Nines is back here with a in depth ESO Blacksmithing Guide.  Check this out!

Table of Contents

• Blacksmithing Skills
• Leveling Blacksmithing
• Research
• Summary Chart
• Improvements

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Blacksmithing Skills

 

Passive Skills

Below is a short summary of the blacksmithing passive abilities. If you plan to become a master blacksmith, it is recommended that you fully invest in blacksmithing and assign skill points to all blacksmithing passive abilities. On the other hand, if you are currently working on leveling your blacksmithing ability but have no intent to craft gear until you reach a high veteran level, then it is recommended that you allocate skill points in the following manner:

 Must Have

• Miner Hireling – The miner hireling is a must have, your hireling will provide you with ores and refinement materials daily via the in game mail. Unlocking each rank as it becomes available will allow you to stockpile refinement and crafting materials for when you decide to start crafting your gear. If you build a large inventory of high quality materials you can easily liquidate them via Guild Stores or in response to zone chat requests. Crafting materials can be an excellent source of reserve gold if you become gold strapped at any point in the game.
•  Metal Extraction – Metal extraction is a must have for reasons very similar to the Miner Hireling. Metal extraction will increase your chances of extracting ores and high quality tempers from the deconstruction of unwanted gear and from the refinement of raw materials. Deconstruction of gear is an integral part of leveling up the blacksmithing skill and the earlier you unlock Metal Extraction the more opportunity you have to extract ores and high quality tempers.
•  Metallurgy – Metallurgy plays a key role in researching armor and weapon traits. Researching armor and weapon traits is by far the most tedious portion of blacksmithing and the passive abilities here will greatly speed up the trait researching process.

 It Depends

•  Keen Eye: Ore – This one is up to your personal preference, Rank 1 is very beneficial in terms of gathering ore. Keen Eye will make blacksmithing raw material ore nodes glow which makes it easier to spot these nodes while on horseback or while running through the environment. Allocate skill points to Ranks 2 and 3 based on how useful you find Rank 1.

  

  

•  Metal Working – Metal Working is important if you plan to use item creation as a method to level your blacksmithing skill, see The Simple Way below. If you do not plan to use item creation as a method of improving your blacksmithing skill then you can pass on skill point allocation. If you go this route, it is important to have a basic idea of when you plan to begin crafting your own gear, this way you can start unlocking the passive abilities before they are needed which will allow for a seamless transition from leveling to crafting.

 Delay Until you Plan to Craft

• Temper Expertise – If you do not plan to craft until you reach Veteran Ranks then you can pass on allocating Skill Points to Temper Expertise. While it is a very important passive ability, it is not necessary for leveling your blacksmithing ability. At lower levels it can be beneficial to have the extra skill points to allocate to strengthening your character.   Just as with Metal Working, plan ahead so you can begin unlocking the passive abilities before you plan to begin crafting your own gear.

The Blacksmith Passive Ability Summary Table (24 Total Skill Points)

 

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Leveling Blacksmithing

 

The Simple Way – Natural Leveling and Basic Tips:

If you want to keep things simple and limit your gold cost, then you will want to focus on leveling the natural way. To do this, there are a few basic suggestions:

1. Deconstruction – Deconstruct all weapons and armor except for those you intend to research or keep. This will provide the main source of Blacksmith experience.
2. Sell all “Ornate” Items – The extra gold received from selling these items outweighs the experience gained from their deconstruction.
3. Deconstruct all “Intricate” Items – Intricate items provide an excellent amount of crafting experience. The experience gain from their deconstruction far outweighs the gold received from their sale.
4. Harvest all raw material nodes – Paired with the Metal Extraction passive ability, this will allow you to extract ore and tempers to use for crafting weapons and armor.
5. Creation – craft the following items with the ingots you have available:

Crafting these will provide the largest experience per ingot. Note: At higher levels it will become inefficient to craft lower level daggers (Iron through Calcinium), a basic rule of thumb is to only craft with the most recent ingots you have unlocked via the Metal Working Passive Ability.   Galatite, Quicksilver and Voidsteel ingots can be effectively used at any blacksmithing level. Ingots you have outleveled should be sold for gold via merchants or the guild store.

After crafting your daggers, you have two main options. If you are playing this game solo then you can sell your daggers and keep the gold received. The other option is to trade your daggers with another player trying to level their blacksmithing skill. In this scenario, you will trade your daggers for their daggers and then deconstruct the daggers you received from the other player. Deconstructing another players crafted gear provides a great source of crafting experience. It is very important to note that you can not effectively deconstruct daggers with the character that originally created the dagger. The experience in this situation is very limited, assuming you do not find a partner to trade daggers with, you are better off selling what you created to a merchant.

The Advanced Way – Power Leveling and Efficiency Tips

The advanced way retains the same basic principles as the simple way. The key difference here is the focus on the experience needed to level and the experience gained from deconstruction and crafting different pieces of gear.

As of Version 1.4 (Released 9/15/2014) Elder Scrolls Online uses the following Master Experience Table for all crafting professions:

 Master Experience Table

 Experience to level up is the amount of experience required for that current level, for example Level 50 requires 211,320 experience. Running Total Experience is the total amount of experience required to go from level 1 through the completion of the current level, for example, to go from Level 1 to Level 50 it would require a grand total of 3,879,215 experience. The Master crafting table can be used in tandem with the crafting and deconstruction tables below.

To determine the highest crafting experience per ingot, the Iron Gear line was analyzed (Crafted Iron Gear Detailed Experience Analysis Table). After noting that daggers provided the largest experience per ingot, every level dagger was analyzed (Crafted Dagger Experience Analysis Table). Also, you will gain significantly more experience if you are able to trade daggers with another blacksmith and deconstruct the daggers they crafted, this is by far the best way to level blacksmithing (Deconstructed Dagger Experience Analysis Table). The most efficient pieces to craft have been highlighted in the following tables.

Crafted Iron Gear Detailed Experience Analysis Table

Crafted Gear Power Leveling Example:

If you are a level 41 Blacksmith and wish to reach level 42 by crafting gear you will need 141,800 experience (See Master Experience Table). To obtain this, the most efficient way would be to craft VR 9 Voidsteel Daggers which net 1,833 experience per dagger. In total you would need to craft 78 VR 9 Voidsteel Daggers [141,800 experience for Level 41 / 1,833 per VR 9 Dagger]. In order to craft 78 Daggers you would need 780 Voidstone ingots [78 Daggers * 10 ingots per dagger]. It would cost anywhere from 3,900 – 6,240 gold to purchase the ingots in order to level up based on the price of refined material stacks from guild traders, which at the time of publishing ranged anywhere from 500 – 800 gold for a stack of 100 ingots.

Deconstructed Dagger Experience Analysis Table

Deconstructed Gear Power Leveling Example:

If you are a level 41 Blacksmith and wish to reach level 42 by crafting gear you will need 141,800 experience (See Master Experience Table). To obtain this, the most efficient way would be to craft VR 9 Voidsteel Daggers which net 1,833 experience per dagger and then trade the dagger to another blacksmith in exchange for a VR 9 Voidstone Dagger that they crafted. Deconstructing a VR 9 Voidsteel dagger from another crafter would net 3,928 experience per dagger. So your experience gain would be 5,761 which is calculated as the 1,833 for your original dagger + 3,928 for the deconstruction of the traded dagger. In total you would need to craft and deconstruct 25 traded VR 9 Voidsteel Daggers [141,800 experience for Level 41 / 5,761 per VR 9 Crafted + Deconstruction of Traded Dagger]. In order to craft 25 Daggers you would need 250 Voidstone ingots [25 Daggers * 10 ingots per dagger]. If you were to purchase the ingots in order to level up, it would cost anywhere from 1,250 – 2,000 gold to purchase the ingots in order to level up based on the price of refined material stacks from guild traders, which at the time of publishing ranged anywhere from 500 – 800 gold for a stack of 100 ingots.

Crafting and deconstructing traded daggers is by far the best method for leveling up your blacksmithing as the experience gain is approximately 3 times more, and the cost is approximately 3 times cheaper, than simply constructing daggers on your own.

These methods can be used to evaluate the investment you would need to make to power level your blacksmithing skill. The ultimate decision of whether the gold cost is worth it is an individual decision and is based on your desire to reach level 50 and your availability of gold.

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Researching Traits

Researching traits in Elder Scrolls Online will allow you to access and craft some extremely powerful player crafted gear; however, researching traits can take a significant amount of time. In regards to researching, it is very important to allocate skill points to the blacksmithing passive ability Metallurgy as soon as possible, as it will significantly speed up the researching process. Below is a breakdown of how Metallurgy Ranks impact the research times:

This example will detail the time it would take to research 6, 8 or 9 traits for Heavy Armor and for the two-handed sword. In order to keep things simple, the research times will be based on the Metallurgy Rank 4 table.

Due to the long research times, it is recommended that you focus on the particular armor and weapons you wish to use for your character, this will allow you to create the best crafted armor sets. Alternatively, you could take the “generalist” approach and make your priority to research 6 traits on all items then researching traits 7 – 9 afterwards. This approach will allow you to craft a large portion of the set armors and weapons, although you would delay your ability to craft the excellent 8 trait armors.

It can become very cumbersome to remember which traits you have already researched and which items you need, as a result, here are a few add-ons I find very helpful.

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Blacksmithing Addons

AI Research Grid by StormKnight, CrazyDutchGuy

As seen below, this add-on will give you a short and concise view of the known traits on your characters. The top right drop down box will allow you to switch between your multiple characters known traits. The ingot, wood and cloth in the upper left will display Blacksmithing, Woodworking and Clothing respectively. The green check marks mean you have already learned the trait, the red X mark means you do not know the trait and the hourglass means you are currently researching the trait. The bottom bar highlights which styles you a have learned and can craft.

Craft Research Timer by aTo

As seen below, Craft Research Timer is a small box that tracks the time remaining on trait research. This can be set to appear only when you are in the in-game menu and will keep you from having to go to crafting stations or check hand scrawled notes to determine if your trait research has completed.

 

 

 

Research Assistant by ingeniousclown, katkat42

Research Assistant is a great tool, it allows you to set your Blacksmithing Character, Clothier Character and Woodworking Character which is fantastic for players who craft on multiple characters. This add-on will display colored boxes next to your gear and let you know whether it is something you should deconstruct because you have already learned the trait or if you need to keep it to research or transfer it over to a crafting alt. In the example below, I can tell that my clothing crafting character has not researched the Aegis of Meridia, Research Assistant notes this with the red box. The gray boxes have already been learned and can be sold, deconstructed or put to other use. It is important to note that the color of the boxes can be changed in the Research Assistant settings, so be sure you review and understand what each color means as it relates to the settings on your machine.

Trait Summary Comparison Chart:

Below is a summary table of the different traits available in the game. All modifier percentages are based on normal quality items. As the gear is modified to Fine, Superior, Epic and Legendary, the modifiers will increase.

Detail Data:

Below is the detail information on the Weapon and Armor Traits:

Weapons

Armor

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Improvement

Item improvement plays a key role in creating the best gear possible. Refined items provide extra damage or armor and increased trait percentages. The Blacksmithing passive ability Temper Expertise plays an important role in item improvement. To keep things simple, this information below is based on the Voidsteel VR 14 Sword and Temper Expertise Rank 3.

If you are planning on crafting Legendary gear, it is recommended that you acquire the necessary number of improvement materials to give a 100% chance for item improvement. If you do not have your improvement chance at 100% there is a possibility that the attempted improvement will fail and destroy the piece of gear. Now that you’ve learned how to make your armor, lets go look at the special crafted sets you can make! CLICK HERE FOR CRAFTED SETS.