General information | Provisioning ESO guide, tips

Last update: 11 May 2016

Provisioning is the equivalent of a profession called Cooking, which is present in almost all today's MMO games (and not only them). It allows you to prepare food (and drinks), which, after consuming, increase a certain statistic (or a group of them) of your character for several minutes. Remember, that you can be under the influence of a single meal / drink only - you can't eat dozens of different types of food, expecting a gigantic boost to stats.

Provisioning is centered around the creation of products from two different groups:

• Food, which increase the maximum amount of your Health, Stamina and/or Magicka for several minutes. They are divided into Breads & Pies (increasing Health), Grilled (increasing Stamina) and Soup & Stew (increasing your Magicka).
• Beverage, which increase the regeneration of your Health, Stamina and/or Magicka for several minutes. They are divided into Beer (increasing Health regeneration), Spirits (increasing Stamina regeneration) and Wines (increasing your Magicka regeneration).

Provisioning is perhaps the most complex of all the branches of crafting, with a close resemblance to other MMO games - it's the only branch of crafting in Elder Scrolls Online that requires you to learn a proper recipe (together with the required reagents, of course), which then allows you to create your item of interest.

The possibilities are vast, letting you create dozens and dozens of different products, some of which are bound to specific fraction you are playing. Additionally, Provisioning, because of the fact that everyone wants to have free, almost permanent stats, is probably the most profitable of the branches of crafting, which you should be especially interested in. Even if you won't be using the created eatables (which you definitely should do!), you can earn a mountain of gold by selling them to players who lacked the initiative to level up their Provisioning, or they simply were overwhelmed by the vast possibilities.

Below you will find a table describing all the abilities available to you in the Provisioning branch.

Icon	Name and Rank	Description of the ability	Requirements
	Recipe Improvement I	Allows you to use the recipes up to the 19 level.	Provisioning 1
	Recipe Improvement II	Allows you to use the recipes up to the 29 level.	Provisioning 20
	Recipe Improvement III	Allows you to use the recipes up to the 39 level.	Provisioning 30
	Recipe Improvement IV	Allows you to use the recipes up to the 49 level.	Recipe Improvement III
	Recipe Improvement V	Allows you to use the recipes up to the 50 level.	Recipe Improvement IV
	Recipe Improvement VI	Allows you to use the Veteran Rank recipes.	Recipe Improvement V
	Recipe Quality I	Allows you to use the standard (green) recipes.	Provisioning 1
	Recipe Quality II	Allows you to use the difficult (blue) recipes.	Provisioning 10
	Recipe Quality III	Allows you to use the complex (purple) recipes.	Provisioning 35
	Gourmand I	Adds 5 minutes to the duration of any eaten food.	Provisioning 3
	Gourmand II	Adds 10 minutes to the duration of any eaten food.	Gourmand I
	Gourmand III	Adds 20 minutes to the duration of any eaten food.	Gourmand II
	Connoisseur I	Adds 5 minutes to the duration of any consumed drink.	Provisioning 5
	Connoisseur II	Adds 10 minutes to the duration of any consumed drink.	Connoisseur I
	Connoisseur III	Adds 20 minutes to the duration of any consumed drink.	Connoisseur II
	Chef I	Allows you to create 1 extra serving for each food recipe made.	Provisioning 7
	Chef II	Allows you to create 2 extra servings for each food recipe made.	Chef I
	Chef III	Allows you to create 3 extra servings for each food recipe made.	Chef II
	Brewer I	Allows you to create 1 extra serving for each drink recipe made.	Provisioning 7
	Brewer II	Allows you to create 2 extra servings for each drink recipe made.	Brewer I
	Brewer III	Allows you to create 3 extra servings for each drink recipe made.	Brewer II
	Hireling I	After leaving the game, a Hireling will find Food or Drink ingredients for you. You can use your Hireling once every 24 hours.	Provisioning 28
	Hireling II	After leaving the game, a Hireling will find Food or Drink ingredients for you. Your hireling has a higher chance of returning with Spices or Flavorings. You can use your Hireling once every 24 hours.	Hireling I
	Hireling III	After leaving the game, a Hireling will find Food or Drink ingredients for you. Your hireling has a higher chance of returning with Spices or Flavorings. You can use your Hireling once every 12 hours.	Hireling II

Explanation

And again, a vast number of abilities you need to invest points in. Just like with the Alchemy, it is advised that you invest your skill points in all of the abilities, if you want to create the best possible eatables, using up the least resources in the process:

• Recipe Improvement - without this one, you won't be able to create practically anything. To be able to use all the recipes in the game, you will have to put 6 points in this ability, which you should do without a doubt.
• Recipe Quality - another ability, which restricts the amount of recipes available to you. Unlike the previous one, this one unlocks the access to recipes of better quality (from green to purple) and you have to invest 3 points in it.
• Gourmand and Connoisseur - both of those abilities increase the duration of any eaten food (the former) or drank beverages (the latter). They are the only ones that you can cast away if you don't want to spend so many skill points in this tree, as they aren't mandatory - they don't help in the process of creation, and "only" increase the duration. If you want to focus on trading with your Provisioning products, ignore both of them completely - if you want to use them on a regular basis, you should invest in them.
• Chef and Brewer - those two are absolutely required. By investing 3 points in each of them, you increase the number of crafted products by four times, which basically means, that you use 4 times less materials to make a single item. 6 points total are a lot, but it's totally worth it.
• Hireling - just like with Enchanting, you should invest 3 points in the Provisioning Hireling. The second and third level of this ability gives you a chance to obtain rare materials (to make blue and purple recipes), which are hard to find in the world by other means.