Compared to many browser games, Einherjar has a fairly deep and complex crafting system. For new players coming into the game, seeing the number of possibilities and options can be very daunting. That’s why I've decided to make this short little post on how to get a handle of the numerous craft buildings available, and what might be best for you.

Building slots are limited in Einherjar, so you have to make each one count. There are a total of 5 kinds of craft shops you can build.
Blacksmith - Weapons and Plate armour
Leathershop - Jerkins and 'medium' armour
Cloth shop - Armour for Mages and Clerics, as well as stat gear
Magic shop - Spells for Mages and Clerics, as well as rings/accessories
Accessory shop - Bows and Shields.

Now, there are a few shops which are in a way, 'mandatory'. You'll need to have at least 1 blacksmith in order to repair your weapons as they get damaged after use. If you are going to be using archers, then you'll need 1 accessory shop to repair your bows. You will also need 1 magic shop in order to craft 'Proofs'. Proofs are used to change your characters class and you can't trade the raw warrior proofs or the 3rd class valhalla emblems so you need to be able to do it yourself.

So, we know we need at least 3 craft shops out of the 5 available. The real choice/sacrifice, is on which crafts you want to specialise in (have 2 of). The way the game is structured, in order to make the best weapons/armours of each type you need at least 2 buildings of the craft. So if you want to make the best weapons, you need 2x blacksmiths. If you want the best leather armour, you need 2 leathershops. Before I go further, I'll just lay out how I believe to be the main strengths and flaws of each armour type.

Plate armour - Extremely high physical defence, the best plate armour offers by far the highest physical defence in the game. If you're wearing one of these, your character will be extremely difficult to kill by other physical characters. However, it has no magic resistance, no avoidance, and it can only be worn by the guard and 3rd class warrior characters (sword/spear/axe).
Leather Armour - Holding much less physical defence than plate, it makes up for that by granting a decent amount of avoid, a stack of hp, and some luck. A character in leather armour will instantly gain some buffer hp for surviving hits while gaining a nice stat boost to luck for some extra skill activations. Leather armour is also wearable by all warrior classes as well as archer classes.
Cloth Armour - With even less physical defence than leather armour, the cloth gear is very much a balanced, stat-heavy piece of equipment. It has even amounts of physical defence, avoid, and also gives magic resistance. But the most important aspect of cloth gear is that it grants useful stat boosts and is wearable by nearly every class.
Accessory Shop - The last armour type, the shields. Shields are similar to cloth armour in that they are fairly balanced and have a nice spread of defences. The difference is that shields provide higher base protection than either leather or cloth, at the cost of offering no stat or hp boosts. It has a bit more defence than leather, a little less magic resistance than cloth, but has very high avoid. A character using a shield might not gain any passive boosts through stats or hp, but their base defences will be very strong. Just like Plate, shields can only be used by the Guard and 3rd class warrior characters.

So thats the basic breakdown of how the main armour styles differ from each other. Keep in mind though, that armours really do only hold a small part of the formula. A strong warrior is created from a combination of their Gear, their Stats, and their Skills. Within the Gear section, you also need to think about weapons and most importantly, accessories. While some of the armour above might not appeal to you straight away, its very possible to tailor your character to how you want them through the other parts of your character.

I will end this post at this point, and my next few posts will talk a bit more about synergising your playstyle with your gear, possible combinations on craft shops, and some tips and hints on how to make the best of your character production-wise.

By galen_swiftblade
Current Guildmaster of Iron Wolves
http://ironwolves.enjin.com/home