Medium armor users' disadvantage with crafting.

Layken · April 2014

I'm creating this thread because one of the most bothersome things in ESO imho is the need to farm leather. Every other proffession's materials can be easily gathered while questing and I allways have an abundance of them (I have low level characters). Besides; ores, fabrics and woods are allways gathered by three or four at a time whils leather is dropped by only a few mobs one or very rarely two at a time. To make a full set of armor I need to actively farm Dreugh, mudcrabs or guar for a while to gather the materials, there should be the ability to actually skin those mobs or increase their drop rate. I feel handicapped by having picked the Nightblade class because of the fact I can get over 50 materials for any profession whilst I gathered only 5 leather scraps during my questing.

Sihnfahl · April 2014

Medium armor and light armor share the same profession; level up using light armor. Crafting your own armor on the lower levels isn't as big as it is at the higher, as quest rewards and drops should carry you through.

Raynekatt · April 2014

Completely agree with this.

I act as the supply of Medium Armour for 2 others and even with them supplying their collections of leather/hide I am hard pressed to give them a full set ever few levels.

For example: I was farming to have enough hide to finish off a set and out of a pack of wolves (5 of them) only 1 dropped hide and that was 2 pieces.

Ithug · April 2014

Kill mudcrabs... just follow the shore thres like hundreds of them
then turn back and repeat....

BOOM! Problem solve.

Mathea · April 2014

I saw problem in beta, but now? Not really. I have plenty of it. Just kill all mobs that you see drop scraps, and problem solved. Extracting also gives you materials.

ArRashid · April 2014

You don't understand, we don't need leathers to level up Clothing. We have enough materials for that. But we can't craft ourselves a full set without farming for several hours!

I've tried to make myself a full set of medium armor for lvl 30. I spent 3 hours killing packs of skeevers and even then I had to get back there one more time because I was missing about 3 leathers for final piece and few more for chest piece (coz that *** broke at 90% improvement chance)

VanishingLex · April 2014

Actually this was the single biggest reason I didn't create a Nightblade after beta testing as one. Instead I have a Sorcerer and a Templar as cloth and iron are plentiful.

Mansome · April 2014

This is quite a problem I can see at higher levels. The way I dealt with it in the low levels is just to kill deer, rabbits and goats. Those are like 1 shot kill.

Chalybos · April 2014

You guys do know that levelling up in cloth also counts towards leather, right? And that you only need the leather for the items you're actually going to wear, right?

Telatansiv · April 2014

ArRashid wrote: »

You don't understand, we don't need leathers to level up Clothing. We have enough materials for that. But we can't craft ourselves a full set without farming for several hours!

I've tried to make myself a full set of medium armor for lvl 30. I spent 3 hours killing packs of skeevers and even then I had to get back there one more time because I was missing about 3 leathers for final piece and few more for chest piece (coz that *** broke at 90% improvement chance)

... you find armor faster than it would be effective to craft your own i'm level 48 and have level 42 leatherworking every-time i craft myself a whole set i do like 1 quest and find at least 1-2 pieces of armor better than that of which i just crafted the only reason there is to level crafting abilities if for endgame where crafted armor is going to be far superior to that of drops because you can only craft legendary gear not find it so in conclusion

RustyBlades · April 2014

I've never had a helmet or pauldrons drop yet, recycling only yields a few bits of armor. Farming mud crabs sucks as they don't always drop anything - mining ore or harvesting jute. As it takes about 1 hour to get enough ore to build a complete set of armor and a set for the +2 level where as mining mud crabs takes 2-3 hours to get enough to maybe make a set of current level armor.

Since not all gear drops that you need for a set of armor, farming for armor itself and hoping for drops just doesn't work. Since a full set of armor is a must for any sort of boss battles, just hoping doesn't work, and since all boss battles don't happen end game saying "you only need to craft stuff end game," must be from someone who's not played ESO.

Leather is the hardest resource to gather simply because the resources is quite rare and a pain to collect. Period.

Layken · April 2014

Yea I'm not saying it's hard to level up clothing, I just use jute for that (in lower levels). The point is that gathering leather is sooo much harder then grabbing ores and wood which is unfair towards Nightblade class. If leather was a 100% drop chance I wouldn't realy complain altho farming would also be required (compared to other professions) but it wouldn't be that exhausting

Chalybos · April 2014

Oh, I agree that it's a pain trying to get the scraps to put together enough for a full set; there's never a living wolf or crocodile where I tread due to that. But my point was that, at least for the levelling aspect of it, there's a second route, an alternative fuel (so to speak). Armor & weapons both use harvested ore. Bows & shields both use harvested wood. The clothing line ... well, it's all been said above. Maybe it's just in the way I'm looking at it.

LunaRae · April 2014

I'm only level 22 right now but here's a few tips I've learned myself while questing in Tamriel.

Overview - Gathering skins/leather sucks. Straight up like OP said it is NOT guaranteed like other resource gathering AND is less quantity. This must change IMO but in the meantime....

Also leather/clothing gatherers get crapped on some more by sharing an ability slot for hireling gatherer. Have a chance to get clothing OR leather. Great. Not only is it hard to farm leather, but I can't even rely 100% on my gatherling to get me leather because there's a 50% chance I'm going to get useless clothing mats. Thanks game. I haven't even bothered skilling this ability but it should be separate, it's already hard enough thanks.

Option #1 ) Farm mini-bosses for medium armor. Not sure if it's just me but a lot of mini-bosses (like the ones in small dungeons) drop several pieces of loot. Often times this is 3-4 pieces of medium armor for me. I extract this to usually get hides + since bosses usually provide green / blue (later levels) you get extra resources (like dwarven oil for blue's, honing stones for green, etc..). It's a win win.

Option #2 ) Accept those ridiculous trade offers. When I see a player selling a 100 stack of X resource (skins) in-chat for some ridiculous price consider taking it. Unless you have a true purpose for saving your gold don't be shy of spending a little. A 100 stack should be good enough for two full sets of medium armor (at the earlier levels). don't be shy and try bartering first. Most players have no idea why their items are worth and will easily give up 100's of gold.

Option #3) Join a trading guild. Pretty much same details as above, but so much more available. ESO has this huge problem right now where someone in the early levels farms up X resource (iron, leather, etc..) and then they hit level 20. And realize everything you JUST farmed is useless because you can't craft your level gear with it anymore. You can't convert 3 pieces into 1 newer craft mat, you can do nothing with it but trade. Hence trading guild. Players will put their stacks of 100 to at least make a little gold, which you should have some quantity of (assuming you're not wasting it at venders for gear).

Option #4) Be mindful of your resources! I've learnt you get burned quick if you think you can make full sets every two levels. BIG MISTAKE. This game doesn't provide enough leather to do that. Consider investing into a full set around level 6-10 and again around level 14. Once you hit 16 you'll need the resources from the next zone so there's no point in stock piling unless you plan on using old gear for a new zone. Two full sets should be EASY with a 100 stack of leather. I gathered this easily through questing/exploring. But my other options above can assist if you want to expedite this process (or if you wasted it by crafting all the time).

Option #5) Why are you selling?!?! Head on over to the crafting bench and EXTRACT, EXTRACT!! I've seen so many ESO streamers selling things, whhyy?!?!? The only items I sell are things that can't be extracted from (like jewelry) and ornate items (sells at merchant for 125% extra gold). I'm not sure if people are lazy or just oblivious to all the potential resources they're selling away.

While the post itself doesn't resolve the issue of clear disadvantage of leather/skin gathering, I hope it sheds some light for new players who aren't aware of the potential options for gathering this particular mat.