If you have skillpoints left and you are loyal player to the game, like logging in every day, its worth it yes. It doesn't look much when you take one hireling, but for me that have had hireling on 5 chars for 2 years, it adds up in the long run.

The keys to Hirelings are:

1. Have a lot of them (get your Alts to L12 in the Crafting skill to hire L2 Hirelings)
2. Don't expect much from the Hirelings

If your goal is to get recipes, then do Provisioning Writs, as those are a great source of the rare recipes. Container farming is good, but the loot tables were diluted with Homestead Recipes. So finding provisioning is harder now, not that it was all that easy before Homestead to get recipes from containers.

I'm a hoarder when it comes to crafting materials so I enjoy the hirelings just for the sake of more crap to hoard. They do hook you up with some crafting materials from time to time that are hard to locate in the wild. I personally say give it a shot and see if you like it. You can always respec later down the road if you end up hating them. But if you're a crafter, I say they are worth it.

At least once, you should read through the stories your hirelings send. Even temporarily, that is worth a skill point.

Short term no, long term hell yes, that dribble of mats will fill up the proverbial bathtub supprisingly quickly

Ok thanks guys.

Nestor wrote: »

If your goal is to get recipes, then do Provisioning Writs, as those are a great source of the rare recipes. Container farming is good, but the loot tables were diluted with Homestead Recipes. So finding provisioning is harder now, not that it was all that easy before Homestead to get recipes from containers.

The problem I have with this advice is writs always require a recipe I haven't learned. Even as I peruse the chefs, none of them have the recipe, forcing me to abandon the writ and hope for a better one the next day (which often ends up being the same).

Worse, provisioning ingredients take a considerable amount of space. Trying to collect every possible ingredient for both food and drink is pretty much an end game to provisioning, not one that can be developed easily through leveling (curse you, seaweed!).

I've since abandoned all hope in writs. I'll get back to them, but long after I hit 50 and have substantially more bag space to work with (I only have 200 in bank, and currently 100 on my <50 character). This was only possible because of my other character investing tons of gold to get the bank to 200!

The design of this "skill" is both a curse and blessing. Not only is it usually the first skill I can quickly get to 50, but it takes a considerable amount of time using the few ingredients I have (new players note: stick to making food/drink close to your level - don't waste time with anything less than 10 of your current).

If the tables have been altered, I haven't noticed. If anything, I'd say they have improved. I currently have 9 blues and 2 purples simply by examining every container, table, chest, urn, and pockets of unsuspecting Tamriel residents. >:]

Not bad considering my 222 sorc only has 5 blues, 3 purples, and 2 golds.

Provisioning is a skill demanding patience, that's for sure. Thankfully, it was nothing like the old enchanting system. My goodness, was that ever a train wreck of leveling.

To throw out another piece of advice: save gold and buy recipes from chefs. Generally, though not always, these tend to be the writs posted. It's just too bad the RNG system likes to troll us from time-to-time.