So, decent crafters are gimp fighters/mages?

KerinKor · April 2014

Unless I'm missing something, to be a crafter you need to spend Skill Points, to be a fighter or mage you need to spend Skill Points.

Seems to me it's a statement then of the patently obvious that in order to craft you have to gimp your fighting abilities, certainly at low/mid levels because every point you spend on a craft skill is one point you haven't used to improve your ability to fight.

Why is this game set up like that? Why is it unacceptable for someone's character be able to craft their own gear while at te same time being a good fighter/mage?

Don't answer "so you have to choose", the game is set up almost to force you to craft as gear from drops and quest rewards are clearly pretty lame. It's not much of a choice, craft gear and be gimp, or be good but naked.

PBpsy · April 2014

There are plenty of skill points for doing both. You get a lot of them from skyshards , leveling and as quest rewards. Plus you do not need to take all of the combat skills in a line to be effective so you put points in only what you use and the passives you want.

I am around lvl 25 and I have 4 skill points free and I am doing fine in combat plus I am advancing the enchanting and clothing line. I don't think It will be a problem later since I have a lot of the combat skills and.passives I want alredy.

Tiyamel · April 2014

or alternatively have a main and send all your crafting stuff to a dedicated crafter

thats what i have done, its a little harder to level my crafter but i consider it more of a challenge

Denssor · April 2014

You don't really need any crafting skills until you start finding the second tier materials/ingredients. By that time, if you have done all of the quest and found all of the sky shards, you should have more than enough skill points to spend a few on crafting skills.

At level 26, I have like 6-7 skill points in crafting skills, skills and there morphs for both skill bars, a few skills that I don't use anymore, and I still have a few skill points that I haven't spent yet.

So there are more than enough skill points to go around.

lupusrex · April 2014

You can get more than enough skill points at cap (320) to craft (in fact, every craft if you like) and fill out any build out there. That includes two weapons, two armors, class skills and morphs, all necessary passives, guild skills, everything.

Some people may find that they can't spare them while leveling up. Personally, I have been able to skill up everything combat-related that I want as it becomes available as well as taking the skills to keep up with my character level in blacksmithing, clothier, and woodworking. I heal and DPS just fine for my level, maybe even better than if I didn't craft because I can make gear (especially weapons) which keep up with my character level, which drops and quest rewards don't do.

RaZaddha · April 2014

The only skills that you really need as a crafter are the ones that allows you to craft higher level gear, so if you want to be a blacksmith you only need to put a point in craft at level 14, the rest just helps you do your crafting easier

Lalai · April 2014

I've found I've gotten enough skill points to keep all crafting professions up to par with my combat stuff, and I certainly don't feel gimped in combat. I guess it depends on where you want to spend your points. Personally, I'm fine being spec'd to be a healer. All my passives are going that direction, and aside from two damage spells I've been taking all the healing ones (I have 8 available now if you count my ultimate at level 19).

For crafting I've got at least one point into every craft so I can craft the 2nd tier of stuff. I have a hireling for enchanting. A point in to use blue recipes for provisioning. Another point to help me see cloth (that flax is killer to spot!), and to allow me to research 2 cloth items at once.. and I think that may be it for now crafting-wise.

Anyway, point is, crafting is keeping up with my level as far as what I can craft, and I'm not gimped in combat (I can heal dungeons just fine, and solo just fine). I may not be able to craft purple and yellow (or are they orange?) items, but who needs those at level 19 anyway? >>

You honestly get a lot of skill points to play with if you fully explore, do quests, and find your skyshards. It will all depend on what you wanna do with it. Some may not like crafting and choose to have a few different "builds" for combat instead of investing the extra points in crafting. Some may want more crafting points up front than they can afford to take on a combat character and end up making a character dedicated to nothing but crafting. One of the great things about ESO is there's so much choice

Elvikun · April 2014

You don't have to "gimp" anything, you really have more than enough skillpoints to master your fighting skills along with 2-3 crafting disciplines. Or master everything with excessive collection of skyshards. It's simple like that.

Thete · April 2014

I am crafting on my main. Although I'm not pretending that if I'd spent all my skill points on fighting abilities I wouldn't be a powerhouse, nonetheless I haven't had my progress blocked yet on any quest (just finished Stonefalls).

Nox_Aeterna · April 2014

Well , being a templar lvl 20 , i pretty much only 1 skill to win every single fight anyway.

Maybe at a later lvl this will become a problem, but then i can respec.

Shimond · April 2014

At a grand total of 12 active abilities (5 reg +1 ult x2 weapon) and a very limited amount of passives that work without weapons...no, decent crafters can be decent fighters or mages as well. You might have to go find a few more skyshards than the "I don't craft" types.

Audigy · April 2014

Dear OP, you seem to forget that Skill points are not bound to max level like it is at wow.

At TESO you get skill points for a lot of things like questing, advancing your story line, doing dungeons or zones, finding skyshards ...

I have not counted it, but I read that there are about 300 skill points currently achievable and more will come in future patches.

I am not sure if you can put a point into everything, but if you act smart and have a common sense, then you don't need to gimp your char at all.

Exarch · April 2014

And so we hear the mating cry of the munchkin, anything that is not completely optimized is "gimp", the wounded cry of the min/maxer soul at anything that has any element of meaningful choice.

ThatHappyCat · April 2014

At level 35 I have all the points I want in my combat skills (that I could currently put points in), invest in two crafting skills, and still have skill points left over.

Not an issue.

Phoebvs · April 2014

◾50 Skill Points from leveling up
◾106 Skill points from skyshards (319/3)
◾20 Skill Points from dungeons (one each)

Thats 176 Skill points to start off with

Then you get an unknown amount from certain quests, If you read reddit it amounts to 166 Skill points. This amounts to a total of 342 skill points.

Interesting tidbit : It seems you needs 448 Skill points to max out everything on a character.

Copypaste from Kanvindr's post

KerinKor · April 2014

Exarch wrote: »

And so we hear the mating cry of the munchkin, anything that is not completely optimized is "gimp", the wounded cry of the min/maxer soul at anything that has any element of meaningful choice.

I appreciate your thoughtful and considered reply, I do love an intelligent debate.

Personally it concerns me that as I said, while leveling I am gimping myself and those who I play with in groups if I have to divert points into crafting which would otherwise be available to make myself a better player.

Obviously you aren't concerned about having your party members carry you with your less-than-they-could-be fighting skills.

Gaudrath · April 2014

KerinKor wrote: »

Obviously you aren't concerned about having your party members carry you with your less-than-they-could-be fighting skills.

If you're concerned with that, pick a role and stick with it until you can afford to diversify. For example if you're tank, go with 1H and shield, heavy armor, ignore everything else combat related because you don't need bow skills to be a tank.
The rest goes into crafting, and if there's any leftovers just pick what you want.

That way you can be optimized for your intended role and level and still be able to craft. You won't be as adaptable, but that's the price you have to pay for early specialization.

This is of course assuming you collect skyshards.

knightblaster · April 2014

You should be collecting every single skyshard in every zone. If you do that, you shouldn't have an issue with gimping yourself for combat by taking a few points in crafting, because you will have more points to play with.

Shimond · April 2014

KerinKor wrote: »

Personally it concerns me that as I said, while leveling I am gimping myself and those who I play with in groups if I have to divert points into crafting which would otherwise be available to make myself a better player.

If you're doing the class quests and collecting skyshards you should have no shortage of skill points. Indeed you'll find yourself with more than you can spend (limited by your actual numerical skill level in whatever you're using) unless you are trying to spread yourself all over the place (and intentionally 'gimping' yourself by trying to perform multiple roles at once).

I think a lot of people buy more active abilities than they realize will fit on their bar - and waste a lot of skill points.

Myrddinman · April 2014

I started a character and have so far diverted all skill points into the Crafting professions. I am only level 4, as I'm really only using this character on my laptop, so that I can hang with the family and still play, craft, (can't really combat) and conduct quite a bit of maintenance for all of my characters.

I am finding at this low level, I need to put some of my next points into some combat skills to help with questing. However, I think once at higher levels and skill points become more bountiful, it will be easier to keep up with both combat and crafting.

Vikova · April 2014

KerinKor wrote: »

Exarch wrote: »

And so we hear the mating cry of the munchkin, anything that is not completely optimized is "gimp", the wounded cry of the min/maxer soul at anything that has any element of meaningful choice.

I appreciate your thoughtful and considered reply, I do love an intelligent debate.

Personally it concerns me that as I said, while leveling I am gimping myself and those who I play with in groups if I have to divert points into crafting which would otherwise be available to make myself a better player.

Obviously you aren't concerned about having your party members carry you with your less-than-they-could-be fighting skills.

So you are ignoring the slew of comments before the sarcastic one?

There are plenty of points to go around. Almost none are actually needed in crafting.

Phadin · April 2014

As a crafter, I'm mostly going to spend on the grade to use the higher class tiers. Early on I'll put points into the research passive as well. Especially since the last few traits can take weeks to learn, and the research passive lets you learn multiple traits. It could take 2 years to learn all the traits for all the items in Blacksmithing or Clothing without that passive.

Once I have most/all of the traits, I'll probably respec the character at some point and put those points into the one to increase upgrade chance, so I can conserve upgrade material making high level stuff.

Enchanting is the only craft I am taking the hirling on. I do plan to get the alchemy passive to mix 3 ingredients at once, and maybe the enchanting one to increase the chance of getting aspect runes out of deconstruction... since that is the rarest rune type.

Even so, I'm only doing two crafts per character, so I have three characters to cover all the crafts. Plenty of points to spend that way in crafting and still keep up my combat skills.

mbrubaker · April 2014

well using a couple of talent calculators out their that are capped at 100 points and I tried numerous build Ideas with all the combat/crafting moves I wanted and I could barely break 70 points, so at max level we'll see how it does. Unless your the person who wants every weapon and world skill line maxed which won't happen I think we'll be fine.