Online:Traits

Traits are a special property that can appear on weapons, armor and jewelry. Each item can have a single trait, in addition to all other properties an item can carry, though items without any traits are also common.

Traits may be researched in order to craft custom items with the respective properties.

Constructing an item with a specific trait requires a special tertiary material. These ingredients can be retrieved by deconstructing items with traits, or refining raw ore, wood, leather or fibers, or dust. Crafting hirelings for Blacksmithing, Clothing and Woodworking will also commonly send all types of trait materials.

The magnitude of each trait depends on the quality of the item, improving the item will automatically increase the trait's magnitude.

Non-percentage values in the following tables are for Level 50 160 items. Lower level items will have smaller values. See the individual trait pages for more complete info.

Weapon Traits

Weapon traits are available on all weapons - axes, swords, maces, daggers, greatswords, battle axes, mauls, bows, restoration staves and destruction staves.

All traits except Infused and Nirnhoned are twice as powerful on two-handed weapons as they are on one-handed weapons.

Trait	Material	Description		Magnitude
				Normal	Fine	Superior	Epic	Legendary
Powered	Chysolite	Increase healing done by …	1H	2.5%	3%	3.5%	4%	4.5%
			2H	5%	6%	7%	8%	9%
Charged	Amethyst	Increase your chance to apply status effects by …	1H	97.5%	102.5%	107.5%	112.5%	117.5%
			2H	195%	205%	215%	225%	235%
Precise	Ruby	Increases Weapon and Spell Critical values by …	1H	1.6%	2.1%	2.6%	3.1%	3.6%
			2H	3.2%	4.2%	5.2%	6.2%	7.2%
Infused	Jade	Increase weapon enchantment effect by … and reduces enchantment cooldown by 50%		10%	15%	20%	25%	30%
Defending	Turquoise	Increases Physical and Spell Resistance by …	1H	1428	1485	1542	1580	1638
			2H	2856	2971	3085	3161	3276
Training	Carnelian	Increase experience gained from kills by …	1H	2.5%	3%	3.5%	4%	4.5%
			2H	5%	6%	7%	8%	9%
Sharpened	Fire Opal	Increase Physical and Spell Penetration by …	1H	1428	1485	1542	1580	1638
			2H	2856	2971	3085	3161	3276
Decisive	Citrine	When you gain Ultimate you have a … chance to gain 1 additional ultimate.	1H	19.1%	21.2%	23.2%	25.4%	27.5%
			2H	38.2%	42.4%	46.4%	50.8%	55%
Nirnhoned	Potent Nirncrux	Increases Damage of this weapon by …		11%	12%	13%	14%	15%

Notes

• The Heartland Conqueror set doubles the effectiveness of weapon traits.

Armor Traits

Armor traits are available on all articles of light, medium and heavy armor, as well on shields.

Trait	Material	Description	Magnitude
			Normal	Fine	Superior	Epic	Legendary
Sturdy	Quartz	Reduce block cost by …	2%	2.5%	3%	3.5%	4%
Impenetrable	Diamond	Increase your Critical Resistance by … and this item takes 50% less durability damage.	116	118	121	124	127
Reinforced	Sardonyx	Increases this item's armor value by …	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%
Well-fitted	Almandine	Reduces the cost of sprinting and Roll Dodging by …	1.2%	2.4%	3.6%	4.8%	6%
Training	Emerald	Increase experience gained from kills by …	7%	8%	9%	10%	11%
Infused	Bloodstone	Increase armor enchantment effect by …	9%	13%	17%	21%	25%
Invigorating	Garnet	Increase Health Recovery, Magicka Recovery, and Stamina Recovery by …	8	10	12	14	16
Divines	Sapphire	Increases Mundus Stone effects by …	5.1%	6.1%	7.1%	8.1%	9.1%
Nirnhoned	Fortified Nirncrux	Increases Physical and Spell Resistance by …	220	228	236	244	253

Jewelry Traits

Jewelry traits are available on all Jewelry, including rings and necklaces/amulets.

Trait	Material	Material Source	Description	Magnitude
				Normal	Fine	Superior	Epic	Legendary
Healthy	Antimony	Refining Platinum Dust	Increase Maximum Health by …	844	877	910	932	965
Arcane	Cobalt	Refining Platinum Dust	Increase Maximum Magicka by …	767	797	827	847	877
Robust	Zinc	Refining Platinum Dust	Increase Maximum Stamina by …	767	797	827	847	877
Bloodthirsty	Slaughterstone	Writs, Weekly Trial Rewards	Increase Weapon and Spell Damage against enemies under 90% health by up to …	70	140	210	280	350
Harmony	Dibellium	Writs, Daily Random Normal Dungeon Rewards	Activating a Synergy restores ... Health, Magicka, and Stamina.	770	797	825	852	880
Infused	Aurbic Amber	Writs, Psijic Portals	Increase the effect of the enchantment by …%	24	33	42	51	60
Triune	Dawn-Prism	Writs, War Researchers	Increase Maximum Health by … and Maximum Magicka and Maximum Stamina by …	418	429	451	467	478
				380	390	410	425	435
Protective	Titanium	Writs, Jewelry Seams	Increase Spell Resistance and Physical Resistance by …	1624	1664	1744	1804	1844
Swift	Gilding Wax	Writs, Rolis Hlaalu	Increase Movement Speed by …%	3	4	5	6	7

• Deconstructing a piece of jewelry will return jewelry crafting ingredients, including one pulverized version of its trait material, ten of which can be refined into that trait material. However, if the jewelry was reconstructed at a Transmute Station, it will instead return 25 Transmute Crystals only, regardless of quality, trait or number of Transmute Crystals used to create it.

Common Traits

The following traits are available on both armor, weapons, and as of Update 18, jewelry as well.

They can only be found, but not researched or crafted.

Trait	Description		Magnitude
			Normal	Fine	Superior	Epic	Legendary
Ornate	This item sells to merchants for …% more.		280%	285%	290%	295%	300%
Intricate	Increase inspiration gained from deconstruction of this item by …, and gain additional refined material upon deconstruction of this item.	Armor/Weapons	280%	285%	290%	295%	300%
		Jewelry	300%	325%	350%	375%	400%

Deprecated Traits

These traits were removed and replaced in the past.

• Exploration (armor trait) — Increased experience gained from discovering locations. Was replaced with Prosperous.
• Prosperous (armor trait) — Increased size of Gold drops. Was replaced with Invigorating.
• Weighted (weapon trait) — Increase weapon attack speed. Was replaced with Decisive.

Research

In order to construct an item with a specific trait, it has to first be researched. This can be done at any crafting station:

• Light and medium armor at Clothing stations
• Bows, staves and shields at Woodworking stations
• Heavy armor and metal weapons at Blacksmithing stations
• Necklaces and rings at Jewelry Crafting stations

Researching a trait will unlock it only for that particular type of item - e.g. researching the Reinforced trait on pauldrons will only allow you to construct reinforced heavy armor shoulders, but not any other heavy armor items like cuirass or sabatons, or any other shoulder slot items like epaulets or arm cops. The only exceptions are robes and jerkins, which are simply two different styles of light armor chest items.

Researching is performed on a per-character basis, i.e., researching a trait on one character does not unlock that trait on any other character on that account.

Constructing item sets requires you to have a certain number of traits researched.

To start the research process, you need to have an item with the desired trait in your inventory or bank. Both found items and items crafted by other players work. Researching a trait will destroy the item.

By default you can only research a single trait at a time per crafting skill, though each crafting skill line has an ability to raise this limit and increase the research speed:

• Stitching for Clothing
• Carpentry for Woodworking
• Metallurgy for Blacksmithing
• Lapidary Research for Jewelry Crafting

These abilities can increase the research speed by up to 25%, and raise the limit of concurrent research tasks to 3 (with the exception of Lapidary Research, which does not add additional research slots). Note that even with an increased research limit, you still cannot research multiple traits on a single item type at the same time. The highest ability rank limits the research time to 30 days, which is only relevant to the 9^th trait on an item, as the others would be below this limit already. Being an ESO Plus Subscriber further reduces research time by 10%, stacking multiplicatively with the above abilities.

The base research time for a trait is 6 hours real time. Each further trait you research for an item type doubles this time - 12 hours for the second trait, 24 hours for the third trait, and so forth. Research time continues to count down while you are not playing the character that is researching (e.g. playing another character or offline). The following table lists the research times for traits:

Trait	Duration (no ESO Plus)						Duration (w/ESO Plus)
	Base	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3	Rank 4		Base	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3	Rank 4
1st	6h 00m	5h 42m	5h 24m	4h 48m	4h 30m		5h 24m	5h 07m 48s	4h 51m 36s	4h 19m 12s	4h 03m
2nd	12h 00m	11h 24m	10h 48m	9h 36m	9h 00m		10h 48m	10h 15m 36s	9h 43m 12s	8h 38m 24s	8h 06m
3rd	1d 00h 00m	22h 48m	21h 36m	19h 12m	18h 00m		21h 36m	20h 31m 12s	19h 26m 24s	17h 16m 48s	16h 12m
4th	2d 00h 00m	1d 21h 36m	1d 19h 12m	1d 14h 24m	1d 12h 00m		1d 19h 12m	1d 17h 02m 24s	1d 14h 52m 48s	1d 10h 33m 36s	1d 08h 24m
5th	4d 00h 00m	3d 19h 12m	3d 14h 24m	3d 04h 48m	3d 00h 00m		3d 14h 24m	3d 10h 04m 48s	3d 05h 45m 36s	2d 21h 07m 12s	2d 16h 48m
6th	8d 00h 00m	7d 14h 24m	7d 04h 48m	6d 09h 36m	6d 00h 00m		7d 04h 48m	6d 20h 09m 36s	6d 11h 31m 12s	5d 18h 14m 24s	5d 09h 36m
7th	16d 00h 00m	15d 04h 48m	14d 09h 36m	12d 19h 12m	12d 00h 00m		14d 09h 36m	13d 16h 19m 12s	12d 23h 02m 24s	11d 12h 28m 48s	10d 19h 12m
8th	32d 00h 00m	30d 09h 36m	28d 19h 12m	25d 14h 24m	24d 00h 00m		28d 19h 12m	27d 08h 38m 24s	25d 22h 04m 48s	23d 00h 57m 36s	21d 14h 24m
9th	64d 00h 00m	60d 19h 12m	57d 14h 24m	51d 04h 48m	30d 00h 00m		57d 14h 24m	54d 17h 16m 48s	51d 20h 09m 36s	46d 01h 55m 12s	27d 00h 00m
Slots	1	2	2	3	3		1	2	2	3	3
Sum	127d 18h 00m	121d 8h 42m	114d 23h 24m	102d 4h 48m	77d 19h 30m		114d 23h 24m	109d 5h 25m 48s	103d 11h 27m 36s	91d 23h 31m 12s	70d 00h 45m

Using a research scroll will reduce the timers of all items currently being researched in one or more crafts by an amount dependent on the scroll (e.g. an Instant Blacksmithing Research scroll will reduce the timers of all current Blacksmithing research items by 1 day). Scrolls obtained from the Crown Store have no cooldown between uses; scrolls purchased from Rolis Hlaalu have a cooldown of 20 hours.

Researching all traits for a single item without scrolls will take between 70 days 45 minutes and 127 days 18 hours, depending on the number of points invested in the appropriate skill and if you have ESO Plus. There are 6 different woodworking item types that can be researched, and 14 different clothing and blacksmithing item types that can be researched. This means that it will take an absolute minimum of 140 days 1 hour and 30 minutes (about four and a half months) to research all woodworking traits, and a minimum of 350 days 3 hours and 45 minutes (due to the last 2 traits having to research in their own with 1 empty slot, just under 1 year) to research all clothing and blacksmithing traits without the use of scrolls.