Crafting Scales Recommendations

Recently I was asked what the best base would be for lairshaping and crystalshaping scales, so I dug up this info I posted in an old thread from 2007 http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ecommendations, and made some new updates:

My scaleset's for crafting, and what I recommend:

Strength: Scalecraft, Smelting, Mining (great for leveling DRCA or grinding out hoard/coin)
Power: Spellcraft, Essence Shaping, Essence Harvesting
Strength: Scalecraft, Stoneworking, Quarrying (also great for leveling DRCA with stone)
Power: Lairshaping, Crystalshaping, Gemworking.

Make the wings with the above techs as well. Don't use velocity or speed on crafting scales! Use a separate set of travel wings you made for normal play/combat when you are travelling to and from the resource fields. Swap to these with a hotkey to equip them. I also use hotkeys to swap on all the other scalesets. You can add all 10 of the Scalecraft/Smelting scales to a single hotkey. You can use that to swap the 2 scalecraft wings back on when you get to a crafting station. Use one hotkey for each full set plus the tool claw, and one hotkey for the 2 speed wings. (Yes, you should have a set of combat wings without speed or velocity. The Travel wings can be used when out of combat. Equip each set of combat scales on their own hotkeys, and use that same hotkey when swapping back to combat wings).

Often players ask if they should tech Power onto their scalecraft set for a little extra boost. The teching of power, focus, strength techs on crafting scales is not worth it. Back 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. Not being optimal when placing mean's it takes 50% more resources to place a unit, 3 flowstones instead of 2 for example.

Therefore I made the set with lairshaping boost as the top priority. My lairshaping/crystalshaping set of scales adds these skill amounts:

Power base: Techs: Lairshaping, Crystalshaping, Gemworking adds 220 Lairshaping, 215 Crystalshaping, 225 Gemworking. This is the recommended set.

And for comparison, a Focus based set teched with Power V designed to maximize Crystalshaping:

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

Since you need Gemworking skill to make Lattices, teching on the Power is a total waste since you are trading away 210 Gemworking skill to gain 8 (7.5 rounded up) Crystalshaping.

Now let's make this set with Gemworking for the third tech in place of Power V to see what that gives you:

Focus Base: Techs: Lairshaping, Crystalshaping, Gemworking adds 205 Lairshaping, 225 Crystalshaping, 210 Gemworking. This is -15 Lairshaping, +10 Crystalshaping, -15 Gemworking when compared to the Power based set with the same techs.

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. And for a single set, you definitely want it to be Power based, since losing Lairshaping skill means you need 1.5 more levels' worth of skill to place optimally, and losing 15 Gemworking is not good for t6 Lattices.

***Example 2, Scalecraft skill and Power techs

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 10 scalecraft skill by making a t5 scaleset teched with Power V, or an extra 13 spellcraft skill, by making a power set with spellcraft and focus. 10 Power V techs to gain 10 scalecraft skill. 10 Focus V techs, for 13 spellcraft 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. Definitely not worth it in any of these examples, or in any case at all in regards to Dragon Crafting (Biped Crafting is a different story).

I always recommend people make scales and tech them with crafting techs, not stats. As for the Blessings, they don't stack with the full tech of the skills they boost, so their use is limited to the lower tiers, scales for hatchies since the comps are easy to get and cheap (just stuff like bricks and orbs), and they add multiple skills on lower level scales with only a single techslot. The Dragon skill specific boons, bounties, blessings are great for low level scales.

This dragons humble opinion.