Homestead: Master Crafting Writs

By Dominoid73 on February 4, 2017

Crafters in ESO are about to get some love in the Homestead update coming to PC/Mac on Monday, February 6 and to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on Tuesday, February 21. I’m not just talking about the obvious inclusion of Furniture Crafting in the next update, either (see the article Homestead: Furnishing Day 1 for more details on that).

Today let’s jump into the upcoming addition of Master Crafting Writs to the game, a new system spearheading an entirely new currency meant just for crafters. What exactly are these new writs and are they worth your time, effort, and, most importantly, crafting materials? Read on to get all the details.

How To Get

Sample Master Crafting Writ
Master Writ contracts have a chance of dropping from maximum-tier Writ reward boxes earned by completing normal crafting dailies. The Master Writ is an invitation to craft a very specific item or set of items. The invitations may require any materials or knowledge associated with the tradeskill, even if you don’t yet possess it. An example of one such Writ is located to the right.



As you can see, completing a Writ is quite complicated, as they’re very specific in stating the exact piece, trait, quality, motif and set to be crafted. If you don’t have the motif knowledge, the traits researched for the item set, or perhaps the ability to reach a crafting set location because it’s in a DLC zone you don’t have access to, you cannot complete the Writ.

But all is not lost. Master Crafting Writs are tradeable and, depending on the perceived value of the Writ, will be worth quite a lot of gold on the open market. It is more than possible that there will be a thriving market for Master Crafting Writs from those not capable or willing to complete the Writ and those looking to accumulate the most Writ Vouchers (we’ll get there) in the shortest amount of time. Note that once you accept a Master Crafting Writ it is consumed and turns into a quest in your journal. If you are on the fence about completing it, be sure that you don’t accidentally accept the contract.

But what determines your chances of receiving a Master Crafting Writ from the maximum-tier Writ reward boxes? The patch notes say “the frequency of Master Writ invites from standard Writ boxes is based on the overall associated tradeskill mastery possessed by the character.” But what exactly does that mean? Systems Team Member Chris Balser clarified the matter on the forums stating it “is meant to imply a long-term dedication to the craft” and gave the following specifics:

Alchemy – Looks at how many reagents from which you’ve completely learned all effects.
Enchanting – Looks at the total overall rune word translations you’ve completed on that character.
Provisioning – Looks at your collection of known purple and gold recipes.
Blacksmithing, Clothier, and Woodworking – Looks at your overall motif knowledge excluding Crown-exclusive motifs and the 9 base player races. It focuses on motifs that take some effort to learn – like Xivkyn, or Minotaur, or Celestial. It also looks at you overall completion of trait research.
Chris further explained, “they’re measured individually, so for example your investment in Provisioning would affect your odds of getting a Provisioning Master Writ and no other types.” He also added, “over time, the contributing factors for this may expand as the associated tradeskill mechanics do.” That last sentence sounds like an unintentional hint that there are some changes/additions to crafting mechanics inbound.

The Rewards

Rolis Hlaalu, Mastercraft Mediator
Should you have the ability and desire to complete the Master Crafting Writ, what are your rewards? As briefly mentioned above, each Master Writ awards a certain number of Writ Vouchers upon successful turn-in. But what are Writ Vouchers? They are ESO’s fourth currency behind Gold, Alliance Points and Tel Var stones. You may redeem your Writ Vouchers with Rolis Hlaalu, the Mastercraft Mediator, who is located at the Writ turn in location in your alliance capital. Don’t worry, quest markers will show you the way when you complete your first Master Crafting Writ.

Rolis is the sole in-game source for many of the most desired furnishings for your house including the target skeletons, crafting stations, the ebony motif chapters as well as an assortment of gold furnishing plans. These items range in price from 8 Writ Vouchers for Night Pumice, the style item for the Ebony Motif, to 250 Writ Vouchers for Attunable Crafting Stations – to be able to craft specific set items in your home.

The amount of Writ Vouchers awarded for a contract depends on the difficulty and cost to complete the Writ. In calculations performed by forum user CREEP, if a legendary item is requested the Writ reward is multiplied by roughly 4. If the Writ requires nirnhoned the value is multiplied by 6. The style requested as well as the trait requirement for a set are also taken into account. CREEP estimates that the highest possible Writ reward will come from a 9-trait set, legendary, nirnhoned, requested in Celestial, Draugr, Akaviri, Glass, Yokudan, or Order of the Hour. This will reward 328 Writs.

At least for now Writ Vouchers, like Alliance Points, are character specific and cannot be transferred between your characters. So if you have spread your crafting prowess across multiple characters, it may take you some time to accumulate the Writ Vouchers you need.

Are Master Writs Worth It?

It depends who you ask really. There is a very heated debate on the official forums PTS feedback thread for Master Crafting Writs. The main consternation seems to come from the inclusion of legendary items in the Master Writs. While the Writ Vouchers rewarded for those items are much higher than items requiring only Epic materials, many feel the cost to craft such an item are simply too high and they won’t do them. While I can understand this line of thinking to some degree, I don’t fully agree. Regardless of what it costs you to complete the Writ and eventually purchase the item you’re after from Rolis, that will set the market. As a somewhat extreme example, if it costs you 100,000 gold in materials to craft an item to get an attunable crafting station, then you sell it for more. You come out ahead. No one (hardly) is going to go through the time, effort, and gold to acquire items from Rolis and sell them at a loss. You’ll make your money back and then some.

With Furniture Crafting and Master Crafting Writs being added in the Homestead update, crafters certainly will be kept busy in the coming weeks and months. How exactly these features will affect the player economy remains to be seen, but we thank ZOS for the time and effort in these new features.

Great info - thanks!

Looking forward to it but I foresee a few headaches with the Writ Vouchers being character bound! I guess that whilst chances of getting the Master Writs is influenced by motif etc knowledge in the craft, at least completing the writ is not. So I should be able to complete most the simpler writs on 1 character still.