ESO Antiquities

Antiquities were added to the Elder Scrolls Online with the Greymoor Chapter. There are antiquities for all kinds of playstyles: PvP, PvE, Housing, Fashion, etc.. Zenimax Online Studios have said the Antiquities will be added to future content.

Contents

  1. Unlocking Skill lines
  2. Obtaining Leads
  3. Scrying
    1. Power leveling
  4. Excavation
    1. Skill Progression
    2. Fissures
  5. Addons

Unlocking Antiquities Skill Lines

To unlock the Antiquities skill line, you need access to Western Skyrim (Greymoor DLC/Chapter) and complete a brief introduction quest.

In an alley just southeast of the Solitude Wayshrine, you will find a poster titled “Calling All Antiquarians”. Interacting with this poster will start the quest “The Antiquarian Circle”.

The Antiquarian Circle is building between the Bards’ College and the Palace. Once inside, talk to Verita Numida. After talking to her, interact with the Antiquarian’s eye on the nearby table. Return to Verita to complete quest and obtain the skill lines: Excavation and Scrying.

There are three activities associated with Antiquities

  • Obtaining Leads
  • Scrying (mini-game)
  • Excavation (mini-game)

Let’s exam each in some detail.

Obtaining Leads

In the course of adventuring, you will discover leads whether or not you have access to the Greymoor content.

There are different kinds of relics. Below is a list of the different categories.

  • Appearance Items
    • Adornments
    • Emotes
    • Hats
    • Markings
      • Head
      • Body
    • Outfit Styles
    • Motif Chapters
  • Furniture
  • Mounts
  • Mythic Items (1 Piece set Items)
  • Treasure (Vendor Loot)

Just about any activity in the Elder Scrolls Online could result in finding a lead: Delves, Public Dungeon Bosses, Group Dungeon Bosses, World Bosses, Dragons, Colossus, Imperial City Bosses, Harvesting nodes, treasure chests, Battlegrounds, Looting Containers (Urns, Vases, Jewelry Boxes, Psijic Portals, Safeboxes, Thieves Troves, etc.), doing Dailies, Excavation, killing mobs, and Fishing.

If you don’t have any leads, there are built-in leads for each zone that are repeatable. Also, merchants and innkeepers sell leads for zone map furnishings.

Much of the information gathered for Leads for the ESO community has been through the coordinated efforts by Inklings and you can find their information posted on Ninja614.com

Scrying

Scrying is the process of determining the location of relics’ dig sites.

The object of the scrying mini-game is to create a path from the starting location at the bottom middle to each of the large glowing circles on the game board. When you click on a tile, all the same tiles connected it will disappear.

The path is created by removing tiles from the game board by using the methods at your disposal based on your level.

This tools will allow you to change regions of tiles to the same symbol, remove tiles with a certain symbol connecting the revealed portion of the game map, or reveal a certain number of tiles in a straight line.

Scrying TechniquesDescription
ScryReveals the selected contiguous group of tiles.
CoalescenceLike a bomb that reveals a hexagonal group of tiles around the area selected.
DilationReveals all of the tiles of the selected pattern that border your tiles already revealed.
FarsightReveals a series of tiles in a straight line where distance depends on skill points invested.
The ESO Scrying Techniques and What They Do.

When you click on a “hexagon tile”, all adjoining tiles with the same symbol will be removed at the same time.

If you are successful connecting a path to all of the circles, the dig site will be revealed on the world region map. If not, additional dig locations will appear on your map and you may have to visit multiple location before you discover the real dig site.

Note:
You can have multiple leads active at one time by scrying their locations.

Powerleveling

Most players agree there are similar paths to max out your scrying quickly.

Tip:
Some companions like scrying and excavating. Summon one when you scry and another when you excavate to increase their rapport.

Rank 1 to 5

  1. Travel to Artaeum. It is a nice small and relatively flat zone to do antiquities in.
  2. Open your map (PC UI) and click on the Scry Tab at the top right.
  3. Select the green antiquity
  4. Continue to hunt the green antiquity over and over until Rank 3.
  5. Increase Antiquarian’s Insight II in the Antiquity skill line to unlock blue antiquities. (Rank 3)
  6. If you have a spare skill point, unlock Coalescence I (Rank 2), to make scrying easier.
  7. The grind to 5
    1. If you have a blue antiquity, collect it.
    2. If you don’t have blue antiquity, do a green antiquity to get another blue.
    3. Increase Scrier’s Patience I (Rank 2)
    4. Increase Future Focus (Rank 4)
    5. Repeat.

Rank 5 to 7

  1. Unlock Antiquarian’s Insight III (Rank 5)
  2. Increase Scrier’s Patience II (Rank 5)
  3. The grind
    1. Do the highest quality leads you can do.
    2. If you don’t have purple lead, do a blue lead
      1. A zone purple lead drops from a zone blue lead only once per zone per account.
      2. Note: collect all of the zone purple leads for 100,000g one-time per account reward.
    3. If you don’t have blue, do a green lead to get a blue.
    4. Unlock Coalescence II (Rank 6) to make scrying faster.
    5. Repeat.

Rank 7 to 10

  1. Unlock Antiquarian’s Insight IV (Rank 7)
  2. Dig up every Yellow lead in your scrying list.
  3. The grind
    1. Farm “Void-Crystal Anomaly” lead in the Hollow City (Coldharbour) by circling the town harvesting any of the plentiful nodes there.
    2. Scry the “Void-Crystal Anomaly” lead.
    3. Unlock Future Focus II (Rank 8)
    4. Unlock Farsight I and Farsight II (Rank 9)
    5. Repeat.
  4. Unlock Antiquarian Insight V (Rank 10)

Excavation

Once a dig site has been discovered. Excavation is the process to find and uncover the relic from the ground. Excavation has two parts: Location and Extraction.

Locating the relic is best explained as a process of elimination. Your goal is to eliminate as much of the excavation site as possible.

ToolDescription
AugurAntiquity proximity detector.
Hand BrushThe basic tool.
TrowelAllows you to dig deeper in one square. Great for fissures.
ShovelReveals a larger square area and digging deeper at higher levels.
ESO Excavation Tools

First, you use the Augur and concentrate on white highlighted regions identified from your test dig sites. Unless the test site is green, only the white area revealed when you hover over your test site matters. A portion of the antiquity will be in the white area. Next, eliminate parts of the white regions with future test dig sites. Green means you have found the antiquity.

With experience, you will become familiar with the shapes of the antiquities for each level. Armed with this knowledge and the placement of the fissures on the game board will make it easier to predict better starting locations to test.

The video below demonstrates importance of the white areas revealed by the Auger in the excavation site experienced during a “Worst Case Scenario”: 3 red squares. View Written Guide

Learn the basics of relic hunting

Possible Skill Progression

  1. Excavator’s Reserves I (Rank 3)
  2. Heavy Shovel I (Rank 4)
  3. Keen Eye: Dig Sites I (Rank 2)
  4. Augur II (Rank 5)
  5. Hand Brush II (Rank 6)
  6. Optional: Keen Eye: Treasure Chests I (Rank 7)
  7. Heavy Shovel II (Rank 8)
  8. Excavator’s Reserves II (Rank 10)
  9. Trowel I and Trowel II (Rank 10) for fissure hunting (see below) with extra time.

Fissures?

As you attempt more difficult excavations, fissures will start to appear on your excavation map. Fissures are squares on the map with steam / smoke escaping from below the surface. These are very briefly explained on a tutorial tip.

Fissures are explosive and can set off a chain reaction that could destroy your relic.

The video below explains how to execute a controlled fissure explosion. View Written Guide.

Learn how to safely trigger a fissure explosion to reveal additional parts of the map.

Addons

If you are playing on PC and are chasing down Antiquities, then I highly recommend the addon called DisplayLeads.

https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info2651-DisplayLeads-withLocationInfo.html

Lead Collections

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