Materials | Blacksmithing ESO guide, tips

Last update: 11 May 2016

As you have read from the previous section, in Blacksmithing there are 9 materials (metals), from which you can craft your desired items. Those metals are: Iron (available from the beginning of the game), High Iron (which is basically Steel), Orichalcum, Dwarven, Ebony, Calcinium, Galatite, Moonstone and Voidstone. Obviously, you have to spend quite a lot of time before you reach the level of expertise to be able to craft items from the highest quality materials. Nonetheless, the benefits compensate for the time spent.

The following table represent the following: metal ores, metals created after smelting the ore, as well as the range of levels, required to be able to craft something from those metals:

Metal	Ore icon	Metal icon	Range of levels
Iron			1 - 14
High Iron (Steel Ingot)			16 - 24
Orichalcum			26 - 34
Dwarven			36 - 44
Ebony			46 - 50
Calcinium			Veteran 1 - 3
Galatite			Veteran 4 - 6
Moonstone			Veteran 7 - 8
Voidstone			Veteran 9 - 10

A thing worth noting, is that in order to smelt a certain ore into a metal bar, you will need 10 units of a given ore. For every process of melting you will receive from 7 to 10 metal bars, as well as (though it's quite rare) a chance to receive one of the Tempers - the quality of a Temper increases with the subsequent tiers of metals, that is for smelting Iron you can get as much as a Honing Stone, the lowest Temper.

Besides this, there is a total of 4 Tempers available to you, which serve the purpose of upgrading the items from Blacksmithing:

Icon	Name and description of a Temper	How to obtain
	Honing Stone - allows you to upgrade an item from white (Normal) to green (Fine). By default (without investing in Temper Expertise), each Honing Stone increases the chance to upgrade an item by 20%.	From a Miner Hireling and / or from the process of deconstruction of green (Fine) items.
	Dwarven Oil - allows you to upgrade an item from green (Fine) to blue (Superior). By default (without investing in Temper Expertise), each Dwarven Oil increases the chance to upgrade an item by 15%.	From a Miner Hireling and / or from the process of deconstruction of blue (Superior) items.
	Grain Solvent - allows you to upgrade an item from blue (Superior) to purple (Epic). By default (without investing in Temper Expertise), each Grain Solvent increases the chance to upgrade an item by 10%.	From a Miner Hireling and / or from the process of deconstruction of purple (Epic) items.
	Tempering Alloy - allows you to upgrade an item from purple (Epic) to gold (Legendary). By default (without investing in Temper Expertise), each Tempering Alloy increases the chance to upgrade an item by 5%.	From a Miner Hireling and / or from the process of deconstruction of gold (Legendary) items.

It is worth sticking to one, golden rule, if it comes to Tempers - try to not use them at all while being on the lower levels of experience. The reason for this is simple - in a couple of hours (depending on your level), you will swap out most (if not all) of your equipment (you will either find it, get it as a quest reward, or simply create it on your own), and all the Tempers used in the previous, now unwanted items, will be lost forever.

It is the most important in the case of rarer Tempers (like Grain Solven and Tempering Alloy), which are much more difficult to obtain, thus being way more valuable - even if you don't want to "play" with Blacksmithing (and any other branch of crafting), you can easily sell those Tempers to other players, gaining a considerable amount of money in the process.