ESO Imperial City Gold and XP Farming Guide
This quick video and guide covers the best ways to farm Tel Var, gold and XP in the Imperial City in the Elder Scrolls Online!
This is the method that I personally use when I am looking to not only grind XP, but make some gold as well! You dont make as much gold as a pure farming method or as much XP as a pure XP grinding method, but this way is a great mid-ground between the two and allows you to accomplish both tasks at the same time! Where am I talking about? I’m talking about the imperial city, located in the center of Cyrodiil. Yes, it’s a pvp zone, but it’s a great zone to accomplish some really solid gold farming and XP grinding! For those who havent seen my pvp basics guide, I’m going to start with some background on Imperial City, and then ill get into the method itself.
The Imperial City is broken up into two sections: the city and the sewers.
Within the sewers, your faction has a home base that has vendors, crafting areas, daily quests, and ladders that take you to the different city districts up above. Also, while you are in IC, if you kill a mob or another player, you gain this currency called Tel Var. Tel Var can be exchanged at merchants in your factions home base within the sewers for various items, but we will go over what is the best thing to buy with tel var later.
As I said earlier, the city up top is divided into various districts (which can be seen in the Imperial City map picture) that your faction can take control of. If you take control of a district, you gain more Tel Var stones while farming within that district. If you die while in IC, you lose the majority of your Tel Var stones, so its good to go back to your bank in your factions base every now and then to deposit your hard-earned tel var stones. Mobs also drop key fragments, which allow you to open loot chests around IC and in the IC dungeons that offer great loot.
With that out of the way, let’s get into why your here – how to make gold and farm XP at the same time. Like I said, you have two different areas, the sewers, and the city above, both are great for farming but they’re each a bit better at certain things. When you’re in the city above, you get more Tel Var than you do farming in the sewers, but you do get less experience. In the sewers, you net less tel var stones, but you gain more experience overall. It’s up to you to choose whether you value Tel Var or XP more than the other. When you’re up top, simply farm the various mobs around the district. If you see other players, you can group up to kill the big bosses roaming around the district if you so choose. When you’re in the sewers, there is a path near each of the faction’s home bases that’s best to farm (you want to farm closest to your home base so you have less distance to travel when needing to bank your Tel Var, and plus its just generally safer to be close to your home base). Those farm paths can be seen below:
Depending on your faction, run around that highlighted part of the sewers and kill all the mobs, but avoid the big boss guys running around down here. They’re very, very difficult to kill and the reward for actually killing them is pretty pitiful.
So once you have a stack of tel var and key fragments, what should you buy with your Tel Var? Personally, i am a fan of consistency, so I buy Hakeijo with my Tel Var and just sell those on the guild trader. If you’re a little more daring, you can buy the gear loot boxes that contain random pieces of gear in them, and buy the boxes that contain gear pieces you know sell for a lot. But remember, there is no guarantee here. There are some other gear sets you could purchase and sell as well, but I’d check prices on those first to see if they’re worth your time. You can also buy Alchemy Satchels which contain various herbs for alchemy and sell those on guild traders if you prefer!
In terms of the key fragments, I just recommend holding onto them and selling them on the guild trader. But, if you want to try your hand at looting the boxes, you can open the boxes around the sewers and the city as well for a chance at some high-valued loot. But again, I’m more of a fan of consistency with my gold making, so I’d recommend just selling the key fragments.
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