Woodworking Guide of the Elder Scrolls Online

Woodworking is one of the three professions in the Elder Scrolls Online which create equipped items. Woodworking lets you craft the various wooden weapons and shields in ESO. You can turn wood you collect in the world into fine pieces with various stats and styles as well. Some of the best wooden weapons and shields in the game can be crafted by Woodworking and they have the ability to fine tune their pieces. Wooden weapons and shields types can be used in many build types including non-caster/tank builds.

Woodworking can also improve on crafted or already existing gear you’ve found in the world. Using improvement materials found by refining wood, deconstructing armor, and given to you by hirelings, Woodworkers can improve wooden weapons and shields all the way to legendary.

Refinement

Refinement is needed to turn wood into sanded wood, something you can craft with. Refinement has its own tab in the crafting window. Once you have 10 units of rough materials, you can refine them.

Whilst you don’t receive any woodworking inspiration points for refining materials, you do have a chance to gain Resins and Trait Materials every time you refine wood. Refining is a great way to receive Resins. They are rare items needed in order to improve crafted Woodworking items.

Basics

Woodworking is used to create staff weapons, shields and bows. Particularly useful for archers, ranged casters, healers and even tanks, woodworking can be beneficial at all stages of the game. Materials used are of course various types of wood, and to start your woodworking adventures you don’t need to invest any skill points. Crafting items past level 14 though will require you to start spending skill points in the passive skill line, which has further benefits as well.

Woodworkers can also add and research traits, and improve and deconstruct items. Various aspects of this profession are further explained below.

Woodworking Station

Woodworking requires you to be at a woodworking station, which can usually be found in towns.

In order to craft weapons or apparel, you first have to choose the type of item you want to craft. In woodworking the items are split between weapons: bows, fire, frost, lightning and restoration staffs and apparel: shields.

The amount of material you use is partly optional. You can choose to use more sanded wood than the minimum amount to make the item have stronger stats and a bigger level requirement. The higher level items you choose to craft, the more experience you’ll also gain with woodworking skill line.

Skill Line

A variety of passive skills is available to woodworkers, some of which are necessary for higher level crafting, while some are just convenient and helpful to pick up. You can invest a total of 24 points into this skill tree, with “Woodworking” having 1 skill point invested by default.

By default you can only craft items out of Maple. Needless to say, this is a must have for anyone who wants to craft useful items later on. Keen eye: Wood makes it easier for you to see lumber in the world. It makes lumber glow on the ground. Lumberjack Hireling skill sends you free woodworking items on a regular basis. Quite handy, especially if you don’t spend that much time in game. Wood Extraction is a passive which increases the chances of extracting woodworking ingredients. This includes actual wood and resins, style and trait materials.

Carpentry may well prove to be a skill which you want to invest skill points in. It increases the number of researches you can have simultaneously and reduces the research time. If you want to learn the last, eighth, trait for a piece of gear, it’s going to take 32 days without this passive.

Resin Expertise improves the chances that you can successfully improve an item. Investing points in this passive skill is definitely worth it at the higher quality levels, because you’ll be able to save valuable resins this way, giving you the ability to improve a greater number of items overall.

Skills

Woodworking (1/9).

Allows the use of Wood type: [Maple, Oak, Beech, Hickory, Yew, Birch, Ash, Mahogany, Nightwood.

Keen Eye: Wood (0/3)

Lumber in the world will be easier to see within 20/30/40 meters.

Lumberjack Hireling (0/3)

A lumberjack hireling will send you wood, and possibly other items every day.

Wood Extraction (0/3)

Improves the chances of extracting. Woodworking ingredients.

Carpentry (0/3)

Reduces research time by 5% and allows the research of 2 items at once.

Resin Expertise (0/3)

Increases the chances of improving items with Resins.

Research

Blacksmithing and Clothing have a total of 112 traits to research, while Woodworking has “only” 48. Regardless, it does take over 6 months of real time to research all traits on all items craftable with this profession. Therefore, it’s not as necessary to invest skill points to reduce research times, but it still can be quite helpful if you wish to be able to craft a variety of items as soon as possible.

Armor and weapon traits works the same for woodworkers as it does for tailors and blacksmiths. To research a particular trait you will need to destroy an existing item with the same trait. The first research will take 6 hours, and once a trait is researched you can add it only to the same item type when crafting. Essentially it means if you research Precise (increased critical strike rating) trait on a bow, you will not be able to add the trait to any item except another bow, unless you research it for other item slots as well. Researching the same trait for additional items however doubles the time required to research it.

Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a way to break down weapons and apparel. Every time you deconstruct a weapon or apparel, you receive crafting materials and potentially Resins for woodworking, Trait Material or Style Material. Deconstruction is also a great way to gain experience in woodworking. Instead of selling all the looted weapons and apparel to a vendor, you might want to consider deconstructing them instead.

Leveling

Creating items is intended to provide you with equipment, and isn’t the most optimal way to level up a profession, though it is a significant portion of your IP gains. Experience in trade-skills is indicated with Inspiration, and crafting and deconstructing items both provides you with Inspiration points (IP). You can also find lore books throughout the world which when used give you one level in Woodworking, additionally helping you level it up quicker.

The biggest contribution to IP gain is deconstruction, just like other creation trade skills. Higher level and better quality items will give you more IP than extracting lower level or lower quality items, of course. IP yield is not tied to the amount of materials used to craft items, but by the level of the items, so whenever possible try to craft items which don’t take a lot of raw materials to be crafted. Typically those are level 4 and level 14 items, but I’ll post specific and more detailed calculations on IP gains shortly right here so stay tuned.

Woodworking Tips

   • Deconstructing dropped items or those crafted by others is the best way to gain inspiration and level up.

   • Putting points into Wood Extraction will increase your chances to extract special resins, and is therefore highly advisable.

   • Finding leather may be harder than cloth, as you must defeat enemies for it.

   • Start with your Research as soon as possible, the best crafted sets require many traits researched per piece.

   • See the Writs page for details on daily changes to get inspiration experience and special resins.

  • Save your Gear – Even bound gear can be deconstructed or used in researching traits. Don’t vendor your gear.

  • Buy unrefined materials – Refining raw wood gives you sanded wood, however it also has a chances to give you improvement and style materials. When you are buying or trading for materials, make sure they are Raw.

  • Focused Research – Decide what traits you want to research first and have a plan. It takes a long time to research all the traits for a profession. Have an order to the research you want for your build.

  • Gather at Night – If you have the chance to gather at night with your Keen Eye ability ready to go, you will see the wood from a very long distance and it is very bright in the dark.

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