Crafting main, combat ALT..

Tommy_valkyria

So as I played through eso up to level 46, I did everything and everything I could crafting related, due to how much more powerful you could become from said crafted items. However, because of all the skill points dumped in all crafting trees, I was combat ineffective, only brought up to par due to my various potions, foods, armors and weapons etc. As you could imagine, this was a problem for me, being actively involved in cyrodill. So I respeced my main, and just focus solely on crafting. I then started a second character (fourth, actually) for pve/pvp. To be honest I can't tell you how fantastic it is to have a character that is ready to craft whatever as soon as you need it for your primary combat character. It's amazing. No grinding levels, no having to use bunk equipment because you can't craft something better, etc. If you ever want to delete a mid level character, don't - do this. You'll thank me later.

Kaitona

I may end up doing this myself. What class was your main and what class did you pick for your alt?

VoidBlue

awww its only 134 skill points for every crafting thingy :P

than once you research all the traits you can take off 9 for the advanced research times. do you really need hirelings, thats another 15 taken off.

thats 110 skill points

leaving you with what, 200 skills points left for your dps

thats enough skill points left over to max out all your class skills, all the weapon skills and 2 armor skills. but since you wont be just willy nilly using skills points in every place like that you will have plenty of room to be fully be an awesome DPS and have all your crafting

Nestor

Tommy_valkyria wrote: »

To be honest I can't tell you how fantastic it is to have a character that is ready to craft whatever as soon as you need it for your primary combat character. It's amazing.

This really is the best strategy. I brought up two mains sharing the crafting between them and it was tough in some stretches to do this. Even now at VR13 or VR14, I don't have all the points to fully flesh out crafting and be as deadly as I want to be.

But my two alts? They are one person wrecking crews. I have even started them on some crafting deep into the VR Ranks as I have an excess of points for both of them. One is my Enchanter, and both of them are Provisioners but that is all they do. Well, one knows a couple of material levels so she can run crafting writs and make 4000 gold each day in 5 minutes in an easy to town to do these in.

SirAndy

I have 4 mains, 3 are crafters (2 craft per char) that i used to play each alliance from the ground up.
My 4th main char is a dedicated PvP character.

And then there are my 4 storage mules ...

whiteshadow711jppreub18_ESO

This happened to me, when pc first started it was good but over time the main guild I was in most of the members upped and left, and their crafting skills went with them, so my Blacksmithing crafting was not enough, before I knew it I was doing all the crafts and like the thread OP was loosing combat effectiveness because of the loss of skill points devoted to crafting. So I made a Alt Duplicate of my main, and I am very happy about it. one does all the crafting and the other does all the fighting.

Tommy_valkyria

Kaitona wrote: »

I may end up doing this myself. What class was your main and what class did you pick for your alt?

My main was a templar tank, also did some backup healing. Now I use whatever extra skill points I have on healing, to remain viable in a group, or for self preservation on mat runs. I ended up making a nightblade as my alt, was never fond of them before but I'm really liking it now.

gimpdrb14_ESO

i got an imperial alt with clothing, blacksmithing, woodworking and enchanting maxed with all motifs learned. and she is a stam sorc that does pretty dam well as far as dps is concerned

SerDinadan

I'm currently VR4 and I've started leveling up additional crafts because I didn't really have anything else to spend my skill points on. I guess it depends on how versatile you want your character to be. I play as an NB tank and I only have two weapon lines leveled. I don't feel the need to skill up any other weapons, I have all the class skills I need for my build, and I don't really pvp. Thus I've just been dumping my skill points into crafts that I wasn't even planning on leveling.

Sandshark95

My main is a Wood Elf Bow/DW NB that I've also specced into the three main crafts. Nearly rank 50 in Clothing and Blacksmithing (Woodworking is a little slow) and have virtually every medium armor and bow trait researched/in line to be researched. I'm only level 36, but I've managed my skill points well and have just enough left over to invest in my class/weapon abilities. I've also maxed my WW skill tree. I don't even use her to craft stuff for my other characters because I don't feel it necessary (and because I don't have any bank space to transfer anything ). There's tons of skill points in the game, so all of my alts have a few points invested in the "necessary" crafts. I don't know; I've never been the type of player to create alts dedicated to one single purpose (crafters, mules, etc.). If I'm going to go through all the trouble of making an alt in the first place, I want to be able to actually play on that alt.

NewBlacksmurf

Well you can level clothing, BS and Wood with so few skills.

Not sure how you're using skill it's but at Vr1 I had plenty of skills to use

Are you gathering all the skill pts?
Quests, sky shards, public dungeons, etc

Tommy_valkyria

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Well you can level clothing, BS and Wood with so few skills.

Not sure how you're using skill it's but at Vr1 I had plenty of skills to use

Are you gathering all the skill pts?
Quests, sky shards, public dungeons, etc

I plan on maxing out every skill in every crafting tree. The keen eye helps so much more than I ever imagined. But my plan is to combine legendary weapons and armor with legendary enchants, couple food, drinks and potions all on my combat alt. Should be a hardcore force to reckon with.

THEDKEXPERIENCE

I wish I never found the respec area. I now do it every VR level (about once a week). On the plus side I now have my skill rotation down pat, but crafting all my gear each VR level takes too many points in to do both. I've just come to grips with the fact that building all new gear, and food, every VR level will cost me about 10K in weekly respecs.

The struggle is real. Haha.

F7sus4

With 298 Skill Points I use my main as both combat character and a master crafter.

Mighty_oakk

A dedicated crafter is really a must.

My stam dk having maxed 1h, 2h, dw, bow is always low on points with only alchy and provision maxed.

Id reccomend prov/alchy on all characters though

Athas24

I totally wish I did this in the very beginning. Instead I've got this mess of 4 crafters that I have to switch around to and had to learn motifs on etc. what a pain. I'm too far vested to switch that up now and get all the motifs etc.

CidxLucy

Why not have all in one. Getting 200 skill points to do it not hard.

Tommy_valkyria

CidxLucy wrote: »

Why not have all in one. Getting 200 skill points to do it not hard.

I'd rather not wait until endgame to be able to craft decent gear. On top of that, by the time I hit endgame I'll have a few dozen tempering alloys saved up, along with a multitude of other legendary crafting materials.

OzJohnD

AT V10 I had enough to max craft and have choices with my build spec, spent time making sure I had all available skyshards, including ALL my faction's Cyrodil shards, completing all quest lines with skill point rewards (including the Cyrodil tutorial) ... didn't max out my dungeoning skill point rewards as queuing for dungeons became a problematic time waster.

Tessie

I don't know if I'm OCD, though that does tend to be common among us MMO players, but here's what I'm doing.

I got my first character to 38, and was feeling under powered due to being burdened with having spent too many crafting points so I rolled a new character. This character went straight to VR 14, having the benefit of wearing crafted armor the whole way.

Here's where the OCD kicks in, I decided I wanted to have a second account where all of my crafting could be done. To better manage inventory, I'm splitting each of the crafters up as separate alts. "Paula the Provisioner", "Tina the Tailor", etc. I'm storing common crafting items in the bank, but items unique to their crafting profession in their personal inventories.

Pros:

• Easy to find what I'm looking for
• Seldom have to do inventory shuffle
• Easy to email crafted items to main account
• Adventuring on my main account doesn't require me to run back to the bank as often, I can just email items to crafting account
• Only need to level crafting alts to level 18 (or less depending upon skyshards)

Cons:

• Cost of second account
• Need to learn motifs on many characters
• Emailing can be a hassle
• Emailing can get expensive over time
• Its a lot of alts to level, even if only leveling to 18
• Expanding horse storage on all of the characters is expensive
• Expanding horse storage daily for all characters on two accounts is a time-sucking, soul-draining, and mind-numbing bore

Funkopotamus

Most people just run 2-3 crafting skills per character.

If you make sure you do the quest correctly "Mages guild" ECT and grab all of your shards you should be fine.. I think there are 324 skill points IIRC so maxing all grating with two toons is not that hard and still be able to adjust your combat on the fly for each flavor of the month patch build

Tommy_valkyria

Tessie wrote: »

I don't know if I'm OCD, though that does tend to be common among us MMO players, but here's what I'm doing.

I got my first character to 38, and was feeling under powered due to being burdened with having spent too many crafting points so I rolled a new character. This character went straight to VR 14, having the benefit of wearing crafted armor the whole way.

Here's where the OCD kicks in, I decided I wanted to have a second account where all of my crafting could be done. To better manage inventory, I'm splitting each of the crafters up as separate alts. "Paula the Provisioner", "Tina the Tailor", etc. I'm storing common crafting items in the bank, but items unique to their crafting profession in their personal inventories.

Pros:

• Easy to find what I'm looking for
• Seldom have to do inventory shuffle
• Easy to email crafted items to main account
• Adventuring on my main account doesn't require me to run back to the bank as often, I can just email items to crafting account
• Only need to level crafting alts to level 18 (or less depending upon skyshards)

Cons:

• Cost of second account
• Need to learn motifs on many characters
• Emailing can be a hassle
• Emailing can get expensive over time
• Its a lot of alts to level, even if only leveling to 18
• Expanding horse storage on all of the characters is expensive
• Expanding horse storage daily for all characters on two accounts is a time-sucking, soul-draining, and mind-numbing bore

Being on console, I don't think I can mail items to myself though I've yet to try. The only Items I have on my crafter are weapons and equipment, so all other of the 110 inventory slots are full of crafting supplies. I do agree that doing the bank swap thing sucks, as with the horse training too. I couldn't do crafting on more than one character, it'd be far too much to bank swap with one to make armor, another to enchant it, and last to the one that would wear it.

Tessie

Tommy_valkyria wrote: »

Being on console, I don't think I can mail items to myself though I've yet to try. The only Items I have on my crafter are weapons and equipment, so all other of the 110 inventory slots are full of crafting supplies. I do agree that doing the bank swap thing sucks, as with the horse training too. I couldn't do crafting on more than one character, it'd be far too much to bank swap with one to make armor, another to enchant it, and last to the one that would wear it.

My email suggestion assumes a second accounts. On PC you cannot email items to the account you're logged into.

I keep traits and styles in the bank, that way I don't have to swap those. Then on my crafters I keep the appropriate materials which wouldn't require any swapping. Apart from traits and styles woodworking, clothing, and blacksmithing don't share any resources. Unless you have many stacks of the same resource, inventory space shouldn't be a problem.

RazzPitazz

I rolled kjajiit DK at launch as my main. He is now strictly my master crafter lol

F7sus4

Tessie wrote: »

Here's where the OCD kicks in, I decided I wanted to have a second account where all of my crafting could be done. To better manage inventory, I'm splitting each of the crafters up as separate alts. "Paula the Provisioner", "Tina the Tailor", etc. (...)

• Need to learn motifs on many characters

Tell me you don't have Willy the Blacksmith, Diago the Woodworker and Maria the Clothier - each with separate racial motif list. If so, you spent fortune on those Imperial and Dwemer books. Sweet Jesus!

Arunei

Hmmm, as it is I have crafts split between two characters:

Templar: Prov, WWing, Clothing
Sorc: Alchemy, Enchanting

But I rolled a NB recently and I've decided to use her for BSing, and I've been considering using her for Clothing too (if not for the fact that my Templar has researched pretty much every Clothing trait, it would have been a 100% switch). I figure all of them will get leveled in Prov and Alchemy at some point, since those two are so easy to level, but aside from those it is easier to have your Crafting split between characters. Sure, you might need to relog and juggle stuff between characters, but it gives you more leeway with your skill points to not worry about maxing all Crafting trees on a single character.

Tommy_valkyria

Arunei wrote: »

Hmmm, as it is I have crafts split between two characters:

Templar: Prov, WWing, Clothing
Sorc: Alchemy, Enchanting

But I rolled a NB recently and I've decided to use her for BSing, and I've been considering using her for Clothing too (if not for the fact that my Templar has researched pretty much every Clothing trait, it would have been a 100% switch). I figure all of them will get leveled in Prov and Alchemy at some point, since those two are so easy to level, but aside from those it is easier to have your Crafting split between characters. Sure, you might need to relog and juggle stuff between characters, but it gives you more leeway with your skill points to not worry about maxing all Crafting trees on a single character.

So far, all crafting on one character is going well. I even had enough skill points to make my templar a very competent healer. I healed my buddy through wayrest sewers with just the two of us at 46, he's VR1.

Nestor

F7sus4 wrote: »

Tell me you don't have Willy the Blacksmith, Diago the Woodworker and Maria the Clothier - each with separate racial motif list. If so, you spent fortune on those Imperial and Dwemer books. Sweet Jesus!

I have two equipment Crafters, they know all the motifs. Well, only one knows the Dwemer stuff. I am currently having the Wood/Cloth Crafter learn traits in Blacksmithing. She is neck deep in the 9th traits for Cloth (all Light known, Medium is being worked on) and will finish Wood this week. Knows 6/7 traits on Metal so she can make all the good stuff as it stands now. Still not sure if can handle the inventory having both equipment crafts on one character.