How do I gather the mats I need for crafting?

kiasta6984b14_ESO · April 2019

I just resubbed and started playing again recently and I started to do crafting. I'm level 50 and cp87. I am not able to gather the appropriate crafting mats I need for blacksmithing. I have tried different areas but all I get is quicksilver ore or calcinium ore, but I need oricalcum ore. I've even respeced twice, spending just over 10k gold and I get the same ore no matter what level of metalworking I have. Creating a new character for the sole purpose to gather mats is not an acceptable solution. The whole reason I started playing again was to check out the whole one tamriel business everyone keeps talking about and to start getting into crafting. But having played it, it's basically unplayable for me as a crafter. I literally can't advance my blacksmithing without having to buy the ore, which is ridiculous. What would I need to do to be able to gather oricalcum ore beside creating a new character?

SantieClaws · April 2019

What server and platform are you on traveller for a start?

Usually the easiest option would be to just buy a few of the ingots you need from a guild trader.

Then you will get some of this back in the daily crafting writ rewards - and some materials towards the next tier too.

Also it is possible to gain materials by deconstructing weapons and armour that you find in the world.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Suddwrath · April 2019

If you're just trying to level your blacksmithing the best way is to deconstruct items (especially intricate items)

Ilsabet · April 2019

The materials you find will be more or less equally distributed between the appropriate mats for your crafting tier (based on the points spent in the first passive, not the number level of the skill between 1-50) and for your character level. The mats you need for writs will be based on that passive tier. If your blacksmithing tier is at orichalcum level, then that's what you should be finding. If you're finding quicksilver and calcinium but not orichalcum, then either you're not at the orichalcum tier anymore or you've got a bug going on.

Did you put a point into your blacksmithing passive after picking up a blacksmithing writ and not finishing it? If so, give up that quest and pick up a new writ and that'll be for your current crafting tier using the materials you're finding.

MinnesotaKid · April 2019

Well you are kinda in no man's land for crafting right now. You really don't want to worry about crafting gear until you hit CP160. I would focus on research and deconstructing until then.

The reason why is because of the way Zos setup the crafting levels. You have a 50/50 chance to have mats drop that are either your CP level or your crafting level making the mats in between hard to come by.

Now iirc, Zos has tweaked this to get some of the middle mats to drop more frequently but tbh the drops rates are still pretty low so you're pretty much stuck w/ what you can find until you hit CP160.

Good places to farm are the starter islands as they have a lot of mat nodes but avoid prime time as they are usually picked pretty clean by then.

kiasta6984b14_ESO · April 2019

Thanks all for the suggestions and replies. I'll have better answers for you all when I get home from work. I know that I set my metalworking back a few points to 3, but as for writs, I do not know. I haven't picked anything up since starting again. I may have a lingering quest, but I'm no longer at home.

"You have a 50/50 chance to have mats drop that are either your CP level or your crafting level making the mats in between hard to come by."

Ah I see, I didn't know that, well that makes sense. Maybe I jumped the gun when I went out gathering after respecing and I was still getting quicksilver ore.

As for deconstructing, would the item level have any impact on the mats I receive? Since the level syncing I usually get weapons/armor around my level/cp level.

Thanks again everyone!

Ilsabet · April 2019

Mats from deconning will match the level/material of the item. So if it's a Calcinium Sword of Whatever, or an item of whatever CP level calcinium makes, you'll get calcinium.

And yes, your gear drops will match your character level at the time you get the item.

The main benefit of deconning is to boost your crafting skill so that you can upgrade your passive to be able to craft higher-level stuff.

Since you mentioned not taking writs, what was the reason you wanted to craft orichalcum stuff?

kiasta6984b14_ESO · April 2019

I needed orichalcum ore to craft things to level my crafting. I was just following a blacksmith leveling guide on leveling by crafting daggers and then going to the next ore. Right now I'm at about 26/27 blacksmithing and am on the part where I need to craft orichalcum daggers.

I could level up just deconstructing as has been mentioned. I guess I misunderstood that you all meant deconstruction for gaining crafting xp and not materials.

JKorr · April 2019

Yeah. Deconning items gives more experience than making stuff. The higher the level of the items, the more experience you get. If you have a higher level character that gets cp160 items as drops, pass the stuff to your crafter to break down. You could always ask a friend or a couple of guildmates to collect stuff for you to break down.

ghastley · April 2019

Don't forget you can abandon a crafting writ. If your character moved out of the Orichalcum rank, then abandon that writ and take a new one. The new one will be at the level you can gather.

ThanatosXR · April 2019

Edit: new information
Lol I guess you can just level crafting skills even faster by just buying the last teirs decons at guild stores

ThanatosXR · April 2019

kiasta6984b14_ESO wrote: »

I needed orichalcum ore to craft things to level my crafting. I was just following a blacksmith leveling guide on leveling by crafting daggers and then going to the next ore. Right now I'm at about 26/27 blacksmithing and am on the part where I need to craft orichalcum daggers.

I could level up just deconstructing as has been mentioned. I guess I misunderstood that you all meant deconstruction for gaining crafting xp and not materials.

Just buy it from guilds, dont decon, sell the daggers to the ventor then, go buy the next teir
Deconing is pointless as the money will allow you to buy more then enough bars to level though the next
I literally did this at elder root and got to Blacksmithing 45 in a hour with the 150% xp applied (eso+ free daily)
My route was
>Guild vendors, depending on level,lower levels need smaller amounts
>Blacksmithing unit
>Make all dagger for that level and ore
>Sell all the daggers to the blacksmithing npc
Repeat
Only once you hit voidstone does supply issues happen, I dont get the nodes and supply is bleak, it takes quite abit voidstone to make a dagger, I'll just check later for some, its like 12 per dagger but Im voidstone is in 50 stacks thats whats holding me up, because the guild traders are selling the next(last) teir in 200 stacks for nothing so I can get my crafted set at max

Darkenarlol · April 2019

the quality of mats you can harvest in your journeys (except alchemy mats)

depends on 2 factors - your character's level and crafting skill with invested skillpoints into that

specific skill line. it can be rougly rounded up to 50/50 correlation.

as for leveling up the skill line itself you don't actually need to craft

but to deconstruct gear (deconning gear with intricate trait gives x3 multiplier)

which contributes really solid amount of experience into your progress bar.

SpAEkus · April 2019

If you have eso plus, all the xp boosts you get are great for crafting, especially the 150% one, if you have one of those you can max lvl in 0-50 in a 2 hrs provided mat supplies dont hold you up

Crafting Skills are leveled from crafting activities that reward Inspiration (IP), not Experience (XP).

ESO+ does award an extra 10% in IP rewards but none of the XP Boosters affect IP rewards.

OP do not waste time and materials only crafting daggers. The IP from that is less than 50% of what you would get from deconstructing loot at the same level from any other source.

Since all loot drops at character level you will be getting CP80 Quicksilver loot items.

Decon a single CP80 White Quicksilver item with ESO+ gives 4140 IP. Crafting a White Orichalcum dagger only gives 489 IP.

A lot of loot is Green Quality which will give even more decon IP. Intricate gives 280% more IP on top of that.

ThanatosXR · April 2019

I was wrong at voidstone just buy the rubedite inticate weapons/armor and decon them, much faster and cheap

ThanatosXR · April 2019

https://youtu.be/sXdOLjqTQhw

Kikke · April 2019

Darkenarlol wrote: »

the quality of mats you can harvest in your journeys (except alchemy mats)

depends on 2 factors - your character's level and crafting skill with invested skillpoints into that

specific skill line. it can be rougly rounded up to 50/50 correlation.

as for leveling up the skill line itself you don't actually need to craft

but to deconstruct gear (deconning gear with intricate trait gives x3 multiplier)

which contributes really solid amount of experience into your progress bar.

this