To Craft or Not To Craft?

[Fairy]

It seems like crafting is a nice feature to have. I personally like that you can upgrade iconic weapons and other stuff. However, do you do it and is it worth it?
I've never got far in the game level wise and am starting a new game where I plan on really getting into it. With this I have a build I am following which naturally has no points places into Technical.
How do you go about this mechanic? Do you just not use it? Since you can't reset abilities without mods (which I am not using) what is it you do?
I assume most people just find gear they wanna use and mod it instead of crafting it. I wanna know if I'll be missing out if I don't use it and should change my build before I start going ham on this game.

[Nite69]

yes its worth it, cause Crafted gear is stronger then anything you buy at shops if you have the perks for it (be sure to get Tech attribute to at least 18 for legendary crafting) as you level up cause thats what the crafting skill is tied to which also has to be to 18

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

To craft, especially if you want to use iconic weapons that have usually best features and abilities compared to generic weapons.
Imho they made crafting too essential and must have.

[Doombringer]

Most Iconic weapons you find start blue/purple, so you need crafting 18 to make then legendary.
You can buy legendary weapons from melee/gun shops and can find legendary armor, so it depends how much you like iconic special abilities (look them up on the wiki).
Crafting 18+ also lets you make some legendary armor/gun mods that you probably will only find (at best) purple versions of otherwise...
Since clothing vendor nerf in 1.6 you might not even be able to get some armor mods without crafting (at least the recover mods from scrapped items perk).

If you are spamming grenades/using tech weapons then you probably want tech skill anyways, if not you don't need tech (but crafting is nice to have).

[Fairy]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

Most Iconic weapons you find start blue/purple, so you need crafting 18 to make then legendary.
You can buy legendary weapons from melee/gun shops and can find legendary armor, so it depends how much you like iconic special abilities (look them up on the wiki).
Crafting 18+ also lets you make some legendary armor/gun mods that you probably will only find (at best) purple versions of otherwise...
Since clothing vendor nerf in 1.6 you might not even be able to get some armor mods without crafting (at least the recover mods from scrapped items perk).

If you are spamming grenades/using tech weapons then you probably want tech skill anyways, if not you don't need tech (but crafting is nice to have).

Now I am just stuck. Most builds I find exclude crafting all together. I really wanna do a Reflex and Cool stealth build but intelligence is important for this. I don't use tech weapons so don't really need that branch.

[Bogmore]

If you have picked your playstyle then for that one you need silenced weapons like the overture. You can craft those BUT you can also buy them, even the legendary ones, I find the place is the gun shop in western Santo Domingo near Wollenson St station.

The first thing I do in a new playthrough is discover the transport near the gunshops.

[Markus Reese]

My reasoning is a bit abstract, so will open with a conclusion. The bonuses for weapons being better can be offset because you lose benefits elsewhere. Investing in crafting is committing to being very specialised in how you will go about your missions.

Edit: And you can still find good weapons in shops that are comparable to legendary iconics. I see stuff in the below playthru and found the odd bit of gear close to that I had crafted.

Edit 2: I do not regret below playthru being crafting spec, because it fit the V style I wanted, and really let me be fully legend and focus on that specialised play style I wanted. No quickhacks or daemons. Just high speed flanking with shotguns and LMG/HMG! A nomad V who I wanted to be somebody who did things right and solved her own problems.

---

I don't think crafting is as essential as others make it out to be. I consider it the most generally usable tree, but not essential.

Reason is that at end of day, going crafting means putting attribute points into it. That means attribute points not going into a different path. I am not considering the perk points because for most basic of crafting it only takes a few unless want all the de-crafting and efficiency stuff. In which case it does take from others.

If you max at level 50, you can only have three trees up to 20 with some spare points elsewhere. So if you devote the 18 to technical? Then you now have limited other builds. Want to blade build? You are going to want say cool and reflexes. But cause you invested so much into Technical? Now you cannot build into body.

Remember that you do get bonuses for your attributes. Technical boosts your armor. But what if you don't need high armor with your build? So you craft that legendary with 'cutting edge perk'. You get a 5% boost to damage stats.

But because you went tech and not body? You now lost that 30% bonus damage with melee weapons.

My last V though was very invested in crafting. But that was a choice because the playstyle I wanted was on a max difficulty run and I wanted a heavy weapons V. So I wasn't needing Intelligence because I was not needing quickhack benefits. The benefits from reflexes was minimal and no perks. Cold Blood was a primary investment. I made choice to not invest in tech weapons.

As such having a crafting focus filled out my progression on, what was again, a maxed difficulty hardcore ending completionist run.

[War Maiden]

Originally posted by Fairy:

It seems like crafting is a nice feature to have. I personally like that you can upgrade iconic weapons and other stuff. However, do you do it and is it worth it?
I've never got far in the game level wise and am starting a new game where I plan on really getting into it. With this I have a build I am following which naturally has no points places into Technical.
How do you go about this mechanic? Do you just not use it? Since you can't reset abilities without mods (which I am not using) what is it you do?
I assume most people just find gear they wanna use and mod it instead of crafting it. I wanna know if I'll be missing out if I don't use it and should change my build before I start going ham on this game.

To me, it really depends on what you have set up in your mind and researched to being the optimal Attribute & Perk placement for your desired build.

So for instance, I am going full Electricity Monowire as my main weapon, but I also know that some heavy mechs are not really affected by Monowire unless you use the electric mod that you can find in the game, plus the Technical tree has a Perk that will allow me to do 50% more damage to drones and robots, so in this case I would only put points into the Tech Attribute for this purpose, if that is all I wanted out of it.

People forget that the Technical tree also allows you to craft clothing, and clothing and weapon mods to legendary. Picking up craft specs on weapons with the gold/orange dot no longer 'actually' gives you a Legendary weapon, you now receive it as a Rare weapon that you need to upgrade so this is another good thing of having 18 points in crafting. Upgrading Armadillo armor mods are highly efficient, as well as the Resist mod for resisting elemental damage. Not only that but a Perk you get in that tree also make you Immune to Shock, so it is well worth the point expense.

Lastly, like twistedmelon said, they used it to finish the game on the hardest difficulty, so crafting is a major player in offense and defense of your V. If you are playing on Easy, just for the story, the Technical tree is useful, but not a real necessity, depending on ones build requirements.

Edit: I should also mention that the Tech Tree also opens a lot of doors for you, quite literally, making it easier to sneak and be stealthy with no noise, unlike Body, which you're basically ripping a door open.

[skOsH♥]

Crafting is super important. Keeps things inexpensive as well. Also, having to continuously buy weapons and gear is annoying.

I didn't even know about the crafting until halfway through my first playrhrough

[Chaosolous]

I have never put any points into crafting outside of the Quickhack Crafts for Legendary because I play as a Netrunner. The item crafting, I'm not wasting 15 freaking att points just to make one item.

Keeps the game challenging I guess. I don't know, I hate games that have craft perk trees. Wish there was a mod to unlock crafting without perking it.

[Fairy]

Originally posted by Chaosolous:

I have never put any points into crafting outside of the Quickhack Crafts for Legendary because I play as a Netrunner. The item crafting, I'm not wasting 15 freaking att points just to make one item.

Keeps the game challenging I guess. I don't know, I hate games that have craft perk trees. Wish there was a mod to unlock crafting without perking it.

I have to full agree with you. Reading what everyone else is saying but I still find it highly annoying that crafting requires att points. It put a giant pin in the build I wanted and not im not sure how to set up.

[Nite69]

Originally posted by Fairy:

Originally posted by Chaosolous:

I have never put any points into crafting outside of the Quickhack Crafts for Legendary because I play as a Netrunner. The item crafting, I'm not wasting 15 freaking att points just to make one item.

Keeps the game challenging I guess. I don't know, I hate games that have craft perk trees. Wish there was a mod to unlock crafting without perking it.

I have to full agree with you. Reading what everyone else is saying but I still find it highly annoying that crafting requires att points. It put a giant pin in the build I wanted and not im not sure how to set up.

it actually doesn't because the reflex attribute is useless so use those extra points on Tech

Their is plenty of other ways to boost damage to AR/Pistol/Blade so a high reflex is useless on them

I use 3 reflex, 20 body, 18 tech, 16 intel and 12 cool

[Fairy]

Originally posted by Nite69:

Originally posted by Fairy:

I have to full agree with you. Reading what everyone else is saying but I still find it highly annoying that crafting requires att points. It put a giant pin in the build I wanted and not im not sure how to set up.

it actually doesn't because the reflex attribute is useless so use those extra points on Tech

Their is plenty of other ways to boost damage to AR/Pistol/Blade so a high reflex is useless on them

I use 3 reflex, 20 body, 18 tech, 16 intel and 12 cool

I have to BIG disagree with you here.

[Nite69]

Originally posted by Fairy:

Originally posted by Nite69:

it actually doesn't because the reflex attribute is useless so use those extra points on Tech

Their is plenty of other ways to boost damage to AR/Pistol/Blade so a high reflex is useless on them

I use 3 reflex, 20 body, 18 tech, 16 intel and 12 cool

I have to BIG disagree with you here.

well guess what its possible cause I finished everything on very hard with this setup

[War Maiden]

Originally posted by Chaosolous:

I have never put any points into crafting outside of the Quickhack Crafts for Legendary because I play as a Netrunner. The item crafting, I'm not wasting 15 freaking att points just to make one item.

Keeps the game challenging I guess. I don't know, I hate games that have craft perk trees. Wish there was a mod to unlock crafting without perking it.

That is one of the misconceptions people have.
You are not just making "one item". Your making your own ammo, your own clothes and gear and clothing mods. You are making your own blades and weapons, your own quickhacks and cybermods, not to mention giving you many options to try out a multitude of weapons to see which ones fit your play style best, and sync with your build. Plus, you can make your own healing supplies.

I do agree that reflex is not really all that useful, unless you just gotta have that 90% slow time for 4 seconds upon being seen by an enemy.

[Umbral Knight]

Personally I've never found crafting essential in this game based on my two play-throughs. It's definitely useful for upgrading the iconic weapons you want to stick with or crafting outfits you like.

I haven't found any one attribute to be completely useless unless every tree of the attribute won't be utilized.