How do you learn traits and make weapons?

Destructor1888

I’ve played Skyrim in the past but the crafting on elder scrolls Tamriel if very different and quite complexed to me at the moment. I know my question may seem small I’m sure when someone explains it to me it will be such a simple process in the end.

rhapsodious

To learn a trait, get a piece of gear that's of the type you want to research that has the trait you want. For example, if you want to research Training on 1h axes, loot/buy/ask someone nicely for a 1h axe that has Training on it. Then go to a (in this case, blacksmithing) crafting station and go to the Research tab. Scroll over to the axe, you should see Training lit up with a time duration for the research. Select the axe - it gets destroyed, just fyi - and start researching. Come back when it's done and repeat the process with something else, but each subsequent trait for an item will take longer (not for the profession, so if you were to learn all 9 for one item and started the next you'd be back to short research times).

You start off with one research slot for each of blacksmithing/woodworking/clothing, but you can upgrade the amount of slots per profession - up to 3 per - and decrease the time taken via the skill line's passives. ESO+ also reduces research timers by 10%, but until you get to 8 or 9 traits for an item it's not really noticeable.

Making weapons and armor is as simple as going to the crafting station, selecting your material (determines the level), style material (aesthetic), trait (see above) and get craftin'. You can upgrade them in another tab, and the more of the upgrade material you add the higher the chance of a successful upgrade. But remember that anything that isn't 100% is effectively 0%, don't risk it. Another crafting passive will improve your chances of a successful upgrade so you use fewer materials.

I can clarify if any of that was unclear, but hopefully that demystified the process a bit.

Nestor

Rhaps gave a great explanation, but here is youtube video series to help even more. The 6 minute mark is about Traits.

Nestor

And, here is my general purpose crafting guide

Equipment Crafting

Decon all mob loot other than what you are using to research traits. Research traits, learn two on all items you would use, then learn 3, etc. Focus on Divines, Infused and Training for your first three for Armor; Infused, Sharpened, Precise and Training for your Weapons. Then go for the other ones. Nirn is expensive, and a lot of people suggest putting a priority on that, I can't see why. The Trait is all but useless for Armor or Weapons. Best place to find Mob Loot is Public Dungeons, then over land grind spots. Grind on mobs until your bags are full, then go on a decon fest. Remembering to save the ones you need or want to research. Use the Lock Function and or an Inventory Mule to hang on to those. Only invest Skill points while leveling it into the Research and Extraction Passive, the last really only needing one point.

Enchanting

Ignore all the "advice" on the web about using an enchanting partner. First, use Mob Loot decon to raise this up to a point. Later on as you approach end game have some some gold, then start making Green, Blue or Purple Glyphs on one character and decon them on an Alt. You will level Enchanting faster than trading the glyphs with another player, which is tedious by the way. (like pull out your hair and make a doily tedious). Use Green up to about L15 in the Enchanting Skill, Blue up to about L30/35 and Purple up to about L46/47. Then learn the runes you don't know, you should be at or near 50, if not, make/decon some more Purples.

Provisioning and Alchemy

Don't worry about these, you can level these professions in about an 20 minutes, for both. Just collect the Various Solvents and Reagents and Provisioning Ingredients/Recipes as you go along. Once end game, then you can level it. Use Mushrooms to level Alchemy, or Flowers that make potions you won't use. Make sure you grab solvents (waters) as your leveling as they can be rare to find in the guild stores. For Provisioning, make the highest level Green Recipes you can make. Blue or Purples do not give any more inspiration than Greens, so save those for character use.

Traits

Yes, use Drop Sets for now, and Yes, level your crafting skills and do the Trait Research. Traits are why you craft as they allow you to make Special Crafted Sets. There are two sets in the game that your going to want to make, Julianos for your Magic Characters, and Hundings Rage for your Stamina Characters. There are no better sets in the game to have 5 pieces of. Period. Well, Twice Born Star is great to, but your a year out from making that. But you need to start learning your traits now.

Leveling Equipment Crafting is easy, just decon the mob loot you are not either selling to cover repairs or using to research traits. No skill points needed while leveling it, other than maybe a point or two into the Extraction Passives.

Back to the Crafted Sets, it takes 6 traits known to be able to make Hundings or Julianos, 9 Traits for Twice Born Star. You don't need to know these traits on everything, but you do need to know them on the items you will use. So, start learning those traits. Focus on the gear you will use first, then fill in the rest later. This means:

Casters
Heavy Chest/Legs
Light Feet/Hands/Waist
Shoulders and Heads are good to, but there are 2 Piece Monster sets that can take up those slots. So learn the traits on these pieces, but prioritize the ones above.
Staves (all 4 of them)

Stamina
All Medium Armors
Daggers, Swords, Bow and Shield

Learn Training, Divines and Infused on the Armors first, Sharpened, Precise and Training on the Weapons. Powered is good for the Healing Staff, Defending is good for Sword or other one handed Melee. Then fill in the rest until you have 6 or eventually 9 traits. Some people recommend Nirn as an early trait to learn. Unless they change it, don't listen to them. You might use it on a Shield or a Weapon but that is about it. You need it someday, but it's expensive and you need your gold for other things.

Invest the skill points into the Research Passives. I can't stress enough how much of a time sink Trait Research is. Be able to learn more than one at a time, and reduce the time needed. Get an addon for Trait Research Tracking, I recommend Craft Store. If your on the Consoles, find one of the spreadsheets out there or make one to track this. Have I mentioned you need to learn your traits?

Doing this you will be ready to invest skill points into Crafting when it matters and not have to spend months getting ready. Did I mention Trait Research and how much a time sink it is? The last two traits will take you a month each to learn, on each item you learn them on. Get started now, yesterday would have been better.


Based on testing I did several months ago (so things could have changed a bit):

Mob Loot gives the most Exp
Other Player Made and Alt Made give about 90% of the Inspiration of Mob Loot.
Deconning stuff made on the same character gives about 10%, but you get a better chance of getting a Temper, Style and Trait back, important for deconning things with Nirn or rare Style Mats

Alt made is better than other player made as you don't have to deal with the friction of being able to send only 6 items at a time. You can just deposit a batch in the bank and decon them out of the bank. However:

I still think farming a public dungeon or overland grind spot is better as you gain character experience/champ points, skills, gold, set items on occasion, and have a net gain in Mats. Making and deconning items will burn up 70% of your mats on average. OK I guess if you have a ton of mats but I would rather use my Ruby stuff for making gear for my characters. I farm the mobs, sell the white items to pay for repairs, then decon what is left. This is how I leveled all my characters to 50 in Eq Crafting.

The only exception is with Glyphs, since most looted Glyphs are White and Improved Glyphs give so much more Inspiration, it is better to make Improved Glyphs on one character and decon on an Alt. Use Green up to about L10, Blue up to about L35, then Purple up to 46 or so. Then, learn all the runes you don't know, and that should get you close to L50. No need to make the CP160's unless you have a bunch of Potencies, CP150 or even CP90/140 Glyphs are fine for this process if you have more of those potencies.

Destructor1888

Cheers for such a fast and in-depth response guys I really appreciate it! I’ll start doing some research on specific weapons and armour tonight then hopefully I can do some crafting tomorrow.

Nestor

Just remember, you can craft without knowing any traits. But to make Special Set items that have power, you need to know traits. So you can make some gear now to get you by, then make some more tomorrow, or the next day.

Destructor1888

This is where I’m getting confused then as I’ve refined my iron ore in ingot but when I choose a specific amount to use it doesn’t allow me to craft?

Nestor

Each gear level uses more mats. So, have you refined enough mats to be able to make the level of gear you want? The screen should tell you how much you need, but figure on 40 to 50 to make a full set of lower level gear, about 3 to 5 Ingots for each piece.

If you don't have enough, kill mobs, grab the loot gear and decon it. Or, wear it for now, and decon it when you have out leveled it. Or you can farm for raw mats and refine it. I will say that Iron, Jute and Rawhide are the harder ones to get as everyone is farming that stuff. I found most farming success was to farm as I went form place to place. Dedicated farming in the early zones is not all that successful, only once you move on to the later zones and things thin out and players have gold to buy mats rather than farm them.

If you have enough mats, post a screenshot if you can showing where it won't let you make something

Destructor1888

ahh right so basically right now I have 12 iron ingot but with a selected weapon of choose if it says below the ingot image 20 I need that many before I can make it? But when I select an amount lower then said 20 it will bring the level of the sword where I need it to be if I was to craft using 20 pieces would that not make me a weapon I can’t use?

Nestor

Yep, you choose the level of the item, that selects the amount of mats*. One thing to note you can't use gear that is over your level, so if your L16, making an L20 sword won't help. And, it is theoretically possible to make end game gear on a low level alt, so keep that in mind.




*There is a goofy thing in the crating interface that if you choose say a L20 Chest, then next choose say a Helmet, it will try to maintain the material amount, not the gear level amount, so it will default to a L24 Helm. So, just pay attention to the level of the item you want to make.

JKorr

What Nestor said. I really wish there would be a way to lock the level you want to make for the whole set of armor, especially. On more than one occasion I've had to go back and remake items for someone because the level changed between the cuirass, helm, boots, whatever.

Kraynic

Nestor gave a pretty good rundown on leveling stuff. The only thing I would disagree with is alchemy. I would recommend leveling with poisons. For the most part, you get plenty of poison reagents as you level your character, and they are fairly cheap on the market if you run low on a certain level band reagents. This keeps you from having to focus as much on grabbing water as you go.

erliesc

If you are crafting...your best bet is to gather everything you can and refine it. I collect at least 200 of everything...and mostly sell any above this. This way you'll always have the needed mats ready when you are.

As you play the game you collect mats....you collect armor/weapons to get the traits...etc.

I don't frontload the game by trying too hard....take what you get and build up your skills slowly.

You HAVE TO HAVE skill points to advance anything in this game.....

davey1107

You got great info.

If you have a question bout crafting and don’t want to wait, I always reference this amazing guide:

http://www.sunshine-daydream.us/ESO/crafting.html