my opinion on this:
1) there are different professions.
in general you can buy items from other players in case you don't want to craft. some of the skill lines offer some additional things you still might want to have.
a) clothier, woodworker, blacksmith:
start as early as possible with researching traits. you will need an item with the trait you want to research (go to the crafting station to do so). this will allow you to craft set items later on in the game. e.g. some sets require that you have all 9 traits researched on the set item you want to craft.
b) enchanting:
harder to level but less painful than researching 9 traits on each item. you'll be able to craft glyphs that are way stronger then the glyphs from npcs / loot drops.
c) alchemy
allows you to craft stronger potions than the ones found as loot or in npcs.
furthermore, there is a passive skill that increases the duration of the effects gained by potions. so you might want to go for those passives.
d) provisioning
of course, the food is better than the stuff found in loot or bought from npcs. again there are passives that increases the duration of the effect, so you might want those passives.

2) i doubt you have enough resources to properly level with them. if you want to go for those crafting skills you might want to deconstruct looted items as you will gain skill points this way (and the mats retrieved from deconstruction can be used to craft new items)

hope that helps.

It doesn't matter if you craft your gear yourself or buy it. However, Alchemy and Provisioning have passives increasing the duration of potions, food and drink buffs. The first one is particularly important: there's a cooldown on potions longer than their duration, so you want the minimize the break between one running out and drinking the next.

Material prices differ depending on platform, server and type of material, so it's best to ask in zone or guild for the going prices. Raw materials usually sell well because they can be refined for tempers, certain alchemy ingredients are also always in high demand.

I said when I started that I wasn't going to be a crafter. Well now I'm leveled to 50 in all crafting skills. It's worth it to level as you go. Just deconstruct armor and weapons. Right now you may not be interested in crafting but later you find it to be very important.

I would pick up all the matts that you can regardless of whether you are going to craft or not. equipment matts are an easy sell in trade guilds at any level if you want to make gold in-game. On NA PC I am in 4 big trade guilds, and sell a lot of refined matts. Raw matts sell for even more, but I refine to get all the improvement matts. Either way, farming matts is a good way to make gold. If you are on PC make sure to get a few addons if you are going to get in a trade guild or 2. Master Merchant and awesome guild store are must have for trading. They can be downloaded at http://www.esoui.com/addons.php

Deathgiggle wrote: »

1. As far as crafting goes, are there any perks to it other than making your own gear? Like in World of Warcraft, my Warlock needed certain professions to be competitive in end game content. As an enchanter I could give myself higher level enchants that could not be bought from other players. They later changed that but in the beginning you had to have certain professions to get that DPS edge. So I'm wondering in ESO, if being able to craft my own medium armor or weapons will give me any advantage over just say buying it from someone else?

-> At the current time, there is nothing in the game that can be crafted that cannot be obtained through trade. This includes enchants, potions, weapons, and armor. However, there are passive benefits within the professions themselves (for example, Medicinal Use in Alchemy) that will benefit your character in combat. You can level Alchemy and then respec your points so that you only have the passives you want, and not the ability to craft anything, if you so choose.

2. I'm only level 7 and I'm still in the noob zones. Along the way I've been finding wood and ore to mine and I've been saving it up. Is it worth the bank space to save it at this level and is it worth anything on the open market? Like as far as value how much does a stack of wood or metal sell for?

-> The prices of materials will vary from server to server and from console to PC. They are usually pretty comparable. Know that unrefined cloth, ore, and wood is going to sell for a higher value than refined materials, because every time you refine a stack of 10 ore/wood/cloth you have a chance at obtaining a temper, which is used to improve the quality of your gear. Gold tempers are extremely expensive. My best advice to you would be to save all of your unrefined materials and refine them when you have the passives in that craft to maximize your chances for tempers.

Answers in italics. Also worth noting is that some of the best gear in the game right now is crafted. Most endgame builds use a combination of crafted and dropped gear. Depending on what you want down the line, it can sometimes be very difficult to find the person who can make the right piece for you, but it's just a matter of time before you eventually do.

I would say that if you don't want to level crafting, then don't. But continue to collect mats. You'll want to refine them yourself to get some extra temper, rosin, etc... You can sell those or even just keep them for use later. If you need gear crafted, it's a lot easier and cheaper if you already have them mats as not all crafters will craft gear if you don't already have them, or they will make it very expensive to compensate for the loss of mats. the only think I would say you should put skill points into would be improvements. In the clothier, woodworking, and blacksmith, there's a skill which makes it cheaper (as in using less tempers) to improve your gear.