Crafting Relics – Starting at Tier 6 (Supreme), a guilded crafted can begin making ‘Crafted Relics’. While the base relics do not have much in-game use, they are handy for generating shards. If you craft the base relic (those that do not require a compendium) whenever the cool-down is available, you can earn close to 3000 shards a week. A Tier 6 relic is worth 64 shards and can be crafted every 18 hours. Tier 7 through 9 relics can be crafted every 2 Days 18 Hours and give the following amounts 258, 358, and 458 shards respectively. While 3,000 shards might not be a ton now days, it starts to add up if you have multiple crafters. I typically make them at least once a week while I am making my guild rep items.
Tier Mastery – Each crafting tier has two levels, a proficient level and a master level. In order to achieve the next level of crafting, you only need to complete the first tier. You can effectively reach the highest tiers of crafting and never master any of them. Once you reach Expert crafting level, you become eligible for a Crafting Guild and with that, you can begin making ‘Guild Reputation Items’. My strategy for leveling a new crafter is to reach the highest crafting tier possible before I worry about mastering the lower levels. This gives me access to earning guild reputation as quickly as possible. The biggest challenge for a new crafter is not mastering the crafting tiers; it is earning the required guild reputation so you can gain access to the best recipes. To that end, the sooner you can start crafting the reputation items, the better.
Crafting Professions – There are six professions available to a player that offers various combinations of crafting skills. I would submit that most crafting tasks are best left to Alternate characters, and not your main character. The key to success as a crafter is just as much about gathering crafting materials is it is about actually crafting those materials. I have always recommended that a player’s highest level and/or most active character choose the Explorer profession. This gives you the ability to harvest wood and ore and gives the benefits of the Tailor craft (which I maintain is the most flexible and profitable of all the crafters). The only exception to this rule, in my opinion, is if you want to pursue the Scholar crafting class. Because of various obstacles to recipes, a high-level Scholar with access to all the reputation based recipes has some advantages. On the other hand, there is little reason not to use a low level character for the woodworker, jeweler, or weaponsmith crafting tasks.
Auction House Tip – My experience has been that few players actually use their crafters as a revenue stream but I believe that crafting can be quite profitable if done efficiently. However, while crafting is a relatively simple process, the logistics of using the Auction House seems to be lost on most crafters seeking a profit. As one of the most prolific users of the Auction House, I routinely see crafters selling their merchandise at a loss. Between the opportunity cost of the materials, time spent crafting, and all the incidentals of posting and selling merchandise; the true cost of a product is often far higher than the crafter realizes. To that end, I have developed a Price list that I use for selling my wares and I want to share it with you. It is a simple, level based chart that allows me to quickly and profitably attack the auction house.
The rates below are shown as Bid Price / Buyout Price and assume the product is the ‘Critical’ success version of a crafted recipe. These prices are time sensitive and increase to some degree with nearly every expansion. While I cannot guarantee these are the best prices you can get for a product, I do know that I sell vast quantities of items at the buy-out rate 95% of the time. I do typically add +100s for Jewelry items below level 50.
Level 7 – 18 300s/390s
Level 19 – 27 400s/490s
Level 20 Teal 2g/2g220s
Level 28 500s/590s
Level 31-37 600s/690s
Level 38-42 700s/790s
Level 30 or 40 Teal 3g/4g
Level 42-47 800s/890s
Level 48-64 900s/990s
Level 65 2g/3g
Level 66-72 1g/2g
Level 70 Teal 2g/3g
Level 75 Teal 10g/12g
Level 80 3g/4g
Level 85 Teal 24g/28g
Level 90 3g/4g440s
Making Money – While I mentioned above you can make money as a crafter, the best route to making money is probably not hardcore crafting. For a higher level character, you can earn 50 gold an hour farming Reputation items. As of this moment, War Dispatches (Council of the North, Angmar) are selling for 30g a stack and I have seen them selling for twice that. Any good DPS character can farm 2-3 stacks an hour. War Dispatches, First Age Relics, Bands of Numenor, and Elvish Runes routinely sell for 300s to 500s each. In addition, farming Crafting Materials have some nice returns. Almost all ores above T2 sell for 10g-15g a stack and hides sell for 5g-10g a stack. I know we have one kinmate that made his fortune selling Tier one scholar materials. If you want to try your hand at crafting for profit, just make your guild teal items for each tier every week and that’s an easy 50 gold.
While some people might tell you that gold doesn’t have much purpose in the game, my experience has been exactly the opposite. I had three characters each with both first age weapons at level 85, long before I could have possibly earned enough seals to buy them. And then I spent 1000s of gold on scrolls to improve those weapons. Were I not so cheap, I could have easily afforded to have bought them all the gold armor items as well. If you are not walking around with 1000 gold pocket money at all times, let me know and I will show you some good spots for fast cash.
More to come…
Other game suggestions welcome….