Research everything you can, I'd recommend doing all up to 6 traits together (as the arguably best crafted gear requires 6 traits).

Do the key traits first, training, divines, infused, sturdy, reinforced. Training, infused, sharpened, nirn, precise.

Daily crafting writs are great for levelling, gold and materials.

Decon everything you dont want to keep or research, literally everything but the ornate stuff (even then you can decon this if you want).

Also I'd probably hold off on refining raw materials until you get all the passives.

Finally be prepared to go skyshard hunting or retire a character as it takes a LOT of skill points.

1. As others already mentioned, research traits whenever you can. For the first 4 or so traits per item, I don't even bother with any specific order as they will go fairly fast. After that, focus on what you think you'll need first (so when researching clothing pieces, don't put all your effort into light gear when you don't plan on making/wearing that for yourself). Start with traits as early as possible, research them as often as possible, and you will have saved yourself a lot of hassle in the future. EDIT: I also suggest investing in the Metallurgy / Stitching / Carpentry passives (and Lapidary Research if you're into Jewelry) as they will reduce your research time.

3. If you're not in a guild already, join a guild. Preferably one with a vendor so you can sell to people outside the guild.

3. Sell 'valuable' gear you looted and deconstruct the rest - regardless of item rarity. I personally sell everything that's worth 1000g or more (according to Master Merchant, long live PC!) and deconstruct what is left. I realize some people don't sell gear at all and just decon everything, but this way I make a nice bit of money while getting crafting materials (from the deconstructing) AND keeping my inventory clean as well!

4. If you don't have ESO+... get ESO+ (for the crafting bag, I would go crazy without it). Not saying that it's impossible to be a crafter without this, but it is going to be really really difficult to balance needed materials in your bank and inventory. Especially if you plan to do anything else besides crafting all day long. One way to work around this is (very!) diligent inventory management, having several mules, and not wanting to do all seven professions at once.

5. Learn any motifs, recipes and furnishing plans you come across (except maybe for Buoyant Armiger, go on and sell those ). Especially the cheaper ones. Your list will fill up pretty fast while adventuring, and then by the time you'll actually want to start making things, you will already know a few armor styles, furnishings, etc.!

6. If you happen to come across some more expensive / rare / new furnishing plans, it may be worthwhile to learn them to your character and then craft a few to sell & make money. Be advised that some items are very expensive to make because of what they need! (Summerset furnishings, for example).

Don't limit research to just one character. You can become self sufficient on your account for research and transmutation in less than a week.

1. Don't keep anything until you are CP160.
2. Don't keep BoE gear unless it is something really good you might be using soon.
3. make a quick research for classes you are going to level first/already leveled, and keep only recommended sets, mostly divines/infused (only after CP160).
4. Create mules - it helps to solve bank issue.
5. I am vendoring all white items, sell on trader what I can, decon everything else.
6. Join trade guild, better with traders somewhere in Raw'kla/Mournhold/Stormhaven

There is a lot of useful information already stated by others, so I shall not repeat.

If your goal is to eventually have one dedicated Master Crafter, then it will take a long time - and a lot of skill points.

1. Work towards getting all the Crafting passives that matter. I would not waste skill-points on the Hireling passive. You can harvest more from one or two nodes.
2. If you have the Imperial upgrade, make the Main Crafter an Imperial. At Lv 160, they receive 670g for handing in each writ - opposed to 644g. The difference is 1,274 more gold, per week, doing 7 writs per day. Imperials also receive slightly better loot from what they kill. NB. It might just be coincidence, but my Imperial (whom, unfortunately, came after my Main Crafter) tends to get better finds from treasure chests, fishing and filleting.
3. Put 75 champion points into the Thief Shadow Tree to get the Treasure Hunter passive. Send your Crafter to collect on Writ Surveys and Treasure Maps - unless of course you need mats of a different level.
4. I personally would not deconstruct purple gear or glyphs until my Crafter was at a level that was capable of extracting purple mats from the gear. Sell the gear with a Guild Trader, or even to an NPC if it is worth more than the mats you get out of it from deconstructing.
5. Whilst levelling up, or opening new skill lines, take advantage of the 'Enhanced Experience' slot whilst deconstructing and handing in your Writs.

I hope these few pointers give you some food-for-thought.

Sparr0w wrote: »

Research everything you can, I'd recommend doing all up to 6 traits together (as the arguably best crafted gear requires 6 traits).

Do the key traits first, training, divines, infused, sturdy, reinforced. Training, infused, sharpened, nirn, precise.

Daily crafting writs are great for levelling, gold and materials.

Decon everything you dont want to keep or research, literally everything but the ornate stuff (even then you can decon this if you want).

Also I'd probably hold off on refining raw materials until you get all the passives.

Finally be prepared to go skyshard hunting or retire a character as it takes a LOT of skill points.

Passives?

Nightfall12 wrote: »

Another perk for Imperial, is the imperial Starts with the imperial motiff knowledge, so you dont have to track down that gold book.

You want 1 crafter to handle wood blacksmith and clothing as these all share motif knowledge, you can divvy the other professions up to cut down on the skill point crunch you get trying to do all the professions. Best piece of advice on these 3 professions, is once you finish the research, you can respec of the perks that cuts research time, you wont need them ever again!
Provisioning is super easy and quick to level, you just need a good amount of mats and a few select recipes and you can get that to 50 in no time.
Alchemy is also quick but can be a bit more costly as you need reagents, there are plenty of guides out there to follow for unlocking the properties of each mat, you want to try and waste the least amount as possible learning.
Enchanting is a pain to move but basically decon every gylph you find, the higher the lvl the better, eventually it helps to partner with someone else, give your cp 150 mats to someone else and have them make a bunch you decon them, you can make them some that they can decon either way deconning someone else's is the way to go.
Jewelry...alikr dolmens for decon fodder...research research its all time on that one, but lvling is not bad if you griand those dolmens.

Once you are high enough you can do all 7 professions on one toon easy enough.

I knew provisioning is one of the easiest crafts, I have played the game before but that was a long time ago. And that's the one I usually start with. Because you can ingredients everywhere Lol! But the research thing I didn't understand? So I am glad I learned that too.

SocialAssassin wrote: »

Sparr0w wrote: »

Research everything you can, I'd recommend doing all up to 6 traits together (as the arguably best crafted gear requires 6 traits).

Do the key traits first, training, divines, infused, sturdy, reinforced. Training, infused, sharpened, nirn, precise.

Daily crafting writs are great for levelling, gold and materials.

Decon everything you dont want to keep or research, literally everything but the ornate stuff (even then you can decon this if you want).

Also I'd probably hold off on refining raw materials until you get all the passives.

Finally be prepared to go skyshard hunting or retire a character as it takes a LOT of skill points.

Passives?

As your skill [metalworking/clothier/woodworking] improves, you can put skill points into passives; example, "better chance to get back tempers and mats when deconning gear", or "research more than one item at a time". [This applies to all the crafting, actually; different passives for alchemy, enchanting, and provisioning.]

People are suggesting doing traits you might want to use for items first, because every trait you research about doubles the time it takes for the previous one. The first few traits are only a few to several hours; the last one is about 30 days.

You can make decent gear sets with only two traits researched. Since you will outlevel gear fast when you're starting out, its a good time to play around with the different craftable sets to see what stat boosts/effects might work best for your character and playstyle. Again, if you can find a good guild, crafters can help you out with both gear and research items when you want them, without hunting for that one piece and one trait you need. Each piece has to be researched separately. Getting "training" researched on a heavy cuirass doesn't count for a jack [medium] or robe [light].

Forgot to mention, you might want to keep the smithing/clothing/woodworking to one character, no matter how you split up any other crafting you want to do. Motifs to make the different styles can be expensive, and they are NOT account wide. Only the character that learns a motif can make that motif in "real" gear.

Making a costume/outfit is different. Any character has access to all the styles you know when making a costume. Costumes are just that; costumes. No matter what they look like, they aren't "actual" armor/weapons.

There is a lot of great advice already posted here, but I thought you might find this website a helpful reference. It has pretty much everything that's already been recommended here, but it's a lot easier to sort through and find what you need.

http://www.sunshine-daydream.us/ESO/#craft