Blacksmith Journeyman required

[RoyHaggerty]

I'm continuing with my old troop, I had blacksmith skills pretty much maxed. I see there are new skills to make rimesteel gear, but the "learn" button is greyed out, and the message is "blacksmith Journeyman required".

I can already make journeyman and expert weapons. What do I need to do to be able to learn the rimesteel crafting?

[[A]dderal Gaming]

lvl4 blacksmith

[djiffou]

And make sure you smith every rank of weapon you want to unlock. IF you want ghost bow, for instance, you won't be able to select it until you have 'made' the two ranks of bows below.

[Sir Crow]

I found blacksmithing useless. When I reached lv4 blacksmith and forged rimesteel gear armor, I had already found better ones from merchants or from battles! Maybe it's good for selling...

[Barara]

the only useful in journeyman blacksmith are offhand and 2-handed hammer 3 star for vanguard class even Lucille lost to it, but of course against animal or no armor enemies it will useless.
Just do it for knowledge exp for other recipe

[Serverus88]

They need to balances BS since the gear is always worse than the merchant stuff, ya they have slots but still get outclassed by merchant gear. Two things could fix this, the first would be buff the crafted armor/weapons or second nerf merchant armor/weapons. I would think buffing BS would be better since it requires material and perfect crafting to get the best crafted results.

[funkmonster7]

Well, crafted equipment last a pretty decent length of time while they're there... The lower level items expire pretty quickly as you outgrow them very easily. But I'm still using my rimesteel heavy armor and some weapons even at level 9, close to level 10 (level 11 is max level in the game atm).

My two archers are using crafted bows, the level 8 required ones. They still punch harder than the level 10 bow I just picked up... It was a Hunting Bow or something, the one that bandits use and has knockback. The thing is, it does lower damage than my crafted level 9 2-star bows and right now I prioritize damage over knockback. Knockback is pointless when I can 2-shot enemies: 1 normal shot and 1 Recoil shot, and 1 dead enemy.

But I still keep 2 Stylish Bows in my inventory if I need to use fire... Later my archers will just equip them and swap during battle, very neat.

And my Vanguard using crafted 2h hammer is murdering a lot of things right now. She's specced with Armor Breaker and Guard Breaker, once she breaks the armor of a squishy enemy she gets Brutality and Inspiration. And she can murder all light-armor enemies and some medium-armor enemies in 2 hits.

The only axe that I would consider going out of my way to get is the one with Natural Strike. 100% chance to proc oil effect is crazy good... Can't remember who drops that, I think Ludern guards?

Crafted armor is really good when you stack Tracker armor layers in them. 3 of those = 9% guard, not a small amount.

Perhaps most importantly, crafted armor allows you to tailor your mercs to specific styles. Need crit chance? Stick crit chance armor layers in your armor. Sure, merchant-bought armors can have layer slots too, but they're rarer. The odds of you finding the right armor for you at the right level with more than 1 armor layer slot is just rare...