What your rank in Metalworking affects (same for the other crafting passives):
1. Which ores/ingots you can use to smith armor and weapons, which corresponds to the level of said armor and weapons
2. 50% of the ore you can harvest. The other 50% is tied to your level.
3. Which tier of crafting writs you can do and the rewards you receive

Writ rewards
All writs will grant some mats from your current tier, and some from a lower tier. So you won't ever lack for a way to get some lower tier ore even if you are all at Metalworking 10.
Max Tier writs, as in you've fully unlocked your Metalworking passive, give the best chance at getting gold improvement materials and are required if you want to get any Master Writs to do for vouchers.

For blacksmithing, Clothing, woodworking, alchemy, enchanting, and jewelrycrafting, it is far more profitable to do max tier writs (raising your passive fully) for the best chance at improvement mats and vouchers. This is especially true of Jewelry, since it has a guaranteed grain in the rewards at max tier writs.

The one possible exception is provisioning. Provisioning writs grant recipes at the rank of your provisioning skill, and the recipes at midtier ranks tend to be rarer and thus more expensive than the max tier recipes. So if you want to leave your various provisioners at below max rank to try to pull the rarer recipes in rewards, that's a viable strategy. You just won't get any master writs for provisioning since you aren't at max tier.

Finally, if you are looking to collect a certain material for sale, the ones most in demand are the max tier materials. You may see some lower tier mats that seem more expensive, like potency runes or alchemy waters, but those are in much lower demand unless someone needs to level their alchemy, for example. There will probably be a short-lived boom in the trade for the lowest tier mats during the Anniversary Event when everyone runs crafting writs on their non-crafter alts for the extra rewards, but the steady demand is for the max tier rubedite, lorkhans tears, ruby ash, etc. as crafting players fill their daily writs and craft max level gear.

Hope that helps!

Penarddun wrote: »

Wow, thank you both so much for your detailed replies. This really helps me!

tmbrinks wrote: »

At level 1, at least while doing writs, you can still get surveys, which are a large cache of materials.

Does that mean that surveys stop dropping at higher levels? You also mentioned they are self sufficient at Level 1. What benefits would I be getting from Level 1 (other than the surveys)?


That's interesting info about the provisioning exception. So having provisioning on multiple characters is something I will look into putting into place.

VaranisArano wrote: »

You just won't get any master writs for provisioning since you aren't at max tier.

Do you get master writs at max level? Is that how they are obtained?

Also, the hireling deliveries correspond to the level? Or is it level and below? I noticed I got some purple and blue mats but then also jute from the mails. Or are things like Turpen separate from the level materials?

No, surveys drop at a consistent rate, regardless of level of daily writs that you do (it's about 1 in 8).

The only reason to do writs at level 1 is because of the surveys and self sufficiency (the materials required are less than the materials that drop from the reward box, the only exception is jewelry, which requires either 5 or 6 materials, but only returns 5, so it's still very, very, close).

The drop rate of gold improvement materials is about 3% at level 1. It's 30% at max level.

Master writs ONLY drop from max level daily writs.

I believe the raw materials that you get from hirelings are based on your skill level in the craft. And they can also give you improvement materials as well (which I think is independent). I have not really looked at collecting those at lower levels (all of my characters are max level in everything other than provisioning)

VaranisArano wrote: »

The drop rate is increased based on how many traits you have researched and how many motifs you know on the character doing the crafting writs.

Oh that's interesting. I had no idea that motifs would affect anything. There must be thousands right? It includes motif sets and individual ones like motif for dagger versus motif for shoes?

Are there any mods that would help keep track of all that? Or is it just a matter of going through your in game lists to figure out what you don't have?

VaranisArano wrote: »

Alternatively, I've completed the Mages Guild questline with my main crafter who's learning all the motifs, so I use the Eidetic Memory records to check all the pages I've learned.

Ah, that's smart. My main crafter also has the Eidetic Memory records unlocked, so I can check via those too.

There are different strategies depending on whether it's your first character, or an alt, and with and without a craft bag, and bank/storage for recipes etc.

If your main (or main crafter) has spare copies of the writ recipes, and you have room to store them, then provisioning is a lot easier. Similarly, material returns from higher-level writs help out the upcoming alt, who doesn't have to gather them.

If you're grinding up the first ones, then they have to buy/find/earn the recipes, gather the materials, etc. before they get anything back. Remembering to leave a legacy, and not just sell off duplicate recipes, is far from anyone's mind. Keeping items after the first character researched the trait, because another will need it, is another consideration. If you have plenty of materials, you deconstruct or sell, because your higher level characters can just make a research piece. And you can't keep anything too long, or bank/storage gets full.

Most people giving advice are the ones who now have alts, craft bag, and all the bank and storage space they can get. Your mileage may vary, if you're not there yet.

Zephiran23 wrote: »

Scion_of_Yggdrasil wrote: »

so...I thought I was being clever in passively leveling my crafting skills but I want to be sure lol:
1. all first passives are 1/10 (for ease of crafting writs)
2. hirelings are maxed based on level, as well as extracting passives to maximize deconstructing

I was planning on continuing this till the crafts reach lvl 50, then spending points to get them at 10/10. The idea is to build up my craft bag until lvl 50 (for those master writs!) so I have an easier time knocking those out quickly. Should I continue at this pace?

Would appreciate any advise from Alchemists/Cooks: how did you max alchemy/provisioning? Because everything else I have steadily leveled from deconstructing dungeon loot, but alchemy and provisioning are below lvl 10 *sobbing*

All the required recipes for provisioning writs can be purchased from cooks and brewers - so don't buy them from guild traders, unless you really want to make other players rich.

For alchemy, if you're playing on PC, there's various addons that will let you know in advance whether or not the combination you are going to use will make a potion. If not there's plenty of websites that you can use as a guide. If you run out of the various water grades, don't forget you have the option to make poisons instead (if you haven't sold all your solvents).

Except, most of the plans you need for the daily writs, especially at max level, are purchasable for much, much cheaper at guild stores, than they are are the chefs.

Zephiran23 wrote: »

Scion_of_Yggdrasil wrote: »

so...I thought I was being clever in passively leveling my crafting skills but I want to be sure lol:
1. all first passives are 1/10 (for ease of crafting writs)
2. hirelings are maxed based on level, as well as extracting passives to maximize deconstructing

I was planning on continuing this till the crafts reach lvl 50, then spending points to get them at 10/10. The idea is to build up my craft bag until lvl 50 (for those master writs!) so I have an easier time knocking those out quickly. Should I continue at this pace?

Would appreciate any advise from Alchemists/Cooks: how did you max alchemy/provisioning? Because everything else I have steadily leveled from deconstructing dungeon loot, but alchemy and provisioning are below lvl 10 *sobbing*

All the required recipes for provisioning writs can be purchased from cooks and brewers - so don't buy them from guild traders, unless you really want to make other players rich.

For alchemy, if you're playing on PC, there's various addons that will let you know in advance whether or not the combination you are going to use will make a potion. If not there's plenty of websites that you can use as a guide. If you run out of the various water grades, don't forget you have the option to make poisons instead (if you haven't sold all your solvents).

Actually, the normal "need for a writ" recipes are generally cheaper at the guild traders than at the npc vendor. The common recipes that are needed for writs tend to show up a lot, and some players will list them for really low amounts, or give them away. The harder to acquire blue, purple or higher recipes will cost a lot, because they are hard to find.