The Provisioner tradeskill is a unique one because it provides consumables that can be used by every class. Nearly everything you make will sell on a broker. Don’t expect big money, however. That’s left to Sages and such. The fact that everyone can use your wares (including yourself) can be a catch 22, because it can be hard to have anything left to sell after provisioning for yourself, your alts, and your friends. This is the only trade that can make alcohol. That alone makes it the best one to do!

This guide is created solely from my experiences with the trade. I don’t claim it’s going to be the best way to skill up or make money off it. With any tradeskill there can be a debate on the best skilling-up methods, quality vs. quantity, big chunks of exp vs. fast exp, etc...

Another nice thing about Provisioner is you will never have to make sub-components from another station, and you really don’t have to buy any sub-components unless you want to. It is also very easy to craft up an overflow of materials.

I will first give a brief overview of how buffs work. You have progress buffs and durability buffs. Progress buffs are the blue bar, which you ultimately want to hit the end of the 4th line. Durability is the green bar, which you ultimately don’t want to drop below the 4th line. If durability drops below any line when the blue bar is at or beyond one line above, you will end up making a lesser quality product. This guide is designed to get you to end the progress line on the 4th (best) quality.

There are 3 sets of buffs for progress and 3 sets of buffs for durability. There are also 2 levels of these buffs, making 12 total.

Heat progress buff level 1 – Constant Heat

Awareness progress buff level 1 – Awareness

Spice progress buff level 1 – Seasoning

Heat durability buff level 1 – Slow Simmer

Awareness durability buff level 1 – Realization

Spice durability buff level 1 – Spice Up

Heat progress buff level 2 – Rapid Boil

Awareness progress buff level 2 – Foresight

Spice progress buff level 2 – Pinch of Salt

Heat durability buff level 2 – Reduce Heat

Awareness durability buff level 2 – Apprehension

Spice durability buff level 2 – Dash of Pepper

You start out with the level 1 progress buffs first, and get the durability buffs at a later level. I do not remember all the level cutoffs for the buffs, so anytime you level, check your Tradeskills list. The level 2s replace the level 1s, so you should only have 6 buffs on your hot bar at any time. Mine looks like this:

1. Heat progress
2. Awareness progress
3. Spice progress
4. Heat durability
5. Awareness durability
6. Spice durability

The awareness buffs cost mana while the others don’t. You want to use the awareness buffs in moderation or save them for emergencies. It depends on your personal power regeneration. It is highly recommended that while crafting you are using the highest level crafted drink you can use.

When you start out Provisioner and only have the progress buffs, it can be difficult making the highest quality (refreshing/delectable), so don’t worry about it. Progress buffs increase the probability that durability will go down, so there are two ways to craft at this point:

Speed crafting – Just spam Heat/Awareness/Spice until you finish, not caring about what quality level you get. Pace the Awareness buffing so that you can “repeat” the recipe with little or no downtime.

Quality crafting – Wait until the crafting screen shows a buff icon then press that one. If you are lucky and the durability isn’t going down too fast try to spam a wave of Heat/Awareness/Spice. It takes practice to learn the best timing on this.

Once you get the set of durability buffs then the strategy changes. You can still speed craft as above but I don’t like doing that.

While crafting, the system does a “check” every cycle (6 seconds I believe) to see what the result is. The buffs you cast before each cycle help determine the outcome. After each cycle you will see two numbers pop up, the first one being the effect on durability, the second one being the effect on progress. Once the hotbar has the 6 buffs on it I craft this way:

Before cycle 1 – Heat and Spice durability.

* You can buff durability even when it is full. The extra durability goes to the item even though there is no bar showing the overflow.*

Before cycle 2 – Heat/Awareness/Spice durability

If I have received two positive hits on durability then I move to the progress buffs. In general, you want to have an overflow on durability by the time the progress bar gets half the way into the top line. If you received a negative durability hit or the progress line is not yet at the half mark, keep doing Heat/Awareness/Spice durability.

Once you get to the point where durability is over 100% and the blue progress bar is halfway in the first line, hit Heat/Awareness/Spice progress. Keep doing this every cycle. Eventually the durability overflow will get used up, and you will see durability start to drop below 100%. Don’t panic until the green durability line drops below half on the last line. If it does, use Heat/Awareness/Spice durability until it gets above half, then return to the progress buffs.

Often you can finish product spamming the progress buffs before durability drops off the last bar. Sometimes, though, you cannot, so it’s just a matter of returning to the 3 durability buffs to keep that green bar above the halfway mark. The reason I use the half mark is because a critical fail can drop half of the durability in one shot, and you can lose the best quality. Sometimes you just have to keep going up and down on durability like a yo-yo until you get safe.

Now, any time a buff icon (event icon) comes up on the crafting window I still follow the system above except that I lead off with the event icon first. For example, let's say my durability is above the half mark so I’m spamming progress buffs, then the awareness icon (event) pops up. I then hit: Awareness/Spice/Heat. I still get the bonus from all 3, but I make sure the first key press covers the requested icon.

Make sure to watch for the event "Provisioner's Insight" (awareness icon), this gives you a good buff.

Last note: If you get in trouble on mana, keep doing the same system, but skip the awareness buff and just use Heat/Spice for 2 or 3 cycles.

Using the above system takes practice to learn when to switch from durability to progress and back. You’ll never get perfect at it; I still switch between the two at the wrong times. However, I have arrived at the point where I can make the top quality of any recipe I use at least 9 out of 10 times. I hope this guide will help you get to the same point or better.

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this Provisioner Guide, please feel free to email <a href="http://eq2vault.ign.com/siteinfo/mail.php?staff=Varleah_Rose&subject=Provisioner%20Guide">Varleah_Rose.</a>