The 15 Best ESO AddOns That You Actually Need

Image: Zenimax Online Studios via HGG

Human Made

Penned by Angus Green

Angus is our resident Elder Scrolls Online specialist. He lives in Eugene and is a teacher by day.

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

The Elder Scrolls Online is a truly massive game, and over time people have come up with new ways to further optimize playing it through add-ons. Many players may shy away from add-ons so they can have a more “authentic” experience of the game, but they often provide crucial information and assistance the game doesn’t give you on its own. I’ve rounded up the top 15 best ESO AddOns you need to make the most of your journey through The Elder Scrolls Online.

For me, the Pandora’s Box of add-ons opened when I first downloaded “Combat Metrics.” I needed to know how much damage I was dealing so I could try my hand at veteran trials, but I couldn’t track my numbers until I downloaded the Combat Metrics add-on.

Once you dive into add-ons, you’ll find yourself speeding through the more boring parts of the game so you can focus more on the parts you really love. We’ve compiled some of the most useful add-ons that you should try out below. The first section will cover how to get them safely in the first place, so feel free to skip that section if you already know how to get all of your add-ons. I’ll include how many downloads each add-on has gathered from Minion at the side of each add-on below to give you a better idea of how relevant they are.

Let’s get started!

Popular Destinations..

The Elder Scrolls Online Waystone | Navigation Page

Elder Scrolls Online News: Latest Events & News

Getting Add-ons

One of the direct ways you can get add-ons is by simply going to a site like Elder Scrolls Online AddOns where you can download, unzip the files, and put them in your ESO add-ons folder. As this can be tedious, I highly suggest downloading the application called Minion (it’s currently in its 3rd version). This is a highly used add-on manager that will take any headache out of downloading add-ons and using them right away. You can easily search through add-ons and see how many people are using them. You can also update any of your add-ons from the app instead of having to go and redownload them from the website directly. 

Make sure your Game Add On Folder Path (in Options, the 4th tab over) is set to “C:Users”Your Name”DocumentsElder Scrolls OnlineliveAddOns” or your downloads won’t get put into the game. Remember that many add-ons have dependencies, and will require you to download various other add-ons for them to work. “LibAddOnMenu” is an example of a very common type that you will need to also have for things like Combat Metrics or Harvest Map to work. 

Now let’s jump into the add-ons that will make ESO much more enjoyable to play.

New Player Must-Have Add-Ons

Here’s a small collection of the best ESO beginner Addons.

1. Destinations (~5,551,000 downloads)

This is a great add-on to get for new players, as it highlights all the important places you can visit in a given zone. Wayshrines, mundus stones, dungeons, or dolmens — this add-on has you covered. It can be fun to go in blindly when you first start the game and simply explore and find what you can, but after you’ve combed through a couple of zones, it gets old. Not knowing where the closest wayshrine can be annoying. Or worse, just barely missing a dolmen or world boss because you couldn’t find it in time. This add-on will show you where these important places are on the map, and you’ll be able to go seek them out yourself more easily. If you ever feel like exploring without knowing where anything is again, just toggle the add-on off until you need it again.

2. Votan’s Rune Tooltips (~209,000)

This is an add-on I wish I knew about before learning every enchantment on my main, only to have to memorize them again for writs on my other accounts. Lazy Crafting Writ will of course just give you the enchantment you need when you have the item, but what if you want to make an enchantment for a weapon? This add-on will give you an explanation of what each enchantment does so you don’t have to waste time looking up the differences between Rakeipa and Oko.

It also helps you from using and wasting a rare enchantment to discover what it does. Trust me, you don’t want to use a Hakeijo to find out what it does and later find they can sell for upwards of 35K on a guild trader. 

3. Lore Books (~8,894,000)

Lore Books will highlight locations of the books you need to gather to increase your Mage’s guild skill line. Finding these on your own can be a fun challenge at first, but it becomes tiresome very quickly. There’s no good way to know where to look for them, so this add-on really helps.

It usually shows around four options for where to find each lore book, and they’ll disappear from the map once you get that specific book. Once you find a lore book, be sure to check your map again to find the new area where you can find more.  If you want to level your Mage’s skill line to benefit from its passives or get that great Meteor ultimate, this is a must-have add-on. 

4. Quest Map (~1,944,000)

For completionists, this is the add-on to get. It’ll show you where any potential quests are in a zone, helping you get through all the content this game has to offer. When you complete a zone and come back to it later to finish out something like skyshards, finding those last quests can be a huge hassle.

Quest Map allows you to quickly find the quest givers you normally wouldn’t be able to find without combing through the map. Keep in mind that in some cases, you won’t be able to find a quest where the add-on says to go — this means you need to complete a prerequisite before you unlock it, so just move on to the next nearby quest in the meantime.

5. Map Pins (~2,959,000) + Harvest Map (~7,223,000)

If you are a treasure hunter in ESO, these add-ons will make your life much easier. Rather than having to look up where to find potential chests when farming for a set or good locations to find ruby ash, you can just reference the add-ons. These add-ons cover any resource node you would be able to harvest from and place them on your map. They also show you glowing symbols in-game as you near them.

Harvest Map will allow you to customize what type of items you will see, so if you just want to find treasure chests and alchemy ingredients, you can do that. If you have all the different nodes turned on, your map will look chaotic and slow down gameplay. Map Pins will show you skyshard locations, which is very helpful as you start out, and will also help you find ones you might have missed before. 

(Note: Skyshards (~9,730,000) is an add-on that is also available if you just want that feature for finding those.)

Quality of Life Add-Ons

In this section, I’ve covered the top quality of life UI ESO Addons.

6. Perfect Pixel (~328,000)

This is an interesting add-on that I found to be way more useful than I initially expected. While you’re playing the game, a lot of your inventory screens, quest logs, etc. show you surprisingly little information. After you download Perfect Pixel, you’ll actually be able to see a huge amount of your items right when you open up your inventory. It basically spaces out your menu screens to show all of the information it can at a glance by spreading it through the whole screen. Finding and selling items has never been easier. 

7. Alpha Gear (~593,000)

This add-on works similarly to the upcoming Dressing Room feature. You can save armor load-outs and set them to a key binding of your choice. This is useful if you want to switch between a DPS set better suited for trash mobs to one that’s designed for bosses, or even if you want to switch from a DPS to a tanking or healing role. I use mine to quickly load out my sneaking gear so that I don’t have to change it all out myself whenever I want to get my thieving on.

Dressing Room will be more in-depth by comparison and allow you to change CP and skills at no cost once you have already paid for them once. Alpha Gear has the benefit of being able to use it anywhere, even in the middle of a dungeon or trial which Dressing Room will not allow. 

8. Dolgubon’s Lazy Writ Crafter (~4,948,000) + Daily Alchemy (~938,000) and Daily Provisioning (~990,000)

Once you have crafted several daily writs, the joy is slowly sucked out until it becomes a remedial task. The items you can get from writ crafting are top notch, but the time it takes is tedious, to say the least.

Lazy Writ Crafter speeds this up in a couple of ways. Whenever you interact with the crafting board, it takes all of the quests and accepts them immediately. Then, as you near a crafting station, its title will glow red to show that you have a writ for it. Accessing the table shows you an option to craft all the applicable writs quickly. Finally, at turn-in, it immediately completes the quest when you interact with the delivery crates, and even takes and opens the items for you. If you craft on all characters, you absolutely need this add-on — it’ll save you a lot of time. 

(Note: Lazy Writ Crafter does not do these functions for Alchemy or Provisioning, so you’ll need some other add-ons for that.)

9. Inventory Insight (~1,006,000)

This is a super useful add-on for Altaholics, as many of us with 9+ toons like to call ourselves. It quickly takes an inventory of all your characters, banked items, and even house chest items. You’ll have to log onto each character and go to the places where your items are stored in order to record this information, though.

When you open your inventory, you’ll see a search bar where you can check for a specific item anywhere in your accounts, banks, and chests. It can get in the way of the trading menu when you’re selling items, so just quickly exit the add-on and it’ll pop up the next time you open your inventory.

10. Bandits UI (~3,288,000)

This is a user interface add-on that a lot of players really enjoy. It provides you with a lot of customizable options and shows you information you normally wouldn’t be able to see. Once you set up all the information you’re looking for, it can really upgrade your playing.

This add-on packs a lot of information onto your screen, especially in things like Dungeons or Trials, where it tracks the use of certain ultimates like warhorn. This can be an information overload, so you’ll need to work with getting the settings just right to tailor it to your needs. Personally, I prefer the standard UI while using other add-ons, but it’s hard not to see all the merit that Bandits UI has to offer in one place.

Trade Add-Ons

If you’re a big trader, you’ve got to get at least one of the best ESO trade addons.

11. Tamriel Trade Center (~2,422,000) / Master Merchant 3.0 (~1,257,000)

Essential for any big traders, this add-on quickly shows you the average worth of items you find. It’s important to keep this one up to date, as prices fluctuate heavily in ESO. It also shows you where specific items are at their given guild traders, which makes traveling around to find the good price for your desired items much faster.

This is a really important add-on that will both prevent you from trashing valuable items and save you time on trading trash. Master Merchant 3.0 works very similarly to TTC, and either can be used to accurately find prices of items. There are times when either will be off slightly, so you can always manually check the website on very expensive items to be sure. Events can also quickly cut down or increase the price of specific types of items, so be weary of that when using these. 

End Game Add-Ons

ESO veterans will appreciate this end game addons.

12. Combat Metrics (~4,524,000)

This is a signature add-on for showing your DPS and where it’s coming from. When people Parse on a trial dummy to check how much damage they do, they’ll use Combat Metrics to showcase how much their sets, skills, and rotation are benefiting their damage.

Type “/CMX” after a battle to see an overview of how much damage you dealt and why. It has a great breakdown of all the different information you may want to see before you get into a veteran trial yourself. Many trial groups who run veteran content will require a record parse to show that you are ready for the content, and this is a very easy way to convey where you’re at.

Another perk of this add-on is that it shows how much damage you deal in comparison to your group. It won’t tell you exactly how much each team member is doing, but will show your damage and the overall damage done to show you how you stack up. If it says something like 40,000/45,000, your group probably isn’t pulling their weight. Alternatively, if it says 500/100,000, you’ll know that you need to work on your DPS instead.

13. Code’s Combat Alerts (~1,250,000)

Another very useful add-on for more difficult content, such as veteran Dungeons, Trials, and Arenas. In many cases, there will be a lot going on during fights, so sometimes you’ll miss an enemy charging up their one-shot mechanic. This add-on will notify you when you are being targeted with one of these one-shots, and you’ll be able to better react to it. There’s nothing worse than missing one of these in the midst of an important battle and being the reason your group wipes, so this one is a real life-saver. Many trials will actually require you to have this add-on for when they are trying to do very difficult content like the Tri-fecta achievements for Sunspire, Cloudrest, Rockgrove, etc. 

14. Action Duration Reminder (~3,250,000) + Fancy Action Bar (~121,000) 

This add-on highlights the timers on your skills so you know when to reactivate them for the best uptimes. It will show you both your front and back bar skill timers at the same time, which is really beneficial for not reactivating skills too early and wasting your resources. You will also lose damage on certain skills like Endless Hail or Venomous Claw if you activate them too early, so this add-on can really up your damage. Fancy Action Bar works basically the same, so it’s a matter of preference.

15. ODYSupportIcons (~32,000)

This will help to highlight important group members in groups. A floating icon will appear over top any of your group members you choose. Initially, it will only highlight tanks and healers as well as other summonable companions that you can call upon.

If you’ve ever been the last one standing in a tough fight and go to rez the tank, only to accidentally rez another DPS, this is the add-on for you! You’ll be able to easily select the tank or healer out, and be able to position yourself in a way to optimize the battle.

Join the High Ground

That wraps it up for the best add-ons for ESO, so be sure to try them out for yourself and see if they add to your gaming experience. You can always uninstall the ones you don’t like later, so it doesn’t hurt to give them a shot. We hope this guide helps to open up the possibilities of add-ons for making your gaming experience even better. For other ways to better your gaming experience, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media.

Happy gaming!