Crafting Hub: Guides, Resources, & Tools for Professions
Note: Welcome to an early preview of our Crafting Hub for the Lord of the Rings Online! Following our other hubs, we are currently building an interactive Crafting center that will include comprehensive guides. While our team is at the forge, we have this quick crafting rundown to help you strike the anvil in the meantime!
Whether you want to forge inspirational gear, cook the finest Hobbit meals, or brew powerful potions, crafting is a massive part of the Lord of the Rings Online experience. These basics will help you get started with professions in LOTRO.
Getting Started with Crafting
For over a decade, crafting in LOTRO was locked behind “Vocations”—strict bundles of three professions (like the Armourer or Historian). That system has been completely retired! You are free to speak with any Master of Apprentices (found in starting towns like Celondim or Thorin’s Hall) and choose any three professions you want to mix and match. You can even unlock a 4th profession slot using LOTRO Points in the in-game store!
Gathering Professions: Prospector, Forester, Farmer, and Scholar. These allow you to harvest resource nodes found out in the open world. These also process raw materials for production professions. These professions give you a skill to track their respective nodes on your mini-map.
Production Professions: Metalsmith, Weaponsmith, Woodworker, Tailor, Jeweller, Scholar, and Cook. These use gathered materials to create usable gear, food, and items.
The Best Setup for Beginners
If you are completely new to the game, it is highly recommended to pick at least one or two Gathering Professions (like Prospector and Forester). Even if you don’t use the materials to craft gear yourself, you can sell the raw ore and wood on the Auction Hall to make a solid amount of gold, even early on in the game!
If you plan to craft your own gear, it is generally recommended to combine production professions with their corresponding gathering professions so you can supply your own materials. Here is a quick cheat sheet on what pairs well together:
- Prospector feeds materials to Metalsmith, Weaponsmith, and Jeweller.
- Forester feeds materials to Woodworker and Tailor.
- Farmer feeds materials to Cook.
- Scholar feeds materials to… Scholar! (Yes, Scholars gather their own materials for production — a true academic always does their own field research).
- Note: some Scholar dye recipes use Farmer, Prospector, and Forester materials.
If you want a relaxing, self-sustaining combination that doesn’t require you to fight enemies or hunt for resource nodes in the wild, Farmer and Cook is a fantastic duo. You can grow your own crops and cook them into stat-boosting food entirely within the safety of the Shire (or whatever your preferred locale with a field is). Pair those two with a gathering profession like Prospector (to hit ore nodes while questing), and you have a great beginner setup.
Tools & Facilities of the Trade
To craft, you need two things: a crafting tool and a crafting facility (like a forge, workbench, or oven). Depending on your chosen professions, you will need to seek out specific stations in town:
- Forge: Used by Prospectors to smelt raw ore into ingots, and by Metalsmiths and Weaponsmiths to hammer those ingots into heavy armor, shields, and metal weapons.
- Workbench: Used by Foresters to process raw wood and turn hides into leather. Those materials are then used at the workbench by Woodworkers and Tailors. Jewellers use workbenches to refine gems and craft jewellery, as well.
- Oven (or Campfire): Used by Cooks to prepare hearty meals and drinks. While you can still craft a campfire to cook trail food out in the wild, a proper Oven in town is needed to prepare every recipe available to cooks!
- Farmland: Used by Farmers to plant and harvest crops, pipe-weed, and flowers. These are typically found just outside major hubs (like Hobbiton or the Bree-fields).
- Study: Used by Scholars to study (process and refine) ancient texts, brew potions, mix dyes, and more.
When you learn a new profession, you are given a flimsy starting tool, and you can buy slightly better basic tools from a Supplier NPC near any crafting area. As you progress, keep an eye out for Universal Toolkits — these can be purchased from the LOTRO Store or various starter and expansion packs, and they act as an all-in-one tool for every profession with a massive speed boost!
Advancing Your Craft: Proficiency and Mastery
As you craft items, you earn Crafting Experience (in addition to a small amount of character experience). Each crafting tier has two distinct experience bars you need to fill:
- Proficiency (The Bronze Anvil): Filling this bar allows you to move on and begin filling the Proficiency bar for the next tier.
- Mastery (The Gold Anvil): Unlocking a tier’s Mastery bar grants you the ability to achieve a “Critical Success” on most recipes (yielding extra materials or better gear and consumable stats). But wait, there’s a catch: to unlock a tier’s Mastery bar, you must finish its Proficiency and have fully completed the Mastery bar from the previous tier. If you only ever fill the bronze Proficiency bars and ignore Mastery, your higher-tier Mastery bars will remain locked, and you will not be able to crit on those recipes.
Help Us Build the Ultimate Crafting Hub!
We are actively building the ultimate Crafting Hub (stay updated), and we want it to be the exact tool that the LOTRO community needs. Let us know what would make your crafting life easier!
