Announcement

**kiztent** · 12-29-2002, 07:30 PM

Tailoring: pretty bad after 158, not too pleasant up to 158 either. Requires enchanter after 82. Expect to get gouged.

Smithing: forget it past 188.

Pottery: store bought to 199, hellishly expensive or annoying or both after that.

Fletching: store bought to 235.

Baking: farming required is trivial.

Brewing: hands down easiest to GM.

JC: Bring your bank account, sit in front of vendor, voila, 250.

**Lilosh** · 12-29-2002, 11:50 PM

Originally posted by kiztent

Tailoring: pretty bad after 158, not too pleasant up to 158 either. Requires enchanter after 82. Expect to get gouged.

Smithing: forget it past 188.

Pottery: store bought to 199, hellishly expensive or annoying or both after that.

Fletching: store bought to 235.
Baking: farming required is trivial.
Brewing: hands down easiest to GM.

JC: Bring your bank account, sit in front of vendor, voila, 250.

Wow, where to begin?

I got tailoring to 131, then 135 with no enchanter, so i have no idea where you got your info. 131-135 requires a druid, if you dont want to do Wus.

Baking: Farming, while Low-level mobs, is required Alot. Mammoths and Wolf, and then brownies. And thats only if you go conventional. Theres also Hero Parts, Justice Pies, and 6 million other PoP recipes.

I would have to say JC is the easiest to GM. Less clicks then Brewing by a LONG shot, and if you are a chanter, there is PROFIT to be made 0-250.

And oh... Fletching, "store bought to 235"? HA. try it, then let me know how "Store Bought" it is. Darkwoods from 202-235 costs more then Sickles, I would imagine.

Just my 2 Kiolas worth,
-Lilosh

**Cigarskunk** · 12-30-2002, 01:04 AM

And oh... Fletching, "store bought to 235"? HA. try it, then let me know how "Store Bought" it is. Darkwoods from 202-235 costs more then Sickles, I would imagine.

That and the fact that folks are reporting that arrows after the skill patch to fletching result in three or four skill ups on 10k - toss in the fact that there are three subcombines for every 202+ arrow - it looks to me that my fletcher is going to be stranded at 202 until she gets an obscene amount of plat to throw at it.

As for the enchanter for tailoring - that's no big deal - it's only a 12th level spell - you can PL a pet chanter just running faction quests, buy him the spell and a load of mana boosting gear and then just blow an evening sitting around making all the mana you want at cost.

**ArrakeenNaedShoj** · 12-30-2002, 09:11 AM

I don't see where the 82 and enchanter came in, I made it to 131 without ever having to use an alt in a couple of weeks of farming/merchant mining/bazaaring.

Even beyond that the enchanter isn't the problem. I PL'ed a gnomy to 16 in a couple of days of soloing with nothing but raw silk and a cheap dagger, I can stick him in the bazzaar casting spells while I shop, or hide him somewhere and chat to make the vials. You really don't need that many to get through Wu's. You do however need a BOAT load of the dang Heady Kiolas, but even that isn't a real pain(just CTS inducing).

Beyond 158 is still the glass ceiling in tailoring. However with the addition of everything over the last few years the cieling isn't nearly as thick, It still takes a lot of time and effort, but compared to the old "velious only" gig, it's a "cakewalk" now. (defining cakewalk as something that will still take months to complete and a lot of sacrifice and is still a MAJOR accomplishment)

There is a pretty blatant glass ceiling in Smithing. Beyond 188 many races are forced to look for a level 49+ enchanter(try and find one that isn't busy, I dare you), or hunt for exceedingly rare/expensive components, or fork out ungodly amounts of pp, or hope to be the only one that day counting on a buggy, poorly designed zone to work.

IT's pretty shameless...

**Aerinha** · 12-30-2002, 09:16 AM

Fletching may be store bought to 235, but only if you have the cash to do it...
My last four points from 200 to 204 cost me 5k(1.25k each...jeez)! I am not doing that again. It took me too long to save that much cash to start. I am parking my behind in Tenebrous for a level or two.
Ok...I know there are better places to farm acrylia for the arrowshafts, but I still get experience in Tenebrous Mountains and the windstones and essence of wind are nice.

**kiztent** · 12-30-2002, 10:33 AM

Originally posted by Lilosh

Originally posted by kiztent

Tailoring: pretty bad after 158, not too pleasant up to 158 either. Requires enchanter after 82. Expect to get gouged.

Smithing: forget it past 188.

Pottery: store bought to 199, hellishly expensive or annoying or both after that.

Fletching: store bought to 235.
Baking: farming required is trivial.
Brewing: hands down easiest to GM.

JC: Bring your bank account, sit in front of vendor, voila, 250.

Wow, where to begin?

I got tailoring to 131, then 135 with no enchanter, so i have no idea where you got your info. 131-135 requires a druid, if you dont want to do Wus.

I got my info from the main site, but not being up on tailoring information, I could be wrong. Tailoring has never really interested me, so I still operate under the cured -> wus -> acrylia -> velious silk/leather progression as being the 'best' one.

Originally posted by Lilosh

Baking: Farming, while Low-level mobs, is required Alot. Mammoths and Wolf, and then brownies. And thats only if you go conventional. Theres also Hero Parts, Justice Pies, and 6 million other PoP recipes.

baking:
2 basalisk egg, 3 mammoth meat, 3 wolf meat = 30 skill up attempts for 8 items farmed.

smithing:
4 windstones, 2 essence of wind, 2 blocks of acrylia, 1 large brick of acrylia = 2 skill up attempts for 9 items farmed

-or-

2 shrieking substances, 2 wailing substances, 4 swirling shadows = 2 skill up attempts for 8 items farmed (of course you can't resell substances and none of these can ever be found on a vendor)

Roughly put, farming for baking is 15 times easier than for smithing. I think calling that level of farming trivial is fair.

We could get into a technical discussion of the relative difficulty of farming the items, drop rates, cost of bought components for recipes (sage, benzoin, clear mana vials), and so on, if you'd like. You probably don't want to have that discussion though if you are interested in refuting the assertion that the farming for baking is trivial.

Originally posted by Lilosh

I would have to say JC is the easiest to GM. Less clicks then Brewing by a LONG shot, and if you are a chanter, there is PROFIT to be made 0-250.

There's not really profit to be made unless you can enchant velium or have a steady supply of black sapphires and blue diamonds (well, technically there is some profit if you enchant metals before vendoring, but that's not really worth talking about). The JC market is murderously cutthroat and given pricing, anything below velium won't really sell - your server may vary of course, but I don't think any server has a market for JC items below velium (which is a 44 enchanter spell to make) in the quantities that skilling up will produce them in.

[edit: I had said "I agree that JC is easiest by a huge margin though."]
Noticing that I said brewing was easiest earlier, I have to question my sanity, or logic in saying JC was easiest. Roughly speaking: farming enough plat to buy JC (or taking the time to enchant the metal) would still take longer than doing the clicks for brewing and farming the last 2 points. I think it would take less time to 250 brewing than JC.

Originally posted by Lilosh

And oh... Fletching, "store bought to 235"? HA. try it, then let me know how "Store Bought" it is. Darkwoods from 202-235 costs more then Sickles, I would imagine.

Sickles aren't store bought. I hate to try to dispell the great myth of smithing, but not everyone has a tunare druid lying around to imbue emeralds (especially in skill up quantities). I'm ignoring cost. Fletching has a path that is completely store bought until you get to 235 skill. You do not need to find an enchanter to enchant, a druid, cleric or shaman to imbue. You go to the vendor, you pay, you skill up - you farm nothing, you are not dependant on the bazaar or farming for dropped components and the vendors are never out. You may pay a lot, but regardless of class, level and deity, you need nothing more than platinum.

**Lilosh** · 12-30-2002, 12:31 PM

Originally posted by kiztent

I got my info from the main site, but not being up on tailoring information, I could be wrong. Tailoring has never really interested me, so I still operate under the cured -> wus -> acrylia -> velious silk/leather progression as being the 'best' one.

Use training points or patchwork to 21, Mandrake (Store Bought) to 66, Picnic Baskets to 76, Greyhopper to 95, Quivers to 115, Crystalline Silk to 131. (Optional Sacred Tunare Silk to 135 if you know a tunare cleric/druid)

Originally posted by Kiztent

Roughly put, farming for baking is 15 times easier than for smithing. I think calling that level of farming trivial is fair.

Please forgive me if we disagree. Saying that it is trivial compared to smithing proves nothing. That would be like saying that Calculus is easy because it isnt Rocket Science. Just because there is something HARDER, doesnt make it trivial.

Originally posted by kiztent

There's not really profit to be made unless you can enchant velium or have a steady supply of black sapphires and blue diamonds (well, technically there is some profit if you enchant metals before vendoring, but that's not really worth talking about). The JC market is murderously cutthroat and given pricing, anything below velium won't really sell - your server may vary of course, but I don't think any server has a market for JC items below velium (which is a 44 enchanter spell to make) in the quantities that skilling up will produce them in.

I agree that JC is easiest by a huge margin though.

Sorry, but I have done a little research. Enchanting everything from 0-250 takes nothing more then "Enchant Platinum", at level 34. Which is why I added the Caveat "If you are an enchanter". Enchanting EVERYTHING can yield a profit of a few K getting to 250. I never included player sales in this.

Originally posted by kiztent

Sickles aren't store bought. I hate to try to dispell the great myth of smithing, but not everyone has a tunare druid lying around to imbue emeralds (especially in skill up quantities). I'm ignoring cost. Fletching has a path that is completely store bought until you get to 235 skill. You do not need to find an enchanter to enchant, a druid, cleric or shaman to imbue. You go to the vendor, you pay, you skill up - you farm nothing, you are not dependant on the bazaar or farming for dropped components and the vendors are never out. You may pay a lot, but regardless of class, level and deity, you need nothing more than platinum.

Ok, I will admit that sickles are not 100% store bought. But calling Fletching store-bought to 235 is true in name only. I challenge you to find someone who went from 202-235 completely on Darkwoods, post nerf. There isnt enough money in all of everquest. <grin>

-Lilosh

**Yalum** · 12-30-2002, 01:31 PM

I'd wager that if you polled the 1750s (current and prospective), you'll find someone who skilled up on darkwoods. It'll cost you a few hundred k, but that's not any worse than tailoring or smithing.

To give a bit more detail on pottery, there is a storebought method to 199, but it's a very annoying one, and skins are so easily vendor mined I recommend poison vials to 188 first. After that it gets moderately expensive, roughly 75 to 100k to 250 if you take the most common, mostly storebought path (you will need magic clay and a jeweler though). If you're willing to farm heavy clay you can get to 236 fairly cheaply though.

PoP focus items are also super-cheap, about 10pp a combine if you farm your own raw diamonds, but the components are far too rare to reasonably skill up on.

**Gorgin** · 12-30-2002, 03:33 PM

I've gone from 202-218 in the past 2-3 days purely on Darkwood Bows, it's only cost like 10k(reasonable to me).
As far as the topic goes
Jewelcraft
Brewing
Fletching
Pottery
Baking
Smithing
Tailoring
That's my order from easiest(JC) to hardest(Tailoring) and I've done them all to 200+(baking, tailoring and fletching being stubborn atm but the other 4 are 250).

**Harvyst** · 12-30-2002, 04:57 PM

I think pottery is harder than Baking these days.

Yes, we have less combines.

But a single combine of a star encrusted ruby stein costs me a whopping 70pp. Yes, you can sell them for a slight profit. But you're one of many on a glutted market trying to sell 80 of them so you can afford to make more... you can't afford to destroy them, and you don't use them like you use stat foods.

I spent 3k the other day, and I got two skillups, bringing me to 227 skill. At this rate, it will take me 33k to GM in this skill. It's nowhere near the amounts required for tailoring, but it's enough to make me wince. Badly.

The cheapest thing I could skill up on would be star rose quartz imbued idols at 30pp per combine. My problem? I can't find a human cleric who will sit around and imbue stacks and stacks of star rose quartz for me. Heck, there are only four human clerics on my server at any one time, and two are level 1 traders in the bazaar. The other two are in PoV, and I'm sure they'll be so happy to drop everything to combine stacks for me. Really.

Since it's a level 29 spell - imbue star rose quartz - it's a bit of an annoyance to PL a cleric to 29... I'm not a druid, so the "ds shield and burn" method doesn't work for me.

Sigh.

I'm just a bit disappointed thats all. I'll keep working on my pottery, but it's taking forever.

**Glatius2** · 12-30-2002, 05:17 PM

Since the big black smithing patch I have gone from 197 to 212 in skill. I've used acrylia armor, mistletoe cutting sickles and ethereal sheets of metal (for a whole 2 skill points) to get there.

I would estimate that I have averaged about 10 combines per skill up (which seems to be a pretty good average). On acrylia components alone I have spent somewhere in the order of 65,000 pp. I've done 2 runs of mistletoe sickles totaling around 20k in plat spent for a total of 4 skill ups. And I bought 120 ethereal bricks for 100pp each back before they changed how ethereal sheets work for 12,000. And I originally started out with 17k to get myself to 197 before the patch. So all totalled I've spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 114k.

This doesn't include the 50 BDs, 200 ivory, and 200 essence of winters I've purchased so far in anticipation of making high end armor.

The only thing that has made it possible is a slow trickle of sales on acylia armor and cutting sickles.

**Hobbun** · 12-30-2002, 06:15 PM

Tailoring: It's been pretty easy for me as far as Tailoring goes. I'm only at 158 but all I can say is I can remember getting 5 skill ups in 10 attempts from 153 to 158. Also being able to buy two full backpacks of spider silk off someone for real cheap in NK really saved me time in farming.

Baking:

Baking: Farming, while Low-level mobs, is required Alot. Mammoths and Wolf, and then brownies. And thats only if you go conventional. Theres also Hero Parts, Justice Pies, and 6 million other PoP recipes.

Yes, getting wolf and mammoth meat could be a pain, but that's if you go the Halas route. For me, farming was never really much of an issue for me in Baking. Completely storebought for me all the way up to 191 and after that I did MTP's. I bought about 30 brownie parts in the bazaar and never looked back. Everything else was bought and I always had enough fruit and vegetables for combines.

I am not saying Baking was easy by any means, however much MTP supplies were easy to get, they were killer to skill up on.

Jewelcraft: What I have done with it so far I pretty much concur with what everyone else has said here. All you need is plat.

Smithing: It's been pretty easy for me so far, everything storebought. But then I am only at 94, so it isn't saying much.

Pottery: I am only at 116 and haven't had much trouble with it yet.

Brewing: I am at 182 now and the supplies are easy to get. Going the Hero Minatour Brew route. Supplies are easy to get, but like the MTP's, skilling up is a pain. 2 skill ups in the last 10 stacks.

Fletching: Have not started yet.

All in all, I would have to say Baking has been the hardest for me so far because of how crappy the skill ups were for MTP's. But I am sure that will change when I get to the high points of Smithing or Tailoring.

Hobbun

**Cigarskunk** · 12-30-2002, 07:26 PM

Folks, folks, folks - we aren't talking which tradeskills are easiest, we're supposed to be discussing which tradeskills have -

1) a difficulty of aquiring components that is so obscene that it effectively stops the majority of players

and/or

2) a cost to skill up ratio which is so horrendous as to stop most players

Smithing has both of these - components for post 188 skilling are hard and/or expensive to get - most folks can agree that 188 is the glass ceiling for smiths - yes, you CAN get to 250 eventually, it's just not bloody likely with the resources of the average player.

Fletching can be store bought to 235, however, the cost is extremely high - over 1k per skill point from 202-235 - that's not the kind of plat that the average tradeskiller has to drop.

Baking - sure, it's a pain in the butt to do some of the farming needed, but it's atleast doable by any player out there - heck, the toughest mob one needs to fight is only in it's low 20s and the cost per combine can be made selling merchants junk drops gotten while farming.

Tailoring is very farming heavy and after Wu's, becomes quite the chore apparently - still doable, but extremely time consuming - as mentioned by several, it's a glass ceiling, but atleast it's a thin one.

Pottery would seem to pan out like fletching - getting close to 200 is reasonable, it would appear that the only real problem is post 200 is expensive if you don't want to farm for hours on end.

Brewing is cheap and has merchant based skill paths, but it's a wrist buster - still, anyone who's willing to have wrist replacement surgery 20 years from now can do it.

JC is more of a cash sink and not TOO bad of one at that if you're willing to be anal about it and chant every bar along the way - getting to 210 cost me nothing but time - I was actually a few hundred plat in the black by that point.

We're trying to figure out what tradeskills have been made so insanely difficult that most people are going to find that they have to give up on it after a certain point - then we can actually focus our efforts on trying to put together some sort of front to VI to get them to make them a bit more reasonable again.

**xaanru** · 12-30-2002, 09:10 PM

Harvyst

Well, since this is a reply to a post here by HARVYST, I'll put it in this thread, even though it is a slight derail. Harvyst said:

My problem? I can't find a human cleric who will sit around and imbue stacks and stacks of star rose quartz for me. Heck, there are only four human clerics on my server at any one time, and two are level 1 traders in the bazaar. The other two are in PoV, and I'm sure they'll be so happy to drop everything to combine stacks for me. Really.

My 52 human cleric is usually parked in the bazaar, and most of the time is bound there as well. Since I've been tradeskilling since before the imbue spell nerf, he can imbue: rose quartz (ero marr), diamonds (mith marr), opals (rodcet nife) and rubies (brell).

Never been to POV, in fact, I haven't even installed PoP yet

I'm always happy to imbue, especially if I can trade for something I can use, like the evil imbued gems (How I wish I had gotten those scrolls, pre-nerf), or various dropped or foraged items, and enchanted items (particularly the hq bricks of ore).

If I'm not on as Xaanru, I'll usually be on as FURL, my druid/mule/trader/how-the-heck-did-he-end-up-lvl-40.

BTW, he's Wood elf, so that means I can also imbue emeralds, as soon as I buy the spell.

Give me a tell, and I'd be happy to imbue a couple stacks. Particularly if I can snag a KEI. Goes pretty quick that way.

Announcement

Which tradeskills have glass ceilings?

Which tradeskills have glass ceilings?

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