To Smith or Not to Smith

[droll]

Hey All,
Just joined today. Looks like a great resource here. I'm new to Diablo alltogether (Barb, lvl 22, Act III) and have a question I've been getting different info on.

Should I smith or not?

Some have said I should use my blue items for smithing, and others have said to just skip the whole thing because I'll never get as good a weapon from drops or the auction house. Any thoughts? Oh and there's gems too... any suggestions with gem crafting would be helpful as well.

Thanks!

[spiffymcbang]

Generally speaking the AH will get you the best gear fastest for your coin at your current level. That is not to say you can not craft better from the smith but you need to get lucky and could waste a lot of resources doing it. Most folks say to use the auction house. Some people love to gamble.

Gems are very cheap on the AH up to a point. 2nd tier squares. After that the price jumps. So you can just buy those.

Unless you like to do things yourself and gamble with smith. All up to you. There are some thoughts on this in the sticky at the top of this forum.

[droll]

Generally speaking the AH will get you the best gear fastest for your coin at your current level. That is not to say you can not craft better from the smith but you need to get lucky and could waste a lot of resources doing it. Most folks say to use the auction house. Some people love to gamble.

Gems are very cheap on the AH up to a point. 2nd tier squares. After that the price jumps. So you can just buy those.

Unless you like to do things yourself and gamble with smith. All up to you. There are some thoughts on this in the sticky at the top of this forum.

Does this change on higher levels? Meaning, will smithing become more affordable the higher your level? I'll check out the sticky thanks.

[SnickerSnack]

Smithing was recently changed to be much cheaper, so be aware of that.

As far as whether you should smith or AH... I think overuse of the AH quickly leads to boredom (for me, at least). According to one of the blizz devs/reps (and I forget which one), buying stuff on the auction house thrusts you forward in the items race and it means that you'll have to play longer to get that next upgrade from drops. But, the whole reason you bought items was probably that drops weren't awesome enough for the pace you wanted. So, it's really up to you. If you want to be constantly amassing gold to buy all of your new items, then go ahead, if that's fun. But, I think you should be a bit cautious of the GAH and use the smith a bit. Try both and go in whichever direction seems the most fun.