Welcome to our Elder Scrolls Online ESO Clothing Guide by Nines!   In this article we’ll cover everything clothing; skills, hirelings, upgrades and of course crafting.  Let’s get started!

Table of Contents

• Clothing Passive Abilities
• Clothing Leveling
• Researching Traits
• Helpful Addons
• Improvements

 

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Clothing Passive Abilities

Below is a short summary of the clothing passive abilities. If you plan to become a master outfitter, it is recommended that you fully invest in clothing and assign skill points to all clothing passive abilities. On the other hand, if you are currently working on leveling your clothing ability but have no intent to craft gear until you reach a high veteran level, then it is recommended that you allocate skill points in the following manner:

Must Have

Outfitter Hireling

The outfitter hireling is a must have, your hireling will provide you with clothing materials and refinement materials, tannins, daily via the in game mail. Unlocking each rank as it becomes available will allow you to stockpile refinement and crafting materials for when you decide to start crafting your gear. If you build a large inventory of high quality materials you can easily liquidate them via Guild Stores or in response to zone chat requests. Crafting materials can be an excellent source of reserve gold if you become gold strapped at any point in the game.

Unraveling

Unraveling is a must have for reasons very similar to the Outfitter Hireling. Unraveling will increase your chances of extracting clothing ingredients and high quality tannins from the deconstruction of unwanted gear and from the refinement of raw materials. Deconstruction of gear is an integral part of leveling up the clothing skill and the earlier you unlock Unraveling, the more opportunity you have to extract clothing ingredients and high quality tannins.

Stitching

Stitching plays a key role in researching armor traits. Researching armor traits is by far the most tedious portion of clothing and the passive abilities here will greatly speed up the trait researching process.

 

It Depends

Keen Eye: Cloth

This one is up to your personal preference, Rank 1 is very beneficial in terms of gathering fibrous plants. Keen Eye will make fibrous plants glow which makes them easier to spot while on horseback or while running through the environment. It is important to note that this does not provide any benefit for medium armor materials as those materials are found off of Mobs. Allocate skill points to Ranks 2 and 3 based on how useful you find Rank 1.

 

Tailoring

Tailoring is important if you plan to use item creation as a method to level your clothing skill, see The Simple Way below. If you do not plan to use item creation as a method of improving your clothing skill then you can pass on skill point allocation. If you go this route, it is important to have a basic idea of when you plan to begin crafting your own gear, this way you can start unlocking the passive abilities before they are needed which will allow for a seamless transition from leveling to crafting.

Delay Until you Plan to Craft

Tannin Expertise

If you do not plan to craft until you reach Veteran Ranks then you can pass on allocating skill points to Tannin Expertise. While it is a very important passive ability, it is not necessary for leveling your clothing ability. At lower levels it can be beneficial to have the extra skill points to allocate to strengthening your character.   Just as with Tailoring, plan ahead so you can begin unlocking the passive abilities before you plan to begin crafting your own gear.

 

The Clothing Passive Ability Summary Table (24 Total Skill Points)

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Clothing Leveling

 

The Simple Way – Natural Leveling and Basic Tips

If you want to keep things simple and limit your gold cost, then you will want to focus on leveling the natural way. To do this, there are a few basic suggestions:

 

1. Deconstruction – Deconstruct all armor except for those you intend to research or keep. This will provide the main source of Clothing experience.
2. Sell all “Ornate” Items – The extra gold received from selling these items outweighs the experience gained from their deconstruction.
3. Deconstruct all “Intricate” Items – Intricate items provide an excellent amount of crafting experience. The experience gain from their deconstruction far outweighs the gold received from their sale.
4. Harvest all raw material nodes – Paired with the Unraveling passive ability, this will allow you to extract clothing materials and tannins to use for crafting armor.
5. Creation – craft the following items with the clothing materials you have available:

Crafting these will provide the largest experience per clothing material. Note: At higher levels it will become inefficient to craft lower level Sashes using Jute through Kreshfiber (Light Armor) or Belts using Rawhide through Topgrain Hide (Medium Armor), a basic rule of thumb is to only craft with the most recent clothing materials you have unlocked via the Tailoring Passive Ability.   Ironthread, Silverweave and Voidcloth (Light Armor) and Iron Hide, Superb Hide and Shadowhide (Medium Armor) can be effectively used at any clothing level. Clothing materials you have outleveled should be sold for gold via merchants or the guild store.

After crafting your Sashes or Belts, you have two main options. If you are playing this game solo then you can sell your crafted items and keep the gold received. The other option is to trade your crafted items with another player trying to level their clothing skill. In this scenario, you will trade your Sashes or Belts for their Sashes or Belts and then deconstruct the crafted items you received from the other player. Deconstructing another players crafted gear provides a great source of crafting experience. It is very important to note that you can not effectively deconstruct crafted items with the character that originally created the item. The experience in this situation is very limited, assuming you do not find a partner to trade crafted items with, you are better off selling what you created to a merchant.

The Advanced Way – Power Leveling and Efficiency Tips

The advanced way retains the same basic principles as the simple way. The key difference here is the focus on the experience needed to level and the experience gained from deconstruction and crafting different pieces of gear.

As of Version 1.4 (Released 9/15/2014) Elder Scrolls Online uses the following Master Experience Table for all crafting professions:

Master Experience Table

Experience to level up is the amount of experience required for that current level, for example Level 50 requires 211,320 experience. Running Total Experience is the total amount of experience required to go from level 1 through the completion of the current level, for example, to go from Level 1 to Level 50 it would require a grand total of 3,879,215 experience. The Master crafting table can be used in tandem with the crafting and deconstruction tables below.

To determine the highest crafting experience per clothing material, the Jute (Light Armor) and Rawhide (Medium Armor) Gear line was analyzed [Crafted Jute (Light Armor) Detailed Experience Analysis Table] and [Crafted Rawhide (Medium Armor) Detailed Experience Analysis Table]. After noting that Sashes (Light Armor) and Belts (Medium Armor) provided the largest experience per materials, every level Sash and Belt was analyzed [Crafted Sashes (Light Armor) Experience Analysis Table] and [Crafted Belts (Medium Armor) Experience Analysis Table]. Also, you will gain significantly more experience if you are able to trade your crafted items with another outfitter and deconstruct the items they crafted, this is by far the best way to level Clothing [Deconstructed Sashes (Light Armor) Experience Analysis Table] and [Deconstructed Belts (Medium Armor) Experience Analysis Table]. The most efficient pieces to craft have been highlighted in the following tables.

 

Crafted Jute (Light Armor) Detailed Experience Analysis Table

Crafted Rawhide (Medium Armor) Detailed Experience Analysis Table

Crafted Sash (Light Armor) Experience Analysis Table

Crafted Belt (Medium Armor) Experience Analysis Table

Crafted Gear Power Leveling Example:

If you are a level 41 Outfitter and wish to reach level 42 by crafting gear you will need 141,800 experience (See Master Experience Table). To obtain this, the most efficient way would be to craft VR 10 Void Cloth Sashes or VR 10 Shadowhide Belts which net 2,168 experience per piece. In total you would need to craft 66 VR 10 Sashes or Belts [141,800 experience for Level 41 / 2,168 per VR 10 Sash or Belt]. In order to craft 66 Sashes or Belts you would need 924 Void Cloth or Shadowhide [66 Sashes or Belts * 14 clothing material per piece]. It would cost anywhere from 4,620 – 7,392 gold to purchase the clothing materials in order to level up based on the price of refined material stacks from guild traders, which at the time of publishing ranged anywhere from 500 – 800 gold for a stack of 100 materials.

Deconstructed Sashes (Light Armor) Experience Analysis Table

Deconstructed Belts (Medium Armor) Experience Analysis Table

Deconstructed Gear Power Leveling Example:

If you are a level 41 Outfitter and wish to reach level 42 by crafting gear you will need 141,800 experience (See Master Experience Table). To obtain this, the most efficient way would be to craft VR 10 Sashes or Belts which net 2,168 experience per piece and then trade the piece to another outfitter in exchange for a VR 10 Sash or Belt that they crafted. Deconstructing a VR 10 piece from another crafter would net 4,647 experience per piece. So your experience gain would be 6,815 which is calculated as the 2,168 for your original VR 10 construction + 4,647 for the deconstruction of the traded VR 10 piece. In total you would need to craft and deconstruct 21 traded VR 10 Sashes or Belts [141,800 experience for Level 41 / 6,815 per VR 10 Crafted + Deconstruction of Traded Piece]. In order to craft 21 VR 10 Sashes or Belts you would need 294 Void Cloth or Shadowhide [21 Sashes or Belts * 14 clothing material per piece]. If you were to purchase the crafting materials, it would cost anywhere from 1,470 – 2,352 gold to purchase the materials in order to level up based on the price of refined material stacks from guild traders, which at the time of publishing ranged anywhere from 500 – 800 gold for a stack of 100.

Crafting and deconstructing traded Sashes (Light Armor) and Belts (Medium Armor) is by far the best method for leveling up your clothing as the experience gain is approximately 3 times more, and the cost is approximately 3 times cheaper, than simply constructing clothing items on your own.

These methods can be used to evaluate the investment you would need to make to power level your clothing skill. The ultimate decision of whether the gold cost is worth it is an individual decision and is based on your desire to reach level 50 and your availability of gold.

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Researching Traits

Researching traits in Elder Scrolls Online will allow you to access and craft some extremely powerful player crafted gear; however, researching traits can take a significant amount of time. In regards to researching, it is very important to allocate skill points to the clothing passive ability Stitching as soon as possible, as it will significantly speed up the researching process. Below is a breakdown of how Stitching Ranks impact the research times:

This example will detail the time it would take to research 6, 8 or 9 traits for Light Armor or Medium Armor. In order to keep things simple, the research times will be based on the Stitching Rank 4 table.

Due to the long research times, it is recommended that you focus on either Light Armor or Medium Armor, whichever you wish to use for your character, this will allow you to create the best crafted armor sets. Alternatively, you could take the “generalist” approach and make your priority to research 6 traits on all items then researching traits 7 – 9 afterwards. This approach will allow you to craft a large portion of the set armors, although you would delay your ability to craft the excellent 8 trait armors.

It can become very cumbersome to remember which traits you have already researched and which items you need, as a result, here are a few add-ons I find very helpful:

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 Helpful Addons

 

AI Research Grid by StormKnight, CrazyDutchGuy

As seen below, this add-on will give you a short and concise view of the known traits on your characters. The top right drop down box will allow you to switch between your multiple characters known traits. The ingot, wood and cloth in the upper left will display Blacksmithing, Woodworking and Clothing respectively. The green check marks mean you have already learned the trait, the red X mark means you do not know the trait and the hourglass means you are currently researching the trait. The bottom bar highlights which styles you a have learned and can craft.

Craft Research Timer by aTo

As seen below, Craft Research Timer is a small box that tracks the time remaining on trait research. This can be set to appear only when you are in the in-game menu and will keep you from having to go to crafting stations or check hand scrawled notes to determine if your trait research has completed.

 

 

 

 

Research Assistant by ingeniousclown, katkat42

Research Assistant is a great tool, it allows you to set your Blacksmithing Character, Clothier Character and Woodworking Character which is fantastic for players who craft on multiple characters. This add-on will display colored boxes next to your gear and let you know whether it is something you should deconstruct because you have already learned the trait or if you need to keep it to research or transfer it over to a crafting alt. In the example below, I can tell that my clothing crafting character has not researched the Aegis of Meridia, Research Assistant notes this with the red box. The gray boxes have already been learned and can be sold, deconstructed or put to other use. It is important to note that the color of the boxes can be changed in the Research Assistant settings, so be sure you review and understand what each color means as it relates to the settings on your machine.

Trait Summary Comparison Chart:

Below is a summary table of the different traits available in the game. All modifier percentages are based on normal quality items. As the gear is modified to Fine, Superior, Epic and Legendary, the modifiers will increase.

Detail Data:

Below is the detail information on the Armor Traits:

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Improvement

Item improvement plays a key role in creating the best gear possible. Refined items provide extra armor and increased trait percentages. The Clothing passive ability Tannin Expertise plays an important role in item improvement. To keep things simple, this information below is based on the Shadowspun VR 14 Jerkin and Tannin Expertise Rank 3.

If you are planning on crafting Legendary gear, it is recommended that you acquire the necessary number of improvement materials to give a 100% chance for item improvement. If you do not have your improvement chance at 100% there is a possibility that the attempted improvement will fail and destroy the piece of gear.

Now that you’ve learned how to make your armor, lets go look at the special crafted sets you can make! Read more