Diablo® III

Do we know yet if artisans will follow your account or your individual character? What I mean by that is will we have to level up our artisans from scratch every time we start a new class or do we get to use our already leveled-up artisans on our new characters?

What i really want to know is did Blizz make an announcement to that effect ?
I know there has been speculations but I'm looking for proof.

They've stated that Artisans are account-based. So if you max level a blacksmith, he will be on all your new characters at max level as well.

Do you have a link to that ? i Cant seem to find it anywhere

I do not. I believe it was bashiok that said it in a fairly recent blue post though if that helps.

I'm certain it's already been said though, so no worries haha.

+1 to Beetle. I remember it too, but can't remember where I saw it. and also Kainn said it's on all characters.

I'm curious though Kainn (if you come back to this thread) did you need to do the blacksmith quest first before you could get blacksmith privileges? or was he available from the very start of a new character, without the quest?

It seemed available from the very start, but in general you'll be too low level to use even the intro blacksmith items until around the time you get to the quest. Even before I was able to meet the blacksmith on my second character I could click the armor and weapon tables and it would bring up the crafting screen. That may be a bug though. I was actually browsing around here to see if anyone had previously mentioned that.

interesting thought, looking at the artisan page for instance the blacksmith under "normal" it only goes to rank 4.

maybe if it's account based, say you have your first character and take your blacksmith to rank 10 if you start a second character on normal he will only be at rank 4, but will have all the recipes that you have already unlocked; your new character just doesn't have to worry about spending money to rank him up.

If its account based when you pick a specialization for the artisan that locks it for all characters?

Pretty important choice if that's the case. However I must admit I don't know a thing about specialization.

Is it one artisan per character?

It appears that the blacksmith is account-based. Advancement/training in any character on your account affects all the other characters on your account.

I started as a Witch Doctor and of course to start there's no blacksmith, you have to progress partway through the game to get access to him at all. But once I had him available, I was able to get some progress on him until I finished my WD run to the Skeleton King.

When I started my 2nd character (and all other subsequent characters), they started with the blacksmith available at the very beginning (before you get the 'help the blacksmith' quest). Further, if you find enough Pages of Training to advance him with one character, that progress is reflected with all others. (note that you don't appear to be able to find Pages of Training with any character as loot until that character finishes the Blacksmith quest).

This is very nice and the way it should be, btw. Otherwise you'd just farm pages with one character and send them via the vault to your other characters. This just saves you a step. I think it's well done and feels natural.