While it is nice to have a skilled crafter to make gear for a low level, it is not really needed. Once you reach the VR Ranks, crafting becomes much more important. By character level of 40 you can be a decent enough crafter to make some good gear (6 trait) if you want to.

So, here is what you do, as you can level crafting and learn traits and put just 6 skill points into each equipment line as the passives unlock (Extraction for better decons and the research passives so you can research more items).

1. Sell what mob loot you need to cover repairs, decon the rest. Decon is the quickest way to level Equipment Crafting. You can get all the way to 50 with no skill points, but the extraction and research passives help.
2. Start researching traits as soon as possible. Get two traits on every thing, then get 3 etc. You can make some powerful gear only knowing 2 or 3 traits and you can learn that in 2 to 3 weeks.
3. Use mob loot for gear to wear while leveling to 50. You will get plenty to keep you on level gear wise. In fact, you don't even need to repair anything, just replace it with mob loot.

good advice Nestor,

Study those traits,
As many as you can as doing it only when you are vr will take forever.

My suggestion create alts to hold stuff if you have to. I never really found provisioning or alchemy that useful because there is food and potions dropping everywhere. While the consumables that drop arent the best I just could not justify putting points in those skills when you get way more use out of the other crafts. If anything I will just do it on an alt but not my main. Also I would just deconstruct everything you find. No point in keeping it as most of the time the stats are crappy or it takes forever to complete the whole set when you could have just as easily crafted something better. Once you get to end game thats a different matter all together. As far as the researching traits goes, do the ones you want first and the sucky ones last even if you have to hold on to items in the bank to do it.

Actually, I highly recommend working on Provisioning as your first craft. It's by far the easiest one to level up, and you find provisioning mats everywhere, cheap.

As you level it up, it becomes your big early profit maker. Create all of your alts, level them up into the 6-10 range, and on each one get the Provisioning hireling. Every day, do a Provisioning writ on each one and craft ALL your provisioning mats on your main character, selling the results. (It's also a good idea to visit your riding trainer as part of this daily task...) As soon as you get high enough, put skill points in producing multiple food and drink items with each craft. Buy cheap green recipes from guild stores (no more than 50 coins each), and soon what you'll be doing is crafting all your mats with level 40+ recipes, making 4 items for each 2 mats and selling them for 4 or 5 each - so each material makes you 8-10 coins. Between the mats you get from writs and hirelings, you'll be pulling in 5k-10k a day just doing provisioning.

Your best means of leveling Blacksmithing, Clothing, Woodworking and Enchanting is to simply research anything with a researchable trait, sell Ornate items, and deconstruct *everything* else, saving the mats on your alts. Get Keen Eye for all of those and for Alchemy, and just collect mats for a while that way too, storing them on your alts. You make your money with Provisioning and questing, and use it for Bank slots and bags, then when you have enough space, you can start worrying about the other craft skills.

CodeXDragon wrote: »

question, I'm pretty much in the same situation as OP. level 5 or so, getting the hang of the game, and wondering about all this dang crafting and cooking loot with no bag space.

so I'm wondering: what about using trading guilds to sell all this loot? Do ppl do that in trading guilds?? I just don't know what to do with all these different ingredients

For sure, people sell provisioning items. I buy some ingredients from time to time. Even though you can make money from provisioning, at early levels, the ingredients put a lot of pressure on bag space. It is worthwhile to level provisioning due to the superior buffs, but they aren't really needed until vet levels. There are plenty of ways to earn gold that don't impinge bag space. If you want to gather ingredients and alchemy mats, save them on a mule, and level those two skills when you have more skill points and bag space.

hmm interesting, ok so how do i sell provisioning items? join a trading guild?

At the moment

Two words: Banker Alt.

Get your Banker a horse and get all the extra slot and make their bank large as possible. Then only keep 1 stack of all Racial and Trait items, which is easier now that they stack to 100. Keep all Purple and Gold crafting items on your banker.

I have an Enchanter / Blacksmith, a Woodworker / Clothier, a Provisioner and an Alchemist, all of whom have plenty of bank and bag space because... Banker alt!

Of course there is the inevitable full-bag-shuffle, where items get doled out to different alts and the banker based upon tradeskill.

Nothing is ever easy.