Did I mess up using Alt for Provisioning?

BuzzZaw60 · May 2017

Hello and Good Morning from the States....

I've only been playing now for 7-8 weeks and had the full intention of playing just one character from the start who had three crafting responsibilities at first. Then saw someone post about spreading out crafting responsibilities and even using a Alt or two for just that single purpose leveling them up and not even playing them. So...I said cool and I'll do that.

.....but I then wanted to try another character and got hooked on him...a Khajiit Nightblade...who I decided to have the Woodworking and Blacksmithing responsibility. My main....a Breton Sorc had the Alchemy, Enchanting and Tailoring.

....but I then read some on the Dragonknight and I started him....handing over the Alchemy and now have all three of those in the mid 20's.

....but I left my poor Alt alone in charge of the Provisioning whose is a level 11 and has about 6-7 recipes under his belt. I used 2 of 3 Shards I got from starting him past the storyline and that's where he is...

So have I screwed up by keeping the Provisioning with my Alt and should I consider moving the Provisioning to my Dark Elf Dragonknight whose just has one crafting responsibility? Right now my Alt can make up to Level 19 food and brews I think with the few recipes he has. But after reading some tip here about your main doing it all and the amount of shards needed to advance I feel like I messed up but hopefully I can correct the mistake. Thanks

Saturnana · May 2017

You can go about crafting a number of ways and depending on how you play the game there's really no 'wrong way'.

Crafting is really fun i.m.o. and a lot of people do this on more than one character. If you're just starting out with a character then you could choose to only put skill points in one or a few particular crafts, to make sure you'll have enough skill points left for other things. I didn't really pay attention to this myself, however, and things worked out for me in the long run.

Switching between alts/chars because they all have different crafting skills etc. isn't a big deal. In your case, for provisioning, you could choose to 'move' the provisioning, but you could also start provisioning on a second character. Just make sure that if you have one crafter to supply all your characters, your crafter's crafting skill(s) should be high enough to create items for your highest lvl character. (Your crafter can craft items higher than his own level, as long as he has the necessary skills).

If you feel you've messed up beyond compare, or you just want to readjust your skills, you can also reset your skill points in your faction capital. This will not reset your progress/experience obviously, but it will give you back the skill points you invested in the different crafting skills for you to redistribute. It comes with a small gold fee, but you can respec as many times as you'd like.

Merlin13KAGL · May 2017

Max provisioning on all your characters, at least to unlock the passives that extend time on food/drink. Level 2 recipes are as high as you'll need to go on the other characters - just make a ton of blue food or drink.

As far as actual creation, though, it's generally easier to have a single character learn the recipes and make the food/drink.

It also frees up those skillpoints on all other characters. (You don't even need to keep the point in level 2 recipes)

Saturnana · May 2017

Also, if you want to get into furnishing/housing at some point, you may want to consider picking up all crafts on one character (or doing so a bit later on, creating a new char in the future as a master crafter for instance). I say this because furnishing blueprints, diagrams, etc. require you to be a certain level and to have invested skill points in certain passives of several crafts. See this one, for instance:

It needs you to have invested skill points in the Metalworking (blacksmithing), Woodworking (woodworking) and Solvent Proficiency (alchemy) passives of their respective crafting skills, in order for you to be able to craft this.

Narvuntien · May 2017

I made this mistake as well but before furnishing was a thing.

I had my main just take all the crafts they needed. clothier woodworking enchanting and well alchemy because I always enjoyed alchemy.

I didn't learn blacksmithing because I thought I was going to be a bow main (until I realised that wasn't really possible) and I didn't learn provisioning because I didn't know what it was for as it wasn't in the other ES games.

So now I have to buy any motifs twice one for clothier and one for blacksmithing and I can't make many blue or purple furnishings

.

Nestor · May 2017

There are only 3 Crafts that you really want to concentrate on one character, Metal, Wood and Cloth/Leather or Equipment Crafting. This is because of Traits and Motifs more than anything else.

Your consumable crafting can be on the same crafter or spread across Alts, it does not matter. It's not like you are making food or potions or enchants all the time. Make a stack, spread it around and game on.

Another thing, if you have the skill points and mats, you can level Consumable Crafting, even Enchanting, in hour. For all 3.

Also, you kind of want all your alts to have some skills in Alchemy and Provisioning for the Passives that extend Potion/Food Durations. Its not game breaking to not have these passives, it just makes things better.

Tevalaur · May 2017

From Sunshine Daydream's Guide to Crafting: Other Considerations:

"One trick I wish I had used when researching traits: study either light or medium armor (whichever you are more likely to actually wear) and heavy armor on your main crafter while initially studying light/medium (the other option) armor and metal weapons on another character. Then consolidate traits by having that alt make study items for your main crafter. This saves no overall time, and eventually all traits are learned on your main crafter anyhow, but does greatly reduce the time before being able to make the best set pieces.

Motifs can be expensive! You'll only want to acquire one copy of these, so keep blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking on the same character for shared knowledge of style motifs. Some folks prefer to split off the consumables crafting (provisioning, alchemy, enchanting) to lower the percentage of skill points dedicated to crafting, but my main character is also my crafter (in all schools) and I like it that way.

If your playing characters know provisioning & alchemy you can always make food, drink, & potions when needed during your gameplay and without an interruption to change characters. Plus, unlocking the crafting level necessary for useful skills will be easily done while leveling the crafts anyhow.

Since furniture crafting is a cross-platform skill, I think it now even more effective to put all crafting on your main character (or at least a character that's around character level 20-30 and can easily run around for skyshards and skillpoints) if you wish to be able to craft the better quality furnishings.

Remember that while your main character(s) will eventually have plenty of skill points, it can be difficult to gather sufficient levels & skill points on a character designed solely around crafting."

This advice seems to be a little late, but at least you've not taken the alt that you split equipment crafting to all the way to crafting level 50 and could use it to split the research initially.

Jayne_Doe · May 2017

My main character is also my main crafter. Wasn't always that way, though. In the beginning she just knew the crafts that she was going to use, so Blacksmithing, Alchemy, Provisioning, and Enchanting. Skill points are at a premium early on, so you have to be careful about how many you put into crafting. Also, before One Tamriel, you were limited to the skyshards in your Alliance until completing Coldharbour/Main Story, so SPs were harder to come by back then.

Anyway, eventually I started using a bow on backbar, so added Woodworking to her. Since I'm an altaholic, I had other characters who were working on Woodworking, so they could make research pieces for my main. Once ZOS started introducing motifs that were broken up into chapters, I decided to add the final crafting line, Clothing, to my main, as I didn't want to have to learn those motifs more than once.

I like having one character who can do all the crafts, and it was fortuitous with the way they implemented the furnishing crafting system.

As for your specific question regarding Provisioning, that is one of the easiest crafts to level, so it's not hard to switch it to another character. And, it seems like your current Provisioner didn't learn too many recipes, so you didn't waste a lot of recipes on that character.

disintegr8 · May 2017

There is no reason not to level up all characters in Alchemy and Provisioning as they are the easiest and quickest to do. All 8 of my characters are at level 50 in every craft, even though they don't all actually do any crafting other than daily writs.

I have one 'main crafter' who is the first to learn all of the recipes/motifs I find and is the only one to have learnt all 9 traits for everything. He does all of my master writs , learns all of the Homestead plans, blueprints, diagrams, etc. and does all of my account crafting.

All of my other characters get to learn the 'hand me downs' that the main crafter already knows and they are all flat out doing trait research, even though they will never craft anything outside of daily writs. Why? Because they can.

O_LYKOS · May 2017

Do everything on one character. It's so much easier when you begin doing your crafting writs and stuff.

Provisioning and Alchemy - do on all your characters simply for the passives. Also handy if you're low on food/potions on a character to just go make them instead of relying on that one character.