Should a new player invest any time into crafting pre-6.0?

[Kendrid-KT]

So I've just started playing Aion and honestly, I am having a blast. The depth this game gets into when it comes to gearing, enchanting, crafting etc, etc....its pretty awesome. The combat also feels really good considering it uses an old-school tab targeting system. The story, the quests, the soundtrack....I love it and plan on sticking with this particular mmorpg. But I've been watching some videos and reading forums regarding the coming changes when patch 6.0 hits NA (I'm Aussie playing on NA server) and I'm thinking there's probably not much point in even bothering with any of the crafting professions considering they are all being removed and then replaced with Aetherforging (I think that's how to spell it). 

Would anyone with more insight be able to shed some light on this subject for me? I just don't want to spend unnecessary hours leveling up crafting if its going to be all thrown out the window down the line anyway. Would I be better off waiting until 6.0 to pursue crafting?

[Vantheria-DN]

Yes and no -- it depends on what you like. For example, if you see some construction and skin designs that you really like and want to get, then it might be worth it to level tailoring or whatever. Generally speaking though, I think most of us would say it's not worth it at this point. Aetherforging is the only craft that will still be around in 6.0. So once you get to level 66, start working on that. It has some cool skins in it also (that will be disappearing from aetherforging in 6.0, so get them before if you want them).

[Rakesh-DN]

To supplement what @Vantheria-DN already said, crafts other than Aetherforging are already rather pointless even if you don't consider the upcoming patch. There are a few things from cooking that might offer some utility value, but other than the crafts only have a few choice skins in there and everything else is heavily outdated.

Your best bet - aside from leveling up Aetherforging - is picking out any of the old skins you particularly like and asking around in lfg to see if anyone can make them for you.

[Kendrid-KT]

If that's the case then I'll probably skip crafting then since Aetherforging is all that will be left eventually. As far as skins go, I'm fairly new so I don't really know what one's I'd like/don't like since I haven't really seen a whole lot of the game yet. 

I have started cooking, because why not. The little buffs are nice so I'll just stick to that one and not worry so much about the others. I was gonna pick up tailoring for the mounts (I think its tailoring that lets you craft mounts, might be wrong) but since that's also going out the window I might not worry about it. I'm in no rush to try and get what I can before the patch is live, I'm just going to focus on experiencing the game and understanding my class better. So far the game has been awesome. 

Cheers for the input guys

[Cheesecake-DN]

Handicrafting makes mount, but you're better served hoping Luna RNG's you a decent mount or the BCM if you want certain ones. (sheeeep)

[Vantheria-DN]

12 minutes ago, Kendrid-KT said:

I was gonna pick up tailoring for the mounts (I think its tailoring that lets you craft mounts, might be wrong)

Since you're new, you may not be aware of this. There is a form a crafting -- not traditional crafting -- called Luna. It's accessed by clicking the pink moon icon to the right of your skillbars. This pink moon is only accessible when you are on the Standard server, not Fast-Track server. Luna has two solo instances in it that 1) give a lot of XP and 2) give you materials needed to craft the various things in Luna. One instance is weekly and the other is daily. Both can be afked for base rewards, or you can actually try for higher rewards. You can also get one free material per day without making any effort at all, just by opening a box. Luna crafts are random and change every day; they are not the same for everyone either. There are many things included -- skins, mounts, housing decor, etc. This is how most people in the game have acquired mounts for their toons as these are good, permanent mounts. So make it a habit to do your daily Luna instance and start saving up those mats. Next time you see a mount in there, you might have enough mats to craft it. Note, you can also purchase more Luna mats with real money if you are so inclined.

tldr: Explore the pink moon Luna icon by your skillbars when you're on Standard server.

[Kendrid-KT]

Ah yeah whoops, its handicrafting not tailoring for the mounts haha. 

@Vantheria-DN yes I actually just noticed to pink moon icon after switching from fast track to standard server and it was highlighted. Had a look at it, closed it and didn't give it a second thought. But from you are saying it can give some nice rewards so will look more into it. Thanks for pointing it out!

[Kubei-DN]

Thought I'd give you guys some heads up, but the skins we currently have in Aetherforging (like the Blue Bunny) still remain in 6.x (thought I believe they were recently added? I'd have to take a closer look)

Aetherforging isn't exactly necessary in the next patch, but it has the second best PvP and PvE gear (as of 6.2)

[Nimiety-KT]

IMO, the traditional crafting professions are very worth it if you have the time, especially since they will disappear after 6.0 

As a forewarning, leveling aetherforging crafting is extremely extremely extremely expensive. AF leveling needs to be done under the 100% weekend crafting server boost and a 500% crafting boost charm, or you will be wasting expensive materials (you'll also need at least 3 to 5 500% crafting charms to get it to level 300). So, if you have a couple spare billions of kinah laying around as pocket change, you can try leveling that.

But, if you just wanted to get into the crafting experience, you should definitely do the profession crafting. You won't need any crafting boosts until you reach expert, the 100% crafting charms that you get for free while leveling should be enough to level from expert to master. Unless you want to rush leveling it all in a day, you don't need to use a 500% crafting boost.

Not sure if someone mentioned up there, but when you reached a mastery (or expert, it didn't matter for me since I intended to go for mastery) profession craft, you have an option of doing a quest that will give you 1 additional row for your warehouse (72 slots) without going to the BCM. 

Also, when you finish the mastery quest, you'll get a non-tradeable skin armour: Raiments of Mastery. It looks pretty nice on both male and females tbh. The mastery quest for cooking, alchemy, tailoring, handicrafting, armoursmithing, and weaponsmithing, is bit of hassle quest since you need to gather a lot of materials. But you can just buy aether and morph all the ingredients, so you don't even need to go around the maps to gather the items. 

All in all, I think it's a pretty good deal to spend about 200m and some time to level profession crafting to master. It's also fun to look at all the skins and try to make them. *Note, construction profession is separate and won't give you any of the perks mentioned above. 

IMO, considering 6.0, alchemy is the best to master if you wanted to start leveling a craft. If you were just looking for certain skins or the mount, you can just try finding someone who has already mastered the craft. Give them the materials and/or just pay them.

 

[Kubei-DN]

32 minutes ago, Nimiety-KT said:

IMO, considering 6.0, alchemy is the best to master if you wanted to start leveling a craft. If you were just looking for certain skins or the mount, you can just try finding someone who has already mastered the craft. Give them the materials and/or just pay them.

All the old crafts are removed in 6.0 though. What remains is only Aetherforging.

[Vantheria-DN]

1 hour ago, Kubei-DN said:

Thought I'd give you guys some heads up, but the skins we currently have in Aetherforging (like the Blue Bunny) still remain in 6.x (thought I believe they were recently added? I'd have to take a closer look)

Aetherforging isn't exactly necessary in the next patch, but it has the second best PvP and PvE gear (as of 6.2)

Wow ok! I had watched a 6.0 video months ago that had the player clicking through every page of Aetherforging, and all of the current skins were gone. I wonder if they were added back in 6.2 or 6.5. Very interesting, I'll have to research more into this. Thanks for the heads-up!

 

EDIT: Figured I'd link the video I mentioned above in case anyone else was interested in seeing every page of 6.0 Aetherforging. Start at 21:20 if the video doesn't automatically start there:

 

[Nimiety-KT]

25 minutes ago, Kubei-DN said:

All the old crafts are removed in 6.0 though. What remains is only Aetherforging.

Exactly! because they are being removed, it is best to get the the rewards from them before then. Mastering any of cooking, alchemy,tailoring, handicrafting, weaponsmithing or armoursmithing will give you a "free" armour skin and warehouse expansion ticket for your character.
A warehouse expansion ticket box goes for 1440 NCoins on the BCM. And I have not seen a skinned Raiments of Mastery on the broker nor shops.

And also, note that he said he's a new player. Leveling AF is not cheap nor easy. Even leveling is gradually over a long time is not a good idea because of the required materials (it is a waste of materials to level AF without the crafting boosts) that need to be collected unlike leveling profession crafting where you can do work orders and buy items from the NPC . Out of the 6 listed, alchemy is the best to level from scratch since, you can start stocking up on Sublime Wind Serums, Superior Recovery Potions and Serums, while leveling it.

[Kubei-DN]

3 hours ago, Vantheria-DN said:

Wow ok! I had watched a 6.0 video months ago that had the player clicking through every page of Aetherforging, and all of the current skins were gone. I wonder if they were added back in 6.2 or 6.5. Very interesting, I'll have to research more into this. Thanks for the heads-up!

Yeah, all of the current things in Aetherforging were removed and replaced with 6.0 content, but today I noticed there's the Blue Bunny set again and also some old wings. You can see here https://aionpowerbook.com/powerbook/Item/110050007 and https://aionpowerbook.com/powerbook/Item/187010072 (the wings are PvE though) so I'm sure they will be adding further stuff as time goes by.

[Vantheria-DN]

15 hours ago, Kubei-DN said:

Yeah, all of the current things in Aetherforging were removed and replaced with 6.0 content, but today I noticed there's the Blue Bunny set again and also some old wings. You can see here https://aionpowerbook.com/powerbook/Item/110050007 and https://aionpowerbook.com/powerbook/Item/187010072 (the wings are PvE though) so I'm sure they will be adding further stuff as time goes by.

That's fantastic! I'm glad they've decided to start adding fun things back to aetherforging.

[Rakesh-DN]

19 hours ago, Nimiety-KT said:

And I have not seen a skinned Raiments of Mastery on the broker nor shops.

This is because Raiments of Looking Kind of Funny is a one time only skin.

If you do level any of the old crafts, I would advise against Construction in particular. The amount of Plia Flower Pails you end up suffering through near the end of it isn't an experience I'd recommend.

[StavieNicks-DN]

wasted:                          half a billion kinahs

                                        &

                                        500 craft attempts @lvl140 manastones

to NOT level even 1 point on Aetherforging lvl 159 to 160

it will not level !!!

yet another disappointment courtesy of Nc

i give up

[Bryos-DN]

Wasted: 5 seconds trying to understand that weird format.

I give up.

[MayBlue-DN]

No need to level up in Aetherforging (sometimes called Magical Crafting). Sywo has a video. In short, the level up is fast and cheap in 6.x.

youtube.com/watch?v=ytGpMZU4-84

I have an alt that has Craft Alchemy just under 500 (480/490) is good enough. It saves me a ton of kinah on Runing/Crit/Courage scrolls. That craft has scrolls for magic classes too.

I think Alchemy is the only craft still worth it for now,  for a few scrolls and getting that extra row in our warehouse.

MayBlue

[Haniya-DN]

I don't think there's any harm in leveling up crafting if you enjoy it- particularly alchemy for the healing pots and basic scrolls (it's a cheaper and more efficient process than aetherforging those items), and then armorsmithing/weaponsmithing/tailoring if you want any of the skins. It's a pretty fast and cheap process these days and it didn't take long at all to master armorsmithing so that I could make some old balic gear. Which uh. Ended up looking bad on my toon but hey it's all good.

But if it's boring to you then you can skip the whole crafting process. I do suggest working on your Aetherforging during the boost weekends if nothing else, as it's extremely useful and will continue to be so in future patches.

And I'll 100% echo the sentiments towards construction. I mean, I'm a freak of nature who absolutely loves crafting and spent her first six months in Aion mastering construction- and while I don't regret it, I also wouldn't recommend it at all! (So many nenana candles... o_o)

[Morgaga-DN]

On 8/26/2018 at 9:33 PM, MayBlue-DN said:

No need to level up in Aetherforging (sometimes called Magical Crafting). Sywo has a video. In short, the level up is fast and cheap in 6.x.

youtube.com/watch?v=ytGpMZU4-84

I have an alt that has Craft Alchemy just under 500 (480/490) is good enough. It saves me a ton of kinah on Runing/Crit/Courage scrolls. That craft has scrolls for magic classes too.

I think Alchemy is the only craft still worth it for now,  for a few scrolls and getting that extra row in our warehouse.

MayBlue

I max’d my aetherforging despite sywo’s opinion, when he went farming for the mats, they dropped like crazy! seems too good to be true.

[Mirei-KT]

On 8/26/2018 at 7:33 PM, MayBlue-DN said:

No need to level up in Aetherforging (sometimes called Magical Crafting). Sywo has a video. In short, the level up is fast and cheap in 6.x.

Sywo is a good lad but the rule of thumb is to take his stuff with a grain of salt. He admits to this himself and sometimes even goes back to re-up a vid because it contained mistakes.

tl;dr KRAion =/=  NA/EUAion. Droprates, kinah gains, proficiency gained per crafting attempt etc. are all things that can vary per region (hello 4.8 Idian Depths, hello 5.x world drop eternals).

Like the guy above I also maxed aetherforging prior to 6.X despite Sywo's vid. I indeed wouldn't recommend buying 500% charms and starting from scratch (i.e. dumping tons of kinah into it) at this point, but if you have some spare 500%s on hand or are already sitting at ~200 proficiency..? Eh, you may as well finish it.