Questions for a crafter-merchant

[Flagg]

I've taken couple of breaks for couple of years a couple of times over the years. I haven't looked into crafting in a very long time. As result, I'm really struggling to figure out the process of crafting genuinely desirable high quality armor and weapons in modern UO. I'd much appreciate if some GM smith or tailor could drop by and speak of whats and hows involved in creating top end weapons&armor.

Is crafting very relevant at all at the moment? Few people mentioned hunting is -the- way of acquiring the best equipment now, with crafting dragging behind quite severely.Is this the case?

What Stats or features would a blacksmith wish to pursue in weapons and armor he makes? How to ensure these stats? I assume runic hammer->enhancing->imbuing?


Maybe a practical example for the heck of it! Let's assume you have 100 valorite ingots and every skill at 100/120, forged metal tools, runic hammers, imbuing mats. Let's assume you have huge desire to turn that 100 ingots into as much gold as possible. What would you do?

 

[Gilmour]

As things are atm: You can craft decent stuff with reforging (read: Runic Re-Forging - UOGuide, the Ultima Online Encyclopedia), although i think runic reforging is currently mostly used to craft things like 100% elemental damage type, or single-higher-than-imbuable-stat for further imbuing (read: Imbuing - UOGuide, the Ultima Online Encyclopedia). The top end reforging are dwarfed by what is possible to loot, and drops rather frequently from peerless encounters. Both cases you need a fair portion of RNG luck to get those "harmony" pieces though.

 

[Flagg]

Hmm very informative and bit disappointing. Thanks a lot! I assume all crafters habit the same boat in this? Smiths and Bowcrafters and Tailors all have their craftables eclipsed by goodies from loot tables?

 

[Gilmour]

The 3 mentioned are basically reduced to making base weapons and armour for later reforging and/or imbuing, and of course repairs.. sadly. The skill imbuing is needed to imbue and reforge.

 

[archiv]

Crafters of weapons and armor are a thing of the past. It's my understanding there's a demand for stone crafters with the new housing design options in the latest expansion, but I doubt you'd be selling a crafted stone wall for 25 mil.
Personally I can't figure out what's in demand or not, even when I find what appears to be a very nice high end piece of armor and check here in hopes that I've finally found something worth selling, the best response I get is "meh, I've seen worse"* (*not an actual response, just what I take from the replies).

 

[Gilmour]

If you wish to make a steady income as crafter, depending on shard, there is still a marked for affordable newbie/mule suits, and medium cost value/effective suits/pieces/weapons. however the supply and/or demand may wary from shard to shard.

 

[Flagg]

The 3 mentioned are basically reduced to making base weapons and armour for later reforging and/or imbuing,

By base weapons, do you mean ones crafted with Runic hammers or sewing/ fletching kits?Or something more mundane?

News | Knuckleheads.dk looks awesome btw! I'm glad to see there is a web-based auction up and running in UO once more

 

[Gilmour]

Regular tools, runic tools main use now is reforging (via imbuing) and thanks

 

[Merlin]

Crafting is still viable for weapons, but not so much for armor. A good bowyer/fletcher can probably still command a lot of attention in a small to medium sized guild. As noted here, some mid-range to newbie armor might still be worth something, but probably not enough to supply all the gold you need.

 

[Flagg]

More random questions!!

What is the difference between 120 and 100 skill in Blacksmithing? Is there anything besides Legendary having a better chance at crafting exceptional and lower chance at failure when crafting in general?