Green Steel items

Green Steel items
The term Green Steel blanks, or simply Green Steel items, refers to the base item crafted using base ingredients (Pebbles, Funk, Twigs, etc...) with no additional upgrades applied to it. These are Bind on Equip and can be traded, mailed and auctioned before being equipped.

See following for the list of items;
 * Green Steel Weapons (base damage comparison)
 * Green Steel Accessories

How to create Green Steel Blanks
First off, you need access to the Vale of Twilight adventure pack (meaning you have directly purchased it within the DDO Store, or are actively a VIP)

To make a Green Steel Blank weapon (ML:12) or accessory (ML:11) you need to do the 5 prerequisite quests to enter the Shroud.

They are:
 * '''Let Sleeping Dust Lie
 * '''Rainbow in the Dark
 * '''Ritual Sacrifice
 * '''Running with the Devils
 * '''The Coalescence Chamber

From each of the above mentioned quests the player receives both Shavarath Stone of _______ and often a random Raw Ingredient for greensteel crafting. Some of these Raw Ingredients can also be found by looting chests from rare encounters in the Vale of Twilight.

You need 40 favor towards The Twelve to access the Altar of Fecundity where Green Steel blanks are created. The player receives an in-game Mail from the Twelve to lead to the next part of the chain. Once the player completes the first tutorial on how to use the Altar, they can craft  manufactured ingredients needed for Green Steel blanks.

To create a Shavarath Signet Stone, required by all Green Steel blanks, combine the five differently colored Shavarath Stones within the Altar of Fecundity. You can then decide which Green Steel to make: an accessory item, or a weapon. The Raw Ingredients for these come from the Vale quests and rares.

You usually won't initially have enough Raw Ingredients to create a Green Steel blank the first time you gain access to the Altar of Fecundity.

Upgrading Green Steel Blanks
To upgrade a Green Steel blank to something more useful, run the raid The Thirteenth Eclipse, more often known as The Shroud.

Upgrading Green Steel items functions in the same way as creating the blank. Gather raw ingredients from the chests within the Shroud and combine at the appropriate Altars within the Shroud. The Green Steel item upgrades using imbued Shards of Power, created by manufacturing raw ingredients from the proper tier. The general formula for Green Steel is as follows:


 * Raw materials from chests &rarr; Manufactured Ingredients
 * Manufactured Ingredients + proper power source + proper Shard of Power &rarr; Imbued Shard
 * Imbued shard + Green Steel item + proper power source &rarr; Upgraded Green Steel

Common knowledge about Green Steel items

 * EVERY green steel blank weapon or accessory that you craft requires a Shavarath Signet Stone, which in turn requires all 5 of the Shavarath Stones to create: Might (Ritual Sacrifice), Battle (Running with Devils), Strategy (Let Sleeping Dust Lie), Victory (The Coalescence Chamber), & Foresight (Rainbow in the Dark).


 * These items will bind to your character once equipped or "upgraded" with the tiered bonuses - only the unequipped, "raw" items may be traded to other characters/players or sold through the auction house.


 * Green Steel weapons are considered Evil for means of bypassing damage reduction.


 * Only one Green Steel accessory may be equipped at a time without penalty prior to being cleansed by a Essence of Cleansing acquired on the 20th completion of the Shroud. Weapons are not bound by this rule and can be wielded freely.
 * Using an Essence of Cleansing on a Green Steel blank item will immediately bind the blank to that character.


 * Green Steel Accessories have a minimum level of 11 to be equipped; Green Steel Weapons have a minimum level of 12. As such, they are quite useful to those who undergo a True Reincarnation on their character.


 * Green Steel handwraps do not exist. See the Handwraps article for more, as well as Incredible Potential rings.


 * Some of the Manufactured Ingredients to create a Green Steel Blank have multiple recipes: Use whichever you have enough raw ingredients for.


 * Green Steel can only be upgraded while the player is not on timer for the Shroud (aside from creating Green Steel blanks (and, if the player has access to the Devils of Shavarath adventure pack, the Altar of Subjugation) since all the upgrading altars are within the raid instance. Another exception is when a guild has a high enough level to acquire altars on their Guild Airship. This requires you to be a guild member or be invited by a guild member to their airship.


 * If you make a mistake while upgrading your Green Steel Item, you will NOT be able to fix it. Be very careful when planning what effects you want to add to your item, and make sure you are adding the correct effect at each Altar. If you do make a mistake while creating a Green Steel Item, you can use Yellow Dopant to deconstruct said Green Steel Item at the Invasion, Subjugation, and Devastation altars since U14. Keep in mind that deconstruction will only return roughly half of the Ingredients required to make an item of the same tier.

Notes:
 * Since U14 some Exceptional bonuses have changed to Insight bonuses. The Green Steel Altars will now apply Insight bonuses however, the Shard descriptions on screen may still show them as Exceptional bonuses (bug).  Insight bonuses do not stack.  Previously crafted Green Steel items do not appear to have changed.
 * Update 19 changed the Exceptional bonuses to skills. The bonuses have been doubled however they no longer stack.

Weapons

 * Lit II - Positive/Air/Air+ Positive or Air/Positive/Air+Positive
 * For a weapon dedicated to damage, the high peak damage of a Lightning Strike (Lightning II effect) has made it the damage weapon of choice. Also, the good property is useful for getting by many DRs. It does require a double-imbued superior shard, so some time to make.
 * The effects of choice are all damage - usually Holy/Shocking Burst/Shocking Blast, but some prefer Shock/Good Burst/Shocking Blast because Good will affect neutral and evil enemies such as Elementals, while Holy only effects evil enemies.
 * Artificers can get this effect from Toven's Hammer, and traditionally two items with the same effect do not produce a double chance to produce effect, only a higher average damage (it seems that twice the set of "dice" are rolled, and the higher 1/2 of the rolls are kept, this is from in-game testing during update 12 using Charged Gauntlets and a Greater Bold Trinket, both of which produce a Shocking Blow effect).
 * Normally an Elemental burst bow stacks with arrows of same elemental type: firing Shock arrows from Shocking Burst bow produces 2d6 lightning damage on every hit (and 2d10 on crits). Due to an apparent bug, this is not the case with Shocking Burst greensteel bows, Lit II or otherwise. Shock damage from arrows does not stack.


 * Fire II - Fire/Fire/Fire
 * For characters just starting at 20 (or those equipping Toven's Hammer) making an Incineration (Fire II) weapon gives the same average damage (in fire of course) as the Lighting II, just more spread out (1/2 the damage and twice the proc rate), and takes a single imbued superior shard (so a lot less in the way of materials). However, many of the mobs you will be fighting later on are either highly resistant or immune to fire.
 * Normal Build is Flaming/Flaming Burst/Flaming Blast
 * At level 20, items such as Epic Hellfire Crossbow are preferred over Green Steel for the Incineration effect.


 * Ice II - Water/Water/Water
 * Characters just starting at 20 may also want to craft a Crushing Wave (Ice II) weapon - it also requires a single imbued shard. The effect, which splits its damage between cold and blunt, is a damage over time effect, for less net damage than either Incineration or Lightning Strike, but is useful for enemies immune to the elemental damage of your primary weapon, or that are vulnerable to cold.
 * Normal Build is Frost/Icy Burst/Icy Blast
 * For characters planning on staying at level 20, this is the same effect which is the main proc effect on epic weapons earned from running challenges. Running the challenges takes significantly less real time than acquiring the shroud materials, as there is no 3-day wait between runs.


 * Mineral II - Positive/Earth/Earth+Positive or Earth/Positive/Earth+Positive
 * Another common Green Steel weapon is a Mineral II weapon for its Metalline + Good properties for getting through most bosses Damage reduction.
 * Since Update 10 Cannith Crafting, this has been less common.


 * Buff Off hand weapons
 * Characters dual-wielding weapons will frequently make their off-hand weapon a "Buff" weapon, sacrificing their Tier 3 bonus for an item which complements their build with a single imbued superior shard. Common Tier 3 effects are:
 * Insight AC bonus +4 effect
 * +30% healing amplification
 * +2 Exceptional Stat (Normally made by casters)
 * Common Tier I & II effects in this case are:
 * +6 Wisdom/+10 Diplomacy/+10 Haggling, commonly paired with +6 Strength (or other stat)
 * +3 Resistance/+11 Balance/+3 Deflection usually paired with Shock or Acid and Shocking Burst or Acid Burst
 * Any build with a +1 Exceptional stat
 * GS items whose sole purpose was to gain +3 exceptional stat ("Charisma stick", "Int stick", and "Wis Stick") has been less common since Incredible Potential was implemented.

Accessories

 * Immunity item: The tier I effects Blindness Immunity & Disease Immunity, the tier two effects Poison Immunity & Fear Immunity, and the tier three effect of Deathblock provides a solid set of resistances (and gave the tier 2 bonus effect of symbol of weakness 3/day) while only needing a single imbued shard.
 * The old recommendation was to craft a set of Goggles, but since goggles may now have up to a +4 bonus to hit from crafting, more experienced players may have changed the itemization recommendation, but it is still a good item for characters with low crafting about to do their 1st TR.


 * HP item: A must-have is an item for hit points, with Greater Elemental Energy (+20 hp), Improved Elemental Energy (+15 hp), and Elemental Energy (+10 hp). The +45 hp boost is considered too good to pass up. Bonus effects that are popular are:
 * Stoneskin 2/day for tier II bonus, with Heavy Fortification and Protection +5 for the tier III bonus effect
 * Displacement 2/day for tier II bonus and 20% permanent Blur for tier 3 bonus effect
 * For a single imbued superior shard (cheapest ingredient cost) a common build is Balance of Land and Sky (Tier 2 bonus, +3 Resistance/+3 Deflection/+11) and no Tier 3 bonus effect


 * Mana item:For spell-casters and healers, Wizardry VI can be paired with +50 Spell Points and +100 Spell points (Elemental Spell Power), for a total of 300 or 450 extra SP. Multiple builds achieve this result, but a few common ones are:
 * Air/Air/Air (cheapest ingredient consumption, haste effects and clickies, and Exceptional +6 Cha for UMD)
 * Positive/Positive/Positive (Raise Dead click ability, Greater Disruption Guard, Exceptional +6 Cha for UMD and fairly cheap ingredient cost)
 * Negative/Positive/Negative+Positive (Concordant Opposition, +6 Wis/+10 Haggle/+10 Diplo. tier 2 bonus, Exceptional +5 Cha for UMD)


 * Equipping more than one of these at the same time requires an Essence of Cleansing, from 20 Shroud runs, thus the recommendation new players do 20 Shroud runs before they think about TRing for the first time. The Green Steel items make a tremendous difference after they can be equipped.

Crafting Helpers

 * DDO Shroud Loot Planner (aka Shroud Loot Builder for Dummies) by tihocan (DDO Forum Private Message and DDO Forum Post)
 * Dungeons & Dragons Online Crafting Planner by jjflanigan (DDO Forum Private Message and DDO Forum Post)
 * DDO Crafting Calculator by Zaodon

Other Resources

 * Eldritch Rituals Cookbook thread by Cambo
 * The crafting spreadsheet by InkBlack
 * DDO crafting website by Storm Lords guild on Thelanis