Being a dwarf, it was only natural for me take a trade involving metal. In my slow climb to Grand-Master Metalsmith there are a few tips that I have learned that aspiring Metalsmiths may like to hear. Metalsmithing is a vocation with some distinct advantages; it is the trade of heavy armour and tools. You can make a lot of money selling these at top-tier.

You’ll have to pick the vocation Armourer to become a Metalsmith as it is the only vocation with the Metalsmith trade. Fortunately, Armourers are fairly self-sufficient in the fact that they can make most of the components that they’ll ever need for their own trade.

On the other hand, Metalsmithing is perhaps one of the most difficult trade-skills to level-up, possibly to compensate for its few advantages. Mind you, this is not huge discrepancy, but it is a slight trend. Ironically, the hard-metals used in this trade, like iron and steel, are a lot more in demand and significantly more valuable than precious metals such as gold and silver. This is because there are three vocations that use hard-metals, two of which have the trade-skill Weaponsmith, and the third has Metalsmith. While there is only one trade that uses precious metals, Jeweller. And though hard-metals are much more common than precious metals, the balance doesn’t seem quite right yet, and there still is a lot of competition over hard-metals; there really isn't enough to go around.

Another slight disadvantage is that some recipes require the use of metal from a previous tier, which is completely unlike any other trade, but it is a give and take. If you can grit your teeth and work your way through the tiers, the rewards are greater than other trades. At the time of this writing, the best Metal armour sells for more than 3 times as much as any other armour; and tools are an extremely valuable commodity that everyone is on the lookout for.

Speaking of money, I should mention that this guide will not go into much about the money that you can make selling these items, even though that is a big part of being a Metalsmith. This is a guide designed specifically to help the aspiring Metalsmith reach Grand-Master as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

To start, here are a few tips that apply to most, if not all, tiers.

• When you get to steel, be careful not to process too much of your iron into steel. In fact, it would be best if you made steel only as you need it, and keep the rest iron. Some recipes require only iron, and since you can always process iron into steel, bu not vice-versa, this helps to keep your options open.
  

• You’ll need a lot of leather pieces to make armour, and while you can craft the pieces yourself, the raw hide needs to be boiled before you can process it. Make sure you have an alt or a friend who will boil the hides you’ll need for free.
  

• You’ll likely have a lot of competition over ore nodes at higher tiers. Give yourself every edge you can get. Having a horse helps a lot in gathering metal quickly, so be sure to get one as soon as you can. Also since you can make you own tools, keep your mining pick as upgraded as possible.
  

• Often you’ll find another person fighting an enemy near a node, or find yourself in the same situation. It is considered polite to let that person finish the fight and mine the node, since they got to it first, but happened to aggro something along the way. Treat others as you wish to be treated.
  

• If you are lucky enough to be a dwarf, like yours truly, make sure to slot the racial trait “Return to Thorin’s Hall.” The convenient Superior Forges are there, and you absolutely need them to make tier 4 and tier 5 items. This makes Dwarves the best weapon and metalsmiths, but what else did you expect? In truth, being a dwarf only makes weapon and metalsmithing more convenient; dwarves cannot inherently make anything better than other races.
  

• If you see precious metal as opposed to hard metal, mine it anyway! Doing so will cause the game to spawn more metal elsewhere, where you’ll hopefully find it first. But either way it keeps the metal spawn from stagnating. Plus you can sell the metal ore/ingots for extra money.
  

• Make sure you Master out you Prospecting skill ASAP. This will increase you inflow of metal by a bit, and every little bit helps. At tier V it'll actually significantly help, and thats the tier where it really counts.
  

• There are a occasionally ore spawns that yield a lot of extra ore. For all tiers except tier III a "extra ore" node is designated by the name "Rich" at the beginning of it's name. For example, a normal node of Barrow-iron is called a "Barrow-iron" node, while a "extra ore" node of Barrow-iron is called a "Rich Barrow-iron" node. The one exception is at tier III. The ore is already called Rich-iron, so it wouldn't work if it was called "Rich Rich-iron" node so instead they are called "Bountiful Iron" nodes. There are otherwise no difference. "Rich" always carry 5 ore, and usually some other goodies like coal or gems. Normal nodes have 1, 2, or 3, ore per node.

I hope these tips help.

For each tier I'll be giving a graph that demonstrates the math used to find the most efficiently ore|skill gained ratio. You should know that a lot of the recipes in LOTRO use the exact same ingredients to make different items. For example, all of the Heavy Bronze Armour pieces, like the Leggings to the Helm, use the exact same amount of metals to make. So to make the graph effective, I'll only be showing one of each type, namely the chest piece, which is simply called "Armour". In addition, racial variant recipes will also be left out, since they are essential identical to their counterparts, and only vary in cosmetic appearance. Single-use recipes won't be in the calculations either; while they tend to be fairly efficient in terms of ore|skill-gained ratio, you need special materials that are hard to come by, and more importantly, you simply cannot rely on them, since you don't know when you'll be getting them. This makes them impossible to mass-produce for skill. Timer-based recipes, on the other, still require special materials, but they at least are more predictable, than single use recipes. Below that graph I'll describe in more detail an effective strategy for getting mastery in each tier; You'll find that most of the tier follow certain patterns with slight variations, so the strategies tend to reflect that. Also, just for kicks, I'll provide you with the exact or approximate amount of ore required to master the tier.

Update: Volume 1: Book 14

Book 14 made some great changes to the prospecting trade-skill which happens to dramatically affect Metalsmithing. As of Book 14, all smelting recipes universally require only 2 ore to make. (The one exception is Tier 1: Bronze, which requires 2 copper ore and 1 tin ore.) And all Refining recipes now require either 2 ingots or 1 ingot and a piece of coal to make. Long story short, Metalsmithing got a whole lot easier. It may still be somewhat difficult, but it's much more reasonable now.

Update: Mines of Moria

Mines of Moria, added trading-skill guilds for each of the finishing trade-skills. Upon joining these guilds, you have access to recipes for certain items that you can turn in to faction for your trade-skill guild (For Metalsmiths they are crests). Also the efficiency of these items, that is, the amount of skill you get for the amount of ore it costs to make, is incredible. Quite simply, they are always the most efficient item to make for skill. Unfortunately, they are also on a timer. You can only craft them so often. So when the timer is up, craft these crests, you'll get faction for your guild, and a nice chunk of skill. In some cases, you'll also want to make other items with those crests for more skill. However, you probably don't want to have to wait on a timer to get skill all the time--you really shouldn't--or you may not be interested in the joining metalsmith guild. Starting at Tier III, where the guild recipes start, the items highlighted in green are not based in the guild at all and you can craft them with impunity. Otherwise read the "Stratgies for this tier" section for more specific information.

NOTE:
The guide is built with the assumption that you have or are in the process of gathering all the available recipes. Understand that if you are just getting started, you may not have some of the recipes. Where you obtain them is beyond the scope of the of this guide, and I will mention that some will drop of mobs--these you may be able to buy from the auction house. Many others, specifically, the "Improved" components, as well as the guild armours, can only be obtained from the metalsmith guild.

All right! Grab your picks and hammers, and lets get started!