Question about Enchantments and Improvement Quality

Kammakazi · March 2016

I'm going to make a Heavy Reinforced Molag Kena Visage to Legendary.

Currently it is Veteran 16, and is Epic.

Would it make sense to:

Enchant it with a Veteran 16 Legendary Enchantment
Then upgrade its quality to Legendary

or

Upgrade its quality to Legendary
Then enchant it with a Veteran 16 Legendary Enchantment

Nestor · March 2016

It really does not matter what order you do this in, from what I can tell, if your crafting an item.

One thing though, if you like the existing enchantment on a loot drop, leave it on the item until after you improve it. I think the enchantment that is already on the item improves if you improve the item. I don't know if this applies to all looted items, but if your thinking your going to replace the enchantment anyway, improve the item first, then see if you need to replace the enchantment.

One thing to remember, if you put an enchantment on the item, it stays at the same value if you improve the item unless the Infused factor increases if that is the trait you have on there.

TL:DR Improve the item first, then replace the enchantment if necessary.

failkiwib16_ESO · March 2016

Molag Kena enchantment is one of those special snowflake ones that improve, when you improve the armor piece. If you already have the wanted enchantment on it, then just improve the armor....
WARNING: Only the original enchantment improves. If you put a new enchantment on it, it will not improve, when you improve the armor.

If you have a good enchantment on your Molag Kena, then you should just improve the item.
If you don't have the wanted enchantment on your Molag Kena, then it doesn't matter ^^ you're going to invest in a Kuta and a Repora.

Reorx_Holybeard · March 2016

In case some people are wondering how/why this works...an item can have a "built-in" enchantment or one that is specifically applied to it (either manually or it comes with it by default). You can tell which is which by looking at the raw item link.

For example my Molag Kena Epaulets with a built-in Magicka enchantment looks like:

|H0:item:68138:364:50:0:0:0:...

where as my Seducer's Cuirass with a manually applied Magicka enchantment looks like:

|H0:item:47786:370:50:26582:370:50:...

The 26582:370:50 in the last link is the enchantment specification. Improving an item will change its subtype (the first 364/370 numbers) but not its enchantment subtype.