First of all, there's a lots of guides/wikis for those who interested in trying the Living Skills feature in MWO. So i would like to add up some tips & tricks on what are the benefits of upgrading your Living Skills and how to do it in faster + economic way.
Living Skills Benefits:
Earn extra gold - you can sell the "good stats" crafted stuffs for extra gold.
DIY Gears - save your gold and make your own good quality gears.
Mount Food - decompose the crafted gear to produce food for your mounts.
Rare Potions - Some high-lvl HP/MP potion can only be produce through alchemy skill. But u\'ll need to learn the formula first to make them.
Rare Accesories - u can craft your own accesories (not implemented yet) with high lvl crafting skill. (Accessories need Lv7 ore which is not ingame)
Items Enchanting - as ur skills level up, u\'ll gain the ability to enchant cool stats to your gears/weapons. e.g: +Item drop, + % turn physical dmg into HP, +Vit etc. (Look at my enchantment guide)
More & More gold! - as ur skills increased, u\'ll be able to craft & decompose more valuable items which you can sell for good price! such as Fantastic magic Powder, high + item drop gears.
Getting Started:
Multi Accounts/Clients - train at least 3 characters to lvl20+ ( at least 1 Shadow Warrior > Temple Warrior). Regardless if u dont want to play Temple War, but its the best class to mine lv3 & lv4 crystal mine + farming using AoE. Maybe u can make Temple War as 2nd Main.
Level Requirements (Lv20+) - u can start speed up your living skill when u reach lvl20. Why? Because at lvl 20; you should have enough lv1 materials for tailoring (soft leather & flax), Lv8 Flammable stones for craftman, and also you can use all the solid gathering tools (more efficient + last long).
More Storage - no wonder why mwo encouraged us to play multi client, this is because its crafting features will consume a lots...and lots of storage. Keep all those tailoring materials and stones which dropped from monster and provide extra storage where necessary.
Speed-up Tips:
These tips will help you speed up your living skills without spending too much time farming for materials or spend a lots of gold to buy raw material.
Alchemy Tips: This is the easiest skill to level up. You just need to collect lv1 & lv2 herbs and start making lots of pots to increase its level. From Level 1 - 4 there should be no problem since the herbs always available at the starting map. From 4 & above u'll need some backup to protect you from monsters at the lv3 & lv4 herbs area unless u are a lv40+ Temple Warrior.
Smithing Tips: From 1-3 you can play around with the lv1 & lv2 crystal mine (gather from novice map). Choose any "Gauntlet" (lv1 + lv2 crystal) to level it up because it consume less materials than others. from 3 - 5, choose "Fortitude Gauntlet" ( 6x lv2 crystal + 1 lv4 crystal). From 5-6, start making Agi Crystal lv1 (3x lv4 crystal + 3x normal powder).
Tailoring Tips: From 1-3, gather as much lv1 cloth ( soft leather & flax). Craft only lv12 & lv20 Gauntlets items, use less materials. From 3-5 collect as much lv3 cloth ( satin & beast leather). U'll get all these materials as u train your character. From 5 & above, start making Phantom Armor Piece lv1 ( 3xsatin + 3x normal powder). So you'll no need to farm many materials from mobs anymore.
Crafting Tips: For lv1 skill, collect/buy enough lv8 Flammable Stone. From 2-5, you'll need a lots of powders, (normal & fine). You can get these powder by decomposing Lv1-12 items for Normal Powder & Lv13-24 items for Fine Powder. Decompose all the stuffs u've made using Smithing/Tailoring skill ( Lv12 Gauntlets & Lv20 gauntlets). Create a lots of these gauntlets to level up your smithing & tailoring skills and decompose them into powder. Then transmute the powders using your crafting skill ( normal into fine powder & fine into perfect powder). from 5-7, craft Bloodlust Heart lv1 (1x lv4 crystal mine + 3x normal powder). From 7-9, craft Bloodlust Heart lv5 (1x lv5 crystal mine + 3x perfect powder). You can also transmute perfect into excellent powder and excellent into fantastic to level up from 6-10.
Level your skills at the same time: Crafting needs powder from smithing/tailoring stuffs to level it faster instead of grinding the whole day for drops which less effective.
Buy materials: To make i a lot more easier/faster, you can just buy all those materials needed as mention above from other players.
Earn Gold: Wherever you came across in making a "Good" stats item, u can sell them for a good price.
