wich professions do you really need?

lazytaco · March 2016

Hi,

I am rather new to the game and just dinged vet 1 with my first char, a high elf magicka sorcerer. I do mainly pve now but want to pvp later on.
I have alts to store all the mats for the different professions. I put points in provisioning but I now regret that a bit. Food is inexpensive and it I just dont think it is a good source of income. I have some points in keen eyes for alchemy and already a lot of alchemy mats stored. Just by deconstructing BS, clothing and woodworking are around level 29.
My question to experienced players is: If you are new to the game wich professions are the best to focus on in the beginning. Wich ones will benefit you most or provide a good source of income?

Duiwel · March 2016

How long are you planning on playing the sorc?

The 2 crafting professions you would need are clothing & woodworking ( light armour & staves )

You will want to research traits into both Inferno & restoration staff...

Start with precise, charged, if you can afford it nirnhoned. You want to do the important ones first ( something I did not do ) and I paid for it ( lucky for me in like 8 days I will be maxed out in Inferno, bows, already maxed out shields a long time ago....)

So I will give my sumamry for you below:

Tailoring ( because not only will this allow you to craft for all your magicka users but also if you research some traits later on you can craft medium armour for your stam chars as well ( such as NB's or Dps StamDK's )

Woodworking is mainly just for the staves....

IF you had said PvP I would say: Alchemy - the passive you get for potion duration increase is quite nice as well as Provisioning because of the Connoisseur passive.

Now certain Sorcs also dualwield swords for maximum Spellpower ( once again this is mostly a PvP thing for min-maxing ) but you might as well research the traits in blacksmithing.

As a rule of thumb you actually do not need to craft stuff with your ores if you just decon a ton of stuff you find ( every single piece of intricate gear you pick up ) about 3weeks - a month after you hit VR16 you will be maxed out in the craft without having spent a cent...

IF you do not have the pattience for this you can just craft the lowest lvl daggers for each ore mat in blacksmithing, craft the highest lvl potion you can ( the solvent ) until you can craft the next one ( the same rule applies to enchanting ) if you can craft with denata and rekuta even better ( do NOT use kuta's for leveling ( either save or sell these )).

Enchanting is handy but for a casual I would not recommend doing it, just decon the glyphs you find anyway and hoard the runes but have a friend with enchanting 50 do it for you.

Another pro tip : You do not need to have any crafting @ 50 reaching lvl 40 is good enough for now and you can do everything in said craft @ 40 as long as you have the passives for it.

AS for crafting via income... just do writs ( all of them ) if that is how you choose to gain income.

I personally do not find crafting to be lucrative and I just level it out on alts as a pass the time kind of thing, plus : "I've got this glyph now... might as well decon it!" (same with intricate for me)

It's even more worth while to just vendor all greens & blues won't sell to players because the improving mats are so worthless now ( which is good because thousands of max lvl players need gear and the high lvl stuff is expensive enough ) that there isn't really a point to decon every green or blue item.... ( UNLESS : you want to max out your crafting asap then decon everything you find ) Note blues and set pieces do give some decent inspiration.

I would go as far as saying with TG patch stealing is a much better way of gaining income OP.

Use crafting for what it's meant for, most ppl nowadays have crafting maxed on at least 1 char, they just don't have the motifs...

You will just be forever poor if you compete with the motif games OR...

You will be poor for a few weeks / months and then be filthy rich...

It depends on how hard you are willing to work.

I have a friend who bought Xyivkyn, Glass, the Alliance stuff, Trinimac ect. all when they came out in their own time... and he is sitting on a nice pile of gold because he saw the window of opportunity so do not take my opinion about crafting and motifs the wrong way it's totally possible. Just gotta do the right thing @ the right time.

Most ppl though just buy the motifs because they are sexy to craft

I mean look @ Covenant & Trinimac Shields...

Sharee · March 2016

lazytaco wrote: »

My question to experienced players is: If you are new to the game wich professions are the best to focus on in the beginning. Wich ones will benefit you most or provide a good source of income?

Crafting is not a good source of income, imo. You will do better just gathering sought-after materials and selling them directly instead of crafting something with them. For example gathering and selling a stack of Columbine can be quite profitable, since Columbine is part of several popular potion recipes.

For craft i would take clothing/enchanting so i could make my own armor, and provisioning for long term buffs. Later, all crafts eventually (and all on the same character once the skillpoints allow it, so it is possible collect all materials with one char in the leveled zones)

Dhukath · March 2016

Alchemy & Enchanting as both have options to allocate skill points to provide extensions to buffs from food/drink or potions eg increase the duration of effects such as health recovery.

Maybe put a point in each keeneye until you learn to spot resources without. You can level other crafts as you go by deconstructing=inspiration. Gear found from chests/rewards while leveling should see you through and with the resources you collect guildies will make you gear with more traits than you can learn until you've been playing for a while.

WillhelmBlack · March 2016

All of them, love the crafting in this game. You should definitely get provisioning and alchemy passives though.

WhiteTigre · March 2016

I went for

enchanting, woodwork blacksmith and tailoring, with my Sorc. I started doing research early on on the game because the research takes along time. Its used for creating specific traist of items such as seducer items or night silence, etc. it worked for me because now I can craft gear for any of my other toons. The Templar I have is provisioner and I a developing a mgicka Dk whose profession is a alchemy.

Mike0987 · March 2016

In the case of provisioning there are several things to sell through guild traders such as Orzagas Tripple Trifle recipe which anyone can get via doing a wrothgar quest. Since this uses columbine (alchemy reagent) I usually sell it in stacks of 10 for 4k. If you happen to use Ambrisia the conisure passive is what you want since it gives you 20 minutes more making it a total of 50 minutes grind time on one Ambrosia.

Sunburnt_Penguin · March 2016

Provisioning has actually been quite profitable for me. I sell batches of 4 blue V5, V10 & V15 foods for 600g, 750g & 900g. Given that only takes 3 common ingredients (of which I created an alt just for storing them because I have accumulated so many) it's a decent margin and better than selling the ingredients themselves.

I've no idea if this is the market rate as I always list - unless it's something rare - on a "how much would I be willing to pay?" basis. However, they usually all sell within a few days of listing and it's a good way to gradually build up your gold.

failkiwib16_ESO · March 2016

The below list may not only contain what you want to live off of, however earning gold through crafting alone in this game can be troublesome, so I listed more than just that.

Sales through guild trader:

Green to Blue improvement materials and potency runes sell best at low level areas and in small stacks of 10-50. And in veteran area traders they sell for close-to-vendor prices in stacks of 200.
Purple to gold improvement materials and potency runes sell best at veteran trading guilds, located in the more busy parts of the game, such as Belkarth in Craglorn or the capital cities where lots of veteran players go to pick up their pledges. They sell in all stack sizes, but usually the smaller amount the higher price, as the ones that have stacks of 200 keep their prices low to get rid of it - due to lack of inventory space.
Recipes of all levels sell good everywhere, specially rare lower tier recipes, because people often focus on questing and don't pick up much loot in lower level areas.
v15 Crafted food and drinks, the regular blues and purples don't sell for much, but xp-potions and the special Orzorga foods do sell for a lot.
Provisioning materials, but they sell best in stacks of 50 in traders located in low populated questing areas, and stacks of 200 in areas with many veterans around, such as Craglorn and the capital cities.
v15 potions sell for a lot, however you have to take flower prices into consideration. Some potions are sold for less than the price of the flowers, and in that case you may be better off selling the flowers instead of the potions. The most popular potions are spell power potions, tristat potions (recovers health, magicka and stamina) and detection potions. Specially pvp players and endgame trial players are good costumers for an alchemist.
Flowers sell good, specially the ones that are used for spell power potions and tristat potions. Columbine goes for 300g-500g per flower, meanwhile Lady's Smock goes for 70g-130g per flower, Water Hyacinth goes for 20g-40g per flower.
Looted set armor, weapons and jewelry sell for good money, however it is hard to sell. Many players don't want to bother searching through guildstore clutter for specific items, and they just go with crafted gear untill they reach endgame content. Usually the only "easy" sellable low level set item is Warlock, specially the rings sell for good money.
Do not craft set armor and set them for sale in a guildtrader, it sells bad usually. Ask around if anyone needs a crafter for specific items, and craft on demand, so you don't waste your time and efford.
Traits for research sell well, however it may be hard to sell through a guildstore. Best to talk to people, offer your craft and they tell you what traits they need, and you can make it for them. The prices for crafted traits go between 350g-2500g, and Nirn trait goes for 3k-10k, the quality or the level of the specific item doesn't matter, as people only buy the trait.
Raw materials: sell good everywhere. Max levelled crafters run around and search for these, and they pay good cash for it everywhere on the map. If your crafting level is high and you have spent 3 skillpoints in extraction, then refine the goods yourself, if you have not done this then don't refine and just sell. A stack of 200 raw cloth material of any level goes for 4k+ gold.
Potency runes of all levels sell for reasonable good prices. v16 potencies go for 1500g-3000g each.
Essense runes sell good too, but check out the prices of the individual type of essense rune. Some of them, such as Makderi is only gained through farming the runes or getting a rare glyph for deconstruction, they can not be obtained by buying glyphs at a vendor and extracted by deconstruction. So makderi usually has a higher price than other runes (50g-500g). In case you have IC DLC, then you may get lucky and get a Hakeijo rune in the sewers....they sell between 30k-60k. These sell best if you set them up for sale individually, as people don't need many of them in contrary to the regular runes such as Oko, Deni and Makko that you need for armor glyphs -these can be sold in stacks of 10-200.
Motifs sell fast, however the profit of the normal blue motifs is very low. The newest shiniest purple and yellow motif pages sell between 10k-250k each.

I strongly recomend every player to try to join a trading guild, if you wish to cash in gold and sell your gear. You can use zonechat if you are a pc player, or go to crowded places and try to sell your stuff if you are a console player - but a trading guild with a somewhat sensible trader location can save you that trouble.
-Do not join a trading guild, if you only wish to purchase or check out prices. For that purpose, you can go to the crowded towns, and search through more guildstores and get a better idea of pricing.

If you play on PC get Awesome Guildstore addon. It will show you the individual prices on stacked items you see in guild stores. It will also allow you to search more specifically for items.

Console players - since you can't have addons, then you have to do the eyewatering search in guildstores, to get an idea of prices on items.

Pro tip: alchemy and provisioning on a v16 char is important because of the passive skills. Provisioning allows food and drinks last longer, that means those expensive xp-potions last 40min instead of 30. Alchemy allows you to benefit from prolonged potion duration, which heavily impacts your heal/dps/tanking output and resource management.

DISCLAIMER: my pricing information is based on PC/ EU prices. These things vary a bit depending on wether you play on XBox, PS4 or PC and wether you play in NA or EU.

lazytaco · March 2016

Many thanks all for the great tips.

I plan to concentrate on playing this sorcerer for a long time. I am not in a leveling hurry so i will go questing more then grinding.
For now I will go with the gear I find. So far this has been good enough. I have bought a few cheap weapons along the way though.
Just like anyone else I must make choices about how to spend my time so atm I will just decon, sell some mats in the guild store and just vendor the rest. I will hang on to my alchemy mats and enchanting mats with alts until I can put enough skill points there to start leveling those.
I played one other mmo ( recently took my second long break from it) and alchemy is my favorite profession. Probably will be the same here.

DHale · March 2016

You need alchemy and then alchemy. Did I say alchemy? 3 pts medicinal use.

failkiwib16_ESO · March 2016

@lazytaco

Good to hear. And don't forget to research traits for all armor and weapons, it will come in handy for the future.

Sordidfairytale · March 2016

Every character should have Alchemy. Being able to run potions 100% all the time is huge.

Ourorboros · March 2016

lazytaco wrote: »

Hi,
My question to experienced players is: If you are new to the game wich professions are the best to focus on in the beginning. Wich ones will benefit you most or provide a good source of income?

Unless you have friends/guildmates willing to craft for you free or cheap, all the skills are useful to be self-sufficient at end level. You'll be giving your gold to other crafters. At vet levels, you should be using potions and buffs most of the time, especially if you PVP. I can craft any gear I need. Since I sometimes craft for others, I know that is quite valuable. In short, ALL are quite beneficial, especially at end game.
As far as a good source of income, your best bet is extracting gold mats from ores, clothing mats, and wood, in that order. The best and fastest selling tempers for me are always blue, purple, and gold blacksmith. My suggestion is farm Craglorn. Mats are plentiful. You can sell the raw mats quickly and for a good price, or refine them for the tempers. Hold some for your own crafting needs, sell the rest. As an added benefit, you'll occasionally score some nirncrux. They always sell fast. In short, NONE of the crafts are a good source of income in and of themselves, but the materials used for crafting can be very lucrative. That applies to everything but provisioning, with very few exceptions (Perfect Roe).
There are other good income sources, but you asked about income from craft professions.

CadenceRowan · March 2016

I can't speak to income, but as a player with a Sorcerer as my main, I leveled Clothing, Woodworking, Alchemy and Enchanting because they were useful to me in game play. I gave up on Provisioning because the ingredients took up too much inventory space, and I didn't need Blacksmithing.

That said, you can level crafting without putting any skill points into it. Provisioning is really easy - just use up any ingredients to come across to make recipes (I would then sell them to a merchant just to get them out of my inventory - Alchemy is also really easy to level this way), and I leveled Blacksmithing by deconning and I researched traits as well. If you do want them later you can put the skill points into them to make them useful.

If nothing else, I would research clothing and woodworking; better to start early so that it will be there if/when you decide you want it. Same with enchanting - decon the glyphs you find. It does not take much time to do this, and it's a lot easier to do that along the way than having to start from scratch later if you decide you want it.