Character leveling in ESO is accomplished through gaining experience, so the fastest way to level up is by simply playing the game. But of course, some ways of gaining XP are faster than others.
In this guide, we will look at the top places to grind out that XP. But before picking a place to grind, make sure you’re getting the most out of your time by using as many stackable buffs as you can!
XP Buffs
Several experience buffs exist in the game, buffs that you should be using if your goal is farming XP or fast leveling.
XP Scrolls
Experience scrolls are percentage based modifiers at 50, 100, or 150% boost.
They can drop in crown crates, or can be purchased with crown gems, but you can also get some for free in your daily rewards fairly often.
Ambrosia Drinks
You could also drink an Ambrosia, which is a craftable consumable you can buy by using your ESO Gold from other players or at a Guild Trader. But if you have the appropriate skills and materials, you could even craft them yourself.
It’s important to know that ambrosia and scrolls do not stack with each other. You can only use one or the other.
Holiday Buffs
These buffs do, however, stack with event XP.
So, it is fastest to power-level a character when one of the holiday events with a 100% XP boost, like New Life, is currently ongoing!
Training Gear
You can also wear training gear to gain even more experience from the enemies you kill. The better the quality of the training gear, the more experience you earn.
At purple quality, you receive a 9% boost for each armor piece, and a 4 or 8% per weapon piece.
For even more of a boost, craft, or buy a crafted set of Heartland Conqueror to double the effectiveness of your weapons training trait.
Group XP Buff
When farming XP, you should group up with another player to receive an additional 10% boost.
Companions don’t count. And having more than 2 people in your group will decrease your gains. So, keep these things in mind.
Equipment That Has XP Buffs - Rings Of Mara & Mora’s Whisper
There are also 2 pieces of equipment that can boost your XP.
The Ring of Mara can be used to marry another player character for a 10% XP boost when playing with that character.
The other is a mythic item called Mora’s Whispers that offers up to a 15% boost based on the number of books you have in Shalidor’s Library.
ESO Plus Gives An XP Boost
ESO Plus members also benefit from an additional 10% as part of their subscription.
Join The Guilds
And as one final call out, if you haven’t already, be sure to join the Fighers Guild, Mages Guild, and Undaunted before grinding so that you can make progress in their skill trees while grinding!
Locations To Grind
Now, without further interruption, let’s look at some locations to grind!
Arenas
The arenas are great grind spots, especially the group arenas for the added XP, but even Maelstrom Arena on normal can be an easy way to get XP.
Blackrose Prison Arena is still one of the best grind spots available, but you will need Murkmire or ESO Plus to enter. Team up with one other player for the XP boost, set the difficulty to normal, and only do the first arena up to the boss.
Reset the instance before the boss spawns, though you can kill him for the loot his XP gains are minimal.
Once reset, re-enter the arena and repeat.
Skyreach Catacombs
Another great spot is Skyreach Catacombs in Craglorn, though the XP here isn’t as high as some others. The area is instanced, so you don’t need to worry about peak play times ruining your grind.
Public Dungeons
You could also use Public Dungeons, many of which have large groups of enemies on short respawn timers.
You can make a loop of the dungeon, pull mobs together, and kill a large pack at once.
Each public dungeon has a skill point obtained by defeating the group event boss, and a Skyshard. So, not only can you grind XP here, but you could grind some skill points as well.
Dolmen Circuits
Dolmens are an easy and popular, but often boring way to get XP.
The circuit in the Alik’r Desert is one of the more popular because of the distance from anchor to wayshrine. There are some other zones that are set up nicely.
Overland Farms
And there are also some other base game overland areas with fast respawn timers, including:
- Verrant Morass in Greenshade. This area becomes very busy during peak times, but when it’s quiet, this is a great place to get XP.
- Alik’r Desert is popular for the dolmen loop. But there is also a zombie beach spot in this zone that is an efficient XP grind.
- Spellscar in Craglorn is another great base game overland loop.
- Coldharbour has a few zombie farms worth checking out, too.
Dungeon Daily
This next one can only be farmed if you have many toons, but a great way to get XP is completing a normal dungeon daily.
Unfortunately, the massive XP boost only applies to your first random dungeon each day, but it is certainly worth doing the one time.
Player VS Player
And if PvP is more your speed, you can complete the random battleground daily, or use the Imperial City Sewers to grind XP while you wait for other players to show up.
Infinite Archive
Lastly, you could check out the Infinite Archive in Apocrypha!
The further you get, the harder and longer each stage becomes. So, repeating the first Arc is a great way to level up while collecting Archival Fortunes.
Leveling Companions
If your goal is leveling a companion, keep in mind that they only get XP from kills, and their XP gains are based on a percentage of your earned XP.
This means the more enemies you can quickly kill, the faster your Companions will level up, so areas with several groups of enemies close to each other are the best for this method, where dolmens are less lucrative for your companion because they don’t get any of the XP from the dolmen completion.
