Is it practical for my main to master 2 crafting skills?

rossk25 · April 2017

As title suggests, would it be practical for my main to master 2 crafting skills (Woodwork and Clothier) and still be good/competitive for PvE and PvP content?

I currently have a lvl 25 magicka DK Dunmer who is wielding a destro/resto combo, wearing light armor and mainly focusing on the Ardent flame tree (with some abilities and passives in the earthen heart tree).

My other main is a lvl 49 stamina templar Bosmer with bow/DW combo who wears medium armor. I want to get him into provisioning and maybe enchanting.

In woodwork I want to be able to craft a Inferno staff, bow and maybe resto staff.
As for clothing, I want to be able to craft full set pieces of medium and light armor for both my characters.

So for my DK Dunmer, would I be able to max out all skills in light armor, ardent flame, destro staff, resto staff, some earthen heart abilities+passives and also woodwork AND clothing? Or should I be more wise with how I allocate my skill points in the crafting skill trees?

Would this be practical? And what passives are a must from the crafting trees?

Thanks for reading and any advice would be much appreciated.

redspecter23 · April 2017

There are enough skill points that you could max out all 6 crafts on your main and still do fine. It depends on how much time you want to put into acquiring skill points. You could max all crafts on all your alts too if you wanted to. It's probably most beneficial to have all your crafting on one toon so you don't have to double up on motifs on multiple toons.

rossk25 · April 2017

redspecter23 wrote: »

There are enough skill points that you could max out all 6 crafts on your main and still do fine. It depends on how much time you want to put into acquiring skill points. You could max all crafts on all your alts too if you wanted to. It's probably most beneficial to have all your crafting on one toon so you don't have to double up on motifs on multiple toons.

Ah, cool. Thanks for your response!

With my Dunmer toon, I am playing and leveling him slowly. I don't rush between quests, I make sure to explore the environment so that I can collect shards + materials for crafting.

When you say "how much time you want to put into acquiring skill points". Does that mean primarily mining for skyshards? or are there other ways to get skills outside of leveling and main quests?

leeux · April 2017

Each zone quest, plus guild quests and main quests give skill points.

Also, each group dungeon quest gives a skill point on completion.

Each zone's public dungeon has a group challenge that gives a skill point on first time completion.

And finally there are about 50 skill points behind the ranks of PvP (1 skill point per each rank, I believe...)

There are about ~370 skill points in total, maybe more, maybe a bit less.

EDIT: forgot about DLC quest lines, I don't remember Wrothgar if it gave skill points or not, and I didn't do DB and TG quests myself, so I don't know about those either... you can add those up as extras, if they give SP. But of course, there are skyshards in DLC zones so those at least give some SPs per DLC.

rossk25 · April 2017

I never knew that. Thanks @leeux for your response. That really does help.

So I should be fine then to be competitive in PvE and PvP and master 2 craft skills too. sweet.

I guess cause I am only lvl 25 I still have a fair bit of way to go.

RABIDxWOLVERINE · April 2017

leeux wrote: »

Each zone quest, plus guild quests and main quests give skill points.

Also, each group dungeon quest gives a skill point on completion.

Each zone's public dungeon has a group challenge that gives a skill point on first time completion.

And finally there are about 50 skill points behind the ranks of PvP (1 skill point per each rank, I believe...)

There are about ~370 skill points in total, maybe more, maybe a bit less.

EDIT: forgot about DLC quest lines, I don't remember Wrothgar if it gave skill points or not, and I didn't do DB and TG quests myself, so I don't know about those either... you can add those up as extras, if they give SP. But of course, there are skyshards in DLC zones so those at least give some SPs per DLC.

Wrothgar and Thieves Guild both give skill points so I assume all of the DLC give you SP, I could be wrong though. They definitely have skyshards to collect. Other than that @leeux covered it here.

STEVIL · April 2017

Yes it is easily doable.

f047ys3v3n · April 2017

Because of recipes and motifs all crafts should be on your main. You will regret it if you do otherwise. I know folks who did and do. There are plenty of skill points.

rossk25 · April 2017

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Because of recipes and motifs all crafts should be on your main. You will regret it if you do otherwise. I know folks who did and do. There are plenty of skill points.

Both of my characters are my "mains".

Atm I am making one main (the Dunmer) focus on clothing and woodwork, so he will not learn recipes and if he finds them they go straight to the bank for my other character. He also learns motifs. While the Bosmer would focus on provisioning and (maybe) enchanting, and any clothes and motifs he finds I put into the bank for the other guy.

That way, they can share anything they craft and find with each other. This way my clothier (Dunmer) will craft medium armor for the Bosmer, while my provisioner Bosmer will craft magicka food and drinks for the Dunmer.

Is this a good tactic? Both of these guys are my "mains".

akl77 · April 2017

My main has all 6 craftings max level and all skill points invested.
Also can play two roles, tank or healer. All skill points invested on all tank and healer lines. Got 200+ skill points spent.

Asardes · April 2017

I've mastered all 6 on 4 characters, the first one has also all traits researched, all motifs learned except Ra Gada (I'll wait a bit more until it drops in price even lower), and almost all food and drink recipes (missing a few mid tier purple that only go for absurd prices on guild stores). I do all 6 writs on all 4 each day and do the master writs they get on my main so the vouchers stay in one place and are used more effectively. The secret is to get as many skill points as possible. Those chars are not only crafters, but pretty complete builds overall, and can fill at least 2 roles in group content. It takes work but it's doable. The biggest advantage of having all high end crafting on one char is that you only have to learn the motifs once. It took me 10 days of non stop shuffling trough guild kiosks and 2.7-2.8M to get them all 3 months ago and I don't wanna do that for other characters because it's a waste of time and money. Spreading crafting expertise between characters is bad. It may work to split between gear and consumables but I don't like that idea either.

psxfloh · April 2017

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Because of recipes and motifs all crafts should be on your main. You will regret it if you do otherwise. I know folks who did and do. There are plenty of skill points.

Just to emphasize it..

You might really really regret it, if you spread out your crafting skills (clothier, blacksmith, woodworking) on several toons.

The foremost reason is "motifs"..
Most of the motifs aka 'crafting styles' come in "motif pages", e.g. there's a motif page for "chests", one for "staves", one for "boots" and so on.
With a single motif page for - let's say - "Draugr Boots", your character will be able to craft Draugr styled boots in light, medium and heavy. Whereas, if you spread light, medium and heavy on three different toons, you would need this motif page x3, for each of your toons.

There are some other reasons as well.. but as you're obviously new to the game I don't want to frighten you with too much information at once

rossk25 wrote: »

That way, they can share anything they craft and find with each other. This way my clothier (Dunmer) will craft medium armor for the Bosmer, while my provisioner Bosmer will craft magicka food and drinks for the Dunmer.
Is this a good tactic? Both of these guys are my "mains".

That's ok! Later, when you have enough skill points and ingredients, you can increase provisioning and alchemy on your Dunmer without any drawbacks!

FlyLionel · April 2017

My main has all skyshards in cyro/overland/dungeons and all that. It will be a whole lot of time investing but it is worth it.

Asardes · April 2017

My advice for a beginner would be not to invest skill points in crafting at first, but level the skills nevertheless, especially the gear crafting ones by deconstructing trash gear that drops from mobs or is received as quest reward as it quickly becomes obsolete when you outlevel it. Once you get those skills to 50, which should be pretty fast because deconstructing actually gives more experience than crafting, and you get enough skill points from exploring and questing, you can invest these skill points in the passives that speed up research and allow you to research multiple items at once, and start researching traits in all professions as fast as possible because it takes a long time. Priority traits are training, divines, impenetrable, infused for armor and training, sharpened, precise, defending for weapons.

While you level you can ask for someone else to craft gear for you every 10 levels or so. Just ask around in guilds or zone chat and be sure you have enough materials of the required level to have it crafted. There are plenty of people who have researched 6 or more traits. Best levels to craft for are those who end in a 4, because that's the highest level of the material tier and you will have plenty of materials by that time. For stamina characters a good combo is to have 5 Hunding's Rage and 4/3 Night Mother's Gaze (2W front bar, bow back bar) and for magicka characters 5 Seducer's or Julianos and 3 Torug's Pact (Destro front back, resto back bar). Chest should always be heavy, legs medium, waist light and the other 4 pieces from either medium, if you are playing stamina, or light if you are playing magicka. It's good to level all armor types early so you can spec passives later. Endgame it's advantageous to run 5/1/1 setups for more resources anyway.

worsttankever · April 2017

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Because of recipes and motifs all crafts should be on your main. You will regret it if you do otherwise. I know folks who did and do. There are plenty of skill points.

I agree with @f047ys3v3n. Especially with the introduction of Master writs - whatever those points you collect for those writs are called (can't remember), they are non-transferrable. You want to maximize research and style knowledge on 1 character so they have the best chance of collecting the master writ, and then the ability to actually execute (e.g. crafting a 9 trait set in epic quality in a rare style).

Personally I put Alchemy, Enchanting, and Provisioning on a second character - and have that character transfer the writs he receives to my main crafter to complete. My main crafter is level 50 in those as well, and has unlocked the easier achievements.

Nestor · April 2017

rossk25 wrote: »

When you say "how much time you want to put into acquiring skill points". Does that mean primarily mining for skyshards? or are there other ways to get skills outside of leveling and main quests?

It takes 121 Skill points to fully max out Crafting Skills, plus Keen Eye points. So, figure 21 to 24 points per crafting skill is needed to max them out. So you need 40 to 48 skill points for crafting alone. Not counting any you will use in Provisioning and Alchemy to extend Food and Potion Timers, and then if you want to chase Enchanting, which you should.

See this for the amount of skill points you will need for everything you want to do on your character

http://eso-skills.com/

What most of us do is have a dedicated crafter, that may or may not be deadly.

With One Tamriel, it is really so easy to level Alts to L50, and hence they are immediately vested in all champ points, that having a dedicated crafter parked at a crafting station is really easy to do now.

Asardes · April 2017

From my experience keen eye is only worth taking for alchemy. The max level cloth, wood and metal nodes already stand out pretty well even at distances where the perk is inactive. For enchanting it's utterly useless as rune nodes already glow. There are also a bunch of other useless passives like snake blood or the one that increases the amount of runes recovered from glyphs - the rate remains low even with the passive and runes are already cheap as dust. Hirelings are also lacklustre because the return is much lower than doing writs. The ones that increase food/drink duration are also not worth taking unless you are chugging ambrosia while levelling so the are useful but only temporarily. So the actual number is much lower than 121.

JKorr · April 2017

All of my 12 characters have crafting to some degree. I'm trying to balance skills to be able to keep finding the lower level mats I need for my guild crafting.

I have to main crafters; one that has all 9 traits researched, and who got all the motifs first, the second one is working on the 9 traits research, but she got all the recipes first. Both have maxed alchemy, and enchanting. As I find duplicate recipes or motifs, I use them on the one who needs them. Any found after the two main crafters are taken care of go to the other characters. There are enough points to go around.

freedom3128 · April 2017

My main character is a master crafter and I still have skill points left over. When I finished all the research traits, I re-allocated the skill points needed for research cost into other skills. You can also avoid the points needed for seeing the mats easier on the field.

Nerouyn · April 2017

I wish it weren't the case that some style materials drop rate is determined by how many motif pages you know for that style. This is the one game design element which denies you a choice when it comes to how you allocate crafting across your characters.

You can still put crafting on a main or a dedicated crafting alt but you then either need to learn motifs on multiple characters, play with your crafter if you want those style materials, or forgo looting those materials yourself and have to buy them from other players.

So yes it's presently best to have (equipment) crafting skills and motifs on your main character.

rossk25 · April 2017

Thank you for the responses everyone! It seems that all agree to have crafting on your main.

@akl77 Awesome. I kind of want to go down a similar route with my Dumner. Make him a crafter, but also he can switch roles between magicka DPS or Healer.

@Asardes That information is VERY usefull. Thanks. I will remember those points.

After looking at http://eso-skills.com/skill/ It seems that I would need about 100 sill points just for what I want to do. So I should be fine.

ATM I am not really investing alot of points into the crafts. Im just going to level them up by deconstructing loot and by trolling through the guild stores and buying any crafted items other players have that are cheap (especially if they have the intricate trait) just so I can level up woodwork and clothing faster.

I might put in skill points early on into the passive that allows for higher quality items from deconstruction and the research passives.

But Should I level up the use of better quality material as I level up the skills just so that I can do the writs? Is that how writs work?

STEVIL · April 2017

rossk25 wrote: »

Thank you for the responses everyone! It seems that all agree to have crafting on your main.

@akl77 Awesome. I kind of want to go down a similar route with my Dumner. Make him a crafter, but also he can switch roles between magicka DPS or Healer.

@Asardes That information is VERY usefull. Thanks. I will remember those points.

After looking at http://eso-skills.com/skill/ It seems that I would need about 100 sill points just for what I want to do. So I should be fine.

ATM I am not really investing alot of points into the crafts. Im just going to level them up by deconstructing loot and by trolling through the guild stores and buying any crafted items other players have that are cheap (especially if they have the intricate trait) just so I can level up woodwork and clothing faster.

I might put in skill points early on into the passive that allows for higher quality items from deconstruction and the research passives.

But Should I level up the use of better quality material as I level up the skills just so that I can do the writs? Is that how writs work?

RE this

"ATM I am not really investing alot of points into the crafts. Im just going to level them up by deconstructing loot and by trolling through the guild stores and buying any crafted items other players have that are cheap (especially if they have the intricate trait) just so I can level up woodwork and clothing faster."

i would strongly recommend getting registered at the guilds in all six crafts and running tier-1 writs daily for all six. Dont bother with raising them up tiers unless you are moving to craft. But tier-1 writs more pay for themselves, raise your craft skill for later and provide surveys at the same rate as the higher ones do.

I also advise keen eye for 1 rank is each of the five that have it.

But for equip writs at tier-1 you always either get a survey or a box with 25pc of mats at tier-1 so its easy to keep them going and the gold awards and other things scale with your character as well as skill in crafts.

its easy to run all six in about 10m a day if you are in the right spot - i prefer auridon myself but hey, its easy to work around it in either first zone.

I have four characters at cp160+ running six tier-1s a day each in auridon and thats about 15k in gold alone plus tier-1mats, intricate/ornate items (ruby tier 50% of the time), plus surveys that other chars can harvest etc. Well worth the 6-7m each it takes me. They each have nothing in crafting except the keens eye i used for when they leave the city.

And right now also plus anniversary boxes.

rossk25 · April 2017

STEVIL wrote: »

i would strongly recommend getting registered at the guilds in all six crafts and running tier-1 writs daily for all six. Dont bother with raising them up tiers unless you are moving to craft. But tier-1 writs more pay for themselves, raise your craft skill for later and provide surveys at the same rate as the higher ones do.

I also advise keen eye for 1 rank is each of the five that have it.

Interesting. I have become certified in all 6 crafts. Is that the same as getting registered?

However, because I am relatively new to this game, to obtain Tier-1 writs does that mean I have to get them from the boards in the "earlier cities". So for my dunmer do I need to get them from Davons Watch in Stonefalls? Or can you get them in any city? I have done a few writs in other cities, but they do require more higher level materials.

Tevalaur · April 2017

You can get the writs from any writ board, but you'll be turning them in to locations that vary based on your passive skill points invested in the craft.

Wreuntzylla · April 2017

381 skill points in the game.

This is what you do for points. At level 10 go to Cyrodiil and do the introductory quest line. It's safe and you get 2 skill points. Invest one into rapids in the alliance line to get reasonable horse speed. Of course, feed your horse as often as possible.

If you have a max level friend, have them go to each wayshrine and use the port to player function. If not but you are in a big guild, port to different guildies randomly the same way. In either case, then go back and grab every overland (not in delves) skyshard. If you have all wayshrines, this is VERY quick and you will have enough skillpoints for a bunch of levels.

Check both Cyrodiil servers (home an guest) and go grab those skyshards whenever your faction dominates. If your faction doesn't own keeps near a skyshard don't go get it, the travel is crazy prohibitive.

Go to each public dungeon for the group event skill point and skyshard. Forget everything else unless you are a completionist or story lover. About 5-10min once you get the hang. Except for natambu which requires two players to activate the event.

Each group dungeon is worth a skill point the first completion but pugging is horrible. Wait until you have 3 friends to go with. About 15-20 min so leave this for much later unless you like dungeons.

Quest at your leisure. The main storyline gives points every few quests (every caldwell quest plus a few more). I have a slew of maxed drafters with enough points to cap passives and desired skills who have never done a quest outside group dungeons.

Eventually you'll need more and have to go back for the delve skyshards. This is a slow process and should be pushed to last except for group dungeons.

A parallel activity to all this is PvP skillpoints. I am a firm believer that everyone likes PvP, the ones that think they don't started solo or pugged. Make one of your 5 guilds a PvP guild, learn everything you can and have a blast. You will never forget your first 1v3, n matter what higher goals you reach. Even if I am wrong and someone hates killing other players, just watch chat, go to a keep for a siege, park yoursel inside and catch up on the walking dead.