Crafting 101

Crafting is useful in DDO. The items you can make, while not as powerful as Named items, can be perfectly tailored to fit your need. It does however, seem a little confusing at first. So with that in mind, here's a little guide that might be of some use.

Crafting can be readily distilled into three aspects: the Breaking of Things, the Making of Shards, and the Applying of Shards.

Breaking items is the primary source of the Essences used in crafting. There are other ways, but not really as efficient

When you Deconstruct (break) an item, the item is destroyed. You gain some platinum for the scraps materials, and you gain Essences based on which part you kept from the item. You will also gain a little bit of crafting experience.

Note:

• You cannot deconstruct a named item. Only random loot can be deconstructed.
  
• You will need one of the three deconstruction 'solvents' from the NPC located in the crafting hall
  
• A large ingredient bag or larger is highly recommended if you start crafting

When you approach the deconstruction machine and insert an item, you are given two or more options, based on the enchantments the item has. Your choices are:

• Keep the base item (creating a 'blank' for enchanting later)
  
• Keep the magical + of the item (e.g. the +2 part of a +2 longsword)
  
• Gain Essences (based on what enchantment you're keeping- the suffix, the prefix, and what type they are)

So for example, were you to deconstruct a +2 Flaming Longsword of Wounding you could keep:

• The longsword
  
• The +2 (and get a +2 spirit)
  
• The Flaming (and get Fire Essences)
  
• The Wounding (and get Body Essences)

The higher the level of enchantment, the more essences you get.

You will also gain experience from deconstruction, in the crafting school that was used to make the part you kept. In the previous example, had you chose to get essences from the Flaming enchantment, you would gain experience in Elemental Crafting School. You gain 1 experience for each level, up to 5 where it is capped (Level 8 enchantments will yield more essences, but only 5 xp.)

Personally I shatter everything into essences, picking whichever is the highest level enchantment on the item. The exception being Body essences; body-school enchantments are so bloody plentiful I'll pick keeping a Level 2 Evil over Level 5 Body.

The making Shards is where you'll earn the xp to really level up your crafting.

Once you have a big amount of essences hoarded (hundreds if not thousands), move to the next station over and start to craft shards. You can attempt to craft any shard that's within 10 levels of your current skill in that school...but the chance goes down by 5% for every level over your ability. At 10 levels over your chance is 50%, the minimum to make an attempt (without a skill booster).

Please remember the Gambler Fallacy[en.wikipedia.org] before declaring the RNG broken :P

For clarity's sake, use the filters on the right. Select only one school at a time (e.g. Elemental) and set the level range to around 5 to 8 levels higher than your craft level. Lastly sort by experience so the ones with the most returns are at the top.

The reason for this is as you craft a shard, you get better at THAT particular type of shard...so the chance of success for it goes up, even if your crafting level didn't change. The thing is, experience in D&D is based on the risk involved. As it is now easier to craft, you earn less experience for it. To prevent waste, you'll want to keep changing what you are making to whatever costs the least essences, but gives you the most experience. Sorting by experience will ensure that the more rewarding shards are at the top of the list. [Note: not necessarily profitable, judgement is required]

Most shards will require Some Greater Essences, MANY Lesser Essences, a few khyber or sibyrys shards, and maybe some collectibles from clickies in dungeons. For leveling purposes avoid anything needing purified dragon shards, as that's wasteful. Try to select the ones that use the least amount of Greater Essences also, as they are harder to come by.

Once you're finished, take your shards over to the deconstruction machine, and try to get some of your Essences back. You won't get experience for breaking shards like you would an item, but it helps while leveling up to recycle.

Now do note there are BOUND and UNBOUND machines for making shards. Unbound machines offer the same recipes (with a few exceptions, like arrows, masterful crafting and such: they can only be made bound) but requiring higher levels, more ingredients. The difference in the result is a bound shard is bound to the account of the creator, while an unbound shard can be traded or sold to other players.

This though leaves a trick....

As the levels progress, the higher level shards require more and more ingredients. This does ebb and flow though, and if you bounce over to the unbound machine, you might find that it requires less Essences for that level, than the bound machine does. This is especially important if you find yourself at a point in the bound machine where the only viable recipes are requiring purified shards, and you want to push past that point without wasting any.

Another 'trick' is the potential shards. They require a certain amount of Essences to make, but they don't specify what type. You can thus use Lesser Essences and preserve your precious Greater Essences. Body Essences are great to waste here :) . Only caveat is you cannot recycle them to free the Essences later. This isn't a major deal as almost every crafted item will end up needing to have its potential raised, so consider this just preparing early.

The final step is applying. This uses the third and final machine.

• Take your item blank you plan to use and put it in the machine.
  
• Take a shard you plan to apply and put it in the machine.
  
• Activate the machine.
  
• If there wasn't enough potential? Apply potential shards to raise the item potential and retry.
  
• Repeat with any other shards.

An item can have a prefix, a suffix, and if armour/weapon, a +enchantment. You can also apply a masterful crafting shard tol lower the minimum level to equip, but only the once.

It requires NO levels to apply shards to an item. You can use a shared bank to transfer bound shards from your crafter to the character who will use it. You can purchase unbound shards off the Auction Hall and create an item while lacking crafting ability yourself. Only making shards needs crafting skills and thus, you only need to have one crafting character. Personally I shove all my items into the shared bank for my crafter to break just for that tiny extra bit of exp.

• Shards have type requirements. e.g. You cannot make Flaming Burst Goggles.
  
• The item is now bound to character UNLESS the blank was Bound to Account, then it stays BtA. This is regardless of if the shards were bound or unbound.
  
• The only way to remove a shard is to blank the item again.
  
• The only way to change an enchantment is to blank the item again and then add the new.
  
• Augments are preserved, but increase minimum level to equip, coloured ones significantly.
  
• Shards must obey the same rules as the enchantment normally. You cannot make a puncturing mace, nor can you make Plate Mail of Mobility. (at least Pre Update 19)

• There is a nice Crafting Planner here[cannith.cubicleninja.com], although it fails if you start mixing flexible and normal shards. (Flexible shards have greatly increases level to make, but allow you to put enchantments where normally cannot place them - it's still not a carte blanc however).
  
• Cannith Challenges allow you to trade ingredients for Essences by choosing the Crafting Satchels as your barter selection.
  
• The NPCs in the crafting hall have a few options besides selling decon solutions
  
  • You can transmute 2 Greater Essences to 1 Greater Essence of another type in the same school (e.g. Fire to Water)
    
  • You can sunder 1 Greater Essence into 5 Lesser Essences of the same type
    
  • You can trade Ability Tomes (e.g. +1 strength) for Purified Eberron Shards
• Some recipes require a rare ingredient offered as a reward from quest chains (e.g. Mystical Goblet from Threnal). If the other reward options aren't that great, and especially if you hate the quest, consider picking the ingredient. They are BtA though, so you can't sell on the AH.
  
• If you are planning to True Reincarnate
  • Your crafting exp stays, but any 'familiarity' bonus with making a shard is reset
    i.e. Every shard is as if for the first time: full exp and no bonus chance.
    
  • Since your favour is reset, stockpile Marks of Crafting, Silver Flame Marks, or Yugoloth Marks before you can no longer access the vendor