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Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) was an impressive game from the start, but with the added feature of the add-on and mod support, ESO still maintains cult status.
And once you go down this rabbit hole, there’s no coming back.
The difference these ESO addons bring to the game is substantial. The best ESO addons will bring utility plugins, UI improvements, combat assistance, and so much more.
But, before we dive into the long list of Elder Scrolls Online addons, there is one small thing you should do to make the whole ESO add-ons installing/updating/deleting process easier. Here’s how:
Using Minion to Install/Manage ESO Addons
There are two ways of installing ESO addons.
The first is to manually download add-ons and mods from esoui.com, unzip and then copy-paste directly into the ESO addons folder in the game’s destination file. This sounds simple enough, but it is a time-taking process, especially when you have to delete or update a mod.
That brings us to the alternative, using Minion to install and manage ESO add-ons easily. Minion is a free to download, premier add-on management software that lets you download, install, update, and delete ESO mods all under one roof.
Right now, Minion only supports Elder Scrolls Online add-ons and World of Warcraft mods, but the developers are working to get more games on board.
Here’s how you can install and set up Minion and download all of the best ESO mods.
- Download and install Minion. (Available for Windows, macOS, & Java)
- Once you install Minion, you’ll see the following screen:
From here you’ll have to direct Minion to the add-on folder of Elder Scrolls Online (or World of Warcraft).
- Click on Elder Scrolls Online.
- A new ‘This PC’ window will open up.
- Go to ‘Documents> Elder Scrolls Online> live.’
- Once you open ‘live,’ you’ll see the ‘AddOn’ folder.
- Click on it and then hit ‘Select Folder.’
Now, close and restart Minion. Once it relaunches, you’ll see that Elder Scrolls Online is now visible in the left pane.
If not, repeat the above steps one more time. Once the game’s tag appears on there, you are good to go. You can now install as many ESO mods as you want with one click.
Note: The right pane will be blank for new users or users who haven’t installed any mods or add-ons before this.
Install ESO Addons/Mods Using Minion
Now that you have downloaded and installed Minion, it’s time to start exploring the vast ESO mods library.
But this time, instead of roaming around on the website and downloading every mod separately and then moving the file into the add-ons folder, you get to install it with a single click, thanks to Minion.
Here’s how to do that:
- From the Minion home screen, click on the ‘Find More’ tab.
- Use the ‘Search’ option to find needed ESO mods.
- Hit the ‘Install’ button in front of your preferred add-on.
Once installed, the add-on will appear under the ‘Installed’ tab and is now integrated into your ESO game as well.
And that’s how easy it is to install ESO mods using Minion. No more unzip, copy-paste, and hundreds of mouse-clicks to find the right folder- Minion does it all with one click.
Now that the minor stuff is out of the way, it’s time to move towards the major stuff- the best ESO mods. There are over 1,500 ESO mods and add-ons available right now- not counting the 979 outdated ones.
So, picking the ones that are actually good gets tricky. That is where our list of the best ESO mods comes in handy. This isn’t just a list of popular ESO mods, instead, it’s a list of mods that players use, including us.
Best Elder Scrolls Online Add-Ons
As a beginner in Elder Scrolls Online, the most important part is knowing the world you will be looting, killing, and surviving in.
Our ESO addon picks are a mix of utility and stand-alone combat enhancing add-ons which proved a massive helping hand for us.
Whether you are only starting out on ESO or have been playing for years, we are sure some mods on here will prove of value to you. So, let’s jump right in:
1. Destinations
If you don’t like the not-knowing-where-to-go part of ESO, this is the ESO add-on for you.
As a beginner, it can be difficult to find certain dolmens, dungeons, and way shrines. We do admit that finding them by wandering around the map is a lot more rewarding and fun, but when you miss out on a big loot or a boss battle because you didn’t know the exact location of a dungeon, it is irritating, to say the least.
With this mod on, you can see all the important destinations in ESO and easily navigate through the map as well. And if you feel it’s making the game too easy – it doesn’t – you can toggle it off anytime.
2. Perfect Pixel
Things like the inventory tab and quest logs won’t always show complete information, and there is no in-game solution for this problem. But, this can cause a lot of problems in deciding your next quests, especially for beginners.
With Perfect Pixel installed, the pages will expand out showing all necessary information. It might not seem too impressive, but if you are a hoarder, you’ll definitely need this.
3. Votan’s Rune Tooltips
Making enchanted weapons is a lot of fun in ESO, provided you know what that enchantment will do. Having wasted some rare enchantments just to figure out what they do, our in-house ESO writer was happy when he found this add-on.
Votan’s Rune Tooltips will translate any enchantment rune so you know exactly what you are doing and choose the right sort of weapon for the perfect writ.
We would also like to take this opportunity to embarrass our writer who wasted 35K worth of Hakeijo, just to find out what it does.
4. Map Pins
As a beginner, players want to get their hands on as many treasure chests as possible. But finding them in the wide world of ESO is not as easy. Using Map Pins, you can get the exact locations of potential treasure chests, ruby ash, and skyshard locations as well.
But, Map Pins does make a big cluster on the map by highlighting every little location. So, combine it with Harvest Map to filter out the unnecessary locations and focus on the real treasure.
5. Dolgubon’s Lazy Writ Crafter
Writ crafting is fun, isn’t it? Well, at least the final product brings more joy than the tedious and painstakingly slow process. But thankfully, Dolgubon’s Lazy Writ Crafter reduces that considerably.
With this ESO mod turned on, you’ll accept all the quests on a crafting board immediately and all compatible crafting stations will glow bright red, indicating you can have a writ here.
For Alchemy and Provisioning, you’ll have to team up the Lazy Writ Crafter add-on with Daily Alchemy and Daily Provisioning.
6. Combat Metrics
Combat Metrics, right now, is the best combat ESO add-on available. It shows stuff like your damage per second (DPS), Crit%, Hits, Active Combat Time, as well as incoming damage and healing stats.
In short, it’s the all-in-one combat stats screen that you can ever need to assess your combat abilities in ESO. It’s one you need if you are to succeed as part of any group.
7. Code’s Combat Alerts
Elder Scrolls Online has some unforgiving gameplay modes, where the veterans and absolute legends face-off against each other as well as against the game.
While playing modes like Trials or Arena or even raiding some of the Dungeons, you need all the help you can get. And what’s better than getting notified about your enemy’s one-shot attack.
With this, you can plan and avoid those final kill shots, and counter them to deliver your one-shot attack. It has proved a real-life saver for us, it can do that for you too.
8. Bugeater
Mid-screen pop-ups in a game like ESO can cost you the whole venture, but sadly it does happen a lot. Sometimes, right in the middle of a boss fight.
But with the Bugeater ESO add-on, those pop-ups will be redirected into your chat. So, if you are in a fight of your life, you won’t be distracted by an annoying unimportant pop-up message.
Although Bugeater hasn’t received any recent updates, it still gets the job pretty well. You can also use No, Thankyou with Bugeater to further optimize the performance and prevent chat spam.
9. Bag Space Indicator
Yes, this ESO mod does exactly what the name suggests. It adds an indicator to the game that shows how much stuff you have in the bag and how much space is left.
The Bag Space Indicator mod brings a small dialogue box on the screen that shows your gold balance, inventory storage space, and bank space.
This helps save a lot of time while picking up new inventory because you won’t have to go back and check for inventory space every time before you decide to carry out a loot.
10. Kill Counter
No one likes a show-off but it does feel good to be able to show off your combat record on Elder Scrolls Online. With the Kill Counter add-on, you can see a listed overview of your kills, deaths, killstreaks, and more.
It doesn’t add as much value as most of the other ESO add-ons on this list, but it will serve its purpose of showing off your killing stats very nicely.
11. LoreBooks & SkyShards
Next up are two of the most downloaded ESO mods. LoreBooks and SkyShards point out the much-needed skill build books and skyshards spread throughout the free world map.
You need the books to increase the so-called ‘Mage’s Guild Skill Line’ and the skyshards need little introduction. Finding these yourself is fun at the start, but these get harder and harder to find as the game progresses.
You can argue that these take away the value of the hunt, but the perfect guild line and tonnes of skill points overshadow all else.
12. Lost Treasure
For the treasure hunters of Elder Scrolls Online, the Lost Treasure mod is the ultimate helping hand.
Often you can find a treasure or a survey area while on a mission but it’s all lost because you were on a different mission altogether. But, with the Lost Treasure add-on, you get the location of every treasure and survey location pin-pointed on the Treasure map.
In other words, you won’t miss out on a single treasure on the map. Plus, a marker also shows up on the screen whenever you are close to any treasure. And a mini-map is always visible on the screen as well.
13. ODYSupportIcons
Considering the utility of this ESO mod, we would say that it has gone under the radar. What this does is highlight the group members according to their abilities with an over-the-head marker. The marker allows you to differentiate between the healer, the tank, and the DPS character.
This will be especially helpful for someone who regularly finds themselves as the last man standing and trying to resurrect the teammates. With the marker, you can resurrect the right player- you wouldn’t want to resurrect a healer when you need a tank to finish off the battle.
14. Dustman
Bag space is an important attribute in MMO games, and in a game like Elder Scrolls Online where there is so much to collect, it becomes essential.
Dustman helps players keep that essential bag space free for important items by automatically getting rid of the junk in there. It can do so by either selling the junk to any vendors or just destroying them completely.
But who decides what’s junk and what’s not? You do. You can mark the junk items and when you access any vendor Dustman will automatically sell the profitable ones and destroy the absolute junk. And with that, we bring our best ESO mods list to a close.
These are our picks for the best ESO add-ons and these bring something substantial to the table whether you are an ESO beginner or veteran. We’ll bring you more interesting and useful add-ons as we discover them, so stay tuned for more.
You can all these and more ESO add-ons from esoui.com. We’ll soon be bringing a new list with some more Elder Scrolls Online add-ons, so make sure you visit us again.
