I think many people are confused about how maker skill works, so I will try to explain all you need to know aobut maker skill here.
To get the maker skill, you firstly have to be lv45+ then talk to moren in magatia to start the quest.
The first quest is simple, you just talk to 3 NPC's then sit a quiz and you're done. The only thing I found difficult was finding Hughes the Fuse. He is located in Orbis Tower B2 secret portal. The other 2 NPC's are in magatia.
The 2nd quest isn't hard either. You need to be lv75+ to do this. All you need to do is talk to moren to start it, then get him an inttermediate mosnter crystal. You can either hunt homunculus in magatia or dissasemble a lv70 eqp with maker skill, or buy 1 from fm. Once you have your monster crystal lv71-80, simply hand it to him and you are done.
PS. When making a mosnter crystal from etc pieces (homunculus) you sometimes make a higher lvl mosnter crystal than you want, lv81-90. This is normal, but its not the one you want, so if you get "unlucky" and make a higher lvl crystal, your gonna have to do it again.
The last quest is not hard either. You need to be lv105+ to start this. After a long chat with moren / and the doodle paper, you will have a doodle paper in your inventory. Go get 6 gold plates, 2 steel plates, 1 lithium and open your maker skill. Select etc from the first droplist, and gold anvil from the next. Make the gold anvil then talk to moren again and you will have your maker skill lv3.
Now that you have maker skill, its time to use it. If you ever want to find out the recipes for items, simply open up the maker skill window, and select the item you want, and the ingredients will be listed below. Note, you can only make items for your own class, and if you are high enough lvl. This means common items cannot be made. Same applies to maple weapons.
Every item will need monster crystals. Monster crystals can be made in 2 ways.
1. Collect 100 etc pieces from a monster of the appropriate level and maker it.
2. Dissasemble an equip (that can be maker'ed) of that lvl and you will get back some monster crystals.
Magic powders are needed if the item has "sets" of colours, like rabs, goni shoes etc. If the item you are makign doesn't have sets of colours, like a dragon tail for example. No magic powders will be needed. You can find these powders hunting magatia mobs or simply buy them in fm.
Once you have all the items to make the equip, you simply click create to make the item. However, the maker skill has special "gem slots" which can make your equips even more powerful. lv50 to 70 equips have 1 slot, lv80 -100 equips have 2 slots, and lv110+ has 3 slots for upgrade. There is a different gem for every stat, as follows:
Garnet = acc (2,3,5)
diamond = attack (weapons only) (1,2,3)
sapphire = magic attack (weapon only) (1,2,3)
amethyst = speed (1,2,3)
opal = avoid (2,3,5)
aquamarine = jump (1,2,3)
topaz = hp (10,20,30)
emarald = mp (10,20,30)
black crystal = +/- random stat ( atk / matk / speed / jump ~ 1,2,3)
dark crystal = +/- random stat (dex / luk / str / int / avoid / acc ~ 2,3,5)
dex crystal = dex (2,3,5)
power crystal = str (2,3,5)
luk crystal = luk (2,3,5)
wisdom crystal = int (2,3,5)
The 3 numbers in brackets (1,2,3) corresponds to how much the gem adds. It has 3 numbers for the different levels of gems: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced. So if your equip had 3 slots, and you maker'ed an adv power crystal, adv dex crystal, and a adv garnet, your item would have a bonus of +5 str, + 5 dex and + 5 acc. So shoes that are 4 str, 2 dex, 1 acc clean becomes 9 str, 7 dex, 6 acc clean. Pretty neat. The thing is, you can only use each type of gem once per equip. So you cannot use 3 dex crystal to get +15 dex, or +3 diamonds for +9 atk. The best you can do on a weapon, is black crystal + diamond/ saphhire + luk/dex/power/wis crystal to get +6 atk/matk and +5 dex/int/luk/wis.
After saying all that, how do we make adv crystals? Its simple. You just have to upgrade refined crystals / jewels.
When upgrading a normal jewel to a basic jewel, you have roughly 75% chance to make a basic, 20% chance to make an intermediate, and 5% chance to make an advanced jewel. however, you can also make an advanced jewel using 10 intermediate jewels, with roughly 75% chance of working, 5% chance becoming an advanced and 20% chance failing. When it fails, you simply lose 1 intermediate jewel. Same for 10 basics to make 1 intermediate.
The crystals have different set of percentages, when you change a normal crystal to a basic crystal. The chances are roughly 75% chance basic, 24% chance intermediate, and 1% chance advanced crystal. It is very hard to make an advanced crystal straight away, you will almost always have to do 10 basic -> 1 intermediate, then 10 intermediate -> 1 advanced. From my experience it takes me roughly 30-35 crystals to make 1 advanced. Out of 30, roughly 8 of them becomes intermediate, and 22 basics, then you can change the 22 basics to make a total of 10 intermediates, which becomes 1 advanced if you pass.
So to summarize:
10 ores -> 1 refined crystal
1 refined crystal -> 1 basic crystal
10 basic crystals -> 1 intermediate crystal
10 intermediate crystals ->1 advanced crystal
Last of all, are stimulators. If you use a stimulator while making an item, it garuntees that your item will NOT be below average, which increases your chances of making godly gear. It also ensures that the black / dark crystals will never minus stats, and always add. The added risk here, is that you have a 10% chance of failing, and if you fail, you lose all items that you used to make the item, and you end up with nothing.
Thats about all I can think of that you would need to know about maker skill, so have fun making pro gear ^^
