Shaping Nature

Guide to Woodworking in Lord of
The Rings Online

By Darkgolem



Woodworking in Lord of The Rings
Online (LOTRO) is a profession with a few special areas of
emphasis.  It has ranged weapons, which is sometimes useful, and
it has instruments, in addition to some melee weapons. 
Instruments are probably the most important part of the woodworking
profession.  



Why not ranged weapons?  Because often better ranged weapons are
available to hunters from their class quests.  At level 30,
hunters gain a bow that is (counting it’s damage type) better than tier
4 bows because it does Westernesse damage.



Melee weapons are a valid part of woodworking, and some of the weapons
you can acquire are interesting, especially spears (since they tend to
do damage over time) but they are not particularly good compared to
weaponsmith weapons.  Metal weapons tend to be “flashier”, and are
sometimes slightly better.  Woodworking weapons do have staves,
one of the major weapons of the loremaster, but again, loremasters can
get better long term weapons in the quests of the href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=443">Great
Barrows (in Bree-land) and then in the loremaster quest.



Instruments, however, are always good for minstrels.  They reduce
costs for minstrels, it is always important for minstrels to worry
about power availability, and this is the only way for a minstrel to
control costs or gain similar benefits.

Woodworking Basics

Woodworking is done fairly easily.  First and foremost, you need
treated wood.  For almost all the woodworker recipes, in general,
you are going to need weaponsmith components or ingots from the
prospector profession.  While wood is not as expensive as the same
tier ore and ingot in LOTRO, it isn’t cheap, and you will not be able
to purchase your wood if you wish to be able to break even or make a
profit with woodworking.



Stand near a workbench, simply make sure to have all the items listed
in your recipe in your inventory (they will be highlighted if you do,
grayed out if you don't), and have a woodworking saw near you. 
Then just click make and you will make one of your items.  There
are quite a few href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=612">recipes
you will need to find,



href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?full=1&set_albumName=album21&id=Collecting_Rowan_Wood&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Collecting Rowan"
src="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album21/Collecting_Rowan_Wood.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 174px;" align="left">Keeping
yourself stocked with wood is not always easy.  The wisest choice
to make sure you have enough wood is to have a character with the
explorer vocation, who then stockpiles treated wood, ingots, and earns
money for components by using sold ore.  Once prepared for
woodworking, make a second character who is your woodworker.  That
takes a lot of effort to do, but often is worth it.  Even more
value is added if you also have other characters who use the ore for
their professions, such as jewelers or metalsmiths.  To keep you
stocked, you also can make a woodsman vocation character, create boiled
leather from skins (and sell those) and then prepare your own wood,
buying components with your skin profits.  Leather and skins are
always needed, and the money can pay for those pesky components.



Once you have prepared your treated wood from a forester professional,
you need to decide what you wish to make. Almost always, you are going
to find you don’t need all the things you make.  Which means
selling your products.

Selling Your Products

An approach to improving your woodworking ability is the “long way”
(which earns you money) by making items people need.  A level 10
quest includes prepared rowan bowstaves (auction them in groups of
3).  These take a while, but will get you some money as people buy
these for the href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=605">auction
house.  You also can make some money off basic bows for
hunters, but usually this isn’t overly profitable.



For tiers 2 and 3, you will want to make instruments, and you won’t
want to make a special effort to make critical items, these items do
not provide enough of a difference to be worth it unless it is for your
own use.  For tier 3, consider making crossbows, some classes gain
access to ranged weapons (though not a primary ability) and a lot of
guardians and similar will want shiny new crossbows to use. 
Crossbows often do better than regular bows, because these are “shoot
once and then enter melee” type attacks, meant for pulling opponents
rather than drawn out damage (such as with hunters).



The short way to raise your woodworking ability is to simply pick the
lowest component item and make a lot of them, selling them when you
can, but basically just doing the best you can on simplicity.  In
the higher tiers, ranged weapons and instruments are the way to go to
keep your woodworking profitable.

Woodworking Rules

href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?full=1&set_albumName=album34&id=Crafted_Spear&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Items you can make"
src="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album34/Crafted_Spear.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 173px;" align="right">One
rule of thumb for woodworking: never throw away wood, the only time you
should walk past a node of wood is if you are in a party and in a rush,
or if it would be rude to take it.  Never throw away crit
items.  The crit items for woodworkers are particularly rare, and
you should always bank those items when they are available.  For
woodworking, you need 3 treated rowan, on average, to make a tier 1
item. You need 10 treated black ash to make a tier 5 item, so make sure
to collect your wood!

Woodworking Overall

Overall, woodworking is a simply somewhat easy profession, but this
goes hand in hand with less profitable sales, and perhaps a less broad
area of products than in other professions.   You definitely
can make a profit using woodworking.  It is a good profession for
a hunter or minstrel (because of the instruments, spears and
bows).  You will want to consider having a way to gain treated
wood before making a woodworker.. either by having access to forester
through being a woodsman, or by having an alt explorer.



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