A Guide to Using the Transmute Station in ESO

In The Elder Scrolls Online, the Clockwork City's Brass Fortress is the central hub for Transmutation. With the Clockwork City DLC available for permanent unlock in the daily rewards in July 2024, more players have access to the Transmutation system. However, some people may not know what Transmutation is or how to benefit from it. In this guide, CozyCaster shows you how to utilize the Transmute Station in The Elder Scrolls Online.

Transmute Station Options

The Transmute Station allows players to change the traits of their weapons, armor, and jewelry or even completely rebuild set pieces.

Transmute

If you already have a set piece you want in an off-trait, you can optimize it by changing the trait using the Transmute option.

Reconstruction

The other option, Reconstruction, allows you to rebuild any piece of gear you've added to your collection in a trait of your choosing. Most reconstructed items scale to the character you use to reconstruct the item. However, many of the most powerful set pieces in the game have minimum levels, like Monster sets or Mythics, so a character under level 50 can't use these pieces.

Remember that to transmute or reconstruct an item, you must have the trait you want to set it to completely researched for that specific item, but you won't need the trait stone.

Crafting Material Requirements

During the reconstruction, you also won't need the basic materials to craft the item, but you can use crafting materials to upgrade the item's quality at the Transmute Station. The cost of using upgrade materials at the Transmute Station depends on your character's crafting passives and scales as it would if you were upgrading the item at a regular crafting station.

Set Collection

You can use the Set Items page in your Collections tab to see the zone where the set drops, the bonuses on the set, and which pieces you've already found. Crafted sets can't be collected, and gear drops will be marked as collected or not collected when you pick them up.

Binding Gear

When you're completing content with the goal of fully collecting a set, make use of the bind menu option. This will stop duplicates of that piece from dropping until the set is fully collected.

Drops from dungeons and trials have a timer on them, this is the window they can be traded within. If you choose not to trade them, they will auto-bind when the timer ends.

Weapons only drop from the final boss and chests when you're completing group content, so making sure to bind weapons quickly when you're trying to finish a set is a huge help. A negative to this is that if you get a piece you wanted, like a dagger, in a trait you didn't want, you can only get another dagger from chests or trades until your set is complete.

You can also bind gear to your collection using Deconstruction by selling pieces to NPC vendors until they're no longer in the Buy Back tab, using them in Research, or equipping them. Once the gear is bound to your collection, it is also locked to your account. You can sell them to NPC vendors, move them to other characters, use them in Research, or deconstruct them. But they can't be sold or traded to other players. All reconstructed and transmuted items are also bound to your account, but you won't be able to use them in Research, either.

Transmute Crystals

Transmute Cost

The Transmute Crystals are important currency used exclusively in transmutation. Changing a trait on an item will cost 50 Transmute Crystals. However, reconstructing a piece has varying costs: the more pieces you have in your set collection, the lower the cost of rebuilding each piece. With only one item collected, it will cost 75 crystals, but with the set fully collected, the cost is reduced to only 25 crystals per piece.

Maximum Crystal Capacity

You can hold up to 500 Transmute Crystals or 1000 with ESO Plus at any given time. If you acquire any crystals beyond the maximum, they will be wasted. If your ESO Plus membership lapses, you will not lose your Transmute Crystals if you have over 500, but you will be unable to gain any more until your balance drops below 500.

If you find yourself nearing the cap without a use for them, reconstruct set pieces with a 25-crystal cost and store them. When these pieces are deconstructed, you'll get 25 crystals back. So, this is a great way to avoid wasting crystals. If you spent more than 25 crystals reconstructing the piece, you won't get all of the crystals back when you deconstruct, as it is always 25.

The items that you changed the trait of will not return any crystals when deconstructed, but they have a chance to drop the trait stone.

It's also worth mentioning that Mythic items cannot be deconstructed at all.

Transmute vs. Reconstruct Benefits

The benefits to reconstruction outweigh the transmute option, but it take time to collect enough pieces to lower your collection cost, and you should also take into account the quality of the item and the cost of upgrade materials on your platform.

Transmute Crystal Sources

Transmute Crystals are used as an incentive to get players into group activities, awarded by participating in Group Dungeons, Trials, Battleground matches, Tales of Tribute matches, and in the Alliance War. Though there are lots of ways to get Transmute Crystals, many of them are time-consuming or grant few per time spent.

Fastest Crystal Sources

Random normal dungeons can be a fast source for crystals, providing 10 in the daily bonus once per character each day through the activity finder. Cyrodiil can also be a fast source, with a 30-day campaign rewarding 50 crystals to each character with 25,000 AP when the campaign ends. Farming either one of these methods with one character will take longer, but it's entirely up to you if you want to make more.

Characters only need to be level 10 to access normal random dungeons or Cyrodiil. Being a lower level when queueing for a random dungeon even has the added benefit of decreasing the pool in favor of the easiest and fastest dungeons.

Accessing Transmutation without Clockwork City

Players who don't have Clockwork City can acquire a Transmute Station for their own house from the Master Writ merchant or the Crown Store. Alternatively, they can visit the houses of friends or a stocked guild hall for free access.

Conclusion

The Collection and Transmutation systems were game changers when they were added, giving players the ability to customize their gear and optimize their builds without spending tons of extra time farming for very specific pieces. Whether you're fine-tuning your build or chasing the perfect build, remember to research your desired traits, gather those precious Transmute Crystals, and head to the Transmutation Station to enhance your gear.

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