Dragon Crafting Guide
From Istaria Lexica
Please note that Order, Chaos and Blight all have different plot setups and so crafting this or that resource may be easier on one shard, but it's not on the other. For crafting, you're going to be messing around with either stone or metal.
Starting out in the early levels (1-10ish)[edit]
So you just picked up your first quest to begin crafting. It seems like it's gonna suck right? Oh trust me this is nothing, it'll get worse before it gets better. Lets get down into the basics.
So you need to know two major things:
First, your craft menu. Press K on your keyboard, this is the shortcut to your Spells, Formulas, and Techniques, also known as your Knowledge menu. Spells are what they sound like, you cast them, they do something, you benefit. Formulas are the crafting recipes that you have scribed and can use at your whim, provided you have the materials needed for them. You can use any recipe in the game while it's still in your inventory, so you technically never have to scribe a single recipe, however, for ease of use and peace of mind, it's best to go ahead and scribe every formula you come across, if it gets too cluttered you can always sort through them and delete old or out-dated formulas that you will never use again. The last thing you need to know about are Techniques. Techniques are special formulas that you can come across throughout your travels that you can scribe into your knowledge regardless of your level. It is best to find and scribe as many of these as you can, they can be extremely useful when you go to make an item, you can "Tech" it with one of these at the cost of extra resources which will then make it even more beneficial to you.
- Special note for spells: Just because you can't use the spell that you're crafting, doesn't mean that you can't scribe it to craft it. Your spellcrafting ability allows you to create any spell in the game, very useful if you have a biped spellcaster.
Second thing that needs to be known is that crafting takes time, patience, and LOTS of sanity. It took me 4 days of grinding on craft to get my first 30 levels of it. Eventually it gets a lot easier, such as me going from level 36 to about 80 or so in roughly 2-3 days. The main thing to remember with crafting is that you want to minimize input and maximize return, so less materials, more xp, this guide will talk about the best ways to do that.
Hopefully while you were reading this you were working on those first few simple quests, no? Get to it, they're nothing and you can have them knocked out and your first scale made in a matter of minutes, oh and that claw too. If you're confused about why you're having issues here are a few possibilities of what might be wrong:
-CHECK YOUR BUFFS-
Different resources require different Dragon Crafting abilities such as Dragon Stoneworking, Dragon Quarrying, Dragon Mining, Dragon Essence Gathering, etc. The list goes on for quite a while. Just remember that ores (metals) require mining, gems and stone require quarrying, and wisps require essence harvesting to be gathered. The rest is generally self explanatory. [All of these buffs are found in your Character (Shortcut C) menu if you look under "Abilities" and select the "Craft" bubble.]
-MOVE AROUND A BIT-
Make sure you're actually near the node at a proper distance, it may look like you're directly on top of it to you, but the game might want you to move an inch closer.
-RIGHT-CLICK IS YOUR FRIEND-
I have found that for MOST tasks in this game, left clicking on an object and then right-clicking to bring up its menu for actions is possibly the best way to interact with most things. Get near something, left click that node you want to gather, and then right-click and select "GATHER RESOURCE" from the menu and away you go!
Okay! Got your claw? Good. Got your first scale? Good! Now lets head off Skalkarr Island and head to New Trismus! Once you load in, head right, there's a lovely dragon standing inside a cave by the name of "Kerian". Greet her and start working through her quests, if she doesn't have any for you yet, that's problematic, it means you need to go to the cave opposite hers and do the adventure quest line first until he sends you to her. Once you have access to her quests, begin them. Questing is a decent boost to your xp and generally has little effort compared to trying to just level. Later on it has even more added benefit in the fact that you can gain a passive +10 per level of quest to whichever skill you do the quest for. (There's one quest every 10 levels for every skill -EXCEPT- Transmutation and Ingenuity.)
On the subject of skill quests, here's a lovely chart showing which abilities can be quested for where:
For reference, this is the stats chart that you will also want to refer to when consulting which skills you need to raise for that extra oomf in your craft:
Alright, so with that information all in hand, lets get down to the knitty gritty!
Level 10ish-25[edit]
The most headache induced levels of dragon crafting. You have two ways of doing this, both involve the same thing, but have different risks.
Way 1: Safe way.
You're in New Trismus over by Pratt's Pond for the next 15 levels, going into the little sandstone quarry and making sandstone spell shards. After that you'll run to the dragon craft cave and make any Tier 1 spell you feel like while remembering to have it set to auto-deconstruct them all for bonus xp, resources back, and the ability to repeat the process.
Way 2: Golems! Golems EVERYWHERE!
Go south of Kion, south of Parsinia, and into the Sandstone Quarry located there. The problem here is that while sandstone is overly bountiful on top of the fact that there's a plot nearby with a journeyman stoneworking hut and silos, there are massive amounts of golems as well. If you're high enough in your adventure however this won't be too big of a deal.
Level 25-43[edit]
Once your sandstone slave days are over, head on over to Mahagra, follow the road out of it heading south to Snowfall. Go through Snowfall and on the other side of it there is a slate field. Above it is another plot with a stoneworking hut, silos, and a dragon lair on the other side with a T6 (very good) scale craft machine in it. These machines give you a passive boost to your craft skill that it represents which makes it so that you can make things more efficiently (less resources) while still getting the same amount of xp per item made.
Make Slate Bricks > Craft bricks into Slate Strength Chest Scales > Auto-Deconstruct Scales > Make more > Repeat.
Metal equivalent is Iron, which can be found East of Chiconis.
Another Location for Slate is Slate Hills on Scorpion Island. This one seemed easier than Mahagra and less travel distance to each crafting station. The closest Pad is Slate Hills or Scorpion Bay. There is a Local Crating Station to make Bricks and then there is a Lair just to the North East to create the Slate Strength Chest Scales. You will have to worry about Grey the Slate Golem (lvl 38) if you are low-level, but he is up and out of your way pretty quickly.
Level 43-63[edit]
Slate was bad, right? Well, welcome to granite. It's more fun. Head to Drift Point and now you have two options, you can follow the shore line to a very far away but absolutely safe place to mine granite. Or, you can head to the right by following the cliffs into a small valley where there are Granite golems and a ton of granite deposits. Either way, look through the nearby plots to find a stoneworking hut and a blacksmith's hut. The Anvil in the blacksmith hut can be used to craft scales, however it does not boost you Scalecraft skill.
Once again, Make Granite Bricks > Craft bricks into Granite Strength Chest Scale > Auto-Deconstruct Scales > Make more > Repeat.
Metal equivalent is Steel/Dark Iron, which can be found north of Acul in Trandalar.
Level 63-83[edit]
Alright, so now you're ready for obsidian! Head South-West of Dralk. You're heading for the co-ordinates 22140/28286, just follow the road. Once you're there, you know the drill by now.
*NOTE* There is a Dragon Crafting lair out beside the obsidian quarry, don't lug your stuff all the way back to Dralk.
Mine Obsidian Slabs > Make Obsidian Bricks > Craft bricks into Obsidian Strength Chest Scale > Auto-Deconstruct Scales > Make more > Repeat.
***Metal equivalent of obsidian is Cobalt. I found Cobalt easier on Order, but do not know if it remains the same on Chaos. Cobalt fields are at 22389/29585, though there is some dark iron mixed in there.
Level 83-100[edit]
This is sort of where it gets dangerous, you're now working with Tier 5 materials which means, you're going to be dealing with golems regardless. North of Mithril's Anvil is a Marble Quarry, head for it, make sure you can deal with level 90ish Marble Golems before you go to begin quarrying.
Now the issue here is that the nearest place you'll be crafting is all the way back in Mithril's Anvil. So be prepared for a decent flight time/run time depending on whether you're doing this as a hatchling/adult/ancient. Repeat the norm here, Slabs, Bricks, Scales, Decon, Scales, repeat.
- On Order, there is a blacksmithing shop and four public silos right at the top eastern end of the mithril fields, and stuffing those silos with mithril and then going ore -> bars -> mithril scale -> decon is much faster than using marble.
Now, extra things of note:
These are the places you go for your different places of tech, take note of the one in Sslanis. Instead of crafting sockets onto your scales, go here, buy them, throw them on as a sort of "after-market" addition.
Speaking of techs, right around Obsidian Scales is where you'll want to make your first full set of teched scales. I recommend making them all Tier 4 techs with Velocity on the wings, and then split Quarrying, Stoneworking, and Scalecraft throughout them. Try to keep Quarrying and Stoneworking your highest stats as that's where a lot of your xp will come from, making bricks.
Last thing to note after this is the fact that you will need to buy some formulas as well as find others.
All the formulas you will need can be bought from Dragon Craft trainers, specifically:
Tier 1 formulas can be bought in New Trismus from Kerian the Wise
Tier 2 and 3 in Chiconis from Resiata
Tier 4 and 5 in Dralk from Queriatia
A final note, this is -not- the most efficient way to level nor is it the one that will keep you the most sane, etc. However, it works.
Tutorial By: Drakonir Narc and AngelofDeathXx
