New player. Need crafting assist. Probably need to join craft guild.

brutus33 · March 2017

This is probably not the best place to post this, but I'm kinda lost.
Long time MMO player, but about 4 months on ESO.
Always played solo because I'm older and don't play very fast. Tired of being berated buy other players because I can't keep up in dungeons, etc.
I understand their frustration, So I play solo. Not usually a problem.
I like all aspects of the game. So I do my own crafting.
Didn't at first because its difficult on ESO. But I soon discovered that everything is integrated, and unlike other games ,crafting was not just an afterthought, but could actually contribute to your game success.
Present toon is a 35 high elf sorcerer. decent stats, I think.
Have yet to craft any really beneficial gear.
Traits don't seem to be the problem, but improvements are.
Question, how is this gear crafted? Dump skill points into getting higher level crafting raw materials, or some how get more improvements. How about sets?
Never posted on a forum before. So, a little slack please.

JKorr · March 2017

Crafting passives. Especially the ones for tempers.

Trinity_Is_My_Name · March 2017

If you want to be a "Crafter" put Skill points in the passives that improve refinement and improvement. From the beginning you should be researching one item in each armor/weapon line and as you have available skill points put them into the passives for more research slots so you can do up to 3 items at a time in each area for a total of 9. If you are an ESO Subscriber your max research time is lowered to 27 days as long as you have the Skill pts into the crafting passives to maximize research.
Research the armor/weapon pieces you may want to use first with the trait you think you may use for your character. Get addons to help with managing research such as AI Research Grid. Now if you have let's say 6 traits researched and you decide you want to craft Julianos in Wrothgar in Divines but find out you can't because.....you can't craft any of that armor in Divines because you did not research the Divines trait for those pieces. So, research the traits you want to use first and then do the other traits.

Specifically for improving items put 3 skill points in the crafting passive for improvement in each armor line. This will minimize the improvement cost big time.

Also keep in mind that research takes a LONG time to get all 9 Traits done. It takes about 102 days for Wood and 228 days for the other two assuming you are researching 3 items at a time per area and have maxed out the research passive and are an ESO subscriber.

Good luck!

Tevalaur · March 2017

From Sunshine Daydream's Guide to Crafting

Introduction to Crafting

Gear received as rewards or looted from dead bodies can be studied (trait research) or deconstructed for materials & crafting inspiration (leveling). Stolen items and items with a value of 0 gold will give far less inspiration than other items.

Style materials (and occasionally motifs) are typically found in furniture such as desks, cabinets, dressers, trunks, and urns. Provisioning ingredients can be found everywhere but abound in crates and barrels. If you kill an animal, you may find many items -- including a usable hide for leatherwork (not foul hides, sell those). During your travels gather nodes of ore, fallen logs, fibrous plants, runes, alchemical reagents and pure water.

Rough wood must be sanded, ore must be smelted into ingots, hides must be processed, and raw fibrous plants must be spun & woven before being used to create items. This is done in the "Refinement" tab at a crafting table. Each craft has its own crafting table, located in most cities throughout each region and at special crafting sites (oriented to crafting a particular set) which are scattered about the wilderness.

When ready to create an item, bring refined materials of the proper level, a style material, and a trait gem if you wish the item to have a trait (only items destined for a writ delivery or crafting buddy's decon should not have a trait). After gear is crafted it can be improved in quality or have an enchantment added or changed, but the trait, style, and item level cannot be altered.

Each character automatically knows how to craft in their own racial style, but must study before creating other styles. This is done by reading style motifs (books and/or chapters). The basic racial motifs (blue books) and the Imperial motif (gold book) can be learned immediately, but other motifs require an investment of skill points into the material tiers before they can be understood (except when purchased from the crown store).

Researching traits is a very long process. Times to complete research increase dramatically as you progress, so start as early as possible! To research (learn) a trait for a particular item you must possess (and sacrifice) that same kind of item with said trait upon it. Take the item to an appropriate crafting table and select the "Research" tab. Select the kind of item, then the trait you wish to study. Confirm your choice and the trait will soon be unlocked for your character to craft with.

Upon reaching character level 6, the game offers tutorial quests, started by approaching the "writ board" in your starter city. These tutorials cover these basics and, once complete, enable you to do crafting writs.

Gradually Invest Skill Points

This plan will help keep the points from getting out of hand when skill points are difficult to get in early levels. Eventually you'll find you have plenty of points to put in all recommended or desired skills.

Provisioning would be the first place to invest points in my opinion. Spending points in Connoisseur (to extend the duration of drinks) is essential before drinking Psijic Ambrosia (the experience booster). The ability to make food at your level (Recipe Improvement) in at least blue quality (Recipe Quality 2) is significant and should be invested next. While Brewer & Chef might also be handy, they are only absolutely necessary once using perfect roe to create recipes such as Psijic Ambrosia & Orzorga's Smoked Bear Haunch as other ingredients are relatively plentiful.

On a first character, invest one rank into Keen Eye for Blacksmith, Cloth, Wood, & Alchemy as soon as possible to learn what these materials look like and to begin gathering these resources as you play. Keen Eye is not necessary for Enchanting however; all runestones glow already and do not blend into the vegetation like many other collectible materials, so once you learn to recognize them they can be easily spotted from afar.

Always invest as rapidly in possible in the skills that reduce research time and allow simultaneous trait research studies. Further invest in your blacksmith/cloth/wood skills as you level, keeping your material tier useful to your most advanced character's level.

Early on I'd skip putting points into Enchanting, focusing on leveling enchanting through deconstruction. I'd also ignore Alchemy skills for a short while -- except for the 2 skill points that help effectively learn all traits while starting to level the craft nicely.

If you follow the recommendations in Sunshine Daydream's Guide to Crafting you'll eventually invest around 100 points for a well-rounded do-it-all crafter:

11 points Alchemy (plus 4 for consumers)
15 points Enchanting
14 points Provisioner (plus 3-6 for consumers)
20 points Blacksmithing
20 points Clothing
20 points Woodworking

Other Considerations

If you don't normally wear light armor but wish to level up the Light Armor skill line, craft a sash (light belt) to minimize the loss to your armor. If you don't normally wear heavy armor but wish to level up the Heavy Armor skill line, craft a cuirass (heavy chest piece) to gain the most armor rating. If you wish to level up the Medium Armor skill line, craft bracers (medium hands) if you typically wear heavy armor or guards (medium legs) if you typically wear light armor.

One trick I wish I had used when researching traits: study either light or medium armor (whichever you are more likely to actually wear) and heavy armor on your main crafter while initially studying light/medium (the other option) armor and metal weapons on another character. Then consolidate traits by having that alt make study items for your main crafter. This saves no overall time, and eventually all traits are learned on your main crafter anyhow, but does greatly reduce the time before being able to make the best set pieces.

Motifs can be expensive! You'll only want to acquire one copy of these, so keep blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking on the same character for shared knowledge of style motifs. Some folks prefer to split off the consumables crafting (provisioning, alchemy, enchanting) to lower the percentage of skill points dedicated to crafting, but my main character is also my crafter (in all schools) and I like it that way.

If your playing characters know provisioning & alchemy you can always make food, drink, & potions when needed during your gameplay and without an interruption to change characters. Plus, unlocking the crafting level necessary for useful skills will be easily done while leveling the crafts anyhow.

Remember that while your main character(s) will eventually have plenty of skill points, it can be difficult to gather sufficient levels & skill points on a character designed solely around crafting. However, if you are creating a dedicated crafter, Orcs should be considered because they receive an inherant 10% boost to crafting inspiration. Also of note, high level Orcs can choose the Swift Warrior passive which increases sprint speeds while reducing sprint cost for faster gathering runs.

Gathering runs include lots of time sprinting. The Steed Mundus Stone's bonus to movement speed and medium armor with the well-fitted trait and stamina enchantments will aid in gathering runs. Consider using armor sets whose bonus includes a boost to stamina, such as Night's Silence, Hunding's Rage, and Eternal Hunt.

Have you just hit CP 160? Congratulations! Now prepare to spend a lot of materials to make your final gear... Each weapon or piece of armor can require most of a stack of rubedite ore, rubedo leather, ancestor silk or ruby ash wood. Age-old wisdom has it that weapons show the biggest difference, so first craft a gold-quality version of your weapon. Until you've gathered sufficient resources to craft CP 160 armor (or perhaps even longer) wear CP 150 armor pieces improved to purple quality.

If you have Champion Points to spend, place 30 thief points into Sprinter in The Tower and 10-75 points into The Lover. 30 points on The Tower boosts all crafting inspiration 20% and placing those points into Sprinter will help you gather resources faster. The first 10 points in The Lover grants Plentiful Harvest, which doubles the yield when harvesting from crafting nodes. If you place a total of 75 points in The Lover you reduce the time to actually gather from a node by 50% which can make it easier to grab materials before being attacked. If your character's main focus is crafting, consider focusing on the Mooncalf aspect of The Lover as it will allow you to sprint more while gathering resources.

Traits

How to Acquire Style Motifs & Style Materials

Common Motifs (basic player races)
Unommon Motifs (acquired by the book)
Rare Motifs (typically found by the chapter, with 14 chapters in a full book)

Skills for Anyone (even the non-crafting consumer)
Skill Progression for the Provisioner
Food Ingredients
Drink Ingredients
Leveling Provisioning
Daily Provisioning Writs
- Recipes for Writs
Provisioning Your Characters
The Exotic Menu (rare & special treats)
- Orzorga's Recipes
- Psijic Ambrosia

Alchemy

Housing & Furnishings

edit: add more links/subsections

Ourorboros · March 2017

I wouldn't bother crafting any sets before CP levels, unless it's just to get familiar with the process. That's because you will likely out-level anything you craft within days, if not hours. Don't improve beyond Superior (blue) in early levels, saving the more valuable Epic (purple) and Legendary (gold) mats for later levels. I would never use gold tempers before CP160. If you don't subscribe and have a craft bag, space will become an issue. Use mules to help share the storage needs. Spend the gold to upgrade bank and bag ( useful even if you have a craft bag). Don't keep mats you won't use, like style stones for styles you will never craft, trait stones you will never use. In your search for motifs, selling duplicates is a reliable source of gold. Stealing is also a good source of gold. I mention this because it's often faster and easier to raise gold through stealing and then buying motifs than farming motifs. Running dungeons and selling the loot is another way to raise gold to buy motifs.

brutus33 · March 2017

Not into crafting as a major profession, but leveling is my thing. As you all know to enjoy solo leveling you have to kick some ass. Ergo, get the best gear.
As I suspected, not possible to do just a little crafting. Both feet or forget it and try another strategy. Maybe I should go for a crafting partner.
Thanks for all your info, suggestions.

brutus33 · September 2017

Know that crafting armor sets and weapons is not necessary yet but do know that some point it will be.
I've tried a lot of crafting and find it more complicated than I wish to tackle.

Indigo_Shade · September 2017

Brutus, I'm fairly new to ESO, but started to craft the first week, and am so glad I pushed it so hard. I'm way past CP160, but it was great being able to MAKE level 160 gear when I hit cp160, with decent traits (at that point, gold was a real problem, but i had mats, traits and improvement stones.

Skillpoints was for sure the worst part of this, and research comes in second for being such a hassle. I traveled all over One Tameriel (and nabbed Wayshrines along the way) to get Skill points, and actually reached max skill in all of the crafts before I hit CP160.

Research took much longer (7 months for my first toon), but now I have 3 toons who are either done, or almost done.

I'm on the NA server, and have been really busy with work, but I'd be happy to help you out some. My in-game names are in my sig. Or you can send me a PM here.

P.S. I'm not fast either. Heh.

woufff · September 2017

Heyo Brutus, I really try to become a reasonably skilled crafter here in ESO and more than happy to help as far as my actual skills allow. As I'm not the youngest either anymore, I'm also mostly running around alone in Tamriel and avoid groups as it is not very nice to be kicked because you want to explore the dungeons at your pace and maybe also you don't do that much damage either

Just to say you're not alone

Thanks to @Tevalaur for this excellent crafting guide here, this is really VERY helpful !

PS: playing on PC/EU

Juju_beans · September 2017

I got the addon Trait Buddy to help me keep track of how many traits I've learned for each weapon/armor.
The same addon also puts a tooltip up when you mouse over a piece of gear/weapon to let you know if you've learned that trait or not.

I too play solo and play alts as well, one for each class, so I save everything I loot to either deconstruct or research.

I was thrilled to be able to make some pieces of sets for my toons. Only level 25 at the moment but I'm trying to keep up with crafting and I research whenever it's available to me.

Indigo_Shade · September 2017

Juju_beans wrote: »

I got the addon Trait Buddy to help me keep track of how many traits I've learned for each weapon/armor.
The same addon also puts a tooltip up when you mouse over a piece of gear/weapon to let you know if you've learned that trait or not.

I too play solo and play alts as well, one for each class, so I save everything I loot to either deconstruct or research.

I was thrilled to be able to make some pieces of sets for my toons. Only level 25 at the moment but I'm trying to keep up with crafting and I research whenever it's available to me.

I just updated most of my add-ons today, and Trait Buddy was one of the first 10 that went back into my addons. As a heavy duty crafter, I could not live without this one. It's awesome.

Eatmyface · September 2017

CAN NOT WAIT until the new patches on PS4 allow us to see what has and hasn't been researched. I spend far too long going through all my gear, piece by piece, deconstructing those that have already been researched. While the list is slowly depleting, I still dread having to do this each time my bag fills up.

I started crafting on day one and am so glad I did. Once I hit CP160 I had researched approx. 6 traits on each piece and it's made such a difference. I think this is the key number to get to as popular sets like Julianos and Hundings Rage are 6 trait sets.

It's also great to be able to do master writs and gain access to things that are, otherwise, relatively unaccessible. Just another thing to break away from the main game.

Becoming a master crafter can also be very lucrative later in the game if people start paying you silly amounts to make them gear sets

erliesc · September 2017

brutus33 wrote: »

Not into crafting as a major profession, but leveling is my thing. As you all know to enjoy solo leveling you have to kick some ass. Ergo, get the best gear.
As I suspected, not possible to do just a little crafting. Both feet or forget it and try another strategy. Maybe I should go for a crafting partner.
Thanks for all your info, suggestions.

Many players in this game just run thru delves...I do a lot of sneaking and collecting. Also use invisibility potions to get past nasties. A lot of the enemies drop next to nothing anyway. Go for the bosses? Check all the bookshelves. Many containers contain special stuff now and then.

I was able to pretty much craft everything I needed for 4 characters...each time they made 5 levels and could handle better stuff. Stuff I don't use to craft or deconstruct I sell. Pays for the horses and extra bag/bank space. Join 5 different guilds.

Combining 2 different crafted sets gives you some pretty good gains.

If you save your gold...eventually you can buy cheap stuff to deconstruct and level up your crafting that way. Need to pay attention to how much crafting experience you get for the gold you pay for stuff...it varies relative to what level you are at currently.

When you've pretty much leveled up your crafting...then you've got to sell what you gather. Not much point to continuing to deconstruct most stuff. I'm at this point and am having issues with bag/bank space.