Whats the Cheapest Path?

[Divvyne]

I am a Smither with about 122 skill :grumpy: I am trying to make LDoN armors for my guild, and I am successful about 1/2 the time. However, I don't want to lack anymore, so how do I get my skill up to about 200? I'd rather not farm, but if I have to I guess I will. my main is only 51 so Im not sure if I could anyway - Please leave a recepie for the cheapest path to 200 skill please.


Divvyne Purpose :~: 51 Ranger of Tunare
Tallon Zek PvP teams

[Akishka]

I found that the guides off the main site are pretty handy. Just click 'learn a skill' and then chose smithing for some nice tips. Also in there is a list of stuff by trivial so you could skim through there and see if anything in particular appeals.

[Maevenniia]

you are going to farm, no matter what. either plat or components.....

check out Zeralenn's incredibly comprehensive guide...The Economical Smith (http://www.crimsonsnow.com/pdfs/guides.html)

[Pootle]

I'd rather not farm :D

Get your guild to farm for you.

[Footsore]

Race can make a difference.

If you're Wood Elf, then Fier'dal Fletching Kit will get you to 163 for not too much. I don't know if Halfling Rangers can follow Tunare, but if so then maybe you can do Vale sewing kit to 162. The sewing kits are very cheap.

[Zeralenn]

You don't have to be a Tunare worshipper to do the Vale sewing kit; you only need to be a halfling. Halflings can only worship Karana or Bristlebane anyway.

Cultural kits tend to be race restricted, not deity restricted.

There are reasons to do and not to do the kits for skill, but I cover that in the guide anyway.

If you don't want to farm, be prepared to lose some vital skilling paths and spent absolute buttloads of plat.

...Zera

[Nolrog]

You're gonna need tons of leather padding. Since you are making stuff for the guild, ask them to help you farm leather padding. Use the leather padding to make fine plate armor. That will take you up to 180 or so. That will increase your success rate for LDoN armor considerably. You could do shadowscaream or enchanted velium bits from there if you wanted to. Be sure to have a geerlok (adds 5% to your smithing skill) and make sure your STR, INT or WIS is as high as you can get it. That will help maximize skill ups.

The best place to farm leather padding components is in shadeweavers thicket. You can get the shadeling silk threads there very easily, and the rockhoppers there drop HQ, MQ and LQ pelts. Use the HQ to make backpacks, and reduce the MQ to LQ and make leather padding. You can also find a good supply of LQ pelts in Marus Seru. Note, the shadeling silk thread can only be used to make leather padding with the rockhopper hides, and not other LQ hides. You may find LQ hides easier to come by in, say East Karana, but I found that the spiderling silk is not as abundunt as it used to be.

[Footsore]

Didn't mean to imply he needed to follow Tunare to do Vale kits. Was trying to deduce his race from the fact that he's a ranger. He doesn't say what race he is and I didn't know what dieties halfling rangers could follow. Ergo, if he halfling=sewing kits, Woody=fletching kits. I see a lot of sea foam on the merchants, so if human there may be some options there that aren't bad.

Of course, if he's an Iksar Ranger, then he has all kinds of choices.

To second Nolrog's suggestion about fine plate, it isn't as expensive as it first appears if you farm the LP (or get the guild to do it). The sell back isn't too bad.


But of course, if you look at Zeralenn's "The Economical Smith," all this and more will be covered! Great charts, many scenarios, brilliant comparisons.

(pssst, Mod - the link for The Economical Smith in the "Learn a Skill" section is missing. Maybe even sticky it in the Smithing forum?)

[Maevenniia]

(pssst, Mod - the link for The Economical Smith in the "Learn a Skill" section is missing. Maybe even sticky it in the Smithing forum?)

It is linked in a sticky in the Tradeskill Guides forum. I'll alert 'Dandi that it's missing from the "Learn a Skill" section.

[Krazick]

Fixed the link to Zeralenn's Site on the Learn to Smith page...

[Aalar]

The cheapest way to get from your level to 158 is with ornate. And the best way to do that is to find a place (Sol A) that drops FS and ore and other plat items and plat to farm. I would run thru Sol A until I was full then gate out to the forge. Change the FS to HQ ore. The convert all HQ ore to the rings. Sell everything else and then do it again. I actually ended up making several thousand plat going from 122 to 158 skill in smithing.

Aalar

[gpofcore]

Start over with an alt that has Karana for diety. This sounds harsh but will be faster and cheaper in the long run because you can make blessed steel arrowheads to 188. Farming padding is hard work. I used a half elf cleric, I think it was, because they have high wis to begin with.

If you need to do this cheap farm your own fine steel as stated above. I like guards in High Keep. This will help you finance the rest of the smithing.

You only need to get the alt's strength or wisdom up to 200. Don't forget to do worked silver chain to skill up to 111 or so. Should be doable, just grab an enchanter from your guild to enchant the chain.

Will only take a few hours to get to 188 this way, plus the time you spend farming fine steel.

[Kieroth_whiteleaf]

You're not a smither.

You're a smith.

And this particular topic has been done to death - as has been said before, do some research before posting. The Search key is your friend.

Don't mean to be mean, but it's it's draining reading variations on the same topic over and over and over again.

But if you're going to post a question that's been done to death, at least use proper grammar.

SFG

[Troodon]

Halflings can only worship Karana or Bristlebane anyway.

Well actually, halflings warriors can also worship Rallos Zek or Brell Serilis, and rogues can follow Brell Serilis as well. Clerics MUST follow Bristlebane; rangers and druids MUST follow Karana. You'd think pallys would logically follow Bristlebane because that's what their clerics follow, hehe, but actually halfling pallys follow Karana.

Er well none of that is on the main topic lol, but thought I'd throw that in there.

[Troodon]

Anyway, back on the main topic... once gold ornate chain is trivial, I'd seriously think about skipping fine plate and doing LDoN plate instead. It's all storebought, except for the temper ingredient... and unlike fine plate, that requires you to farm pelts AND spiderling silk for the padding, the only thing that has to be farmed for LDoN plate are the temper ingredients. I suggest this as a convenient and economical alternative, if you can forage. Even if you can't, do a lot of EC adventures, goblin bones are a very common drop there (can get up to 12 during the typical duration for an adventure).

If you LDoN a lot anyway, you should be able to save up a lot of temper ingredients, all while getting xp, loot, and adventure points, sometihng you can't do while farming for leather padding, hehe. And the trivials for LDoN plate are from 190 to 212... even if you do decide to do fine plate, LDoN plate a great next step when it trivs. Is a great bridge, cheaper and more convenient than most recipes higher than 188, especially if you're a race that doesn't have any smitherd armor between 188 and BD cultural.

[Nolrog]

Anyway, back on the main topic... once gold ornate chain is trivial, I'd seriously think about skipping fine plate and doing LDoN plate instead. It's all storebought, except for the temper ingredient... and unlike fine plate, that requires you to farm pelts AND spiderling silk for the padding, the only thing that has to be farmed for LDoN plate are the temper ingredients.

I disagree with this. LDoN temper ingredients are either very expensive, or slow to forage. I was getting about 15-20 of them in an adventure with my ranger, clicking the forage button every time it refreshed. The other problem is that you cannot go in there solo (at least not yet.) You can always farm pelts and silks solo when you have time. The shadeling silks are abundunt and the hopper pelts are pretty frequent to make padding that way instead. The biggest benefit from doing LDoN is that you will also be getting some XP as you forage. And of course, this is only viable for a class that can forage.

[Tweedledea]

There is still a decent market in gothic and sandblasted plate, so I wouldn't rule out making it. You can pick up the temper components on vendors sometimes... or ask your friends to save them for you... or just take up residence in Rujark and rake in the goblin bones (forfeiting other cash loot if necessary)

[Zeralenn]

The drop rate of temper ingredients is so low in LDoNs that I certainly would not count on it. My cleric does a LOT of LDoNs. In most dungeons, we get no temper ingredients, and the most I have ever gotten in one dungeon was 4 pondweed in a recent Deepest Guk dungeon. I don't know what the forage rate is on these so I cannot comment on that.

Given how difficult it is to get temper ingredients, and how comparatively easy it is to get leather padding if you use LQ rockhopper pelts with shade silk thread, and the dearth of options above 188, I would not recommend touching LDoN armor til you have trivialled fine plate. Fine plate is not that bad cashwise for sellbacks -- use your geerlok.

...Zera

[Tweedledea]

Sure... that's all true - but I suggested ldon (that you can sell in the bazaar at a profit) as a 'cheap path' :)

[burnttoastv]

Made a karana worshiping human ranger to smith with when playing with friends on a server other then where my high elf 250 smith resided.

Hitting 122 skill I was able to make it to 188 in 2-3 hours. I had invested 2k into getting str gear getting it to 178, and had a shammy cast a str buff on me to get it over 200, usually getting it to 210, sometimes 220 with drunken smithing. The cost of steel arrowheads (not blessed) for the Karana cultural cost me 1.7k. I financed all of this through farming padding since I'm poor on the Quelliuous server, as my lvl 50ish smith is on Drinal.

*sigh* Now to lvl from lvl 9 to 50ish to go farm Seafuries to keep lvling up with seatemper.