In ESO, clothing is responsible for letting you craft both Light and Medium Armor at various levels. If you’re out in the game world, you’re probably amassing hides and fibrous plants that allow you to craft different pieces of armor that result in a myriad of stats and styles. Clothiers are able to create some of the best pieces in the game, especially in Light and Medium Armor. This armor is especially important for Stamina and Health builds. Usually in MMOs the Light and Medium types of armor are only good for creating Thief and Caster builds. This means you finally have a reason to start experimenting with Clothing!
Clothiers can also take the existing armor you crafted or found in the world and improve upon them. Improvement materials can be found by collecting hides and plants, taking apart the armor you found, or that has been given to you. Best of all? The Clothiers can take your armor all the way to Legendary status!
Moderate Profitability
Throughout the game and the world, players will find many situations in which they need both Light and Medium Armor. These will come in various styles such as Altmer, Daedric, and Breton, which are some of the most popular styles. If you have these types available, then they can be quite profitable. If you want to make a really nice commission, try offering the service where you will upgrade for other players.
Gathering
All throughout Tamriel you can find raw fibrous plants and animal hides that go into the creation of Armor and other pieces of clothing. Every zone has their own unique materials that you can find, and they are usually limited to only one or two types per zone. The plants can be found around trees, within grassy areas, in towns, and around the ruins. For hides, take them off the beasts and monsters you slay, or even the Daedra! To get materials from these plants and hides, you must refine them in stacks of ten. This will give you bolts of cloth, and sometimes you can get other materials too.
The current list of plants/leathers are (in order of item level):
- Jute / Hide
- Flax / Leather
- Cotton / Thick Leather
- Spidersilk / Hide
- Ebonthread / Top Grain Hide
- Kresh Weed / Fell Hide
- Iron Weed / Iron Hide
- Silver Weed / Scaled Hide
- Void Bloom / Daedra Hide
Station Locations
The Clothing Stations you need are located throughout the towns and cities of Tamriel. You can find them with the thread and scissors symbol on the flags both on the map and outside the stations.
If you’re still having troubles locating them, look for the workbench that has a stretched hide across it. There should also be knives, a loom, detailing tools, and hammers around it.
You may also find special Set Clothing Stations all around the world that will let you craft items that have special set bonuses. In order to get the stations you will need a variety of traits unlocked for whatever you are trying to craft.
Refining
The first step in crafting your amazing pieces is refining all of the hides and fibrous plants you’ve gathered. In order to get a bolt of cloth you will need ten of the same plant. Not only will this yield cloth when you refine them, but you may get other items of value in the process. These materials can be refined either from your bank or your bag. At this time, you will not get any inspiration for your refining. If you want to get inspiration, you will need to deconstruct and create items. Check it out!
Creation
You must have style materials and cloth to create Light or Medium Armor. More cloth equals a higher level and value you get. When you create, you will be prompted to choose the type of armor, the style material that will define its look, the cloth type and amount, and any traits you want it to have.
Deconstruction
If you want to gather materials quickly then you should deconstruct the armor you don’t need anymore. Once you click on an item, get the interact button. This will result in the item being destroyed and give you its base materials.A Clothier with a high level of skill can get more materials from the items.
How To Improve Existing Clothing
Even when gear has already been crafted, a clothier can improve it in many ways. Simple changes can change the common looking clothing and make it look and feel legendary. Because there are no requirements for a level, the quality of any type of clothing can be increased by a clothier.
Keep in mind that this is not without risk. Some improvements require multiple materials to achieve. The more materials needed, the more risk is assumed. While there are multiple ways to get the materials, they cannot be gathered from the fields or farmed. Some ways include earning them by deconstruction, finding them in chests or in random blocks, or having a hireling send them to you.
By working with external sources, clothiers are able to make money. Master clothiers work with non-clothiers and help them to save money because they have the improvement materials on hand and the non-clothier doesn’t have to buy as many. If you plan your advertising carefully, you’ll realize a good profit.
Do Your Research
To discover traits, you’ll need to research. Keep in mind that these traits can be added to armor and weapons that you put together at a future date. In order to understand the properties of the trait within a specific piece of gear, you will have to destroy it. For example, a chest piece must be destroyed in order to learn that trait that it has on it. This process can be time consuming. Very time consuming. Since particular pieced can contain more than one trait, plan to budget six hours to learn the first trait and more time for each of the others. Since the destruction process occurs during real time, you can either be logged off or on during the process. There is a way to reduce the research time. Overall time to reduce research can be achieved with a skill that allows more than one research to be done at a time.
Researchable armor traits
- Sturdy – Chance of avoiding decay after death
- Impenetrable – Critical resistance
- Reinforced – Value of armor on item
- Training – Additional experience using item’s skill line
- Divines – Additional Mundus Stone effect
- Well-fitted – Reducing cost for running
- Infused – Additional armor enchant effect
- Exploration – Additional exploration experience
Crafting Trait Research Times
| Trait Number | Time |
| 1 | 6 hours |
| 2 | 12 hours |
| 3 | 1 day |
| 4 | 2 days |
| 5 | 4 days |
| 6 | 8 days |
| 7 | 16 days |
| 8 | 32 days |
| 9 | 64 days |
1 item, all 8 traits = 63.75 days and 14 items, all 8 traits = 892.5 days
Clothier Skills
There is only a single “required” skill to raise clothing to its maximum level. That skill is tailoring. However, there are other ways to enhance the profession by placing points in other skills.
Allocating Early Crafting Skillpoint
To get you clothing off to a great start, there are certain vital skills that you should have. If you get these, you’ll be able to continue leveling but be able to start crafting without delay. Place points into the following once you have completed your initial survival skills:
- Keen Eye: 1/3 – You will better see plants.
- Outfitter Hireling: 1/3 – Receive the clothing things you need in your mail.
- Stitching: 1/3 – Reduces research times and lets you do more than one research at a time.
- Unravelling: 1/3 – Helps you get more when you extract.
As you level clothing, plan to put points into each of these skills.
Tailoring
- Rank 1: Allows the use of Jute and Hide.
- Rank 2: Allows the use of Flax and Leather.
- Rank 3: Allows the use of Cotton / Thick Leather.
- Rank 4: Allows the use of Spidersilk / Hide.
- Rank 5: Allows the use of Ebonthread / Top Grain Hide.
- Rank 6: Allows the use of Kresh Weed / Fell Hide.
- Rank 7: Allows the use of Iron Weed / Iron Hide.
- Rank 8: Allows the use of Silver Weed / Scaled Hide.
- Rank 9: Allows the use of Void Bloom / Daedra Hide.
Keen Eye Cloth
- Rank 1: Fibrous Plants in the world will be easier to see when you are 20 meters or closer.
- Rank 2: Fibrous Plants in the world will be easier to see when you are 30 meters or closer.
- Rank 3: Fibrous Plants in the world will be easier to see when you are 40 meters or closer.
Outfitter Hireling
- Rank 1: An Outfitter Hireling will send you cloth and possibly other items every day.
- Rank 2: An Outfitter Hireling will send you more cloth and possibly better items every day.
- Rank 3: An Outfitter Hireling will send you even more cloth and possibly even better items twice a day.
Unraveling
- Rank 1: Improves the chance of extracting Clothing ingredients.
- Rank 2: Greatly improves the chance of extracting Clothing ingredients.
- Rank 3: Maximizes the chance of extracting Clothing ingredients.
Stitching
- Rank 1: Reduces research times by 5% and allows the research of two items at once.
- Rank 2: Reduces research times by 10% and allows the research of two items at once.
- Rank 3: Reduces research times by 20% and allows the research of three items at once.
Tannin Expertise
- Rank 1: Increases the chance of improving items with tannins.
- Rank 2: Greatly increases the chance of improving items with tannins.
- Rank 3: More than doubles the chance of improving items with tannins.
- Save All Your Gear. It doesn’t pay to vendor your gear. Instead, you can deconstruct it or use it to research traits.
- Never buy refined materials. The only way to get cloth is to refine raw plant materials. However, if you get them raw, you can include the style materials and other improvements that you want. Always choose raw when you are trading or buying material.
- Focus Your Research. Working with a plan is always best. Before you start researching, decide on the traits that you are interested. To gain all the traits required for a profession, you need to budget for long periods of time. You’ll complete your build more quickly if you have an order to the research.
- Gather At Night. Once you have your Keen Eye ability up and running, you will appreciate the opportunity to gather at night. Fibrous plants become very bright in the dark and can be seen from long distances.
