Legerdemain - The path of Thievery

angelyn · February 2015

Great tip on the Nightshade set- I've been stocking up in preparation for thievery on live

ArconSeptim · February 2015

DeLindsay wrote: »

**Accurate as of PTS build 1.6.2**

Legerdemain is the new World Skilline line dedicated to those of us who wish to live in the shadows. You access this skill tree by successfully committing your first crime or Lockpicking a Chest. I did it by Pickpocketing an NPC (not all are able to be Pickpocketed). I had a 30% chance of success and bam, 'gained the Legerdemain skillline' popped up. The item was flagged as stolen in my inventory so I checked my map and sure enough there was a new icon on it (Trident, see below). I headed over and went into an underground lair of sorts with many vendors, a Guild Kiosk and some Vampires.

Legerdemain Passives

Improved Hiding
1/4 (Rank 1): Reduces the Stamina cost of sneaking by 10%.

2/4 (Rank 6): 20%

3/4 (Rank 11):

4/4 (Rank 16):

Light Fingers
1/4 (Rank 2): Increases your chance of successfully Pickpocketing by 10%.

2/4 (Rank 7): 20%

3/4 (Rank 12):

4/4 (Rank 17):

Trafficker [50/day to start]
1/4 (Rank 3): Increases the number of fence interactions you can use each day by 120% [110/day].

2/4 (Rank 8): [120/day].

3/4 (Rank 13):

4/4 (Rank 18):

Locksmith
1/4 (Rank 5): Improves you chances of forcing locks by 10%.

2/4 (Rank 9): 25%

3/4 (Rank 14):

4/4 (Rank 19):

Kickback
1/4 (Rank 6): Reduces bounties you willingly pay to guards and fences by 10%.

2/4 (Rank 10): 20%

3/4 (Rank 15):

4/4 (Rank 20):

It's gonna take a ton of SP to invest heavily in this tree but I cannot wait to play with it on live. You advance level in the tree by fencing goods, Pickpocketing or picking locks and gaining Achievements within the Justice System at 1/2/4/8 points per task. Hope this info helps. Also Sneaking has a new graphic, kinda looks more sneaky to me.

Achievements associated with the Justice System

Ill-Gotten Gains 5/15/50 pts: Earn 1K/100K/1M Gold Fencing stolen goods.

Cut and Run 5/15 pts: Successfully escape a Guard after choosing Flee 1/100 times.

Home Trespasser 5/10/15 pts: Successfully pick locked doors 1/50/100 times.

Discriminating Plunderer 10 pts: Steal an item of Superior quality (Blue).

Safebox Pilferer 5/10/15 pts: Break into and loot Safeboxes 1/10/100 times.

Discerning Pilferer 5 pts: Steal an item of Fine quality (Green).

Pocket Picker 5/10/15 pts: Successfully Pickpocket citizens 1/100/1000 times.

Felonious Recompense 15 pts: Pay 100K to the Fence -OR- Pay 100K gold to the Guards to clear criminal record.

Loot Cleaner 5/10/15 pts: Spend 100/1000/10K gold to Launder stolen goods.

Make Amends 15 pts: Pay a 1 time bounty of 1K gold or more.

Murderer 5/5/5 pts: Kill 1/50/100 Citizens.

Grand Larcenist 5 pts: Steal an item of Epic quality (Purple).

Disrobed Discipline 5 pts: A Guard repossess an article of stolen clothing that you are wearing.

Indecent Exposure 10 pts: A Guard repossess stolen clothing from all you armor slots at the same time.

Legerdemain Levels

Rank 1 = 40 Points (You can get to Rank 6 pretty easy on Day 1).

Each subsequent Rank increases by 20 points.

Rank 20 = 420 Points.

Advancing Legerdemain

1 Point
Pickpocketing an Easy Target.

Picking a Simple Door or Chest/Safebox.

Laundering items of any quality, White - Purple.

Fencing items of any quality, White - Purple.

Gaining Achievements under The Justice System section.

2 Points
Pickpocketing a Medium Target.

Picking an Intermediate Door or Chest/Safebox.

4 Points
Pickpocketing a Hard Target.

Picking an Advanced Door or Chest/Safebox.

8 Points
Picking a Master Chest/Safebox (I haven't found any Master Doors yet).

Who cares, show me the Money!!

While out and about in Towns you will find literally a metric ton of items to steal and then Fence for Gold or Launder for personal use. Iirc they said there's somewhere over 2000 unique items to be stolen. Even though it seems like a bunch of small numbers keep in mind while on PTS I've made ~45K in 4-6 hours of just Thieving. I also got no Epic Motifs since 1.6.2 (got AE in 1.6) so that would add even more if this were Live. Here's the basics of what you'll see from a monetary standpoint.
1 Gold each: Ingredients, Racial Stones.

9 Gold each: Green Provision Recipes.

? Gold each: Blue Provision Recipes/**Standard Motifs.

? Gold each: Purple Provision Recipes/**Epic Motifs.

30 Gold each: White items.

100 Gold each: Green items.

250 Gold each: Blue items.

?-750 Gold each: Purple items (1.6.1 dropped the price but kept the variety, unknown at this time).

Everything stacks in your bags so while you're Ranking up Legerdemain it's best to steal Ingredients/Racial Stones for your daily Launder limit, disregard the 30 gold White items and Fence all Green/Blue/Purple items until your daily limit. What I'm finding is that items that are very common for the new Provisioning changes tend to be all over, regardless of Zone level and it's a good way to manage inventory since you cannot get flagged items out of your bags without Fencing/Laundering or Destroying them, they will not go into your Bank or GB.

Very common items I found to stack up to save inventory space are Isinglass, Greens, Rice, Rose, Metheglin, Rye, Seaweed, Wheat, Surilie Grapes and Yeast. I'll just take a look in Barrels, Crates and Sacks and only steal those while I'm working on Ranking up.

You will be Picking MANY Chests/Safeboxes so it's worth your time to invest 10 points in The Shadow to get the Passive Fortune Seeker which increases how much Gold you get from Treasure Chests by 50%. Yes it counts for Safeboxes too.

**Motifs that are stolen can be Laundered for a very small fee and then sold just like you do on Live right now. In 1.6 that fee was 20g or less. It won't change Motif farming other than it adds 1 more step in the process and a little more care taken while farming them so you aren't caught.

ProTip: Loot only Green/Blue/Purple items to Fence and Launder all the cheap White stuff to your cap each day. This will level Legerdemain the fastest while making you the most Gold possible.

ProTip 2: Check out these sets for a slightly superior Thieving experience:
Nightshade 3pc: Wear the Neck and 2 Dagggers (VR6-10).

Night Mother's Embrace 5pc: Daedric body pcs (LvL 23-28).

EDIT: The new "safeboxes" that are placed close to NPC's have quite valuable items in them for the risk that you then sell to the local fence.

EDIT2: You can check out a short video tutorial HERE thanks to @shimmer.katiecub18_ESO. Her thread about it is located HERE.

EDIT3: Check out @angelyn's post HERE that is detailing all the various goodies you get while Thieving.[img][/img]

Prices are pretty useless for the bounty you get and possibility to get cought by guard, you have to think about that.PRices for blue and green items are pretty low to be honest, they were much better with the initial launch on PTS.

DeLindsay · February 2015

ArconSeptim wrote: »

Prices are pretty useless for the bounty you get and possibility to get cought by guard, you have to think about that.PRices for blue and green items are pretty low to be honest, they were much better with the initial launch on PTS.

I have never once been caught by the Guards except to gain the achievement for wearing Stolen Clothing. Even when I get caught on purpose it's to Flee for those achievements. The cost of getting caught stealing is 89 gold at VR14 and even that decays over time. Like I also said I made nearly 50K in ~6 hours and that was while Ranking up Legerdemain. At max you will be able to make more than that in a shorter time period, and this is only counting 1 Character per Account.

Now if you want to run around killing every NPC in sight and are expecting your Stolen goods to pay for that, you are in for a big surprise.

DeLindsay · February 2015

Just added a section to the OP with regards to how Bounties are gained, at what level it becomes a problem (especially when they turn PvP on) and how it decays over time.

DeLindsay · February 2015

I have submitted a Feedback report to ZoS #150214-001069 in regards to Thieving in 1.6 not giving appropriate XP gain in line with what other methods of gaining XP are at, like Grinding, Questing, PvP, Dungeoning, etc. Here is what I suggested ZoS add for XP gain:

Pickpocketing an Easy Target: 277 XP
Pickpocketing a Medium Target: 915 XP
Pickpocketing a Hard Target: 1460 XP
Lockpicking a Simple Home: 277 XP
Lockpicking an Intermediate Home: 915 XP
Lockpicking an Advanced Home: 1460 XP
Lockpicking a Master Home (if they exist): 2088 XP
Successfully Fleeing from a Guard: 277 XP
Lockpicking a Master Safebox: 1460 XP

Right now the only XP we gain is 915 per Safebox or open World Chest (at VR14), that's it. Sure you make money Thieving but the exact same can be said for any other play style in ESO. Grinding can make very good money, so can Questing or running Dungeons. The other thing ZoS should add is XP for Gathering, even if it's something small like 20 XP per node. What do you think @ZOS_PaulSage?

EDIT: For comparison, I've been doing nothing in 1.6.2 but Rank up Legerdemain (no Writs, no Pledges, no Farming, no Grinding, etc) and am at Rank 12 right now. I still haven't gotten my first CP in the 4 full days that 1.6.2 has been on PTS. I'm at 398,291/400K. That tells you just how many Safeboxes I've picked Ranking it up in those 4 days lol. Since I'm always on Enlightenment, that's 108 Safeboxes.

*Updated to reflect comments and math to back it up made in THIS thread regarding XP disparity in 1.6.

ElfFromSpace · February 2015

Have you yet found any of the costumes that can supposedly be pickpocketed? I'd love to see screenshots

DeLindsay · February 2015

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

Have you yet found any of the costumes that can supposedly be pickpocketed? I'd love to see screenshots

They aren't Costumes they are regular daily clothes like what you see NPC's wearing. I can work on making an image thread that this links to that has all the every day clothes from Thieving but I'd imagine it'll all be on ESOFashion soon enough. Each item takes up a normal spot like Chest, Boots, Legs, etc. There are also Achievements based on wearing them that is listed in the OP.

Turelus · February 2015

Don't forget as well that there is the Blackfeather Court Whistle from Crowswood which gives you 1 meter improved stealth radius for 30 seconds.

DeLindsay · February 2015

Turelus wrote: »

Don't forget as well that there is the Blackfeather Court Whistle from Crowswood which gives you 1 meter improved stealth radius for 30 seconds.

I completely forgot about that, I will add it to the OP as soon as I get a chance, thank you.

EDIT: Now I remember why I didn't think of it, you cannot use it outside of that Public Dungeon. Good thought though.

poochie · February 2015

Worth coming back just to steal stuff?

DeLindsay · February 2015

poochie wrote: »

Worth coming back just to steal stuff?

If I'm being honest 1.6 feels much more ES like than ESO ever has. Sure ESO "looks" like The Elder Scrolls games but looks and lore are about the only real similarity until now with a reasonable (for an MMO) Justice System.

Turelus · February 2015

DeLindsay wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Don't forget as well that there is the Blackfeather Court Whistle from Crowswood which gives you 1 meter improved stealth radius for 30 seconds.

I completely forgot about that, I will add it to the OP as soon as I get a chance, thank you.

EDIT: Now I remember why I didn't think of it, you cannot use it outside of that Public Dungeon. Good thought though.

Interesting, because you used to be able to use it in PVP (no bonus just the visuals) does it require a dead body or something?

DeLindsay · February 2015

Turelus wrote: »

DeLindsay wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Don't forget as well that there is the Blackfeather Court Whistle from Crowswood which gives you 1 meter improved stealth radius for 30 seconds.

I completely forgot about that, I will add it to the OP as soon as I get a chance, thank you.

EDIT: Now I remember why I didn't think of it, you cannot use it outside of that Public Dungeon. Good thought though.

Interesting, because you used to be able to use it in PVP (no bonus just the visuals) does it require a dead body or something?

It's tooltip on Live states you have to use it near the Crows and when you click it outside of that Public Dungeon nothing happens, pity.

Sue_D_Nim · February 2015

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

Have you yet found any of the costumes that can supposedly be pickpocketed? I'd love to see screenshots

DeLindsay wrote: »

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

Have you yet found any of the costumes that can supposedly be pickpocketed? I'd love to see screenshots

They aren't Costumes they are regular daily clothes like what you see NPC's wearing. I can work on making an image thread that this links to that has all the every day clothes from Thieving but I'd imagine it'll all be on ESOFashion soon enough. Each item takes up a normal spot like Chest, Boots, Legs, etc. There are also Achievements based on wearing them that is listed in the OP.

Here is my thief wearing a stolen shirt and trousers that he dyed.

DeLindsay · February 2015

@Sue_D_Nim great coloring!! Now lets hope ZoS gives us multiple "Costume" slots like Rift has so we can still be using our gear while appearing to be wearing every day clothes.

Sue_D_Nim · February 2015

@DeLindsay, this one thanks you.

DeLindsay · February 2015

Current (as of 1.6.2) Launder cost for Epic Motifs, for those of you worried about your Motif Farming business, is 13g as you see in the picture below.[img][/img]

Also found one of the new Epic Provision Recipes so you can see it's Launder cost too.[img][/img]

DeLindsay · February 2015

@ZOS_GinaBruno thank you for the 1.6.3 Patch Notes that include the addition of Bankers in the Outlaw's Refuges. I was disappointed to see that ZoS hasn't addressed the disparity of XP gain for Legerdemain vs all other types of playstyles in ESO nor the suggested addition of (1) Skyshard per Refuge to help deal with the 16 points in Legerdemain as well as the 8 in Alliance War (including morphs). Hopefully before 1.6 hits Live servers a few more things will be fine tuned.

TikiGamer · February 2015

I saw in a comment that 1.6.3 has changed the way you get the skill line, now you get it when you fence your first item rather than when you pick your first lock/pocket?

DeLindsay · February 2015

TikiGamer wrote: »

I saw in a comment that 1.6.3 has changed the way you get the skill line, now you get it when you fence your first item rather than when you pick your first lock/pocket?

I still got Legerdemain with my first Pickpocket in 1.6.3 but I didn't test all the ways to acquire the skill line, I will test that today just to make sure.

Cody · February 2015

I once succeded in stealing a 500 gold item from a town guard at 20-30% chance!

only to be killed later and have it forcibly removed from my inventory:(

(just now noticed those horrible typos. had to come back and fix them)

DeLindsay · February 2015

Cody wrote: »

I once succeed in stealing a 500 gold time from a town guard at 20-30% chance!

only to be killed later and have it forcibly removed from my inventory:(

That both sucks and is awesome at the same time. The irony is I gained the Legerdemain Skill Tree by Pickpocketing a 30% chance Target as soon as I got into PTS in 1.6. I've never since been able to succeed on a 30% chance Target.

angelyn · February 2015

DeLindsay wrote: »

I have submitted a Feedback report to ZoS #150214-001069 in regards to Thieving in 1.6 not giving appropriate XP gain in line with what other methods of gaining XP are at, like Grinding, Questing, PvP, Dungeoning, etc. Here is what I suggested ZoS add for XP gain:
Pickpocketing an Easy Target: 277 XP

Pickpocketing a Medium Target: 415 XP

Pickpocketing a Hard Target: 680 XP

Lockpicking a Simple Home: 277 XP

Lockpicking an Intermediate Home: 415 XP

Lockpicking an Advanced Home: 680 XP

Lockpicking a Master Home (if they exist): 915 XP

Successfully Fleeing from a Guard: 415 XP

Right now the only XP we gain is 915 per Safebox or open World Chest (at VR14), that's it. Sure you make money Thieving but the exact same can be said for any other play style in ESO. Grinding can make very good money, so can Questing or running Dungeons. The other thing ZoS should add is XP for Gathering, even if it's something small like 20 XP per node. What do you think @ZOS_PaulSage?

EDIT: For comparison, I've been doing nothing in 1.6.2 but Rank up Legerdemain (no Writs, no Pledges, no Farming, no Grinding, etc) and am at Rank 12 right now. I still haven't gotten my first CP in the 4 full days that 1.6.2 has been on PTS. I'm at 398,291/400K. That tells you just how many Safeboxes I've picked Ranking it up in those 4 days lol. Since I'm always on Enlightenment, that's 108 Safeboxes.

I can only see sense in this, since they've introduced a new skill line with no new skill points. Unless they intend to surprise us on console launch saying something like "Ta da! We fooled you all!Here is Orsinium/Wrothgar"?

FoxPT · February 2015

Great Guide @DeLindsay tks for that.

My contribute to your guide.

As a Vampire you can now feed from the same npc's that you can pickpocket.
Since for feeding you need to be sneak behind the target it appears the 2 options in screen Feed or Pickpocket.
If you Feed from a NPC in a town even if you don't kill it after and flee you are marked as a Fugitive to Justice and get a bounty of 250g.

But doing this don't give you any point to the Legerdemain skill line even you get the Fugitive Status so after feed since you get that status best kill the poor ***.

DeLindsay · February 2015

FoxPT wrote: »

Great Guide @DeLindsay tks for that.

My contribute to your guide.

As a Vampire you can now feed from the same npc's that you can pickpocket.
Since for feeding you need to be sneak behind the target it appears the 2 options in screen Feed or Pickpocket.
If you Feed from a NPC in a town even if you don't kill it after and flee you are marked as a Fugitive to Justice and get a bounty of 250g.

But doing this don't give you any point to the Legerdemain skill line even you get the Fugitive Status so after feed since you get that status best kill the poor ***.

Yeah I knew about the Vampire feeding part, didn't actually try it though, so I'll update the OP when I get a chance to reflect your info, thanks.

ForKristSake · February 2015

Just a tip for you fellow thieves...

If you level up Alchemy and max the "Medicinal Use" skill 3/3, a VR5 (cloud mist) invisibility tripot (nirnroot, namira's rot, blue enteloma), will give you approx 15 sec of invisibility. It's just enough time to pick a safebox and remove it's contents right in front of any NPC, including the guards, as long as you have Auto-steal on.

No bounty, in and out.

curlyqloub14_ESO · February 2015

OP - Thanks for the nice writeup!

I haven't played on PTS at all, but some of these things seem really out of whack to me, and I'd like to know what others think:

DeLindsay wrote: »

While out and about in Towns you will find literally a metric ton of items to steal and then Fence for Gold or Launder for personal use. Iirc they said there's somewhere over 2000 unique items to be stolen. Even though it seems like a bunch of small numbers keep in mind while on PTS I've made ~45K in 4-6 hours of just Thieving. I also got no Epic Motifs since 1.6.2 (got AE in 1.6) so that would add even more if this were Live. Here's the basics of what you'll see from a monetary standpoint.

45,000 in 4-6 hours??? This seems like an insanely high profit over a short period of time compared to other activities in ESO. Are prices (and the amount of gold we earn for things) going up across the board? If not, I would think this earning potential is going to seriously affect the economy - any player who doesn't want to steal will be dirt poor at this rate.

DeLindsay wrote: »

Purple items no longer stack.

Kind-of off topic, but this comment stood out to me...does this mean purple food and drink no longer stack either? 'Cuz that would be seriously problematic.

DeLindsay wrote: »

Criminal Reputation

Upstanding: You have committed no Crimes, or been caught doing so. Guards have no reaction to you.

Disreputable: [1 - 267 Gold Bounty] Caught Stealing or Pickpocketing once. Guards will Accost you if you get too close to make you pay the fine and take your stolen items or you can try and Flee.

Notorious: [268 - 536 Gold Bounty] Caught stealing 3 times or attacking an Innocent once. Guards will Accost you.

Fugitive From Justice: [537 Gold Bounty or higher] Caught stealing 6 times, attacking Innocents twice or Feeding on Innocents in Town once. Guards will attack you on site with the only options being your death or your escape. This is also the level that Players will be able to kill you once that part of the Justice System has been introduced.

**Bounty Decay:
22.5 Gold every 3 Minutes while Online or Offline.

450 Gold every 1 Hour.

6300 Gold every 1 Day.

Yes, it decays all the way to 0.

The decay times seem really fast. I could go from Notorious to Upstanding in a little over an hour? An hour playtime is hardly any time at all. This seems like there is hardly any penalty at all - the repercussions for leading a scandalous life of thieving and murdering seems relatively light, no?

DeLindsay · February 2015

curlyqloub14_ESO wrote: »

45,000 in 4-6 hours??? This seems like an insanely high profit over a short period of time compared to other activities in ESO. Are prices (and the amount of gold we earn for things) going up across the board? If not, I would think this earning potential is going to seriously affect the economy - any player who doesn't want to steal will be dirt poor at this rate.

Kind-of off topic, but this comment stood out to me...does this mean purple food and drink no longer stack either? 'Cuz that would be seriously problematic.

The decay times seem really fast. I could go from Notorious to Upstanding in a little over an hour? An hour playtime is hardly any time at all. This seems like there is hardly any penalty at all - the repercussions for leading a scandalous life of thieving and murdering seems relatively light, no?

This entire thread has nothing to do with items or game mechanics outside of Legerdemain. The purple items no longer stack refers specifically to stolen purple personal items from NPCs.

45K in 4-6 hours is 7.5-10K/hr, no more or less than any other method of "grinding" out gold in ESO. In fact Motif farmers can easily make 20-50K+/hr if RNG luck is on their side. Alchemy farmers can make 9-15K/hr selling plants. Hell you can grind out mobs endlessly and make 6K+/hr just vendoring all the junk that drops. I can make 100K/hr just playing the market, i.e. Guild Kiosks. Keep in mind that right now you gain almost NOTHING for XP while advancing Legerdemain. That means although you might make decent gold you aren't getting Champion Points at even 1/10th the rate of other activities in ESO, to which I have sent in feedback about. And you're only making good gold if you don't get caught often or don't murder innocents often as your bounty can go up rapidly doing so, thus making all that shiny gold you just earned worthless as you have to use it to pay off the Guards.

That decay time is actually absurdly slow, but necessary otherwise some Players would never be able to step foot in town again. This is an MMO after all and ZoS has to build the game for group mentality not solo. Trust me when I say there's a penalty. The moment you get too close to a Guard in Town you will see just what that penalty is. Also look at it another way. Up until 1.6 hits EVERYONE in game has been a thieving, murderous criminal with ZERO consequences, at least 1.6 is adding some finally, however light you may think them to be.

In the end, the OP has been fully updated to reflect all changes during PTS patches and I will continue updating it as anything new changes after 1.6 is Live.

TikiGamer · February 2015

Just a question for you @DeLindsay - Have you tried reading any books from bookshelves? Is there a chance you can get skill increases this way like other skills?

ForKristSake · February 2015

TikiGamer wrote: »

Just a question for you @DeLindsay - Have you tried reading any books from bookshelves? Is there a chance you can get skill increases this way like other skills?

I haven't tried, but that's a damn good idea. You should suggest that in the PTS forum, if you already haven't