ESO ANTIQUITIES GUIDE
BECOME A TREASURE HUNTER!
Antiquities in ESO were introduced with the Greymoor Chapter that released in May 2020. This system allows you to find leads throughout the world of Tamriel & use those leads to find Special Items.
These items can range from Household Furnishing's to Valuable Treasures & Pieces of Gear to make you more powerful. To help you find these items, Antiquities introduces Two New Skill Lines, Scrying & Excavation, that will require 30 Skill Points to completely unlock.
GETTING STARTED
To get started with the Antiquities System you will need to go to Solitude in Western Skyrim & speak to Verita Numida in the Antiquarian Circle. She will give you a Quest to learn about Scrying & Excavating using the Antiquarian Eye as a tool. You will not have to go very far for this Quest, as it's just outside the building in a garden. Once you have completed the Quest you will Unlock the ability to Scry for Leads anywhere in Tamriel, however you will need to level your Scrying skill Line to look for Leads above the Blue Level.
WHAT TO DO NEXT!
After you have Completed the Tutorial, you will be able to Scry for Green & Blue Leads anywhere in Tamriel. You can see which Leads you have available for Scrying by opening your Journal & selecting the Antiquarian Eye Symbol. Once here you can select “Scryable” to see which Leads are available to Scry in the Zone that you are Currently in. You will also see a list of every Zone in the Game & clicking on these zones will allow you to see which Leads you have for them. The “Codex” lists how many Leads you have found and how many are available in that Zone for that item, Under the Name of the item you will also see how many you have found.
Each Zone has a Green Lead to get you started within that area & when you find the Green Lead you will receive a Blue Lead that you can go & find as well. That Blue Lead will give you a Purple Lead that you will be able to Scry as soon as you have Levelled up the Scrying Skill enough.
The starter Green Leads will always give you a Blue Lead as long as you have found the previous Blue Lead, but you will only get 1 Purple Lead in total from the Blue Leads. So, as an example, you Scry the starter Green Lead & you receive a Blue Lead from that. Next, you go and get the Blue Lead & you receive a Purple Lead once you've found the Blue. Then you go & find the Purple Lead & once you find it, You'll start over by getting the next Green Lead, & find a second Blue Lead. That second Blue Lead will Reward you with an item, but you won't receive any further Purple Leads.
One way to Grind Levels using this system is to go to a Small Zone, such as Khenarthi’s Roost, & rotate between Green & Blue Leads until you have maxed out the Scrying & Excavation Skill Lines.
Doing it this way will also net you a lot of Gold from Selling Items as well as Levelling your Skill Lines, however it is a very long and tedious way to go about it.
Another way to Level your Scrying & Excavation is to just visit each Zone & Scry until you have 3/3 Green & Blue Leads & 1/1 Purple Leads then move on to the next Zone. This can take a little longer if you don't have Discovered Wayshrines in each Zone, but is a more exciting way to see the the World of Tamriel & feel like an Adventurer looking for Treasure!
HOW TO SCRY
When you first start Scrying it can seem a little confusing & over complicated, but with some time & tools that you unlock along the way it actually becomes very easy to do.
To start Scrying an Item, click on “Scryable” in the Menu previously mentioned above & select a Lead to Scry. Upon doing this you will be greeted with the Antiquarian Eye interface. The 6 Empty Hexagons with Glowing Outlines are “Dig Sites” (Officially Called Foci) & you want to connect all of these together in as fewer Moves as possible. You can accomplish this by selecting the Hexagons that have the same Icon inside them (Officially Called Facets).
When you have a group of Facets together you will see the Group Highlight into a Grouping. Clicking on this Grouping will lock them in & use a portion of the bar at the bottom of the Eye. This bar indicates the Moves you have left to connect all the Foci. On lower level Leads, you will have more moves available to accomplish this and you will unlock tools that help you out substantially as you Level Up.
If you aren’t able to connect all of them before your Moves Run Out, you will still be able to find the item, it just means that you will have to visit more Sites to find it.
To help you connect the Foci, you can unlock Tools as you Level Up the Scrying Skill:
Coalescence - Will make all of the Facets in a given area match based on the Facet at the Centre of your Selection. You will need to level it up to increase the size of the affected area.
Dilation - Will highlight all the Facets of the same type that are touching the Facets you have already locked.
Farsight - Will allow you to claim all the Facets in a Row regardless of the Symbol inside them.
These Tools do not use up your Moves & instead use Charges. When you first begin Scrying you will not have any Charges or Tools available, but as you Level Up the Skill you will unlock Tools & up to 3 Charges that you can use. Claiming Foci replenishes the Charges at a rate of 1/2 Charge per Foci. So if you use a charge for a Tool you will need to Claim 2 Foci to get that charge back.
EXCAVATION
Once you have completed Scrying with the Antiquarian Eye a Map will pop up with all the possible Sites where the Antiquity could be. If you captured all the Foci you will only See 1 Dig Site, however if you missed any then you will have up to 6 potential Dig Sites. You can go back in and Scry the item again to try and narrow down the number of Sites or you can go to each one & try your luck to see if that is the correct site. If it is not the correct site you will get a random Low Level Treasure Item when you attempt to dig up the Antiquity.
Go to the area highlighted on the Map to begin searching for the Dig Site. Once you arrive in the area you will want to use the Antiquarian Eye to help you find the Dig Site. You can do this by opening your Quick Slot Menu & adding the Antiquarian Eye from the “Tools” section onto the Quick Slot Wheel. Then just select the Eye from the Wheel & use as you would any other Quick Slot Item.
Upon using the Antiquarian Eye inside the potential Dig Site Zone you will see a Blue Ball of Light pop up and point the way to the Dig Site. You can only use the Eye once every 30 Seconds, so go in a straight line following the direction the tail is pointing until you find the Dig Site or are able to use the Eye again. Once you find the dig site, select it to begin the Excavation Mini - Game.
The Excavation Mini Game allows you to dig up the Antiquity using a variety of Tools that you will unlock as you Level Up. To begin with you will have the Antiquarian Eye & a Brush, but as you progress you will also unlock the Trowel & Large Shovel to help you remove more dirt at a time. Beginner Dig Sites will usually be shallower and have no obstacles in the way & higher Level Sites will introduce Gas Pockets & deeper levels of dirt to be removed.
Gas Pockets can be mitigated using the Trowel at higher levels, but they can also blow up the Antiquity if you are not careful. The Bar at the very top tells you how much time you have left to dig up the Item, with each click taking some time off.
The Red Bar below the Time Bar indicates the Health of the Antiquity. The higher level Items have only a single point of Health & the lower level Items have up to 4 Points. You can damage the Antiquity by using the Shovel to dig too many layers of dirt at once on top of it or by hitting the Gas Pockets in the Dig Site. Once you level the Trowel, you will be able to use it to safely remove these Gas Pockets & even use some of them to remove all the dirt between two Gas Pockets.
To begin the Excavation use the Antiquarian Eye to locate the Antiquity. Do this by selecting the Eye & clicking anywhere in the Dig Site. There are 4 possible Colours that can come up when you click, helping to narrow down how close you are. Red means you are not close to the Antiquity at all, Orange means you are in the general area, Yellow means you are close and Green means you are directly over the Antiquity. There will be a White Outline surrounding the square after you click it, indicating the boundary of the search area.
If the square is Red or Orange you need to go outside the boundary to find the item, if it is Yellow you will find the item inside the boundary. So even if you don’t get a Green box you can narrow down the most likely location based on the areas overlapping the Yellow boxes. If for some reason you are unable to Excavate the Antiquity, like if it gets destroyed or you run out of time, a new dig site will be created in the same area that you found the previous site & will have to start over with Excavation.
Once you have determined the location of the Antiquity you will need to begin Digging. At lower levels you will only have the Brush unlocked. This tool will clear a Single Layer of dirt in one square. Select the Tool & Click on each square over the Antiquity until you have exposed the entire Item. Once you have uncovered the Antiquity you will be able to use any additional time to uncover Bonus Items. These bonus Items will range from Gold to Treasures you can Sell to Merchants. Lower Level Sites will have 1 Bonus Item & you can get as many as 3 Bonus Items in the higher level sites.
As you level the Excavation Skill Line you will unlock the Trowel & the Shovel. These tools require you to build up Intuition which is earned by using the Brush & you gain half a Bar of Intuition for each use of the Brush. You will get 1 Bar of Intuition to fill up when you unlock the Trowel, & Levelling the Skill will get you a total of 2 Bars. The more Intuition you have, the more dirt is cleared away with each click. At Max Level you have a chance to use the Trowel or Shovel without consuming Intuition, meaning you can use it 2 or more times in a row to clear massive amounts of dirt. These tools have some very specific purposes to help you during Excavation. The Trowel can be used, once levelled enough, to blow up Gas Deposits & remove all of the dirt between two deposits. The Shovel will remove all dirt in a square area equal to the level of the dirt in the middle of the square. In the example you can see that the lower part of the square is highlighted & the top most portion is not. The highlighted parts will be removed & anything else will be untouched. You can use this to your advantage to clear a lot of dirt from a specific area without harming the Antiquity.
