Improvements for blacksmithing

skyslim · April 2014

I've been playing now since the 5 day early access. I'm a level 17 dragonknight and I'm between level 5 and 6 in smithing. I can't tell you exactly how many pieces of iron I've refined, but it's over 600. Refining the ore is supposed to give a piece of "honing stone" occasionally for weapon improvement. With all the ore I've refined, all I've gotten is 8 honing stones. Now, considering you need to use at least three to have a chance at a successful improvement, I think only getting 8 stones is really restricting things a bit. I've been playing Elderscroll games since Daggerfall, and am well aware of the importance of crafting. So I keep track of all my materials. Now I've gotten gems. I must have at least a hundred or more. But, since I see no use for them at this point in the game, I'd gladly give up a few of those for a few more honing stones. I haven't been able to improve a weapon since level 10.

Tavore1138 · April 2014

There is a perk for blacksmithing that increases your chances of getting improvement materials that you will need to get and so far I have harvested around 8,000 nodes (not all ore) and only just got enough improvement items to take one single item into the gold and a handful into purple.

I think they meant it to be tough to get the good weapons and armour.

Fersaken · April 2014

Im confused here, do you think low lvl people should be able to make full sets of green gear for themselves? If that's that case then I understand. But then again in order for you to get honing stones you would deconstruct gear that would be an upgrade.

I am a lvl 50 blacksmither and I will give you some advise, deconstruct everything period. Build one set of gear per a tier ( meaning 1-10, 10-20, 20-30 and so on ). Once you built that one set then start shouting looking to trade daggers. Someone will message you back I promise.

This will help level up your blacksmithing greatly.

Me personally, keep everything until you have all of your researching done in every slot, and you are at least VR1 then build a good set of gear.

Tavore1138 · April 2014

Sound advice, also literally harvest every bit of ore you see (and cloth & wood), the more ore you break down the more goodies you will get. If you also break down the other two materials then you will get improvement items from them you can trade & you can get at least 400g per stack selling to the in game merchants even if you don't have a guild.

Opioid · April 2014

As others have said, deconstruct all the greens/blues/purples that aren't an upgrade for you. Get 3/3 points in both the Metal Extraction and Temper Expertise skills and you'll have a better chance of extracting the improvement materials from refining ore and deconstructing items and it'll cost less materials to do improvements.

With 3/3 in Temper Expertise, it only takes 2 Honing Stones to improve to green at 100% and 3 Dwarven Oil to improve to blue at 100%.

poodlemasterb16_ESO · April 2014

My miner hireling brings me nice stuff, including Dwarven Oil. I have 2 chars doing that now.

sociald100ub17_ESO · April 2014

skyslim wrote: »

I've been playing now since the 5 day early access. I'm a level 17 dragonknight and I'm between level 5 and 6 in smithing. I can't tell you exactly how many pieces of iron I've refined, but it's over 600. Refining the ore is supposed to give a piece of "honing stone" occasionally for weapon improvement. With all the ore I've refined, all I've gotten is 8 honing stones. Now, considering you need to use at least three to have a chance at a successful improvement, I think only getting 8 stones is really restricting things a bit. I've been playing Elderscroll games since Daggerfall, and am well aware of the importance of crafting. So I keep track of all my materials. Now I've gotten gems. I must have at least a hundred or more. But, since I see no use for them at this point in the game, I'd gladly give up a few of those for a few more honing stones. I haven't been able to improve a weapon since level 10.

600 or so ore is 60 or so refines yielding 8 honing stones. That's a 13+% yield. Do you really consider that to be that bad?

You are early out of the gate with the blacksmithing to really expect to have a lot of the stuff you want that you will outlevel fairly quickly anyway.
Don't worry you will get a lot more. Im sure I have 80or so honing stones and im at 21 smithing.

Abigail · April 2014

Whether you get the solvents, or not, is largely a matter of luck. You've done well. At lower levels (before I could add the point to improved extraction) I frequently refined 300-plus iron ores and received only one honing stone. ATM I've got about 160 greens and 50 or 60 blues in my inventory. My blacksmithing alt is now level-10, with her blacksmithing profession at level-8. Do as others have suggested and you'll be fine. Absolutely research every piece you possibly can -- I keep my smitty researching 24/7 (can now research two at once) and continually feed researchable gear to her by way of my other alts. But I'm not a casual crafter -- my entire emphasis in-game is crafting over leveling; meaning, I spend far and away more time gathering than killing or questing.

Phranq · April 2014

I get more honing stones and ores from deconstructing than I did refining ore, but I have been hoarding them.. I make myself a new set of gear every TWO levels and just adventure with white armor and weapons ( tho now that I've done some research I have a few set bonuses ) like you, I am a level 17 DK with level 8 smithing.