Crafting

Blacksmith
Blacksmiths for the backbone of progression, especially once you reach D2 and above, where they become essential to moving any furthur. Knowing as much as you can about blacksmiths can lead to advancing farther than you would have if you inefficiently used them.

Selecting your Blacksmiths
When you are starting out, mouse is commonly recommended as a blacksmith. Even if mouse isn't a specialist (pets that gain a bonus if given a certain class) for blacksmithing, a normal blacksmith is still valuable, especially early on.

If you are in need of a blacksmith and don't want to turn the mouse into one, then you can pick any of the wildcards (pets that have class specialties that aren't important to pick) and turn them into a blacksmith. An example is donut or mole, which one doesn't have a specialist at all that matters (bonus to food campaigns and adventurer bonus respectively). Of course, you may want to use their bonus, but those bonuses aren't that significant.

The other route is to spend tokens for blacksmiths. Hermit Crab is the perfect early-game blacksmith, as it's relatively easy to evolve. Having a dedicated blacksmith this early means you can start leveling hermit and crafting better gear at the start.

Deciding on What to Craft
Once you have your blacksmith, the next step is deciding what you need to craft. In general, you always want your blacksmiths to craft something, so the first thing you should consider is creating a hammer to improve their crafting.

Progressing a blacksmith hammer to T2 SSS+20 should be an eventual long-term goal. With this hammer, all your odds of crafting gear with a good modifier increase. Your crafting speed also imrpoves, meaning you can craft more faster. Both of these combine make putting a quality blacksmith hammer as a priority. However, you shouldn't be burning every single resource you have trying to get the perfect hammer. If you end up with a T2 A or S hammer, you should consider taking one of those to +20 to avoid spending everything finding the perfect hammer.

In general, you want to craft any t1 equipment and get them to +5. Once you do, you use it to craft the t2 version. If the t2 version is B or lower, you should consider either holding it as filler gear or scrapping it. This is a much better option vs. spending resources to improve their rating. The only time you do this if they are S or SS and you have a lot of resources invested into them. At that point, raising their rating is significant and worth the cost.

Beyond the hammer, you should target the gear your pet needs. It should have been mentioned in another guide, but you generally craft the gear that optimizes your pets. Mages, assassins, and rogues generally get fire swords and armor/accessories of their element. Defenders usually get a pot and armor/accessories that matches the dungeon element. Supporters tend to get fire swords and either type of armor/accessories depending if they are in the front or back line.

This should take a majority of your blacksmith's time. If you find yourself in a position that you aren't using them (lack of resources), then it's perfectly fine to send them into campaign's in the meantime. However, they only get better as they craft, so increasing your resource pool should become a priority. You can turn to the alchemist guide to learn more about their role in getting resources you need.

Lategame Crafting
Eventually, you will discover that one of your blacksmiths (likely Firefox, Anteater, or Elf) is stronger than the others. You should do all of your forging with this blacksmith, and save your other blacksmiths for reforging and upgrading. You may want to consider moving your main blacksmith into dungeons with an ego sword for a while to boost its CL so it can craft better.

Alchemist
Alchemist serve a variety of purposes, from helping sustain your blacksmith crafting to providing you the items you need to push forward in dungeons. Due to this, it is always important to make sure to have at least a few.

Selecting Your Alchemist
Early on, there are a few easy choices to make into an alchemist. The first one is Bee, which is obtainable after you beat Diana. Due to how early you can obtain Bee and how easy it is to upgrade Bee, they are the most recommended first alchemist. Another choice of alchemist is cupid. While they have an adventurer evolution bonus, divinity campaigns generally aren't a priority for most of the game. Even if they aren't a specialist alchemist, they should still do a good job at alching.

If you are further on, then a few more alchemist pets open up. Snake doesn't have the easiest requirements, but it's something that is obtainable if your already far into the game. Beyond that, there's the token series of pets that you can convert to alchemist.

Question is a good target to convert into an alchemist. The ease to evolve question is what makes them a good secondary alchemist if you don't want to use non-dedicated alchemists.

Deciding on What to Craft (Alchemist)
When your starting out, you may not have the resources to do much with alchemist. The good thing is that there will always be something to craft.

Ideally, you are using alchemist to craft T2 materials to help you evolve your other pets or create T1-2 gear. Early on, you will mainly be finding T1 gear, with a few T2's here and there. The ability to sustain constant blacksmith crafting is often determine by your alchemist's ability to create the materials.

Another option is to create items to help with dungeons. Generally, it's recommended to not craft the event specific items (like flying boots). You should buy those instead. What you can be crafting is items you can't buy in the store ,like antitode or health potions. These items can help you push your difficulty furthur. However, you should avoid depending on these items, as you can burn through resources that could be better spent elsewhere. Instead, use them if you are trying to push a dungeon and see if your team is ready for it without health potions.

If you have nothing to craft, then you can craft the the item "Nothing." This is an item that originally served no purpose. The Santa pet can now be traded "Nothing" for 1-6 (depending on class level) Chocolate each.

Conclusion
Having a good balance of alchemist and blacksmiths can result in faster progression through the dungeons. Beyond this guide, it is recommended to ask others if you have questions on what to craft. This guide doesn't cover every aspect of blacksmithing, as what you need to craft is a constantly moving target, especially at the higher depth. It's important to understand what your pet stats need to be in order to progress, as it's all about min-maxing your stats at the end of the day.