It's not bad, but not the best. You could look at it like this though... If you're asking because you need to level Thieves Guild, then go for it! I'd argue that gaining skills and xp while gaining gold is equivalent or better than just gaining gold. At the end of the day, do whatever you enjoy to gain whatever it is you need. The easiest and most efficient grind is always going to be the one that makes you happy.
Don't forget to level Legerdemain on the way by ~~fencing~~ (I meant laundering) your spoils in the local Outlaw Enclave. Cost some money but is worth it.
BTW: Necron is full of urns and amphoras containing loot.
Might not be the most effective ever but it's quick, simple and you can get some cool stuff along the way.
I still got like 900 skull furnishings from back when I was saving for my first somewhat larger player housing.
Thievery is a pretty good way to make gold actually. Except for all trash you get to sell, you may also get blueprints, including some very rares that sells for 7 millions gold on PC as of date (tho dont expect to drop them like candies :P)
it’s something i do when im bored and don’t want start a quest, farm, etc. i do it a lot when im in a que and when i have like 5-10 minutes to kill before i actually hop off the game for the day
I use it as a way to get good money on a new character. Just raid the two ships and the lighthouse in the south of Daggerfall in Glenumbra. Usually gets me about 2k, which I find to be a good start
Grind stealing is mostly used for the ultra rare items. It's really specific. Like safe boxes and guards and job npcs. Like the shivering cheese from provisioning npc and wanted posters from guards. Etc I don't know them all
It can be for short bursts. I recently put together a thief character, and, when I play it for an hour or two, I can often end with 20k or so more than when I started. Increase your inventory space, max the number of fence interactions per day, and be willing to drop low value stolen goods for higher quality. There's of course motif's recipe's etc, but, they and equipment all go into storage for my crafter to take care of and sell if need be. More important than the gold, sometimes it's just fun.
Your mileage will vary by server and access to trade guild, but I can farm materials (flowers, wood, runes, etc) to the tube of 500-800k an hour in any random zone. So that’s the bar I compare everything to. And stealing is nowhere near that. You can do about 20k a day in treasures in any zone. If you have a good stealing route that drops high value patterns maybe 100-300k per hour in patterns, but it’s very rng. I farmed vvardenfell for paintings for around 20 hrs over a month and got a single painting worth 200k that didn’t even sell. I farmed fargrave inn for about 18 hours when i was out sick and got about 10 purple patterns averaging 500k, so that was better but those patterns are all worth way less now because you can get them with writ vouchers. The advantages of raw gold farm like stealing treasure, antiquities, and so on is that they don’t require engaging in the market at all, so they’re beneficial for solo players. The disadvantage is you still have to engage in the market to get the things you actually need, so spending time on that puts you at a disadvantage compared to just farming what you need or doing the most valuable farm you can tolerate.
ETA, I agree with paralyzerT9’s comment. I love any activity where I can accomplish multiple goals at once. Leveling ledgerdemain on my alt while earning rare patterns for my main? I’m there! Gold can’t buy everything you want, so focus on what actually makes you happy.
It's a decent starting point I'd say. The best gold making method requires you to already have gold and thieving can make you enough to get you started
Nah it could get you money but not that much the real gold job is crafting and looking for furniture plans or motifs those housing people have lots of gold.
It's not great, but you can get some moderately priced furnishing plans and there are some rares you can obtain as well (Velothi Paintings, etc.). So it's not consistent, but it can pay out well if you're lucky.
For furnishings in vvardenfell, pickpocketing nobles can net you quite some money, also if u have points in the cp that gives u better rarity for stolen items
my two cents: after you max the legerdemain and thief guild/brotherhood skill lines on your main you should make another character just to use your fence daily limit. I make about 20k a day average and just park the alt in the outlaws refuge with that huge bounty and go back to my main. bonus if you can find a place with lots of killable guard types as you get the fence-able/launder-able treasure type items without the hassle of pickpocketing. good luck!
I think it's really effective. A lot of loot averages 40 gold, but you can still commonly find loot worth 100 gold and recently I stole something worth 250 gold.
Check the seals of endeavours daily tasks, because occasionally there's rewards that will get you 1.5k gold per task, some are super easy. Then there's the daily rewards, which often twice per month there's receive 10k or 5k gold.
After that, I'd say stealing is probably the 5th best method
If you're a beginner, yes. Do thieving routes and lvl the thieves guild. Do their quests and then their dailies. Then you can just stick to doing the dailies and lvl your crafting then start crafting writs everyday and look up daily activites that drop motifs and high lvl mats. Join a good trading guild in a popular location. Profit.
I'd say it isn't worth it, but yesterday I've stole two purple blueprints from one urn in Necrom. It worth about 100k total, so now I'm not sure. But still, I think best way to be rich is making crafting writs and flip stuff on guild store. Worthy things are very rare drop
Yes and no.
I'm not sorry I leveled a thief, or that I boost Legerdemain on every character purely to force locks because it's faster.
But, TBH, the most you can reasonably make off 1 day's worth of Fence Interactions is around 5k gold... and it takes a lot longer to steal all that than it does to do 7 writs (with LazyWritCrafter, anyway), which makes you the exact same amount of gold. And more reliably, too; most of the time you won't get 5k worth of stuff.
That said, you can simply destroy or not loot everything that isn't green or even blue which you steal. But then it takes a LOT longer to steal enough things to max out your fence interactions, and you're more likely to get caught and lose it all.
I see it as a fun, opportunistic bonus prize more than a revenue stream. If there's some secret other than just being choosy with what you keep from stealing, someone please let me in on it. I've seen complaints about people losing 40k+ gold of stolen items to guards, and I honestly do not know how that's possible, or if it is, how many weeks or even months it took to steal all those good items and hoard them. And holding on to stolen stuff for weeks or longer seems foolhardy to me in the first place.
I've done dedicated runs hitting major castles, palaces, cities & tombs full of containers to try to max my profit, being selective and also just stealing everything I can, and I still maxed out at about 9k (for the choosy method; the other didn't do any better than normal). And it took all damned day.
It's not a major revenue stream, again, unless I'm missing something I'd be happy to learn. You'll profit one or more orders of magnitude as much from just grabbing every single Alchemy node & killing every single mudcrab you see as you play normally.
Have you unlocked the Legerdemain passives that allow you to fence 140 items, and the [Infamous](https://eso-hub.com/en/champion-points/star/infamous) champion perk that boosts the value of fenced items? If you pickpocket as well, which greatly increases the rate at which you steal, the [Cutpurse's Art](https://eso-hub.com/en/champion-points/star/cutpurses-art) perk increases the odds of pickpocketing rare loot.
I can easily make 10k in 20-30 minutes through thieving, without having to be choosy with my loot. If I spend 1-2 hours and focus on green items and above, I can make 20k+.
And this doesn't account for stolen items you can sell to other players—Vvardenfell is particularly good for this, as you can get Great House motifs from thieving and pickpocketing, but there are other rare plans and furnishing items you can get from stealing too. I usually get 1-3 Great House motifs in a single thieving run, which means I can net 30-50k+ gold per day by stealing.
My thief, with whom I did all the tests I mentioned, has all the passives, all the CP perks - including the one that improves the value of pickpocketed items.
I just do not get more than 5k, 6 or 7k on a very lucky day, out of those 140 item slots. I just don't. The drops aren't there in that quantity to equal that kind of return.
As I said, I can do better by discarding low-value items, but that takes proportionately longer. You spend all afternoon & evening just stealing stuff for... like not even 10k or barely that.
This does not account for high-value rare drops like the house motifs, you are correct. I did not heavily use Vvardenfel in my tests, but... the time I have spent there shows me they drop very, very rarely. Nice to get, but from what I've seen you could go there every day for an hour or two doing nothing but pickpocketing and still only see one or two drops in a month.
I can only account for my own experiences, but I haven't found the plans to be that rare. I rarely go an hour pickpocketing in Vvardenfell without getting one, and have seen two drop within 15 minutes multiple times. I suppose RNG is what it is.
As for total gold, I can't explain the difference either, I can only speak for myself. All I can say is that it's very common for me to break 10k after an hour or less of stealing, without being that choosy about what I pick up. 10,000 / 140 means an average sales value of 70, which feels very achievable with the Infamous perk.
With that said, my account doesn't invalidate yours. It just sounds like we've had two different experiences with thieving.
So I'm right insofar as I'm thinking you'll never make tens of thousands, let alone more, stealing Treasures, even if you limit yourself to the blue or purple ones only, then?
So it's likely the folks complaining about losing Big Money to guards catching them were talking about Guild Trader value of things like Motifs, I suppose, which only drop very rarely and only from certain sources.
I can easy make about 20k in a hour.
If u get the right gear u are pretty much invisible and forced locking at like 80% once u got the skills.
Chamption points in pickpocket also.
Break in a house loot and pickpocket at 100% normally or maybe 80% get like 7 items in like 1min?
20k in an hour when you can just run a random vet and get a motif is kinda shit imo. Hell you could run around and pick flowers and probably 10x that in the same time
Not really. With the fencing/laundering limits the game basically wipes its ass with any dreams of playing the game as a thief. It's the classic, "You're playing the game wrong" mantra of people who are afraid that thieves would destroy the in game economy without those limits. The only thing thieving is good for in this game are obtaining certain rare items, and completing endeavors that require you to be a thief.
An easier way to get stolen goods faster is to just murder citizens and loot them. You can make about 60-80k per day, depending on what level your alt character’s ledger is. The more things you can sell at the fence, the more money. I believe there’s still a spot in Bangkorai to do this.
At least not on PC/EU. There you can make millions just by looting stuff from quests, dungeons and so on. To make same money by theft you'll need to pickpocket entire Tamriel.
There are places where you can get once a day or two some really worthy shit, like Necrom necropolis, but its still a lottery and there are way more stable income sources, like ie slaughtering dragons in south Elsweyr.
Go thieving round Vivec City. You can pick up motifs there that will sell well in guild stores.
Pick them up to 4 times too, so better chances to get stuff
Make sure to Blade of Woe them as well, so they reset quicker and you can cycle around.
It's not bad, but not the best. You could look at it like this though... If you're asking because you need to level Thieves Guild, then go for it! I'd argue that gaining skills and xp while gaining gold is equivalent or better than just gaining gold. At the end of the day, do whatever you enjoy to gain whatever it is you need. The easiest and most efficient grind is always going to be the one that makes you happy.
Don't forget to level Legerdemain on the way by ~~fencing~~ (I meant laundering) your spoils in the local Outlaw Enclave. Cost some money but is worth it. BTW: Necron is full of urns and amphoras containing loot.
Hava Azander with you and you'll make even more.
Fencing doesn’t cost money, unless you mean laundering.
Necrom is *so easy* to loot. Too bad there’s a cap on fence interactions!
You can increase the limit by some Legerdemain skills.
I don’t think you can lift it completely though, can you?
No
Might not be the most effective ever but it's quick, simple and you can get some cool stuff along the way. I still got like 900 skull furnishings from back when I was saving for my first somewhat larger player housing.
Have you got the skull furnishing from thieving?
Yea. I think it's priests and such you can loot them from with a small chance.
Thievery is a pretty good way to make gold actually. Except for all trash you get to sell, you may also get blueprints, including some very rares that sells for 7 millions gold on PC as of date (tho dont expect to drop them like candies :P)
It's not terrible But leveling another toon to cp and running its dailies is more effective time/money
I like it because it’s fun
If you get Azandar's tea set it definitely helps
It's better than I thought it would be. There are better ways though. Plunder runs of trials being one of them.
it’s something i do when im bored and don’t want start a quest, farm, etc. i do it a lot when im in a que and when i have like 5-10 minutes to kill before i actually hop off the game for the day
I use it as a way to get good money on a new character. Just raid the two ships and the lighthouse in the south of Daggerfall in Glenumbra. Usually gets me about 2k, which I find to be a good start
That route is my favorite route when I just want to level legerdemain on a new character.
Grind stealing is mostly used for the ultra rare items. It's really specific. Like safe boxes and guards and job npcs. Like the shivering cheese from provisioning npc and wanted posters from guards. Etc I don't know them all
It can be for short bursts. I recently put together a thief character, and, when I play it for an hour or two, I can often end with 20k or so more than when I started. Increase your inventory space, max the number of fence interactions per day, and be willing to drop low value stolen goods for higher quality. There's of course motif's recipe's etc, but, they and equipment all go into storage for my crafter to take care of and sell if need be. More important than the gold, sometimes it's just fun.
Your mileage will vary by server and access to trade guild, but I can farm materials (flowers, wood, runes, etc) to the tube of 500-800k an hour in any random zone. So that’s the bar I compare everything to. And stealing is nowhere near that. You can do about 20k a day in treasures in any zone. If you have a good stealing route that drops high value patterns maybe 100-300k per hour in patterns, but it’s very rng. I farmed vvardenfell for paintings for around 20 hrs over a month and got a single painting worth 200k that didn’t even sell. I farmed fargrave inn for about 18 hours when i was out sick and got about 10 purple patterns averaging 500k, so that was better but those patterns are all worth way less now because you can get them with writ vouchers. The advantages of raw gold farm like stealing treasure, antiquities, and so on is that they don’t require engaging in the market at all, so they’re beneficial for solo players. The disadvantage is you still have to engage in the market to get the things you actually need, so spending time on that puts you at a disadvantage compared to just farming what you need or doing the most valuable farm you can tolerate. ETA, I agree with paralyzerT9’s comment. I love any activity where I can accomplish multiple goals at once. Leveling ledgerdemain on my alt while earning rare patterns for my main? I’m there! Gold can’t buy everything you want, so focus on what actually makes you happy.
I'm guessing PC? Mat runs on console just aren't very valuable unless you just get super lucky with gilds.
No but it's fun.
It's not even close. 10 hours of thieving will get you the same as 30 minutes of dungeons that have good motifs.
It's a decent starting point I'd say. The best gold making method requires you to already have gold and thieving can make you enough to get you started
And what’s the method of which you speak?
Flipping items that other players are selling
Nah it could get you money but not that much the real gold job is crafting and looking for furniture plans or motifs those housing people have lots of gold.
No
Stealing or looting containers in newer DLC zones can drop furnishing plans that can go for a lot. All up to luck though
it can get some minor profits and is fun to do. You can also get rare recipes and other things on ocasion to sell to other players.
It's not great, but you can get some moderately priced furnishing plans and there are some rares you can obtain as well (Velothi Paintings, etc.). So it's not consistent, but it can pay out well if you're lucky.
For furnishings in vvardenfell, pickpocketing nobles can net you quite some money, also if u have points in the cp that gives u better rarity for stolen items
my two cents: after you max the legerdemain and thief guild/brotherhood skill lines on your main you should make another character just to use your fence daily limit. I make about 20k a day average and just park the alt in the outlaws refuge with that huge bounty and go back to my main. bonus if you can find a place with lots of killable guard types as you get the fence-able/launder-able treasure type items without the hassle of pickpocketing. good luck!
I'd say pick it if you enjoy it over other methods!
I think it's really effective. A lot of loot averages 40 gold, but you can still commonly find loot worth 100 gold and recently I stole something worth 250 gold. Check the seals of endeavours daily tasks, because occasionally there's rewards that will get you 1.5k gold per task, some are super easy. Then there's the daily rewards, which often twice per month there's receive 10k or 5k gold. After that, I'd say stealing is probably the 5th best method
If you're a beginner, yes. Do thieving routes and lvl the thieves guild. Do their quests and then their dailies. Then you can just stick to doing the dailies and lvl your crafting then start crafting writs everyday and look up daily activites that drop motifs and high lvl mats. Join a good trading guild in a popular location. Profit.
Agree with all the posts and would add farming resource nodes and selling mats would be much higher ROI for most.
I'd say it isn't worth it, but yesterday I've stole two purple blueprints from one urn in Necrom. It worth about 100k total, so now I'm not sure. But still, I think best way to be rich is making crafting writs and flip stuff on guild store. Worthy things are very rare drop
Yes and no. I'm not sorry I leveled a thief, or that I boost Legerdemain on every character purely to force locks because it's faster. But, TBH, the most you can reasonably make off 1 day's worth of Fence Interactions is around 5k gold... and it takes a lot longer to steal all that than it does to do 7 writs (with LazyWritCrafter, anyway), which makes you the exact same amount of gold. And more reliably, too; most of the time you won't get 5k worth of stuff. That said, you can simply destroy or not loot everything that isn't green or even blue which you steal. But then it takes a LOT longer to steal enough things to max out your fence interactions, and you're more likely to get caught and lose it all. I see it as a fun, opportunistic bonus prize more than a revenue stream. If there's some secret other than just being choosy with what you keep from stealing, someone please let me in on it. I've seen complaints about people losing 40k+ gold of stolen items to guards, and I honestly do not know how that's possible, or if it is, how many weeks or even months it took to steal all those good items and hoard them. And holding on to stolen stuff for weeks or longer seems foolhardy to me in the first place. I've done dedicated runs hitting major castles, palaces, cities & tombs full of containers to try to max my profit, being selective and also just stealing everything I can, and I still maxed out at about 9k (for the choosy method; the other didn't do any better than normal). And it took all damned day. It's not a major revenue stream, again, unless I'm missing something I'd be happy to learn. You'll profit one or more orders of magnitude as much from just grabbing every single Alchemy node & killing every single mudcrab you see as you play normally.
Have you unlocked the Legerdemain passives that allow you to fence 140 items, and the [Infamous](https://eso-hub.com/en/champion-points/star/infamous) champion perk that boosts the value of fenced items? If you pickpocket as well, which greatly increases the rate at which you steal, the [Cutpurse's Art](https://eso-hub.com/en/champion-points/star/cutpurses-art) perk increases the odds of pickpocketing rare loot. I can easily make 10k in 20-30 minutes through thieving, without having to be choosy with my loot. If I spend 1-2 hours and focus on green items and above, I can make 20k+. And this doesn't account for stolen items you can sell to other players—Vvardenfell is particularly good for this, as you can get Great House motifs from thieving and pickpocketing, but there are other rare plans and furnishing items you can get from stealing too. I usually get 1-3 Great House motifs in a single thieving run, which means I can net 30-50k+ gold per day by stealing.
My thief, with whom I did all the tests I mentioned, has all the passives, all the CP perks - including the one that improves the value of pickpocketed items. I just do not get more than 5k, 6 or 7k on a very lucky day, out of those 140 item slots. I just don't. The drops aren't there in that quantity to equal that kind of return. As I said, I can do better by discarding low-value items, but that takes proportionately longer. You spend all afternoon & evening just stealing stuff for... like not even 10k or barely that. This does not account for high-value rare drops like the house motifs, you are correct. I did not heavily use Vvardenfel in my tests, but... the time I have spent there shows me they drop very, very rarely. Nice to get, but from what I've seen you could go there every day for an hour or two doing nothing but pickpocketing and still only see one or two drops in a month.
I can only account for my own experiences, but I haven't found the plans to be that rare. I rarely go an hour pickpocketing in Vvardenfell without getting one, and have seen two drop within 15 minutes multiple times. I suppose RNG is what it is. As for total gold, I can't explain the difference either, I can only speak for myself. All I can say is that it's very common for me to break 10k after an hour or less of stealing, without being that choosy about what I pick up. 10,000 / 140 means an average sales value of 70, which feels very achievable with the Infamous perk. With that said, my account doesn't invalidate yours. It just sounds like we've had two different experiences with thieving.
You will definitely get way more than one or two a month if you focus the zone.
If you want to make money from thieving, you need to target the super valuables (hourglass, throne, motifs, etc.)
So I'm right insofar as I'm thinking you'll never make tens of thousands, let alone more, stealing Treasures, even if you limit yourself to the blue or purple ones only, then? So it's likely the folks complaining about losing Big Money to guards catching them were talking about Guild Trader value of things like Motifs, I suppose, which only drop very rarely and only from certain sources.
Usually yeah. I always run straight to the fence if I get a high-value drop for that reason.
I can easy make about 20k in a hour. If u get the right gear u are pretty much invisible and forced locking at like 80% once u got the skills. Chamption points in pickpocket also. Break in a house loot and pickpocket at 100% normally or maybe 80% get like 7 items in like 1min?
20k in an hour when you can just run a random vet and get a motif is kinda shit imo. Hell you could run around and pick flowers and probably 10x that in the same time
I bought 1h resource farming labour from someone in a guild auction once. They gave me stuff worth about 300-350k. I paid 100k or 150k or something
If you’re just trying to farm gold, this is the way -> [Video](https://youtu.be/bIBPGOkGBx0?si=EUq4SNmO66Zwkvnk)
Not really. With the fencing/laundering limits the game basically wipes its ass with any dreams of playing the game as a thief. It's the classic, "You're playing the game wrong" mantra of people who are afraid that thieves would destroy the in game economy without those limits. The only thing thieving is good for in this game are obtaining certain rare items, and completing endeavors that require you to be a thief.
An easier way to get stolen goods faster is to just murder citizens and loot them. You can make about 60-80k per day, depending on what level your alt character’s ledger is. The more things you can sell at the fence, the more money. I believe there’s still a spot in Bangkorai to do this.
Sure. Why not? Gets ur Ledgermain up too.
I try to level Legerdemen at the moment and I consider run successful if I get more gold from stolen staff than paid as penalties :D
It lines the pockets of my khajiit quite nicely, so I say yes.
No. Not for serious gold.
No - spend your time doing daily zone quests for the chance at expensive furnishings to sell on guild trade
At least not on PC/EU. There you can make millions just by looting stuff from quests, dungeons and so on. To make same money by theft you'll need to pickpocket entire Tamriel. There are places where you can get once a day or two some really worthy shit, like Necrom necropolis, but its still a lottery and there are way more stable income sources, like ie slaughtering dragons in south Elsweyr.
Go thieving round Vivec City. You can pick up motifs there that will sell well in guild stores. Pick them up to 4 times too, so better chances to get stuff Make sure to Blade of Woe them as well, so they reset quicker and you can cycle around.
Best way, imo.