concentration of high-level provisioning materials I’ve seen yet. There are too many to list. And there are only a few packs of mobs you have to clear to get access to all of it! There’s one room (directly across from the entrance) that has entire wheels of cheese. You can loot 40 – 50 wedges of cheese per run.

Stormhaven, Wayrest, Mages Guild (Chironasium): Downstairs in the basement there is a small room with a friendly NPC taking notes. There’s poultry, small game, beets, 1 – 2 ropes of garlic, and fish on the shelf. There are also a number of desks and cabinets down here you can check for motifs or recipes. You will have to steal everything from this location, so make sure to stay hidden! There’s only the one NPC to worry about though. Log out and log back in. Rinse/repeat.

If you are low-level Ebonheart Pact or have started Cadwell’s Silver (AD) or Gold (DC), go to Ebonheart in Stonefalls and find the Supply Shack at the northwest end of town near the Argonian quarter. Everything is owned, but there are Jazbay Grapes, White Meat, Potatoes, Garlic, Beets, Seasoning sacks, and a Flour sack. You can log in and out there and load up your packs because there are no NPCs to see you.

Shadowfen, Sanguine’s Demense. This public dungeon has an insane amount of lootable barrels in the entrance area inside.

For Pumpkins, again Stonefalls at Sathram Plantation (wayshrine named the same). You will find many laying around on the ground in the fields and around knocked-over wagons.

For low-level DC folks looking for a good variety of cooking/drink ingredients, the upstairs of the Rosy Lion Inn in Daggerfall has lots of containers/cabinets and foods sitting on tables. Everything is owned but there isn’t a single NPC to see you. There is specifically a melon basket and a greens basket in the attic, and usually bananas on the table on the second floor.

Another carrot and garlic location is Sweetbreeze Cottage in Grahtwood – best accessed from the Gray Mire wayshrine, then head northish. It’s a “scenic” spot so you can use that to help you find it. There are a good number of carrots in the garden outside the cottage, containers, garlic, and others inside (garlic hanging in the door). Unowned once the quest in the area is completed (quest is to find a lady’s missing minstrel husband).

There’s 8 – 12 garlic you can steal from Sentinel guild traders. Launder it, come back outside and it’s back. Good place for cheese and beets too

In Grahtwood, there are several large colonies of monkeys. For example, on the road between Gil-Var-Delle Wayshine and Elden Root Temple Wayshrine, there are over 25 monkeys that can be one-shotted for a chance of obtaining Bananas and White Meat. The respawn rate is under 5 minutes. There are also Hag’s in the area with cooking fires in their homes that can be used to make stuff while waiting for respawns.

For higher-level characters who have unlocked all of it, Coldharbour’s Hollow City is the place to go if you need cheese, poultry, or fish; next to the wayshrine there are guild vendor kiosks, and the middle kiosk on the wall side has tons of cheese on skewers as well as poultry hanging from the line behind the wagon, and fish (also check the top of the crates, there is fish sitting on them). Nothing in Hollow City is owned, so there is also great opportunity for container farming. Again, you must do the quests to unlock Hollow City to see the guild vendors and make the various buildings accessible.

For the light-fingered provisioners who hang out in Belkarth, the kitchen of the inn there has many ingredients on the counter including a good amount of carrots (which I find to be tough to locate sometimes), and tomato/apple crates. You have to juke around the cook and be pretty sneaky, but she’s not too hard to dodge. Bonus Belkarth – if you need apples, go down the hill to the lake next to town, there is an apple orchard there with tons of unowned apple containers laying around, as well as other containers for random ingredients. Just north of Belkarth is a winery with a few strands of garlic.

 

References

  1. Provisioning: Farming & Crafting Tips“, ESO Official Forums, Lokustreign, Truthsnark, and others.
  2. Melon and garlic farming spots anyone, ESO Official Forums, Armatesz et al.
Scroll to Top