Everquest 2 – If Maltheas had a hammer. Respecing to Carpenter.

Today, after five long years, Maltheas became a level 90 Weaponsmith. It was a fine moment of celebration, as he reached the very peak of the profession he chose, so long ago, back in Temple Street.

So this evening he will be respecing to Carpenter, beginning again as a newbie crafter.

There are a number of reasons for doing this:

1. Primarily, there doesn’t seem to be much point in actually being a weaponsmith these days. Back in the day, you could make a good living from making fine weapons to order, but in recent years it has become very rare that Maltheas, or anyone else, actually wants anything he can make, apart from for the “Proof is in the Pudding” quest. The best craftable weapons in the game are general recipes, rather than weaponsmith ones, which he can just as easily make as a carpenter. Until recently, weaponsmiths did also have access to some special adornment recipes, but they have been moved to the new adorner craft.

In addition, the recent stat changes have lead to an awful lot of completely useless stats on crafted weapons, and they lack the ability modifiers many looted items have acquired. Anyhows, as Maltheas levels at Extreme Quester speeds, he has plenty of time to find the best equipment, and that is not usually crafted.

2. As a templar, he can only use crushing weapons. The reward for weaponsmiths for the “Shadows of the Betrayed” quest is piercing. Now, I know that it is supposed to just be ornamental, and I shouldn’t worry about it, but look at its stats.

Everquest 2 Nurggs Weapon Refinement 500x324

It has over double the DPS of the awesome weapon Maltheas is already using. To a low level adventure who is also a high level crafter, the Ethernaut craft-weapons are like lightsabers. I am hoping that once Maltheas respecs to Carpenter, the Shady Swashbuckler, who sells rewards from quests you have completed, will offer him the carpenter’s hammer version. This is not really why I decided to respec, but it did get me thinking about it, questioning why I was a weaponsmith, and influence which craft I chose to change to.

3, Carpenters have all the fun! They, and Provisioners, are the only professions that do not have to compete with item drops or quest rewards to any significant extent, and game balance is mostly irrelevant to furniture, so they will never end up in the situation of not having anything worth selling or getting nerfed. Admittedly, this fact has lead to there being a whole lot of carpenters, but even so, I’m looking forward to decorating the house with all the things Maltheas will make as he levels. Even if he never sells anything, at least he can actually use the stuff he levels up on to good purpose, which has not been the case with weaponsmith.

4. Quests. Mmmm, quests. He’s completed all the weaponsmith and outfitter specific quests. Becoming a carpenter will open up the carpenter and craftsman specific quests. Having said that, respeccing tradeskill is not something I plan on making a habit of, and the intent is that Maltheas will remain as a Carpenter for the foreseeable future. While the quests are nice, I am not sufficiently hardcore a crafter to be hugely looking forward to levelling him again.

5. To stop him singing this at me.

Everquest 2 If Maltheas Had A Hammer

If Maltheas had a hammer.

Respeccing Maltheas’ tradeskill obviously has a few downsides. He will not be able to use his Earing of the Solstice, or his Jin’Tu’s gift until he has gotten back up to level 80. That will probably take a rather long time at the rate I work. He’ll lose all his weaponsmith-specific recipes of course, but that is a loss I can stand.

He gets to keep his tinker skills, or else I wouldn’t be considering this at all. He also will keep his harvesting skills, and any non-weaponsmith recipes, such as the Far Seas ones. To that end, before the respec, he’ll be trying to max his harvesting skills out. It should be done tonight, so I’ll let you know how things turn out.

3 comments to Everquest 2 – If Maltheas had a hammer. Respecing to Carpenter.

  • Longasc

    If weapons would decay/break, your blacksmithing would be in demand. If nothing ever breaks and only the best items count, the problem with not being that useful will always be there.

    I hope you have fun as carpenter! :)

  • Most people won’t tolerate their personal gear wearing out permanently, these days, or at least that seems to be what game developers believe. Items in EQ2 do take damage when you die, but you just get them fixed up at an NPC, and you cannot lose anything permanently that way. That’s not going to be changing at this stage.

    It’s a problem, for it is very hard for a game to have a decent economy without item loss being part of it. Bind-on-equip stops handmedowns, but there still isn’t enough demand for crafted items to really make things work. Thinking back, the only MMOs I’ve played that had decent economies were UO, pre-NGE SWG, PotBS, and EVE, all of which had either ship loss, or item decay (not to mention getting your corpse picked clean in UO).

    EQ2 is stuck in the same situation as other itemcentric games. Crafted items can’t be as good as the best loot, or there’d be no point going adventuring. With various recent changes, though, crafted weapons have just been left badly behind, and just not worth it any more, at least down in the mid-levels where I dwell. I did not help myself by choosing a profession that makes something that a character only needs one of at any given time. Mostly it is because Maltheas was never intended to become my main character, so he ended up being the weaponsmith of the gang.

    Even in an itemcentric game, you could mitigate the problems for crafters by having specific item slots that would only be used by crafted items. You’d have to build that into your design from the start though, to make sure the numbers all added up. Not something you could add later without nightmarish rebalancing issues.