Learn the craft of studying recipes, then combining and converting base ingredients into consumable food and drink, usually to grant temporary buffs. Your “crafting station” is simply a Cooking Fire, typically found at camps or inns.
Provisioning is the crafting of delicious food and drink consumables that enhance your stats for a finite amount of time. The effects of food and drink last longer than Alchemy-based consumables, and continue to function even if you die.
To craft food or drink, you need a recipe—instructions on how to make a particular consumable—and a number of base ingredients. The number depends on the complexity of the recipe, ranging from one to four.
Recipes can be found in scenery (desks, crates, barrels, chests), gained from other characters, looted from foes, awarded for completing crafting writs, or purchased from traders. Simply look at the recipe in your inventory to learn it; the recipe then appears when you use a Cooking Fire.
Ingredients can be found growing, obtained by hunting or fishing, slaying animals, receiving deliveries from your Hirelings, searching the same type of scenery as for finding recipes, completing crafting writs, or purchased from traders.
The quality of recipes and ingredients you scavenge depends on two factors: your location and level. You can also purchase items from traders and Guild Stores, which is helpful in sourcing rarer items, or ones you’re not easily able to find.
The created consumable provides a beneficial effect. It also has an appropriate level related to its recipe. Such levels grant you more Inspiration, but crafting the best recipes requires ranks of the Recipe Improvement Passive Ability. In general, the higher the recipe level, the more potent the effects of the consumable created.
Generally speaking, food grants buffs to your Attributes: Health (meat), Stamina (vegetables), and Magicka (fruit). Drink, meanwhile, grants buffs to your recovery: Health (alcohol), Stamina (tonics) and Magicka (teas).
Color-Coded Recipes
In order to make more useful items from your base ingredients, you require better recipes. These are color-coded: Normal/white, Magic/green, Arcane/blue, Artifact/purple, and Legendary/gold (for making Psijic Ambrosia). Aside from Normal, the easiest recipes are green, which usually require two different items and grant you a reasonably good end product to use or sell when starting out.
Blue recipes require a combination of three items, while purple recipes require four. Balance the time it takes to find these ingredients with the additional Inspiration you gain from making more complex recipes. For example, it’s sometimes easier to craft multiple green or blue recipes, compared to one or two purple ones if you’re only concerned with Inspiration leveling.
Locate a Cooking Fire to see the list of items you’re able to create. You can select them by ingredients or skills. When you choose an item, be sure to view its level, and craft the item with the highest available level your Recipe Improvement skill rank allows. Higher-level recipes grant more potent effects and gain you more Inspiration.
Passive Abilities
There are seven Provisioning Passive Abilities:
Provisioning Passive Abilities
| Ability | Name | Description | Prerequisite |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Recipe Quality | This is important for unlocking blue recipes, as it gives you a better rate of return on the quality of your food and drink, as well as more Inspiration. | Four Ranks at Levels 1, 10, 35, and 50 |
|
Recipe Improvement | Max this out, as it enables you to concoct the very best recipes. | Six Ranks at Levels 1, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 |
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Gourmand and Connoisseur | These are worth considering once you fully commit to being a Provisoner. They add duration to the effects of any consumed food or drink, respectively, that you make. For consumables such as the fabled Psijic Ambrosia, a drink that adds significantly to your XP, the duration bonus is particularly beneficial. | Gourmand:Three Ranks at Levels 3, 14, and 43Connoisseur: Three Ranks at Levels 5, 25, and 47 |
|
Chef and Brewer | an extra serving to each food and drink consumable, respectively, that you craft. They’re worth considering, but only if you intend to make Provisioning a primary trade skill and can spare the Skill Points. The bonus these skills offers is obvious, though! | Chef: Three Ranks at Levels 7, 23, and 33Brewer: Three Ranks at Levels 9, 25, and 36 |
|
Hireling | A Provisioner Hireling brings you a package of food and drink ingredients every 24 or 12 hours (every 24 hours Ranks 1-2, and every 12 hours at Rank 3). | Three Ranks at Levels 28, 38, and 48 |
Endgame: Gold Recipes
One of the best Legendary recipes is for the fabled Psijic Ambrosia. Acquiring this one takes time and patience, as the recipe comes in seven fragments, and the three ingredients needed are also difficult to come by. Each fragment is randomly awarded once you’ve completed the following:
- Increased your Recipe Quality skill to Rank 4 (maximum)
- Increased your Recipe Improvement skill to Rank 6 (maximum)
- Reached Level 50, a Master Provisioner
- Become certified, and continuously completed Provisioning crafting writs until the seven pieces of the recipe are randomly awarded to you
Two of the three ingredients, Bervez Juice and Frost Mirriam, are found as rewards randomly given to you at the end of crafting writs, just like the fragments of the recipe. Or you can loot them or purchase them from traders.
The Perfect Roe is randomly found by filleting fish you’ve caught at a Fishing Hole. This takes time, usually minutes or hours, so try for patience, and perhaps perfect your fishing by attempting to achieve the Master Angler title at the same time.
Another option is to team up with like-minded guild members to obtain Psijic Ambrosia recipe fragments and ingredients within a shorter time frame. You can also use multiple characters to heighten your chances, and share the loot between them, turning specific characters into Provisioning machines you can then share goods with. Or you can purchase the completed Psijic Ambrosia recipe from a Guild Store, if you have the gold.
Psijic Ambrosia itself is a drink that grants you a 50% Experience Point bonus from all sources for 30 minutes. Before you create this incredible elixir, think about purchasing the Brewer Passive Ability to create additional servings, and Connoisseur to add more time to the effects.