Crafting in Aion

Alchemy - This is the craft to use to make any and all potions in the game. It also makes scrolls, upgrades manastones, and creates the Orbs and Tomes used by the Sorcerers and Spiritmasters. You want more flight time or a nice boost to your crit chance? See an Alchemist.

Armorsmithing - Creates chain and plate armor which is used by the healing and warrior classes. Expensive to create, but better than most anything you'll find while leveling.

Cooking - The foods in Aion all provide some kind of buff, ranging from faster natural healing to increased attack power to shapeshifting. Yes, you can become a bug, if you like.

Handicrafting - This is the craft for jewelry makers, but this is also the craft for making the bows used by Rangers as well as the Staves used by Chanters. Besides looking good that jewelry adds nice stats.

Tailoring - Cloth and leather armor for the well dressed mage and scout classes.

Weaponsmithing - Melee weapons, some of which are very nice.

Gaining the Skillz

In Aion you are not guaranteed a skill increased when doing any particular skill, but the tougher the skill relative to your current skill the better than chance of increasing your skill with a success. Also, the odds off success decrease as your skill increases. This means that at high levels you will have to gather/craft more and more items for the skill increase.

Skill difficultly is color coded, much like items.

1. Gold - Best chance to increase your skill, but if your skill is very close to the minimum requires skill there is a significant chance of failure. For example - if your skill is 250 and the required skill is 250 the chance of failure is actually greater than the chance of gaining a skill point, though the chance of simply succeeding with the skill is better than the chance of failing. Once your skill is 10 or more points above the required skill you will rarely, if ever, see failures.
   
2. Yellow - Decent chance to increase skill, no chance of failure.
   
3. White - Small chance to increase skill, no chance of failure.
   
4. Gray - No chance of either skill increase or failure.

The Price...

First, the thing to keep in mind is that Aion crafting is expensive. If you're not good at making money (which is easy enough) then you'll have to skip the crafting, have a generous sponsor, get a Kinah Guide, or otherwise learn to get the funds you'll need.

For example, as you approach 199 in Weaponcrafting you will be spending around 2500 Kinah per point of skill. Then you'll spend another 120,000 or so to advance from 199 to 200. Ouch.

All of the crafting skills work the same way. You see the appropriate trainer, in the crafting area, and buy the initial skill from him or her. This will cost you around 3,500 Kinah. There is also an optional quest you can pick up which will have you gather a few items and make some basic stuff.

Work Orders

Once you have your crafting skill you will be doing most of your crafting through Work Orders which you get from the trainer. Each Work Order will have you make a number of basic items. Some of the materials are provided, others you will have to pick up from the supplier, conveniently located nearby.

Generally each Work Order will be enough to level your skill up by a point, though at low levels you might actually gain two points and might not gain any at higher levels.

As you hand it each work Order you will receive a reward, which will be anything from some of the stuff you'd buy from the supplier to recipes. In a nutshell:

1. Get the workorder from the crafting master
   
2. Get any supplies you need
   
3. Head to the crafting table to do the order.
   
4. Hand it in in a get your reward
   
5. repeat until your crafting session is done, you're bored, or you run out of money.

As you increase in skill the work orders gradually become more expensive. Interestingly enough you may find yourself getting duplicate recipes as you skill up. The dups can be sold to the vendor to recoup some (or all) of your costs for doing the work orders. With a little luck you may find the crafting to be less expensive, maybe a lot less expensive, than mentioned above.

Recipes

Each item that you'd craft for general use, not workorders, requires a recipe first. "Read" the recipe (right click it) and you've learned to create that item. Some recipes you'll pick up through work orders and others you can buy from the supplier. Still others are drops which you'll find through grinding or on the Broker.

At skill level 99, 199, 299, and 399 you'll pay a chunk of Kinah to gain access to the next level. At 99 it's roughly 20,000, and at 199 it's about 118,000.

To summarize:

1. Buy the crafting skill from the trainer
   
2. Do Work Orders to level your skill
   
3. Pay to advance your skill to the next category
   
4. Gather recipes for your own crafting

Tips

• Use work orders to level your skills and sell back the extra recipes.
  
• If you are crafting items with expensive mats make sure you skill is at least 10 points higher than the minimum required skill to make that item, otherwise there is a chance to fail and you will lose those mats.
  
• Of the four work orders the crafting master will give you, I suggest doing the second, not the first. The chance to increase your skill is about the same (maybe a bit less,) but there is no chance of failure. With the #1 work order you will get plenty of failures.
  

Recipe Notes

As mentioned above every item in Aion is crafted from some recipe. Some of these will be given to you upon completing your Work Orders, others can be bought from the appropriate supplies vendor (right there in the crafting area,) and others are drops off of various critters, which means you can grind for them or find them on the Broker.

You don't have to have every recipe available for any particular craft, either. Some are required, others aren't. For example, with Alchemy, if no one in your group really uses mana then you don't need to get the various mana potion recipes that are available, nor will you have to buy recipes for the books and orbs that the bolt-lobbers use.

Quests

Each of the crafting masters has a starter quest for you to do. You'll have to go out and collect (or buy) something, then process it and hand it in. Also, you'll pick up the rare miscellaneous quest as you level your skills. Go ahead and do them. They're easy and will drop a bit more XP and Kinah into your pot.

Costs

Above I mentioned a bit about costs. To go from Alchemy 199 to 200 is nearly 120,000 Kiniah, to go from 220 to 230 cost me nearly 40,000 Kinah. You can make and sell potions to recoup your costs. You can do this with any of the professions, but it's a lot less expensive to make potions or food than armor or weapons.

Ok, I made a few notes above about how expensive crafting is in Aion. And it is. However there are a few ways to make back that cost, and then some. Some crafters make a lot of money doing just this.

Update - My Alchemy is now 330+, so I'm going to amend the above statement. While it might cost close 100,000 Kinah to advance from 330 to 340 or thereabouts, you'll make more than that by selling back the extra recipes you do from work orders. You really don't need four copies of "Craft Cool Thing," do you? Sell back three and you'll make back a chunk of your work order costs.

Chances are you may actually make a bit of Kinah through your work orders.

First of all is the tried and true...

• Advertise Your Services: Simply advertise your skills and what you can make in the trade channel. Something like "Alchemist Looking for Work (LFW:) Skill 185 and can make any item 185 or less. Free with your mats, tips appreciated. The Aion crafting system is complicated enough, and has to be done at the lab, so this isn't a popular option.


• And then there's the Broker: Check out the prices to sell what you're making. Also check out the materials price. You might be able to make some Kinah just by selling your stuff here. Especially if you're making green or blue items.


• White Items: If you're making weapons or armor you'll find that the nice stuff "procs" off of lesser recipes. This simply means that if you're making a weapon you might have a 30% chance for that weapon to become a nicer one. So if you make 10 "Titanium Swords" you might wind up with 7 normal swords and three "noble" titanium swords.
  
  Sell the white swords to the vendor and you'll make back a portion of your costs. Sell the green "noble" swords on the Broker and you might find yourself making a nice profit overall. Keep good track of your costs while doing this. When you get the "Worthy" version of the recipe make all yoiur Noble items into Worthy ones. The increase in what you can sell the Worthy item for is well worth the cost in mats to make the thing.


• Your own personal store: This is a great way to sell items and potions. Just set your store up at any place where people are heading off to do their leveling or PvPing or whatever. Life potions (and others) can do well here and "Wind Serums" (extra flight time) will do well anywhere that flying is allowed, such as the Abyss.

Of course, if you want to make serious Kinah you'll pick up a Kinah guide and learn all kinds of sneaky tricks to earn a lot more Kinah.

So Again - Keep an eye on your costs and keep an eye on the broker. Grinding is a good way to gather up crafting mats if you're willing (and have the time) to do it.