Is stealing and/or pickpocketing lucrative enough to be worth the time?

chuck-18_ESO

Ryath_Waylander

Yes, but only with maxxed Legerdemain and Thieves Guild lines.

You have to know where to farm valuable motifs and limit the time you farm. My hubby and I farm for gold and purple motifs/furnishing patterns. We have seen that although RNG is real, you do four to five rounds of your farming route once a day and if what you're aiming for didn't drop then come back tomorrow. The longer it takes, the more uneconomical it gets.

mayasunrising

Yes!

Oh my! Absolutely! I made enough gold to buy my first house (Mournoth Keep) by acquiring items from the good people of Tamriel! It's a great way to get furniture pattern for your crafter or to sell as well.

idk

It really depends. There are other areas more lucrative the timing is right but.

Anotherone773

Yes, but only with maxxed Legerdemain and Thieves Guild lines.

If your a newbie starting out, it is a great way to make money. I use fence the max everyday when i was starting out. Bought my first house mournoth keep , solely from stealing. There are more efficient ways to make money but sometimes it fun to steal peoples stuff and slit their throat.

Glurin

Yes!

Great way to make some quick cash. Granted you can make more from certain other activities, but if you just need some extra money ASAP, a little thievery will net you an easy 10-20k, give or take depending on what you sell to the fence. Plus you just might get lucky and net one of the rarer items that sell well on guild traders after a good laundering.

SeaGtGruff

Yes!

Yes, especially when you're starting out and need to amass gold for buying pack upgrades and bank account upgrades.

At first you'll find mostly small-value (white) treasure, but as you progress you'll be able to find better (green, blue, and purple) treasure.

Everstorm

I dislike the fence limit. And the risks are too low once you know what you're doing.

lagrue

No!

I'd say no, but then again I have 10 alts. Once you have many characters doing daily writs is honestly easy money with no RNG involved.

There's no thievery run you could ever hope to achieve that would outpace it in profts over time - the only issue is, it requires alot of alts and setup. But once that's in place pickpocketing becomes a massive waste of time.

Dusk_Coven

No!

Grinding dragons and dolmens are probably better to get jewelry decon stuff, and that's on top of other benefits.

Asardes

No!

The only time when I found it lucrative was shortly after Morrowind release, when then introduced the Great House motifs and they were still relatively expensive (>20K/page). Back then I would pickpocket for 60-90 minutes and get 3-4 pages each evening, plus 100+ green, blue and purple items to fence (~20K in total) with a 5-6K bounty that would drop by the next day when I logged back in. Now those motives are cheap (~5-8K/page) because the novelty has worn off and they flooded the market with the Jubilee events.

bmnoble

Yes!

Early on it can be a good source of quick coin, even later if RNG is on your side you can get some motifs chapters in certain locations through pick pocketing that sell fairly well but your just as likely if not more so to get motifs to sell doing daily quests in various zones.


Half an hour a day of stealing/laundering use to be a part of my daily routine a long time ago but over time the profits from doing daily writs on multiple characters covered the gold I needed in game so I stopped bothering with it.


I mostly used thieving when I was starting out in the game as a way to pay the weekly dues in the first few trade guilds I joined while using my profits from both stealing and just selling stuff on the guild traders, to level up the craft skills on my alts until they were all able to do max level writs.


Just think of it as a supplementary source of gold rather than your main source of income.

There are plenty of other ways in game that will make you decent gold but if you enjoy thieving do it, its just another part of the game, if you start worrying about how much gold its making you it will become a lot less fun and seem more of a daily chore though.

Grianasteri

No!

chuck-18_ESO wrote: »

I find it hard to believe that someone could make more gold than me soley steeling and pick pocketing, in the same time that I spend in a public delv. Is this really possible? Taking into account the sneaking time, travel to fence to sell etc...

If I spend half an hour in there, I can make thousands.

Note that I am not saying stealing and pickpocketing are not fun, they can be.

Amisce

Yes, but only with maxxed Legerdemain and Thieves Guild lines.

Grianasteri wrote: »

I find it hard to believe that someone could make more gold than me soley steeling and pick pocketing, in the same time that I spend in a public delv. Is this really possible? Taking into account the sneaking time, travel to fence to sell etc...

If I spend half an hour in there, I can make thousands.

Note that I am not saying stealing and pickpocketing are not fun, they can be.

In my favorite pickpocket spots, I can make 10-20k in about an hour, YMMV

Ohtimbar

No!

If ‘worth the time‘ simply means lucrative then yes, it can be. That said, it is rarely/never the best time investment if you want to maximize gold per hour.

redlink1979

Yes!

I like to pickpocket guards

Asardes

No!

redlink1979 wrote: »

I like to pickpocket guards

Before I did that the only got Polished Shilling from deconstructing PvP gear in bad traits. Other than that the only relatively valuable loot they carry are wanted poster furnishings that go for 2-3K gold on guild traders, but a disadvantage is that once spent, they can't be reset the usual way, via Blade of Woe. They're pretty hard targets too, comparable to Nobles.

Grianasteri

No!

Amisce wrote: »

Grianasteri wrote: »

I find it hard to believe that someone could make more gold than me soley steeling and pick pocketing, in the same time that I spend in a public delv. Is this really possible? Taking into account the sneaking time, travel to fence to sell etc...

If I spend half an hour in there, I can make thousands.

Note that I am not saying stealing and pickpocketing are not fun, they can be.

In my favorite pickpocket spots, I can make 10-20k in about an hour, YMMV

Wow that is lucrative. But I still wonder if I can make similar in a public delv and doing pledges in the same time frame. For the lolz I may go and see how much I can make from a couple of pledges and the rest of the time in a public delv, with a total time of 1 hour. I think it will be close.

kaisernick

Stealing moreso than pickpocketing.

You have to find a sweet spot to do it, preferbaly one where you have less compition (gold cost is a well known one i see lots doing) but yes ive made quite a bit doing it.

srfrogg23

Yes!

You should spend all of your time stealing. It's OP. It's Endgame. Don't think, just do!

Kagukan

Yes, but only with maxxed Legerdemain and Thieves Guild lines.

What I did was find a good location and make a loop route. By the time I got back around where I started my route everything would re spawn. After about 4 loops I would be full. Didn't take long and made decent gold.

TheGreatBlackBear

VAA hardmode takes like 20 mins. 14k plunder. 10k gold plunder. 2 gold pieces of jewellery and the chance at purple jewellery from chests. Why would you waste time stealing/pickpocketing?

PizzaCat82

Yes!

Its a good way to make money. There are better ways of making money, but its a good one. The Lockbreaking skill alone is worth it to get your Ledgermain up.

yRaven

Yes, but only with maxxed Legerdemain and Thieves Guild lines.

Yes, but there's much more lucrative things to waste your time, fishing and mats hunt for example, gives much more money

azjuwelz

Yes!

Like others have said, it's especially good when you're first starting out.

Stealing and pickpocketing is also a good way to get expensive motifs in certain zones. So it does depend on where you're doing it.

Danikat

Yes!

It's not the most profitable activity in the game but you can make decent money doing it. It's especially good early on because you can do it right from level 1 without needing any skills or equipment.

I don't usually dedicated much time to it, but I'll always check containers as I'm passing and if there's anything good I'll take it (even on my characters who wouldn't actually become thieves, I'm not going to pass up a rare motif just because I've decided this guy obeys the law). And if I need more gold I've got two characters with points in Legerdemain who can go do a thieving run somewhere.

(Incidentally reading this topic I'm wondering if there's a connection between people who use thieving to get gold and people who like Mournoth Keep. That's the house I did daily theft runs to pay for too.)

deviousthevile

Yes!

Don't waste time pickpocketing as there is a higher chance of getting caught. I like going into the Fighters Guild in Mournhold and completely killing every NPC in the Training area. Sure you have to time it so no one sees you, but it's quick, easy, and I finished my Black Market Mogul and a few Thieves Guild achieves just sitting there, killing everyone as they spawned.

Asardes

No!

deviousthevile wrote: »

Don't waste time pickpocketing as there is a higher chance of getting caught. I like going into the Fighters Guild in Mournhold and completely killing every NPC in the Training area. Sure you have to time it so no one sees you, but it's quick, easy, and I finished my Black Market Mogul and a few Thieves Guild achieves just sitting there, killing everyone as they spawned.

If you just kill you lose 2/3 NPC drops. The most valuable ones are usually the last. Ex. if you're aiming for blueprints or motif pages those will always drop as the 2nd or 3rd item, almost never as the first. The most efficient technique is to pickpocket twice, stab once, or pickpocket 3 times, then stab, because some NPCs also have the 4th item on them.

Salix_alba

Yes!

It is a legitimate way to make money if you need it well not really legitimate but you get my meaning. Pick-pocketing nobles can net gold recipes. Mats, recipes green, blue and purple items can be obtained by theft all of which can be sold to the fence and remember the fence limit is separate from the launder limit. so some items can be worth laundering at the lower cost from buying and then resell them.

If you plan on making money by theft try stealing every thing from all containers that aren't nailed shut and simply toss any item that isn't green quality or above and launder any mats you find. And if you steal a housing item you do not need to launder it to place it in your own home. same with recipes and blueprints they don't need to be laundered for you to learn them unless you want a different toon to learn them.

Veinblood1965

I just went to Rawalkia right before I logged off, store what I could, pickpocketed who I could and used the blade of woe on every NPC I could after the second success. It built up a large bounty but by the time I logged back in the next day it was gone. Made 10k a day or so and occasionally more with good purple drops. There are also about 6 or 7 chests there easy pickens.

IndianaJames7

No!

Unless you have a secret spot where you can get valuable items, not just the treasures you sell to the fence. When I was getting black market mogul I was making roughly 15k in half an hour to get 140/140 for the day which is not very efficient compared to other gold making activities.