Crafting Toons: Are they frowned upon?

JungleBoot · September 2016

Here's my situation. I have a character with 50 Blacksmithing / 50 Clothier / 50 Woodworker. I have almost all of the passives and that leaves me very little room for any kind of offensive / defensive stance in fights. Yet, only characters with 10/10 can routinely get rubedo scrap drops. On top of that, I'm suppose to burn a "book motif page" in order to increase the drop rate of other pages instead of passing it on to my crafter. Am I missing something here? If I didn't know any better, I'd say my main characters are being punished for not being educated in crafting. So, who went cried about this that caused the change? It didn't use to be this way.

Totalitarian · September 2016

I'm just saying, my main has 50 in Blacksmithing, Clothier, Woodworker, and Enchanting, and I have all my Class Skills, Mages' Guild, Destro and Resto Staff, and Undaunted maxed, and several skill points allocated throughout my other skill trees.

You might run into problems having that wide of a spec as a stamina build though.

Kuro_Urufu · September 2016

JungleBoot wrote: »

Here's my situation. I have a character with 50 Blacksmithing / 50 Clothier / 50 Woodworker. I have almost all of the passives and that leaves me very little room for any kind of offensive / defensive stance in fights. Yet, only characters with 10/10 can routinely get rubedo scrap drops. On top of that, I'm suppose to burn a "book motif page" in order to increase the drop rate of other pages instead of passing it on to my crafter. Am I missing something here? If I didn't know any better, I'd say my main characters are being punished for not being educated in crafting. So, who went cried about this that caused the change? It didn't use to be this way.

You could always go for doubles, but yes, this is the way it is. I have a dedicated crafter and any doubles for motif pages tend to go toward my main explorer to get more style materials.

Pepper8Jack · September 2016

I went through the same thing on my crafter, but have since sucked it up and taken the time to get up enough skyshards to fill out h his combat abilities and passives, and then I grinded him up to 50 finally. It's been much better since then

Sigtric · September 2016

I have a crafter in the same situation but it is fixable.
You just have to go get more skill points for that character. They are out there. Skyshards, quest lines in all 3 alliances, etc.

I_killed_Vivec · September 2016

Totalitarian wrote: »

I'm just saying, my main has 50 in Blacksmithing, Clothier, Woodworker, and Enchanting, and I have all my Class Skills, Mages' Guild, Destro and Resto Staff, and Undaunted maxed, and several skill points allocated throughout my other skill trees.

You might run into problems having that wide of a spec as a stamina build though.

My main is a stamina build master crafter. You have to be selective with your weapon/skill choices but there are plenty of skill points available. Even for DB/Thieves passives.

JungleBoot · September 2016

Sorry for the confusion. I meant I have taken most of the passives for blacksmithing , woodworking, and clothier. Haven't even started Caldwell's Silver or defeated Molag Bal. This character is from before every toon that made it to 50 advanced to CPXXX.

IrishGirlGamer · September 2016

What do you think has changed? It's always been this way for me.

I have two crafting characters, similarly situated to yours. A 50/50/50 Blacksmith/Clothier/Woodworker and a 50/50/41 Provisioning/Alchemy/Enchanting. If a player is going to do something like this, then they need to plan a bit.

So Primary Crafter (Blacksmith, etc.) originally used only weapon skill line (Dual Wield). I just logged on to check and she has the following unlocked (she a Templar):

All Templar Skills (every skill, morphed and all passives) (Aedric Spear, Dawn's Wrath, Restoring Light). All of them.
All DW skills and passives
All Imperial passives
All Soul Magick skills
Some Fighters Guild skills (11 total)
Mages Guild skill (1 - the persuasion)
Medium Armor (13 skill points)
Heavy Armor (13 skill points)

I just started One Hand & Shield and have 9 of those skills unlocked.

In addition to all that, I have 61 of the crafting skills unlocked for Blacksmithing/Clothier/Woodworker. There are a few I haven't unlocked because I just don't need them (third tier hireling, for example).

If I recall it's around 230-240 skill points. My other character isn't as developed, but she has all the skill points in Alchemy and Provisioning maxed, plus most of her class skills and DW skills.

The thing is if you're going to have a crafting character, you're just going to have to grab every single skill point and skyshard. Otherwise, you won't be able to combat effectively.

Edit: In the event this sound snarky, I'm not trying to be. You just have to plan and it takes awhile to get all of these, longer than it would for a non-crafting character. I ran three characters at the same time and alternated.

Kuro_Urufu · September 2016

JungleBoot wrote: »

Sorry for the confusion. I meant I have taken most of the passives for blacksmithing , woodworking, and clothier. Haven't even started Caldwell's Silver or defeated Molag Bal. This character is from before every toon that made it to 50 advanced to CPXXX.

Well, the above advice stated still applies...
Finish up the quest lines, hit the extra zones for shards once you get them and even go to cyrodiil and risk ganking on skyshard runs. my crafter has all skills unlocked in all crafting lines and still has a few left over for a bit of damage dealing during exploration and I am only halfway through cadwell's gold. You'll get there, it just takes a bit of time.

LadyNalcarya · September 2016

Ive also got a dedicated crafting char, she doesnt have enough skill points for all class passives etc and only has a few abilities (one of them is rapid maneuver lol). But Im using this char for all dlc quests and other stuff like that.
Besides... Im not really sure that knowing certain motifs increases drop chances of the rest of the motif. At least my combat chars are getting the same amount of motifs from dailies as said crafter. I thought its only for Mercenary motif mats? But theyre dirt cheap...
As for farming scraps, you dont need all traits and styles to get them. Woodworking/clothing/blacksmithing level up naturally as you deconstruct your loot so you can just put those 9 points into clothing and farm your scraps.

Kuro_Urufu · September 2016

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

Ive also got a dedicated crafting char, she doesnt have enough skill points for all class passives etc and only has a few abilities (one of them is rapid maneuver lol). But Im using this char for all dlc quests and other stuff like that.
Besides... Im not really sure that knowing certain motifs increases drop chances of the rest of the motif. At least my combat chars are getting the same amount of motifs from dailies as said crafter. I thought its only for Mercenary motif mats? But theyre dirt cheap...
As for farming scraps, you dont need all traits and styles to get them. Woodworking/clothing/blacksmithing level up naturally as you deconstruct your loot so you can just put those 9 points into clothing and farm your scraps.

Knowing the motifs for thieves guild and dark brotherhood at least work this way. Pretty sure it is the same for most all the pages added with the DLC's. You have a higher chance (however small that really is...) to get the style material from enemies or nodes in various areas.
Examples being:
1) Knowing more pages in the Dark Brotherhood line will net you more dried/ tainted blood when killing using the Blade of Woe.
2) Knowing more pages in Ancient Orc will get you more Casseterite sand from material nodes in Wrothgar.

Sigtric · September 2016

JungleBoot wrote: »

Sorry for the confusion. I meant I have taken most of the passives for blacksmithing , woodworking, and clothier. Haven't even started Caldwell's Silver or defeated Molag Bal. This character is from before every toon that made it to 50 advanced to CPXXX.

You may just need to respec and back off the crafting passives a little bit and get your combat abilities to a point where you can fight, and then go get more skill points and bring your crafting passives back up.

LadyNalcarya · September 2016

Kuro_Urufu wrote: »

show previous quotes

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

Ive also got a dedicated crafting char, she doesnt have enough skill points for all class passives etc and only has a few abilities (one of them is rapid maneuver lol). But Im using this char for all dlc quests and other stuff like that.
Besides... Im not really sure that knowing certain motifs increases drop chances of the rest of the motif. At least my combat chars are getting the same amount of motifs from dailies as said crafter. I thought its only for Mercenary motif mats? But theyre dirt cheap...
As for farming scraps, you dont need all traits and styles to get them. Woodworking/clothing/blacksmithing level up naturally as you deconstruct your loot so you can just put those 9 points into clothing and farm your scraps.

Knowing the motifs for thieves guild and dark brotherhood at least work this way. Pretty sure it is the same for most all the pages added with the DLC's. You have a higher chance (however small that really is...) to get the style material from enemies or nodes in various areas.
Examples being:
1) Knowing more pages in the Dark Brotherhood line will net you more dried/ tainted blood when killing using the Blade of Woe.
2) Knowing more pages in Ancient Orc will get you more Casseterite sand from material nodes in Wrothgar.

Thats weird, Im getting cassiterite all the time on chars with 0 orc motifs. o.O
And I do TG/DB dailies on multiple chars, and havent noticed any difference. If there is an increase in drop chances, its really small (or might be my luck... Oh well).
Even if it would be a huge boost, all those dailies are doable on a crafting char.

IrishGirlGamer · September 2016

Sigtric wrote: »

show previous quotes

JungleBoot wrote: »

Sorry for the confusion. I meant I have taken most of the passives for blacksmithing , woodworking, and clothier. Haven't even started Caldwell's Silver or defeated Molag Bal. This character is from before every toon that made it to 50 advanced to CPXXX.

You may just need to respec and back off the crafting passives a little bit and get your combat abilities to a point where you can fight, and then go get more skill points and bring your crafting passives back up.

^^^^ This.

Here's some other info. There are at least 330 skill points available in the game (that's outdated, probably pre-Thieve's Guild). I made a chart so I could track how many I had and how I could get them. Crafting toons are just thirsty for skill points.

I had decided at one point it would take around 280 skill points to max out what I wanted for templar character - enough to make her PvP and PvE viable and a crafter too. Those aren't going to be easy to get (I've been working on it for maybe a year) but it can be done.

JungleBoot · September 2016

haha says all the people who don't know my damage output stinks. But, I was thinking about doing a respec. Problem is I have some research timers active. Maybe I'm a little naive here. But, I don't want to reset those or have to start over.

On a serious note: Thank you all for your information and advice. I do appreciate it.

Totalitarian · September 2016

JungleBoot wrote: »

haha says all the people who don't know my damage output stinks. But, I was thinking about doing a respec. Problem is I have some research timers active. Maybe I'm a little naive here. But, I don't want to reset those or have to start over.

Just plow through it.

Collect all the skyshards you can in Cyrodiil, as that's free skill points.

Make sure you've been to Cyrodiil. Right when you get there, do the tutorial; it'll net you 2 free skill points from ranking up.

Also, every alliance rank you earn grants you a skill point.

Kuro_Urufu · September 2016

JungleBoot wrote: »

haha says all the people who don't know my damage output stinks. But, I was thinking about doing a respec. Problem is I have some research timers active. Maybe I'm a little naive here. But, I don't want to reset those or have to start over.

On a serious note: Thank you all for your information and advice. I do appreciate it.

The timers should not reset. I have never tried it, but guild mates who have said they kept all their research going but the bonus to time reduction is gone. You don't always have to have a quest to get to the next zone. Just ask a friend or guildie to port you close to the next one or help you through a delve to get those shards. Good luck either way.

TheShadowScout · September 2016

My prime crafting character has all her templar skills and passives maxed and morphed, as well as all 2-handed and dual wield skills & passives, heavy armor, soul magic, fighters guild... and still all in blacksmith, woodworing and clothier.

Easily enough if you grab all the skill points hidden in cadwells. Though if I wanted more, I might need to go and PvP for those skill points as well...

LadyNalcarya · September 2016

JungleBoot wrote: »

haha says all the people who don't know my damage output stinks. But, I was thinking about doing a respec. Problem is I have some research timers active. Maybe I'm a little naive here. But, I don't want to reset those or have to start over.

On a serious note: Thank you all for your information and advice. I do appreciate it.

Just collect a few skyshards, its fairly quick. And you really dont need much - just wrecking blow and rally, maybe steel tornado. XD All non-instanced content is absurdly easy in this game.

Draven147 · September 2016

Each province has 16 skyshards. That's 5 skill points for every zone and on every third one you get 6. It doesn't take very long to grind out a pile of skill points. There are lots of skyshard map webpages out there that make it really easy. Most have lorebook locations as well so you can get a double whammy. My main has 50 in all the crafting/prov/enchant/alchemy and I still have plenty of points to go in the offence department. It's a grind but it is very doable. Good luck and happy hunting!

lillybit · September 2016

I have a crafting character with all the crafts maxed and points in all the passives that matter - pretty much all of them except the ones that only applied to that character such as extra X minutes effect when eating and so on (the main point was to craft for my other character so figured I could live without these).
I pretty much played the game through to the end of Gold and the DLCs too, collecting all the skyshards/skill points I could. I've now got points on all the racial and class passives and the armour and weapons that I actively use. Also some more scattered around guilds, alliance wars, soul magic and legerdemain. That leaves me enough to have on the skills and morphs that I use but not enough for whole trees. I've had to respec a few times when I discover I could do better with another skill which is a pain but it is possible to have everything you need unlocked as long as you don't switch skills too much.
It is a pain; I didn't expect to play this character as much as I do or I might have split crafting over two different ones - but it's too much effort to level up another character now. Can't face doing all that research again! And it also makes a difference getting the points back from the research passives too btw. Don't know how I managed everything without those 12 skill points.

wayfarerx · September 2016

All eight of my main characters are max-level crafters in all skill lines (well, two are working on enchanting still but they're almost done and I have the skill points set aside). All of them have no trouble getting the skills they need because, like many have said on this thread, I went out and farmed all the skill points I could. Zone main quests, skyshards, public dungeon group bosses, group and vet dungeons, etc. There are more than enough skill points to go around you just really have to dedicate yourself to collecting them.

IrishGirlGamer · September 2016

JungleBoot wrote: »

haha says all the people who don't know my damage output stinks. But, I was thinking about doing a respec. Problem is I have some research timers active. Maybe I'm a little naive here. But, I don't want to reset those or have to start over.

On a serious note: Thank you all for your information and advice. I do appreciate it.

I offer this suggestion. Respec and:

1. Drop all crafting skills but (1) the research timers and (2) the decon skills (so you can decon the max in materials and tempers) for now.
2. Pick a half dozen balanced skills from your weapons and class skill lines. Pick an ultimate or two and morph them.
3. Put everything else into weapon, class and armor passives (the most useful).
4. I found the soul magic skill line useful and it has a pretty solid (not the best but workable) ultimate.
5. Start grinding out quests. Just do the main quest line each zone and move on.
6. When applying skill points, do weapon, armor and class passives first, skills second, and crafting last. I would my emphasis on the crafting skills that unlock new materials and motifs (the 1-10 skills).

You should get 50+ skill points from leveling (sometimes you get multiples now), 60+ from running quests in all zones (primary, silver and gold), another 50 easily from safe and easy to grab skyshards. That should get you to at least a viable build.

Good luck!

Edit: As @Nestor noted: I would also add Keen Eye to one of the first crafting skills to unlock. Very useful, particularly in Coldharbor and at night (in fact, if I log on and it's night, I immediately spend some time node grinding ...)

Beardimus · September 2016

As has been said farm them shards / SP's.

I starter toons to craft but realised id have to burn time getting shards so stuck with it on my main, whilst leveling its tight but if you are thorough you end up with so many spare points its easy to do it all.

While leveling sharing trades with a mate helps

Coatmagic · September 2016

As all above have stated.. get out and get those skill points!
I've got all 6 crafts maxed on one character (when I first started I had to have a dedicated enchanter, but was eventually able to switch that over as well).

As soon as you're able, run yourself through:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Cadwell's_Almanac

Quick and easy to follow all the vanilla quests that net ya skill points

Have fun!

wolfydog · September 2016

If you play one character enough you'll have more then enough points for nearly everything.

I have one character who is
50 woodworker/blacksmith/clothing/provisioner/enchanter with every point spent possible in trees, except the harvesting one to see stuff easier.

Im still researching some nirnhorned so once that's over I can respec and save some points in the research trail which will be nice.

this character is also a STA DK so Im maxed out in all my class trees, but not every morph, also maxed out in DW, 2hand, S&B and Bow, but not every morph

Also have medium and heavy armor passives, plus some stuff in world, thief and Dark bros. I think I have like 20 unspent points too currently.

Then I have another character who does my alchemy, but maybe I can switch it all to my main too when I save those reaseach points.

Of course I may in trouble if they ever add more skill lines to the game for classes or new weapons so maybe then I'll have to make a decision.

But I also have a number of alts and as I level them I always decon my loot, pretty much every character on my account is a 50 wood/blacksmith/clother/prov but I might not have many points actually invested in the tree. I'm sure I will invest some points in crafting on those alts just for harvesting purposes once OT comes out since I mostly need higher level stuff.

Having crafting alts, always seemed pointless to me. It easier nowadays especially if you sub with the crafting bag, managing all your mateirals is easy as can be. Before I always hated switching toons, waiting for loading, making sure mats where in the bank etc, just was a pain. But I always though funneling all the loot to them for decon, plus playing them enough to get skill points needed was to much trouble.

But at the minium on my main I'll always be a blacksmith, wood worker and clother just due all the motifs memorized. I do have the ambrosia too but that's a lot cheaper to get a second one them all those motifs again on and alt if I never need to free up points from provisioning to something else. But I wouldn't mind having a second character for alchemy, prov and enchanting if I ever needed that many skill points back on my main.

Xrucible · September 2016

I main a Stam DK tank/dps/crafter. He has all the skills to tank and dps vet trials and can craft anything. U just need to get all the skillpoints accessible in game.

Khenarthi · September 2016

IrishGirlGamer wrote: »

show previous quotes

Sigtric wrote: »

JungleBoot wrote: »

Sorry for the confusion. I meant I have taken most of the passives for blacksmithing , woodworking, and clothier. Haven't even started Caldwell's Silver or defeated Molag Bal. This character is from before every toon that made it to 50 advanced to CPXXX.

You may just need to respec and back off the crafting passives a little bit and get your combat abilities to a point where you can fight, and then go get more skill points and bring your crafting passives back up.

^^^^ This.

Here's some other info. There are at least 330 skill points available in the game (that's outdated, probably pre-Thieve's Guild). I made a chart so I could track how many I had and how I could get them. Crafting toons are just thirsty for skill points.

I had decided at one point it would take around 280 skill points to max out what I wanted for templar character - enough to make her PvP and PvE viable and a crafter too. Those aren't going to be easy to get (I've been working on it for maybe a year) but it can be done.

My main character is my super all-in-one crafter, sitting currently at 331 skill points. And she's rank 13/50 for Alliance, so if I cared for PVP I'd be able to get some more 30-something points.

As others said... do quests and hunt for shards

Nestor · September 2016

JungleBoot wrote: »

Here's my situation. I have a character with 50 Blacksmithing / 50 Clothier / 50 Woodworker. I have almost all of the passives and that leaves me very little room for any kind of offensive / defensive stance in fights.

It takes 122 points to fully invest in all crafting lines, plus any you might want in Keen Eye. Add in about 30 or 40 points for Combat and Defense Skills and passives to survive farming and crafting station access with a simple two skill rotation, and you have a capable crafter that can survive.

To have a crafter that is fully deadly and fully crafty, your going to need more points. However, this is doable, as my Master Crafter is quite deadly, but she has the skill points to invest. I don't remember the exact amount she has, but it's way more than 200.

SirAndy · September 2016

JungleBoot wrote: »

Here's my situation. I have a character with 50 Blacksmithing / 50 Clothier / 50 Woodworker. I have almost all of the passives and that leaves me very little room for any kind of offensive / defensive stance in fights. Yet, only characters with 10/10 can routinely get rubedo scrap drops. On top of that, I'm suppose to burn a "book motif page" in order to increase the drop rate of other pages instead of passing it on to my crafter. Am I missing something here? If I didn't know any better, I'd say my main characters are being punished for not being educated in crafting. So, who went cried about this that caused the change? It didn't use to be this way.

I have 3 dedicated crafters (Dragon Knight,Templar,Sorcerer) , each concentrating on two crafts:

- Blacksmith, Provisioner
- Woodworker, Enchanter
- Clothier, Alchemist

They all have every craft leveled to 50 but only have research maxed in their own crafts.
My 4th main (Nightblade) also has all crafts maxed at 50 but no research.

That way, the skill points needed are distributed between those characters but all 4 can collect top tier mats for all professions. All 4 also have hirelings at 3/3 for everything.

And all 4 characters are at CP160 and geared up for their respective class, ready to play.

PS: The only drawback of this setup is that you need 3x the style motifs. Well, not quite 3x since some really only apply to one craft anyways. So far, that hasn't been a problem for me.

Dojohoda · September 2016

I feel your pain. My crafter is a Nord DK and is maxed on all of the crafting lines. Being tanky, it takes my Nord twice as long to kill anything. So for those motifs and style related items that require some knowledge, my DPS toon learns some of the duplicate motif pages.