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Crafting Basically Worthless?

  • Chirru
    Chirru
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    Is it just me, or is crafting basically worthless? Aside from making some money, it doesn't appear that you're ever going to be able to craft any item that is better than the items you find in the game. Early on food and potions might be helpful, but I feel like I've basically wasted the skill points on them. Am I maybe missing something?

    Yes. You are missing something.

    - you miss out on getting the sets that you really want, and that from early on. What am I talking about? I got three dedicated Crafters (level 30) that build me everything I want. I placed them into the set crafting places that I want. So it is that any level 1 Char already is equipped to max.

    A hint here...a level 1 set-armor is good for ten levels and can be passed on to any subsequent Chars if the stats are right. Else...just change the stats. So create the set-armor you want every ten levels and enjoy :) Of course...it takes some time to gain the skills to get there and some patience is required.

    - A level fifty food-Crafter can be leveled up in one or two day and can create two specific two- stats purple foods that can be used at any level.

    - and than there are of course the passives that come from crafting. Like 10% potion length and such. Plus the benefits from the buffs the crafted items provide.

    Hint: anyone playing more than three months and not having a dedicated Crafter is missing out big time. Why? I will not give away my trade secrets for nothing...but believe me...it is big time.

    Have fun and good luck to all of us.
  • Linaleah
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    Sylvermynx wrote: »
    freespirit wrote: »
    So, yeah, if you're new to the game and just playing through the story: crafting isn't particularly useful. From mid- to end-game, though, crafting is not only useful, but essential. Several of the absolute best sets out there are crafted, and food, potions, poisons, and crafted glyphs are all going to be significantly superior to found stuff. You mentioned just using glyphs you find, and that's cool... but you're not going to find gold glyphs, and you'll find purple glyphs only very, very rarely as part of quests.

    Also, to another point: you suggested that crafting might be useful for making money. To be perfectly honest, outside of a few narrow exceptions, it's actually really not. Deconstructing and refining stuff, sure, that's profitable. But crafting? Not really.

    Source: Also a master crafter.

    I beg to differ...….

    Crafting is my main gold source...…

    Also Grand Master Crafter :)

    I'm not a Master Crafter. Don't know if I ever will be. But I make a lot of gold every day, just doing basic crafting writs on 19 girls. FAR better return on time investment than anything else (for me).

    Yeah, I guess if we're including daily writs, then crafting makes money. Though I don't really count that, since you're doing a quest, not crafting something and then selling it. Also, you can make great money even without spending a single point into any of the crafting passives, since gold and surveys are tied to character level, not item level.

    its actualy better to do at rank 1 IMO, if your main goal is gold and you don't care as much for master writs. why? zero farming required. ever since they changed the requirements to be more in line with max level crafting - you use about half the mats that you get back from writ turn ins, so at rank 1 - you only get rank 1 mats every time, instead of random mats 1 or more ranks bellow your actual crafting rank. which makes them 100% self sustaining with exception of enchanting.
    dirty worthless casual.
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  • ZonasArch
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    Linaleah wrote: »
    Sylvermynx wrote: »
    freespirit wrote: »
    So, yeah, if you're new to the game and just playing through the story: crafting isn't particularly useful. From mid- to end-game, though, crafting is not only useful, but essential. Several of the absolute best sets out there are crafted, and food, potions, poisons, and crafted glyphs are all going to be significantly superior to found stuff. You mentioned just using glyphs you find, and that's cool... but you're not going to find gold glyphs, and you'll find purple glyphs only very, very rarely as part of quests.

    Also, to another point: you suggested that crafting might be useful for making money. To be perfectly honest, outside of a few narrow exceptions, it's actually really not. Deconstructing and refining stuff, sure, that's profitable. But crafting? Not really.

    Source: Also a master crafter.

    I beg to differ...….

    Crafting is my main gold source...…

    Also Grand Master Crafter :)

    I'm not a Master Crafter. Don't know if I ever will be. But I make a lot of gold every day, just doing basic crafting writs on 19 girls. FAR better return on time investment than anything else (for me).

    Yeah, I guess if we're including daily writs, then crafting makes money. Though I don't really count that, since you're doing a quest, not crafting something and then selling it. Also, you can make great money even without spending a single point into any of the crafting passives, since gold and surveys are tied to character level, not item level.

    its actualy better to do at rank 1 IMO, if your main goal is gold and you don't care as much for master writs. why? zero farming required. ever since they changed the requirements to be more in line with max level crafting - you use about half the mats that you get back from writ turn ins, so at rank 1 - you only get rank 1 mats every time, instead of random mats 1 or more ranks bellow your actual crafting rank. which makes them 100% self sustaining with exception of enchanting.

    Basically free money. With the proper add-ons, of you're on PC, you'll need maybe 2 or 3 minutes to get everything done, loot the containers, sorry through them and seek the stuff. If you have a few alts, seu é or 4, your biggest problem will be having enough trader slots.
  • Peekachu99
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    90% of crafted sets are rubbish and need a major balance pass to keep them current and competitive with newer sets. Especially the 9 trait ones.
  • ZonasArch
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    Peekachu99 wrote: »
    90% of crafted sets are rubbish and need a major balance pass to keep them current and competitive with newer sets. Especially the 9 trait ones.

    The 6 traits are the good ones for the most part. Hunding's, gaze, julianos, shacklebreaker. All 6 traits. And when TBS came out, it was awesome. Keyword was.
  • Watchdog
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    freespirit wrote: »
    If you level crafting on multiple characters and do the daily writs every day that on it's own adds up to a fair amount of gold...

    Actually, there is zero difference in the gold rewards between trained and untrained crafter. The gold amount depends solely on the character level/CP. The only difference is the items you get - level of the drops depends 50% on your character level and 50% on your crafting skilllevel.
    freespirit wrote: »
    Also you can get surveys and master writs on several characters!

    Yes, that is what I do, collect surveys from all my characters and collect them on my main crafter, as he is level 50 CP over 160, and he is fully trained in all crafting skills.

    Master writs drop rate is a thing that does depend on your crafting training, motifs known etc.
    freespirit wrote: »
    Having several crafters doing dailies means you will get plenty of "intricate" items making levelling easy on lower characters :)

    Yes, that is also a good point. Those items help a lot, especially the higher item level ones passed to lower crafting skill level characters, as they give more Inspiration (crafting XP) when deconstructed.
    Member of Alith Legion: https://www.alithlegion.com
  • Iluvrien
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    Is it just me, or is crafting basically worthless? Aside from making some money, it doesn't appear that you're ever going to be able to craft any item that is better than the items you find in the game. Early on food and potions might be helpful, but I feel like I've basically wasted the skill points on them. Am I maybe missing something?

    Crafting used to be better. Crafted sets used to have a level bonus so a green crafted piece would be better than a dropped green piece, etc.

    Then endgame players complained that there was no reason to run content so it got nerfed... sorry, "brought into line" I think the statement in the patch notes was.

    The things that now make it worthwhile (writs, furniture, jewelry) were all brought in later to take the edge of the initial problem of degraded utility.
  • eso_lags
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    Crafting is very useful and worth doing unless you really dont care. But crafting sets, and 99% of the provisioning recipes, are not worth it anymore. Its not even that its not worth it, i suppose. Its just that its not needed anymore. You can transmute stuff now, most of the crafted sets are irrelevant (*most, not all), and like i said 99% of provisioning recipes are worthless except for tri stat cp 160 and special recipes.

    But I guess its personal preference. I personally think its always good to get into crafting in mmos, and eso is pretty easy. I guess the point is that if you are trying to be a crafter for profit, its not as needed as it used to be.. But that doesnt mean it still cant make you gold.
  • Aluneth
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    ESO has one of the best, if not the best crafting system, of any MMO I've played. If you want to look at a crafting system that is worthless, then look at WoW. People have already explained why it's very useful, but I would also like to mention training gear.
  • olsborg
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    Sadly, crafting makes equipment subpar to dropped sets.

    PC EU
    PvP only
  • MartiniDaniels
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    Peekachu99 wrote: »
    90% of crafted sets are rubbish and need a major balance pass to keep them current and competitive with newer sets. Especially the 9 trait ones.

    You forget that also 90% of overland, dungeon, monster, pvp and even trial sets are rubbish which nobody use :D
  • Bam_Bam
    Bam_Bam
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    Julianos, Hundings, Shackle Breaker, Twice Born Star are nothing to sneeze at.

    Or Seducer, Night Gaze, Kagrenac's Hope, Torug's Pact, Hist Bark, Alessia's Bulwark, Fortified Brass, Sload's Semblance, Mechanical Acuity, Willow's Path, Orgnum's Scales etc etc
    Joined January 2014
    PC EU - PvE & BGs & PvP (Vivec)
    Grand Master Crafter

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  • MartiniDaniels
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    Well, if not for writ system crafting will be of small use other then potions, food and upgrading equipment. But writs, surveys, master writs and vouchers all that create endless cycle of gold and resource flow. It is actually blood of the game and game's economics.
    Crafted sets are not BiS of course but with them you still can complete content required for BiS gear and so avoid dungeon grinding.
  • Ananoriel
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    Crafting isn't useless at all, foods and potions are needed and saves a lot of money making it yourself. There are also a few very powerful crafted sets that you can make and upgrading them is good as well.

    Last but not least: you can make a decent amount of money by doing writs.
  • bearbelly
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    Furnishings, honestly couldn't care less, lol, same for motifs, and can't be bothered with writs.

    Why bother asking what it is that you are missing if you don't have any interest in many aspects of Crafting?
    Of course you're missing something if you simply aren't interested.

    So if you're not interested, why do you need to know what you're missing?

  • zaria
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    Lets see
    1) multiple sets that are good or great end game
    2) ability to upgrade gear.
    3) Even if you are going for trial sets , crafted is great for a starter set.
    4) If you are not running blue( at least) food ASAP, youre playing wrong.
    5) Jewelry crafting to upgrade set jewels
    6) enchants...yeah you need those.
    7) Alchemy- you can create far better pots and poisons than you can ever by.

    If you dont have a crafter, you are actually making your life much harder than necessary.
    This, also trait changes on gear and that you has to upgrade dungon and trial sets yourself.
    Its much easier to get blue gear from normal dlc or trials and upgrade.
    Grinding just make you go in circles.
    Asking ZoS for nerfs is as stupid as asking for close air support from the death star.
  • MattT1988
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    Crafting is anything but useless in this game.
    1. Crafted potions are much better then dropped potions for harder content and PVP.
    2. Transmutation takes out a massive amount of frustration and grind of the game. You’ll eventually regret not researching traits early on.
    3. Crafted enchants are far far far better then anything you’ll pick up. It’s not even close.
    4. Although most of the best sets are not crafted. Hundrings, Night Mothers Gaze, Julianos, Seducer, Shacklebreaker, Fortified Brass all can have a place in end game PVE and PVP.
    5. Crafted food: see crafted enchants.

    I give out one piece of advice to any new ESO player. Even if your not sure if you want to craft or not. Start......researching........traits on one character. You’ll regret it later on if you don’t.
  • OrdoHermetica
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    freespirit wrote: »
    freespirit wrote: »
    So, yeah, if you're new to the game and just playing through the story: crafting isn't particularly useful. From mid- to end-game, though, crafting is not only useful, but essential. Several of the absolute best sets out there are crafted, and food, potions, poisons, and crafted glyphs are all going to be significantly superior to found stuff. You mentioned just using glyphs you find, and that's cool... but you're not going to find gold glyphs, and you'll find purple glyphs only very, very rarely as part of quests.

    Also, to another point: you suggested that crafting might be useful for making money. To be perfectly honest, outside of a few narrow exceptions, it's actually really not. Deconstructing and refining stuff, sure, that's profitable. But crafting? Not really.

    Source: Also a master crafter.

    I beg to differ...….

    Crafting is my main gold source...…

    Also Grand Master Crafter :)

    I did say "outside of a few narrow exceptions." That would be you and others like you who actually put in the time to make it pay off - people who learn the intricacies of the furniture market, for example. For most people, though, that's not really how to make money.

    If you level crafting on multiple characters and do the daily writs every day that on it's own adds up to a fair amount of gold...…

    Also you can get surveys and master writs on several characters!

    Having several crafters doing dailies means you will get plenty of "intricate" items making levelling easy on lower characters :)

    Yeah, as I said in a reply to someone else, I don't really personally count that as crafting. You're questing at that point, not creating something and selling it, and literally anyone can do it and get pretty good money without a single point put into crafting skills, given that gold and surveys are based on character level rather than crafting skill.

    But that's my take. I guess you could consider it crafting... but for me, making money from crafting = crafting stuff to sell.
  • OrdoHermetica
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    Linaleah wrote: »
    Sylvermynx wrote: »
    freespirit wrote: »
    So, yeah, if you're new to the game and just playing through the story: crafting isn't particularly useful. From mid- to end-game, though, crafting is not only useful, but essential. Several of the absolute best sets out there are crafted, and food, potions, poisons, and crafted glyphs are all going to be significantly superior to found stuff. You mentioned just using glyphs you find, and that's cool... but you're not going to find gold glyphs, and you'll find purple glyphs only very, very rarely as part of quests.

    Also, to another point: you suggested that crafting might be useful for making money. To be perfectly honest, outside of a few narrow exceptions, it's actually really not. Deconstructing and refining stuff, sure, that's profitable. But crafting? Not really.

    Source: Also a master crafter.

    I beg to differ...….

    Crafting is my main gold source...…

    Also Grand Master Crafter :)

    I'm not a Master Crafter. Don't know if I ever will be. But I make a lot of gold every day, just doing basic crafting writs on 19 girls. FAR better return on time investment than anything else (for me).

    Yeah, I guess if we're including daily writs, then crafting makes money. Though I don't really count that, since you're doing a quest, not crafting something and then selling it. Also, you can make great money even without spending a single point into any of the crafting passives, since gold and surveys are tied to character level, not item level.

    its actualy better to do at rank 1 IMO, if your main goal is gold and you don't care as much for master writs. why? zero farming required. ever since they changed the requirements to be more in line with max level crafting - you use about half the mats that you get back from writ turn ins, so at rank 1 - you only get rank 1 mats every time, instead of random mats 1 or more ranks bellow your actual crafting rank. which makes them 100% self sustaining with exception of enchanting.

    I largely agree with you, and most of my characters have no points into it (except extra servings/potions for the sake of saving mats) for that reason. I do have a couple toons with heavy crafting investments, simply because I run a guild and constantly need more writ vouchers for attunable crafting stations and the like, but yeah. Otherwise, totally agree post-mat requirement change.
    Edited by OrdoHermetica on January 20, 2019 11:21AM
  • Peekachu99
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    Peekachu99 wrote: »
    90% of crafted sets are rubbish and need a major balance pass to keep them current and competitive with newer sets. Especially the 9 trait ones.

    You forget that also 90% of overland, dungeon, monster, pvp and even trial sets are rubbish which nobody use :D

    You’re quite right. The itemization in this game is horrendous and getting progressively worse. We need a full scale rebalancing on the scale of One Tamriel. The fact that Grave Stake, Daedric Trickery and that other one that grants major evasion on dismount even EXIST is probably one of the reasons why Wrobel and anyone associated with those abominations moved on/ was moved on.

    I don’t know how ideas like that even make it off the drafting table. They’re literally sets no one wears, ever.
  • phileunderx2
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    I have 1 grandmaster crafter. The rest of my characters do level 1 equipment writs only. Level 1 writs are self sustaining and I never have to farm level 1 mats ever. My level 1's surveys are passed on to my master to collect. Thus reducing my farming significantly. Crafting is well worth the effort in my opinion.
  • Tandor
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    notyuu wrote: »
    things crafting is good for

    1: master writs [furnishings, motifs and so on can be earned with these and then resold for a chunk of gold]
    2: food is useful throughout the entire game, not just early game [crafted food >>>> found/brought food]
    3: crafted sets, while not bis are actually pretty good [with a few obvious exceptions]
    4: transmutation, so you can make good gear even better with the right traits
    5: potions are very powerful tools, the bis ones are in fact, crafted
    6: poisons, ideal for imploding people in pvp via annoyance
    7: Enchantments, simply put, if you don't enchant your gear..then what are you doing?
    9: furnishings..for your house..unless you want to live in a bucket
    10: motifs
    11: cheaper quality upgrading of any items you find/craft

    any questions?

    All good points in my view.

    Plus, of course, the fact that crafting is an aspect of the gameplay that can be enjoyable to many players, especially those who prefer not to miss out on most of the things a game offers in order to rush to the point where they can loudly complain that there's nothing to do.
  • jainiadral
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    If it weren't for crafting, I wouldn't have half of my gold. I'd be gearless and unhappy on my max-level toons. I'd be spending gold daily on food, instead of having a giant stockpile that I made from items I've gotten as writ rewards. This game has the most useful crafting of any MMO I've played.
  • karekiz
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    Hundings/julianos are rec's even by alcast
    Turog's is a perfectly fine tank set
    Kragnecs is a godly set.
  • Juju_beans
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    I love the crafting in ESO...both gear/furnishings/food.
    It provides a good solid alternative for those that don't do trials and don't want to chase dungeon sets.
  • Androconium
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    I craft foods and furniture to sell.
    Other crafters give those items away.

    Then my guilds ask for donations.
    Maybe the answer is in there, maybe not.
  • iiYuki
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    -Some of the top sets are crafted sets Jullianos, shacklebreaker, armour master, Sload’s, Fortified Brass to name a few.
    -Crafter's can turn Green and blue gear to purple and gold gear quicker and cheaper than farming manually for it.
    -Crafted food and potions are essential to play at your best.
    -Deconstruction gives you materials you can sell or refine with a chance of gold tempers, mastic or wax.
    -Daily crafting writs give decent rewards.
    -Cheaper way of levelling alts or testing sets, make your own gear rather than having people charge you stupid prices for 5 minutes of work.
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  • Shantu
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    I make a lot of use of crafting gear, potions, consumables, transmuting, improving, etc. The only one I find basically worthless is jewelry. :/
  • FilteredRiddle
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    My main is a Master Crafter (every crafting line maxed, every trait researched, every motif known, every food/drink recipe learned, etc) and I find it to be extremely useful.

    1 End game PVE requires food and potions. I can make 4x of each with 1 set of mats and I have the passives to extend their duration.

    2. High level PVP often uses poisons and always used potions. I can make 16x (and again, 4x) of each with 1 set of mats.

    3. I can make all of my own enchants, always in a minimum of purple.

    4. I can upgrade the quality of my gear for as cheap as possible.

    5. I can transmute any piece of gear to any trait.

    6. For my 14 alts, I’ve often been able to run them in Julianos or Hunding’s + one drop set in the beginning.

    7. There are other great crafted sets for PVP, and basic sets for PVE.

    8. I can make equipment for guild mates.
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  • Valykc
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    I'm going to disagree just for the sheer amount of times I've crafted Shacklebreaker lol
This discussion has been closed.