Kingdoms of Amalur Sagecrafting Guide
Sagecrafting in Kingdoms of Amalur is much like Jewelcrafting in all the other games out there. It follows the same general lore and it has the same uses as the Jewelcrafting Professions do in many other games. With Sagecrafting players will be making gems that they can insert into their armor to make it more powerful than it previously was. Only armor that has sockets can recieve a gem and even then the type of gem has to match perfectly with the socket. There are a 4 different types of gems in Kingdoms of Amalur, Weapon, Armor, Utility and Epic. There is a socket for each of these gems and they will only fit into their appropriate sockets.
Making gems in Kingdoms of Amalur is pretty easy to do, you are required to collect shards in order to make gems through Sagecrafting. There are 3 different quality levels of gems used in Sagecrafting; Cloudy, which is the lowest quality, Lambent, which is the middle quality gem and then Pristine which is the highest quality gem. You can use all three of these shards together if you'd like. Such as combining a Pristine with a Cloudy to make whatever gem you may want. However you can only ever make the best gems by combining all pristine gems. Using a Cloudy or Lambent gem in the combine will automatically make it impossible to have that combine as a Pristine.
Here is a very quick chart to give you an idea what you will get when combining what.
Sagecrafting Combines List
Cloudy + Lambent = Cloudy
Cloudy + Pristine = Lambent
Lambent + Pristine = Lambent
Pristine + Cloudy or Lambent = Lambent
It isn't every single combine out there but that quick list will kind of let you know what you're looking at when you go to combine gems together.
You are probably wondering how to retrieve these shards now that you've learned so much about them. Well, these shards are actually common drops from mobs, chests, piles of loot, pretty much anything in the entire game that drops loot. Also the Cloudy and Lambent Shards can be purchased from vendors. Usually vendors located at or near a Sagecrafting table are the ones that sell these gems. Even if you have to farm them don't fret, they're extremely easy to obtain.
Now since there is already an amazing source of information on all of the combines you can do with these shards to make powerful gems, there is no reason for me to go over each and every recipe. I will however provide you with links to the Kingdoms of Amalur wikipedia which has a list of all of these combines. If you are looking to make the most powerful gear available to you (or just socket the gear you have) Sagecrafting is an absolute must have, much like Blacksmithing is.
List of Sagecrafting Gem Recipes
That is all you need to know about taking on Sagecrafting as a Profession. Now even though the Sagecrafting ability says it itself it does bear repeating. Every point you spend into Sagecrafting increases the drop rate of the Shards mentioned above. The only thing that increases the quality of the shards is what level content you're killing. For example, Dalentarth will always give you Cloudy and maybe a Lambent Shard but you're never going to find a Pristine here.
Alabastra on the other hand will probably always give you Pristine and Lambent Shard. You may find a Cloudy here but at least you have a much better chance to find a Pristine.