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The Elder Scrolls Online Leveling Guide – 1-50 + 810 Champion Points

Welcome to our ESO Leveling Guide. Here we will provide you with the information you need to level your character as fast as possible from 1 to 50 with max Champion Points, and all the Skill Points.

Leveling to level 50 can be done in only a few hours if done right, but leveling Champion Points takes a lot longer. Expect months of in-game time to reach cap if you are a casual player. If you grind all the way it can be done in 10-14 days in-game time.

If you need a build for your class, check out our ESO Class builds here.

This guide has been updated for Greymoor

General ESO Leveling Tips

Looting, Selling and Bag Space

Looting & selling can take up a bit of time when leveling so you have to consider whether or not it is worth it for you.

Upgrading your bag space with gold at a pack merchant or through the ESO store is recommended.

You can also buy merchants in the store for crowns that will cut down on travelling time when selling.

Movement Speed

Movement speed is also important for leveling. For example if you are quicky enough you will have time to attack more mobs when doing dolmens so that you get more XP.

Either upgrade your mount speed as much as possible or see our Movement Speed Build.

Alts

Enlightenment is shared between all your characters, but having alts for leveling CP is still beneficial as you can run dungeons for the bonus on each alt and also do daily quests.

Crafting Writs

The fastest way to level alts is by using Alchemy and Enchanting, and doing Master Writs while using an XP potion. By doing this you can get to level 50 in an hour or two. This is very expensive though, and should only be done if you have a lot of gold.

PvP for Leveling

PvP isn’t really good for leveling in general, but the first Battleground queue that you do each day reward you with 4x XP, just like the daily dungeon. Making it worth it to do one Battleground a day.

ESO Experience Boosters and Bonuses

First things first, let’s make leveling go fast! With XP boosters you can make leveling go a lot faster than normal. Everything from potions to gear and special double XP events will make your leveling process go a lot faster. Below we will list all the main ways of boosting your XP.

Experience Scrolls & Ambrosia Drinks

You can get Crown Experience Scrolls in various ways.

Crown Store XP Scrolls

The first and easiest way is to get them for free through the daily reward system in the crown store. You can get quite a few every month, even some 150% ones, so log in and claim your rewards.

Crown Store XP Scrolls from Gems

You can also get Crown Experience Scrolls either in the Crown Crates which you can on some occasions also get for free through special events in the game, but usually, you have to buy. You can also buy Crown Experience Scrolls with the Crown Gems that you get from the chests.

Lastly, you can get XP scrolls from the standard way of buying them in the Crown Store.

Ambrosia Drinks work in the same way as experience scrolls. Ambrosia Drinks and Crown Experience Scrolls do not stack.

There are three types of Ambrosia drinks that can be either crafted (which is pretty hard) or bought from a Guild Trader. They usually cost around 2000-3000 gold for the cheapest option and go up to quite a lot for the best one.

If you loot and sell everything while grinding you should be able to pay for the upkeep of having an Ambrosia Drink constantly going.

Go to our ESO Gold guide if you need gold for Ambrosia Drinks.

The different Ambrosia Drinks are:

  • Psijic Ambrosia Drink (50% Bonus XP)
  • Aetherial Ambrosia Drink (100% Bonus XP)
  • Mythic Aetherial Ambrosia Drink (150% Bonus XP)

ESO Plus

ESO plus will not only give you a 10% boost to experience, but 1500 crowns that can be spent on Experience Boosters, and access to additional quests and areas to level up in.

Eso Membership Bonuses

Double XP Events

During holiday events in ESO, you will be able to complete quests to get items that will grant you 100% bonus experience. These bonuses stack with all other XP boosts. These events are:

  • The Witches Festival (Halloween October / November)
  • New Life Festival (December/January)
  • Jester’s Festival (March/April)
  • Midyear Mayhem (Summer)

Ritual of Mara

The Ritual of Mara is basically two players getting married. You will be awarded the Ring of Mara and when you play together you will get a 10% XP bonus.

Grouping

Duoing is actually the most efficient way of leveling. You still get full XP and a slight bonus when grouping with one other player. Anything more than that and XP gain will start to diminish a little.

Enlightenment

Veteran Rank Enlightenment

When you get to max level and start gaining Champion points you gain 400.000 enlightenment per day. You can store up to 4.8m enlightenment. When you are enlightened, you gain Champion point XP four times faster faster.

ESO Training / Leveling Gear

When leveling, the best gear you can use is gear with the “Training” trait. These gear pieces will give you a bonus XP for killing mobs. For alts you can easily craft this gear with your main or buy it from guild vendors.

For new players you can get it by playing the game, doing dolmens or bosses. You can also try joining a guild and seeing if someone can make you some leveling gear, usually someone will.

Training Gear in ESO

ESO Leveling Addons

The Zygor Guides Community leveling addon for ESO, is a completely free in-game leveling addon that will help you level up. Complete with all the information you need to level quicker, especially if you are leveling by doing quests.

ESO Quest Leveling

Questing in ESO might not be the fastest way to level, but it has a good storyline, and a lot of quests. You should always consider doing the main storyline as you get 11 skill points from it.

ESO Level by Grinding

Grinding is one of the most efficient ways of leveling in ESO.

Some of the best and most popular grinds are zombie grinds. Since zombies are slow and die quickly, they make for the ideal mod to grind. There are three main areas where people farm zombies.

Spellscar Grind in Craglorn

This is one of the best leveling spots in ESO.

Spellscar XP Grinding Map

Verrant Morass Zombie Grind in Greenshade

A popular zombie grind and close to a wayshrine for teleporting.

Greenshade Zombie Xp Grind Map

Sentinel Zombie Grind in Alik’r Dessert

My favorite zombie grind. A lot of people run dolmens in Alik’r Dessert as well so you got the choice to switch it up a bit between the two.

Alik'r Zombie Grind Map

The Vile Laboratory Zombie Grind in Coldharbour

Coldharbour has two main areas that are great for grinding.

  • Court of Contempt Grind (North mark on the map)
  • The Vile Laboratory Zombie Grind (South mark on the map)
Coldharbour Grinding Map

Skyreach Catacombs Grind

If you want an instanced grind, you should go for Skyreach. You should have a couple hundred CP before you can start farming effciently here though.

Skyreach Grinding Map

ESO Dungeon Leveling

You should do every dungeon at least once for the quest. You should also do one Random Dungeon per day for the 4x XP bonus.

Random Daily Dungeon

Undaunted Pledges

When leveling in dungeons you should also get your 3 daily Undaunted Pledges. These quests are available from the Undaunted Enclaves in Wayrest, Mournhold and Elden Root.

ESO Dolmen Leveling

Dolmens are one of the best ways to level quickly in ESO. You just have to show up at a Dolmen and attack something at least once, and you will get full XP and some nice gear.

Eso Dolmens

I usually use the Dolmens in Alik’r Dessert as they will always have tons of players doing them so they only take about a minute to finish and you can move on to the next one.

The Dolmen in Alik’r also has wayshrines right next to them so you can move quickly between them.

Alik'r Dolmen Map

ESO Skill Point Leveling

There are many types of skills in ESO, and it is important to also level up your skills. How you level up your skills differ from skill to skill.

Class Skills

These are leveled automatically as you use them. Simply slot into your skill bar and use the skill to the skill line.

Weapon Skills

Works much the same as class skills. Equip a type of weapon and use skills from the skill line of that weapon.

Armor Skills

These are leveled automatically by wearing armor. Use 5 of your main type of armor and one of each of the other two to level them all up and benefit the most from the gear.

Soul Magic Skills

Are leveled up as you advance through the main story.

Legerdemain Skills

Level up by unlocking chests, stealing and laundering stolen goods.

Werewolf Skills

Leveled up through killing mobs in Werewolf form.

Vampire Skills

Vampire is leveled by earning XP as normal.

Fighters Guild

Complete guild story quests, bounties in Cyrodiil, doing dolmens and killing daedra and undead will level your Fighters Guild skills.

Mages Guild

Leveled through story quests, public dungeon daily quests and finding lorebooks all over the world.

Thieves Guild

Leveled through story quests and repeatable quests.

Dark Brotherhood

Leveled through story quests, repeatable quests and contracts.

Psijic Order

Leveled through story quests.

Undaunted

Leveled through dungeons and daily pledges.

Skyshards

Skyshards give you 1 skill point for every 3 that you find, so looking for Skyshards should be done as you level up. The location for each Skyshard can be found here.

That’s it for our ESO leveling guide. Now that you are level 50, check out our class builds here. If you have any questions or suggestions, leave a comment below and I will get back to you!

Anon

Sunday 18th of July 2021

This information on leveling to lv50 is seriously outdated. It's impossible to level to 50 in an hour or two, let alone a day. Even with XP bonuses, this will take at LEAST a couple days at 8hrs/day. Dungeons aren't even available until after level 10. So that means you have to discover everything first and do quests to even get a decent amount of XP.

Hydra9268

Wednesday 2nd of June 2021

Thanks for the addon mention. Appreciate the support.

PVPKiller

Monday 3rd of August 2020

Great guide! I love PVP and you're totally right when you say: "PvP isn’t really good for leveling in general, but the first Battleground queue that you do each day reward you with 4x XP, just like the daily dungeon. Making it worth it to do one Battleground a day."

I use it as a complement to leveling since I saw that in an ESO Power Leveling guide that MMOAuctions made. But man! You really rock.

ToxicAndroid

Wednesday 20th of May 2020

I would also add, get training gear made or learn it, each item you wear with training on gives 5% as a basic, so 7 items is 35% is a big boost, plus with weapons aswell you can get more

Bekir

Wednesday 22nd of January 2020

What I do is actually to complete some 15 ~ 20 quests but not ending them and then using an xp scroll and finishing them all at once. Most of the xp from quests coming at the end. Very cheap but efficient.