What's the best way to level Legerdemain?

ontheleftcoast · July 2015

I'm trying to be a good thief, well, an ambitious one. But I'm stymied by the grinding nature of it. I try to steal from every place I can with no or little risk of getting caught. But selling those items for 30 or greens for 100 just doesn't move the bar very much. Oh, and I'm in the no-man's land of Level 4 with no skill upgrades available for a lo-o-o-o-o-ong time at this rate. Oh, did I mention I'm VR2 and only have gotten Legerdemain to Level 4? Is it worth the risk of pickpocketing? I've only tried it 5 times and even with "80% chance of success" I've been caught 4 times. Stuid RNG :P Killing livestock? Again, I get caught over half the time. Obviously I'm not hip to the right way to do this. So what's the secret my fellow brothers and sisters of the shadows? How do I advance that skill line?

JJBaboon · July 2015

The quality of the item you sell actually makes no real noticeable difference to me. I leveled my skill in Vulhel Guard (AD PS4) just by robbing every house and barrel and keg in the city and selling and laundering all of it. I sell all the high value items and launder the lower value things and anything I might like to keep or sell to other players (soul gems, motif books, weapons and armor, etc). Every day sell and launder as much as you can. Max it out if possible. At least one point into trafficking will help you sell a lot more each day and level the skill faster.

Unlocking houses, safeboxs, and loot chests also levels your skill, so make sure you hit these whenever you see them as well. Good luck and happy hunting

Sharee · July 2015

Find a place with a lot of owned items easily pickable without being spotted, regardless of their value. Fill up your inventory, sell them to a fence, keep going until you hit the daily limit. The legerdemain skill increase does not depend on the value of item you sell, only on the number of sales.

When you exhaust the daily limit, keep doing the same thing, but instead of selling the stolen items to the fence, launder the items instead. Laundering has a separate daily limit. (you can then sell the items to a regular merchant for the same money it cost you to launder them, so it's a zero-sum operation)

If you have a good spot for stolen goods close to the hideout, you can do those 2 steps fairly quickly(relog to refresh the items in the world to continue pillaging). Do this every day, and the skill will increase fairly fast.

ontheleftcoast · July 2015

JJBaboon wrote: »

The quality of the item you sell actually makes no real noticeable difference to me. I leveled my skill in Vulhel Guard (AD PS4) just by robbing every house and barrel and keg in the city and selling and laundering all of it. I sell all the high value items and launder the lower value things and anything I might like to keep or sell to other players (soul gems, motif books, weapons and armor, etc). Every day sell and launder as much as you can. Max it out if possible. At least one point into trafficking will help you sell a lot more each day and level the skill faster.

Unlocking houses, safeboxs, and loot chests also levels your skill, so make sure you hit these whenever you see them as well. Good luck and happy hunting

D'oh! I just assumed that picking up one gp crud wasn't worth it. So selling a stolen lockpick is the same as selling a stolen rare item? SMH. ZOS can sure come up with lousy leveling systems like nobody else. Which reminds me, why is the one Legerdemain achievement that gets you a dye color for *FAILING* at stealing? You get Shadow Gray (or something like that) for having to pay 100,000 gold in fines. WTF? Reward me for being a lousy thief and punish me for being a good one? Great job Zenimax! Not.

JJBaboon · July 2015

It does seem wonky how the achievements work, but I think they are more rewarding you for notoriety than for failing, so to speak. I kind of think of it this way: if I was a master thief and no one ever caught me or knew what I had stolen, I would never actually be notorious... Just rich lol. It's a cop out role play way of defending what is a silly system, but it helps me feel better about it :P

Leandor · July 2015

ontheleftcoast wrote: »

D'oh! I just assumed that picking up one gp crud wasn't worth it. So selling a stolen lockpick is the same as selling a stolen rare item?

No it isn't. Items are valued by difficulty/rarity.

1 point legerdemain: Selling/laundering white items, picking "easy" locks or chests, pick "easy" pockets.
2 points: green items, intermediate locks, pockets
3 points: blue items, advanced locks, pockets
4 points: purple items, master locks, pockets

The chests you find everywhere also count towards legerdemain skill line.

Sharee · July 2015

Leandor wrote: »

ontheleftcoast wrote: »

D'oh! I just assumed that picking up one gp crud wasn't worth it. So selling a stolen lockpick is the same as selling a stolen rare item?

No it isn't. Items are valued by difficulty/rarity.

1 point legerdemain: Selling/laundering white items, picking "easy" locks or chests, pick "easy" pockets.
2 points: green items, intermediate locks, pockets
3 points: blue items, advanced locks, pockets
4 points: purple items, master locks, pockets

The chests you find everywhere also count towards legerdemain skill line.

Is it? Interesting, i could swear each sale increased the skill the same. Learn something new every day, i guess

Nonetheless, just mass-selling everything you find will probably still get you legerdemain levels quicker than cherry-picking only the more valuable items to sell.

Leandor · July 2015

Sharee wrote: »

Nonetheless, just mass-selling everything you find will probably still get you legerdemain levels quicker than cherry-picking only the more valuable items to sell.

That is true for sure. *cough*sheepmurderspreekenarthisroost*cough*

Nestor · July 2015

ontheleftcoast wrote: »

But selling those items for 30 or greens for 100 just doesn't move the bar very much. Oh, and I'm in the no-man's land of Level 4 with no skill upgrades available for a lo-o-o-o-o-ong time at this rate.

How do I advance that skill line?

If all you want to do is level the skill, then steal and fence/launder provisioning ingredients. Note, you can Launder and Fence the limit each day. So, if you unlock the passive that lets you have more Fence Interactions, then you can gain 240 points in Legerdemain each day*. I like Provisioning Ingredients as they stack so you can carry a bunch and not use up all your slots.

If you have access to the DC zones, then send me a PM and I will tell you where you can really grind this skill up.

*There used to be a way to double even this figure every two days, but they "fixed" that.