Master Crafting - more expensive than it's worth if you only have one character?

SteveyP777 · February 2021

Greetings,

Have one character with CP's now in the 300s, currently no other characters. I'm ranked out with all my crafts and am receiving master craft writs now on a regular basis.

I tried one and was unlucky as it required the minotaur motif which I hear is the rarest in the game. But I did it and was very proud of myself but the exercise has revealed that there is no WAY I can sustain doing master craft writs on a regular basis yet.

All my master crafting writs require improvement materials of which I just don't have very many.

Having looked around on this question before, there is no ONE way of getting improvement writs - especially higher quality ones for epic (and Heaven forbid; legendary).

The best strategy recommended by lots of people seems to be; get lots of toons, have them rank up in crafting and getting daily materials through the passives.

Is there any other method or is this the best way?

Cheers,

S.

ThorianB · February 2021

Your other crafting characters will get gold and materials from daily writs but they will also get surveys. Surveys are good for at least half a stack of the gear materials and refining the raw mats can yield additional improvement materials. Also decon almost every thing. If i can't get at least 5k out of it on a guild trader it is getting deconned. You always run surveys on your crafter so you get the highest level materials.

You can get get green and blue gear from treasure chests, dungeon running, doing battlegrounds, the pve rewards at the towns in cyro. I can usually do a whole town in 20 minutes if no one is trying to gank me. that is a dozen pieces of gear. I mostly get gear just doing normal activities but since i do housing i go through a lot of improvement mats so i usually just buy it when i find a good deal on it.

I can farm other items, sell them and buy stacks of crafting mats faster than i can acquire the crafting mats. You also want to be careful which master writs you want to do. Never start a master writ until you check to make sure you can do everything it requires that you got enough traits researched and all the mats need. Some writs require styles that are really expensive to acquire like minotaur, some don't pay out well for the trouble you have to go too. You learn which writs to do and which you should just dump on the market.

Bucky_13 · February 2021

Initially, I'd say enchanting, alchemy & provisioning writs are worth doing for you, but prov & ench have a few writs that require expensive mats that you should be aware of. JC is very expensive to make so I don't recommend them unless you want vouchers badly. For the WW, BS & clothing, do the ones where you have the motifs. Be wary of gold cloth write tho, they are as expensive as JC writs atm. If you create a few alts as a mules, you can dump the rest there for now.

Leveling up their crafting skills would also be useful, just decon the intricate gear you get, plus the enchantintments. Then take one ton at a time up to lvl 50, the more you have the better. Around 6-8 toons was enough for me to be able to collect a lot of mats etc.

When the anniversary event comes around, which should be in a few months, that's when you want to stock up and learn motif pages, as they usually drop a lot from it and the prices for them usually plummet. Saving up gold until then might be wise, so you can obtain more of them.

SteveyP777 · February 2021

Bucky_13 wrote: »

Initially, I'd say enchanting, alchemy & provisioning writs are worth doing for you, but prov & ench have a few writs that require expensive mats that you should be aware of. JC is very expensive to make so I don't recommend them unless you want vouchers badly. For the WW, BS & clothing, do the ones where you have the motifs. Be wary of gold cloth write tho, they are as expensive as JC writs atm. If you create a few alts as a mules, you can dump the rest there for now.

Leveling up their crafting skills would also be useful, just decon the intricate gear you get, plus the enchantintments. Then take one ton at a time up to lvl 50, the more you have the better. Around 6-8 toons was enough for me to be able to collect a lot of mats etc.

When the anniversary event comes around, which should be in a few months, that's when you want to stock up and learn motif pages, as they usually drop a lot from it and the prices for them usually plummet. Saving up gold until then might be wise, so you can obtain more of them.

Thank you this was very helpful!

etchedpixels · February 2021

If you are doing ordinary writs and have enough gold get in the habit of just browsing random guild stores, especially those in out of the way places and picking up bargains. You'll gradually accumulate quite a few that way. Some others are easily obtained

e.g.
- Dwemer by doing all the dwemer delves/dungeons regularly and opening every urn
- New moon priest by doing the southern elsweyr quest line and then enough daily runs to unlock the freebie chest at the sanctum. At that point you get one every couple of days which is a nice funding source too

Quite a few drop from daily quests so if you get in the habit of running daily quests all over the place you'll pick up stuff like ebonshadow, ashlander and so on.

As you get to 8 and 9 traits it gets a bit easier as you'll often find 8-9 trait writs on guild stores in easy motifs at reasonable prices.

You can also invest if you are careful - some of the things you can get from writ vouchers either directly or as furniture plans and the like can be used to generate lots of gold to get more motifs

VaranisArano · February 2021

Personally, the Master Crafting Writs aren't worth it unless you've got items you want from the Writ Vendors like Housing Storage chests, or furnishings/furnishing plans. It takes a lot of investment to get to the point that you can do a lot of the Blacksmithing/Woodworking/Clothing writs since you need to fully learn a lot of motifs and have specific traits researched.

If you want to do some Master Crafting Writs just so you aren't starting from zero when you finally decide to get an item, I'd recommend doing any non-perfect roe Provisioning Master Writs, Alchemy Master Writs, and Enchanting Master Writs if they don't require super expensive runes, that you get.

(I wound up doing about 100 Master Writs in one go on a mostly maxed Crafter with the help of my Guild house with all the attuned crafting stations, but I'm not sure I really recommend that as a method unless you already have a crafter, the materials, and a burning desire to buy all the housing chests.

)

katanagirl1 · February 2021

You can get improvement mats from refining materials like the ore, wood, and cloth that you harvest from nodes in the wild, but you have to have a lot of them to get many.

You can also use the hirelings for those crafts and regularly get blue and purple improvement mats. This is really the best method I think, and better if you have more toons doing daily writs.

Of course you can the gold mats just from doing the daily crafting writs. After a while they start to add up.

Athan1 · February 2021

Master crafter writs sell quite well. Don't bother doing them before you become a master crafter yourself. Focus on farming motifs for now.

OgreOwner · March 2021

I have a low level toon that buys and deconstructs Trivial glyphs for me to sell the valuable runes. A half hour to hour a day and 200K gold gets me 11 stacks of runes to sell for a profit of about 50K which allows me to buy the motif pieces to work towards the 50 motifs for Grand Master Crafter and/or the upgrade materials needed for writs. I do a lot of jewelry writs as they give me more bang for my buck. I currently have 3 of the 60 slot chests that I am filling with stuff that wants to be improved before being sold. I am feeling the need for that 4th one and maybe a few more of the 30 slots. Those jewelry writs give lots of value towards the 200 needed for the chests. I find my self buying the second level jewelry plating quite often. I get lots of the 1st level from the jewelry I deconstruct, but not so much of the 2nd -4th. I usually get what I need of 3rd and 4th from processing Platinum ore that I harvest. The Jewelry writs only require the 2nd upgrade, so that is where I buy. I like to do a writ a day. If you want more details on how this plan works for me, send a personal message.

cynicalbutterfly · March 2021

I deconstruct everything and bank it. I've got quite the collection in there. As for writs, I do the ones I can and sell the ones I cannot do. My main character is the only one that reads motifs, researches, and crafts. Second character just deconstructs. I also harvest nodes everywhere I go. I'll be headed to save a city from destruction and stopping to pick flowers, catch butterflies, and mine ore as I walk. I'm sure they look at me like 'what took you so long' when I do show up an hour later than I'm supposed to.

I actually got tired of constantly flipping back and forth in windows looking to see what I can craft and what I can't. So I made a list of all the traits I currently still need researched. Helped big time. Recently I just created an excel sheet on my tablet with all the motifs I know. I just need to remember to update it as I learn new ones. I do a lot of master writs so quick reference lists like this help out lol

Also as a tip, refine in big stacks of raw materials. Higher chance of getting a gold or purple improvement material that way. And once you do start getting into master writs, it helps a lot to have a guild house stocked with the attunable stations. Saves a lot of walking in the long run.

ThreeXB · March 2021

Comment deleted, read post question incorrectly

etchedpixels · March 2021

SteveyP777 wrote: »

Greetings,

Have one character with CP's now in the 300s, currently no other characters. I'm ranked out with all my crafts and am receiving master craft writs now on a regular basis.

Some options:
- Get in the habit of collecting the cheap motifs during events. Sometimes they drop prices a lot, others like the infamous dremora motifs got so cheap people were destroying them during the event
- Pick up all the easy motifs - the more motifs you know the better and all the racial ones (except imperial), primal, and other whole book ones are an easy investment
- Do Cadwell's silver to get the motif book from that
- Some like dwemer are pretty farmable if you open everything and loot everything (think like a Khajiit - if it's not tied down make it yours)
- Do daily quests that drop motifs - especially for ones you don't yet have most of. At some point you get lots of duplicates and it's easier to sell them and buy the others
- As you wander around the world look for bargains in any guild store you pass. Now and then you'll pass a trader for a guild where someone doesn't know the true value of a motf and you can pick up the ones you need, and also if you feel like it all the other underpriced ones to resell
- Use a low level toon to go 10-50 in battlegrounds and then spend all the AP on stuff like Akaviri motifs. At 50 BG gets a bit more serious so I find it easier just to nuke the toon and make another one 8)