The Scholar levels are the last levels where you’ll be able to make items from other
crafting class recipe sets. As a Scholar you’re able to make spells and combat arts for all
classes, as well as jewellery.
If you’re a new player you can save money by making your own spells, combat arts, or
jewellery as part of your leveling plan. Using as many different recipes as you can is also
a great way of increasing your rate of XP gain.
Unless you’re planning to push to the Alchemy level cap as quickly as possible, these
levels are a good time to start looking at how the market works, and maybe try to sell a
few things as well. If the level cap ASAP is your goal this probably won’t be something
you’ll bother about too much; however if you want to try and make a profit along the way,
it’s never too early to start thinking about what your customers want and need (see
section 7.3 for advice on making money selling your goods to other players).

One of the best things about becoming a Scholar is getting your new buff set. At level 10
you are finally able to buff your durability, making it much easier to achieve pristine quality
items. Getting pristine quality consistently is still quite difficult until the 30s, though, so
again don’t worry too much if you find you are still having some trouble with it.
Your new durability-boosting buff set is very similar to the one that you already had. You
have a buff that increases durability at the expense of progress, one that increases
durability and uses power, and one that increases durability but decreases your success
chance.
Working out when to use the various types of buffs is an art in itself. There are a number
of different ways in which you can manipulate your buff sets to achieve specific results.
See sections 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4 for tips on using your buffs to maximize your pristine rate
and experience gain.

At the end of level nine, you’ll stop gaining experience, as it’s time to choose your subclass
and get on with the business of being a Scholar. If you wish you can continue to
store experience (until the maximum of level nine and 220% stored experience) but you
are not able to become level 10 and scribe level 10 recipes until you complete a short
dialogue to choose your sub-class. To become a Scholar you must talk to Alethea
Augustine in West Freeport or Alfred Ironforge in Qeynos Harbor.
If you wait until you have the maximum amount of experience at level nine before
choosing your sub-class, then you’ll find that you don’t become level 10 immediately upon
making your choice, even if your experience bar is completely full and you have stored
experience as well. To get to level 10 you will need to head back to your instance and
make one more combine.

In the new-look Commonlands rocks and roots seem to be most plentiful along the coastal
cliffs and near the druid rings. When you’re harvesting in this zone be on the lookout for ?
nodes as these will sometimes yield Commonlands leaves which are used in a collection
quest for a 12 slot bag.
My favorite harvesting area in Antonica is the area outside Valen’s Tower. It’s quite safe
and there’s a very large area to harvest in. This area also has a ? node that usually yields
cracked bones (which sell quite well, often for several gold coins depending on the type of
bone). Antonica also has a leaf collection quest which yields a 12 slot backpack, for
which you must collect Antonican Ficus Leaves.

When you press the Create button, the crafting process begins. The time spent crafting
an item is divided into segments of time called ticks or rounds (roughly four seconds long).
At the start of each tick, a crafting event may occur, which you will need to counter using
the appropriate buff. After you have countered the event you can also use your other
buffs to affect the outcome of the crafting round. At the end of the tick, one of four things
will happen, listed as follows.
Critical Failure
-100 Durability and -50 Progress
Failure
-50 Durability and 0 Progress
Success (normal tick)
-10 Durability and +50 Progress
Critical Success
+10 Durability and + 100 Progress
Whichever buffs you decide to use in the tick will also influence the amount of durability
and progress you gain or lose or your chance of having a successful crafting round.

When you are crafting, your crafting window will display five green bars, each with an
empty bar below it. The green bars represent the durability of your item, and the empty
bars that fill up with blue as you make your item represent your progress.
You are able to make four different quality levels of an item, as represented by the four
smaller green bars in your crafting window. These quality levels are referred to as crude,
shaped, normal, and pristine. Normally you are going to want to make pristine as much
as possible, as you get more experience for a pristine combine than for the other quality
levels.
When you are making an item, your objective is usually to keep your durability as high as
you can while increasing your progress at the same time. This is somewhat difficult to do
as an Artisan, because you do not yet have any buffs for durability. In general do not
worry if you find you have a very hard time making pristine items – until you reach level 10
there isn’t much you can do about it unfortunately. However, these first few levels will race
by, and you’ll reach level ten and get your first durability buffs quite quickly.
For the moment, your best option is to use the buff called Experiment as often as you can,
and use the other two only when you need to counter an event.

Right click on each of your buffs to find out what they do. The information window will tell
you what events are countered by each buff, what the buff does, and what it costs to use it
(I have also included this information for you in a table in the Appendices section). You will
see that you have one which increases your progress but lowers your durability, one that
increases progress at the expense of power, and a third that increases your progress but
lowers your success chance slightly.
This is where the other use of your countering buffs comes in. You don’t need to wait until
an event occurs to use these skills – you may use them any time you like, to increase your
chances of successfully completing an item. It is extremely worthwhile to learn and
remember as soon as you can exactly what each of them does because using these skills
correctly will make a big difference in your success as a crafter.

Open up your knowledge book and click the Tradeskills button. You’ll bring up several
pages of skills. These are what you counter crafting events with. When you see an icon
appear in your crafting window, you must click on the corresponding icon from your
knowledge book to counter the event. There are different sets of icons for each tradeskill.
When working with Alchemy, you will use the icons that use the Chemistry technique.
You can hold your mouse over each icon to find out which technique it uses.
You must use these specific buffs to counter Alchemy events, but they also have another
use apart from countering.

Inside the crafting instance (any of them will do) you can speak to the quest NPC to get
started on the “Choosing a Profession” series of crafting quests. If you no longer have the
quest active (or you didn’t get the quest starter), you can buy a note from the quest NPC
that will give you the quest when you examine it.
There are eight quests in the series, one for each crafting class. This is my favorite way
of leveling an artisan crafter, as you get a lot of nice rewards out of the series –
experience for making the items and for completing each quest, a few copper for each
quest completed, a free copy of each of the Artisan Essentials recipe books, a ten slot
backpack which holds only harvested items, and a tunic which gives a small bonus to all
the crafting skills. These quests are very easy, and if you gather all the resources you
need before you start, you’ll complete all the quests very quickly as well. With that in mind,
the following list tells you exactly what you need to complete all the quests in the series.
Harvested Items Purchased Items
Frog Leg (2) Dough (1)
Leaded Loam (1) Kindling (1)
Malachite (1) Candle (1)
Lead Cluster (5) Incense (5)
Tin Cluster (7) Filament (5)
Elm (6) Sandpaper (6)
Rawhide Leather (6) Coal (9)
Roots (9)
For each item, you’ll need to use a different set of buffs to counter events with. Don’t
worry too much if you don’t get pristine on these, as any quality item will advance the
quest (but you will get more experience for pristine quality items).

While you are crafting, you’ll notice various icons appearing at the bottom of your crafting
window. These happen fairly often and are called crafting events. When they occur, you
have a chance to counter them. Successfully countering events can increase your
crafting progress or durability, and sometimes both. If you are not successful at
countering, your item may lose durability or progress, or both. In addition you may take a
small amount of physical damage.
There are also three rare crafting events, with special outcomes. These occur
infrequently, and give you extra rewards you when you successfully counter them.
Alchemist’s Insight is an uncommon event that grants you a bonus to durability and
progress for the item you are working on, and gives you a short duration buff that
significantly increases your Chemistry skill. Complete Efficiency is a rare event that
automatically finishes your item to the highest possible quality level when you successfully
counter. In addition, your finished item will not use up any components. The rarest event,
Favor of Innovation, automatically finishes the item you are working on to the highest
possible quality level, and in addition grants you a rare harvest for the level range and skill
you are working in. When you are working with Alchemy, the rare harvest given is
precious metal.