Useless Assistant

Kelenan7368 · September 10

Pirharri the Smuggler, This assistant earnable in game is useless! She takes 35% of all things you sell to her. I never use her at all! I only see her being useful if you are Free to Play and have limited bag space. And Nuzhimeh The merchant we buy for crowns but can't repair with her? GRRRR! I paid for her with money! Why can't I repair? Is it to force the need for repair crates?

Anyhow this is so damn irritating for me that I would be willing to pay even more money to ZOS to be able to sell my stolen goods to my assistant at full price and repair at my assistant. You can put a block on repairs in Dungeons and trials and delves and arenas, that would be fair but out of combat scenarios I should be allowed to repair and sell.

What do you all think?

whitecrow · September 10

Yeah, I don't think I have ever used the smuggler in all the years I've had TG.

Syldras · September 10

Kelenan7368 wrote: »

Pirharri the Smuggler, This assistant earnable in game is useless! She takes 35% of all things you sell to her. I never use her at all! I only see her being useful if you are Free to Play and have limited bag space.

I rarely use her, but if I do run out of inventory space while in a place with many containers to steal from left, I rather sell a few cheaper items to her and steal more stuff than just leaving with what I have so far. I might "lose" 35% of the value of some white-quality items, but if I refill my inventory with even more loot, it's still a plus.

Kelenan7368 wrote: »

And Nuzhimeh The merchant we buy for crowns but can't repair with her? GRRRR! I paid for her with money! Why can't I repair? Is it to force the need for repair crates?

For me, personally, it has never been a problem. I have over 200 of crown repair crates from login rewards alone (full 200 on my main, if it gets more, I move the rest to other characters), and probably over thousand of the normal repair kits from daily crafting (distributed over all my characters)...

EF321 · September 10

Kelenan7368 wrote: »

I only see her being useful if you are Free to Play and have limited bag space.

Or if you value your time more than a couple of gold coins.

RexyCat · September 10

Kelenan7368 wrote: »

Pirharri the Smuggler, This assistant earnable in game is useless! She takes 35% of all things you sell to her. I never use her at all! I only see her being useful if you are Free to Play and have limited bag space. And Nuzhimeh The merchant we buy for crowns but can't repair with her? GRRRR! I paid for her with money! Why can't I repair? Is it to force the need for repair crates?

Anyhow this is so damn irritating for me that I would be willing to pay even more money to ZOS to be able to sell my stolen goods to my assistant at full price and repair at my assistant. You can put a block on repairs in Dungeons and trials and delves and arenas, that would be fair but out of combat scenarios I should be allowed to repair and sell.

What do you all think?

Have you ever interacted with all those wandering merchant NPCs that you can find in PvE world? Even if you get to Outlaw camp to fence/launder items you can repair there too.

On PC I use add on which both can auto purchase repair kits, will detect when my PC reach a target for how low damage on gear it can get before it will use a repair kit or when I interact with any merchant/fence that can repair it will do it for me, so never really have to keep check if my gear will get broken status.

I own all Assistant except for Smuggler and Armourer (where I can use my house to use Armour table which is free in CS) and I find them very useful, so I disagree about Assistant being useless.

Try to go to Cyrodiil and you will learn very fast how different it is to play where you need to have repair kit or go back to home base to repair or owned Keeps/Towers, even if all you do is doing PvE stuff in Cyrodiil.

You can't make use of any Assistant in Cyrodiil, so you will not have access to Bank or can decon items when you Inventory start will get too full.

EDIT:
Best investment if you don't want to loose Gold from using Pirharri the Smuggler, is to purchase Snugpod as it is close to an Outlaw hatch (and you can sneak past Guards in case you have a Bounty - use Invis pots the moment you spawn outside of house). You also have good access to stable NPCs for PC that have't finishing mount training and not far from house you have Undaunted camp (+Bolgrul) for daily Pledges and Delve.

You will also find on bridge a Master Writ NPC for delivering your Master Writs, so Snugpod is one of the better nodes for all these activities. From Antiquity system you can even get free craft station that can be placed here in this house and do those easier MW and deliver those rather fast at MW NPC vendor.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Snugpod

TaSheen · September 10

I don't have the smuggler (no use for it or TG) but I have the others on all accounts but one. They're VERY useful to me. I either use crown repair kits or wait to repair once back in town, and I don't join guilds, so don't care that Ezabi doesn't have guild bank.

Stafford197 · September 10

If I steal a few random items, the value is pretty low so he’s perfect for quick fencing. If I steal a large amount of items or want to launder items, I would now have a reason to visit an Outlaws Refuge since I’d want the best value.

This is the same philosophy as with how Bankers and Merchants Assistants do not provide every single option (such as Guild Bank/Trader) access, unlike those out in the world.

The whole point is to provide the limited functionality. Otherwise it invalidated the use of every other version of that service out in the world.

I have plenty of criticisms for ESO but this is definitely not one of them.

Vulkunne · September 10

Kelenan7368 wrote: »

Pirharri the Smuggler, This assistant earnable in game is useless! She takes 35% of all things you sell to her. I never use her at all! I only see her being useful if you are Free to Play and have limited bag space. And Nuzhimeh The merchant we buy for crowns but can't repair with her? GRRRR! I paid for her with money! Why can't I repair? Is it to force the need for repair crates?

Anyhow this is so damn irritating for me that I would be willing to pay even more money to ZOS to be able to sell my stolen goods to my assistant at full price and repair at my assistant. You can put a block on repairs in Dungeons and trials and delves and arenas, that would be fair but out of combat scenarios I should be allowed to repair and sell.

What do you all think?

Nope neither do I.

AzuraFan · September 10

I've rarely used the smuggler. A handful of times at most. If I'm stealing stuff, it's usually because I want to sell it at an outlaws refuge to count toward an achievement.

I do use the merchant when I don't want to return to a town. For example, when I'm doing an endeavor and I want to stay in one spot and kill a lot of mobs, I don't want to have to leave and come back because my inventory is getting full. That's when I'll pull out the merchant.

freespirit · September 10

Only time I have ever used her, is when her crouching posture has fitted a housing build! 🤣

majulook · September 10

Pirharri the Smuggler, is the worst reward i have ever seen in this game. While it could have been made a little bit useful if it allowed you a extra amount of fencing and laundering. ZOS borked it up.

Drammanoth · September 10

She should be GIVING us more, not TAKING.

What's the point in this 35%? To do what, to PUNISH US? Oh, I know, to balance out the extra 35% that we get from the skill line. Still... the dumbest explanation I could come up with.

Syldras · September 10

Drammanoth wrote: »

What's the point in this 35%? To do what, to PUNISH US? Oh, I know, to balance out the extra 35% that we get from the skill line. Still... the dumbest explanation I could come up with.

As far as I know, the original idea behind it was that you pay a fee to be able to sell your stolen goods everywhere and at any time - meaning you had no risk to get caught by a guard (while making your way to an outlaws refuge while having a bounty) and lose everything.

Which is a bit useless as getting to a refuge was never a big problem, especially not now anymore as we can teleport to houses, some of which even having a direct passage to a refuge.

Juomuuri · September 10

I've had Pirharri since 2017, and I've never used her since I'd only like to launder, which she doesn't do...

I think we have a reason for the assistants not being fully equipped as told by a dev (sorry if I misremember), as apparently it's like this so players still populate towns, even if they have crafting stations and assistans in their home. This is also why we can't accept writs from our homes. I don't mind this really, as I have a boatload of repair kit stacks in my bank, and I get more when I do writs. And for Cyro/IC/BGs, it's so you don't get a P2W option in PvP. Armory assistant also doesn't work in content with leaderboards to avoid cheesing content by swapping armory builds etc. It would be pretty empty out there if you could access guild bank from your home and repair your gear too. Not a perfect system but it makes sense.

Necrotech_Master · September 10

the main use ive found for pirharri is leveling legerdemain

i usually farm up tons of really low value items (such as killing sheep on khenarthi roost), and fence all of the meat, which is only NPC vendor value of 1g each, so pirrharis bonus doesnt really apply

this prevents having to run back to an outlaw refuge whenever your inventory fills up

leveling legerdemain you get 1xp per fence and launder, regardless of what the value of the item was, which is why i use this method because its easier to get large quantities of stolen meat killing sheep and then just fencing it immediately until you run out of daily fence slots

i would agree about the merchant assistant being more annoying that it cant repair even though we paid crowns for it, it honestly loses a lot of use for me because repair is the one feature i want out of it

Kelenan7368 · September 10

Juomuuri wrote: »

I've had Pirharri since 2017, and I've never used her since I'd only like to launder, which she doesn't do...

Good point I didn't even think about the laundering part. Ty for bringing it up. She does need to launder items!

robpr · September 10

What if Pirharii keeps her 35% cut, but items sold to her do not consume the daily fence limit?

Bo0137 · September 10

phiharri is very useful for completing daily endeavors related to thieving. Besides that, not so much.

allochthons · September 11

Pirharri was a quest reward, for a quest I would have done anyway, so it doesn't bother me. I didn't buy her with crowns or gold, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Using her to level legerdemain on things that sell for 1g, like the guts/meat in Khenarthi, is extremely useful, although less now that I use the hallway in Necrom to level new toons in legerdemain.

I put Pirharri in my house in case I have stolen junk I want to offload, but don't want to bother with going to a refuge.

On my alt account, where I didn't want to spend any crowns or gold on crown items, I did end up getting a banker. Every other thing it's okay to travel to another player to get to a town, but having a banker in the wild is invaluable. If only to stuff with junk until I can get to a town to sell it.
If people ask what assistant to buy first, I always say banker.

Kisakee · September 11

robpr wrote: »

What if Pirharii keeps her 35% cut, but items sold to her do not consume the daily fence limit?

I would exploit the heck out of it and print millions of gold out of thin air every day, that's what would happen.

loosej · September 11

Pirharri can have her 35%. A large percentage of a small number is still a small number, and I much appreciate the time she saves me when leveling legerdemain on yet another character.

DenverRalphy · September 11

I use her all the time!

Obviously, if I'm out intentionally and actively thieving, sure I don't use her because I'm looking to maximize profit on a legerdemain run. Because every fence/sell allotment is a prescious commodity.

But if I'm just toolin around on a non-thief toon/build doin other types of overland content, and along the way pick up rando stolen items from thieves troves, BoW corpse looting, tresspass looting, etc.. I'd sooner just sell to Pirharri on the fly while it's convenient, than make a special trip to an outlaw refuge. Especially given that I'm really not likely to come anywhere close to my daily maximum fence/sell allotments.

Cendrillion21 · September 11

Pirharri is just furniture for me.

AcadianPaladin · September 11

As soon as I discovered they could not launder items, I put them away. That's been several years now. Agree with thread title.