new player, should I split crafting between multiple characters?

Duncanen · July 2017

I read that is is a good idea to use one char for blacksmiting, woodworking and clothing (and all the traits i assume), and another one for alchemy, provisioning and enchanting.
Is this due to the skillpoints needed for all the crafting skills? And do I even need to skill all the crafting skills to their max level? That would mean 70-80 skillpoints for both chars.

T1y4hoon · July 2017

I mean, there are enough skill points in the game to have just one character be a crafter. Thats what I did.

BenevolentBowd · July 2017

I have a guide that you might find useful.

http://benevolentbowd.ca/games/esotu/esotu-the-making-of-a-master-crafter/

Generally speaking, at the very least you will want do all of the equipment professions on one character to save on motif costs. Imperials earn more from writs and get imperial motif for free. Orcs level crafting faster.

Eventually, you will have more than enough skill points. Also, if you are trying to get all achievements on 1 character, then that character should be your master crafter.

Taleof2Cities · July 2017

With 390 skill points available now after the Morrowind patch it's getting easier to craft on all characters ... not just your main crafter.

WacArnold · July 2017

My main is my crafter I have plenty of skill points and it's easier to craft from one character instead of loging in and out all the time. I would work on one character personal simply because when you get done it's more convenient.

Nordic_Pirate · July 2017

I made my main a crafter with the thought of 100%-ing the game on one character. I regret it only because I don't have enough skill points to be PvE/PvP and crafting all at the same time. I always have to pay to swap which gets expensive with all of the skill points I have (every single one in the game).

JKorr · July 2017

You will eventually get enough points to do everything. You might want to decide to split crafting between two characters; one for smith/clothing/wood, and one for alchemy/enchanting/provisioning. You really don't want to by buying duplicates of motifs. You can do all the research for traits on both.

I have two maxed crafters in everything. One has all the new motifs first, the other one gets all the new recipes first. Then as I can find or buy more motifs/recipes, I try to balance them. All of my characters craft to some extent; I use them to farm mats at all different levels.

davey1107 · July 2017

People answered the splitting question pretty well. Like they said, up to you. Your second question - do you have to max out the craft lines? Meh...it depends.

Getting the lines themselves to level 50 is pretty easy. You'll do this eventually just deconstructing things or making stuff. You don't have to grind these lines...mostly it's a waste of time unless there's a good reason, like you need to level up to make armor for yourself. Otherwise, learn the system and just level at your own pace. Going to find 800 swords to tear apart is booooooooooring, lol.

However, you might be asking if you need to spend skill points in all the passives. Some are necessary if you're going to be a crafter, others are optional. As a general rule, let's say you want to be a thrifty crafter, saving points where you can. In this case, the lines are pretty similar. Let's use smithing as an example:

Metalworking: the first passive in each allows you to make higher level items, and to extract items out of higher level items. These are necessary. These also drive your daily writs. If you do writs, you want to do as high level writs as possible, so again you'll be spending on these.

Keen eye: passives that create a glow around nodes. These are totally optional, you can save tons of points by bypassing these.

Hirelings: these offer daily deliveries of mats. They're very useful for building up a supply cache, but they are optional. It's pretty rare for them to drop gold tempers, so the mats they bring aren't that valuable.

Extraction: these passive help you pull more valuable items from deconstructing items or refining ore. They're pretty important passives. As an example, at max extraction you'll get about 1 gold temper for every 200 raw ore refined...pretty valuable.

Research times: if you're going to do research and be a crafter, these are important. It'll take about a year to max out your research...but after that you can recoup the points.

Temper expertise: these make improving armor less expensive. You need this if you're going to make gear.

So yeah...if you're going to do crafting, it's a lot of points. But since you can get every sky shard at low levels now, it's totally doable.

altemriel · July 2017

if you can, do not split it, as furniture crafting requires multiple skills unlocked

lientier · July 2017

no

msetten · July 2017

Make sure that you have especially the blacksmithing, clothing and woodworking crafts on one and the same character. They namely share the motifs. If you would divide them over multiple characters, you would also need to find/buy the motifs multiple times. And having all the skills in a crafting line makes it easier to acquire master crafting writs.

DaveMoeDee · July 2017

Initially, I did the gear crafting on my Imperial main so that he could read all the motifs. I used alts for other crafting because skill points were a lot sparser before when they had vet levels and you only got 1 per level always. I also used an alt for improving gear and deconstructing to save a few skill points.

When my main accumulated more levels and more skill points, he ended up doing all 6 crafts to be able to get achievements and do 6 max level writs, but I try to save skill points here and there. My main and low level provisioner both know most food recipes (with the alt learning them first unless there is an achievement involved). My main does not have the x4 skill, so he does not craft provisioning items. My main also learns all the housing recipes since he is max level in all crafts. He also does all my master writs.

I wouldn't listen to people who say there are more than enough skill points. That assumes you will do a lot of content that you might not do. It also does not consider leveling. Start with gear on one character, preferably an Imperial, and other stuff on alts. Of course, if you don't want to tank, an Imperial main won't be much fun. I recommend making alts you would consider playing one day and not just random mules (I deleted a character with 50 in enchanting back before writs and plentiful glyphs when it was really expensive to level enchanting, but the class and race combo made no sense). Have the alts do skyshard runs up to character level 6. That way, if you die, you can resurrect in place without using a soul gem. Don't kill anything and don't do any quests. Run past mobs, and if they kill you, do your free rez. Just run straight to the skyshards until you get maybe 15 skill points per alt. That should be enough for 3 characters to do one crafting type each. This is easy if you are on PC and have the skyshard addon.

Slurg · July 2017

altemriel wrote: »

if you can, do not split it, as furniture crafting requires multiple skills unlocked

^^This. Splitting between characters the way the OP describes is a pre-furniture crafting recommendation. If there's a chance you might want to craft furniture, it's best to start off with the skills all on one.

DaveMoeDee · July 2017

Slurg wrote: »

altemriel wrote: »

if you can, do not split it, as furniture crafting requires multiple skills unlocked

^^This. Splitting between characters the way the OP describes is a pre-furniture crafting recommendation. If there's a chance you might want to craft furniture, it's best to start off with the skills all on one.

It is better to start off with splitting skills because you will lack the skill points to get the requirements to craft the furniture anyway. You can still level all crafts on the main crafter, but also on alts that can devote skill points for actually crafting blue or purple food while your main splits skill points between crafting and gear.

If you are going to play the game for a long time, it is beneficial to have a lot of characters crafting anyway.

If you don't feel the need to do any crafting until you are a high level, then, yeah, you can just level one character initially but don't bother using skill points on crafting until you have a surplus.

bebynnag · July 2017

in short
YES!

at lengh
while there are enough skill points in the game to have 1 character be a master crafter and still perform their chosen role (dd, heal or tank)
aquiring all those skill points on a single character can be quite arduous, it involves a lot of skyshard hunting, questing, dungeons and PvP and if you have absolutley no interest in 1 or more of these areas it can be an exhausting experience.

so take the path of least resistance

Slurg · July 2017

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

Slurg wrote: »

altemriel wrote: »

if you can, do not split it, as furniture crafting requires multiple skills unlocked

^^This. Splitting between characters the way the OP describes is a pre-furniture crafting recommendation. If there's a chance you might want to craft furniture, it's best to start off with the skills all on one.

It is better to start off with splitting skills because you will lack the skill points to get the requirements to craft the furniture anyway. You can still level all crafts on the main crafter, but also on alts that can devote skill points for actually crafting blue or purple food while your main splits skill points between crafting and gear.

If you are going to play the game for a long time, it is beneficial to have a lot of characters crafting anyway.

If you don't feel the need to do any crafting until you are a high level, then, yeah, you can just level one character initially but don't bother using skill points on crafting until you have a surplus.

Even before the DLCs, One Tamriel, and Morrowind (with all their skyshards and skill points) I was able to level all of the crafting skills to make level-appropriate items for my main as I played the game. I used skill points as soon as I got them but it was achievable. The points are not spent all up front when you are just starting out.

I suppose a lot would depend on the person's play style though, what worked for me might not work for someone who doesn't want to spend time questing or doing dungeons or collecting all the skyshards.

sudaki_eso · July 2017

davey1107 (#8) made a pretty good post about it, just wanted to add some things.
Hirelings can be useful, get them at least for provisioning because he will deliver you mats you wont find in the world.
Keen Eye could be useful for alchemy because some plants are hard to see/find. Even tho I didnt invested a single point in here.
Extraction is something you should get, its worth it but could be left out for enchanting, the outcome there is pretty bad.

In my opinion its better to have one master crafter instead of spreading. All your alts can learn crafting too but i would focus on one character. And remember that there is a skyshard in every dwelve, make sure you always pick those up when you are in there

wesley41 · July 2017

Great tips from previous posts; wish I had this advice when I started playing years ago.

I like to research Blacksmithing, Clothier and Woodworking on all my characters; might as well, as it's time consuming, but only because it takes so long for 9 traits. You really don't have to do much and eventually you can start crafting pieces with certain traits for your other characters to research.

Alchemy is EASY to get maxed out. If you have enough mats, you can hit 50 in about 20 min or so.

Provisioning can be done quickly also (20-30 min with the right recipes/ingredients).

Enchanting may be the outlier here; it takes FOREVER. Unless you're doing a craft/swap/decon with another player, you most likely won't hit max level until you're WAY deep into the game. I still get all my characters to max-enchanting though, as I'm one of those players who try to get ALL the achievements I can.

pizzaow · July 2017

No.

I made the mistake of splitting and now I'm in the process of leveling up/researching, so I can have just one. I have one character level 50 9-trait woodworking, clothing, alchemy and provisioning, and another level 50 9-trait blacksmithing and enchanting. Here are the reasons:

* I bought a crown store motif (frostcaster), but it's only available on 1 character. [ZOS: please make crown store motifs account-based, not character]... As-is you'd need to buy motifs for each character.
* Crafting sets often requires logging/re-logging (at least for me). Most of the time I'm crafting I end up making a 5-1-1 or crafting weapons or shields, which requires 4 items on 1 character and 1 item on another. Really annoying if you have to craft something at a hard to-reach place (like Kagrenac's). Also, my enchanter is the character I'm on the least, so I end up having to relog for all my enchanting needs.
* As mentioned a few times above, furniture requires having multiple lines on a single character.

My advice would be to level up the skills by deconstructing and get started researching. You don't need to spend a lot of skill points early on, because you probably won't be making anything until you're level 50, and have learned at least 5-6 traits. By then hopefully you have some extra skill points, if not get that skyshard hunter achievement. Getting to 50 isn't too bad, but getting 9-traits is a long grind, so definitely start researching!

eirinnpryderi · July 2017

I recommend you to focus in only a character....since myself as master crafter on crafter char, 120 of her Skillpoints are put on crafting

LadyDestiny · July 2017

You can now, since master writ vouchers will become account bound in future update.

JKorr · July 2017

That will be nice. While I have two maxed out in all the crafts crafters, one has all the new motifs I get; the second gets any duplicates. The one that doesn't have the motifs has all the new recipes first, the motif one gets the duplicates.

Now, guess how the master writs end up falling? Yep. Since I wanted to get the Ebony motif, I wanted the maxed motif crafter to do the writs. You don't want to know how long it took to find the Orcrest Agony Pale Ale recipe for her. [wonderful guildmates helped me hunt] My maxed recipe crafter could make it, of course, but master writs have to be made by the character who turns it in. And since the vouchers were bound to character, I didn't want to get the Ebony motif for her.

Bleakraven · July 2017

No!
You need multiple profession levels for furniture, and motifs are per-character!