Online:Traits

Traits are a special property that can appear on all weapons and armor. 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. 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.

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 not related to enchantments 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	Reduces the cooldown of weapon enchantments by		30%	35%	40%	45%	50%
Charged	Amethyst	Increases enchantment charges by		125%	150%	175%	200%	225%
Precise	Ruby	Increases Weapon and Spell Critical values by	1H	1.5%	2%	2.5%	3%	3.5%
			2H	3%	4%	5%	6%	7%
Infused	Jade	Increase weapon enchantment effect by		8%	11%	14%	17%	20%
Defending	Turquoise	Increases total Armor and Spell Resistance by	1H	2%	3%	4%	5%	6%
			2H	4%	6%	8%	10%	12%
Training	Carnelian	Increase Weapon Skill line experience with this weapon type by	1H	42%	49%	56%	63%	70%
			2H	84%	98%	112%	126%	140%
Sharpened	Fire Opal	Increase Armor and Spell Penetration by	1H	3%	4%	5%	6%	7%
			2H	6%	8%	10%	12%	14%
Weighted	Citrine	Increase weapon attack speed by	1H	2%	3%	4%	5%	6%
			2H	4%	6%	8%	10%	12%
Nirnhoned	Potent Nirncrux	Increases Spell Resistance and Spell Penetration by	1H	5%	6%	7%	8%	9%
			2H	10%	12%	14%	16%	18%

Armor Traits

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

Trait	Material	Description	Magnitude
			Normal	Fine	Superior	Epic	Legendary
Sturdy	Quartz	Item takes less durability damage	22%	24%	26%	28%	30%
Impenetrable	Diamond	Increase resistance to Critical hits by	120	140	160	180	200
Reinforced	Sardonyx	Increases this item's armor value by	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%
Well-fitted	Almandine	Reduces the cost of sprinting by	6%	7%	8%	9%	10%
Training	Emerald	Increases Armor Skill line experience with this armor type by	42%	49%	56%	63%	70%
Infused	Bloodstone	Increases this item's armor enchantment effect by	8%	11%	14%	17%	20%
Exploration	Garnet	Increases exploration experience gained by	6%	7%	8%	9%	10%
Divines	Sapphire	Increases Mundus Stone effects by	3.5%	4.5%	5.5%	6.5%	7.5%
Nirnhoned	Fortified Nirncrux	Increases spell resistance by	18%	19.5%	21%	22.5%	24%

Other Traits

The following traits are available on both armor and weapons, and the ornate trait can even be found on jewelry.

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

Trait	Description		Magnitude
			Normal	Fine	Superior	Epic	Legendary
Ornate	Increase sell price to merchants by		280%	285%	290%	295%	300%
Intricate	Increase inspiration gained from deconstructing by		280%	285%	290%	295%	300%

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

Researching a trait will unlock it only for that particular type of item - researching e.g. 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.

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

These abilities can increase the research speed by up to 25%, and raise the limit of concurrent research tasks to 3. 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.

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. This leads to the following research times for traits:

Trait	Duration
	Base	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3	Rank 4
1st	6h	5h 42m	5h 24m	4h 48m	4h 30m
2nd	12h	11h 24m	10h 48m	9h 36m	9h
3rd	1d	22h 48m	21h 36m	19h 12m	18h
4th	2d	1d 21h 36m	1d 19h 12m	1d 14h 24m	1d 12h
5th	4d	3d 19h 12m	3d 14h 24m	3d 4h 48m	3d
6th	8d	7d 14h 24m	7d 4h 48m	6d 9h 36m	6d
7th	16d	15d 4h 48m	14d 9h 36m	12d 19h 12m	12d
8th	32d	30d 9h 36m	28d 19h 12m	25d 14h 24m	24d
9th	64d(?)	60d 19h 12m(?)	57d 14h 24m(?)	51d 4h 48m(?)	30d(?)
Sum	127d 18h(?)	121d 8h 42m(?)	114d 23h 24m(?)	102d 4h 48m(?)	77d 19h 30m(?)

Researching all traits for a single item will take between 77 days 19 hours 30 minutes and 127 days 18 hours, depending on the number of points invested in the appropriate skill. 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 155 days and 15 hours (about five months) to research all woodworking traits, and roughly 355 days (about eleven and a half months) to research all clothing and blacksmithing traits^{[verification needed]}.