Greetings adventurers, Asterdahl here today to talk to you about the upcoming overhaul to the professions system coming in Neverwinter: The Heart of Fire. Big changes are coming to professions, so let’s jump right into the details.
Cryptic Studios, Perfect World Entertainment and MMORPG.com have teamed up to bring our readers an exclusive new developer blog shining the spotlight on Neverwinter's crafting professions.
The professions overhaul is a ground-up redesign of the entire professions system including entirely new recipes, a personal workshop, over 200 unique artisans to hire, and big changes to how recipes themselves are completed. Today I want to talk a little about the workshop itself, your new in-world base of operations for all things professions.
Recent events have left the longstanding workshop down by the Seven Suns Coster Market in Protector’s Enclave vacant and the owner of the property is looking for new leadership to take over. Thanks to Sergeant Knox’s suggestion, he’s looking for experienced adventurers to fill that role.
From the desk in your workshop you’ll be able to view applications from artisans. Artisans will no longer be faceless, nameless icons in your inventory. Once hired they will appear in your workshop. From your worktable you will be able to place orders for recipes which they will craft even when you’re away. An instant craft command will also be available, which you may use a certain number of times per day. Further rushes will cost astral diamonds, similar to the current system.
From the dispatch board you’ll be able to assign adventurers to gather raw materials and raw refinement stones via the gathering profession, which leadership has been reworked in to. For both worktable and gathering orders, you will be able to specify the number of times you wish for your artisan or adventurer to execute the task, including placing it on repeat!
Results from those tasks will be sent to the delivery box in your workshop. As long as you remember to empty the box before it fills up, artisans can continue to perform tasks on repeat. Upgrade your workshop for even more delivery slots so you can leave your workers to their devices for longer stretches.
With the workshop and the overall changes, we’re making professions something that you can make your own. Your artisans, your workshop. The system is still about managing artisans who craft goods for you, but it should be less tedious and more immersive.
As the release of The Heart of Fire nears we’ll be detailing various parts of the new system. There’s a lot to talk about—too much for one blog post in fact—so keep an eye on the news section for future posts.
In the meantime, I will be hosting a preview thread where I will answer questions about the upcoming changes and in so doing, go more in depth about some of the changes, so check that out if you can't wait for more information.
Finally, the professions overhaul is scheduled to be available on preview later this week. Playing around with the new system is the best way to learn about it, and under the Welcome to Neverwinter landing page, a new professions overhaul topic is available that allows you to ask specific questions about the transition.
Please keep in mind, whether you are playing on preview yourself or reading about other player’s experiences, everything on the preview shard is subject to change. Many important details are still being finalized, including but not limited to: tool and artisan stats, recipe difficulty, recipe materials, XP gained from recipes, recipe costs, XP required to level, and item level of produced goods.
We hope you look forward to the changes and try out the new professions system when it launches on your platform!
Doug “Asterdahl” Miller
Systems Designer
So you’ve been getting plenty of Rank 1, 2, 3 and 4 Enchantments and Runestones over your character’s career, taking up tons of valuable bag space in the process. Wouldn’t it be great if you could combine them together and create more powerful Enchantments and Runestones for you to use on your gear while simultaneously freeing up precious bag space? Keep reading to find out how.
“HELP! Where did all my bag space go?”
To fuse your Enchantments or Runestones, you’ll need four or more of that level and type of Enchantment or Runestone. For example, here are four Rank 1 Radiant Enchantments:
In order to access the fusion window, either double click on the Enchantments or right click on the Enchantments and click “Fuse into Greater”.
You will either have a fusion success or a failure, as shown by the following images:
If you are successful, you will create a single Rank 2 Radiant Enchantment. If you are not successful, you’ll lose one of your Rank 1 Enchantments and will have to get another one in order to try again.
Once you have four Rank 2 Enchantments, you’ll be able to create one Rank 3 Enchantment. Once you have four Rank 3 Enchantments, you’ll be able to create one Rank 4 Enchantment. They will max out at Rank 10.
As you start fusing your Enchantments and Runestones into higher and higher ranks, you may notice that your chance at a successful fusion decreases rapidly with each Enchantment rank increase, so much so that you will eventually have to start using items to help aide in the successful fusion of your Enchantments and Runestones.
In my opinion, you are safe in creating up to Rank 5 Enchantments just by fusing the previous ranks together without using a Preservation Ward or a Coalescent Ward. However, Rank 6 Enchantments only have a 40% success rate. It is at this point I recommend to start using Preservation Wards to protect your Rank 5 fusions from being destroyed in case of a fusion failure.
It’s really easy to check to see if it is worth using a Preservation Ward or not. Go to the auction house and look up the current price in Astral Diamonds for Preservation Wards. While the price will vary, the price at the time of this posting was about 4,000 AD for one Preservation Ward.
Now look up the Rank 5 of the type of Enchantment or Runestone you are about to try to fuse. For this example, I’m using the Rank 5 Dark Enchantment. As of this posting, they were going for around 6,000 Astral Diamonds. This means that it’s cheaper to lose a Preservation Ward, so it’s time to equip those wards on your fusion screen! If the fusion fails, it will protect your Enchantments or Runestones from being destroyed. The Preservation Ward, however, will be destroyed in the process and you’ll need to equip another one to protect your Enchantments. To equip one, just click the “Ward” button and select a Preservation Ward from your inventory while on the fusion screen.
When you start to fuse Rank 6’s together, you’ll see that you only have a 30% chance to get a Rank 7. Now is definitely the time to start using Preservation Wards if you are not already using them as you will fail more than one out of every three fusions. Making a Rank 8 Enchantment you’ll only have a 25% chance of success. One out of every four will be a failure. Making a Rank 9 Enchantment you’ll only have a 20% chance of success, and finally making a Rank 10 Enchantment will only have a 10% chance of success.
While Preservation Wards may be sufficient to protect your mid-tier ranks, such as Rank 5 and Rank 6, and allow you to progress to Rank 7, getting beyond Rank 7’s using just Preservation Wards is going to be a hassle. That is where Coalescent Wards come in. A Coalescent Ward, when paired with 4 of the same rank Enchantment or Runestone, will guarantee a fusion of those Runestones or Enchantments. For example, if you use a Coalescent Ward while trying to fuse four Rank 6 Enchantments, you are guaranteed to get a Rank 7 Enchantment in return. This comes at a cost of course – the Coalescent Ward itself. To equip a Coalescent Ward, equip it the same way you would the Preservation Ward, by clicking the Ward button on the Fusion screen and selecting the Coalescent Ward from your inventory.
Coalescent Wards generally come from two places. One is the Zen Market, but as it stands, it is extremely overpriced there and I do not recommend buying it from there – Save your Zen for something that can benefit your entire account, such as a rare or epic mount. Your second obvious place is going to be the Auction House and you’ll find them reasonable anywhere between 100,000 AD to 120,000 AD. Likewise if you are lucky, a player may be selling one for gold. Expect to pay upwards of 100-150 gold per Coalescent Ward if you manage to buy one from another player. There is, however, a third option at gaining Coalescent Wards – saving up your Celestial Coins and buying a Coffer of Wondrous Augmentation from the Celestial Synergy tab at the Vault of Piety.
This is a wise purchase in my opinion as it’ll use up your maximum allowance of coins every time (Remember, you can only have a maximum of 7 Celestial Coins on your character at any given time. If you don’t use them, you won’t get anymore until you buy something from the Celestial Synergy tab in the Vault of Piety). After making your purchase of the Coffer of Wondrous Augmentation, open your inventory and locate it. It’ll look like a blue chest. Double click on it or right click on it and click open and click ok on the prompt that appears. The chest will now open and reveal the goodies within. If you are lucky, you’ll get a Coalescent Ward on your first try! If not, feel free to save up another 7 coins and try your luck again.
So how common are Coalescent Wards when compared to Preservation Wards when opening the Coffer of Wondrous Augmentation? After a little over 100 total Coffers opened, I’ve found that the following are fairly accurate odds:
80% Chance of getting a Preservation Ward
20% Chance of getting a Coalescent Ward
This means you should get a Coalescent Ward in one out of every five Coffers you open.
Neverwinter Professions Leveling Guide
When are Coalescent Wards an absolute must you may ask? When using special Epic Enchantments such as Weapon Enchantments and Armor Enchantments that come in shard form. Unlike with the Rank 1-10 Enchantments, they are not usable while in Shard Form. Like with the Rank 1-10 Enchantments, however, you’ll need four of them to fuse together in order to make a usable Enchantment and then an additional four to create more powerful versions of said Epic Enchantments. Coalescent Wards are an absolute must for these Epic Enchantments because they have a successful fusion rate of just 1%! In other words, if you don’t use a Coalescent Ward, you are in all likelihood going to lose a Shard.
For example, to create a Lesser Bilethorn Enchantment, you’ll need 4 Shards of Bilethorn Enchantment. After gathering the four shards, double click them to open the fusion window. You’ll have to equip a Coalescent Ward, which will guarantee a successful fusion – however, this means the Coalescent Ward will be consumed in the process. You will be presented with a shiny Lesser Bilethorn Enchantment for your troubles, however!
Neverwinter Professions Quest
In order to create higher ranks of these Epic Enchantments, you’ll need to collect more shards, create more of the Lesser Enchantments, and fuse four of the Lesser Enchantments together to create a Normal Enchantment. Four Normal Enchantments creates a Greater Enchantment and Four of those make a Perfect Enchantment which is the maximum level currently for Epic Enchantments.