Crafting choice

Jastl

Not sure I can word this right. I started a couple characters to see which I would like the most (Dragonknight and Sorcerer) and they are just hoarding every material they can find so I no longer have bank room or alt inventory room (expanded them too). Its mostly because I can't decide which crafting areas to go into. It appears that there are a lot of armor and weapon kill drops -- does this mean that I shouldn't bother with crafting those? Enchantments seem good but many of those drops also are enchanted - just have to wait long enough to get the right one. Does this mean I should just concentrate on Provisioning and Alchemy and just hope on good drops for everything else?

Shimond

Well the real benefit to armor/weapon crafting aside from the cosmetic aspect is the ability to craft set items (which to my knowledge do not drop, at least not the crafted sets). That and getting specific traits on specific items, or specific enchants. Not to mention being able to improve gear from white to green to blue, etc. All that stuff requires crafting.

Jastl

I've had lots of green drops -- never blue so not sure if they drop at al...

Madae

Blacksmith is also really easy to level, considering you get a lot of weapon and heavy armor drops. It does appear to be that the best items will be crafted, but then again, we haven't seen legendary drops either.

From what I've seen, Provisioning, Alchemy and Enchanting are probably the hardest to level. The others deal with a lot of items that are prevalent and easily farmed. I also find provisioning boring, basically making you a barrel diver everywhere you go.

And it's hard to say which makes more money from a purely mercantile standpoint. Right now you can easily make money just by selling the stuff you find. In the long term, I would say provisioning and alchemy would be the best since some, or most, of it is perishable, and are basically good buffs, which could be important later when PvP is far more competitive.

Shimond

Provisioning is probably the easiest to level, just needs to be renamed "thief" cause that's what you are. Very time consuming, though I guess harvesting in general tends to be I just don't really notice it that much with the ore/wood/runes since I'm "adventuring" there. Nobody "adventures" in people's bedrooms...well at least not in THIS game.

Seraseth

Provisioning is extremely easy to level. I have 35 provisioning on my level 15 sorc simply by looting every crate/barrel/sack I come across and cooking it all. Selling the food to vendor isn't huge money, but it's quick and easy.

Madae

I suppose I underestimated what you get from barrels.

Beryl

I am trying to level all 6 professions now. My character level now is 22.

Provisioning is by far the easiest. I reached lvl35 and it still takes only a few lvl25 items to get the next level. I did not invest any money or effort in this profession, just loot every barrel and crate on my way and make some food when I see a campfire. I heard reports of people reaching lvl50 in provisioning already some days ago.

Enchanting is the worst, you can find a number of topics on this forum with people complaining about how slow it is. I do have lvl12 in Enchanting now, but latest several levels came from the bookshelves. Runes are tough to collect, especially the aspect ones. For now I decided to abandon this profession till it is adjusted. Or till I get hoards of runes. I keep them all on my alt.

Alchemy is also easy to level. I only use it to make magicka and health potions of the best water available to me. And it is rank 25 already, I could easily get it higher but I do not want to waste the plants yet.

Blacksmithing, Clothing and Woodworking are all pretty similar. Of those Woodworking is the easiest to level because you get the highest crafting XP profit from every deconstructed item. Blacksmithing is the slowest, but there are more items to deconstruct and it works out good enough. I am lvl13 in all 3 professions and I break all items which I find. Most of what I wear is crafted on those crafting set stations which Shimond mentioned. It also seems that the items I craft are better than the quest rewards and drops. For example, I made a lvl18 green quality staff and it had a noticeably higher damage than lvl19 blue quality staff I got from a quest. It also feels cheaper to craft new armour instead of repairing the old one, and you will not always have the proper item in the loot. I could not find any light armour for the head and shoulder slots for two days levels. That's how my luck works.

Drawback of the last three professions: all the gear loot can be vendored for gold. If you choose my way of deconstructing everything, you will struggle with money for a while. It gets better over time.

Hope at least some of this information helps you to choose what you want to do.