Crafting specializations per character

GreenGhostMan · March 2016

I just recently got into the game and am really enjoying it. I dabbled in WoW a few years back, but it didn't hold me like ESO is now. I only have one character that I play a lot right now, but I plan to start more characters and level them up to 50 (in anticipation for DB patch).

I am wondering how people manage multiple characters with regards to crafting. I'd like to cover all the crafting trees with at least one character.
Do you split up the crafting specializations between different characters?
Do you have blacksmithing, clothing and woodworking on the same character, so you get the most coverage out of your rare motifs??
How does it all affect your skill point availability?

Any advice on crafting with multiple characters would be appreciated!! Thanks in advance!

lolo_01b16_ESO · March 2016

Hey, I personally do all my crafting on one character. This character has a bit over 250 skill points, which is enough for all importent crafting skills as well as a decent healing build. Additionally I have alchemy leveled on most of my characters as it is the only crfting profession that includes skills that provide an in combat advantage (potions last longer, so you can have 100% uptime for your buffs). Furthermore I leveled blacksmithing, clothing, woodworking and enchanting on some of my characters, to get max lvl hirelings and do max level crafting writs. But I don't do any other crafting than writs on these chars, so I haven't learned any motives or researched any traits.

In general I'd recommend to level blacksmithing, clothing and woodworking on the same char and alchemy on as many chars as possible. Wheather you do provisioning and enchanting on the same char or a different one doesn't matter much and is just a question of inventory management. (Everything on one char will block most of that chars inventory and your bank space, but the inventory of your other chars stays "clean")

GreenGhostMan · March 2016

@lolo_01b16_ESO

Awesome advice. I didn't really think of having a designated crafting character.

Ilsabet · March 2016

I have one character (my main, who is currently V5) do blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking, for simplification purposes as well as only needing one set of motifs. I do all of my trait research on her and put points into crafting perks like temper management and getting more materials from deconning and refining. That makes her useful as a dedicated material refiner and deconstructor, and I do all of my set crafting and gear upgrading with her.

My secondary character, who is currently level 12, does alchemy, provisioning, and enchanting. I figured that splitting up the crafts onto two relatively active characters would make it easier to get the necessary skill points while I was just questing and leveling them normally, without putting too much strain on any one character.

I have been doing some limited craft leveling on each character's "off skills" for later benefits, mostly related to craft node scaling in certain areas and the boosts to potion and food/drink consumption that lolo mentioned. When my equipment crafter hit level 50 in each craft, I started sending my intricate items to my second character to decon. Since they're vet-level items, she gets a big boost for each one. I've also had my consumables character make potions and food/drink for my main character to do tier one writs, which helps level that bit by bit without having to invest skill points (yet) or commit new recipes to another character. I figure that when I get ready to hit up Orsinium or other areas where craft nodes scale, I should be able to sneak some points into the off-crafts of my active character to get the maximum benefit from the scaled nodes as I adventure.

So far, with careful planning I haven't really had any issues with skill point allocation. Early on, especially with my main character, I did enough research to determine which skills I would want to unlock and which passives would be most useful, and only put enough points into craft lines to do what I needed to do with them. Even now, although my equipment skills are all at level 50, they each have only 6 points (getting boosted to 7 soon) in the main passive because that's the tier I need to be in to use the materials I'm gathering for writs and gear for my current level. It also helps me conserve skill points by adding them gradually as needed.

Your playing preferences will help determine what will work best for you. If you like the idea of leveling characters quickly or running around just getting skyshards and doing quests that grant skill points, you can probably build up a dedicated crafter who has more skill points than they need and be set pretty easily, and then park that character as your crafter and move on to characters you enjoy actively playing on more. If you're like me and take many months going through all the quests and PvE content in the game, you may need to be more conservative in how you plan out your course.

Pepper8Jack · March 2016

I advise leveling provisioning and alchemy on whatever characters you plan on doing serious content with to maximize the time your food/drinks and potions will be up.

In terms of the actual crafting though, if you're willing to invest a solid amount of time gathering the skill points, you can definitely get it all done on one character. I split up my crafting across 3 characters (wood and enchants on my sorc, provisioning and alchemy on my templar, and smithing and clothing on my dk) so that I wouldn't have to dedicate as many skill points per character and could still do content with them without getting so many skyshards. It does cost more for motifs but most of the rare ones come in chapters now anyways so I just give the relevant chapters to the appropriate crafter.

Worked well for me so far

Shunravi · March 2016

Because motifs are character bound, not account bound, try to have woodworking, blacksmithing, and clothier on one character.

Nestor · March 2016

I started out with my crafting spread across different characters. This was mostly due to inventory and skill points being scarce in the early days. However, now I have one crafter who has Mastered All Crafts (motifs, traits, passives and achievements). All my characters are Provisioners, most are Alchemists, 3 of them are Master Enchanters, one will soon be a Master Enchanter too.

No matter what, plan on having one character who will be your equipment crafter (because of Motifs). You can grind up Alchemy and Provisioning in a matter of 30 minutes so you can make any character a master of those two professions. Enchanting takes a long time to level, unless you have lots of gold to buy lots of mats. You can certainly spread equipment crafter out at first, but do make sure you do trait research on all 3 lines on your planned master equipment crafter.

And, finally, role some mule characters to store stuff on. These can be characters your going to plan on playing, or not as you will delete them later. Give the mules the first two bag upgrades (they are cheap) and buy them a horse and upgrade the bag space on the horses for the rest of the storage space.

GreenGhostMan · March 2016

@Ilsabet @Pepper8Jack @Shunravi @Nestor

Thanks guys!! I think I'm going to have one character for all crafting.

Aelthwyn · March 2016

Equipment:
In light of the expense and difficulty in getting rare motifs it is a good idea to have one character do blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking. Also there is a nice dark green dye you get for becoming certified in all 6 crafts on one character (though that doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be actively leveling all 6). The problem you’ll run into with doing all crafts on one character is that early on in the game you will probably not have enough skill points. Venturing into all your faction territories to collect every non-dungeon skyhard you can will help with this, as well as hunting skyshards in Cyrodil. You will probably need to do some actual leveling of this character (especially if you want to use the crafting stations unlocked by going through the Mage and Fighter’s Guild questlines) so you’ll need at least some points placed in actual skills and survivability passives. If you are already a fairly high level character, starting to do all three crafts will probably be less of a burden.

If you’re less concerned about getting the rare motifs or the cost involved, it can be useful research-timewise and for convenience of leveling to have two characters doing each craft. They can easily exchange crafted items with eachother to deconstruct for leveling up, and you’ll have more research slots at a time so you can get all traits completed faster. Personally I might suggest splitting it up like this:
Medium Armor + Blacksmithing Weapons — (clothing improvement points here)
Heavy Armor + Bows, Shields & Restoration Staves — (blacksmithing improvement points here)
Light Armor + Destruction Staves — (woodworking improvement points here)

Consumables:
Because of alchemy and provisioning useage passives, and the relative speed of leveling these two, it’s good to do them on all characters, but only worry about learning recipes and investing crafting-related points on one character - whether or not the same character doesn’t really matter except in relation to how many skill points you have to work with and where you want to keep the materials for those crafts. Personally I find that my main provisioner usually doesn’t have enough space to have mats for any other crafts on him, and barely has room for loot from a single dungeon run (with some space up-grades) but if you’re keeping food ingredients in the bank then that wouldn’t be an issue. The crafting writs for these two are less material-demanding than the equipment ones (and give you ingredients back as reward) so even just doing the low level ones will provide a little extra income for your characters and cut down how much you need to farm for these mats.

Personally I like to have my main Alchemist also doing Enchanting as the stations are usually located close to each other. Though inventory and skill-point-wise it might be best to do these on separate characters.

Smengy · March 2016

@GreenGhostMan I was just thinking about this today and you asked my question perfectly. Must be a psychic connection.

Just starting my 'toon and wondering...."Can I craft all specializations" and still pve/pvp.

Thanks
Smengy

GreenGhostMan · March 2016

@Aelthwyn

More good info.
My current main is about the only one I play on right now... He's a magicka Templar, but I'm not too thrilled with how the playstyle has turned out for DPS. I plan to start another stamina based character and make him my "playing character". Since I already used motifs/recipes and spent a lot of time on my magplar, I'm going to end up converting him to a crafting and healer character.