Why is everything I make useless to me?

[Zolina]

I'm at 250+ in every tradeskill, and I've been in some mid-to-high end guilds. I'm wearing a mix of elemental, Time, GoD, and Riftseekers gear. Why can't I make anything at all that will improve myself?

The only useful tradeskill recipe for me in the last two expansions is Miner's Mud (+8 resists drink). I can't make augments because I'm a ranger and everything else has horrible stats. There might be a few things I can make to sell in Bazaar for a modest profit, but there's nothing I can make to improve my character.

[Baldary]

I'm at 250+ in every tradeskill, and I've been in some mid-to-high end guilds. I'm wearing a mix of elemental, Time, GoD, and Riftseekers gear. Why can't I make anything at all that will improve myself?

The only useful tradeskill recipe for me in the last two expansions is Miner's Mud (+8 resists drink). I can't make augments because I'm a ranger and everything else has horrible stats. There might be a few things I can make to sell in Bazaar for a modest profit, but there's nothing I can make to improve my character.

My Ranger made the Black Gold Inlays for my augments.

Baldary

[Wyvernwill]

It's the level of they game that you are at currently. Charged Magnetized is really good for most non-high end raiding folks, though the lightning cores are rare. The Grandmaster's Cultural with the Augment is really good also... but compared to say Muramite armor, it stinks, badly.

I am going to go out on a limb and guess that your gear is mostly gotten through raids? If that's the case, look at the difference between gear gotten through exp groups and compare it to the tradeskill stuff. They are pretty similar with there only been a slight bonus one way or another depending on how high level zone it came from.

I know, it probably isn't the answer you hoped to hear, but that's how I see it atleast. Although, it would be nice if raids dropped tradeskill drops from boss mobs that would provide another means of gear that was say, attunable, and then atleast that way, it gives a bonus piece of gear to the raid and highlights the tradeskillers in your guild too as being beneficial to have along. Maybe have the mob drop all the pieces... but they are no rent, so the combine has to be made at the raid point?

[Tillinghast]

But then look at the requirement for reaching 300 in a tradeskill. You have to be level 70 which would certainly implied some raiding at the planar level. So in order to become a level 300 Tradeskiller (an alternate form of advancement) you have to advance to the point where Tradeskilling is trivial to your advancement. I agree this seems wrong.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Um.

To get any ONE tradeskill at 300, you do NOT need to be level 70.

Heck to get ALL to level 70, you only need to be 51.

I am not saying it will not be EASIER to get all tradeskills to 300 at 70. Just that it is entirely posible to be level 1 and get ONE tradeskill to 300. then create 7 characters and choose 7 diferent tradeskills on those characters, have them all have their one tradeskill at 300 (and with carefull planning double up on a few, and do the same with alchemy, tinkering, poison making, and Spell Research. These are no longer level limited, though you MAY need to still be 15 to start tinkering. but 15 is trivial to get)

to get the new grandmaster cultural symbols, yes you have to be 65.

And to get the last rank in the AA'masteries and Salvage you have to be 70 (well at least greater than 65...) but these are not REQUIRED to get your skill to 300. Just easier.

The real issue is that SOMEWHERE alnog the way, it has been decided that tradeskills are too easy.
Because of this, tradeskills cannot be allowed to yield results that are as good or better than raid level drops, UNTIL those raids are trivial to folks. (this new cultural is being equated with PoP level planes raids stuff (not Time raid stuff))

I am *NOT* saying I agree or disagree with this asessment, nor that it is 100% accurate. It is just the way it is.

The other thing is, they don't want Raid level folks seeing raid level quipment on folks who have not raided and throwing a huge fit. this is what tradeskilling raid level stuff would allow, unless the result is No-Drop... and the main amount of tradeskillers do not want that, so the just make the "lesser" stuff that is a few expansions behind.

Basically this comes down to satisfying their "largest" audience, which is the raiders. It may not be liked by the minority that is tradeskillers, but it is ALSO good business. If people are going to quit the game NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO... do you want to build something that makes the smallest amount quit or something that will make the largest amount quit? I am sorry to say but SOE is in it for the business, so they have to go with the SMALLEST amount of impact. This bascially means, that to stay in business, "raid level" tradeskill equipment will always be "raid level" multiple expansions ago.

[Aamos]

Actually, I am in a raiding guild too, and for a fair while I was wearing magnetized leggings (not the charged ones, just the basic magnetized ones), up until getting the elemental greaves mold from Time a little over a month ago. And I have heard people complaining or at least mentioning in passing that magnetized armor ruined some of the market prices on basic ornate-quality gear.

[Wyvernwill]

PoP, LoY, LDoN, GoD, Omens.

There's three expansions between PoP and Omens. PoP itself is over two years old. At that point, I say big deal that some tradeskill items in OoW hurt a market that is primarily just a person or two killing a named mob to sell whatever drops. And as for a side note, even Elem Tailoring/Smithing hurt the Ornate markets.

I can't count the times easy drops from groupable encounters hurt the tradeskilling community *shrugs* lol

[Ngreth Thergn]

That is what I was saying. When an expansion is old enough, they don't fear making "equivalent" items for tradeskills.

PoP just had an abnormally long lifespan becuase it was difficult

[Wyvernwill]

That is what I was saying. When an expansion is old enough, they don't fear making "equivalent" items for tradeskills.

PoP just had an abnormally long lifespan becuase it was difficult

PoP was a freak of Nature anyway Ngreth :P First expansion I had seen where the tradeskilled Earth Plate had better hps and stats in a lot of slots than the stuff I currently wore.

In a way, I hope after the dust settles with the trivial levels, we see another time like PoP. By far the best tradeskiller's expansion ever, atleast in my opinion

[Angelsyn]

Bazu Leggings of Flames have stats that rival Elemental Chain Leggings... they just lack the effect.

Charged Magnetic Vambraces have 41 AC!!!


That's a sample of some of the good stuff that came out of OoW.

[Wyvernwill]

Actually Angelsyn, they come close to elemental gear, but if you compare charged magnetic vs the leggings that drop from Discordling Enchainer K*something*... they are comparable, but for the challenge of getting Charged made vs getting a drop of the DEK leggings... DEK leggings are the better option.

Also, you have to factor in the level of the game of the poster. I am going to go out on a limb and say that he is raiding mid/high end GoD... in which case, these are disgustingly pale options to Muramite armor.

It's all a matter of perspective of what stage you are in the game.

[miakiss]

But as has been shown by the "ding 300s" within a few days of the cap being raised, and even the "ding 2100s" coming along now, raising your skill high enough to make this gear is very much easier than getting flagged for high end GoD zones and getting the levels and equipment to be able to survive in them and bring down the top mobs.

We can't have it both ways: expecting a skill up path as easy as solstice robes, as well as the ability to make top-end gear just don't go together.

In many ways we should be glad that they are bringing down the trivials on useless skill-up items, because it will restore the value of having a grand master skill level and allow better items to be added at the top end.

Anyway, from what I've seen of all the posts over the last few weeks, the main motivation for a lot of people is just having that number "300" on their signature, and not being able to make useful things.

[Kcalehc]

'Why is everything I make useless to me?' you ask. Simple, you are already too good. You have passed the point at which the usefulness of tradeskills stops. I believe Sony may have stated (or at least hinted at) that high raid level drops will be better than tradeskilled stuff (theres also quested stuff in there somewhere but I forget the order).

Though for someone like me, a fairly casual player, I have almost always been able to make something that is useful to me. Back in the day at level 15 I was wearing my own banded armour waving a pair of indigo sabres around. As I levelled up the armour was replaced by Plate for the most part (dyed too!) the weapons I actually found usefull up till level 39 (note: these were not MAGIC).
Slowly as my smithing skill kept up I was able to make myself some Adamantite Plate, though I stopped using crafted weapons for a while. Had some Acrylia plate for a short while somewhere round here. Then Regent Plate became available to me as I rounded about 49 and I used Black Acrylia weapons for a while. Also used Tae Ew weapons for a while in the late level 50's, though they were a little pricey at the time for me to make.
Now I find myself at level 65 in a small guild, wearing Magnetic armour (with one charged piece), a piece of Regent still and starting to make Elemental stuff and hopefully someday will get onto grandmaster's cultural.

So while it may not be useful to you, there are some people (well there's me, I'm guessing there's others) to whom the stuff we can make is useful. It all depends how you play, to begin with I only levelled up as something to do when I ran out of money .

[Wyvernwill]

But as has been shown by the "ding 300s" within a few days of the cap being raised, and even the "ding 2100s" coming along now, raising your skill high enough to make this gear is very much easier than getting flagged for high end GoD zones and getting the levels and equipment to be able to survive in them and bring down the top mobs.

That is purely just human nature. People will always take the easiest means possible to achieving their goals. Sometimes, when given incentive or a fear that the goal may be impeded by some force, people work faster and harder than they normally would.

Myself, I had already been working on brewing/baking pre-tailoring-triv change patch. I was doing it the slow way. I was finding PoP meats (easy enough with a Wizard friend who still occasionally quad kites in HoH) and was picking mushrooms for an hour every night or so. It was slow, steady, but very cheap and easy to do. Post patch, though pop stuff I doubt would have changed, I saw a high possibility of KC's changing. That drove me to doing Brut Champagne and dealing with a higher cost vs what I was currently doing and actually spending one whole night online simply picking mushrooms. Once I got into a groove of wanting to skill up, lol I ended up also maxing baking burning off every pop meat I had, then doing the last 35 points on MTPs. I also ended up doing some JC and Fletching also.

As it sits, I have been trying to farm the human seafarer's armor for a while and have grown to dispise those combines. MCS really don't appeal to me either. Smithing looks to be my major pain... but with the DoN cultural, I think that will make my route a lot easier and less painful. I guess time will tell, but for both smithing and tailoring, that's my path. But, then again, I am not very bright... since I finished Aid Grimel about two years ago, I've managed to eat almost a full stack of Party Platters :/

[Dutchy]

I have the same problem.... not only is everything that I can tradeskill useless to my chars at this point... everything for sale in the bazaar isn't a real upgrade to me either... and I'm not in a raiding guild, nor am I even elemental flagged.... I love my family guild, and after 5 years of playing EQ I've never been more frustrated than in the time I led multiple raids a week. I enjoy creating things, roleplaying, helping others on quests, and hunting with guild groups. what is frustrating is the ton of pp on my bank account which is practically rotting, and I have yet to see any droppable item come from DoN that I could use on any of my chars as an upgrade.... As much as sony may want to keep the hack & slash people happy with uber gear from raids, they should at least consider that people that enjoy family guilds have been stuck with the same gear level for ages, and the difference between the hardcore raiding guilds and the family guilds gear wise keeps getting bigger and bigger.
It's frustrating, and more and more of my friends are quitting this game simply because its not a challenge anymore and they cant get their hands on anymore gear upgrades unless they join a harcore raiding guild....
In my honest opinion sony would have to implement more Aid Grimel-like quests that do not require flags into this game.. I dont care if they make it a 500 trivial instead, just give us 1 usefull item we can create with more than 150hp without having to augment it to death.... since theres a ton of people walking around with gear that has 300hp+ a piece these days, cant we at least create 1 piece of gear with just 50% of that? =(

just my 2cp