Vanguard has created a really cool way to get your crafting skill up. In previous games with any kind of crafting system, in order to get better at crafting you ended up repeatedly crafting the same item, over and over again. This created some problems in that it actually sped up the mudflation process something fierce. Basically ever crafter was churning out more and more “crap” (for the lack of a better term) and placing it on the market, causing a saturation of the market with those items.

Gone are the days of grinding out useless crap that ruin the economy – enter the work order. Vanguard work orders, commonly referred to simply as WO’s, allow the user to grind up their skill in fairly short order without screwing up the economy. That means when you finally do turn out a product and place it on the market, there isn’t a billion of them already on there for half the price it cost you to create it. While it IS a grind to do WO’s, it’s better this way. Trust me.

How to get Upgrade Recipes

In order to get ahead in the market, or to keep your guild in the bling you need to be able to have the best stuff. (Yes I said bling – deal with it.) And while you may be able to churn out some goodies, upgrade recipes are really nice and what you ultimately want.

Reportedly there are several ways to get the better recipes. Guild master quests (?), Experimentation (?), and Work Orders. Lets talk about the latter, but first I need to go over work orders a tad. It’s important that you know how work orders work.Work Order Levels

When you talk to the taskmaster you will be given a list of work orders to complete. They range in difficulty as follows;

• Impossible (Purple)
• Difficult (Yellow)
• Moderate (White)
• Easy (Blue)
• Very Easy (Light Blue)

They are always sorted hardest to easiest. (Though as of this writing, the impossible ones are actually easier than the very easy ones an are worthless to do.. Clearly a bug.)

Within each subsection you will have a random number of WO’s that you can do that are also sorted by difficulty. There may be 3 levels difference between the top Moderate (White) and the bottom Moderate (White) work order. That is why one Moderate may be easier than another.

You always want to strive for the best grade possible – if the work order you’re doing is too hard, it’s easier and quicker to simply abandon it and get an easier one. An easier one may very well “Con” the same color, but be further down in the list. Grade A is the goal always – however most likely in the beginning you’re going to have to do Easy in order to achieve this.

I believe the Devs have said that the crafting system is designed such that at any level, you should be able to regularly get the following;

• Impossible (Purple) – Grade D if you’re lucky
• Difficult (Yellow) – Solid Grade D, C with effort
• Moderate (White) – Solid Grade C, B with effort
• Easy (Blue) – Solid Grade B, A with effort
• Very Easy (Light Blue) – Solid A ever time.

I don’t find that super accurate simply because of the error in purple con WO’s and due to the range of any single difficulty. I regularly get A’s and B’s on the lower moderates. So take the above for what it’s worth.

Singles, Sets and Batches

Once you have determined the difficulty you’d like to work in, pay close attention to the types of work orders you’re getting. By type, I mean the “count” of items you’re doing. It is easy to tell how many items you’ll be required to create simply by the name.

Singles – Single items usually are just the name of the item. “A glass bauble.” This requires you to turn in ONE item. It is usually the fastest to do, and the most experience given for a single item. But the rewards are weak. If your goal is to do faction adjustment, then singles is the best bang for the buck.

Sets – Sets of items means that you’ll be required to turn in three results. “Set of glass baubles.” These are the middle of the road WO’s and have nice money/rewards, but take longer.

Batches – Batches of items mean that you’ll be required to turn in five results. “Batch of glass baubles.” These are the longer running work orders and sometimes can seem to take forever, but by far have the best rewards with regards to both experience and loot.

Work Order Rewards

Singles – Singles only return money. Period. If you do a single and get something back other than money than it was either a quest reward, or a bug. Of course the higher the level of the WO and the higher the grade turned in, the better the money will be. I think that the main point behind singles is to get faction and quick exp. I could be wrong.

Sets – Sets return money and some items. The items that are returned are typically in the realm of vendor trash (VT). Meaning it’s just money loot that you then turn around and hand to the vendor for a pittance. Some of the set rewards are common crafting items, resources and tools and every once in a while you’ll get some uncommon items but nothing rare. A VG developer has been quoted as saying that Sets will NEVER drop upgrade recipes and if they do it’s a bug.

Batches – Batch returns is where the money and items are at. Since these are easily the hardest to do due to the numbers required, these are the best loots you’re going to get from crafting. Batches are the only way to get upgrade recipes.

Supply Kits, Packs and Sacks

When you turn in either a Set or Batch, you will get some experience, some money, and possibly a supply kit, pack or sack. Inside the supply kit, pack and sacks are items that you can use or sell. And of course, the possibility of the ever elusive upgrade recipe.

What type of return you get is directly related to the grade of the items you turn in. I believe the grade of the return is based on the lowest item you turned in. (Though I could be wrong here) Meaning, if you do a batch and turn in 4 Grade A’s and one Grade B then they over all results will be Grade B. There may be some averaging going on, I haven’t tested this yet.

The grade of the supply item, also has a direct correlation to the chance of getting an upgrade recipe. It goes something like this;

• Grade A – Supply Kit (Yellow) – Highest Chance (though not very high)
• Grade B – Supply Pack (Blue) – Low Chance (so very low)
• Grade C – Supply Sack (Green) – No Chance (zero divided by zero.. carry the zero..)
• Grade D – No supplies.

So your best bet at getting the good stuff, be it rare or uncommon gear, materials, tools or even recipes, is to crank out Grade A batches at the highest level you can.

Vanguards crafting system has an extremely clever system by which crafters may augment their final products. Each tier has available to them dusts, powders, shards and crystals which they can add to their product either in the refining or finishing stages to make the final product better. I’ll also discuss briefly Orbs as they work slightly differently.
This page is to help you, and thus me keep this information straight as its impossible to remember all this stuff.

Note: this is a work in progress. I am adding to it as I figure/find it out. I’m doing this as an artificer/mineralogist so my results may be skewed in that direction. If you have any info add it below.. Thanks.

Enhancement – Used by:
Dusts – Tier 1 (Novice) / Tier 2 (Amateur)
Powders – Tier 3 (Apprentice) / Tier 4 (Initiate)
Shards – Tier 4 (Initiate)
Crystals – Tier 5 (Journeyman)

Enhancement Types:
Attuning – Refining
Resonating – Finishing
Focusing – Secondaries

IMPORTANT: Anything called “Attuning” is applied during the Refining phase of crafting. This generally means that you’re adding stuff to the components, not to the final item. Anything called “Resonating” is applied during the Finishing phase of crafting. This means you’re adding something to the final product.

Attuning – Refining
The following tables should give you some idea what adding an attuning dust, powder, shard or crystal to an item in the refining process will result in.
Prefix – This is the prefix given to the item after crafting. A slate slab with a T1 Attuning Dust of Intelligence will be called a Charlatans slate slab. Etc.
Results – This is the benefits you should see from the addition in order from left to right, the highest improvement to the lowest.

Resonating – Finishing
The following tables will give you an idea of what adding a resonance dust to the finishing process will result in. While Attuning items add prefixes, Resonating items give suffixes.
Items – This should give you some idea of which types of items this item is usually reserved for. Some items can’t benefit from some dusts. This keeps you from having an “Of Counter” effect on a sword, as an example.
Results – This gives you an idea of what the final item will actually do. Some are pretty obvious by the name, some less so.

Procs:

Sage’s Agony = +15% Spell damage over time
Sage’s Revenge = +Critical Hit Chance
Gift of Might = +15 to all attributes
Painful Dispersion = + Splash Damage to spell

Last Updated: March 26th 2007

Each tier (beyond 1) will have common, rare and ultra rare harvestable nodes in the world. This list will show you exactly which is which so that once you do come across a Citrine, you know not to toss it because its worth something.

Note: This is a work in progress – I’m adding stuff as soon as I figure it out. If you have any suggestions or comments, please include it below so I can add it. Thanks.

Tier 1 (Novice) harvesting only yields standard or common nodes. There are no rare or ultra-rare resources, and thus you don’t find a lot of “uber” low level items. This is intentional and as it should be.

From Tier 2 (Amateur) on through Tier 5 (Journeyman) there are rare and ultra-rare harvest nodes that may be used to create special items. However, those items aren’t created in the same manner as the common items. You can’t, for example, simply swap out a Carnelian for a Garnet and make a better ring, but rather you’re required to “Upgrade” the ring using both a special recipe and the rare items.

Ultra-Rare items are just that. I have yet to get one anywhere – infact, I don’t believe I know anyone that has.

Note: For reaping, it seems that the rarity naming scale appears to always be something like; Foo -> Mature Foo -> Prime Foo. Thus the M and P’s above.