Upgrading. Crafted items vs. Looted.

killedbyping

I just don't understand that system.

When you upgrade looted item ALL of the stats grow. Including enchant (may be set bonuses too. didn't pay attention).
When you upgrade crafted items only armor\damage value grows.

So in the end you may have more armor with crafted items, but more stats (Stamina\Magicka\Health) or Magick damage with looted items after upgrade.
It seems that the only bonus of upgraded crafted items is Armor and Damage value. Difference not big at all btw.

I remember ZOS stated that crafted items will always be better. However, as for now i don't see any good crafted items at all.
Specialy when we talk about set's. There is nothing you can craft even nearly compared to what you can loot in VR dungeons.

Lupinemw

It depends on what Trait is on the item you upgrade. Infused for instance will increase the items enchant.

RomedyMC

I am curious about a few things since my experience has been very different from yours. First, a few questions:

- Do you upgrade the crafted item before adding enchants, etc, or after?
- Are you noticing this on a specific set?
- I apologize if this sounds condescending (it is not meant to be), but do you really understand how enchanting works?

Here is my understanding on upgrading:

First for dropped items. Let's say I get a blue heavy chestpiece with Divines trait and a health enchant. The Divines trait should increase mundus by 6%. The enchant is where it gets tricky, though. I would propose that the enchant itself is also a blue enchant. Meaning that, if it was possible to extract the enchant from an item, we would receive a blue enchant (Denata Aspect rune.)

Now when we improve this item to purple quality the armor value will increase and the Divines trait should increase to 7%. The enchant value should increase slightly as well since the quality increases the threshold for the enchant. However, the enchant will natively remain a blue-quality enchant and will not itself be improved to purple quality.

Second, lets examine the same scenario for an equal crafted item. The armor value will be lower at the native white quality and the Divines trait will only be 4%. Improving to green will increase armor value and Divines to 5%, improving to blue will further increase armor value and Divines to 6%, and improvement to purple will again increase armor and Divines to 7%. I would propose the crafted armor value would be slightly higher than the dropped item at an equivalent quality.

This is where the enchant quality comes into play. If you add a white quality health enchant to a purple crafted item then it will of course have a lower hp increase than a blue quality enchant. However, adding a purple or gold hp enchant will have a higher hp increase than a blue quality enchant.

So there is actually quite a lot of variability. I do not know the answer to enchant quality on a dropped item, but would assume the enchant would be equivalent to the quality of the dropped item. Meaning, a green item would have a green enchant.

My experience has been my crafted items have always been better than a dropped item. The purple shield I make is always better than a purple dropped shield when quality is identical since I can add a gold enchant.

huntgod_ESO

They have stated that a dropped item (white-gold) has the same quality enchant.

What I have not checked is if you enchant the item white and then improve it up, does the enchant improve with it, as opposed to improving the item and then applying the white glyph.

I do not know if that makes a difference.

RomedyMC

huntgod_ESO wrote: »

They have stated that a dropped item (white-gold) has the same quality enchant.

What I have not checked is if you enchant the item white and then improve it up, does the enchant improve with it, as opposed to improving the item and then applying the white glyph.

I do not know if that makes a difference.

I would guess yes it would as the enchant seems to grow more powerful as the item quality improves.

So, a better quality item will allow for a stronger enchant, and higher enchant quality will allow for a stronger enchant.

A white enchant on a white item should be appreciably less than a gold enchant on a gold item.

huntgod_ESO

Right but the question I need to test is...

Does it make a difference if you apply a white glyph to white armor and then upgrade it to gold, for example, versus upgrading an item to gold and THEN applying a white glyph.

I am curious if it makes a difference. I can experiment with some green and blue tonight...that will give me an idea if it matters.

RomedyMC

It is a good question.

Logic would dictate that it would not matter when the glyph was applied.

Applying a glyph of 100 hp to a white item would perhaps result in a hypothetical return of 88 hp. Upgrading to blue would peg the 100hp, and purple would be 108.

Applying a white glyph directly to a purple item should result in a 108 hp gain.

Curious to see the answer, though.

Zakua

I am curious as well. I've always wondered when I should put on the enchant...prior or post item improvement.

killedbyping

huntgod_ESO wrote: »

Right but the question I need to test is...

Does it make a difference if you apply a white glyph to white armor and then upgrade it to gold, for example, versus upgrading an item to gold and THEN applying a white glyph.

I am curious if it makes a difference. I can experiment with some green and blue tonight...that will give me an idea if it matters.

This is exactly what i did before start this topic.

Recently i dinged 40 enchant and started to do my own enchants.

So what i have done:
I crafted few Galanite Heavy chests of white quality.
Then i crafted 2 white health glyphs and 2 greend glyphs
I enchanted 1 white chest with white enchant.
I upgraded all of the chest to green quality.
I enchanted 1 of chests with white enchant and 1 chest with 1 green enchant.
I upgraded all of the chests into blue quality.
Enchanted last chest with green enchant,

So what i have at the result:

Chests enchanted with White enchant have same ammount of Health. It doesnt matter if you enchant before upgrade or after. Value of health remain the same.
Further upgrades into blue quality did not yield any health increase either.
Same goes with chests i upgraded to green before enchanting and enchanted it with green enchant.

At the same time i had Green Stygian Head and Green Skirmisher Legs both with Stamina enchants on them.
I upgraded both of them into blue quality.
Stamina enchant value on both items increased by 3 points.
Set bonuses did not increase.

So in the end crafted items win only by armor.

And here comes the main question which bother me now.
What will be behavior of enchant on Set Epic VR10 items (Savior, Ebon, Wormcult) which dont have any echant on them when looted.

What will happen if i enchant it with Purple or Yellow enchant and then upgrade this items into yellow quality ?
Will echants also increase like it happens with other looted items or will they not like when you do your own echants ?

P.S. Did any1 tryed to replace enchant on looted item before upgrade ? Do this enchant also increase like original one ?

killedbyping

Update.

Looted Brigandine Jack VR3 of white quality.
Greater Glyph of Health vr3-5 of white quality for 99 Health. Also looted.
Upgraded item into green quality.
Still 99 health.

So it seems enchants only improve if they already was on looted item.

RomedyMC

So, my takeaways are:
- A dropped item will always have an enchant of equal quality. Blue enchant for a blue item, gold for a gold item, etc.
- The player can choose the quality of the enchant on a crafted item. So you can place a white enchant on a purple item, etc.

I rather like this as it offer the player a high degree of flexibility and means you can craft a blue item with a stronger gold enchant. I would guess that, given equivalent gold items - one dropped and one crafted - with equivalent gold enchants, that the enchant values would be equal but the crafted item would ahve slightly more armor.