Alts and node scaling

Neofit

Hi,

My main is only level 9 atm. I am confused about the way harvesting works, I've read some crafting guides but they don't talk much about harvesting. I've been thinking about making crafting alts that would not fight too much. But then I read some threads where people were saying that toons will see resources according to their crafting level. Say my adventuring main has like 1-2 in Blacksmithing, then apparently he will see Iron everywhere. A high level blacksmithing alt will see higher level materials on the same nodes, but will be too weak to fight there.

So is it that a high level BS will see high level metals everywhere or just the higher level zones? Stros M'Kay, Bethnik and Daggerfall will still be all iron, won't they, regardless of the BS level of the toon? Also, after a point, apparently each toon has to play all the PvE content of the other two alliances, which I presume includes going into low level areas. I am not sure how level scaling is working there, but will he see Iron or higher level mats in these areas?

Does this apply to all crafts, or only the ones people are calling the "hard crafts" - blacksmithing, clothing and woodworking? I've read of people making low level provisioning alts, but if my main can only loot the lowest level tier from containers, this won't do. If he can only find low level enchanting and alchemy mats everywhere he goes, it won't do either. Just the thought of multiple tiers of the dozens of provisioning, enchants and plants I've found on Stros M'kay alone makes me shudder. Although according to the skill calculators, for provisioning and alchemy it's more about different waters and recipes, so there is hope. Are low level alchemists able to see higher level waters?

If there is a guide that I have missed that explains all this harvesting stuff in detail please point me to it.

SpAEkus

Okay first, all of the complexity is only in Scaled Zones currently, Wrothgar, Cyrodiil, Imperial City, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood zones.

Harvest Nodes - Patch 2.4.5
Resource nodes that spawn in battle leveled zones (such as Orsinium or the Gold Coast) now come in two varieties and provide crafting resources based on either your combat level or your rank in the associated material-use passive.

When the resource node spawns, it has an even chance to be based on either level or passive rank.
For example, if you are Level 3 and have purchased Metalworking up to Rank 5, half the ore nodes found in scaled zones will be Iron, and half will be Ebony.

In the normal Alliance Zones the nodes are still scaled to the zone. So if you need Iron, no matter what character level you are, stay in the 1st Alliance Zone etc. The next higher materials are in the next higher zone. The same goes for all other Crafting Materials.

The other option to avoid some of the complexity, and have control over returns is to get some Craft Hirelings.

You can have up to eight free character slots and can have BS-Cloth-WW and Enchanting and Provisioning hirelings on every one if you want.

A level I hireling, can be had at Craft Skill Level 3 of BS-Cloth-WW and Enchanting. That only takes 2 skill points in each of those crafts and that hireling will start delivering materials every 24 hours. Level 3 of those crafts takes only a few items of crafting or deconstruction. Provisioning Hireling Level I doesn't start until Craft Level 28 but Provisioning is easy to level quickly with enough resources or gold.

The Hireling II is at Craft Skill Level 12, one more Skill Point and you can have deliveries of all the best materials every 24 hours. You only need Hireling III if you want deliveries every 12 hours.

The materials that hirelings deliver is strictly based on that character's Craft Material Passives - Metalworking/Tailoring/Woodworking/Potency Expertise/Recipe Improvement. So you can control what they deliver just by how many skill points you put in those passives.

Bottom line, until you decide to harvest in Scaled Zones, just level your Main or your Crafting Character(s) as you play and move through the alliance zones harvesting what you want.

Even when you get to Silver and Gold zones, the nodes will still be zone leveled.

For some other quick Crafting/Harvesting tips see my Crafting section here:

just-some-basic-new-player-tips-i-post-on-esoreddit

SpAEkus

EDIT: I forgot to add that as of DB DLC, Enchantment Nodes are are now Potency Leveled in all zones:

Each harvestable runestone is guaranteed to contain an Essence and an Aspect rune, and one third of the runestones you find will also contain a Potency rune.

Half the time, when you find a Potency rune it will be scaled to your combat level, and the other half of the time it will be scaled to your rank in the Potency Improvement passive.

So you will have to take that into account as of now.

Neofit

Nice info on Hirelings and on that page you linked. The only info I had on hirelings prior to this was that "they are useless now", but it may have been on of those typical MMO knee-jerk reactions to a nerf that may have been justified.

Now how to make some in a more or less efficient manner? If I take woodworking for instance, I will need 3 SP for the Hirelings themselves, 8 SP in the Woodworking passive so they bring me all tiers of wood, and optionally 3 points in Wood Extraction so as to get the most while I level his woodworking, for a total of 11 needed and 14 preferred. BTW, I suppose that as soon as I give it the 8 points into the Woodworking passive, it will start giving me all tiers of wood mats, even if I cannot use that on the main, so I suppose I should invest points gradually, to coincide with the mats that the main crafte can use?

My main is only level 12, I've only seen Stros M'Kay, Bethnik and Daggerfall/Glenumbra. He "finished" M'Kay with around 9 SPs. I made a potential crafting alt in M'Kay to check things out, I didn't notice the boat ride to Daggerfall at first so I assumed that I had to finish the main quest there to be able to leave the island. The toon did it within a couple of hours with 8 SP total. One level less than the main, but this one is fighting "naked" with no SPs invested in combat, so no unnecessary kills, hence one level less in the end. The killing and quests in M'Kay and Bethnik only took a few hours and gave a few extra SPs. I wish I could invest points into fighting while leveling crafting alts to make it more fun, but "even" on my main I still haven't found the respec shrine, I am afraid it is too far for newbie alts to respec, aren't they?

In your Tips for New Players thread, you mention that DC has 23 "safe" SPs. My main found a shard in the Bad Man Hallow's dungeon, I wouldn't call that one "safe" for a naked level 3 newbie, have you counted those in the 23 safe SPs? And by 23 safe SPs I suppose you counted all the shards in all the level 1-50 zones?

NikaTheCat

When I first started this game I also thought of making crafting alts, but after considering several points I changed my mind, so I did all my "hard crafts" on my main char, alchemy on another and provisioning/enchanting on a third char. Why? Well the only real problem are the hard crafts. Here are the points why I think it is better to learn hard crafts with your main:

• Crafting motifs - this is the most important point. If I counted correctly, there are 202 crafting motifs at the moment. Many of the motifs are only for one type of weapon or armor. For example, Mercenary Boots. That's why there are so many. Now if you only have one crafter for woodworking, blacksmithing and clothing, then you would have to find and teach him all these 202 motifs. If you have a separate char for each, then you have to find 3 times more motifs to teach every char. Well, actually a little bit less, you wouldn't teach your blacksmith Xyvkin Staves style for example, but you get the point.
• Skill points - each hard craft requires at least 18 skill points. For example, your blacksmith will need 10 SP into Metalworking, 4 SP into Metallurgy, and 3 SP into each Metal Extraction and Temper Expertise (other passives are useful but optional). This is usually an argument FOR using crafting alts, as it saves the skill points for your main, but it really depends on your play style. If you want to make crafting alts, you would actually have to level them and get those skill points. But your main will always be leveling and getting skill points, for obvious reasons. It may hinder your performance a little bit at lower levels, because you will have to choose between getting some skill to melt the faces of your enemies or getting that crafting passive, so you can make those Golden Pants Of Awesomeness. But remember that even if you magically had maxed out blacksmithing when you main is level 9, there is no point to put 10 skill points into Metalworking, because you don't need max level armor yet. So you can gradually put those skill points in. Either way, at max level you will have so many Skill points, that you won't know where to put them.
• Research - Researching traits takes time. A lot of it. Like a year or more. And it actually does not matter if you have a crafting alt for each hard craft, because you can still only have 3 simultaneous researches for each craft. But having all the research on one char, just makes your life easier, because you won't have to switch chars all the time only to make a set Pants of Awesomeness on one, and set Staff of Awesomeness on another. Also, the long time it takes to research everything, makes it very hard to reroll the char, that has researched a lot - so research stuff on a char you are definitely planning to keep.

These are the main points that I can think of right now. Maybe there are more.
As for other crafts..
Provisioning is super easy to master, I have it maxed out on several chars. Alchemy is pretty easy too, but the mats are rarer/more expensive. And only thing hard about enchanting is that it is super slow. I would probably recommend making an alt for each one of these crafts, just to make it easier on the skill points, if you are going to play these alts less. Again depends on your play style. If you don't have ESO+ subscription and the benefit of having a craft bag, then having alts to hold all your mats is also a plus.

EDIT:
P.S. Maybe not really what you were asking, but I thought it would be relevant to the topic as it concerns crafting alts. Also, your main char would be the one adventuring and sightseeing the most, so collecting crafting nodes of the appropriate level is not a problem if he is also your main crafter.

SpAEkus

@Neofit

1) Those Skyshards are open-land safe enough to walk up and take without a fight. Safe ones that are in Dungeons are in the very first part of the dungeon with no guards. And there are even some not-so-safe that are not guarded that you could run-die-run to in dungeons if you have some Soul Gems to revive with.

Yes those are counting the entire Zone, you can walk/ride/swim the entire Zones w/o doing any Quests.

2) If you want to make crafting alts quickly with hirelings quickly. just go get those Skyshards on them first and apply the Hireling Points. They won't be needing any of the other passives until your Main feeds them enough to decon to level their crafts. The only thing they need to concentrate on is Research of Traits if they are going to craft for your main.

Then you can just play hard on your main and enjoy the time. And when you want to Combat/Quest level those Alts further, they will have all those wayshrines already open to start their quests with.

Your Main will be feeding your Alts, and as soon as they start amassing Hireling Mats, they can start crafting to level and pass to each other for decon IP.

Think of the Hirelings as Free Mats. You only need to get them started to build a stock of materials that you can then use for crafting leveling and the armor/weapons for your main.

That 1st Hireling only takes 4635 XP and 1 Skill Point. That's decon only 21 Iron Items, or 17 Jute/Rawhide, or 10 Maple. The first starter zone(s) should have enough loot from your Main Character kills for that easily.

You can just let them sit on Iron/Jute/Maple until you have enough extra SP to bump their Material Passive to the level of your Main Fighting Character.

3) And the Respec Shrines are in the Major City of each Zone in the, DC Wayrest Cathedral/AD Eldenroot Tree/EP Mournhold City Center Building. You can get to all of them at anytime you just have to take the boat, walk or swim.