Welcome, Vestiges, to your comprehensive Antiquities ESO guide! The Antiquities system is like a grand treasure hunt within the game world. It lets you explore ancient ruins and uncover valuable artifacts. You'll use your skills to dig up treasures, solve puzzles, and piece together fragments of history. Engaging in this adventure rewards you with various valuable items, powerful gear, unique collectibles, and special titles. It's a thrilling journey through history that offers both excitement and tangible rewards for your efforts!
In this guide, we’ll explain the system in more detail, breaking it down into simple mechanics. We’ll discuss what goes into this system, things like leads, scrying, excavation, and more! Of course, we’ll mention the rewards that you can get from putting your effort into this activity.
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Antiquities System Explained
As we’ve said before, ESO Antiquities is a new form of activity where you embark on treasure hunts all across Tamriel. You’ll be searching for sites, excavating relics, solving puzzles and acquiring rare items. Not only will you get various collectible items, but you’ll also learn a lot more Tamriel lore in the process.
This ESO Antiquities system consists of two peaceful skills or professions:
- Scrying - is a skill and also a mini-game. In it you sort-of search through a lead using Antiquarian's Eye trying to uncover the dig site of a relic. You do this by opening a scrying board where you have to solve a puzzle.
- Excavation - is a skill and a mini-game. This happens when you actually arrive to the dig site. Using the same Antiquarian's Eye, you find the right spot for excavation. The you use tools to find and extract the relic while trying not to damage it in the process. BLOG20
Leads have rarities, just like items. They are represented by the color and indicate the difficulty of the lead as well as the size of potential find.
- Green: Simple
- Blue: Intermediate
- Purple: Advanced
- Gold: Master
- Orange: Ultimate
Each of these two skills has 3 corresponding abilities that can help you become more efficient at uncovering relics. Using them, you’ll learn how to scry in ESO and obtain relics faster. Check out these upgradable skills:
Abilities | Description |
Scrying | |
Coalescence | Aligns a hexagonal cluster of facets to match the central facet. |
Dilation | Asserts control over all facets of the chosen type within your sphere of influence, including any corresponding adjacent facets. |
Farsight | Asserts ownership over a linear sequence of facets extending outward from your controlled territory. |
Excavation | |
Augur | Helps you “sense” where in the dirt the item might be by giving you colored hints from red, indicating that you’re too far away to grind, to green, indicating that this is the spot. |
Hand Brush | Removes a modest quantity of soil, activating the ability to utilize the Trowel and Heavy Shovel by generating Intuition. |
Trowel | Removes entire layers of soil within a single cell (Unlockable). |
Heavy Shovel | Removes a small amount of soil from a wide area. (Unlockable) |
When you excavate, you have a limited amount of time and actions that you can do to recover the relic at the dig site. But, what makes it even more interesting is the fact that the dig sites may contain more than just a relic. You might end up finding bonus items if you’re quick enough to do so! But what is it that you can actually find in these dig sites? Here’s the list:
- Unearth formidable Mythic gear
- Access fresh Markings, Adornments, and Emotes
- Find treasures exceeding 300,000 gold in value, ripe for vending
- Attain three distinctive Ancestral motifs
- Command lethal new siege armaments: the Magicka Lances
- Ride atop the majestic Ebon Dwarven Wolf mount
- Adorn your abode with an array of new furnishings, including antique maps and enchanting music boxes.
Finally, let’s not forget about curious bits of lore that each of the relic has.
Leveling Antiquities
As for the ESO Antiquities leveling guide, the max level of Antiquities is 10, and you can reach it by gaining 700 points by upgrading the Scrying and Excavation skills. The aforementioned leads and their quality give you different amounts of experience, but they’re also locked behind a skill level. As such:
- Simple leads can be used at level 1
- Intermediate leads can be used at level 3
- Advanced leads can be used at level 5
- Master leads can be used at level 7
- Ultimate leads can be used at level 10
Now, let’s actually break down how to get to the max level as quickly as possible.
We'll start with ESO Antiquities where to get and why. For the first 3 levels that will enable you to use the intermediate leads, you have to focus your efforts on the area called Artaeum. When you unlock the Antiquities skills, you’ll get one simple lead for each zone, including Artaeum. Since simple leads can be used multiple times, you just have to keep reusing the Artaeum one until you hit level 3. Luckily, Artaeum is quite a small zone, so you won’t have to run a great distance to get to the dig sites.
It is advised to stay in Artaeum until you reach level 5. To do that, you must start using the blue leads (Intermediate). When you complete a green lead, it will reward you with a blue one. However, the blue ones are one-use only! So, when you’re out, do the green ones again to get a higher grade of leads. Rinse and repeat.
To get to level 7, you’re going to venture beyond Artaeum and do excavations all over Tamriel. But the process will stay relatively the same:
- Complete simple leads to get intermediate ones.
- Complete intermediate leads to get advanced (purple) leads that are single-use also.
- Repeat until you’re level 7.
The one problem that you will have to deal with is the fact that there is only one purple lead per zone. That’s why you’re going to have to travel to all zones and complete the purple lead for each of them. For instance, you might want to find all ESO Gold Coast Antiquities and then try Western Skyrim or Hew’s Bane next. Once you’ve reached level 7 in Escavation and Scrying, you can start using the golden leads, which lead to mythic items. BLOG20
To get from level 7 to level 10, you’re going to have to farm all leads, including the Master and Ultimate ones. The leads can be found in:
- Looter from Treasure chests
- Drop from world bosses
- Found in Psijic Rifts
- Looted from Public Dungeons
- Looted from Thieves Troves
- Drop from random mobs
There are lots of place where you can find your leads. Keep completing them and you will get to level 10 eventually.
Obtaining Mythic Items Through Leads For Extra XP
When you gain access to ultimate leads, you’ll be able to recover parts of mythic items. Collect all required parts to be able to create that mythic item. Below, you’ll find ESO Antiquities list of mythic items. Each item has approximately 5 parts that you will need to find and and extract from dig sites. It may sound like a lot of fuss, but it’s worth it - each mythic item comes with unique effects that can completely turn your build upside-down.
Icon | Mythic Item |
Belharza's Band | |
Bloodlord's Embrace | |
Cryptcanon Vestments | |
Death Dealer's Fete | |
Dov-rha Sabatons | |
Esoteric Environment Greaves | |
Faun's Lark Cladding | |
Gaze of Sithis | |
Harpooner's Wading Kilt | |
Lefthander's Aegis Belt | |
Malacath's Band of Brutality | |
Markyn Ring of Majesty | |
Mora's Whispers | |
Oakensoul Ring | |
Pearls of Ehlnofey | |
Ring of the Pale Order | |
Ring of the Wild Hunt | |
Sea-Serpent's Coil | |
Shapeshifter's Chain | |
Snow Treaders | |
Spaulder of Ruin | |
Stormweaver's Cavort | |
Syrabane's Ward | |
Thrassian Stranglers | |
Torc of the Last Ayleid King | |
Torc of Tonal Constancy |
These items are considered as single-item sets and can only be obtained from dig sites. Furthermore, you can only have one of these items equipped on your character at any given time. Remember, that in order to be able to find their parts, you must reach level 7 in both Scrying and Excavation. We described how to do that a little earlier. Each new DLC that will come out in future might very likely contain new mythics. We'll update our list whenever that happens.
Conclusion
Antiquities is a totally unique way to play the game. Not only do you get to travel all over the game’s map, literally doing treasure hunting, but you’re also getting super unique items! The whole thing has two skills and two mini-games to it. One of them lets you find the places where the relics are hidden, and the other one lets you extract them. Meanwhile, you can also learn and upgrade different abilities.
What’s more, there’s a grading and progression systems where the more experienced you are, the rarer items you can find. We hope you found this guide useful. Stick around for more guide for ESO and good luck on your treasure hunts!
F.A.Q.
How do you get Antiquities in ESO?
You get them by using leads solving puzzles, which will then send you to the location where an antiquity is hidden. Then, you’ll have to carefully extract the artifact using your excavation skills.
How do you get antiquarian's eye tool in ESO?
You get it by completing the "The Antiquarian Circle" quest. It starts in Solitude, Western Skyrim. You need to speak with Verita Numida who will send you on a few tasks, and eventually, you’ll get the eye.
What are the skill lines in ESO antiquarian?
There are two skills - scrying and excavation. Both of these skills can be upgraded to level 10 by completing various actions related to finding and extracting antiquities.