Crafting Scale recommendations

Recently I was asked what the best base would be for lairshaping scales, so I dug up this info I posted in an old thread:

My scaleset's for crafting:

Strength: Scalecraft,Smelting, Mining (great for leveling DRCA or grinding out hoard/coin)
Power: Spellcraft, Essence Shaping, Essence Harvesting
Strength: Stoneworking, Quarrying (Miner's boon, but these no long stack in this fashion)
Power: Gemworking, Transmutation, Salvaging.

That gemworking set was rarely needed, and was mostly vaulted. I never ground out gems to make money. Those who did, usually made gemworking sets with quarrying on them. This set of mine was made before Lairshaping was in-game and is pretty much permanently vaulted now, for gemworking I now use:

Power: Lairshaping, Crystalshaping, Gemworking.

I have 5 sets of crafting scales. 3 of which are usually in the vault. If you plan on doing alot of T6 work in any form, the additional set with Transmutation will be helpful.

The teching of power, focus, strength techs on crafting scales is really not worth it. Recently when I was planning out the lairshaping set, I did a test where I equipped sets of scales (plain old unteched raw scales), measuring all changes to crafting skills:

This test was done with 10 t5 scales

Power Base (+500 Power) adds:
Lairshaping 20
CrystalShaping 15
Mining 5
Quarrying 5
Smelting 10
Stoneworking 5
Gemworking 25
Essence Harvesting 30
Essence Shaping 30
Scalecraft 20
Spellcraft 25
Transmutation 35
Ingenuity 13 (12.5 rounded)
Salvaging 25

Power affects every single crafting skill to some extent

Strength Base (+500 Strength)
Lairshaping 20
CrystalShaping 0
Mining 45
Quarrying 45
Smelting 40
Stoneworking 35
Gemworking 0
Essence Harvesting 0
Essence Shaping 0
Scalecraft 30
Spellcraft 0
Transmutation 0
Ingenuity 13 (12.5 rounded)
Salvaging 0

Focus Base (+500 Focus)
Lairshaping 5
CrystalShaping 25
Mining 0
Quarrying 0
Smelting 0
Stoneworking 0
Gemworking 10
Essence Harvesting 15
Essence Shaping 15
Scalecraft 0
Spellcraft 25
Transmutation 15
Ingenuity 13 (12.5 rounded)
Salvaging 0


Dexterity Base (+500 Dexterity)
Lairshaping 5
CrystalShaping 10
Mining 0
Quarrying 0
Smelting 0
Stoneworking 10
Gemworking 15
Essence Harvesting 5
Essence Shaping 5
Scalecraft 0
Spellcraft 0
Transmutation 0
Ingenuity 13 (12.5 rounded)
Salvaging 25

From these results it becomes clear that Strength and Power are the only real choices, with Focus possibly for maximizing Crystalshaping (Examples below).

For Lairshaping scales, since the Lairshaping skill is the skill with which you apply resources, it is the most important one to buff in the long run. Who knows where the skill cutoff points will be for the upper tier placement. Not being optimal placing mean's more resources needed to place a unit.

Therefore I made the set with lairshaping boost in mind. This set of scales adds these skill amounts:

Power base: Lairshaping, Crystalshaping, Gemworking adds 220 lairshaping, 215 Crystalshaping, 225 Gemworking.

A Focus based set designed to maximize Crystalshaping:

Focus base: Lairshaping, Crystalshaping, Power adds 215 lairshaping, 233 Crystalshaping, 23 Gemworking (for comparison).

It's possible the extra 18 Crystalshaping skill could come in handy if they ever added Crystal creation forms like was originally planned. Since the game hasn't had any new developement in over a year this seems unlikely. Therefore I recommend Power base for Lairshaping/Crystalshaping sets.
Making 2 sets of Lairshaping scales (one to maximize Lairshaping, one to maximize Crystalshaping) wasn't worth the trouble for me, what with extra bulk to carry or extra trips to the vault to swap scales.


Now, if you plan on teching a Strength scale with Power, look at the value the full power set adds, and divide it in half. Thats how effective placing that tech for that purpose would be. For example I could get an extra 13 spellcraft skill, by making a power set with spellcraft and focus. 10 Focus V techs, for 13 skill. Is it really worth it? Abilities which are granted biggest noticable gains from strength, like say Mining and Smelting, you place those on a scale with that (Strength) base. Since you can't tech Strength onto a Strength base scale, your left with only Power even affecting it. And in this example it would add 3 skill (2.5 rounded up) at a cost of 10 Str V techs. Definately not worth it.

I always recommend people make scales and tech them with crafting techs, not stats. As for the Blessings, only miners and spellcrafters are usable on dragon scales, and they no longer stack with any ability that they grant themselves. Blessings might be a good alternative for cheap tier 3 scales with miners and spellcrafters blessings, but thats about it.

This dragons humble opinion.

Awesome post! Thanks. :D

Can I/you add this to the wiki on bristugo?

lol I spent ages searching for this about a week ago. A very useful post I refer to often, good to have it back nearer the top of the forum

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Steelclaw

Can I/you add this to the wiki on bristugo?

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Sure.

Correction to second to last paragraph: (where's the edit button??)

Now, if you plan on teching a Strength scale with Power, look at the value the full power set adds (to the skill you are trying to buff), and divide it in half. Thats how effective placing that tech for that purpose would be. For example I could get an extra 13 spellcraft skill, by making a power set with spellcraft and focus. 10 Focus V techs, for 13 skill. Is it really worth it? Abilities which are granted biggest noticable gains from strength, like say Mining and Smelting, you place those on a scale with that (Strength) base. Since you can't tech Strength onto a Strength base scale, your left with only Power even affecting it. And in this example it would add 3 Mining skill (2.5 rounded up), 5 Smelting at a cost of 10 Power V techs. Definately not worth it.