Thread: Is crafting really essential for a minstrel to get beyond say level 50..?

I was wondering how essential crafting is to a minstrel who hopes to get past level 50..?
basically i was going to just casually adventure, hope to make an ok contribution in PvE instances, and make an ok contribution in skirmish or in the Ettenmoors. I'm hoping not to be worried about being the absolute best in combat. Since I am a sort of healer, I was going to just support by healing a lot mainly. And occasionally do damage.

do you think crafting is essential if i wish to do all that beyond level 50?
Or can I rely on drops...?

Crafting for every class at every level in LOTRO can be really useful. You get one of the best crafted armour, jewelry and weapons by crafting. There are quite a lot good drops out there but definitely not enough to fill all of your slots.

It really depends on what your crafting profession is. Minstrels need instruments - a woodworker can make you every thinkable instrument. (For lvl 75 there are I think 7 different instrument with each like 5 to 7 different outputs that you can choose from.)

Also jewelry is still useful if you don't want to hardcore grind raids, instances and skirmishes. Same for Armour and weapons. At lvl 75 still a lot of guys use crafted armour pieces, jewelry and off hand-weapons. (The best cloaks you can get at them moment are crafted by tailors.)

And also there are the consumables that you always need and that you only can obtain by crafting. That would be food from cooks (regen, buff and resistance) and of course pots from scholars (morale & power) and class consumables (scholar, woodworker, tailor). And for certain classes there are special class items that are only craftable. Not sure about the mini there thou.

Originally Posted by JanTATW

Crafting for every class at every level in LOTRO can be really useful. You get one of the best crafted armour, jewelry and weapons by crafting. There are quite a lot good drops out there but definitely not enough to fill all of your slots.

It really depends on what your crafting profession is. Minstrels need instruments - a woodworker can make you every thinkable instrument. (For lvl 75 there are I think 7 different instrument with each like 5 to 7 different outputs that you can choose from.)

Also jewelry is still useful if you don't want to hardcore grind raids, instances and skirmishes. Same for Armour and weapons. At lvl 75 still a lot of guys use crafted armour pieces, jewelry and off hand-weapons. (The best cloaks you can get at them moment are crafted by tailors.)

And also there are the consumables that you always need and that you only can obtain by crafting. That would be food from cooks (regen, buff and resistance) and of course pots from scholars (morale & power) and class consumables (scholar, woodworker, tailor). And for certain classes there are special class items that are only craftable. Not sure about the mini there thou.

All the above is very true, but the bottom line is, no, Crafting is not essential. HOWEVER, you will be spending LOADS of gold on the AH if you don't craft.

For a mini; scholars make sheet music, cooks make lute strings (which reduce threat).

My vote is for scholar since they make so many useful consumables; potions, scrolls of battle and warding lore and other good things.

imo crafting is important. I am still on my way to level 50 (lvl 47 now), I got some crafted armour when I was lvl 40 and still the stats are better then the armour that drops/rewards for lvl 45 mobs/quests. Off course many crafters are willing to provide you with crafted items if you give the mats and maybe some coin. But when sharing and trading you can get most items cheaper and easier. Specially in most kins it is expected to give and take and not only to take.

In fairness I have to confess however that I'm a tinker. My jeweller crafting is maxed. My prospector almost, but my cooking is at zero. I hate it. I prolly have to do it some day, but so far I couldn't be bothered with it.

So is it essential to craft? No, It isn't, but it would make getting to your goal a lot easier. And I didn't found it very difficult to do it. If you gather your resources and use them bout one time/day you will lvl up quickly and more important at the same space as you lvl yourself.

Once you get to Tier 6+ where you can make special crafted relics to put into your Legendary Items, you will want to have a craft maxed out and join a crafting guild to get the recipes for the crafted relics that each character must make for themselves.

The key above is that you will WANT to do this, not that you NEED to do this.

You can simply take up a vocation that lets you gather materials to sell on the AH and then buy most of what you need (except the crafted relics listed above). Or you can choose one that lets you make stuff you can use on a regular basis. See this link to get an idea of what you might want to do:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...aft-the-basics

echoing what others have said... you can completely skip crafting all together and make it to level 75 (or whatever end game level is) and contribute 100% to raids and be happy and successful.

However, you will be relying more on instance drops and the AH and the crafting professions can make this much easier. The best pull I see towards crafting is the crafted relics. You could just put a +20 stat in there, but the BoA ones you have to craft are much, much nicer. Still, its only one slot on one item. You could do just fine wearing skirm/raid/instance/ drops.

Ideally, if you level up crafting as YOU level, its not very grindy. If you put off crafting to the end, you will be going back to early lands and killing useless mobs/farming nodes and grinding out that progression when you are eager to do other things. If you want to craft at any time... I HIGHLY suggest doing it as you level. For most professions, this also means knocking out deeds as well since deed mobs drop tons of scholar, tailor, jeweler mats as well as various professions crit ingredients.

From levels 50-74 crafting can help. Instances can give some very nice gear for your level, but since it's older content you may have a hard time finding groups. Crafted stuff can fill in that gap nicely. Once you get to level 75 though, virtually every single item of crafted gear is vastly inferior to instance/raid gear. Since you mentioned you want to do instances, that might be worth looking into.

Like others mentioned, you use a lot of consumables in instances, pvp, and the like, and they can get fairly expensive if you don't have your own moneymaking method.

I am going to say that crafting is pretty essential. The best crafted relics add a very large amount, X2, for your character at the higher levels. For example, they can add nearly 800 to crit rating, which is worth as much as 3 good pieces of gear. You can do without, of course you can, just as you can do without a legendary item, never get any stat increase tomes, and run around in yellow quality gear too. But if you want to develop your character to at least a decent, able to contribute to a small group level, then crafting is probably going to be important in the long run.

However, it is much easier to pick up crafting later. It saves time when you can either buy the materials off the AH or gather them rapidly without combat every 3 steps. It helps when you can zip around the world, do the related quests, without it becoming an epic ordeal. Starting to craft at level 40-50 is not a bad plan; you lose out on the gear you could have made at lower levels but you will level up faster (not fooling with crafting) and get the crafting done faster as well (not fighting or sidetracked by quests).

Originally Posted by forusrname

However, it is much easier to pick up crafting later. It saves time when you can either buy the materials off the AH or gather them rapidly without combat every 3 steps. It helps when you can zip around the world, do the related quests, without it becoming an epic ordeal. Starting to craft at level 40-50 is not a bad plan; you lose out on the gear you could have made at lower levels but you will level up faster (not fooling with crafting) and get the crafting done faster as well (not fighting or sidetracked by quests).

Well, maybe faster if you don't mind turning it into a mind-numbing grind. I find it a lot easier to level up crafting as I go, so I'm gathering materials as I roam about in the course of my current questing, and then periodically spend a bit of time crafting finished products from those materials. If you wait until later, then you're going back to areas you've already finished and just gathering materials - which is rather boring done all by itself - and then spending hours just on making stuff from those materials for no reason but to raise your crafting level. Do it as you go and it doesn't pile up into such a grind.

first descovered i was enthsiastic about crafting, but shortly after my prospecting shot ahead and my other two lagged behind its not somthing i feel i need to work on so i just leave it be