Professions

Since the release of the professions overhaul on the preview shard I have been working hard to get an inside look at what I need to do for my characters on the Xbox. Here I will go over the information I have gathered. I'll be skipping over some of the storyline quests and only focus on those parts where a decision could affect things later on.

Tutorial

Character Level 20

Workshop Opportunity
Once you reach level 20 you will be able to pick up the quest from Sgt. Knox in Protector's Enclave. This leads you to a building across from the Seven Suns Coster Market where a cutscene shows you the present workshop runner being thrown out.

Choose a Retainer
You're given a choice of six different retainers. Doesn't matter which one you decide on, the retainer has no bearing on your ability to craft.

Choose a Starting Profession
Choose your highest level profession. Keep in mind, Mailsmithing and Platesmithing have been merged into Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing has been renamed Blacksmithing. Leadership is gone so if that was your highest level profession you'll have to choose another. If you can't remember what your highest level profession was, back at of this part for the moment and look at your professions achievements.

Accept Applications
You're directed to the desk in your office to review applications received. The quest states that it requires only one accepted application to fulfill the objective, however, you will need to hire all four applicants. Among the applicants you will find two adventurers (used in Gathering tasks) and two from your chosen profession. If you're not happy with the applicants you can dismiss them later, but for now you will need them to finish the tutorial.

Craft an Item at the Workstation
Pick something simple, likely a level 1 task. You should have the tool and resources necessary from the starter box you are given. This first task will require you to use Morale to complete the task. Picking an artisan with the highest Proficiency will afford you the best chance at successfully completing this task. This is crucial to anyone just starting professions or anyone not using a higher level profession.

Order an Item at the Dispatch Board
Again pick something simple with the shortest gather time. Also pick your most proficient artisan to ensure success. If you're lucky enough to have level 70 Gathering you could instead choose the artisan with the highest Speed modifier. Doing so would make the wait time shorter and it is not possible to use Morale on Gathering tasks. When starting this task, make sure you choose to perform it only once.

Wait for Gathering Task to Complete
Wait for your item to be gathered and pick it up from the Delivery Box. If you had any tasks running prior to the conversion you will be able to collect those as well if they completed.

That completes the tutorial and you will now be able to exchange your old assets and resources for credit that can be used to purchase new tools and resources. Old tools are useless and can be exchanged for Asset Exchange Credits. A majority of the old resources are also useless and can be exchanged for Material Exchange Credits. Old professionals are converted into Labor vouchers that can be exchanged for Asset Exchange Credits or donated to your stronghold coffer. All old assets and resources can be mailed prior to exchanging, once exchanged the credits received are character bound. This is good if you have multiple characters and wish to "spread the wealth" to those other characters.

The next thing you will be tasked with accomplishing is the upgrading of your workshop. Whether you choose to do this or not, is entirely up to you. The benefits of doing so, at the very least to level 2, are worth it in my opinion.

Upgrading the Workshop

Profession Level 20

A Clean Start
This set of tasks, upon completion, will provide you with the necessary supplies to upgrade your workshop to level 2.

Speak to the Material Supplier
You are directed to the new Material Supplier, Bolden Coarsca, inside the Seven Suns Coster Market. He has replaced the previous Material Supplier. In order to procure the upgrade supplies you will need to craft a high-quality item for the Materials Supplier. This is a relatively simple task and you are given enough items to choose from so that you should be able to accomplish this with your chosen profession.
You have the option of gathering any required resources or using your Material Exchange Credits to purchase them from your Retainer. For those with higher level professions, you may also want/need to purchase a better, level appropriate tool to ensure the best chance of success.
If you have Jewelcrafting leveled you're cheapest option would be to craft Brass Ingots +1. This will cost you 5s 52c, base commission, and 18 Material Exchange Credits for the required resources. Of course, you could gather the required resources, possibly receiving high-quality versions which would increase your Focus when attempting to craft the high-quality Brass Ingots.
Once you have crafted/gathered the required items you will need to hand them over to your Retainer so they can box them up and send you back to Bolden to finish this stage of the quest. You'll need to return to the workshop where you'll speak with Bolden once again and he'll hand over the upgrade supplies.

At this point, the quest is completed and there is nothing telling you what to do with those supplies. What you will need to do is go to your desk in the office. Interact with your desk and you will now see you have the ability to "Upgrade Worskhop to Level 2". This upgrade will allow you to hire more artisans and increases the size of your Delivery Box.


Character Level 30 and Profession Level 30

Trading Company
This set of tasks, upon completion, will provide you with the necessary supplies to upgrade your workshop to level 3.

Speak to Lady Begum
You are directed to a tent set up within the Auction House. Here you will meet Lady Marielle Begum of the South Seas Trading Company. She has a rotating list of items which she needs to fill orders. At this point of the quest you need only pick one item, craft it, and turn it in to her to progress the questline. If you have items to sell, they will appear at the top of the list. As I'm still cataloging the rotating list of items it is difficult for me to say which would be the cheapest at this time. Much like the previous quest to upgrade the workshop, there is plenty of items to choose from, something for every profession except Gathering. Higher level items garner more credit towards your commission, with high-quality versions providing even more credit. Keep in mind the list of items changes daily at server reset.

That completes this quest and you will need to get any profession to level 40 in order to continue the storyline. I'm sure there are other level blocks in the previous quests that I didn't run into due to the fact that I chose a profession at level 34 after the conversion. I'll plug those in once I work on this with my other PC character.

Character Level 40 and Profession Level 40

Lessons Learned
This questline is a part of the overall Workshop storyline. You learn about the pitfalls of running a workshop and what had happened to the previous workshop runner.

Hire Artisans
Still part of the Lessons Learned questline, you are now tasked with hiring 10 artisans. It is entirely possible that you have already done so if you have been accepting all applications as they come in and have used any Artisan Recruitment Orders you may have received from the conversion. If there is some difference in the way this questline works based on when those artisans are hired I'll find out with the next character.
If you have already hired more than 10 artisans, this step of the quest is completed without an issue.

This completes the the Lesson Learned questline. You're next quest doesn't show up until you reach level 50 in a profession.

Level 50

A Box for Knox
This is probably the most important piece of the storyline. Completing this quest rewards you with a Workshop Sending Stone. The stone allows you to set crafting tasks and empty your Delivery Box from anywhere outside of the Workshop. It does not appear that we will be able to set gathering tasks outside of the Workshop. Collecting items from the Delivery Box using the Stone will cost 5 Morale, but you will be able to collect every item from the box.
The requirements of this quest are to create an item for Sgt. Knox. Much like the A Clean Start quest, you are given a list of items to choose from and you only need to pick one. Craft the item, give it to your retainer to box up, deliver it to Sgt. Knox, and return to your Workshop to complete the quest.

This completes the A Box for Knox questline. You're next quest doesn't show up until you reach level 60 in a profession.

Level 60

Facilities Upgrade
Finally, the quest to finish upgrading the Workshop to level 3. Nothing real special here, you just need to make enough items to fill the 500,000 credit commission Merielle Begum tasked you with earlier during the "Trading Company" questline. Up until this you should have picked something from the list and had your artisans pumping that out non-stop. Don't worry about the list changing daily, it will repeat (I just haven't figured out how often yet). For those that are inventory space challenged, hopefully you can pick something from Alchemy because they stack nicely. Mail them to yourself and when they appear in the list collect them from your mail and turn them in. If you have multiple characters that can make the same item that will make this process that much easier. You could also speed this process along by depositing Astral Diamonds directly to earn credit.

Thanks for reading!

~MDA

Since the release of the professions overhaul on the preview shard I have been working hard to get an inside look at what I need to do for my characters on the Xbox. Here I will go over the information I have gathered. I'll be skipping over some of the storyline quests and only focus on those parts where a decision could affect things later on.

Tutorial

Character Level 20

Workshop Opportunity

Once you reach level 20 you will be able to pick up the quest from Sgt. Knox in Protector's Enclave. This leads you to a building across from the Seven Suns Coster Market where a cutscene shows you the present workshop runner being thrown out.

Choose a Retainer

You're given a choice of six different retainers. Doesn't matter which one you decide on, the retainer has no bearing on your ability to craft.

Choose a Starting Profession

Choose your highest level profession. Keep in mind, Mailsmithing and Platesmithing have been merged into Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing has been renamed Blacksmithing. Leadership is gone so if that was your highest level profession you'll have to choose another. If you can't remember what your highest level profession was, back at of this part for the moment and look at your professions achievements.

Accept Applications

You're directed to the desk in your office to review applications received. The quest states that it requires only one accepted application to fulfill the objective, however, you will need to hire all four applicants. Among the applicants you will find two adventurers (used in Gathering tasks) and two from your chosen profession. If you're not happy with the applicants you can dismiss them later, but for now you will need them to finish the tutorial.

Craft an Item at the Workstation

Pick something simple, likely a level 1 task. You should have the tool and resources necessary from the starter box you are given. This first task will require you to use Morale to complete the task. Picking an artisan with the highest Proficiency will afford you the best chance at successfully completing this task. This is crucial to anyone just starting professions or anyone not using a higher level profession.

Order an Item at the Dispatch Board

Again pick something simple with the shortest gather time. Also pick your most proficient artisan to ensure success. If you're lucky enough to have level 70 Gathering you could instead choose the artisan with the highest Speed modifier. Doing so would make the wait time shorter and it is not possible to use Morale on Gathering tasks. When starting this task, make sure you choose to perform it only once.

Wait for Gathering Task to Complete

Wait for your item to be gathered and pick it up from the Delivery Box. If you had any tasks running prior to the conversion you will be able to collect those as well if they completed.

That completes the tutorial and you will now be able to exchange your old assets and resources for credit that can be used to purchase new tools and resources. Old tools are useless and can be exchanged for Asset Exchange Credits. A majority of the old resources are also useless and can be exchanged for Material Exchange Credits. Old professionals are converted into Labor vouchers that can be exchanged for Asset Exchange Credits or donated to your stronghold coffer. All old assets and resources can be mailed prior to exchanging, once exchanged the credits received are character bound. This is good if you have multiple characters and wish to "spread the wealth" to those other characters.

The next thing you will be tasked with accomplishing is the upgrading of your workshop. Whether you choose to do this or not, is entirely up to you. The benefits of doing so, at the very least to level 2, are worth it in my opinion.

Upgrading the Workshop

Profession Level 20

A Clean Start

This set of tasks, upon completion, will provide you with the necessary supplies to upgrade your workshop to level 2.

Speak to the Material Supplier

You are directed to the new Material Supplier, Bolden Coarsca, inside the Seven Suns Coster Market. He has replaced the previous Material Supplier. In order to procure the upgrade supplies you will need to craft a high-quality item for the Materials Supplier. This is a relatively simple task and you are given enough items to choose from so that you should be able to accomplish this with your chosen profession.

You have the option of gathering any required resources or using your Material Exchange Credits to purchase them from your Retainer. For those with higher level professions, you may also want/need to purchase a better, level appropriate tool to ensure the best chance of success.

If you have Jewelcrafting leveled you're cheapest option would be to craft Brass Ingots +1. This will cost you 5s 52c, base commission, and 18 Material Exchange Credits for the required resources. Of course, you could gather the required resources, possibly receiving high-quality versions which would increase your Focus when attempting to craft the high-quality Brass Ingots.

Once you have crafted/gathered the required items you will need to hand them over to your Retainer so they can box them up and send you back to Bolden to finish this stage of the quest. You'll need to return to the workshop where you'll speak with Bolden once again and he'll hand over the upgrade supplies.

At this point, the quest is completed and there is nothing telling you what to do with those supplies. What you will need to do is go to your desk in the office. Interact with your desk and you will now see you have the ability to "Upgrade Worskhop to Level 2". This upgrade will allow you to hire more artisans and increases the size of your Delivery Box.

Character Level 30 and Profession Level 30

Trading Company

This set of tasks, upon completion, will provide you with the necessary supplies to upgrade your workshop to level 3.

Speak to Lady Begum

You are directed to a tent set up within the Auction House. Here you will meet Lady Marielle Begum of the South Seas Trading Company. She has a rotating list of items which she needs to fill orders. At this point of the quest you need only pick one item, craft it, and turn it in to her to progress the questline. If you have items to sell, they will appear at the top of the list. As I'm still cataloging the rotating list of items it is difficult for me to say which would be the cheapest at this time. Much like the previous quest to upgrade the workshop, there is plenty of items to choose from, something for every profession except Gathering. Higher level items garner more credit towards your commission, with high-quality versions providing even more credit. Keep in mind the list of items changes daily at server reset.

That completes this quest and you will need to get any profession to level 40 in order to continue the storyline. I'm sure there are other level blocks in the previous quests that I didn't run into due to the fact that I chose a profession at level 34 after the conversion. I'll plug those in once I work on this with my other PC character.

Character Level 40 and Profession Level 40

Lessons Learned

This questline is a part of the overall Workshop storyline. You learn about the pitfalls of running a workshop and what had happened to the previous workshop runner.

Hire Artisans

Still part of the Lessons Learned questline, you are now tasked with hiring 10 artisans. It is entirely possible that you have already done so if you have been accepting all applications as they come in and have used any Artisan Recruitment Orders you may have received from the conversion. If there is some difference in the way this questline works based on when those artisans are hired I'll find out with the next character.

If you have already hired more than 10 artisans, this step of the quest is completed without an issue.

This completes the the Lesson Learned questline. You're next quest doesn't show up until you reach level 50 in a profession.

Level 50

A Box for Knox

This is probably the most important piece of the storyline. Completing this quest rewards you with a Workshop Sending Stone. The stone allows you to set crafting tasks and empty your Delivery Box from anywhere outside of the Workshop. It does not appear that we will be able to set gathering tasks outside of the Workshop. Collecting items from the Delivery Box using the Stone will cost 5 Morale, but you will be able to collect every item from the box.

The requirements of this quest are to create an item for Sgt. Knox. Much like the A Clean Start quest, you are given a list of items to choose from and you only need to pick one. Craft the item, give it to your retainer to box up, deliver it to Sgt. Knox, and return to your Workshop to complete the quest.

This completes the A Box for Knox questline. You're next quest doesn't show up until you reach level 60 in a profession.

Level 60

Facilities Upgrade

Finally, the quest to finish upgrading the Workshop to level 3. Nothing real special here, you just need to make enough items to fill the 500,000 credit commission Merielle Begum tasked you with earlier during the "Trading Company" questline. Up until this you should have picked something from the list and had your artisans pumping that out non-stop. Don't worry about the list changing daily, it will repeat (I just haven't figured out how often yet). For those that are inventory space challenged, hopefully you can pick something from Alchemy because they stack nicely. Mail them to yourself and when they appear in the list collect them from your mail and turn them in. If you have multiple characters that can make the same item that will make this process that much easier. You could also speed this process along by depositing Astral Diamonds directly to earn credit.

Thanks for reading!

~MDA