ESO's two-week pirate event ends October 14. How to start it, how to survive the dive, and how to get the Suncleft Grotto Ornaug mount.

Two Weeks, One Pirate Ship

High Seas of Tamriel is ESO's new Season One event, and it's short: it runs from September 30 to October 14. You can run it solo or in a group of four, and you can do the daily once per day on each character. If you only remember one thing from this page, make it this: do the daily once every day, because that's where the best box is.

How to Start

Open the Crown Store, go to Quest Starters, and take Raising the Riotous Redress. You can also find the ghostly Baron-Captain Olsien Guy Mard near Anvil on the Gold Coast. Finishing the intro quest gets you the Ostentatious Pirate Wig and Hat collectible, and it unlocks the repeatable daily, Bounty of the Abecean Sea.

Win the Ship Fight

The daily opens on the ship. The fighting is normal combat, but you also have to patch up the hull breaches that cannon fire punches into the deck and fire the ship's catapults at the attacking ship whenever it moves into range. Don't tunnel on the pirates and forget the breaches: if five breaches are burning at the same time, you lose the fight. There are two ways to win. Outlast the attacking ship and you get one chest. Sink it with the catapults and you get two, so it's worth manning the catapults. After the fight, grab the loot floating in the water before you dive.

The Dive

Then you go under. You explore the Abecean Sea floor inside a protective bubble, and the bubble is the whole game down there. Enemy attacks, hydrothermal vents and the tornado-like Reef Shark attacks can all pop it, and once it pops you start taking damage. Swim into one of the glowing green clams to get it back. Some clams sit behind vent blockages, so harpoon the blockage first, then walk into the clam. You'll also harpoon marked stalactites to close vents and open the way forward. My read as a healer: this is the part of the event where having a healer in the group actually matters, because anyone whose bubble pops is bleeding health until they reach a clam.

Boss Tips

Two bosses are worth knowing before you go in. In the Haj Mota fight, kill Bright Bazzle first. Killing him also takes out Lucky Gretch and any hatchlings that are left, but if you kill Lucky Gretch first, every other enemy enrages. Krelzimar goes immune at roughly two-thirds and one-third health, and the geysers in his den launch you into the air for a few seconds, which is how you dodge his explosion. Use them.

How Healers Can Help

If you heal, this event has real work for you. On deck, your job is to keep the crew standing while they run between hull breaches and the catapults. The more people who can crew a catapult instead of fighting for their lives, the better your odds of sinking the ship for the second chest. Underwater, watch for popped bubbles. Anyone without one is taking damage until they reach a glowing green clam, so keep heals over time on them while they swim, stay close to the group instead of exploring off on your own, and call out clams when you see them. As far as I can tell, the clams are the only way to get a bubble back, so your heals are what buy them the time to get there. On Krelzimar, his immune phases are a free window to top everyone off, and the moment the group comes down from the geysers after his explosion is when your burst heals matter. One thing I haven't tested yet is whether damage shields stop a bubble from popping, so for now I'd plan on healing through it rather than counting on that. If you want a ready-made PvE group healer for this, my LIMITLESS pure Arcanist build is a good fit.

The Daily Loot

The first High Seas quest you finish each day, per account, gives a Legendary Deep Plunder Box and 300 Trade Bars. After that, each character can earn one Epic Deep Plunder Box from another High Seas quest the same day. So run it on your main first, then on your alts if you want the extra boxes. One nice change: antiquity leads from the event can now award furnishing recipes, so you can craft more copies instead of being stuck with a one-off drop.

The Mount, the Style, and the Extras

The Suncleft Grotto Ornaug mount takes three fragments: Galen Seawater from the Legendary Deep Plunder Boxes, Captured Systres Zephr from the undersea bosses, and Arcing Ornaug Energy from the Flight of the Albatross achievement. The Abecean Sea Privateer outfit style can drop during the event, and the Impresario sells it too. If you're a completionist, there's more. There are eight messages in bottles hidden across the maps, and you only need four for the Wave-Tossed Missives achievement. The High Seas Master Angler achievement wants four rare fish from the Abecean Saltwater Fishing Holes: Pelican Eel, Abecean Slaughterfish, Abyssal Grenadier and Pelagic Lanternfish. And there are eight furnishings to dig up through antiquities, including a Yokudan Ship in a Bottle, a Cursed Ship's Bell and four fossils.

My Honest Take

I'm not making a dedicated build for a two-week event. Do the daily, sink the ship, grab the mount, and come back to Cyrodiil. My next build is for the Nowhere Vault, so follow along on the channel and come hang out in the Discord.