LOTRO Crafting Guide:
Picking the Best Guild

In this part of the LOTRO Crafting Guide we'll be taking a look at the various crafting guilds available. It can take a lot of time and energy to not only reach Supreme Master in your profession but also to get Kindred status with the guild you choose. Picking the wrong one can be very upsetting and cost you much of your valuable time! Hopefully this the guide will prevent that ;)

There are seven crafting guilds, one for each profession except for prospector, forester, and farmer.

Here are the possible guild choices ranked in the order that I think they fall, best to worst. Read on and I'll explain my rational.

     • Jeweler's Guild - Esteldin
     • Cook's Guild - Michel Delving
     • Scholar's Guild - Rivendell
     • Woodworker's Guild - Esteldin
     • Weaponsmith's Guild - Thorin's Hall
     • Tailor's Guild - Esteldin
     • Metalsmith's Guild - Thorin's Hall

I'm sure this wasn't the order you were expecting... and honestly I've been a bit surprised with the way crafting has turned out myself. I ranked these based on a few things: Usefulness of the stuff you can craft, the amount of gold you can make, and the demand for the crafted items. I'll explain each one in detail below.

Jeweler's Guild
I think this is the best overall profession and guild to choose. You can make some great jewelry for your toon that is usually in high demand. There is better jewelry out there from instance and raid drops... but it's pretty tough to get them. Thus the jeweler is a very solid guild. Most of the top level stuff sells for around 4 to 8 gold, so you can make good money off of it too.

Cook's Guild
Interestingly the cook profession and guild have become excellent choices. The new resistance foods, trail food, and morale/power regen foods are extremely useful and sell like crazy on the auction house. You can also make the +100 morale relics with the cook, making it my favorite guild at the moment!

Scholar's Guild
This choice has always been a good one throughout the game. You can make morale and power potions, scrolls of battle, scrolls of warding, and now a +100 power relic. You really can't go wrong here. The potions and scrolls always seem to sell like crazy on the auction house. Definitely one of the top LOTRO crafting guilds.

Woodworker's Guild
Honestly, all of the remaining guilds suck in my opinion. I ranked this one higher than the others because you can make the minstrel instruments with a woodworker. They sell for a LOT on the auction hall. I've seen the crit bagpipes go for 8 to 15 gold. They can also make the +20 agility relic... not bad. Sadly, though, the legendary weapons make the crafted woodworker weapons pretty useless.

Weaponsmith's Guild
At one time my favorite... now it's just plain meh... It can still be useful but the legendary weapons and items make it much less useful. You can make a +20 vitality relic that usually sells well. Other than that I haven't used my weaponsmith much lately :(

Tailor's Guild
This is still a pretty good LOTRO crafting guild choice. The tailor can make some nice cloaks... but most go for the cloak drop from Skumfil (Pendevig-clog) and the Cloak of Shadow and Flame. You can make a +20 fate relic which seems to sell well amongst the minstrels out there!

Metalsmith's Guild
Again a "meh" guild that can be useful on rare occasions. You can make pretty much the best heavy shields... but forget about making armour with it. The radiance armour has made crafted armour useless. Not to mention the crafted armour is complete junk. You can make a +20 might relic that doesn't seem to entice many people to waste their gold on...

Remember that these are simply my opinions and experiences with the various LOTRO crafting guilds. You never know when or how Turbine will change things, so what sucks now may be great later and vice versa. Use your own judgment!

I hope you found my LOTRO Professions Guide helpful. I plan on continuing to add to it, so check back often! And as always, let me know if you ever want information on any other crafting topics or have other requests!

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