Saturday, October 24, 2009

Crafting in Champions Online: Guide to Low Level Items

The crafting system in Champions Online was a bit of a mystery to me. It's not at all clear from the in game descriptions what crafting you should pick if you want to boost a particular stat or set of stats. So, in a fit of anal, I made new alt and spent the entire evening talking to different crafting trainers and writing down recipes. So that future generations will not have to suffer through such tedium, I've decided to post my findings. Below you will find guides to the permanent upgrade items that you can make in tiers I and II. Some very important points:

1. Anyone can make bags and healing items, if that's all you want pick whatever appeals to you.

2. The specialization within a particular craft generally makes no difference. However I did discover one exception by accident. It stands to reason that there are a few others. I haven't checked every recipe with all three specializations of all three crafts (I'm not that anal).

3. These are only the stat boosting items. Power replacement items gimp the hell out of your stats for a chance at a proc that does massive damage. They only work on very specific abilities. For example, many work only on single handed sword attacks. I didn't consider them worth compiling stats on.

4. You may not get these stats when you actually craft something. The stats below are based on what the recipes on vendors list. I have gotten slightly lower stats when crafting items in some cases.

5. Major caveat: the stats on these recipes scale with level. Below are the stats a level 7 character will see on recipes. However a lower level character will find the stats to be lower, a higher level character will find them much improved. Take this as a guide to the stats that can be buffed by a given profession, more than the precise bonus you can get.


With all that in mind, the first two tiers of stat upgrade items are as follows:

Science
Skill Str Dex Con Int Ego Pre Rec End Type
0 - - - 19 - - - - PU
10 + + 8 4 + 8 + + PD
30 - 19 - - - - - - PO
40 + + + 19 + + + + PU
50** - - 9
4 - 5
- - PD
75 + 12 + + + + 2 + PO
105 - - - 13 - - - 7 PU
115 + + 11 4 + 2 + + PO
125 - 13 - - - - 8 - PD
140 + + + 13 + + + 7 PU
155 - - 12 3 - 2 - - PO
170 + 11 + + + + 10 + PD
185 - - - 15 - - - 5 PU
**If you choose the Invention specialization the item grants 18 Con, 4 Int, and 13 Presence

Mysticism
Skill Str Dex Con Int Ego Pre Rec End Type
0 - - - - 19 - - - PU
10 + + + + 4 14 + + PD
30 - 14 - - - - 4 - PO
40 + + + + 19 + + + PU
50 - - - - - 14 - 4 PD
85 14 + + + + 4 + + PO
105 - - - 9 9 3 - - PU
115 + + + + 2 14 + 1 PD
115 - - - - - 2 12 - PO
140 + + + + 7 12 1 + PU
155 - - - - 2 14 - 3 PD
175 3 9 + + + 1 6 + PO
185 - - - - 5 15 - - PU
195 + + + + 9 + + 2 SD
200 1 4 - - - 3 11 - PO

Arms
Skill Str Dex Con Int Ego Pre Rec End Type
0 - - - - - - - 19 PU
10 4 + 14 + + + + + PD
30 19 - - - - - - - PO
40 + + + + + + + 19 PU
50 4 14 - - - - - - PD
85 19 + + + + + + + PO
105 - - 4 - - - - 14 PU
115 3 1 14 + + + + + PD
125 14 - 4 - - - - - PO
140 + + 3 + 1 + + 14 PU
155 2 1 14 - - - 1 - PD
170 11
6
3
+ + + + +
PO
185 - -
3
- - - - 2
SU
195 1 1 14 + + + 3 + PD
200 11 10 - - - - - - PO


I tried my damndest to find this info somewhere else, and drew a blank. If someone else is sitting on charts like this they need to make them easier for google to find. To any random readers, feel free to repost these to your heart's content as long as you give me credit. And remember, these are the stats at level 7.

Analysis:

Arms is a very good generic crafting profession. Pretty much anyone can use constitution and endurance, and strength is good for any character that melees a lot. For crit builds (i.e., dexterity and ego) mysticism is reasonably solid. For a lot of builds, you are simply out of luck. For example, if you want to boost endurance and recovery (common for ranged DPS), nothing really works all that well at low levels (though science may work depending on how it scales).

Hope this will be of some help to readers. Happy adventuring :)

3 comments:

  1. You sure put a lot of work into that. I think the trainers at least give you some idea what to expect from each specialization and that's what I've been going off of. Crafting doesn't have a massive role in the game, but occasionally you can find some nice upgrades earlier than you might by questing. And the customizable upgrades are particularly cool, but you don't get those until you're over 200 skill.

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  2. Great stuff. I really enjoy the crafting in CO, it's not overly complicated and it doesn't cost alot to level up.

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  3. Nice work!

    If you see differences between the specialisations, then /bug it. They are intended to be equivalent.

    Power replacements should in theory be on par with the corresponding higher stats on an item without procs. However in practice the theory does not work out that well, since the low percentage chance for the proc only works out somewhat equivalent on long fights, which is not going to happen in most cases.

    They are however good even if you do not use them, if you use a power framework which uses weapons of some kind - they can unlock additional costume pieces for weapons. Once unlocked you can use the costume piece on that character even if the power replacement is not slotted.

    I think the scaling of the stats you see is a bug when browsing through the blueprints. I have seen that myself, but when the actual item was crafted it had the stats corresponding to the level of the item.

    When you get the crafting skill to 200+ you get better control of the items you create. At that point you can obtain enhancements which can put on specific stats on items. Then you need a blueprint for an item which do not have stats on it, except the usual melee/ranged defense values.

    If you try to craft such an item you get a slider to determine the quality to craft, from Low (white) to Rare (blue). You can select to add a minor and a major enhancement to the item. Depending on the selected quality and the blueprint you will have various amounts of components needed.

    The crafting has some neat pieces in it, but Cryptic has not been that good in explaining it in-game.

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