Advice for new players who wish to craft

linuxlady

reply with something that hasnt been said in the thread (if possible) that would be something you learned that you wish you knew about crafting before you took up crafting.


I'll start:


Don't start off with one main crafter. Develop two characters or toons for crafting

train them both to learn all the traits for wood and jewls. Then on one toon focus on metal weapons and on the other focus on metal armor. Again on the one toon focus on cloth armor and on the other focus on leather armor. That way between the two toons you'll get all 9 traits learned in the least amount of time.

And of course if you have the in game gold, buy and use research scrolls as often as possible...

Tandor

Take your time and level up your characters' crafting as they progress with their adventuring. There's no need to separate the crafting and adventuring between different characters (that used to be recommended when there weren't enough skill points to max both aspects, which is no longer the case). Play both aspects of the game for the enjoyment of the journey, far too many players go straight for the "endgame" and then complain endlessly about it. Crafting is a classic example of that, so take your time and just treat crafting as one aspect of a broad-based journey through the game.

Bucky_13

For your first character, decon everything. If you're leveling ledgerdemain as well, go to the Daggerfall docks and loot the armors, then launder those and decon them as they give solid progress once they're not tagged as stolen. For JC, dolmens are a great source of jewelry to decon. And start with daily writs asap.

faeeichenlaub

Research most applicable traits to your build first so you don't spend eternity waiting to be able to use a nirnhoned weapon for instance or want all divines gear. Not to mention you can't transmute an item, it if you don't know it.

And as tempting as it may be, save your gold tempers until you can use level 160 gear.

Put as many skill points into your crafting as you can. The ones that shorten resesearch time! Once researched all traits and level it you can repec and get them back as you will no longer need them, then put them into combat skills etc. There are more than enough skill points in game to master every craft and have your build options

Jim_Pipp

linuxlady wrote: »

reply with something that hasnt been said in the thread (if possible) that would be something you learned that you wish you knew about crafting before you took up crafting.


I'll start:


Don't start off with one main crafter. Develop two characters or toons for crafting

train them both to learn all the traits for wood and jewls. Then on one toon focus on metal weapons and on the other focus on metal armor. Again on the one toon focus on cloth armor and on the other focus on leather armor. That way between the two toons you'll get all 9 traits learned in the least amount of time.

And of course if you have the in game gold, buy and use research scrolls as often as possible...

[snip]


Tips
If you want to power through research on every character then have your main crafter make multiple low-level items ALL in the same style. Breton is my fav because it is the first style in the crafting menu and the stones are easy to buy. This makes it easy to see if you already have an item in your bank, so you don't make unnecessary duplicates.

For PC users the add-on 'trait buddy' compliments this as it is so easy to see who needs what.

Scrolls can advance research by a day, only use them when there is at least 1 day left on every bit of research. Arguably they are most efficient to use early in the research process - the total research time to learn 9 traits will be the same if you use x scrolls at the beginning, or x scrolls at the end, but using them earlier will mean your character has more traits fully researched earlier.

Finally, mastering research is a long process, so accept that it won't go perfectly, try and keep your research slots full, but you risk getting burned out if you try and take it too seriously.

[edited for baiting]

SydneyGrey

There's a dye you can unlock by learning all the traits on the same character, though (moonstone white).

Shantu

The biggest complaint I hear about crafting is that research takes too long. Yeah, it takes awhile, but if you plan on playing the game 3-6 months, that time is going to pass whether or not you have toons researching. Seems silly to avoid researching because it takes too long, then 6 months down the road you're still playing the game and complaining about the time.

Invest in as many characters as you want to level research at the same time. If you simply must do it in the least amount of time, purchase research scrolls. Relax. Go about playing the game. When 3-6 months pass by, you'll be glad you made the effort.

calexus1986

Researching 9 traits in everything takes a long time, so once you decide to get into crafting ALWAYS have your research slots full.
You can put points into speeding up research which also lets you research 3 items in clothing, blacksmithing and woodworking at the same time, this should be an early pickup.
You don't need every DLC to be able to craft in every set, you also don't need clockwork city DLC to transmute. Find a good crafting guild and you can access every crafting station from their guild hall. If you're on PC EU and need a crafting hall, get an addon to visit any player and anyone is welcome to use my hall with or without joining my guild

HertoginJanneke

My advice :

• Main crafter (9 traits, incl. Nirnhoned) = Imperial because that style (gold) is expensive, the other racial styles (blue) are almost as cheap as the air we breath. Saves you a lot of gold. But why not make all your alts a (8-trait) crafter, in the end, it saves you a lot of gear swapping between alts - bank - main crafter - bank - alts when you loot something you want to upgrade and retrait.
• If you also train alts, it is recomendable to split clothing in light armor and medium armor and to split blacksmithing in weapons and heavy armor (==> main crafter (Imperial) = Weapons + Medium + Woodworking (Shield, Bow + Frost staff), Alt 1 = Heavy + Light + Woodworking (Fire, Lightning + Restoration Staff) and when 8 or 9 traits swap. Other alts, whatever you like, but why learn medium armor on magicka based alt or light armor on a stamina based alt first ?)
• Jewelry is expensive. Healthy, Robust and Arcane are fairly easy an cheap to learn on alts, all the other ones are a bit harder get (depending on the content you play) and cost more
• Ask guildmates to craft lvl 1 stuff with trait X for you if you need it to research trait X.
• Check the description of the (passive) skills to see why you should (not) take it.
• Alchemy and Provisioning are essential for all your characters and if you have enough skillpoints and materials they are easy and fast to level (within 1 hour, maybe faster).
• If you have ESO+, deconstruct all intricates and all green, blue, purple and gold loot instead of selling it to the merchant. Deconstruction gives you crafting materials (incl. tempers). However, keep in mind that, some loot is better to be sold in guildstores or zonechat.
• Spend as much skillpoints in your crafting skills as you can. 1/3 in Keen Eye is enough. If you don't have ESO+, skip the hirelings or sell the things you get but don't need (and in the end you'll need everything). Or use an alt as "crafting bag"
• Do crafting writs daily. I like Vivec for that, but I know others prefer other locations to craft them. When logging in for daily writs, don't forget to pay to the stable a visit to feed your mount. After 6 months you have fully trained mounts.
• Spend your tempers wisely, especialy the purple and gold ones, and only if you have the skill that reduces the cost of tempering.For <cp160, green or blue gear is good enough.

Leveling my crafting skills has been a while ago for me (I have 1 9-trait main crafter, 15 8-trait alt crafters and 2 that are almost 8-trait alt crafters, the alts will not go for 9 traits, too expensive). On my 2nd account (also 18 characters) I tried to achieve the same, but on most alts I (temporarily) stopped around 5-7 traits.Some advice may look a bit weird, but for me it worked.

barney2525

disagree with the 2 crafter option. Go with 1, set a single bar for combat and just use what you can get by with to level up (gonna be a crafter after all, so why spend lots o gold changing skill points mutliple times ?)

Researching - DO - each tier evenly on each piece. Meaning, get all pieces up to 1 trait, then all up to 2, etc. Reason - Time: each tier takes more downtime to complete and there are some good PVE sets that can be crafted with only 2 or 3 traits. You want to be able to have access to sets asap. makes things much easier, especially since you are not focused on combat.

DON'T do one piece up to level 5 or 6 and leave the others well behind.

Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,Decon,

Check videos for fast leveling of things like alchemy and cooking. They work!

IMHO

joerginger

I would also recommend the approach @barney2525 wrote down above. I also tried to move research up steadily without leaving an item behind. But since in the later stages of my alt-ing I used to make four new characters at a time, this was a little bit important for me because it's convenient to have more than one character start research on a new item at roughly the same time.

SeaGtGruff

(1) Doing daily crafting writs on all your characters is a great way to make gold, but it can also take up a huge chunk of your daily playing time and can eventually become a tedious grind that burns you out. Don't be afraid to skip a day, or to limit the number of characters you do daily crafting writs on.

(2) If you research the Training trait first on each of your characters, you won't have to switch characters if someone asks you to craft them a basic (white, low-level) set of Training gear. This probably works better if you've already got a main crafter who can craft anything (see number 4).

(3) If you research the same trait on the same item on all characters, such as having everyone research Precise Inferno Staffs at the same time, it helps you keep track of which traits and items to research next, because if you check one character to see what they'll need to research next and how soon they'll be ready to start, then you won't have to check your other characters. This works best if you've already got a main crafter who can craft anything, because they can craft the next item to research, such as 17 Precise Ice Staffs, and deposit them in the bank so they'll be ready to start researching as you cycle through each of your other characters.

(4) If you don't already have a main crafter who knows everything, and are trying to research traits for the first time on multiple characters, consider splitting the traits up between different characters, such as having one character research Charged while another researches Infused, while another researches Reinforced, etc. That way you can more quickly learn every trait on every item, although you'll need to switch to a particular character if you want something crafted with a specific trait that only one character has researched. Also, you can more quickly learn 2 traits, then 3 traits, then 4 traits, etc., on every type of item, so you can start crafting set gear that requires knowing however many traits you've researched, although you might need to switch characters if you want something crafted with a specific trait in a specific set. And whichever character knows a given trait can craft gear for your other characters when they're ready to research that trait.

preevious

1) Don't worry about getting to 50. It's trivially easy to get there with the help of another crafter. It would take 1-2 hours top. Just do it when you feel like it .. just level quickly to the level when you get the last concurrent research passive.

2) The most important advice : NEVER, EVER go without learning a trait. And get to it yesterday. This is what takes ages.

3) use research scrolls .. those with cooldown are cheap and cut your research time in half.

4) learn 6 traits on everything. It's not that long, and you can craft very good sets already. Then, learn the rest.

5) Motifs are ..sadly not that important. Most players don't care, the rest use outfitting. Don't ruin yourself, unless you want to collect them all for the personnal achievement.

LannStone

Use the addon Lazy Writ Crafter - I was killing my hands doing daily writs on 8 characters manually before somebody told me the addon would do it all in one click at each crafting table - what a lifesaver!

geonsocal

don't forget you'll need a lot of extra skill points to both fight and craft, so, you may want to pick a large DLC zone like orsinium, morrowind and summerset to farm sky shards...

Elvenheart

I wanted just one crafter for everything. My crafter also likes to adventure in the wilds, so he needed a lot of skill points to be able to do both. I used the skill point finder addon, and found out that you can get a skill point in every public dungeon by doing that dungeon’s group challenge.

CaffeinatedMayhem

Get the addon CraftStore. It will save you tons of headache.

In general... once your first crafter is maxed with all traits, use intricates from their dailies to help level your next crafter. Once one crafter knows all the traits, it’s easy to make all the research items you need.

volkeswagon

whatever toon is the one you play with all the time and do the quests on should be your main crafter because you will have plenty of skill points to unlock all crafting skills plus and combat skills you need. That way you don't have to switch toons to craft nor do you have to wonder if you know a motif or blueprint on your crafter because you will most likely be on that toon at the time. It's just so much easier and conveniant that way. My main character is my Grandmaster crafter and I couldn't stand to have a dedicated crafter.

Hapexamendios

ESO plus if you're serious about it.
Loot everything,
Breakdown all your looted gear and glyphs.
Pick up all available plants and water.
Guild traders often have cheaper provisioning recipes for daily writs than in game merchants.

volkeswagon

See above

bmnoble

This is all just off the top of my head:

Don't neglect learning all the rune stone words and alchemy traits, maxing those maxes the chance that you will get master writs from enchanting and alchemy, they will drop as often as gold mats from max level equipment daily crafting writs.

You can then hoard them and do them all on one of your other characters to get a large amount of xp or you can sell them for good gold.

When doing your trait research focus on the ones you are most likely to transmute something to, even if its expensive get a load of potent Nirn early on and learn it early on, on your first character at the very least.

After you have the ones you want the most researched you can go at your own pace for the rest, I can't stress this enough you do not need to rush as fast as possible to become a nine trait crafter, you can have access to those sets you so badly want right now, just ask in your guild or in zone for a crafter to make the sets you want, you do not need to wait, just make sure you have all the mats you need for the sets.

You can also get crafters to make you most research items for free, expensive trait mats you need to provide though, such as Nirn and most of the jewelery traits, the rest costs next to nothing for the crafter to provide so most do it for free within guilds.

If you decide to do trait research on alts in the future is best to wait until you have them all researched on your main, that way you can make all the research items you need and its expensive to do and will send you broke if you try to do it all at once when starting out.

Decon everything your character picks up that they don't need or need anymore when leveling new characters before you even think about buying intricate gear, don't get me wrong the gear is cheap to buy but when your starting out you will have bugger all gold to work with so don't spend more than you need to, your going to need to level the character/s anyway your gonna pick a load of free stuff up make use of it first.(only thing you should be passing to your main instead of your alts is purple gear, better off deconing on a character with all the passives to get the materials if RNG favors you)


Do not be afraid to ask for help or even donations of gear, best time to ask is just before the daily writs reset, a lot of players will be there a few minutes early waiting for the quests to reset, if you catch their attention especially if your in a big guild(especially a trade guild) you will be surprised by the number of people who take note and about an hour or so later you could well end up with a lot of stuff in your mail.

Since a lot of these players myself included have reached the point where we don't need any of the intricate gear or glyphs or green recipes any more and just either vendor or decon it, since its small worth small change selling in guild stores and we would rather use are trader slots for something more valuable to sell instead and we don't have much space to hoard stuff we are not going to use or sell, so we will happily give it away.(jewelry intricates are the exception those are still worth something to sell compared to the rest)

Other than that crafting will take a long time to set up especially if you plan to make all your characters crafters so you can maximize the benefits of doing daily writs on multiple characters, if your on PC make sure to get lazy writ crafter it will save you a lot of time, if your on console you must have the patience of a saint or you will likely give up on any dreams of having 18 characters doing daily writs.

If you invest in crafting eventually you will reach a point where you are able to make more gold than you know what to do with, it is not a get rich quick scheme but it is a way to never have to farm mats/steal/farm gear/motifs ever again unless you feel like it but it will take a lot of time and gold to set it up at first.



Most important of all avoid housing completely until you feel you have more gold than you know what to do with and your 80% sure you have bought everything you need maxed out every crafter etc... because the moment you go down the rabbit hole that is crafting your destined to be short on gold all the time.

I think that is enough drivel from me some of is should help.

SilverBride

Decide if you are going to craft gear, furnishings or both.

I stopped crafting gear because research was a royal pain, and the gear is usually replaced by sets anyway. So now I save the headache and just do writs and craft furniture, which I find way more useful.

SeaGtGruff

preevious wrote: »

2) The most important advice : NEVER, EVER go without learning a trait. And get to it yesterday. This is what takes ages.

Although it's true that trait research is what takes a long time, I would argue that you don't need to stress out about missing a day at it, because in the early stages it takes a day or less to research a trait (6 hours, 12 hours, or 24 hours-- less with ESO+ and/or the passives that decrease research times), and in the later stages it takes so long to research a trait that skipping a day isn't going to make that much of a difference. But you should get started as soon as possible.

Also, once you've finished researching all of the traits in a given crafting skill line, you can respec your skills to recover any skill points that you'd invested in the passives that let you research more traits at once.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

18 toons and 6 years or so later, I still regret splitting up my crafters. Not the worst idea with transmute to get every trait researched as you suggest in the fastest way possible, but the real issue is motifs, furnishings, and recipes. It is unlikely you will want to duplicate your efforts on those fronts, so it does make sense to go all in with one character. My master crafter certainly knows all the provisioning recipes that I actually use, but all the obscure ones are on another toon and it drives me mad. Haha

Best advice for crafting is to always be leveling another crafter. Every item that can be deconstructed (assuming you dont want to use or sell) goes into your bank and is deconstructed by the next crafter in line. You dont need to necessarily research or anything like that, but you do want all crafting lines leveled on all of your characters so you can do max level writs.

Writs on multiple toons is the best way to make gold. As writs also drop items that boost crafting XP, they tend to snowball. It is way faster level your 12th crafter compared to your second or third. You also want to potentially consider the anniversary event. A lot of recipes and motifs drop from the boxes, and writs are the best way to get a lot of boxes. That is also a great time to buy up the motifs/recipes you are missing, because the market is a bit flooded.

JKorr

linuxlady wrote: »

reply with something that hasnt been said in the thread (if possible) that would be something you learned that you wish you knew about crafting before you took up crafting.


I'll start:


Don't start off with one main crafter. Develop two characters or toons for crafting

train them both to learn all the traits for wood and jewls. Then on one toon focus on metal weapons and on the other focus on metal armor. Again on the one toon focus on cloth armor and on the other focus on leather armor. That way between the two toons you'll get all 9 traits learned in the least amount of time.

And of course if you have the in game gold, buy and use research scrolls as often as possible...

I did split my crafting in the dark "before the crafting bag" times, and really regretted it.

If you split the crafting, you've just doubled the number of motifs you need. And recipes, depending on how you're doing provisioning. After master writs showed up, it became a real hassle to keep straight which crafter knew which motifs. [or which recipes] Hunting for a motif you already have on the other crafter can be an exercise in frustration, and a way to lose a lot of gold.

I did end up duplicating all the provisioning recipes on my smith/wood/clothing crafter. It was easier to duplicate the provisioning recipes than duplicating all of the motifs. Of course, if you are crafting only for yourself and not worrying about master writs, then your mileage may vary.

SeaGtGruff

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

but the real issue is motifs, furnishings, and recipes. It is unlikely you will want to duplicate your efforts on those fronts, so it does make sense to go all in with one character.

I put all of those in my bank, then I cycle through each character in a certain order to see who hasn't learned any of them yet-- that is, I've prioritized my characters as far as who gets 1st dibs, 2nd dibs, 3rd dibs, etc., on learning anything new.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Best advice for crafting is to always be leveling another crafter.

With respect to that advice, I think one of the best reasons to do that is so you can continue to acquire materials of different levels, because otherwise it's really easy to run out of them. Of course, the specific levels that will be most in demand for your own purposes will probably be Level 1 and Level CP160, but you can run out of the ones in between if you craft gear for other players and they happen to be at some intermediate level. I know you can always buy materials if you need to, but I like to use my own materials as much as possible because I'm a cheapskate that way!

CaffeinatedMayhem

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I put all of those in my bank, then I cycle through each character in a certain order to see who hasn't learned any of them yet-- that is, I've prioritized my characters as far as who gets 1st dibs, 2nd dibs, 3rd dibs, etc., on learning anything new.

Wrt motifs and furniture plans: I have only 1 crafter that knows them ALL, and my main crafter is also the only one that does Master writs.

All of my crafters know some motifs (Dwemer, Ra Gada, whatever else is cheap/I get at Jubilee), and some plans. But only 1 is complete. Much less expensive that way.

If I need the XP boost from doing Master Writs, I use Alchemy/Provisioning/Enchanting writs.

All crafters throw their writs in the bank (after deleting JC, nirn, prismatic) and main crafter pulls them once a week. Same with surveys - though my farmer does surveys every other day now, else it takes forever.