How does crafting work, and how do I get Leadership?

Crafting is fairly simple at first and gets deeper as you go. There are three schematic types: Green, Blue and Epic, each ranging from Blue to Legendary rarity (Epic schematics only come in Epic and Legendary). Rarity does not decide if a craft is good, the BONUS (the yellow + stats) does.

• Green schematics are entry level, outgrown around level 50 to 80.
• Blue schematics are the standard for most players, from tutorials, weekly drops and beginner quests. Heavy = Guardsman's, Medium = Carnifex's, Light = Rogue's.
• Epic schematics are the rarest and the endgame goal, much better base stats plus a unique passive on armor. Consider crafting the weapon first, or waiting for 4 Epic boxes to craft a full armor set for the passives. See which Epic armor is for which class, and how to obtain Epic schematics.

At the Smith, crafting gives Blue, Epic or Legendary quality (not to be confused with schematic rarity), with random stats from a pool: 3 stats for blue, 4 for purple, 6 for gold. Stats beat quality, a blue item with good stats beats a legendary with bad stats.

After crafting you can reforge with stones to add base stats, and lock one stat to protect it. Lock Leadership on armor 99% of the time (best value, hardest to get), and on weapons lock the damage or penetration of your main stat and aim for the second. Reforge toward the recommended stats for your class.

Why Craft beats Reforge for Leadership. A reforge keeps the stat you locked by default, then rolls 4 or 5 affixes depending on rarity. But the game can still roll the very stat you locked: you won't see it move, the lock takes priority, and that roll is simply lost, so you can end up one affix short. That is why crafting is much better than reforging to get Leadership. Reforging with a lock is how you polish the RNG on a piece you already like.

Crafting order for a new player. Craft a full set first and equip it unreforged: the set bonus already outscales your starting items. Then keep crafting piece by piece. The moment a piece rolls Leadership, lock it and reforge it once. From there, keep crafting for the slot with the least Leadership, lock, reforge once, and replace the older piece.

Weapons. Start early with a Blue schematic weapon, they are nothing to worry about. Once you go Epic, the goal changes with Equipment Inheritance: craft an Epic schematic weapon for the STATS, and a new Epic schematic weapon for the weapon BONUS passives, ignoring its stats (a level 1 passive is fine, but aim for Legendary: the rarity never changes after, it has 6 slots for stats and bonuses instead of 4, and its caps are higher). Then merge them: the stats move onto the new Epic weapon, it keeps its bonuses, and that one weapon becomes your perfect weapon to hone. Keep all your hone stones for this first perfect weapon, and keep your new Epic schematics for it, a 3 stat transfer costs 9 of them.

Weapons: reforge, don't craft. Equipment Inheritance only takes weapons that have been reforged. If you craft a nice stat weapon (say Slashing Damage, Slashing Armour Penetration and Strength), you have to reforge it before you can use it, and a reforge rerolls the weapon with only one stat locked, so you lose your good stats. When you make weapons, always reforge: a good roll is then ready to use.

The stat weapon. Reforge until one of your two main stats (damage or its penetration) lands at a decent value, lock it, then chase the other one. Be greedy: a big bonus like +17 Strength is the third stat worth moving. Honing needs 3 stats at 60% of max, and the transfer cuts every stat: each one must still be above 60% of max AFTER the merge, or you cannot hone the weapon and you are stuck. If one would land under, hone it on the stat weapon first.

Resources come mainly from Salvaging (buy at the Horse Seller, salvage in your Inventory). See the best items to salvage for each resource, and the new honing system.