Enchanting is one of the 6 professions in Elder Scrolls Online. It creates various glyphs which are used to add attributes and various effects to your items. To create these glyphs you’ll need to be at an enchanting station anywhere in the world, as well as have 3 appropriate reagents: one Potency, one Essence and one Aspect rune. Below we’ll take a closer look at Enchanting, so if you’re interested in this tradeskill be sure to read it.

Contents:

1. What Are Runes
2. Gathering Runes
3. Enchanting Skill Line
4. Essence Runes
5. Aspect Runes
6. Potency Runes
   1. Additive
   2. Subtractive
7. Creating Glyphs
   1. Armor
   2. Weapon
   3. Jewelry
8. Leveling Enchanting

What are Runes

Runestones can be found pretty much anywhere in Tamriel: these are lootable objects which provide you with many different runes. Runes come in three main categories: Essence Runes, Potency Runes and Aspect Runes.

• Essence runes (triangle) define which effect the enchant will have (such as extra magicka, magicka regeneration, weapon power, damage type…).
• Potency runes (square) determine whether the enchanted effect will be increased or decreased, buff or debuff.
• Aspect runes (circle) determine the quality (strength) of the enchant.

In each of these rune categories there are multiple different runes, and various combinations of them give you different types of glyphs. I included all rune translations in tables below so whatever effect you’re trying to create will be easy.

Glyphs on the other hand are simple: once created with runes, glyphs contain a particular enchant (not to be confused with traits) and can be applied to items by anyone.

Gathering Runes

Gathering runes is as simple as interacting with runestones in the world: small “shrines” of distinct appearances, typically very easy to spot. Like all other crafting materials, gathering runes doesn’t require you to be proficient in Enchanting, nor have any special tools to pick them up.

You will usually need many runes if you plan on advancing in Enchanting, and various equipment you get from quests or dungeons will often be far better if you are able to apply decent enchants to it. Therefore, it’s recommended to pick up all runes whenever you see them and start leveling Enchanting as soon as you can. It should be noted that due to the sheer amount of different runes you might often find yourself out of inventory space, so try to deposit them in your bank whenever convenient.

Zone with possibly the highest number of runestones is likely Bleakrock Isle. I’ve found a ton of them in the couple of hours I spent there on multiple occasions, though I wouldn’t go as far as to recommend you a faction because of it. If you’re actively picking up runes while questing anywhere, you should be able to pick up enough to progress in enchanting.

Enchanting Skill Line

Like every other ESO crafting skill, enchanting has its own skill line as well. If you intend to anything but the most basic glyphs investing into this skill line will be mandatory. You can spend a total of 21 points in enchanting passives, though not all are required to be a proficient enchanter.

• Potency Improvement (9) – Allows the use of higher level Runestones.
• Aspect Improvement (4) – Allows the use of higher quality Aspect Runestones.
• Keen Eye: Rune Stones (3) – Runes in Tamriel will be easier to see when you’re 20-40 meters or closer.
• Hireling (3) – A hireling will automatically send you runestones every day.
• Aspect Extraction (3) – Increases the chance to extract Aspect Runestones by 5%-15%.

Potency Improvement an Aspect Improvement are definitely necessary if you want to create the best glyphs, and maxing both of these passives will take 9 and 4 points, respectively. Keen Eye is in my opinion less useful for Enchanting, since runestones are very easy to notice in the world. Hireling can certainly pay off if you take it early, but depending on your build you may not want to spend 3 points in it. Lastly Aspect Extraction helps you extract more Aspect runestones from glyphs you created: helpful, but in no way mandatory.

Essence Runes

Essence Runes are the first rune type, and they determine the attribute or bonus your enchant will have. They are gathered from yellow runestones as shown in the attached image. The bonuses you get from Essence runes are fairly easy to understand, and they can be stronger or weaker depending on which other runes you combine them with. Below is a list of all Essence Runes and their “translations”:

Rune:	Translation:
Dekeipa	Frost
Deni	Stamina
Denima	Stamina Regen
Deteri	Armor
Haoko	Disease
Kaderi	Shield
Kuoko	Poison
Makderi	Spell Harm
Makko	Magicka
Makkoma	Magicka Regen
Meip	Shock
Oko	Health
Okoma	Health Regen
Okori	Power
Oru	Alchemist
Rakeipa	Fire
Taderi	Physical Harm

Aspect Runes

Round-shaped Aspect Runes are gathered from red runestones, and they are used to determine the quality of the glyphs you create. There are five different Aspect runes, each corresponding to a quality level.

Higher quality Aspect runes can be harder to find, so be sure to use them for enchants you will use or sell.

Rune:	Translation:	Quality (Item color):	Aspect Level:
Ta	Base	White	Level 1
Jejota	Fine	Green	Level 1
Denata	Superior	Blue	Level 2
Rekuta	Artifact	Purple	Level 3
Kuta	Legendary	Gold	Level 4

Potency Runes

Potency runes are the last rune type, and they are slightly more complex. Square-shaped and gathered from purple runestone nodes, Potency runes basically determine what level your gear must be for the glyphs to be applied and how strong the enchants are, and they fall into two different categories: subtractive or additive.

Tables below will give you all potency rune translations and required gear levels; VR indicates Veteran Rank.

Additive potency runes:

Rune:	Translation:	Glyph Prefix:	Potency Level:	Gear Level:
Jora	Develop	Trifling	Level 1	Level 1-10
Porade	Add	Inferior	Level 1	Level 5-15
Jera	Increase	Petty	Level 2	Level 10-20
Jejora	Raise	Slight	Level 2	Level 15-25
Odra	Gain	Minor	Level 3	Level 20-30
Pojora	Supplement	Lesser	Level 3	Level 25-35
Edora	Boost	Moderate	Level 4	Level 30-40
Jaera	Advance	Average	Level 4	Level 35-45
Pora	Augment	Strong	Level 5	Level 40-50
Denara	Strenghten	Strong	Level 5	Level 40-50
Rera	Exaggerate	Greater	Level 6	VR1-VR3
Derado	Empower	Greater	Level 7	VR3-VR5
Recura	Magnify	Grand	Level 8	VR5-VR8
Cura	Intensify	-	Level 9	VR8-VR10

Subtractive potency runes:

Rune:	Translation:	Glyph Prefix:	Potency Level:	Gear Level:
Jode	Reduce	Trifling	Level 1	Level 1-10
Notade	Subtract	Inferior	Level 1	Level 5-15
Ode	Shrink	Petty	Level 2	Level 10-20
Tade	Decrease	Slight	Level 2	Level 15-25
Jayde	Deduct	Minor	Level 3	Level 20-30
Edode	Lower	Lesser	Level 3	Level 25-35
Pojode	Diminish	Moderate	Level 4	Level 30-40
Rekude	Weaken	Average	Level 4	Level 35-45
Hade	Lessen	Strong	Level 5	Level 40-50
Idode	Impair	Strong	Level 5	Level 40-50
Pode	Remove	Greater	Level 6	VR1-VR3
Kedeko	Drain	Greater	Level 7	VR3-VR5
Rede	Deprive	Grand	Level 8	VR5-VR8
Kude	Negate	-	Level 9	VR8-VR10

Creating Glyphs

To create glyphs you will first need to find an Enchanting station in the world: they are most easily found in major towns. Like other professions, you can use runes deposited in your bank right from the enchanting interface. Creating a glyph is a fairly straightforward process: you add a Potency, Essence and Aspect rune to make a “Rune phrase” and press Create (“E” hotkey). If you use any of the added runes for the first time, a window will pop giving you their translations — fortunately you have all the translations in the tables provided above so this won’t be necessary for you.

As mentioned you need to combine different runes to create a glyph with an enchant you want. Glyphs you make can be applied to either armor, weapons or jewellery. To use them, simply right-click on any item equipped on your character or in your inventory and select the “Enchant” option: a list of your available glyphs and enchants will show up, and all you have to do is select one. You can find a list of all possible glyphs in each of these categories below.

Armor Glyphs

There are only three different base armor glyphs you can create, boosting your base attributes.

Glyph Name:	Glyph Description:	Potency Rune:	Essence Rune:
Glyph of Magicka	Adds Max Magicka	Any Additive	Makko
Glyph of Health	Adds Max Health	Any Additive	Oko
Glyph of Stamina	Adds Max Stamina	Any Additive	Deni

Weapon Glyphs

Unlike Armor, Weapon glyphs are more varied and can add different effects to your weapons. You can deal extra damage, absorb life or magicka from your target, or debuff your enemies with various effects.

Note that unlike armor and jewelry, some weapon enchants will have to be recharged once in awhile by expending charged Soul Gems.

Glyph Name:	Glyph Description:	Potency Rune:	Essence Rune:
Glyph of Frost	Deals Frost Damage	Any Additive	Dekeipa
Glyph of Foulness	Deals Disease Damage	Any Additive	Haoko
Glyph of Poison	Deals Poison Damage	Any Additive	Kuoko
Glyph of Shock	Deals Shock Damage	Any Additive	Meip
Glyph of Rage	Increases your Power by ‘x’ for ‘y’ seconds	Any Additive	Okori
Glyph of Flame	Deals Fire Damage	Any Additive	Rakeipa
Glyph of Hardening	Grants a ‘x’ point Damage Shield for ‘y’ seconds	Any Additive	Deteri
Glyph of Absorb Magicka	Deals Magic Damage and recovers Magicka	Any Subtractive	Makko
Glyph of Absorb Health	Deals Magic Damage and recovers Health	Any Subtractive	Oko
Glyph of Decrease Health	Deals unresistable damage	Any Subtractive	Okoma
Glyph of Weakening	Reduce target’s Power by ‘x’ for ‘y’ seconds	Any Subtractive	Okori
Glyph of Absorb Stamina	Deals Magic Damage and recovers Stamina	Any Subtractive	Deni
Glyph of Crushing	Reduce target’s Armor by ‘x’ for ‘y’ seconds	Any Subtractive	Deteri

Jewellery Glyphs

Jewellery includes rings and a necklace, and can actually have many different enchants. They are more or less useful depending on your class and build. You can create them by combining the appropriate potency and essence runes as displayed in the table below:

Glyph Name:	Glyph Description:	Potency Rune:	Essence Rune:
Glyph of Increase Physical Harm	Adds Weapon Damage	Additive	Taderi
Glyph of Health Regen	Adds Health Recovery	Additive	Okoma
Glyph of Magicka Regen	Adds Magicka Recovery	Additive	Makkoma
Glyph of Bashing	Increase Bash Damage	Additive	Kaderi
Glyph of Stamina Regen	Adds Stamina Recovery	Additive	Denima
Glyph of Potion Boost	Increase Potion effect	Additive	Oru
Glyph of Increase Magical Harm	Adds Spell Damage	Additive	Makderi
Glyph of Frost Resist	Adds Frost Resistance	Subtractive	Dekeipa
Glyph of Poison Resist	Adds Poison Resistance	Subtractive	Kuoko
Glyph of Decrease Spell Harm	Adds Spell Resistance	Subtractive	Makderi
Glyph of Decrease Physical Harm	Adds Armor	Subtractive	Taderi
Glyph of Reduce Feat Cost	Reduce Stamina cost of abilities	Subtractive	Denima
Glyph of Disease Resist	Adds Disease Resistance	Subtractive	Haoko
Glyph of Shielding	Reduce cost of Bash and reduce cost of Blocking	Subtractive	Kaderi
Glyph of Reduce Spell Cost	Reduce Magicka cost of Spells	Subtractive	Makkoma
Glyph of Shock Resist	Adds Shock Resistance	Subtractive	Meip
Glyph of Potion Speed	Reduce the cooldown of Potions below this item’s level by ‘x’ seconds	Subtractive	Oru
Glyph of Fire Resist	Adds Fire Resistance	Subtractive	Rakeipa

Leveling Enchanting

Leveling enchanting is somewhat more difficult from my experience, especially when compared to blacksmiting. First of all, you’ll want to create glyphs to improve your own equipment you use when leveling. You will likely change your weapons every few levels, but you will far more often change your armor, so focus your efforts on creating armor enchants rather than jewelry and weapons.

Considering you can purchase basic glyphs from vendors for rather small amounts of gold, selling them to other players will in most cases not be worth it, though if you use higher quality Aspect runes there may be a market for them. You can however sell your crafted glyphs to other players for decent prices, and here’s why.

The best trick to leveling up Enchanting quickly is to break down glyphs created by other players. Enchanting is designed as a profession where creating glyphs for your own equipment gives you extremely little inspiration (crafting experience), thus leveling it solely by creating glyphs would take an enormous amount of time and gold.

Deconstructing glyphs created by other players gives you substantially more Inspiration Points, so pair up with friends or guild mates and trade various glyphs with each other. If you don’t have anyone to trade with directly then simply join a trading guild or two: there should be more than plenty of inexpensive glyphs to purchase.

Sidenote, deconstructing glyphs created by other characters on your account is the same as if they were crafted by another player, so you can trade glyphs between your own characters to get bonus Inspiration.

Be sure to also consider that Glyphs of higher quality give you more Inspiration, so deconstructing Blue or even Purple glyphs may be worth it: paying 500g for a purple glyph is a very reasonable price since you can also receive a purple Aspect rune which is easily worth as much (make sure you have “Aspect Extraction” skill point for increased chance). I can find at least a dozen cheap Blue and Purple glyphs every day in my 4 trading guilds.

Lastly, “translating” which is simply using a particular glyph for the first time gives you a ton of Inspiration, so make sure you translate every glyph type at least once. It will only give you bonus IP amount the first time you use it, so don’t waste expensive runes!

Don’t forget to check out this guide which will help you plan your Enchanting experience and leveling without having to spend hundreds of thousands of gold in the process.

Closing

Though it does take time to fully level it up, Enchanting is a great way to boost the power of your gear while leveling without spending much gold. This craft does require investing skill points in certain passive to make it worthwhile, but if you don’t want to spend any you could always simply purchase glyphs from other players. And even if you don’t plan to level up this profession you should pick up runes whenever convenient as they can be valuable.

Be sure to add your own thoughts and experiences about enchanting in the comments below, and check out this professional crafting guide to learn more about this and other crafting skills in TESO.