reprinted below is an article I wrote and posted to the forums in my guild website. It is called "Crafting 101 - craft naked!" Enjoy!
Quote:
OK, they're not actually naked but many experienced crafters regularly choose to craft without wearing any armor, jewelery or weapons. Furthermore, these crafters also cancel all buffs and effects at the onset of the crafting session.
I personally follow this technique so before every crafting session, I delete all my current buffs and then my guilded toons change into status clothing, (merchant's shirt, pants & boots), while my unguilded toons change into an outfit of first tier, zero-stat cloth or leather armor. (And since LU25, they have also all added several of the new casual outfits to their wardrobe selection.)
So, why go to all this trouble just to make some stuff? Well, there is a simple and logical reason for this...
A little background: There is a basic rule in the way buffs work in the crafting instance. It is this; when you cast a crafting buff, (that costs power), instead of being a fixed cost, (like 50 or 80 points of mana), it will cost a fixed percentage of your available power pool. This will vary depending on the level of the caster but is typically between 10 & 15% of your pool. (This, by the way, is also the reason you can't "lean" on those power consuming buffs throughout an entire combine. With a total of 8 or 10 uses before you are out of power, you could never get through a pristine combine if you hit it every pulse!)
The wrinkle is that while the buffs cost a fixed percentage, power regen is still fixed at a specific number of points each pulse.
So, in order to maximize the speed at which your power returns, what you need to do is make your power pool as small as possible so that the percentage of each buff is the smallest amount it can be while the regen number each pulse is the largest amount it can be.
This also means you should use the best drink you have, but don't bother to eat, (since you don't need the stat boost and you shouldn't be losing any health).
With this set up, you will still use 10-15% of your power each time you cast one of those buffs, but now you will recoup power much quicker, (typically about 8-10% per pulse), so you will see much less downtime due to low mana.
What to wear? Well, if you've been doing writs, you will have some status points that you can spend at any city merchant for some cool stuff. Besides several different styles of "civilian" clothing, you can also get paintings and other home items and even a "rubic's cube"! These city merchants are located in various spots in Qeynos including one in Eldarr Grove and another in NQ.
If you don't have enough status points, (or you're saving them for a horse or a bigger apartment), then just go to any broker and buy some cheap lowbie armor! You should be able to find pants, a shirt and some boots all without ANY stats for a few silver! You could even go kill some T1 mobs till you get the drops you need, but that will take longer!
And finally, if you just wanna test the concept, (to see if I'm totally off my rocker!), you could just take off all your armor and jewelery and craft in the "pajamas" you were wearing when you rolled up the character!
Any way you decide to go, please try this out and see if you like it... I think you'll join the throngs of crafters who now "craft naked"!
(Now, if I could only find a bumper sticker!)