At what point does it make sense to craft your own gear?

beanasaurus

It seems like as long as I'm just playing the game, I'm constantly leveling and constantly being given a tidal wave of blue and purple gear, all of which keeps getting stronger because the gear is my current level and I level so frequently (currently CP 150). This being the case, I have yet to reach a point where it feels like it wouldn't be a waste of both time and resources to actually craft some ideal gear, as even if it was perfect and tailored to my exact preferences, it would be out-dated and replaced after a few dozen dailies. Which has me guessing that there's not really a point to crafting until I get to whatever the maximum gear level is.

But I'm new and there's a lot I don't know, so I'd like to hear the thoughts of some folks who are more experienced with the game. Thanks for the assist!

Markytous

beanasaurus wrote: »

It seems like as long as I'm just playing the game, I'm constantly leveling and constantly being given a tidal wave of blue and purple gear, all of which keeps getting stronger because the gear is my current level and I level so frequently (currently CP 150). This being the case, I have yet to reach a point where it feels like it wouldn't be a waste of both time and resources to actually craft some ideal gear, as even if it was perfect and tailored to my exact preferences, it would be out-dated and replaced after a few dozen dailies. Which has me guessing that there's not really a point to crafting until I get to whatever the maximum gear level is.

But I'm new and there's a lot I don't know, so I'd like to hear the thoughts of some folks who are more experienced with the game. Thanks for the assist!

Sets that drop in the world rarely come in all three armor classes (Light, Medium, Heavy). Crafted Sets have potential to be some very powerful contenders in the game for your builds! They have the added benefit of being any armor class that you desire which allows you to craft a mixed set of armor of the same set. Say you wanted to get the most out of your Undaunted Mettle passive, wearing a piece of each armor class. You can craft a heavy chest, light belt and medium gloves to have all three armor classes, for example! Of course, thats not how you would build it in a real build however its just an example as to why Crafted Sets are a joy to work with in the game.

DenverRalphy

Crafting your own gear on your first/main toon is almost never worth it. Mainly because you level up much more quickly than you rank up your crafting skills. Especially with researching traits requiring so much time.

Crafting gear for self sufficiency while leveling is really only useful for equipping alts.

mague

beanasaurus wrote: »

Which has me guessing that there's not really a point to crafting until I get to whatever the maximum gear level is.

You didnt metion what kind of armor you craft. Plain armor is only useful to upgrade every 15 levels or so. 3pieces sets like Orders Wrath are good and you can update it every 5-10 levels. Depending on you playstyle. Questing, PvP or dungeons ?! Your weakspot is between 45 and 50. There the beginner buff vanishes and build/armor starts to matter.

Soarora

Once you hit CP 160, you’ll stop outgrowing gear as that’s the maximum level of gear. At this point you can work on putting a build together. For additional characters, you can craft “training gear” (training trait, I use the crafted set Heartland Conquerer) for a handful of levels (like lvl 1, lvl 20, lvl 40) to help them level to 50 faster (CP level is account wide and so additional characters will snap to your CP level once they hit level 50).

beanasaurus

mague wrote: »

beanasaurus wrote: »

Which has me guessing that there's not really a point to crafting until I get to whatever the maximum gear level is.

You didnt metion what kind of armor you craft. Plain armor is only useful to upgrade every 15 levels or so. 3pieces sets like Orders Wrath are good and you can update it every 5-10 levels. Depending on you playstyle. Questing, PvP or dungeons ?! Your weakspot is between 45 and 50. There the beginner buff vanishes and build/armor starts to matter.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "kind" or "plain" as I haven't seen those terms used in the research I've done so far, but I'll try to answer as best I can. My Tailoring is 50 and my Blacksmithing and Carpentry are close behind it somewhere in the 40+ range. I've leveled Light, Heavy, and Medium armor skill lines all to 50, and currently tend to prefer Light as a Magicka PvE character. For the entirety of my time with the game so far I've done quests, dailies, and dungeons, and from the loot I earn with those I'm almost always equipped with a mix of set bonuses that boost stats I use. As far as what I actually craft...I don't so far, for the reasons outlined in my previous post. But I'm looking forward to either reaching the point where crafting my own gear seems worth the investment, or discovering that missing piece of knowledge that will provide me with a new perspective on the matter.

spartaxoxo

CP160+ is the maximum gear level. And once you hit it on one character, all other characters will start at that same level once they also reach CP level.

You can then craft your own gear if you want. A lot of the better gear comes from group content but there are some good crafted sets. I would still craft it though to get some gear that will group content feel worth doing, if that's your thing.

You can also get a guild mate to craft one for you as the amount of traits you know on a piece also determines which sets you can make. At your level, you probably can't craft much.

beanasaurus

Soarora wrote: »

Once you hit CP 160, you’ll stop outgrowing gear as that’s the maximum level of gear. At this point you can work on putting a build together.

Oh that's wonderful to know! How exciting to realize that I'm nearing the point where I can invest in gear without it feeling like I'll have to throw it out in a day or two.

DoofusMax

Let's differentiate on this. Crafting is a major activity for me, but it's almost completely dailies and Master Writs. Personal-use crafting is a very small part of what I do, but all of my characters ran crafted set gear until I had a good enough stock of transmute crystals (and a reasonably full stickerbook) to make non-craftable sets a major component of my character builds.

The glorious part of craftable sets is that you don't have to farm them. It doesn't get any better than make the piece you want at the level you want in the trait you want at the quality you want. You don't have to offer prayers to the RNG gods and you don't have to beat the same bosses over and over and over (and over) to get a particular piece. Are craftable sets the best sets in the game? Hardly. If they were, there would be no reason to be doing dungeons or trials or arenas or whatever. But craftable sets can be decently good and you always get exactly what you want. Style is mostly irrelevant; costumes cover a multitude of fashion disasters and outfit stations can cover the rest.

My first character pretty much ran with whatever dropped while they did the trait research. Second and later characters got crafted set gear. This usually happened at Level 16 (a cheap materials transition point), somewhere between the mid-30s and mid-40s (tide you over until I can make you permanent gear), and CP160. Early sets were blue quality since that gear was either going to be deconned or used for trait research. Mid-level gear was usually purple because the slog from 40 to 50 is about as long as the slog from 1 to 40 and it needed to hold for a while. CP160 gear was usually gold (purple if I was running low on gold mats and I'd upgrade it later). Only the first character needed to endure the hump from CP10 to C160; everyone else jumped to CP160+ when they hit Level 50.

Sluggy

There's another option that I'm surprised nobody has mentioned yet. Trainer Gear. Have someone craft you a full set of trainer gear at level 16 and ride that all the way to level 50. At that point your gear will be badly outdated so you can consider getting a new set for something like CP10 or you can just try to ride on through to CP160 at which point you can look for real gear that you will actually use for dungeons/pvp/what have you.

Most any decent guild will have someone willing to craft some trainer gear for you for free. If you want you could even get a few sets for something like level 16, 26, and 36. Id' suggest that you even keep these sets so that later you can use them to help level another character. Finally, one thing I often do is craft all the equipment but weapons for myself. That way I can just use whatever the next strongest weapon I find along the way while still having several full bonuses all with the training trait for faster XP gains. It means I don't get the training bonus on the weapon (unless I get lucky with a drop) but it's usually easier and faster to have more damage anyway.

katanagirl1

Once you hit cp160 you can start checking out builds online. Depending on what type of content you participate in, crafted gear might be perfectly fine. Also, the stickerbook, the part of your Collections where it shows Sets, will allow you to recreate dropped gear you have already sold or deconstructed at any level (except monster helms from group dungeons which are always cp160) by using transmute stones from various sources like random daily dungeons or PvP. So, there are many options that use crafting to some degree.

There are crafted sets that have been good to use in the past like Druid’s Braid, Night Mother’s Gaze, Hunding’s Rage, Julianos, etc. The list of best sets is always changing as the game changes from one update to the next.