The Elder Scrolls Online's new Scribing system is one of the biggest additions the game has ever had. There are 4,000 skill combos built on a new system of collectibles, currency, and upgrades. But don't panic. Ninja Pulls brings the most complete, easy-to-follow, and spoiler-free guide to get you started with Scribing.
How to Unlock Scribing
The Second Era of Scribing quest giver – Adept Irnard Rinil
If you own Gold Road, a new NPC called Adept Irnard Rinil will show up at Mages Guilds around the world. Go find him or activate the Scribing upgrade from your Collections menu, and the game will lead you straight to him in Skingrad, where there is a quest called "The Second Era of Scribing" to complete. You will come across Votary Nahlia, who will serve as your guide throughout the whole Scribing quest lines and join you on your ventures and travels. But you've barely met her before you're at the Scribing altar with your first Grimoire and three scripts.
Grimoire, Focus Script, Signature Script, and Affix Script
• Grimoire is the base ability
• Focus Script defines the ability
• Signature Script adds an effect
• Affix Script adds buffs and debuffs
You need all four components above to scribe an ability. Once you've done it, a bit more dialogue and Scribing is now unlocked on that character.
The first playthrough might take 15 to 20 minutes if you take your time. After that, you can zoom through it in under 5 minutes if you skip everything. So, you could easily do it on all your characters in week one.
The Intro quest also unlocks one of the new skill styles, which have nothing to do with Scribing. Grimoire and Scripts are per character, but skill styles are account-wide and totally cosmetic.
How to Collect Grimoires
You will get nine more Grimoires by completing the next quest, The Wing of the Indrik. This is longer than the intro quest but also more interesting, and you only need to do it once on any character to unlock the Sigil of the Luminary Indrik in your Collections, which is account-wide. There are four of these upgrades in the Scholarium, and they all are account-wide. So you only have to do them once.
• The Wing of the Indrik quest unlocks Grimoires at the vendor and ink drops from mobs.
• The Wing of the Netch unlocks Affix Scripts from vendors and dailies, plus ink drops from harvesting nodes, which are boosted by the Plentiful Harvest CP.
• The Wing of the Gryphon quest unlocks Focus Scripts from vendors and dailies.
• The Wing of the Dragon unlocks Signature Scripts from vendors and dailies, plus free scripts at Mages Guilds around the world.
Finally, completing the entire story unlocks the 11th Grimoire – Soul Burst.
Therefore, do the intro and the indrik once, then repeat the intro on your other characters, and they'll all be able to buy stuff from the Scholarium Merchant, Chronicler Firandil. Only one Grimoire remains locked until you finish the story.
Grimoire costs 50K gold the first time you buy it, but after that, it's 10K. Soul Burst is always 10K. You can't unlock Grimoires in any other way, so you'd better start saving. It'll cost almost half a million gold for the first character and 100K per character after that. That's 2.4 million ESO gold for 20 characters, just for the Grimoires. It is quite a lot, but remember that:
1. You don't need all the Grimoires right away. Get the ones you're most interested in first and go from there.
2. Gold is extremely easy to get in ESO, so gold sinks like the Grimoires are needed in the long term.
3. The more characters a player has, the more likely it is that they can afford this.
4. The Zeal of Zenithar event is coming on June 20. During the event, everything is 10% cheaper. So, if you don't need a Grimoire before then, maybe wait.
Each Grimoire does require The Apprentice Achievement for that skill line, which means that one of your characters has leveled it halfway. These Achievements are new, so you will get them the first time you log in after launch.
How to Collect Scripts
Get Free Scripts
There are some free scripts. Three from the intro, four from the indrik, which your other characters can buy from Firandil for one gold each. Once you've done The Wing of the Dragon quest, nine more will pop up at Mages Guilds around the world for all your characters to find.
Buy Scripts from Vendors
The remaining 51 can only be bought from Firandil in Scholarium and Filer Ool in the Infinite Archive, farmed via specific daily quests, or rarely found in World drops. The last method has a very low drop rate, but anyone can get random scripts this way, even if they don't own Gold Road, and these are the only scripts that can be traded. So, if you really need a specific script fast, you might find it on the Guild Traders. But the risk is that you pay millions for a super rare drop only for it to show up at the vendor next week for a fraction of the cost.
Farm Scripts
Each script type drops from three different sources:
Focus Scripts: Rewards for the Worthy, Delver Dailies, and Mages Guild dailies
Signature Scripts: Wold Boss, Fighters Guild, and Cyrodiil dailies
Affix Scripts: Undaunted, World Event, and Imperial City dailies
You get one guaranteed drop of each script type once a day, and the subsequent drop rate is 25%. That means you can keep farming, but it will be much less time-efficient. Again, you only get these drops if you've completed the Wings of the Indrik, Netch, Gryphon, and Dragon once.
Another thing to note is that the guaranteed drops are not per character. Instead, they are account-wide, like Event Tickets or Cyrodiil Merits. That means once you've got your three drops on your main character, you can keep going on other characters and potentially get nothing else until tomorrow, or you could do ten more and get lucky ten times. It's a crapshoot. But if you were to rely on guaranteed drops, you'd need 20 days per character for all the Affix Scripts, only 16 for the Focus, and 14 for the Signature. With 20 characters, that's 400 days. Therefore, don't rely only on guaranteed drops.
Script Vendors
Buying scripts from Chronicler Firandil and Filer Ool can save you a lot of time on farming. Each vendor has a minimum of three scripts for sale each week, and they become a lot cheaper if one of your characters already knows that script. So, when you buy a new one, always make sure you read it before logging through all your other characters and paying the full price. Still, this is not going to be cheap, even the reduced cost ranges from 4K to 12K gold and 2K to 4K Archival Fortunes. Multiplied by 20 characters, the weekly spend is like 600K gold and 240K fortunes per week, depending on what exactly is available.
Since farming will take a lot of time, if you want to collect scripts, it is recommended that you combine both buying and farming. For people who absolutely want to grind, you can grind for gold and Archival Fortunes so that you can afford to buy scripts.
Do Whatever Works for You
If you want to farm scripts through dailies, it is better to choose the ones with motifs you need or that tend to sell well.
Racking up Rewards for the Worthy is a pretty easy option, and it's good to hand in a Cyrodiil Conquest and Imperial City quest once a day as often as you can. Those merits and proofs are very handy to have and may help you with gold as well.
As for the Infinite Archive, the rewards are so good you should be doing it regularly. Unlike dailies, it makes you a better player, especially after the first couple of arcs.
The Class Master Script
The Class Mastery Script is a Signature script. It applies a unique bonus to scribed abilities, depending on the class. It's pretty nice, and the good news is you don't have to wait around for a random drop. For this script and this script only, you get fragments called scraps from things like Trials, Dungeons, PvP, Master Writs, etc. Any character can earn scraps, and they'll be automatically consumed when you do. Once you get 50 of them, you earn an Achievement, a new skill style, and the ability to buy the Class Master Script from Chronicler Firandil for 5K on all your characters, regardless of which character or which class you were playing when you got the 50th scrap and earned the Achievement. Most importantly, the ability is account-wide.
Luminous Ink
You get 200 Luminous Ink when you start, and it only costs three ink to scribe a new ability. If you re-scribe, it'll cost one ink for every script that you change. So, you don't need loads of it, and if you just play the game, it should drop often enough from mobs and nodes. Luminous Ink is also tradable, so you can buy more if you run out of it.
Hope this guide gets you off to a great start with the Scribing system. If you found it helpful, please subscribe to NinjaPulls's channel and give this video a thumbs up.