Is leveling blacksmith crafting really worth it?

On May 22 2012 16:37 Arunu wrote:
I sure hope it's worth it since i levelled both of them to the point i can't go any further without being in the next difficulty.
(only in act 4 nightmare atm. )

so far i have crafted quite a few things with the smithie and and everytime that #$@#%# gives me int/ str / larger gold radius when on DH and vice versa when on any other chars.
It would seem he hates my guts.

The cost is pretty steep too for random crafting, at some point i wanted to craft a new set of leggings since mine were getting behind for a while.
cost was somewhat around 45 essences and 13 lizard eyes.
yeah.... how about no.

so i sincerely hope they are worth it when i reach Inferno at a point.

On May 22 2012 22:14 KobraKay wrote:
Well if you guys were like me and still at level 11, in normal first time playing....level2 BS gives awesome shit :p lol. Tried 3 times and got 3 items way better (like double defense from what Im finding killing monsters) and with stats +det, +vit, +magic find and +exper between them. My DH was happy with his new gear :D


Maybe the BS was created with early game and late late late game scenarios in mind, since the only people that seem "happy" about their gambles are those like me (noobs TT lol) and those at the top trying to find super gear.

On May 22 2012 22:31 KobraKay wrote:


What time? It takes less than a minute to do everything I've done with the BS. You make it sound like it took forever =/

And maybe in 3 levels everything is better but untill then, I have way better gear than I used to. When I get to level 13 or 14 my gear will be all different probably. That doesn't mean that right now, the stuff I got isn't better than what I had.

It took me less time to get those 3 items than to post this.

On May 22 2012 22:23 Pandemona wrote:
I have leveled it up to ermmm needed inferno to get the drops. (whatever level that is i forget) It is ok, pretty expensive but like someone else said its good for helping friends out with gear, as they can d/e there drops and give you the mats and it just costs you a couple 1k gold to create a nice level 25 legendary with (if lucky first go) imba stats for them. I havent seen anything i don't like on it yet and i think it worth it. I have my mate leveling Jewel Crafting with me too so its all good for us two, swap stuff between eachother. He DEs all his blues i give him all my jewels i find etc. Then when we need new gems for gear i crafted we swap and stuff good deal xD

On May 22 2012 22:57 KobraKay wrote:


Killing monsters and getting blue items to salvage constitutes playing so Im not wasting playing time like you suggested. Of course if you count playing time killing monsters and following the dungeons it took more than 1 minute. But that is playing the game, had I sold the items it would take exactly the same time as salvage. Full back pack come to town sell whites, salvage blues go back to the dungeon. Zero play time loss since even if I didn't salvage I would have sold them and that takes exactly the same time. I didn't change anything to get those pieces. I had the money, I had the materials (you probably overstimate the requirements of low level stuff at the really low level I am lol)...

I get it people that play this game faithfully dont find it useful, that's why I stated that it was probably designed with really early game (or people like me who dont know or dont care or dont want to use the AH, and I would argue that using the AH takes more time than it took to use the BS) and really late game in mind since people in between dont find it usefull.

I never stated that it was usefull for everybody or that people should use it all the time. I was just saying that if you were scrubs like me (and probably lucky aswell) at level 11 you could get 3 items (so far) way better than anything else around. Yup probably wouldn't serve for longer than 3 or 4 levels, yes probably the combined 12k or 13k that those costed me (one level upgrade plus the value of salvaged items plus cost of building) would make it cheaper to buy equal or better things in the AH, but you can't say it killed my playing time or that it took playing time away from me, because it didn't. Just that

On May 23 2012 19:23 RuskiPanda wrote:
Inferno demon hunter here with maxed crafting (sorry for the wall of text, its useful I promise!) ; ultimately the blacksmith is an end game tool to make money. No point in crafting gear for your low level alts when you can get much better equipment for cheaper on the AH at this point.

Where the real fun comes in is the "Exalted fine" (5 random affixes) and "Exalted grand" (6 random affixes) recipes for specifically Bracers, Shoulders and Gloves. Legs, Boots and Helmets are also quite good but can be found in loot with generally good stats whereas the former are hard to find with good affixes.

Started off crafting shoulders/bracers until I got the "magic" combination of str/vit, dex/vit or int/vit with Magic Find/All Resist affixes. This combination of affixes is very desirable on the AH right now and can easily sell for hundreds of thousands to millions. Gloves can also come with attack speed and Critical modifiers (also very desirable).

There is an initial investment of either finding or simply purchasing the recipes for these items as the base maxed blacksmith only has regular exalted items. Most of the "Fine Exalted" recipes are on the market right now ranging from 200k-800k depending on the item crafted. The "Grand Exalted" recipes are a different beast and rarely surface on the market. I was lucky and managed to snag Grand Exalted Glove recipe for a relatively cheap 4 million. The Grand Shoulder recipe peaked at about 80 million. Take a moment to look through the Grand recipes tab whenever searching the AH for a chance to snag one of these if you can.

The final investment is actually producing these items. There is a crafting cost of about ~40-60k and inferno crafting materials. After a week, these inferno crafting materials are relatively affordable and it is usually better to just buy them on the AH for yourself than to spend time farming and salvaging for what you need. Crafting a gloves, bracers or shoulders is about 110-150k so even if you don't get the best modifiers try to at least sell it for this price (with the 15% AH fee in mind) so you can make another. The jackpot is when you get the "magic" combination of affixes that will let you produce a whole nother round of items (depending on how many free slots you have on your AH que).

This practice of crafting and reselling 5-6 affix high tier Exalted items is not generally viable unless you are in Late Hell-Inferno and have easy access to funds for the initial startup. Alternatively if you have been saving money for quite some time and can max out the blacksmith the process can be started earlier.

On May 22 2012 15:09 Velocirapture wrote:
The yime when i have loved my blacksmith is when making a new character. Having a steady supply of gear that is on point with level req makes the game way more fun to redo.

Full back pack come to town sell whites