Crafting: Levelling Habits?

[LurkaKitty]

First off I want to say that since I do not have a craft over 399, and since to my understanding there are no more work orders after 390, I am only asking about levelling from 1-399.

How do you guys go about levelling your crafts from 1-399? With Work Orders (WOs) or just gather a bunch of mats for X recipe and let it go all night?

If with WOs, do you follow any specific pattern? For example, do you grab all available word orders, get the mats, and push `em out? Do you only grab the highest level WO available and get the mats to do Y amount of crafts of it? Have you done different ways and found a specific way that works best, even if just for you?

For myself when I first started tailoring, I would grab the top two WOs and get enough mats for 4-5 of each and push them out. Lately I`ve been getting the top three- sometimes all four- WOs and doing the lowest one a couple times and the highest a few more.

Is there a best way to go about levelling with WOs or do they vary?

[niwaar]

There is a lot of controversy over how to efficiently level your crafting skill. However, there is one thing everyone pretty much agrees on. Do not level up on real recipes. Recipes themselves are far too expensive in general to be cost effective to level up.

That being said, the only recipes you should be looking at to skillup off of during your 1-390 excursion are materials. For example, if you know you are going to be crafting some armor for yourself then converting all that Ore into Ingots when you first hit 100, 200, or 300 is quite cost effective. The same goes for the other crafts and their base materials.

Other than that, Work Orders are the best way to get to 399 in any craft. They do start getting expensive, but the overall cost of completing 8-16 of an item for a WO is far less than producing a single real recipe. A few notes on work orders.

1) Always only craft what you need to complete the work order. -
Aion's crafting is not unlike FFXI's in that you actually get a .1 or .2 or some actual small decimal upgrade every time you succeed. You do not see this, but it is there. The system is setup to get you a point a WO early on and about a point every 1.5 WO later on.

2) Completing a lower WO is often times more financially sound. -
You only get skillup on successful attempts. By sticking with the lower WO you will ensure that you get a skillup with all your materials. While if you go immediately to the new WO you are going to lose more money in breakage costs than you efficiently get skillups.

You will also gain more money back in rewards and have a better chance at completing all recipes for the level range.

3) Plan ahead -
If you are going to want to craft certain gear and are just hitting 100,200 or 300 then start off with making the materials from the gather materials you have collected. This is especially true with tailoring where you may have to HQ several materials just to be able to make the armor you wish to make for yourself.

You can easily get 20-30 points by crafting materials that you will eventually use to armor yourself or your friends if you plan ahead. This may cost more than WO, but its more financially sound because you are going to end up making it for yourself anyway, often times when you are unable to get the skillups you need. Remember, converting materials will never fail.

4) Craft with DP -
Many people still think this is just superstition. It is not. This is a confirmed mechanic of the game. Having Divine Power, not only increases your HQ rate on actual recipes, but it also increases your overall success rate on all crafts. Make sure you craft with DP while skilling up. There is absolutely no reason that you can't. Even if you are using an alt, go buy cheap DP food (yes its cheap now on all servers). The cost of the food will easily be better financially for you than breaking materials will be.
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In terms of your original question... I would not be getting mats for 4 different WO quests. You are just not going to be efficient in skilling up like that. I would suggest, if you are currently 250, do the 240 work order at least until 245, then make a personal decision to go to the 250 at least til 255.

[Fallyn]

Basically here's some little stuff I do;

Start a new WO when you are 3 into the next WO bracket. For example, start the lv10 WOs at lv13, 20's at 23, etc.

The other thing I do, is only craft the amount of WOs needed to turn the quest in. Don't just click craft all, because you're crafting stuff that is gunna get discarded. (this may be an obvious one, but i've spoken to alot of people who just craft all)

[Magewrath]

I agree with the above posters; I have now started to go to 5 points above the next WO before switching (e.g. Completing a level 60 WO to skill level 75). This may be a bit OTT, but it seems to work nicely for me, so for now I'm sticking with it.

As for buying materials. I usually (and this may sound extreme but hear me out) go and purchase around 250 of each material that I need. The reason being that I will more than likely need them again in another WO (maybe even the one straight after). Basically it just means that sometimes I can carry straight on without having to buy more (although more often than not I still have to buy something else).

I realise mine is by no means the best way to do things, but it seemed like you were curious as to how others craft, and not just looking for the best crafting model.

[Syntex]

Inda on the forums can tell you only 400+ recipes skill you after 400.

He made something like 500 cooking things and didn't get one skill off of it and it was like 385 and he was still 400 when he finished.

From Aaliel on my server who is 449 tailoring, "Level off of refining mats, cheap, easy, and most people will let you do it for free" or something to that effect.

I think he might be world first Governor too, he is pretty damn close,... 773k and climbing...

[LurkaKitty]

I realise mine is by no means the best way to do things, but it seemed like you were curious as to how others craft, and not just looking for the best crafting model.

Exactly what I was looking for. I hadn`t thought of doing doing the last work order until 3 (or 5) levels into the level for the new WO before, so I`ll definitely try that, I think it`ll be beneficial lol. Thanks for all the responses too!

[RKenshin]

Usually I pick up all work orders available for the level (so, 4), craft the exact mats needed for the work order, and turn in.

Requires more mats/time than doing only the highest work orders, but you get a lot more exp and rewards from the larger number of crafts and turn-ins. I think in the end it evens out to be just about the same, especially 300+ where recipes sell/NPC for good kinah.

I actually ended up making money off of the final stretch in alchemy, just from getting around 200k in vendor recipes, without counting the recipes I sold on auction and the extra mats I got.

[Drex]

One thing I do to save time is buy enough materials for like 10 work-orders. Estimate how many W.O.s you will need to do, multiply by how many synths per workorder, then by how many mats per synth, and buy that many in one go from the vendor. So, if you need 2 gummy tails and 1 abyss powder per synth, and 10 synths per workorders, and 10 workorders get the skill you need for the next one, buy 200 tails and 100 powders so you have enough for all 10 workorders. That way you can just run back and forth between the crafting area and the W.O. NPC without having to constantly buy mats.

Also, shift+right click on the item you're buying to buy 200 of it, iirc. Not at an Aion comp to check at the moment. Maybe it's ctrl+right click...

But yeah, work orders ftw. The rewards usually won't cover costs, but I got to 200+ alchemy on like 100k (not including the rank up fees) doing W.Os. Also agree on not moving on to the next W.O. until level X3. Doing the 150 W.O. at 150 gets a lot of failures, while doing it at 153 is almost 100% success.

[Naiya]

Also, shift+right click on the item you're buying to buy 200 of it, iirc. Not at an Aion comp to check at the moment. Maybe it's ctrl+right click...

Yeah it's Shift+Right click, which i didn't find out till i was 130 Armorsmithing :/

[Lurking Badger]

Why do you think it's better to interrupt a work order when you have all items to complete it? If it really works like xi with invisible 0.1 skill ups, wouldnt you keep getting skill ups after your quest goes complete?

[Fallyn]

Why do you think it's better to interrupt a work order when you have all items to complete it? If it really works like xi with invisible 0.1 skill ups, wouldnt you keep getting skill ups after your quest goes complete?

You still get skillups, yes, but think about it. You're still using materials (in WO 10+) that you could use to do the next new set of WOs, and get the rewards from them. Instead of using all your bought materials just for the skillups, why not just complete that WO and gain them on the next one when you could possibly get a needed design out of it?

Kinda hard to explain the above, so maybe someone else should clarify.

[Lurking Badger]

Ok, for more quest rewards.

[RKenshin]

Why do you think it's better to interrupt a work order when you have all items to complete it? If it really works like xi with invisible 0.1 skill ups, wouldnt you keep getting skill ups after your quest goes complete?

You still get skillups, yes, but think about it. You're still using materials (in WO 10+) that you could use to do the next new set of WOs, and get the rewards from them. Instead of using all your bought materials just for the skillups, why not just complete that WO and gain them on the next one when you could possibly get a needed design out of it?

Kinda hard to explain the above, so maybe someone else should clarify.

Think of it this way.

Let's say it takes 1200 crafts to go from 300 to 399, and we'll just assume you never fail for simplicity-sake.

Work orders give you mats for 20 crafts at 300+, but only require 15 successful crafts for the turn-in reward. You can either do 20 crafts per turn-in for those 1200 crafts (which would net you 60 work order rewards) or your can do 15 crafts per turn-in (which would net you 80 rewards).

Either way you're doing the same amount of crafting in the end. It's just one method uses turn-ins more frequently for more rewards.

[aalryn]

aye. always do the minimum number of crafts to turn in. By even just vendoring the scrolls you can usually break even all the way to 300+. (I think I did 350-399 AS spending a total of 50-80k after selling back all of the white patterns i kept getting)

[Ethan]

how do you guys deal with missing designs; tailoring has been horrible because the WO falls off the list before I get the green designs for that level...then I have to pray they are put on the broker if I really want them

[RKenshin]

If you're missing designs, you'll either have to camp the broker for them or just spam the low level work orders for more turn-ins (you'll get less skill-ups and use more materials & time, but will get more rewards).