In the beta i took blacksmithing only and to be fair, i was more interested in testing the pve portion of the game so i didnt go into crafting all that much.

Now i was trying to see which profession i would take at release and it seem i cannot find a good description of provisioning.

You probably make foods and drinks with stats? versus making potions and poisons?

Thats all i did when using provisioning, made foods and drinks to buff my chunky monkey -- Oh wait thats a turtle...

Food and drinks seem to be 30min stat buffs.

Potions have a wider variety of effects, but they are shorter and are often accompanied with a negative effect as well, depending on how it was made.

Personally, I'll be going both and not worrying too much about the other crafts.

Not at all trying to hijack your thread, OP, just wanted to ask quickly: Are we able to master all the professions? or just a select few

As far as I could tell, Provisioning only made food that increases your attributes and drinks that increases your regeneration. No other effects. Alchemy on the other hand has more varied effects, similar to how Alchemy worked in ES games in the past.

You can master as many as you are willing to invest skill points in.

I'm not buying any potions or food from you, mister toxicologist. Who knows what kinds of toxic things you'll throw in there to experiment upon me?!

But on topic: I think endgame provisioning might help a lot as well with the cuffs and such.

we will all be turned into turtles due to bad mixes!!! possibly bunnies...

From what I understand you can put your points into anything you want as long as it's unlocked. Crafting has 132 available slots to put your points into in order to master/utilize every single crafting ability (you start with 1-2 free points in all crafts, 140 points all together).

As for the Alchemy and Provisioning, I don't think I'm adding anything new to what other people have stated, but Alchemy will be powerful short-term buffs or stat regen and Provisioning will be long(er)-term, but much less powerful buffing meals/drinks.

You cannot master all skills, however, you could technially master all crafting skills if you so desire by sacrificing skill points that could be put in other combat or pvp sills.

as i understand it, provisioning provides things you use before going into battle, alchemy provides quick, situational buffs to be used in the midst of battle

e.g. before a dungeon you would eat food and drink alchohol to buff your stats for the duration. whilst in battle if a mob gets you low on health or you use all your magika you can down a potion for a quick fix

You can't make poisons in the game I tried and ended up with a potion with debuffs that worked on my character rather than the enemy. No option to apply to weapon, the only options were "use" , "link in chat" and "destroy". When used your character drinks the debuff potion, it nearly killed me in one pvp fight when I used one with two debuffs to it one to reduce health by 10 every 1 second for 10 seconds and a reduction to stamina.

It is possible for a player to master all crafting skills because ZOS changed it. You still need skyshards to do it though. The devs have stated you can learn all the skills and abilities in the game given enough time.