I've been crafting for 15+ years and I have a bod collection of over 30,000 bods on Great Lakes. I thought I'd take some time to share how I look at smith bods and how I manage them.
General Guidelines :
I view all bods as useful either as single turn ins to get another bod or collections. I generally find the most useful rewards are POF (especially since you can now store in containers of 255 charges from tinker reward) with runic hammers the main goal. Bronze hammers are useful for making 100% leech weapons for sampires and desired, DC hammers for 100% elemental weapons and then high end runics if you ever want to craft a weapon or armor with some random rolls. The mining maps are useful when you run low on various ingots but they aren't the main goal of my bod rewards. I store almost all my bods on vendors not for sale for storage and I try to keep the books under 300 bods each so I can put into my pack to take bods out but many times I lock down the book on my floor to work with them then put it back on the vendor.
Bod Types and Management
Weapon Bods - These cannot be anything but iron so the single bod reward on any of them is not useful. I sort the smalls into separate books for each of the large groupings - Macing, Fencing, Swords, Polearm(2 part). I have bod books for Normal quality of each. Then I have EX books and I bribe and fill them once they are 10EX or better because the EX quantity is more points for both single turn in (5 part EX 10/15/20 = POF or 2 Part 20 EX = POF). So if I have a book of swords nm bods - I bribe them till they are EX and stop there. I don't want to go to 20 quantity if I can help it because the ingot use to fill a 20 is not worth the extra few turn in points. I'd prefer to complete 10 EX if I can. I manage my Large Weapon bods in a separate book. I will always bribe them to the EX level and then use to fill. When filled I either turn in for POF if I need that or bank the points. Honestly for POF the noncombinable bods are best because they are single turn in for POF whereas a Weapon Large can get you good banked points. If I find that I am getting overwhelmed with any type of weapons like say too many macing and not enough larges instead of bribing NM ones up to EX - I'll buy the items from the NPC and fill and turn in for new bods. Your choice here. The swords, macing, fencing are the better ones to complete as they take way less ingots than the axe larges. For the 2 part bods - ALWAYS bribe to 20 EX larges and smalls and fill. Its a POF for just 2 smalls and a large.
Non-Combinable - (Shields, Helmets (except plate helm), Female Plate Tunic) These bods do not go to any larges and are only good as single turn ins. These are mainly used for POF turn ins. They need to be either gold 20 normal and up or DC 20 EX and up. I keep these in separate books and bribe them until they reach a POF level or I give up bribing. Example if you have a 10 DC NM bod and start bribing - if it doesn't flip to EX in the first few bribes it may not be worth bribing all the way to 20 gold NM and up. So I might quit at copper or bronze depending on NPC bribing costs. The worst bods here are Heater Shields and Female Plate because of the ingot usage. Sometimes I don't both and just trash those bods early cause if its a 20 nm even if I get it to 20 ex DC - thats alot of ingots vs a 10 EX Metal Shield bod. At any rate - these are your main POF getters. If you want DC or shadow hammers I'd use these as well for that. The larges dont make sense for the low end hammers given the amount of ingots to complete them. Do a shadow 20 EX or Copper EX single non-combinable bod for the hammer. Way less ingots than a Ring/Chain/Plate large.
Ring Mail - These are a good generator of Bronze Hammers from the larges or they could be used for turn in points for whatever hammer you need. You could use the individual bods for POF but my theory here is I have other non-combine for POF but Rings can be used for good number of banked points. I sort these by individual piece and for each I have an EX book and a NM book. So Ring Tunic NM, Ring Tunic EX, Ring Legs NM, Ring Legs EX. The reason for this is I can easily find each piece by going to 4 individual books and then also find a similar bod if I need to bribe one up. (IE I don't have a Copper 10 EX so I grab a few Shadow 10 EX and bribe them hoping for Copper 10 EX). I sort the larges by quantity and NM/EX. So I have books for Ring Large 10 NM, Ring Large 10 EX, etc. Once sorted I have a spreadsheet I update from time to time. I go to each bod book and filter and get a count. There are 10 per page on smalls so its each to flip pages and count by 10 etc. I also track (color coding on Turn Ins chart) which bods give Copper, bronze and gold hammers. The rest I bank points or bribe up to a level that gives hammer color I like. This chart helps me see where I have all the smalls and the large to fill. This is my current collection of 2,000+ Ring bods on GL.
Chain Mail - I use a similar method to the Ring above however these are the best bods for turn in points. They provide more points than Ring mail even though they take significantly less ingots. So I don't very often fill these for hammer turn ins but rather bank these points to get higher end hammers. So again I have Coif NM, Coif EX, Legs NM, Legs EX etc and then for larges Either broken down by qty and quality or all combined (either Ring EX or Ring 10 EX, Ring 15 Ex ) depending on how big your collection is.
Here is the Chain Mail chart. Note that most of the larges are bronze hammer level but also lots of turn in banked points so great way to get high end hammers. Turn in a handful of these and bank the points.
Plate Mail - These bods are a total enigma. They give the higest turn in rewards (Val Hammer for Val EX) but they take by far the most bods and ingots. I generally don't complete these often. If I get high level bods I can bribe a few more levels to get to Val EX (like a gold or verite EX bod) then I might push up and get a val hammer. I will also fill low end iron ones since normal iron because you can buy the items from NPCS and avoid ingot usage and get PoF or 82-90 points for the turn in banking. You could also look to flip the smalls for POF if you choose. Example a DC 20 EX Large can get you a bronze hammer or 5 PoF. Depends which you need/value more. Either way thats 2000 ingots which I find pricey for a bronze hammer. I could do a Chain 20 EX DC Large for the same bronze hammer and only take 960 ingots and 4 bods vs 6 bods for the Plate. Yes, EA totally messed up in the point system for Chain Mail. They slotted the points inbetween ring and Plate but given less bods and less ingots - Chain is the best sets to do for everything.
Once completed I either turn in for the reward or store the bods in bod books to use when I need the items. Its easier to store 5 completed bods for 1 lockdown vs 5 hammers for example. So I generally have books filled with completed smith bods that I use when I need the reward. That way I don't bank the points and have to decide there which reward I need - I can always claim in the future.
Vendor Management
I store them on vendors because they don't use lockdowns and you can set the books not for sale. This was approved by the devs long ago. I set all my vendors to not show up in vendor search so it doesn't overload the system in items not for sale.
I have a vendor for each small of the collections because I need that much storage. You may find that you can put say Plate Helms and Gorgets on the same vendor. Remember a vendor can hold 125 storage which is a bod book plus 620 bods. Or 2 books plus 615 bods etc. My collection is big enough I need one vendor per small. Then I have 1 vendor per weapon set (Axes, Swords etc).
In front of the vendors I have 'sorting' books. So I collect my bods in my bod runners in a blacksmith book and then I sort that down to books for : Plate, Chain, Ring, Larges, Non-Combinable, Weapon NM, Weapon EX. From there I work those books into the bod vendors. I take the Plate book and then pull out arms and load to the books on the Plate Arms vendor etc. The books on the floor I let fill till I have 50 or so and then I push up to the vendors.
Hope this helps. When I get time I'll write up my Tailor methods as well.
General Guidelines :
I view all bods as useful either as single turn ins to get another bod or collections. I generally find the most useful rewards are POF (especially since you can now store in containers of 255 charges from tinker reward) with runic hammers the main goal. Bronze hammers are useful for making 100% leech weapons for sampires and desired, DC hammers for 100% elemental weapons and then high end runics if you ever want to craft a weapon or armor with some random rolls. The mining maps are useful when you run low on various ingots but they aren't the main goal of my bod rewards. I store almost all my bods on vendors not for sale for storage and I try to keep the books under 300 bods each so I can put into my pack to take bods out but many times I lock down the book on my floor to work with them then put it back on the vendor.
Bod Types and Management
Weapon Bods - These cannot be anything but iron so the single bod reward on any of them is not useful. I sort the smalls into separate books for each of the large groupings - Macing, Fencing, Swords, Polearm(2 part). I have bod books for Normal quality of each. Then I have EX books and I bribe and fill them once they are 10EX or better because the EX quantity is more points for both single turn in (5 part EX 10/15/20 = POF or 2 Part 20 EX = POF). So if I have a book of swords nm bods - I bribe them till they are EX and stop there. I don't want to go to 20 quantity if I can help it because the ingot use to fill a 20 is not worth the extra few turn in points. I'd prefer to complete 10 EX if I can. I manage my Large Weapon bods in a separate book. I will always bribe them to the EX level and then use to fill. When filled I either turn in for POF if I need that or bank the points. Honestly for POF the noncombinable bods are best because they are single turn in for POF whereas a Weapon Large can get you good banked points. If I find that I am getting overwhelmed with any type of weapons like say too many macing and not enough larges instead of bribing NM ones up to EX - I'll buy the items from the NPC and fill and turn in for new bods. Your choice here. The swords, macing, fencing are the better ones to complete as they take way less ingots than the axe larges. For the 2 part bods - ALWAYS bribe to 20 EX larges and smalls and fill. Its a POF for just 2 smalls and a large.
Non-Combinable - (Shields, Helmets (except plate helm), Female Plate Tunic) These bods do not go to any larges and are only good as single turn ins. These are mainly used for POF turn ins. They need to be either gold 20 normal and up or DC 20 EX and up. I keep these in separate books and bribe them until they reach a POF level or I give up bribing. Example if you have a 10 DC NM bod and start bribing - if it doesn't flip to EX in the first few bribes it may not be worth bribing all the way to 20 gold NM and up. So I might quit at copper or bronze depending on NPC bribing costs. The worst bods here are Heater Shields and Female Plate because of the ingot usage. Sometimes I don't both and just trash those bods early cause if its a 20 nm even if I get it to 20 ex DC - thats alot of ingots vs a 10 EX Metal Shield bod. At any rate - these are your main POF getters. If you want DC or shadow hammers I'd use these as well for that. The larges dont make sense for the low end hammers given the amount of ingots to complete them. Do a shadow 20 EX or Copper EX single non-combinable bod for the hammer. Way less ingots than a Ring/Chain/Plate large.
Ring Mail - These are a good generator of Bronze Hammers from the larges or they could be used for turn in points for whatever hammer you need. You could use the individual bods for POF but my theory here is I have other non-combine for POF but Rings can be used for good number of banked points. I sort these by individual piece and for each I have an EX book and a NM book. So Ring Tunic NM, Ring Tunic EX, Ring Legs NM, Ring Legs EX. The reason for this is I can easily find each piece by going to 4 individual books and then also find a similar bod if I need to bribe one up. (IE I don't have a Copper 10 EX so I grab a few Shadow 10 EX and bribe them hoping for Copper 10 EX). I sort the larges by quantity and NM/EX. So I have books for Ring Large 10 NM, Ring Large 10 EX, etc. Once sorted I have a spreadsheet I update from time to time. I go to each bod book and filter and get a count. There are 10 per page on smalls so its each to flip pages and count by 10 etc. I also track (color coding on Turn Ins chart) which bods give Copper, bronze and gold hammers. The rest I bank points or bribe up to a level that gives hammer color I like. This chart helps me see where I have all the smalls and the large to fill. This is my current collection of 2,000+ Ring bods on GL.
Chain Mail - I use a similar method to the Ring above however these are the best bods for turn in points. They provide more points than Ring mail even though they take significantly less ingots. So I don't very often fill these for hammer turn ins but rather bank these points to get higher end hammers. So again I have Coif NM, Coif EX, Legs NM, Legs EX etc and then for larges Either broken down by qty and quality or all combined (either Ring EX or Ring 10 EX, Ring 15 Ex ) depending on how big your collection is.
Here is the Chain Mail chart. Note that most of the larges are bronze hammer level but also lots of turn in banked points so great way to get high end hammers. Turn in a handful of these and bank the points.
Plate Mail - These bods are a total enigma. They give the higest turn in rewards (Val Hammer for Val EX) but they take by far the most bods and ingots. I generally don't complete these often. If I get high level bods I can bribe a few more levels to get to Val EX (like a gold or verite EX bod) then I might push up and get a val hammer. I will also fill low end iron ones since normal iron because you can buy the items from NPCS and avoid ingot usage and get PoF or 82-90 points for the turn in banking. You could also look to flip the smalls for POF if you choose. Example a DC 20 EX Large can get you a bronze hammer or 5 PoF. Depends which you need/value more. Either way thats 2000 ingots which I find pricey for a bronze hammer. I could do a Chain 20 EX DC Large for the same bronze hammer and only take 960 ingots and 4 bods vs 6 bods for the Plate. Yes, EA totally messed up in the point system for Chain Mail. They slotted the points inbetween ring and Plate but given less bods and less ingots - Chain is the best sets to do for everything.
Once completed I either turn in for the reward or store the bods in bod books to use when I need the items. Its easier to store 5 completed bods for 1 lockdown vs 5 hammers for example. So I generally have books filled with completed smith bods that I use when I need the reward. That way I don't bank the points and have to decide there which reward I need - I can always claim in the future.
Vendor Management
I store them on vendors because they don't use lockdowns and you can set the books not for sale. This was approved by the devs long ago. I set all my vendors to not show up in vendor search so it doesn't overload the system in items not for sale.
I have a vendor for each small of the collections because I need that much storage. You may find that you can put say Plate Helms and Gorgets on the same vendor. Remember a vendor can hold 125 storage which is a bod book plus 620 bods. Or 2 books plus 615 bods etc. My collection is big enough I need one vendor per small. Then I have 1 vendor per weapon set (Axes, Swords etc).
In front of the vendors I have 'sorting' books. So I collect my bods in my bod runners in a blacksmith book and then I sort that down to books for : Plate, Chain, Ring, Larges, Non-Combinable, Weapon NM, Weapon EX. From there I work those books into the bod vendors. I take the Plate book and then pull out arms and load to the books on the Plate Arms vendor etc. The books on the floor I let fill till I have 50 or so and then I push up to the vendors.
Hope this helps. When I get time I'll write up my Tailor methods as well.
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