Level-up guide for Cannith Crafting?

[karl_k0ch]

Not having dealt with crafting so far, I am wondering: What should I do to get reasonable levels in Cannith crafting?

I understand that the major part of Crafting XP from crafting shards which are at your level. But which shards should I craft?

At the moment, I am not interested in building twink-gear, so I picture myself crafting shards which I am not going to use at all, but rather deconstructing/scrapping them over and over again. Are there some low-level shards which are worth keeping?

To add insult to injury, my inventories tend to be rather full than empty, so I really only want to keep useful shards.

[NinjaNeed]

Your best bet is to deconstruct all trash items you get and level to about level 10 that way, depending on your toons level it could be a grind fest (for low levels) or easy (for high levels, a cpl of shrouds would do it!).

After that go to the bound shard machine and set the limits to 10 levels over your crafting level and sort by xp. Find the cheapest items to craft with 75% or above success rate. Craft them.

[IBCROOTBEER]

If you're just working on leveling your crafting, there may not be anything you want to keep. Just bounce between the bound and unbound shard devices to look for the crafting recipe that offers the most experience for the least materials.

Only shards I can think you may want to keep once you get to their levels would be:

Holy
Bane Shards
Greater Bane Shards
Life Shield
Invulnerability
Ability Stat Shards
Bursts (Holy, Icy, Shocking, etc.)

These shards are probably things you will use... however, if you don't see a furture use for them, don't keep them.

[brian14]

Not having dealt with crafting so far, I am wondering: What should I do to get reasonable levels in Cannith crafting?

Start with about 10 million plat...

[Crann]

Heyah Karl,

I am not the highest lever/most experienced crafter, but I thought I would share my experience so far. There are far better guides out there for those interested in getting as high of a level as you can as quickly as possible, this is more of a casual approach that nets usable items.

I haven't gone crazy, or spent any extra money buying things. I just deconstruct everthing that I loot during the normal course of questing/raiding.

I started crafting shards whenever I had enough, and would look for the highest xp/material ratio. I do all crafting on one character, who was my haggle bard anyway. You can then pass the shards you craft on to other characters through shared bank. It doesn't take any experience to craft the items once the shards are made, and the items will then bind to that character.

I then started saving bulk numbers of essences, and would buy the DDO store crafting xp potion, and then have shard crafting sessions.

Without really grinding anything out, and not spending that much extra time on it, I am about level 45 in each of the classes. While it is no where near what other have attained, and not close to being enough to craft most endgame items, I have been able to make some very usefull gear, especially for my endless collection of alts at mid level.

My most usefull items thus far are several different boss beaters. I have been watching the AH and picking up Silver weapons, namely Khopeshes(good price 200k) and putting +4, Holy, and Lawful Outsider Bane on them. These obviously aren't as good as the +5 Holy Burst of Greater Banes.....but they dont require a great deal of commitment to the crafting proccess to obtain.

I may eventually try to farm more essences, and attain higher levels, but for the moment my casual approach is netting me very usefull items.

[QuantumFX]

Be prepared to build a couple huge ingredients bags worth of useless shards.

[karl_k0ch]

Thanks to everyone for the advice.

The deconstructing-to-level-10 method sounds reasonable.

Actually, it is also my Haggle Bard who I decided should be my crafter. Getting trash weapons is not an issue for me, as I have two capped toons with which I can run shroud regularly, for example.

Be prepared to build a couple huge ingredients bags worth of useless shards.

I can also throw them away/deconstruct them, right?

[Crann]

I can also throw them away/deconstruct them, right?

Yes, you will get some of the essences back when you deconstruct them.

I used to keep interesting shards as I was making them. Then I ran out of room and deconstructed all of them, knowing I could just go back and make them as I wanted to craft.

[Doganpc]

Be prepared to build a couple huge ingredients bags worth of useless shards.

Deconstruct them to reclaim some essences... this is also how you convert lesser to greater for now.

Personally, I only have 1 toon that can run Shroud. Shroud is huge to crafting for two reaons, lots of decent level chests in short period of time and commonly run short of completion. You can get in 3 shrouds a day if you don't ever complete it and nobody thinks twice about it as everyone needs greensteel mats too. This IMO is the only way to power level crafting now that they took away the 1xp per deconstructed shard.

So I take all my shroud loot, I hit the crafting hall bank side (cause you put a few runs into your bank inventory right?) and put items into the machine. If I get a Level 3+ essence out of it, I grind it. Else I determine if I can AH or Pawn it. This way I can make some plat for repairs & supplies.

Dogan
There ya go.

[GuntherBovine]

Your best bet is to deconstruct all trash items you get and level to about level 10 that way, depending on your toons level it could be a grind fest (for low levels) or easy (for high levels, a cpl of shrouds would do it!).

After that go to the bound shard machine and set the limits to 10 levels over your crafting level and sort by xp. Find the cheapest items to craft with 75% or above success rate. Craft them.

I beg to differ on this. The amount of xp you get for deconstructing stuff is independent of your level but the xp you get for making shards drops quickly as you level up. The best way to earn xp early on is to make 4 minor essence shards. Make them and deconstruct them. You will get a high percentage of your essences back. Those recipes will take you up to around level 12 at which point, they earn little or no xp. From there, deconstruct all your trash items.

Note: you want to deconstruct all of your +1/+2/+3/+4/+5 weapons (no suffix or prefix). Deconstructing them earns you Arcane crafting xp. The enhancement spirits can be used later to make shards of potential.

Edit: Thinking more on this, I would say that best way to earn xp early on is to make 4 minor essence shards, disjunct plain/masterwork weapons/armor, apply the shards to the weapon or armor, and then deconstruct them. I haven't verified this. The application of shards is a level 1 recipe and only gives xp when you have a very low level of crafting. Also, do the crafting tutorial first thing and take the Greater Crafting Learning Booster.

[karl_k0ch]

I though about the advice given in this thread a bit. Also, I've read through http://ddowiki.com/page/Cannith_Crafting and in particular http://ddowiki.com/page/Cannith_Craf...el_Progression. Also, I've found the following threads helpful.: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=327455 and http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=320389.
I've come to the following conclusions.

• Deconstructing items has to be done to get essences, but will only grant 1-5 xp, depending on the quality of the deconstructed item. It's useful to do this throughout all levels, but considering the fact that level 50, for example needs 500 crafting xp, this does not seem to be a viable method to base your crafting xp on.
  
• When considering XP via recipes which are at your level or above, the expected value of xp granted is always the recipe's level minus the number of successful creations for that particular shard. I.e. if you are level 24, and you attempt to craft a level 34 recipe, you will have a 50% chance to get 68 xp. As you do not lose the full amount of materials for an unsuccessful try, crafting above your level can be a valuable source of xp, especially when the required materials are in similar amount as the at-level recipes.*
• Not every recipe has the same amount of required essences. For me, lack of lesser essences is what is stopping my crafting process. Each recipe requires an amount of lesser essences of four to eight times the greater amount. This is more, even when considering the 1 greater -> 4 Lessers conversion. Always choose the recipe with the best (expected xp)/lessers ratio.
  
• Also check the unbound shard station for recipes before making too pricy bound shards, and vice versa.
  

*See, eg. this list of different pricing levels:

Essence Tiers
There are fixed amount of essences that are used in recipes that I call tiers:
Tier 1 - 4 Lesser Essences
Tier 2 - 1 Greater Essence and 4 Lesser Essences
Tier 3 - 3 Greater Essences and 12 Lesser Essences
Tier 4 - 6 Greater Essences and 12 Lesser Essences
Tier 5 - 6 Greater Essences and 32 Lesser Essences
Tier 6 - 10 Greater Essences and 32 Lesser Essences
Tier 7 - 10 Greater Essences and 80 Lesser Essences
Tier 8 - 15 Greater Essences and 80 Lesser Essences
Tier 9 - 15 Greater Essences and 192 Lesser Essences
Tier 10 - 21 Greater Essences and 192 Lesser Essences
Tier 11 - 21 Greater Essences and 224 Lesser Essences
Tier 12 - 28 Greater Essences and 224 Lesser Essences
Tier 13 - 28 Greater Essences and 256 Lesser Essences

Edit: Also, I have a question: is there a number of recipes per level breakdown for the schools somewhere? As you advance further, the above level crafting technique might not work anymore, as there are not many recipes which are actually above your level, and you have grinded out the at-level recipes earlier on. (Deconstruction might help to close these gaps, btw.)

[Alabore]

They tweaked a few features since U10.1.
They added shard deconstruction, so you're no longer forced to keep a bunch of useless shards you have no use for.
Toss them into the disjoint-machine and you'll get some essences back.

On bound shards: they bind to account since U10 iirc, but you can't use BtA blanks to craft BtA items anymore.
Bound shards now turn all gear into BtC - so plan accordingly.
Trade shards around, and have the chars they're meant for apply them to the items the want to keep.

This forces you to do some extra planning and prevents you from recycling the same bound items throughout your alts.
On the plus side, your can update items with new shards, overriding older effects.

[GuntherBovine]

On the plus side, your can update items with new shards, overriding older effects.

No, you can't. With 10.2, you can't overwrite suffixes or prefixes. I don't know if you can even up the enhancement bonus. When I tried to up a weapon from +2 to +3, it said that I needed to increase the potential of the weapon (it currently has 4 crafting levels), which is the same message I got when I first tried to overwrite a suffix.

[Gempoult]

No, you can't. With 10.2, you can't overwrite suffixes or prefixes. I don't know if you can even up the enhancement bonus. When I tried to up a weapon from +2 to +3, it said that I needed to increase the potential of the weapon (it currently has 4 crafting levels), which is the same message I got when I first tried to overwrite a suffix.

Yes, you can, what you need to do is downgrade the weapon/item to +1 or add prefix/suffix that is very low on potential needed and then upgrade to whatever you desire still adding one more potential might be needed.

[Stermlin]

My problem with getting my crafting levels is the amount of essences needed. Obviously, the higher level shard, the more essences it takes to craft new shards for XP. Right now I am stuck at about level 30 for each school, where the shards take 32 Lessers just to craft. I have three high level toons right now and every trash item I get goes straight to deconstruction, but it is still nowhere near the amount of essences I need to continue leveling at anything more than a snail's pace.

So, being that I'm not very platnum heavy, how can I gather the essences I need at a much faster pace than I am doing already? Or is there even a way?

[karl_k0ch]

My problem with getting my crafting levels is the amount of essences needed. Obviously, the higher level shard, the more essences it takes to craft new shards for XP. Right now I am stuck at about level 30 for each school, where the shards take 32 Lessers just to craft. I have three high level toons right now and every trash item I get goes straight to deconstruction, but it is still nowhere near the amount of essences I need to continue leveling at anything more than a snail's pace.

So, being that I'm not very platnum heavy, how can I gather the essences I need at a much faster pace than I am doing already? Or is there even a way?

It takes time.
Have a look at the unbound device. On both machines, there are some shards with execeptionally low essence costs, such as the Save bonuses, for example.

Sort your list by xp, and scroll down until you get a cheap recipe. 50 xp for 12 greaters is a better deal than 100 xp for 36 greaters.

[bazooka99]

One tip for choosing what to craft: When choosing between 2 shards that cost the same, always craft the one with the greatest risk. Keep in mind that if you fail a recipe, you will only lose a percentage of your ingredients equal to your risk, not all of them. So even if you only have a 50% success rate, that just means you have a 50% chance of losing 50% of your essences, so you're still crafting with 75% efficiency.

[starflight]

Yes, you can, what you need to do is downgrade the weapon/item to +1 or add prefix/suffix that is very low on potential needed and then upgrade to whatever you desire still adding one more potential might be needed.

I am still learning the crafting thing. I didnt know you could change weapon once is created.

[HungarianRhapsody]

I am still learning the crafting thing. I didnt know you could change weapon once is created.

When Gempoult wrote that, it was possible. They turned that feature off since then.

...and then they turned it back on.
...and then they turned it back off again.