Crafting mule question

Kylric · August 2016

Hi All,

I'm still new to the game, been playing 3 months or so. However I have converted a couple of my characters to crafting/enchanting mules. I have one that is level 37 and I'm working to get his woodworking, blacksmiths ad clothing skills at to level 50. I also have some hireling services on this toon for some assistance getting materials.

For the most part, my primary goal is to be self-sufficient. My question is - would I be able to run from one area to the next (wayshrines to crafting nodes) without much difficulty? Needless to say, I don't have any weapons skill points.

One question for clarification you might be thinking is "That depends on what Armour sets you're looking for". Well, I honestly don't know which I want to focus on. My main is currently a level 25ish stamplar, and I normally only play one main. What sets should i focus on?

I thing I must admit, I've not been working on my traits like I should. Still learning.

thank you in advance

Kraynic · August 2016

In my opinion, you should go ahead and level the crafting character to 50. The reason for that is so that you will be able to farm max level crafting mats with your crafting character. If you farm on a max level character that doesn't have the material perks, then your wood, ore, cloth, and leather drops will be split between tier 1 and tier 10 materials and it will take twice as long to farm if you only need max level stuff.

That is how things stand at the moment anyway, and I don't know if it will change with One Tamriel once that comes around.

Also, I wouldn't worry about gear too much right at 50. It doesn't take too horribly long to reach cp160, and since that is the gear cap, you should wait for that point to make anything too fancy. Not so much for the materials cost, but for the cost of the upgrade items.

As far as what sets you might want, I will leave that to others that know more. Also... get going on your trait research. Try not to let there be much down time or open research slots. Ask in your guild to have people craft you things you can use for research if drops are failing you. Since you can research a trait from items of any level, this is something people are usually pretty willing to do. The farther along you get, the more time the research takes, so get it running and be ready for a long haul.

carljokl · August 2016

I have also hit this and had a thread about the optimum way to split out responsibility between Alt characters.

My equipment crafter feels like my weakest alt relative to his level. I chose to keep blacksmithing, woodworking and clothing together on one alt. This made sense as the style guides and motifs should be shared across skill lines and some would be very hard or expensive to get multiple copies of.

With consumable crafting, each skill is on a separate character. These characters have been generally able to devote more skills to combat to make them easier to play. Ironically my toughest alt seems to be the chef.

The down side as it has felt quite tedious to slowly level up so many alts. Once they get to level 50 it will be easier with the shared CP level.

In the mean time I have a crafter that can create gear with materials from Coldharbour but level wise is only just getting tough enough to survive properly in the first and some of the second zone. I might have done better to not level up my crafting level to use materials beyond a zone I could survive in. That way my alt would have been tougher and more self sufficient. I was impatient to have him be a master crafter ASAP.

I have no choice but to harvest materials with my main character. He can't get to Coldharbour and would be killed there pretty easily if he could.

It might also have worked better to make my original character the crafter and train the alts up focussed on combat.

disintegr8 · August 2016

You still need to level any crafting mule as you need to have the skill points to allocate to the crafting lines.

I took my first character to level 49 (under the vet system) before parking him as my crafter. I still had to take him out to find all possible skyshards to get enough skill points to have him crafting top level on everything. He was either a crafter with no skill points in fighting or a fighter with no skill points in crafting.

Am pleased to say he is still my master crafter but after a lot of hard work is now also a good magicka nightblade.

Kylric · August 2016

Thank you for the replies; I learned a couple of things.

For clarification, I have two crafting mules right now.
1. Level 20ish. Maxed in Provisions and enchanting
2. Level 37ish – Almost maxed in clothing, blacksmithing and woodworking. I have enough points to do it. I’ve also put points in hirelings in enchanting and provisioning

I was thinking about making my current Templar a crafter as well, but I’m worried about being weak. Maybe it would be best that I keep doing what I’m doing and make my adjustment later.

Again, thank you for your support and any further advice would be appreciated.