No one size fits all pattern is perfect for everyone, and players will need to devise a combination that best fits their own progression. In the interest of avoiding a ‘one size fits all’ best combination suggestion, this page will focus on explaining what makes a combo efficient, and how to pick your best options.
The theory is to find a set of items to craft, that maximize profit per craft slot, utilizing all resources with no overlap
First we have to define what optimized means.
These are the metrics used –
- Utilize all available resources (iron/wood/leather/herb)
- 1 item per rare resource (jewel/ether)
- Highest margin items per resource without overlap
Assumptions
If you are crafting an item on repeat, with the sole purpose of profit, these assumptions are required to maximize your effort:
- The items in question are mastered
- The items in question are 3 star ascended
- You are rushing crafts with energy as soon as your resources have filled enough to allow for a new craft
- Profitability efficiency is defined over an hour of active play
Step 1 – Find Base Profitability
Pick a resource type to start with and find the highest base value item you can craft that uses that.
Find its base profitability –
Take the items resource cost and divide it by the amount of resources regenerated per minute (make sure to include any boosts). Do this for all resources required of the craft. This finds how many minutes it will take for each resource to refill enough to allow for another craft.
Divided 60 minutes, by the minutes to craft of the slowest regenerating resource.
The resulting number is your Crafts per hour
Next tackle the quest and precraft resources. Multiply the quest and precraft quantities by their normal market values, and sum the totals.
The resulting number is your Total Expenses
In general, all items you craft should be surcharged in your shop, but selling them on the market is a fine strategy as well. Decide where these items will ultimately be sold, and identify the price.
The resulting number is your Base Revenue
Finally, find your profitability over an hour –
(Base Revenue – Total Expenses) * Crafts per hour
Now just do the same math for the highest base value items that you can craft, for the other base resource types!
Step 2 – Rare Resource Allocation
To start, lets get one simple truth out of the way –
You can only reasonably manage 1 item per rare resource due to the regeneration rate bottleneck
This is our biggest twist in optimizing. We have to pick the most profitable combination of 4 basic resources, with a bottleneck on 2 rare resources.
You will need to identify your top two options, 1 for Jewel and 1 for Ether. Then fill in the other slots with items that require neither.
Couple Exceptions!
If you massively overstock your rare resources, for example by having 5 jewel/ether bins each. You can likely keep up with crafting multiple rare resource items by using a couple refills throughout the day.
Enchantments actually flip the script on resource bottleneck, and the common resource becomes the slowest. You can easily support 2 crafts per rare resource when doing enchants!
Step 3 – Making Use of Leftovers
You found your top Jewel and Ether earners, now what to do with the remaining resource types?
Simply locate the top earners that do not require rare resources.
Step 4 – Conditionals
Ensure you work out thresholds for material costs. Many items are more profitable than others because you can get their resources cheaper. If that resource cost starts to rise, confirm if it is still more profitable than the next item in line.
This is the hardest part, and one many players overlook. To maintain maximum profitability at any given time, you have to understand where your margins are, and what affects them. This is a learned skill, and simply requires experience and knowledge.
Step 5 – Cumulative Upkeep
Do it all over again every patch/pack.