Spoiler alert, if you want to learn Crafting yourself, don't read below!!

Kudos to the following forum posters for information I've included in this guide: ZaneKek and Follower.

They've introduced Chaos to crafting with many changes to the process. This change has introduced a good deal of confusion to the old crafting process. I've gathered information from the release notes, forums, my experience, and other players to try and make sense of it all. While this is not a complete guide (changes are still being made), it should get you started and shed some light on the subject. While it's difficult to fully understand the crafting process, it does provide the best items for the player. Most items you find in chests will be white (regular), green (uncommon), and rarely blue (rare). With crafting you can make those and more (epic and legendary items); once you get to the right level and with all the crafting skills. As you start out (lvl 1 - 15, my experience) you'll be hard pressed to get to a quality level of 100 on anything (100 - 150 makes a blue/rare item). Currently the maximum quality is 200-250, depending on the type of item being made and your skills. At lvl 22, blue items were the highest I was able to make, at lvl 35 I've been able to make purple and gold (epic and legendary) items regularly.

Crafting can be accomplished in two ways; using the 'Q' button (only white level items can be made) or using the 'Craft' button. If the 'Craft' button is used, your quality stops once Chaos reaches 100. Simple crafting (ingots, household items, etc.) can be done in mass using only the 'Q' button, but there are bonuses for using the 'Craft' system. For example, make ingots using the 'Q' button yields only 1 ingot per 5 ores. Using the 'Craft' system you can get from 1-4 ingots per 5 ores depending on the quality of each smelting. Four ingots only occur when you hit a perfect 200 quality before crafting. at lvl 35 I was able to get 3 ingots per 5 adamantite ore regularly with a few 2s and 4s. While it takes longer to use the 'Craft' system for ingots, the output is worth it. I had 200 adamantite ore which would yield only 40 ingots using the ‘Q’ button, but yielded over 100 using the ‘Craft’ button.

The player must stand near one of three stations (Forge, Workstation, or Syle Chamber) to craft. Which is required by the recipe, is indicated by a small icon near the bottom of the window (near the "Craft" button). Each recipe has two requirements, a list of resource(s) and a station (mentioned above). The simple recipes can be done anywhere without a station (like wood, platforms, and torches). As long as the resources are in your inventory or in a chest/box near the station, you can use them. Follow the menus in the crafting window to find the recipe you want to make, if it's highlighted, you have all the resources and are near the required station. Recipes will be discovered through research or scrolls found as loot. Scrolls are deciphered by the Research NPC for a fee.

Crafting is affected by the following:

• Attachments to your crafting station (5 allowed per station).
  
• The level and type of the skills you spent crafting experience on (on Talent page 'T').
  
• Player skill and experience in picking the right skill/action at the right time in the right circumstance.
  
• And... Pure luck (this is the Chaos per of the process, you play the hand you're dealt).

I wanted to provide an incentive to learning how to craft. So, I'm including a series of pictures to show how a legendary piece of armor progresses from low level to higher level; the stats grow greatly as it improves...

Level 7 Legedary Studded Helm



Level 15 Legendary Enmchanted Hood



Level 24 Legendary Spectral Hood



Level 32 Legendary Mystic Hood



Each higher level item requried the previous lower level item to craft. It carried the stats from one to the other and enhanced them. This allows you to make a studded helm that has stats you want in the final product. BTW, the studded helm is used in multiple recipes for higher level helms.

The items below are found in gold & Imperial Chests and can be placed on your crafting station by left clicking them in your bag and clicking on your station. Read the descriptions below for each to see what they add to the crafting process.

The Forge:

• Blacksmith Hammer - Modifies 'Convert Chaos', +25% chaos conversion to quality
  
• Bellows - +25% quality and +25% Chaos
  
• Ingot Mold - +25 initial quality (ingots only)
  
• Slack Tub - Prevent Chaos from being gained every 8 steps

The Work Bench

• Grinding Wheel - Modifies 'Polish', +1 quality
  
• Spinning Wheel - +1 quality if quality is gained on each step
  
• Magnifying Glass - Modifies 'Focus', +2 duration
  
• Chisel Set - +2 quality

The Syle Chamber

• Pressure Gauge - -1 Chaos per step
  
• Trigger Attachment - Modifies 'Delay', -2 duration
  
• Attuning Apparatus - All skills cost 1 until first trigger
  
• Cooling Compartment - Increase CT steps by 1

All stations can have one of these four gobal attachments applied (you can change them by applying a new one, the old one will drop):

1. Renewal Crystal - +5 quality when a skill recharges
   
2. Balance Crystal - Adds trigger, rounds to nearest 50 and +3 steps on next trigger
   
3. Catalyst Attuner - +1 quality for each level in Catalyst Research when using a catalyst
   
4. Remna Attuner - +25% initial quality

On the crafting tab in your talent page (default 'T') is a list of skills used in crafting. These can be used to influence the Chaos process and mitigate condition or triggers. Using your skills in response to the changing conditions and quality progress is the art/science part of crafting. Luck plays a role in the ultimate quality of your crafted item. Your crafting experience, level of recipe, and skills affects the initial quality of the item you're crafting.

List of skills:

Passives

Expertise: Increases a crafted item’s potential maximum quality.
Innovate: Increase s ability to research higher level recipes.
Scrap Master: Research has an increased chance to yield an additional scrap piece.
Catalyst Research: Adds additional catalysts count during crafting.
Material Master: Gain an additional % to craft’s initial quality.

Active

Refine has a step cost of 1, no Duration, and no Recharge. It is the default actions for improving quality. Using Refine adds +1 to +5 quality, in addition to any other amount attachments or buff add, per use. It consumes a single step towards the next trigger. Raising this skill will increase the amount of quality for each step.

Polish has a Step Cost of 3, Duration of 8, and a Recharge of 7. It is a useful skill (buff) that adds quality every step when active, but cost 3 steps. This is useful for two 'Triggers': "half quality gain" (HQG) and "+7 chaos every skill"(7Sk). So, you can skip 3 steps and gain 7 chaos instead of 21, and also gain some quality later. For HQG, it limits the duration of the halving of your quality; this might be good if the next trigger is helpful or avoidable. Raising this skill reduces its cooldown, raises its duration, and improves the quality gains.

Combat Chaos (CC) has a Step Cost of 2, Duration of 5, and a Recharge of 25. It decreases chaos for duration if you gain quality for step. It is useful to minimize the terrible trigger "Each Step: +5 chaos" (5St). So you can use it 2 steps before trigger and then spam Refine for duration, so you'll take only 3 chaos instead of 5 every step. Raising this skill reduces its cooldown and raises its duration.

Concentrate has a Step Cost of 4, Duration of 8, and a Recharge of 4. It is mighty but a step-expensive skill. It's better used to skip through HQG and then spam Refine again. Perfect fit is when HQG turns into 5St, so Concentrate 6 steps before trigger, then Combat Chaos 2 steps before, them Refine all the way. Raising this skill reduces its cooldown, raises its duration, and improves the quality gains.

Modify Catalyst (MC) has a Step Cost of 2, Duration of 2, and no Recharge. It is great at high skill levels, and uses catalysts, for the duration, to remove Chaos. So prepare some catalysts before difficult crafting and use them immediately after that skill to get some nice quality bonus that removes Chaos. Once this skill is used, you must use the Catalyst button at the bottom of the interface to get the benefit, not the Refine skill. Raising this skill reduces its cost and raises its duration.

Focus has a Step Cost of 2, Duration of 3, and a Recharge of 25. It doubles quality gain, but has a short duration. Best time to use it is when your 'Concentrate' buff is up with Refine or Catalyst or a well-timed Convert Chaos (CC). Calculate needed steps before using, as it has a short duration. Raising this skill reduces its cost and cooldown while raises it's duration.

Convert Chaos has a Step Cost of 3, Duration of 3, and a Recharge of 20. It is tremendously useful skill, but it has terribly long recharge. Any gained chaos is turned into quality. I don’t know if this is a bug or not, but its actual duration is not just 2 steps while buff is active, but also 3 steps when it's channeling. Great for "+20 chaos" (20C) trigger, late "+25% chaos"(25%) trigger (like at 95 chaos) and late Refine with 7Sk, when you get 7 chaos for skill and like 5 just for a lot of triggers you've had. Raising this skill reduces its cooldown, raises its duration, and provides a greater convert ratio.

Postpone has a Step Cost of 3, Duration of CT, and no Recharge. It is interesting skill to use for step management, but has rare chance to be used effectively. Its duration expires at the end of the current trigger (CT).

Recourse has a Step Cost of 2, no Duration, and a Recharge of 3. It has a great chance to change bad trigger into a worst trigger. It’s a complete gamble on whether the next trigger will be better. Might be useful late for 7Sk or 5St.

Delay has a Step Cost of 2, Duration of 5, and a Recharge of 2. It needs insane calculations to use it effectively. Basically it takes 2 steps from one trigger and adds them to another trigger 5 steps later. It may be good for getting rid of HQG and adding safe time to like 20C.
Recourse and Delay, are expensive and not immediately useful, level up the other skills first to maximize your crafting quality.

The crafting window:



The more skills you spend your crafting experience points on, the more icons will be in the area at the bottom of the window. The Quality bar indicates the item's initial quality. So far it looks like the following; 1-49 is white/common, 50-99 is green/uncommon, 100-149 is blue/rare, 150-199 is purple/epic, and 200-250 is golden/legendary. Basic items don't have a rarity (common, uncommon, etc.), only the amount possible to craft (1-x). As mentioned above, when the Chaos bar reaches 100, you can’t improve the item anymore and must Complete. Your mission is to get the highest Quality before your Chaos gets to 100.

The quality of your crafted item does not influence or change the attributes selected for your final product. That legendary chest piece you made for your melee character may have only spell caster attributes... Quality does decide the intensity of the attributes that are randomly selected, and no you can't see them ahead of time ;). Some attributes selected are standard for the type of item (defense for armor), but the secondary ones look to be random.

The advanced level recipes for armor, weapons, and tools call for the last version you have as a part of the recipe. It takes into account the item’s quality as a part of the initial starting quality. The attributes on this low level item are also carried forward to the finished product, so remake the lowest level item to have the quality and attributes you want. Once you get all your crafting skills leveled up, remake all your low level items and work your way up to better high level items.

Improving an item you're crafting involves a step by step process in a series of rounds like a boxing match. Each thing you do cost one or more steps to complete. 'Refine' is the base quality action not based on a skill and cost one step for each use. 'Catalyst' is not based on a skill, but requires you have a catalyst nearby (made from way crystals). Read the skill descriptions below to see how many steps each skill costs. The 'Steps Until' means how long the Active Trigger will last in steps before the Next Trigger becomes Active. The round ends when the 'Steps Until' runs out. The 'Trigger' field tells you what Action will happen during or at the end of the round and the 'Next Trigger' field tells you the same for the next round. This second one you can change, with consequences, with a skill. What Action appears in the Next Trigger field is randomly picked at the end of each round. The 'Catalyst' action is different than 'Refine' in that the skill, Modify Catalyst, allows you to use a catalyst to remove Chaos. Each skill has a cost, duration, and recharge (example: Concentrate has a Step Cost of 4, Duration of 8, and a Recharge of 4). The cost is the number of steps the skill will burn, the duration indicates how long the skill will last in steps, and the recharge is how many steps the skill is offline before it can be used again.

Common triggers: "Each Step: +5 chaos", "Each Step: +7 chaos", "+20 chaos", "Each Skill: +7 chaos", “Half Quality Gain”, “+25% Chaos”. Some definitions: For Active Trigger "Each Step: +5 chaos" Steps Until: 5 means the next 5 steps will cost 5 chaos per step, for a total of 25. Some skills require more than 1 step like Concentrate which requires 4 steps. If you cast Concentrate when the Active Trigger is "Each Skill: +7 chaos" (Steps Until: 5) then the Concentrate will use 4 steps but only cost +7 chaos because it a skill and there will be 1 step left in the Active Trigger. If you cast Concentrate when the Active Trigger is "+5 chaos per step" then Concentrate will cost you +20 chaos.

If you see the Next Trigger is +20 chaos and you have Steps Until: 4; cast Convert Chaos which will use 3 Steps so 1 Step is left then cast Focus. This Combo will give you a ton of Quality and 0 Chaos when the Next Trigger (+20 Chaos) comes. When chaos hits 100 that’s the end of crafting; you have to minimize chaos gain while maximizing quality gain through the use of specific skills at specific times.

The higher level skills make it easier to get higher quality. With all the skills leveled up its moderately easy to get between 200-250 quality. The higher the quality the better the weapon/armor or the more metal ingots (Bronze, Iron, Silver, Gold, Adamantite) you craft.
In addition to any Chaos the trigger applies, each step the chaos increases by the number of triggers that have occurred. On your first few steps, no trigger has occurred so no Chaos is added. If you've gone through 3 triggers then each step will increase Chaos by +3. If you use a skill with a cost of 3 steps, it will add +9 Chaos to your total. You have to be very careful in the later stages on picking a skill that has a lot of steps if you've had a lot of triggers pass.

Attach as many tools to your crafting stations as you can find. Pick the right tools on the workstation before beginning your crafting session.

Use catalysts for higher level items to help in reducing the bad luck factor in getting back to back bad trigger effects. Don’t forget to craft some catalysts from your way crystals before starting to craft an important item.

Use the crafting of ingots to test the various skills and timing vs. the trigger effects. Learn the combos that avoid or minimize bad effects and maximize good ones.

Use ‘craft’ button for ores and gems, ore will return 1-3 extra ingots and you can get double the gems for your efforts.

Take your time and look at the 'Next Trigger' value to see what's coming and plan to counter act or take advantage of the new condition.

Put some large chests near each of your crafting stations and put those items most used for that station in them. Then you won't have to carry all the items in your inventory to craft.

Fill these chests full with items, then you can use the Deposit button and it will only put in things that are already there, leaving your adventure supplies in your inventory. There is a Stack button and this only puts items in the chest that's already there, however, it will put all of the stacks in your bag if there's room.

Balance mitigation of bad conditions with advancing quality. The more triggers that have passed increase the Chaos per step penalty for each subsequent skill used.

Some example images of trigger combos you may see:







If you got this far, I applaud you. Thanks for reading.