Viper-crested Round Shield

Taken all the way down to base materials, one Viper-crested Round Shield is 3 crafting steps deep and needs 4 intermediates — Iron Ingot ×2, Aldgoat Leather ×1, Iron Rivets ×1 and 1 other — which resolve to 4 distinct raw materials totalling 11 units, plus 10 crystals.

That bill outweighs 5,999 of the 13,602 recipes tracked here and 581 of the 1,552 Carpenter ones, and 337 recipes nest deeper.

Only 4 of those crystals go into the final step; the other 6 are burned by the intermediates, so the real crystal cost is 4 Wind Shard, 3 Fire Shard, 2 Ice Shard and 1 other kind.

The chain crosses three disciplines — Carpenter to Lv 26, Blacksmith to Lv 18 and Leatherworker to Lv 17 — so no single class can finish it unaided.

3 of the 4 raw materials match a gathering node, none of them timed; the other 1 comes from vendors, drops or content this site does not track.

Of the intermediates, Walnut Lumber has the widest use: 128 recipes call for it, spanning eight of the eight crafting classes.