Which tradeskills have glass ceilings?

[Lilosh]

My dad can beat up your dad.


Tradeskills are hard.

:?

I swear to god, I was thinking of posting this in slightly more vulgar language.

Thank you for posting this. Now I dont have to.


-Lilosh

[Kronepsis]

Well...

Arrakeen, actually, if you're having a problem raising cash, try selling imbued Emeralds in the Bazaar. If you're able to leave a trader on overnight, That imbued emerald stash WILL go down. Admittedly, it all depends on luck (someone might be on a Emerald binging spree and buy stacks and stacks of the Imbued stuff one night), but as long as tailors want to skill up on robes, it is guaranteed income.

[Iannyen]

I swear to god, I was thinking of posting this in slightly more vulgar language.

Thank you for posting this. Now I dont have to.

It took 3 tries before I settled on something that wouldn't get mah self banned.... :P

[Wyrdlan]

Arrakeen, actually, if you're having a problem raising cash, try selling imbued Emeralds in the Bazaar. If you're able to leave a trader on overnight, That imbued emerald stash WILL go down

I buy them that way if they aren't too over priced. Then YOU can be the "imbued emerald vendor."

[ArrakeenNaedShoj]

Continues to be off topic boy

I have tried that before, with poor results. I had my prices set at 25pp each with no sales, 20pp each with no sales, and again later at 18pp each with still no sales, and I was the only one in the bazaar selling them all three times I tried it. Maybe things have changed, or I was just unlucky or wasn't on long enough or something.

I don't know, I will try it again once the DSL is set up and see if I have better luck after leaving it up all night.

[Wyrdlan]

leaving it up all night

At 18pp each if you leave it long enough they will sell. With a dial up, that's hard though. I know the guy I buy them from is always on, and usually has the same amount for days or weeks. Then I buy him out when I'm ready. Couple days later he sticks more up like my own personal gnomie emerald dispenser.

[Wiggume]

Tailoring:
a) are not a druid/cleric Tunare worshiper.
b) didnt scribe imbue emerald back when any druid/cleric could scribe it.

Smithing:
if you waited till after the tradeskill patch to skill up. lol. or you cant imbue emeralds...

JC:
if you are not an enchanter and want to sell anything in volume. skillups irrelevent.

Tinkering:
if you are not a gnome

Alchemy:
if you are not a shaman

thats all I can think of in order for there to be a glass ceiling I would think you would have to be speaking of tradeskills that have cultural as a means of skilling up. Smithing and Tailoring. OR one that requires constant help from a certain class, JC and enchanters.

Smithing is probably the most affected. At least tailoring has a decent alternate (acrylia) to the PoTC shortcut. In any event all tradeskills are possible if you put the time in. If wood elves are outpacing you dont worry, wood elf cutural wont be worth anything when they all get where they are going at such a fast pace. If your a 250 smith or tailor its all about cultural. Cultural > PoP

[ArrakeenNaedShoj]

At 18pp each if you leave it long enough they will sell.

And at 18pp each it really isn't worth my time. That's less than 5pp profit per emerald at max charisma. And considering that it takes me about 15 minutes to imbue an entire stack w/o a KEI, that's a max of about 360pp an hour, and only if you don't include the time it takes to sell the things in the bazaar. I can already make 290pp an hour consistently farming Paineel gaurds without ever worrying about the bazaar. And that doesn't even come close to what I could make If I ever got in a group in say sebilis(If I could play for more than an hour at a time).

It really doesn't matter though. This is all just conjecture to make it clear that in my opinion anyone that doesn't have a hefty amount of time and/or plat to invest, or a lot of help from friends, there really isn't a viable skillup path for smithing beyond 188.

Honestly though, I am fine with that. I find it perfectly exceptable that there are things in the game that only those with a lot of dedication and luck can do. The game was totally and blatantly designed that way. The booklets and advertisments for the game all but screamed, the more you play the L33ter you will be. And that is fine. I would hate to play a game where everything was handed to me, I can't even see how people could find something like that fun.

I do think that verant has traditionally taken the "time-sink" idea a bit too far. And when they didn't and things were "too easy" and they fixed it, everyone traditionally jumps up and screams that the people who did it the "easy" way are somehow inferior or don't know what they are talking about.

I would rather things be more gradual, and have a better balance accross the board of difficulty vs reward. But then, I would rather a lot of things in the game be different. Which is why I probably won't be playing EQ2, and I definately will try every other game I can until I find one that better fits my "Vision" of what a MMORPG should be.

[Suva]

Yes, pottery can be skilled up all the way to 250 uing store bought items. It's expensive though and the items to skill up on really do not sell well from my experience. If you want to make any cash along the way, you need to farm for items to make the idols, faithstones, spiritstones, or some of the new PoP items. The idols, spiritstones, and faithstones have a very small market and when you do make one to put in the bazaar, it's specialized to 1 class/diety. I have yet to sell 1 crucible of escape I skilled up on and have been making money selling the extra components for making them instead. The star ruby steins sell for more to a merchant than players are willing to pay for them. The ceramic bands I also used to skill up on move slowly, but will sell. Not many seem to be selling them is the only way I am able to charge a decent amount for them.

[Bartox]

imo

the glass ceiling for each skill

baking 191 (non-foraged items)
pottery 199 (then you need decent funds to proceed)
brewing 248 (just time...and a wrist of steel)
fishing 200 (just time...and patience)
fletching 202 (another one that requires funds to proceed)
smithing 188 (cultural temper or funds to do POTC Sickles)
tailoring 158 (and the farming begins..or funds to do POTC Robes)

I think anyone could feasible get the following on a limited budget and/or playtime schedule before having to start the climb the next "ceiling"

[Harvyst]

Xaanru, I don't know if you'll see this, but thanks. I'll try to contact you in game to beg/wheedle a way into a few stacks of imbued star quartz for my pottery

Would you like your bribes to be a) alchemy potions b) pottery items or c) plat?

What does a star ruby stein sell back to the vendor for anyway, I've never tried. Surely it must be less than the components - verant fixed it - so you would never break even that way.

I do sell mine. Slowly. VERY slowly. Like 4 a week. I make 20 in one skillup session... I stuff them on alts, I wear them around and pretend I'm an enchanter (when I'm not wielding my cudgel and pretending to be a beastlord, being a shaman sucks when you're tradeskilling in a newbie zone...)

But I do sell them for about 400-500 plat each. So there is a small amount of profit there, about 100 a stein with my current failure rate.

Hence my desire to do imbued star rose quartz idols, which are unsellable - I think the cost for them will be around 30plat a pop, as opposed to 70plat a pop. Much cheaper.

On the subject of Powerleveling - my warrior is 47.5, my enchanter is 12. I found it much harder to powerlevel an enchanter - things sneeze and they fall down. Now that she is 20 I am serously considering having her charm mobs and use that to fight for her. The problem is when mobs break. Or maybe that mem blur trick, if we can get it to work, when a mob is nearly dead.

DS potions are nice, but they don't work well on lowbies. 1/4 your level in time, 1/2 your level + 1 in ds. So for a level 12, that's a 7 point ds for 3 mintues for 30 plat. Ouch.

I'll have to get her up if I get a supply of quartz though as I'll need clear mana and that's a level 29 spell

[tatanka7th]

"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"

I bought all the materials for some sickles last summer, had a friend do the combines. Everything was store bought.

I recently did Fletching through 215, all store bought. Cost about 1kpp through 202, then about 14kpp more to reach 215. To reach 235, you lose about 73pp per success using store-bought cams (302pp per failure), or lose 21pp per success using tinkered cams. Assuming you take about 50 tries per skillup on average, that's 21pp x 20 x 50 = 21kpp. Hardly more money than exists in EQ! Admittedly, a pain, you need to obtain lots of unstackable cams from a tinker.

As for glass ceilings, My personal take is that smithing is the worst, unless you have a cultural recipe to help you out after 188. Being a wood elf, I don't, so 188 will be my limit. Of course, being a wood elf, there's no motivation to reach 250, because there's nothing I want to make, so no biggie there.

Tailoring is a big one, due to the insane amount of farming required (or huge bankroll needed). But probably not as bad as smithing.

Pottery, from what I hear, is also bad once you pass 199. I haven't really researched it, so don't know too much about it.

As for the other 3 (JC, baking, brewing), they are relativly easy to GM given a reasonable amount of plat, clicking, farming, and time. JC you can sit in one room and go all the way to 250 for less than 10-15kpp, much less if you want to enchant everything. Baking and brewing have LOTS of recipes to choose from, so you can tailor your hunting to the recipes you want to make (or vice versa), and get XP along the way. Everything you make is a consumable, so can sell in the bazaar with reasonable pricing. You can reasonably make a profit in these 2 trades, once you hit the upper 100s (and it doesn't take much time or plat to reach that level of skill).

So, from best to worst, I'd rank them:

JC
Baking
Brewing
Fletching
Pottery
Tailoring
Smithing

For a lower level (main) character, with limited funds to access, and also assuming no alts to help make pre-requisite steps easier, I'd change the order to Brewing, Baking, Fletching, JC, then Pottery, Tailoring, Smithing.

Tat

JC - 192
Baking - 196
Brewing - 191
Fletching - 218
Pottery - 174
Tailoring - 191
Smithing - 179

and

Fishing - 200 =)

[tatanka7th]

"shaman are actually preferable for PLing characters (because you skill up with shaman PLing)" vs. druids.

Um, OK, how is that different? All druid PLed chars have maxxed skills also.

I think you're getting confused with monk (almost kill and FD), or enchanter/cleric (have a 3rd char almost kill, and then mind wipe) PLing.

Tat

[Cigarskunk]

I recently did Fletching through 215, all store bought. Cost about 1kpp through 202, then about 14kpp more to reach 215. To reach 235, you lose about 73pp per success using store-bought cams (302pp per failure), or lose 21pp per success using tinkered cams. Assuming you take about 50 tries per skillup on average, that's 21pp x 20 x 50 = 21kpp. Hardly more money than exists in EQ! Admittedly, a pain, you need to obtain lots of unstackable cams from a tinker.

OK, so there's no glass ceiling for fletching to 235 as long as you've got 35k plat to throw at it and a pet tinker to make you 3300 cams.

And what percentage of the player base has those resources?

[Lilosh]

I bought all the materials for some sickles last summer, had a friend do the combines. Everything was store bought.

Nope. The reason I said that "I admit that Sickles are not all store bought" is because IMBUED EMERALDS ARE NOT SOLD.
You still need to either be or find a Tunare Druid/Cleric, and imbue until your eyes bleed and your fingers pop off.

Once you've done that, then the rest is just store bought.


My statement was directed towards Kiztents

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).

-Lilosh