Everquest 2: Crafting Starter Guide

This guide is intended to just touch on the various parts of harvesting and tradeskills. The system in EQ 2 is wonderfully detailed but it can be overwhelming at first. I hope this guide will ease you into exploreing the crafting system in EQ2.

Tradeskill classes:

Everyone starts out the game as an Artisan. I stongly suggest taking advantage of the Tradeskills quest in the Isle of Refuge. It not only gives you a bag and a crafting level but helps you get a general idea on how tradeskills work. Go speak to Assistant Dreak in the Tower to complete his quest.

At crafting level 10 you can chose your first crafting class. Make sure you look over the list carefully to be sure you chose the right main class for the sub classes you want later on. The Artisan trees are as follows:

Craftsman *lvl 10*

Provisioner
Woodworker
Carpenter

Outfitter *Lvl 10*
Armorer
Weaponsmith
Tailor

Scholar *lvl 10*
Jeweler
Sage
Alchmist

As you can see from the list you get 3 choices at level 20 for your subclass. You only get 1 choice at 20 and are bound to that subclass from then on. You can however have mulitple character with crafting if you wish to pursue different crafting lines.

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So where do you start? Again I stongly suggest staying in The Isle of Refuge till you get the hang of crafting. There are 3 reasons why...

There are a ton of harvestable nodes to harvest
Once you complete the tradeskill quest you have access to a private almost lag free tradeskill instance to tradeskill in
The mobs being lower level on the Isle makes it a bit easier to run around and harvest.

If you have already left the Isle of Refuge you can still get a sucessful start to tradeskills. It is not worth starting over hehehe. I'll cover some tips for crafters who are in the main cities already at the end as the following examples are based on my time on Isle of Refuge.

Your harvesting ability is based on your harvesting skills. Theses skills are very important as they dictate where and what you can harvest. You have 5 main harvesting skills... Forestry, Gathering, Fishing, Mineing and Trapping. You can view your skills by clicking on your EQ2 icon and then choseing skills from the menu. Your skills limits are capped based on your level. It bases it on either your crafting or adventurering levels. Which ever is higher. The system is designed so that you can be a crafter without ever raiseing your adventurering level if you chose.

In order to raise your harvesting skills you must seek out harvestable nodes. Some examples of what you can find on IoR are as following...

For gathering look for Roots
For Fishing seek out schools of fish in any body of water
For Trapping seek out critter dens
For Forestry seek out Fellen Arbors, Fellen elms, Fellen etc...
For Mineing seek out Unearthed Stone or Blemished Ore

You can tell a node because of its shape and it will have its name floating over its head. Gahtering nodes look like huge roots on the ground, Schools of fish look like a school of fish in the water, Critter dens look like a pile of critter bones, Forestry nodes look like logs and Mineing nodes look like rocks. Once you locate a node just right click on it and chose harvest.

When you start out you will not be very sucessful in getting anything from the nodes but that will improve. You are restricted in where you can harvest until you raise your skills some. For instance you can only use gathering on IoR and in the newbie starting area until you reach skill level 50. You can not gather in Antonica or Commonlands until then.

The skill restrictions are based on the tier of harvestable you are trying to get. IoR and the newbie hunting areas are all Tier 1. Antonica is Tier 2. All harvesting skills must be at 40 to harvest in Antonica/Commonlands with the exception of gathering which needs to be 50.

What can you get from the nodes?These are just examples. Not a complete list

On IoR...

Gathering: roots, very very rare node spawn is a Piperacae plant. This provides pepper when harvested.
Fishery: Sunfish, coldwind flounder and froglegs
Mining: Tin cluster, lead cluster and very rarely salt
Forestry: Severed elm
Trapping: sullied animal pelt

In Forest Ruins...

Gathering

Natural Garden provided.... Jum Jum, Black coffee beans, raw nutmeg, raw pecan, barley, baubleshire cabbage, raw white tea leaf
Natural herb Garden... birchroot, allspice, silverberry, twinleaf, juniper, raw basil
Roots... roots, snakeroot, birchroot, birchwood
damp roots... roots

Forestry

Aged Arbor provided severed elm

Mining

Blemished Ore provided tin cluster and lead cluster

The higher your skill the higher your chance of harvesting a rare or uncommon conpondent. For instance I was in Forest ruins right before the end of beta and had been harvesting for 3 hours. Of all the things I collected I only harvested 3 milkweed. As my skill increased I began to harvest things I had not seen before.

Don't like harvesting... You can buy harvestables from other players but beware of the price. Do not pay more then you think is fair. Personally I intend on harvesting all my own conpondents as much as possible to prevent having to buy them. Also know that you can not sell conpondents you have harvested to NPC merchants. They have no value so it is not a way to make cash.

Ok so now you have a backpack full of roots and what to know what to do with them??

On IoR after you have completed the crafting quest you can zone back into the celler and find a full set of crafting machines for your use. Its a private instance so there is no lag

The merchant that sells crafting supplies is right by the archway from the beach. Iam going to use Chloro Wash as my example recipie...

From the merchant buy Artisan essentials 3. In your inventory right click on this book and scribe it. You will recieve a list of recipies. Click on your EQ2 icon and chose recipies from the list. Look for one called Chloro wash in the list. Right click on it and examine to see what you need to make it. You will see you need a 1 raw plant, 1 liquid and 1 fuel. You will also see the tradeskill machine needed to make this item. In this case its the chemstry table. You roots will count as a raw plant. You can buy liquid from the merchant. I would suggest only buying 10 liquid to start. All you need now is the fuel for the chemstry table. Buy 10 candels from the merchant and you are all set.

Zone back down into the cellar and locate the chemstry table. Now before attempting to create your item you need to be aware of what your crafting skills do. You can die crafting if you are not paying attention lol. Belive me the very first time I crafted I dropped dead LOL.

To find your crafting skill click on your EQ2 icon and chose knowledge from the list. Click on the tradeskill tab and you should have 2 pages of icons here. Beginning crafters only need to worry about 3 of thoses icons depending on what machine you are using. I want you to locate the following icons and move them down into your hotbar. You need the one that looks like an open scroll, the one that looks like a potion bottle and the one that looks like a big pink glowing question mark. Each of thses icons will counteract bad events that occur when you are crafting. There are more advanced ways to use the icons but for now lets concentrate on the basics.

Now you are ready to make your first item. Make sure you are facing the chemistry table and target it. Scroll out to 3rd person view so that you can see the area above the chemstry table. Right click on the table and chose create. You will get a pop up box that shows the things you caple of makeing on this machine. Look for your Chloro wash recipie and highlight it. Click create and off you go The first screen you see will show what is required to make this item. If anything is showing a red 0 then you are missing a conpondent. You should have roots, liquid and candels so you should be ready to proceed. Click begin...

Now this is where it gets interesting. You will see lots of bars in several colors. These bars are your progress bars. Later when we learn advanced crafting techiqnues you will learn more about using your tradeskill icons to effect thses bars. Right now I just want you to watch the space below the progress bars. This is the area where your events will pop up. When you see an icon in this area you must hit the matching icon on your hotbar to conteract it. Failing to counteract can have bad effects. Contiune to match the icons and watch your progress bars until your item is completed. One other thing I want you to see is that after you counteract an event you will see the machine glow for a moment and you will see number appear over your head. For instance you may see something like -10 +90. As you learn more about crafting you will see that theses numbers are what effects how your item turns out in the end. You will also learn that by using icons that are not called for in the events you can effect thoses numbers. The first number in our example is durability of your item and the second effects your progress. Your item can be created in a varity of states from crude to pristine and that is all related to the events and the bumbers.

Congrats you have made your first item!!! Now the system is a lot more detailed then I have explained here but I just wanted to give you the basics and not overwhelm you the first time out. As you continue to craft make sure you vist the merchant each time you level to buy the next crafting book. You can purchase all the artisen essentials books from the starting merchants. Once you reach your level 10 class your books are currently only avaible in dropped form for level 10 - 19. These appear to be random drops off mobs in all areas.

For tips for IoR:

Do not leave the isle until the harvesting skills you think you will use most are at 40.
Do not leave the isle without filling as many packs as you can afford with conpondents.
Do not leave the isle without completeing the crafting quests and getting yourself familiar with the way the sytem works.

If you have ventured to Freeport or Qeynos already its not that hard to get started you just need to do some exploreing around some and you will need to join the starter socitey in your home town. The socities are the tradeskill instances that you can access to use the machines and buy certain supplies. You can also recieve tasks inside your society to raise the society and your personal standing. You MUST join a society to craft. You can only be a member of 2 socities at one time. The beginner one that anyone can access and then after level 10 one that is for your main craft.

All the newbie hunting areas with the exception of The Down Below have nodes that can be harvested. Try and chose one with as few of players as possible to increase your changes at getting a node....

A few tips for harvesting....

There are a set number of harvesting nodes in each zone. What respawns is random. If you find that nothing seems to be spawning check all bodies of water in your area and harvest all the fish. I have seen it where fish spots were being ignored and eventually they were taking up all the node spawn spots.

There is a harvesting animation when you begin to harvest. You should be able to tell if someone else is already harvesting a node you come across. I have put in feedback many many time for them to lock harvesting encounters just like combat encounters so that once you begin you can finish. There are players out there with no regard for others who will run up and harvest a node you are working on.

Sometimes you will see what appears to be little glowing lights on the ground with a ? above them. Theses are special harvest spots. Right click and harvest like normal. You recieve an item in your inventory. Examine all of thess items as they are collection quests.

I hope these tips and examples have answered some of your crafting questions. I hope to provide a more indepth guide in the future.