Cannith crafting deconstruction & essences

[chrichton]

I find that, when I am considering which items to deconstruct for essences in Cannith crafting, I look for those items with only a prefix or suiffix. Items with both tend to be worth more coin (due to higher level), and sometimes it is more worth it to sell them and buy essences instead of decon them.

I know (I think), currently, the amount of essences you get depends on the "plus" for the prefix/suffix effect, not the full plus level of the item.

An idea:
What about bumping the decon essence level up a bit based on not only the prefix/suffix value, but the full item value as well? (As if the item had mor emagical power to convert into essences.) This would encourage more decon and less sales.

Another idea:
Of course - I'd love to be able to decon and get both prefix and suffix essences (using both prefix and suffix decon ingredients).

This is coming from a casual player who is struggling through the low-mid 40s crafting levels . . . (ssssllllooooowwwww)

[nibel]

The base item value determine how much plat you get back when you deconstruct the item.

Remember to mail the equipment you want to deconstruct to your crafter. Each deconstruction award xp equal the deconstruction level (1 to 5). It looks very low, but add up fast. Even deconstructing plain +1 weapons for the +1 spirit give you 1 arcane xp and you can use the spirits to make shards of potential later.

If you are in the ~40 level range, you are still in a nice spot. Instead of crafting as soon as you can, try to hoard the essences. When you have over 100 greaters of each, and over 500 lesser of each, go to house cannith, buy some crafting xp potions (You can get them from challenge vendors, house C favor, or VERY cheap for TP), and craft as a madman in those 15 minutes. You'll get around 8-12 levels fast.

You can repeat this strategy up to level 70. Then you'll be stuck with 10/80 recipes, and will take longer to craft things for xp. Then, your best XP font will be deconstructing.

[macubrae]

Anything worth over 5000 plat goes to our haggle bards and everything else is deconstucted. After making five levels in deconstructing, we craft with the essences received and make 5-10 more levels in that school. She is in the mid-80's and I am in the low 50's. At 55th level I will probably make a jump to 70th because of the double decon xp bonuses the game has been running.

I made my own +4 holy silver dwarven axe of evil outsider bane specifically for shroud, and it felt good. All my early toons wear invulnerability armors and wield risia icy burst +1 keen weapons. Non of the crafting in this game should be overlooked.

[chrichton]

The base item value determine how much plat you get back when you deconstruct the item.

Remember to mail the equipment you want to deconstruct to your crafter. Each deconstruction award xp equal the deconstruction level (1 to 5). It looks very low, but add up fast. Even deconstructing plain +1 weapons for the +1 spirit give you 1 arcane xp and you can use the spirits to make shards of potential later.

If you are in the ~40 level range, you are still in a nice spot. Instead of crafting as soon as you can, try to hoard the essences. When you have over 100 greaters of each, and over 500 lesser of each, go to house cannith, buy some crafting xp potions (You can get them from challenge vendors, house C favor, or VERY cheap for TP), and craft as a madman in those 15 minutes. You'll get around 8-12 levels fast.

You can repeat this strategy up to level 70. Then you'll be stuck with 10/80 recipes, and will take longer to craft things for xp. Then, your best XP font will be deconstructing.

I get no plat from deconstructing. I have heard about this, but I do not know what makes that happen - is it an Artificer thing?

Yes - I do know how this works, but if I decon, say, 20 items a week (from casual play), the XP for that could add up to 100, tops. That goes nowhere fast at 40s crafting levels. I took advantage of the dbl decon XP, but it is over now. (And I found out about it accidentally - I had not heard it was even in effect. A guild-mate said it was in some email, but I don't remember seeing anything like that.)

Yes - I do hoard, but I have zero House C anything. I am FtP, and I thought all of House C content was for purchase, so I never did any House C quests/challenges. Just recently, I heard you can get tokens to do House C challenges without paying TP for them, but my static party has yet to do any.

I got the crafting XP pots from the 6 yr cake instead.

I acquire essences so slowly, I need to hunt them down in the AH. I probably currently have over 100 greaters for almost all types, but lessers are anywhere between 25 and 200, but mostly below 100. I always have to convert greaters to lessers. Always.

[Matuse]

I get no plat from deconstructing. I have heard about this, but I do not know what makes that happen - is it an Artificer thing?

Not an artificer thing. It's right there in the feedback from decon, the first line tells you about the platinum you get. For most level 14+ items that I mulch, I get about 200pp from them.

Yes - I do know how this works, but if I decon, say, 20 items a week (from casual play), the XP for that could add up to 100, tops.

20 items in a week is well below the threshhold of what I'd call casual play. Casual play to me would be more in the 80-100 items per week. Obviously everyone's definition of casual is going to vary, but consider this: you get almost 20 items to decon from one run of the Shroud. That's an hour (at most) once per week.

My crafter currently has around 4200 items deconned. At 3.5 xp/item, that's 14,700 XP. Not pocket change.

Hell, I went from level 0 to level 30 in all three schools -just- by doing decons. Took about 2900. At 20 items per week, that's 2.7 years. That's not Casual, that's barely playing at all.

I acquire essences so slowly, I need to hunt them down in the AH. I probably currently have over 100 greaters for almost all types, but lessers are anywhere between 25 and 200, but mostly below 100. I always have to convert greaters to lessers. Always.

A consequence of not doing enough decons. Buying lots of greaters from other players means they will rapidly outpace your income of lessers, and you do in fact need lessers in order to run recipes.

The only things I sell to vendors anymore are things which cannot be deconstructed...arrows, potions, throwing axes, spell scrolls, etc. Everything else is either kept (if I could use it), put on the auction house (if it's good but I don't want it), or Deconned (everything else).

[Postumus]

Hell, I went from level 0 to level 30 in all three schools -just- by doing decons. Took about 2900. At 20 items per week, that's 2.7 years. That's not Casual, that's barely playing at all.

Deconstructing items can also help you through some rough levels where the recipes aren't worth the essence/xp received, or the shards are useless and unsaleable/untradeable.

Taking advantage of the double crafting xp weeks (we've had at least two so far) can help you blast through levels. I went from 140 to 146 in Arcane during the last double xp week mainly by crunching vanilla +4 & +5 weapons & armor I farmed or purchased off the AH.

At this point deconstructing L1 & L2 xp junk isn't really worth the time for me. I'd rather throw it all on the AH for a buyout at the base price, which almost always sells, and get 200-300 plat per item instead of spending the time to transfer it to bank and crafter. I'd rather have 200 plat than 1-2 lesser essences and 1 crafting xp.

I generally only bother to craft L3 xp items and above.

+5 skill items are generally L3, +7 are L4, and +10 and above are L5 items. (looove those bracers of repair +11!)

Stat items and weapons/armor are worth the same xp level as the + to the item. So a +1 str item is a L1 body xps and a +4 str item is a L4 body xps. A +5 kukri or +5 wooden shield is L5 arcane xps.

Metalline items are great to crunch since they are L5 chaos xps, and I believe deathblock is L5 good xps.

When I see crud quest rewards I will choose rewards in this order: Impressive trophy (or better), metalline or deathblock items of any kind, +11 skill items, +5 stat items, +7 skill/+4 stat items, +5 weapons/armor, crafting item (broccoli, urn, whatever).

[nibel]

Matuse said almost everything that I wanted to say. But I need to coment about this:

I acquire essences so slowly, I need to hunt them down in the AH. I probably currently have over 100 greaters for almost all types, but lessers are anywhere between 25 and 200, but mostly below 100. I always have to convert greaters to lessers. Always.

In all my crafting work, I only have more greater than lessers after a full crafting session, or when I hoard shards of potential (I get my lessers and burn them all). Other than that, deconstructing always awards more lesser than greaters.

If you are so casual about questing (seriously, 20 items per week is a very low estimative), there is no reason for you to be wanting to level up so fast in crafting. The good thing about cannith crafting is because no matter how slow you do it, it will always be there. Even low level shards like ghost touch and everbright are useful all the time. And you have a potential limitless suply of those types. When I got my levels up to craft attack bonus +2 shards, all my toons got one pair of googles of this. Just because I can.

If you want to reach 100 fast, you'll burn a lot of plat buying essences, and even buying overpriced LESSER essences to avoid carpal tunnel on essence deconstruction. If you go casually for it, mailing (or banking) items for your crafter deconstruct, only crafting things you need, or when you are overflowing with essences... each level you get tastes good.

I generally only bother to craft L3 xp items and above.

+5 skill items are generally L3, +7 are L4, and +10 and above are L5 items. (looove those bracers of repair +11!)

Stat items and weapons/armor are worth the same xp level as the + to the item. So a +1 str item is a L1 body xps and a +4 str item is a L4 body xps. A +5 kukri or +5 wooden shield is L5 arcane xps.

Metalline items are great to crunch since they are L5 chaos xps, and I believe deathblock is L5 good xps.

I have a quick table for level 5 deconstructions. If I find any of those (or better) as a quest reward, and no good renown or mystical ingredient, I choose one of them:

Generic: any Major lore, any Greater <non-clickie> IV, any Greater <clickie> V, Greater <elemental> Resistance, any Greater Bane, <Skill> +10

Arcane: Greater Potency III, Spell Pen VII, Magi, Spell Resistance 19
Body: Paralyzing, Str/Dex/Con+5, Greater False Life, Improved Destruction, Tendon Slice 10%
Mind: Int/Wis/Cha +5

Chaos: Metalline, Smiting, Backstabbing +5, Improved Shattermantle
Divine: Armor Bonus +5, Power VIII
Evil: Improved Cursespewing, Vorpal
Good: Deathblock, Holy Burst, Improved Devotion V, Disruption
Law: Seeker +10, Banishing

Air: Striding 25%, Vertigo +10
Earth: Heavy Fortification, Protection +5, Shatter +10
Fire: (still nothing out of resists, banes, and spell boosts)
Water: Stunning +10

[chrichton]

As my sig notes, I play maybe 6-10 hours per week. This is squarely in the "casual" range. But why do you expect a casual player to farm the Shroud? At least 4 of those hours is playing in a static party. Our pace is . . . glacial, but it is play with friends, so it can be fun.

I am still astounded that you can make as many crafting levels as you do by decon alone. I'll have to check how many items I have deconned.

As many know, it is good to sell items on the AH that can fetch a good price, and decon the rest. This is what I usually do.

[chrichton]

What got me to start this thread was thinking about the balance between what essences I can get compared to what plat I can get if I sell to vendors.

Lets say a weapon has a + level of 7, which makes its value maybe somewhere around 7200 (?). But if it has both a suffix and prefix of +2 and enhancement modifier or +3, the amount of materials from level 2 decon is not much - rarely get a greater from that. Might as well just sell it - get maybe 900 plat for it from a vendor, and use that 900 plat to buy 3 greaters.

If the essences we get got boosted by the "increased magical power" of the item, that would make the decision (sell / not sell) much easier. Heck - I'd settle for simple an increased chance of greaters. Deconning a level 4 or 5 and getting no greaters at all pretty much sucks.

Eh - as I think about it - maybe it is such a close call value-wise, but add in the XP for deconning, then there is no good reason to vendor anything.

[nibel]

As my sig notes, I play maybe 6-10 hours per week. This is squarely in the "casual" range.

Agree.

Was just saying that even with this time, 20 items per week is too low. That would be you running a one-hour quest that have only one chest. A lot. And we all know that most quests have 2-4 chests in there. All random chests usually have at least one deconstructable item per pull. Add quest rewards, and you'll be pulling 30-40 items per week.

At a medium rate of 3 XP per item, this alone is ~100 crafting xp per week. It's the equivalent to one or two crafted shards in a good level range. And you got free essences.

Deconning a level 4 or 5 and getting no greaters at all pretty much sucks.

Not that much, if you know math. If you deconstruct a lot, sometime you'll end with level 5 decon that award only lessers. But even a bad level 5 decon will give you ~30 lesser essences (usually it's on the ~45 range). And just like decon XP, this add fast.

Deconning requires patience. You'll not see the progress after a single session, but when you just forget to look, and some time after go check, you'll be surprised how much decon xp and essences you got pratically for free.

Sure, if you are not a gold capped veteran, sometimes you have do avoid deconstructing and sell loot to gather plat.