Thread: Weaponsmithing worth it?

Ok so I'm a LM historian and I've hit master in Scholar and Farming. I'm wondering if I should even start on Weaponsmithing. It seems to me that crafted weapons are only going to be useful for a small window of levels until you get legendary items and it's going to be awfully difficult/expensive for me to get Bronze ignots to start crafting.

I am about to start a tinker which could eventually get me enough, but i'm wondering if the weaponsmith's output is going to be worth bothering with going towards late game.

Thanks!

For your own use then weaponsmithing is at this point in the game not very good for your late game characters. But for selling off the stuff you make in the auction hall and equiping your new characters its pretty handy. As far as getting enough tin to max out your apprentice weaponsmithing all you need to do is grind the midgewater marshes or parts of the shire. Just make sure to mine every copper node as tin only has a chance to spawn from those after you mine it.

Depending on what your characters are, then crafted weapons are still useful in the later game. Hunter, champion, and burglar (that I can think of offhand) can dual wield. They have an LI for their main hand weapon, but they still need an offhand weapon. My weaponsmith still crafts those. There is probably instance stuff that is better, but I don't go on instances that often, so haven't found dropped stuff that's better yet.

If you're starting a tinker for jewelrymaking you should get enough copper/tin to level up both of them. I went the same route when I started a new set of characters on Riddermark and I ended up with plenty of resources to level up both of them.

Be warned that the weaponsmith in the historian can be very painful because it cannot turn iron ingots into steel. Many recipes in the middle of each tier, and the guild items, need steel. And some tiers have 2 kinds of steels.

If you have an armsman floating around that's better.

Weaponsmiths also make traps. Given the number of Hunters that go Woodsman for the 20 or so bows they'll need in the life of their character, You may be able to do a decent trade on the AH.

Since you're going to be leveling a Tinker anyway, your metal supply will be fine. Tinkers & Metalsmiths generally use different metals, and you'll want to collect every node you see anyway for gems, rock salts, whetstones & copper salts.

I don't have much luck selling traps on the AH. Seems like most hunters either are weaponsmiths, have a weaponsmith alt, or think that the free trap is sufficient. Running around lavishly using Hunter consumables (traps, oils, bow chants) comes to very high amounts of silver per fight compared to other classes. A low cut and running away if things get too much is way cheaper

If you join the weaponsmith crafting guild, you can craft your own 2nd age, and 3rd age weapons, levels 60 and 65. So the usefulness of weaponsmithing is maintained all the way to the top.

I also have a historian, so the decision may be a hard one. You can only belong to 1 crafting guild. The scholar side of things allows you to craft stacks of potions. This is useful for a while until you start using the level 65 potions. I've yet to find any guild potions for that level, although they just may be in an area I haven't found yet, and if they don't exist yet, it doesn't mean they won't.

That said, I have SOOO many scholar crafting items, I almost don't know what to do with them all. I have stacks of extra tier 6 stuff taking up space in my vault. So crafting potions is not a problem, even though I no longer make the guild stack recipes.

Potions do sell well, though. As do Legendary weapons. So either way isn't a horrible choice. Read more about both and decide. I personally think both are good choices, which is why I made another character (besides my historian) to level up in the weaponsmith crafting guild.

To respond to the hunter stuff... My own hunter only uses the default trap given. However he uses the heck out of chants and oils (both of which I make myself because they are so expensive). My BURG on the other hand requires the items made by my weaponsmith. Marbles are a normal part of my inventory, and I've made them for others, as well. Required item for burg, as far as I'm concern. The dust and caltrops are both nice to have, as well. Caltrops does some aoe damage and slows them down, so you can run away if need be, or take them on easier. And stun dust doesn't last long, but is still good in a long fight so you don't take as much damage.

Er, that was a little long winded. Hope it's helpful, though.

Don't forget the shield spikes as well, they come in handy for a warden. I had a hard time deciding whether to guild weaponsmith or scholar on my LM. I went weaponsmith and she is busy all the time crafting shield spikes, marbles, traps and Legendary weapons. To suppliment, I made another historian and guilded her scholar with no weaponsmith at all. That way I can make Legendary books for my LM and Mini. Take a look at both and see which will benefit you most. You can always take your time to level up weaponsmithing to get the benefit if you need it later on.

Weaponsmith without ready access to a prospector is as hard to level as a tailor without a forester. Both need access to the crafting materials. Your historian will be hard pressed without a kin or alt with prospector.

But the value of the weaponsmith remains. It is a bit lean trying to supply characters above the level of 45, legendary weapons and all. But at 60 and again at 65 they'll beat a path to your anvil for their crafted weapons. And I think future plans for the LI system hint at even more demand for weaponcrafters.

Originally Posted by cyimri

Weaponsmith without ready access to a prospector is as hard to level as a tailor without a forester.

No, it's much worse since each tier has only one kind of leather but 2-3 kinds of metals (e.g. iron and two sorts of steel).

So with the tailor with no forester you just load up on leather and you are all set. You can't really load up on all kinds of ingots, it too expensive and too much bag space.

Furthermore, it costs real money and effort to make steel ingots so people won't just do it for you. And you can't even get ore. But you can get hides easily and ask people to do the simple leather stripping.

I would not recommend leveling weaponsmithing on your Historian. Keep your Historian, and if you wish, create an alt Armsman. Weaponsmithing is good for the LIs you may be able to craft if you can access Sigils. Historian products are expensive to find mats for sometimes, but with regular gameplay, not so hard to come by; and scholars can make money now, without having the tight constraints of end-game postures. I think a lot of money can be made with weaponsmithing, but to my mind great amounts of money less frequently. Historian could be quite steady and reliable. ...My take.

The OP is an LM, and LM's are pretty much stuck with staves for weapons. Those are made by woodworker. LM's do get a legendary trait that allows them to dual wield a non-LI sword and a staff at the same time, but that's not until they are reasonably high level, so any weapons the OP makes before they get the legendary trait are useless to the OP.

It's already been pointed out that Historian's can't make steel and will have trouble making LI weapons as a weaponsmith because they can't make mithril-infused steel which is a vital ingredient for LI's made by weaponsmiths. Prospectors make steel, including mithril-infused steel, and Historian does not have Prospector. And the OP will have to join the Weaponsmith guild to craft LI's as weaponsmith. If the OP is already in the Scholar guild then they will have to leave that guild as part of joining the weaponsmith guild. A character can only be a member of one guild. You can change guilds but you lose membership to the previous guild and lose all guild reputation and all guild recipies as part of that

The OP has also said that they've started an alt who is a Tinker, and that matches well with Historian. The Historian can farm for the Cook craft in Tinker and the Tinker can prospect for the Weaponsmith craft in Historian. Even if the
OP never levels up weaponsmith, chosing Tinker for the alt was the right move IMO, if only to match Cook with Farmer.

There will be at least two sets of changes in the LI system next year, the first will be part of the Q1 update and the second will probably be part of the Gap of Rohan update later in the year. We don't know exactly what changes will be made to LI's yet but there might be changes that make crafting LI's more worthwhile.

Right now I'd say that there isn't a whole lot of incentive for the OP to level up weaponsmith but that might change when we know what the details are for the Q1 game update next year.

This is where a kin or alt helps. I have a historian and I was working on the scholar early to make oils for a kin hunter, then we had one join who was a veteran to the game and he was already kin with the scholar guild so I have worked on the weaponsmithing. Our kin has a tinker who basically makes the ingots for me as they are more focused on the jewelry (precious metals) This has worked out good but, I am surrounded by good people. Now to get my skill up I make the traps for the same hunter I made oils for and then tier weapons for everyone and I am moving steady up. The historian is an alt. This is what I have perceived so far since I started play when lotro went FtP.