Additive manufacturing is a promising technology of the current decade and offers high flexibility as well as design freedom. However, this technology is limited by time and cost-related factors originating through the layer-by-layer building strategy compared to conventional methods. This thesis is dedicated to reducing the gap between the production ability of complex components, high productivity and economic efficiency. Therefore, process-microstructure-property relationships were investigated systematically via in-depth characterization techniques such as optical and electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and micro-hardness. It is shown that the cost-effectiveness of the manufacturing process can be enhanced by a factor of four, even though the observed property profile in terms of density and hardness is still comparable to the standard production strategy. Unfortunately, higher productivity, e.g., through a higher layer thickness, results in increased roughness. It was also found that local overheating and spattering, caused by high heat input, results in discontinuous keyhole pore development across the cross-section of the specimen. Furthermore, it is shown that pore heterogeneity can be reduced by limiting the heat input during additive manufacturing.