Newb Crafting Question

ThePaulrus94 · January 2017

I've played on and off the past several years but never gotten a character up to level 50 due to not enough time. However, I am recently loving the game and subscribed to get the crafting bag which makes transferring materials super easy.

My question is do I need to have a designated crafting character? I've seen so many people say one over the other but I'm not sure what's best. On my current Nord DK Tank, I'm thinking of specializing in blacksmithing, enchanting, and possibly provisioning or woodworking. Is it viable and are there enough skillpoints to have all these crafts on your main or is an alternative crafter really that necessay?

Feric51 · January 2017

Is it possible to have one dedicated crafter? Short answer = yes.

That being said, with all the passives crafting requires, I don't think I would necessarily do it on a "main" character that you'll want to be your everyday guy, especially if you want to PVP which in my opinion requires more skill points than a typical PVE character. With Alliance/Support skill lines, etc.

I took my first character and turned it into my crafter, but now that is the only thing I use it for. A lot of people create a farmer/crafter chracter that they only use for running around and farming mats and making things. Going full stamina with gear like Darkstride, Prisoner's Rags and Fiord's can make sprinting from node to node much more efficient, so keep that in mind too.

Regardless of which character you decide to start crafting on, start your trait research NOW if you haven't already. Sacrifice skill points from other skills to get the passives that reduce research time and allow for up to three items going at once. Even with those passives maxed and ESO Plus which reduces the time an additional 10%, you're still looking at around a year-ish to research all 9 traits for the three main crafting skill lines.

That's my take on it anyway, I'm sure there are others who have differing opinions and it boils down to whatever you think will work best for you.

PhxOldGamer68 · January 2017

I have 8 characters and only one is the master crafter.

As the previous post mentioned, researching traits takes a long time. The last trait to research is 30 days without the ESO Plus.

Since the other 7 do not need put skill points towards crafting, then you don't have to skyshard hunt so much to max out your other skills.

Nestor · January 2017

TBH, you want one crafter, at least for Equipment and Enchanting in this game. Saves money on Motifs and the Research Grind for Traits. Spreading this around across crafters can work up to a point, but your going to want to combine the crafting into one before too long.

You need 122 Skill Points to have a fully Skilled Crafter. So, you will probably want to play them until you have at least that many skill points to spend. I would add in another 30 to 50 Skill Points just to make them deadly enough to Farm for Mats and get to the more Dangerous Crafting Stations in the game.

That being said, Alchemy and Provisioning are super easy to level so you can push those crafts off onto an Alt or two. Since you tend to batch out a 100 Foods or Potions, this is not a big deal. If you follow this route, that drops your Skill Points needed significantly.

I do have one dedicated crafter now, as I have kitted her out with gear designed for efficient traveling around and skewed the Champ Points for Travel, Farming and Treasure Chests. She used to be my Main, but now she is my Main Master Crafter and does little combat.

Stopnaggin · January 2017

One crafter, can be you main if you like. There are enough skill point to go around. Plus when you reach the end you can respec and get some of those skill points back. I would not recommend splitting crating between toons. Either make it you main or make a dedicated toon. With the new master writs coming you'll want it all in one.

Soella · January 2017

1 crafter is possible as it was said before, but require to hunt all shards and skill points from quests if you still want to play this toon.

To craft furniture you need crafter with clothing/smithing/woodworking, though you don't need to research all traits and don't need any points in hirelings/improved research/so on, so it is cheap option.

If you are going to hunt for most motifs in the game - having 1 main crafter is far better, but motif hunting require far more time than leveling, it takes years.

scorpiodog · January 2017

ThePaulrus94 wrote: »

I've played on and off the past several years but never gotten a character up to level 50 due to not enough time. However, I am recently loving the game and subscribed to get the crafting bag which makes transferring materials super easy.

My question is do I need to have a designated crafting character? I've seen so many people say one over the other but I'm not sure what's best. On my current Nord DK Tank, I'm thinking of specializing in blacksmithing, enchanting, and possibly provisioning or woodworking. Is it viable and are there enough skillpoints to have all these crafts on your main or is an alternative crafter really that necessay?

For a Master Crafter in all Crafting skills and with all the passives to be combat effective you need practically every sky shard and skill point in the game. You will basically need to do every major quest in every zone including the DLC's and also even get Skyshards out of Cyrodil.

So the major question to ask is: would you rather do all the major content in the game on one character, or different characters? If the answer is one character - yes, you can have a master crafter in all skills that is also combat effective.

But then ... crafting sucks more and more with each patch. There are only a few crafted sets that are even decent. Julianos, TBS, Hundings ... that's about it ..

You can still get lots of gold from doing writs without leveling crafting - my max level noncrafter gets the same gold as my master crafter for doing equipment writs. So I think the amount of gold from writs levels off o the character level, not the crafting level.

ThePaulrus94 · January 2017

Thanks for the replies. Correct me if this is stupid, but I was thinking that since my current "main", that I started about a month ago, got all the Skinchanger motifs for the New Life and I have several other motifs in my bank, I'll make him my crafter down the road when I become more familiar with the game.

It will cost me more gold in the long run to respec, but it allows me to keep learning the game and not start over so soon. I plan on doing PvE anyways which means I shouldn't need as many skillpoints even though I collect all skyshards anyways.

Feric51 · January 2017

ThePaulrus94 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. Correct me if this is stupid, but I was thinking that since my current "main", that I started about a month ago, got all the Skinchanger motifs for the New Life and I have several other motifs in my bank, I'll make him my crafter down the road when I become more familiar with the game.

This is exactly what I ended up doing because it took me forever to figure out all the nuances of the game on my initial character, and by the time it was leveled up I had amassed so many motifs and item traits researched on him it just made sense to leave him as my main crafter.

ThePaulrus94 wrote: »

It will cost me more gold in the long run to respec, but it allows me to keep learning the game and not start over so soon. I plan on doing PvE anyways which means I shouldn't need as many skillpoints even though I collect all skyshards anyways.

The cost to respec pales in comparison to the gold you would spend trying to acquire the skinchanger motifs on another character. So don't worry about any potential respec "loss" down the road.

davey1107 · January 2017

I'll make him my crafter down the road when I become more familiar with the game.

Your first character will probably earn more skill points than any other you ever roll. They'll explore more, getting more shards, and they'll probably quest more, getting more points. (unless you like finding Lady Lorelei's lost underpants eight times in a row, but trust me, eventually some of the quests get unbearable, lol).

You can feel totally comfortable making your main your smith, wood and cloth crafter. In fact, if you're going to be a crafter I advise it because you should start researching traits...it takes months to learn them all. And you should start collecting and learning motifs. Get this process started, but you don't have to spend skill points on these now unless you'd like too. But if you like your main and play him a lot, you'll earn the 60-70 points needed for these three lines.

I do like moving enchant, provision and alchemy over to a second. It helps when the toons are younger and need points. Ultimately, however, I level all my characters' trade skills because they all do writs. The writ rewards warrant the point expense, imo.

Also, as far as points in the game, my main has every fighting passive on the board that applies to him open, plus every single ability he'd ever use, and he has all six trade skills pretty filled in. So yes, it's possible to pile everything onto one character

TTMighty · January 2017

My main toon is also my crafter. He has every recipe know, every motif known and all crafting disciplines maxed. He also has enough skill points to make him a viable toon (Templar Healer). I can run trials and pledges, very often doing 0-death runs when the group has their act together.

As others have said though, I had to go through every quest line, get every skyshard, do every public dungeon to get the total 326 skill points he has (still missing some out of PVP). I personally don't mind going through all the quests; I actually enjoy playing the game, including the PVE quests. I like the idea that all my crafting is on one toon, especially now with the pending furnishing requiring the crafter to be leveled in multiple disciplines.

To answer your question though: Yes, you can have a single toon be your master crafter and still be a viable toon for playing. If you do not enjoy questing and only want to grind up to CP max and go do trials/PVP then perhaps you would be better suited to not bother with crafting and leave it to your friendly guild mates that enjoy it. If, however, you want to pursue the crafting and need some help (like traited items for research and such), feel free to ping me in-game.

Have fun and be excellent to each other.