If the set requires six traits to craft, then you need to have learned six on each item you want to craft. If you want to craft said item with Divine, then you will need to know that trait on each item as well.

Can I also buy cheap gear items from Guild Vendors and research them?

fetito666 wrote: »

Okay, that would mean 5 traits + Divine on each set piece, right?

Not quite. At least, I mean I wish to make sure you're quite clear.

Each piece of gear has nine traits that can be learned.

To use a 'six trait crafting table', you must have finished researching six of those nine traits. If you wish to craft with the Divine trait, 'Divine' must be one of those six fully researched traits.

This applies to each gear slot and each gear weight you wish to craft. Learning six traits for Hat, for example, does not enable you to craft a six trait table item for Helmet or Helm.

Likewise, learning Divines for Guards does not permit you to craft Breeches or Greaves. You must research Divines for Breeches and for Greaves.

Each craftable set has a particular number of traits that you need to know in order to craft an item in that set, ranging from 2 traits up to all 9 traits. This is the number of traits for each particular item, not for any items. So if you wanted to craft a Helm in a particular set that requires knowing 5 traits, but you only know 3 traits on Helms (but, say, 6 traits on everything else), then you won't be able to craft a Helm in that set because you don't know enough traits on Helms yet.

Traits are separate from sets, meaning you can craft a non-set item that has a particular trait as long as you know that trait on that item. So if you know the Divines trait on Shoes but not on Boots or Sabatons, you can craft Divines Shoes but not Divines Boots or Divines Sabatons.

Styles are separate from sets and traits. Styles are purely cosmetic, and can be superseded by your Outfit, so a lot of times when people pay another player to craft them some gear they'll say "Make it in any style you want," since they're going to use an Outfit anyway. But if you want to craft an item in a particular style then you need to know that style, either for all items if the style motif applies to all items, or to a particular category of item such as chests or feet or hands-- in which case it will apply to all chest items regardless of the weight of the armor, light or medium or heavy.

You can also enchant items, which is separate from set or trait or style. The enchantment can't be of a higher level than the item-- e.g., you can't apply a Level 50 enchantment to a Level 46 Cuirass. Enchantment levels start at 1 and then go up by 5-- 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, etc. I forget how much the numbers go up between levels once you get into the CP range. On the other hand, for the most part crafted gear levels go up by 2-- 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, etc. (Gear that you find is different, because it will match your level even if that level isn't one that can be crafted, such as Level 5, or Level 11.) So as far as applying the best level of enchantment on your gear, it might be better to buy crafted gear that's a little higher than your current level even if you can't use it until you've leveled up. For instance, it's smarter to pay for, say, Level 16 gear with Level 15 enchantments than to pay for, say, Level 14 gear with only Level 10 enchantments.

Finally, you can have items and enchantments of different qualities (white, green, blue, purple, or gold). If you've applied an enchantment to an item, improving that item's quality will increase its overall stats but not the enchantment's stats, so I like to go with the highest quality of enchantment-- gold if I have lots of Kuta, otherwise purple. That way if I decide to improve the quality of the item then I won't be left with, say, purple gear with only a white enchantment on it. Dropped gear is different, in that if you get a green item that was dropped in a dungeon, and then you improve that green item to purple, the quality of the enchantment will also be improved.

As far as researching specific traits on gear, any old gear will do as long as it's the correct type of item and has the desired trait on it. For instance, if you want to learn the Divines trait on Daggers then you can buy or find a white Level 1 Dagger of any style, with or without an enchantment, and research it, as long as that Dagger has the Divines trait on it.

It took me 14 months after console launch to complete all crafting research. That entailed having the next-to-research gear item in my inventory so there was no down time on my research slots.

Fortunately, the process can be faster today.

1) Each craft has a passive that, when unlocked, permits you to research two or even three items simultaneously. You must unlock these passives as soon as popsicle. Deconstruction of Intricate Trait and Irnate Trait items will speed up your Inspiration gains. Inspiration is the special XP just for crafting. You can also deconstruct CP150 or CP160 items for fairly decent Inspiration gains.

2) There are Research Scrolls available from the Master Writ vendor and larger Research Scrolls from the Crown Store. You can purchase 'One Day Research Scrolls from the Master Writ vendor by paying a Master Crafter player to buy them for you. Crown Store Research Scrolls, which can eliminate up to 15 days if research time, may be purchased with Crowns, or another player could send them to you as a Gift, typically for in-game gold.

Research time increases for each additional trait in a specific gear item's research tree. Researching the first trait in Glove will take 6 hours. The second will take 12. The third, if memory serves, will take 18, all the way up to 30 days for the 9th trait.

There is a passive for each craft that will slightly reduce research time. When research time exceeds a week, it may be wise to unlock these passives until research is complete. You can always buy these passives back after research is complete with the Skill Reset Scroll from the Levelling Rewards or at a Skill Reset Shrine in a capitol city for in-game gold.

Use Research Scrolls judiciously to make maximum use of the time they remove from research timers. If you're on PC, there probably is an add-on that will do all the calculations for you as well as sending you an alert when a research slot becomes open.

Priority traits to research:

Armor: Divines, Infused, Impenetrable (for PvP)
Weapons: Sharpened, Precise, Infused, Nirnhoned.

fetito666 wrote: »

Okay, how long would it take to research 6 traits on 3 items when I maxed out the corresponding passive skill in clothing?
Is there a way to accelerate the process?

The time it takes to research a trait for a piece of armor depends on how many traits you already know for that armor.
If you know 0 traits for Light Gloves, researching a first trait will take 6 hours. If you already know 5 traits for Light Gloves, researching a 6th trait will take 8 days (5 days with all passives and ESO+). And that's for every single item.

You can make the research process faster by investing points into the Crafting skill passives; being able to research up to 3 items at the same time helps a lot too. There are also consumable Research Scrolls (Clothing, Blacksmithing, Woodworking, Jewelcrafting, and All) that reduce the time remaining on your currently active trait researches by a certain amount (1-2-3 days). You can buy 1-day Research Scrolls from the Master Writ vendors, and you can use one scroll per crafting skill per 20 hours. Research Scrolls are also available from the Crown Store, and these have no cooldown restrictions (but I'd advise against buying them).

If you can't wait that long you can easily find friendly crafters ingame who will craft you your stuff for free if you have materials. Hit me up if you're on PC/EU.

Also, not sure if you already know this or not, your original question didn't make that clear, but crafting traits and sets are different. If you know 0 traits for Medium Gloves, and you research Divine for Medium Gloves (it will take 6 hours), you can immediately start crafting Medium Gloves with Divine trait on them. The only reason you need to research many traits is to craft a set - some sets require you to know a certain amount of traits.

Example: You have already researched Divine, Infused and Impenetrable traits for Medium Boots. You can now craft regular Medium Boots with any of these three traits, and you can also craft Medium Boots in any set that requires 3 traits or less. You could make a 'Boots of Night's Silence' (Night's Silence is a set that requires you to know two traits). If you wanted to craft 'Boots of Hunding's Rage' (Hunding's Rage is a set that requires you to know 6 traits), you would need to research three other traits for Medium Boots first. And that is counted separately for each item.