How much raw materials do you let stack up before refining?

CallmeFishmeal · January 18

I personally like to wait as long as I can, sometimes hitting the 10k-20k in one specific material before refining so I can see the large number of gold platings. Does anyone refine at the 10-100? What's the highest amount of raw materials you've had?

TaSheen · January 18

I wait for endeavors before refining. I have so much after years of playing it's never a problem. I have no idea what the most of something I had - it's not something that has any relevance for me.

Syldras · January 18

Mostly I refine at about 200 to 300, although I sometimes had about 1000-1500 when doing several surveys at once. If needed for a daily endeavor, I also refine smaller stacks.

I noticed that the number of gold plating seems to be rather random. I already refined about 500 once and didn't get a single one, and yesterday I got 7(!) from only about 150.

metheglyn · January 18

I used to refine everything after a play session, along with deconstructing and clearing my inventory. Then endeavors came along, so now I just leave everything unrefined until one of the refining endeavors shows up, but I don't pay attention to the numbers.

bmnoble · January 18

I just save it for the endeavours that ask you to refine X amount of stuff. Unless I need the refined mats or gold mats then I will just refine it once its crossed the 1K mark or the entire amount that has built up beyond that.

SilverBride · January 18

I deconstruct and refine and clear out my packs every day before logging off.

endgamesmug · January 18

I refined a mix of 1000 rubedo scraps and ancestor silk, rubedite and got 1 dreugh wax and 1 tempering alloy!😆rng is wild these days. Ive been a bit lazy lately with refining it all at once but i think ill be going back to the stack refining method.

DreamyLu · January 18

I refine only the minimum necessary to cover for daily writs. It's easy since the addon lazy crafter tells me when I need some.

Only exceptions: Pulverized auric amber and chromium grains. Every times I have enough, I craft one piece.

Sheridan · January 18

I refine everything every day in my house before going to sleep, regardless of the quantities.

Nightowl_74 · January 18

I have somewhere between three hundred to a few thousand of all the raw materials and just refine some when I'm running low or want to sell a few off, not on any particular schedule.

rpa · January 18

I refine everything whenever I get around doing it, no matter if 10 or 1000+. I guess I shoud try optimizing for the streaky RNG and refine bigger patches only when gold mats appear drop like rain but I have alredy useless pile of millions of gold in bank.

LannStone · January 18

Just whenever the notion hits me except for chromium grains - I always refine those at 10 - just because I like seeing another plating, which I always sell in fours

CrashTest · January 18

I try to do it at about 100-200 bc I've noticed I get more gold mats if I refine smaller stacks.

PurpleScroll · January 18

I usually end up waiting until they're around 1,000-2,000, then refine with the champion passive active to get the most materials out of it all.

biminirwb17_ESO · January 18

I do it when I can be bothered

fizl101 · January 18

I do it daily when I do my crafting writs (only do them on one character)

phairdon · January 18

At the moment I have 25k stacks of unrefined ancestor silk, ruby ash & rubedite ore.

KilianDermoth · January 18

I have an addon that automatically refines everything the time I open a crafting table. So I dont bother with that at all.

At least for the odds how much gold stuff you get it doesnt matter if you refine big or low amounts of mats (there are some old forum posts proving this). Even if people believe it would matter, but some people believe also in wearing lucky pants and other stuff...

Wolfshade · January 18

1000+

ApoAlaia · January 18

I refine when I start getting low on refined mats for daily writs so currently sitting on about 90k unrefined mats - except jewellery which usually is around 20% fewer.

I will probably reach 120k+ before I have to refine.

Danikat · January 18

I don't have ESO+ so most materials I pick up are sitting in my crafter's inventory or in the bank. I refine them when I get above 200 so I'm only keeping 1 stack of raw materials, but only refine enough to get it back below 200. On days when there's an endeavour I'll do more.

When I do have ESO+ I'll refine everything to dump it into the crafting bag, then start over when the sub runs out.

Taggund · January 18

No set amount. I just refine when run out, and then also restock by buying refined mats from the 2 trade guilds I'm in.

SpacemanSpiff1 · January 18

however much stacks before i need materials. when i do refine, i just do 1 big stack to keep me crafting.

Tandor · January 18

It depends, if I need more of a material then I refine it, if not then I tend to wait until the endeavours call for it.

LalMirchi · January 18

Like many posters here I wait for the refining endeavour to remind me.

SeaGtGruff · January 18

I've always refined as soon as I have 10 or more of anything, dating back to before I had ESO Plus and the number of inventory slots used up by raw versus refined materials was a major issue.

I've been told that it's better to wait, to keep everything in raw form, and to only refine the specific amount that you need for a given crafting job, because ZOS might decide to change the raw-to-refined conversion numbers or something like that, but for me "that way madness lies," as I don't want to start second-guessing everything and worrying about how much I actually got-- both now and in the past-- versus how much I potentially could have gotten. What if I could have sold something at a higher price? What if I'd waited until after some RNG cooldown period to open that container? What if I could have bought something for a much lower price if only I'd waited? What if, what if, what if? Unending madness, I say! Better to just stop fretting about possibilities and what-could-have-beens.

Obviously, I might have stacks of 20 or more, even 100 or more, after cycling through my characters to get the mail from their crafting assistants, or after running around farming or doing survey reports, etc. But I almost always refine everything as soon as I visit some crafting stations. The only time I'll deliberately avoid refining is if there's an endeavor for refining raw materials but I've decided I want to do 3 other endeavors instead, which-- I know, I know-- is another kind of madness, since what does it matter whether I do one endeavor versus another, or have a fourth or fifth endeavor partially done when I complete 3? And if seeing the list of endeavors had prompted me to do some activity that I haven't done in a while, then what's stopping me from doing it after I've already completed 3 of the other endeavors? But it just looks tidier seeing 3 completed endeavors and 2 that are at 0%.

Danikat · January 18

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I've been told that it's better to wait, to keep everything in raw form, and to only refine the specific amount that you need for a given crafting job, because ZOS might decide to change the raw-to-refined conversion numbers or something like that, but for me "that way madness lies," as I don't want to start second-guessing everything and worrying about how much I actually got-- both now and in the past-- versus how much I potentially could have gotten. What if I could have sold something at a higher price? What if I'd waited until after some RNG cooldown period to open that container? What if I could have bought something for a much lower price if only I'd waited? What if, what if, what if? Unending madness, I say! Better to just stop fretting about possibilities and what-could-have-beens.

I've not heard that particular theory, but I agree it's usually not a good idea to start thinking like that.

I've heard of people doing that in other games, holding onto stacks of items which are nearly worthless (sometimes going out of their way to farm even more of them) hoping that one day something will change and make them more valuable. Very occasionally it works but even then it can take literally years for the price to rise, more often they end up frustrated and discouraged because they've had all this stuff taking up space for years and it's never been worth selling. (A bit like people in the 90's "investing" in beanie babies.)

wolfie1.0. · January 18

I refine when I run out of gold tempers. Usually that leads me to refining 10k to 20k worth of mats.

Varana · January 18

I refine when I need materials for crafting or writs, or gold upgrades.
Until then, everything just sits in the craft bag, unrefined.
And when I get above a certain threshold of raw materials in the bag, I sell them on the trader.
I don't see why I would want to store refined mats, instead of raw ones.

Holycannoli · January 18

I don't think I've refined in many months. I probably have tens of thousands of each material stacked up by now.

jaws343 · January 18

Usually, I refine things every few weeks. But, since High Isle launch, I decided to not refine anything but jewelry mats for an entire year, just to see how much I collect by the next chapter launch. The only reason I am even refining jewelry mats is because I sell the chromium plates, the only crafting mat I generally bother selling.