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Crafting... Is it worth the time and inventory slots it hogs up?
jaguarskx
Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
Simple, question... Is crafting worth the effort?
I am not interested in crafting pets, I am more interested in equipment and weapons. I believe (though I could be wrong) that very rare items can be crafted, but is it worth the time and effort to do so? All that TRIBBLE I've collected from scanning and mining is taking up space in the bank that can be easily used for other things.
Not sure how high my crafting skill is since I am not playing right now. I assume I have 700 - 1,000 points. I think if wanted to reach the level to craft very rare, I have a very, very long road ahead of me.
I am not interested in crafting pets, I am more interested in equipment and weapons. I believe (though I could be wrong) that very rare items can be crafted, but is it worth the time and effort to do so? All that TRIBBLE I've collected from scanning and mining is taking up space in the bank that can be easily used for other things.
Not sure how high my crafting skill is since I am not playing right now. I assume I have 700 - 1,000 points. I think if wanted to reach the level to craft very rare, I have a very, very long road ahead of me.
Post edited by jaguarskx on
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Time ago it was a way to craft rare items, like the aegis set, but right now, its even cheaper to get em from the exchange, for example. Only the resources and time you will need to craft almost any item will be more than the ec you will waste on the exchange, by far.
The Aegis set seemed worth it. Right now, I myself am torn about whether or not crafting more weapons is worthwhile. I'm finally switching out my Mk XI rares to very rares, and not sure which way to go. You CAN craft VR Mk XI weapons, but they require around 13 or 14K in Dilithium to craft (in unreplicatable materials). If you are in a fleet with the Dilithium mine maxed out, Dilithium store VR Mk XI weapons seem to run around 20K. Fleet weapons are...more.
This assumes you have all the data samples you need - but so far, that hasn't been a problem for me.
If you're not in a Fleet, the discount may be worth it. Mk XI VRs can be had for less than the Mk X VRs available on K7. (I forget what the Dil Store prices were like before I was in the Fleet). That being said, the weapons that are craftable have pretty boring modifiers.
I started crafting a little after doing some missions in Defera (i discovered the crafting system there lol) and i realized that it is useless.
If you tell me there is an item that you cant get, if you dont use the crafting system, that will be a use for it, but nowadays, its useless.
At Mk VIII, items starts costing Dilithium regardless of rarity. The only thing worth crafting after that is the Aegis set, which can tie you over until you get some of the sets from FE's, Rep, or Fleet.
I hope they do the revamp of the crafting right and let us choose which Mods we can add on to a base item.
Our Battles
When I crafted the Aegis set, I had the data samples and dilithium available, but did not have millions of EC lying around. Now that I have 15 million or so, I'd probably just buy them.
I thought I had figured out the math at the time and it was slightly cheaper to craft the Aegis than to convert dilithium to Zen, buy keys, and then sell them for the EC to buy the pieces on the Exchange. There must be SOME reason to still craft them, because if I recall correctly, that's the only way you can get those pieces, so someone out there is crafting them and putting them up on the exchange to make EC. Unless they're just stockpiled in people's inventories from ages ago.
The whole system needs a drastic revamp. Unfortunately, the cynic in me sees it involving MORE grinding and dilithium, not more competitive gear.
Currently, Crafting isn't worth the effort. However, collecting Rare Traces and Data Samples is still worth the effort, as Science Head Doff assignments uses both of these to reward Dilithium ore... (look under 'Special Projects')
What it is good for:
-people with a LOT of characters. Why? Even the dilithium wasting purple XI weapons are account bound. So while they cost a lot for their relative value, you can use them over and over as startup gear for multiple characters. In particular I have a full set of AP weapons which, with the core/beam set, gives fine dps on a character that has zero rep, fleet marks, etc. Once that character has earned better, the next one can use these items again. And again. Ive used them on 4 characters now, currently in-use for the toon I made during the xp bonus weekend.
- lowbie gear. As with the XI purples, you can make a set of III and so on weapons that are account bound. These are basically free purple items, no dil needed for the lower tiers.
- a couple of specific items. Cheap melee weapons, kits, etc. Again, useful if you have a ton of alts; its basically free gear.
- a couple of unique items; the horta pet etc, just for the *fun* of it.
If you have less than 3-4 characters, its not worth it at all. If you want a horde of characters, it can be put to modest good use.
I made the Aegis set for myself, but I don't use it much anymore. You may as well run the Dominion thing for Polarons or the Breen set for Transphasics, and those are free.
I sometimes craft the energy cell things for when I want my Jem'Hadar guy to use the Dominion ground gear, but that's pretty n00b crafting.
IKS Korrasami (Fleet B'rel Bird of Prey Retrofit T5-U)
I am not part of a fleet at the moment. Not sure if I want to be, but it have been considering looking for a low tier small / medium size fleet so that I can help build it up should I decide to join one. Getting tier 5 fleet weapons / ships is actually not a priority for me.
Since Cryptic is supposedly going to revamp crafting, I am wondering if I should hold onto all my samples? Does anyone when when the revamp is going to happen... season 9?
I suppose I can prematurely use my 3rd and last slot to create a Romulan toon and just transfer all the TRIBBLE from my Fed & KDF toons to it.
If they revamp it, it may take more grinding to get things that you need if you can make it to the top quickly your status should carry over. I have 3 chars as top level crafters and they were that way before the 1st revamp.
The samples are easy to get. I would not fool with hoarding them until you have a need for them. My advice instead is to burn them up making junk just to level crafting on the off chance that someday it will be useful to you. After that, sell the rest.
As a side note, chars are cheaper storage than more storage, in general. Its annoying to have a bunch of bank chars and use mail for it, but its cheaper. A bank toon leveled to 11 can do DO missions for money, samples, dil, contraband, etc. while storing items and serving to sell things on the exchange for your main. With shared storage space, even just 1 set of slots, you can drop the best loot in, put it on the exchange, and be back to farming in under1 min. A bank char makes a lot of sense, but storing something you do not need does not --- if you save samples, then you should have a use for them.
Oh, in case you did not know: some "samples" are actually "commodities" and are used for rep and starbase actions. Others are used for DO missions. Obviously (or not?) contraband is pretty good to keep. You have to learn (if you do not already know) which is which -- they all look like "playing cards".
You should probably hold to the stuff you own, yes. Unless you can make a good buck on the Exchange for them, maybe it will give you some short-term opportunities that are worth the risk that there ever is a new crafting system that needs the same input as the old and contains desirable item.
If you can join a fleet, anomalies will prove useful in some projects, and it will be a way for you to earn fleet credits.
I suspect that when Cryptic comes around to do Crafting, it will probably not be terrible. It might still be grindy, like reputations and DOFFing, but I suspect there will be something worthwhile and interesting at the end of the craftsmen career.
IIRC, from what they've said about nu-Crafting, it won't be 100% carry-over. Which does imply that ranking nu-Crafting will be harder...
Also, I've only done two characters through the actual Crafting stuff to max rank, but I have another two that capped because of doing the repeatables on Defera.
So nu-crafting is not going to be a 100% carry over does that imply that anyone who has maxed out that skill as of now will be "demoted"?
I actually have been using the Exchange to transfer loot and ECs between characters, but I have only been doing that with small amounts of loot at a time. I transfer ECs between toons 'cuz F2P has a 10 million cap. I like STO though so I am actually considering going LTS if that package goes on sale.
The way I do things with the Exchange is as follows:
With my new Romulan toon I would sell something that cheap and widely available like a small hypospray for 5,000,000 ECs. Then my Fed toon will buy it and start listing the various samples at really high prices. I switch back to my Rom toon and start buying up the TRIBBLE which transfers much of the ECs back to my Fed toon.
I currently use the above methodology to remain under the EC cap and allows my KDF toon to buy some good gear. I normally buy Master Keys to soak up excess ECs, but prices have recently gone up a bit due to the bug ship prize. Once keys drop below 2 million ECs, I'll start buying 'em again.
The pros of the system
- no need for a crafting hub
The cons of the system
- still limited in mods on the item
- some items need multiple DOFF's of the same rank
There are other pros and cons but these are the ones I can think of at this time.
Personally I do not think that they will ever let us put the mods that we want on the items that we craft.
Again, IIRC, but what was described was that you'd get a certain amount of credit from existing crafting skill. I imagine if you're 100% now, you'll be 10-25% on the new system.
It makes sense - if they put the effort in to make a whole new system, they're not going to want people to all be max'd on day one. It may still be worth while to get a character to 100% now to get a head start, if you can do it cheaply.
I can't imagine that they'd give us 100% credit for existing skill no matter what nu-Crafting system they come up with, TBH.
Regarding the Aegis set, perhaps it is not the best set in the game but it is still good enough for PvE content, especially if you have not Tier-ed up in the Omega reputation.
It is profitable to make and sell; yes you are putting Dilithium into it, but you are getting a lot more EC from it in profit.
Crafting in general is not really worth the time, unless it's something that cannot come from drops/rewards.
SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
I HOPE not. NWN crafting is terrible:
- you have to wait for the item you want to come around on the wall clock (much like DO missions).
- you have to spend unholy amounts of time, money, and gambling to get "crafting tools" that are capable of making an item
- you have to spend unholy amounts of time, money, and gambling to get "crafting assistents" who are kinda like duty officers: you want the purple ones....
- you cannot make much that is very good. I think they added an OP craftable weapon to force people to use the crafting system if they wanted a top tier item (?) -- not sure, I quit before I made sense of that update (some months ago).
- It is boring. You are not even crafting, you are just paying someone to make stuff for you, its about as exciting as getting a dabo with your duty officer. Which isnt very.
- Did I mention all the gambling required to function? *someone* has to open packs to get the crafting guys and tools. That someone can then sell extras on the exchange, at huge prices. But all in all, its kinda like DO packs here, and your odds of a purple item are slim. You can combine a LOT of weak ones into a strong one, but that still takes time and money. Its borderline a scam, to be honest.
FYI if you want high end quality kits best get them and keep them now cause though they will never change very soon you will never be able to attain them again as the entire Kit system is being trashed for garbage blends that of course will require grind to recraft and slot most likely foor ungodly amounts of Dilithium for each.
As for those of you that say its worth it to sell the Aegis Set - I couldnt disagree more. Unless things have RADICALLY changed, you can BUY a set off the exchange cheaper by the time you were done gringing out all the gear to craft it. OR waste less time doing your Rep Projects - IMO.
This is exactly what i said. Even if the pieces cost about 2 million, still they are cheaper than investing all time and resources to craft em and after that sell in the exchange..
Can it be worth the effort if you already have the Mats or Picking them up along the way? Maybe. I just went from 0 to Aegis crafting in about 1 1/2 hours but only because I had been collecting the mats since level one. Had the mats and wanted the Aegis set. And lastly it was just something to do. As someone above stated you can get better stuff while leveling. But Keeping yourself at Bottom Tier (ie. Level V of V-VI) Blue gear would be pretty easy if you got every node. So that's def worth it if you have the mats and time and to break of the repetitive grinding.
Is it worth the effort if you have the mats at level 50? I will tell you this, at 50 with all the mats I made the lower level blue gear to level up as someone stated above and sold it on the AH. I listed every piece I crafted at GR - (2-5%) and made a little over 2 mil EC. 1 1/2 Hours crafting, 30 mins listing, 2 mil EC. Pretty sure that's worth it.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bP6k59dMHBI/UnQmzKaljjI/AAAAAAAAZUA/3ZDsMcXw4d0/s400/grumpy-cat-8141_preview_zps9177ab07.png
This would give crafting a renewed sense and give the player to craft for example a dual heavy cannon with the properties they want on it such as acc, dam, crtH, crtD and so on.
Crafting really sucks, which is too bad as most of my toons are ENG class. If it allowed for a wider variety of unique items on par with a high tiered store at a fleet starbase . . . MAYBE it would be worth getting into, but even then - it would probably be set up to consume more resources and time than if I just bought it right then and there.