Drops vs. made items

[shawmutt]

OK, here I am building up my leatherworking skills, skinning over and over again, making all my cool leather armor, wearing all my cool armor that is "Made by Shawmutt." Meanwhile, I'm noticing all these cool drops I sell to make more money to afford to be able to build up my skills.

So...what's the point of building skills like leatherworking? Why not just get skills like skinning and herbalism and sell the stuff to the suckers who are leveling their skills?

Or...is it worth it to build these skills, make the armor, then pass it on to an enchanter to build up the armor's attributes? I have a hard time believing, with all the abilities players have, that we can't make better armor and weapons than drops give us.

Thoughts?

[kael]

drops will always be better than what you make. only thing that i wear that i make is my red swashbuckler shirt. all my stuff is off the AH.

[Bryant]

I'm not sure what level you are... but i've noticed some really impressive high level leather drops and leatherworking items.

I don't know about enchantments.. but i just assumed there is a maximum number that you can put on a given item, which makes most rare/epic drops better than some crafted items.

plus.. can't you enchant rare/epic items too?

[ferret]

In general, crafting items are easier to get than rare drops. The rare/epic drops will always be better, but they aren't gaurenteed. Right now I'm wearing very little stuff that I've made, but that has more to do with the fact I stopped leveling my leatherworker and have slowly replaced everything I made with him... Which at the time was far better than I had gathered from drops.

Chances are, as you level and craft goes up, what you can craft will be better than what you found on a drop four levels ago... So you make some new stuff until you find a new drop. You won't ever use all drops or all craft, probably. I still have crafted boots I think from 6 levels ago, just haven't came across a good drop.

[Kenji]

Crafted items usually aren't as good, but more often they are available more readily than drops. Tailoring, leatherworking and blacksmithing are ways for people to get better items earlier, but later on most of the items are from drop recipes/patterns so it's kinda hard to make good items. Blue drops are very low percentage but obviously they are usually better than crafted items. As far as enchanting goes, each item can only have one special boost on it, whether is is enchanting, reinforced armor, or any other special thing. Each item can only have one, armor reinforced by leather patches can't be enchanted. If you do, you will lose the armor reinforcement.

[Turambar]

Even though you get better stuff off of drops you might have lower lvl guild mates that would like it. And if they don't, lower lvl ppl shopping at the AH might pay lots of money for stuff you think is crap.

[kael]

they do hehe, i sell it to those low level newbs. And well I am currently outfitting all the low level people in our guild.

[Haplo]

Skinning & Mining = tons of cash.

Get yourself up to Thick Leather & Mithril, wuwut!

[unrequited]

I picked up my first Epic item last week:

Robes of Insight (http://www.thottbot.com/index.cgi?i=5489)

It's UGLY as hell, but it's badass... don't pay any attention to thottbot's droprate %'s... they haven't updated their database in forever. I picked mine up off a random slime in Maraudon.

[babyseal]

some of the recipes are well worth it for the level they are availible.
the nightscape gear has great attribute bonuses for a rogue of that level (36ish). yes, id like some of that +16 agi/+6 stam tunic.

even leveling yourself and leveling your own craft (yay for not leeching) you can pretty easily stay ahead of the times when it comes to the skill/level cap.
i know i finished engineering at 225 when i still had/have another 4 levels to go. my sister just is finishing alchemy, and shes got another 8 or so levels to gain before she can even train her skill again (she had help).

just keep a lookout for what items people want crafted, and stick to supplying their demand. youll do fine.
drops are nice (not always nicer), but tradeskills are a sure thing.
if you were a hunter would you rather be looking for your next gun off the random chance a mob drops a magical one that is better, or would you rather walk down to your friendly local engineer and drop some cash?