Shadowscream and Sickle Trivials to be reduced next patch

[Eggszecutor]

The sickles nerf shouldn't have come as a suprise to anyone after the arctic wyvern and solstice robe issue a few months ago. If you had intended to take care of your smithing with the sickle method and haven't yet, then it's your own fault.

If the 10% minimum chance per skill up on DoN cultural is going to happen, it won't be so bad. That is, if they make the necessairy drops for all races realistic to get. To me, that's the biggest issue right now.

[Airl]

Also.

What "they" are saying make sense.

It does not make alot of sence to have to make 2000 useless things to get to 300. They want you to make 1000 usefull things instead.... so they are ajusting for that.

What doesn't make sense to me is drop rate for the DoN ingredients in order to use that as a skillup path.

There seems to be a contradiction going on here where SOE doesn't like people making useless items by farming greenies, but they also don't want to make the "good" items too plentiful because everyone will have really good armor.

I'm frantically farming up shadows and substances so I can get to 267. I need an estimated 2,000 shadows, 1,000 shrieking substances, and 1,000 wailing substances (and that may be a low estimate). That is a lot of farming time.

So, once the changes come around, I would need to farm less overall items because I'll have a whopping 10% better chance of skilling up with DoN combines. That sounds really nice until you consider how slow it is to come by ingredients for the DoN combines.

Unless the drop rate improves, having a greater chance of skillup per combine doesn't benefit me when it takes a lot longer to gather the required ingredients.

[Arkaron]

If the 10% minimum chance per skill up on DoN cultural is going to happen, it won't be so bad. That is, if they make the necessairy drops for all races realistic to get. To me, that's the biggest issue right now.

I'd tend to agree. I don't mind the change so long as I'm not spending hours farming stacks of what I would need to skillup my half elf without seeing a single drop.

As far as farming components vs level/gear/class is concerned, I'm a 70 Necromancer and decently geared. If I can't get the darn things to drop I don't see how others are going to be too successful farming them.

[Scuzz Zilla]

Also.

What "they" are saying make sense.

It does not make alot of sence to have to make 2000 useless things to get to 300. They want you to make 1000 usefull things instead.... so they are ajusting for that.

But.
When you make 1000 "Usefull" Things AKA DoN armor. they no longer become usefull.
They become Solstice robes you have to farm for

[Kahmon]

It does not make alot of sence to have to make 2000 useless things to get to 300. They want you to make 1000 usefull things instead.... so they are ajusting for that.

In that case the Trivials for Anizok's Minimizing Devices & Gauze press are backwards. Shrinkers are by far more popular.

[Flehmen]

Wyvernwill, It's not specifically lvl65 in my mind but I can see where the orge is going.....

For me, it is strictly a matter of cash flow. There are three things I have to do to get my skills up (as did you all I assume)

1. Get gear increasing primary stat
2. get rare drops or spend time farming
3. Buy enchantment, vials of mana etc...

Because of my play time, and the fact that it is broken up into smaller chunks when I do have it these are hard for me to manage all at once. More than once I've been told to give up TSing at least until I've got all the right AAs. <shrug> A mixed play style is what I enjoy about EQ.

Until recently my buttocks were getting handed to me by blue things and I had to worry about the green swarm. I had to stop smithing and slow down my brewing(although my brewing was making me a little plat) in order to afford a much needed gear upgrade. Most of which was crap from the baz which, when pieced together, was cheaper and as affective as a full suit of the cultrual armor I could make(assuming I could get the mistletoe powder which has been heavily farmed on 7th until recently). Almost all the good cash spots have one or two 60+ camping... usually they don't have a problem with me pulling the occasional hill giant but it is kinda annoying to find someone camping every half decent spot for my lvl. At least if it was with a group that is also lvling up I'd shrug and remember to show up earlier next time. (BTW, yes, I was around for and remember the orc camps in EC in the early days, etc, etc, ad airsickness)

Actually, I'm happy I won't have to farm any more shadowscream, I never liked the zone anyhow.

I just think that it was.... unfortunate... that the "easy" skill-up path was there for people who had the plat to spend to 300, and *now* they've decided to nerf it. I like the cultural skill up path, and I'm more than happy to work it. I enjoy the questing, it is a great concept really although I'm not looking forward to farming another 180+ things at least they will XP me too.

My two copper....

[Wyvernwill]

I sit in the camp of thought that Master's/Grandmasters armors already have a bonus to them as is. I've been averaging a skill up every 8.8 attempts using master's sagacious. It stays at that rate, and I will remain quite content.

I understand that getting gear, farming, and making plat to fund lower combines is rough. I've been there and had to do it a lot myself. Bare in mind, my paladin has never really raided much of anything past Rallos Zek in Tactics once, his gear is pretty much all one group kill stuff.

Plat is a surprisingly easy thing to get in EQ, if you plan to get it. Try selling stacks of Celestial Essence for 100-200pp per stack. You'll find you make a LOT of money fast if you have 80 stacks on your character. Cost per stack, mind no fail, is about 33pp. If you unload a bunch at 200, you are pulling a 167pp profit, basically five times your initial investment per stack. Your initial costs were 2640, net 16000, for a total profit of 13360pp.

Who's going to pay 200pp per stack of CE? Pretty much any higher end tradeskiller that really does not like doing the combines. There are a lot of subcombine recipes that sell fast and for a good profit as long as they aren't gouged too much.

Judging by your statements however, farming don crystals for cash sounds like it might not yet be feasible due to level, but when you do something like lavaspinner's locals for 41 crystals and sell those for about 300-350pp each you get about a 12300-14350pp bonus for doing some exping. The only down side is not being able to upgrade stuff as easily.

Oh yeah, and before I forget. You have to farm Spider Silks for solstice robes also :P

[Lickity]

Blue Diamond Cultural (unless this gets changed too, all max at 335)

For us races that have had this dangled in front of our noses (frogloks) this doesn't do us much good.

Also, on the Master/GM DoN cultural. Also, as a froglok, I have run that quest to get access to the GM DoN, and it has bugged on my 3 times, all petitioned and told there was nothing that can be done for me /bug it. I am atm left with only PoP smithing to skill up on.

[Ngreth Thergn]

But.
When you make 1000 "Usefull" Things AKA DoN armor. they no longer become usefull.
They become Solstice robes you have to farm for

Yes. I should have put "usefull" in quotes and meant to was tired

In that case the Trivials for Anizok's Minimizing Devices & Gauze press are backwards. Shrinkers are by far more popular.

dito.

[Wyvernwill]

For us races that have had this dangled in front of our noses (frogloks) this doesn't do us much good.

Also, on the Master/GM DoN cultural. Also, as a froglok, I have run that quest to get access to the GM DoN, and it has bugged on my 3 times, all petitioned and told there was nothing that can be done for me /bug it. I am atm left with only PoP smithing to skill up on.

Like I've stated to many people in the past. You do not have to do the Masters/Grandmaster's stuff to create the armor. The kill/collects are ONLY for the SYMBOLS.

Also, the armor is not level restricted for the combine. Only the symbols are level restricted.

[Flehmen]

Well, just to be persnickity I'm going to try that CE combine thing. I can manage a few tens of stacks of those. I'll let you know how it goes.

BTW, although I complain a lot I'm glad you guys listen. It gives me hope for my EQ future....

Thanks.

[Saleani]

for "easy" to get stuff

I don't have a toon that can AoE, and I won't be able to collect enough shrieking and wailing substance in the limited time I can play before the nerf, so, last night, I gave away every last swirling shadow I had collected over the past 2 years.

I don't want to end up like my guild leader who had 2 toons full of solstice components that suddenly became trivial one magical morning.

[Angelsyn]

1) You do not need to do GM DoN Smithing to reach skill 300. Not even one piece of it.
1a) DoN Master's BP & Greaves both trivial at 302.
1b) Tae Ew Weapons & Chainmail all trivial at 295.

2) Nothing at all requires you to level up to 65 to reach 300 in a Tradeskill. Absolutely nothing.

3) If you want trouble... try Dwarven Tailoring. No BD Cultural, no DoN Cultural, no LoY Cultural.


I personally dislike the very idea that there would be combines/recipes that would have a maximum character level to them. I don't like the idea there are combines/recipes that I can't do because I'm not high enough level... why should I support the idea of combines/recipes that I can't do because I'm too high of level?!?

[Ilona]

Managed to squeeze in just under 60 sickle combines today before the servers came down (a few subcombine failures).

ONE skillup :-(

I swear I was getting better skillup rates with BD cultural, though of course my sample size is way too small to be statistically significant.

Hope they don't change trivials until next week!!

[Airl]

1) You [i]do not need to do GM DoN Smithing[i] to reach skill 300. Not even one piece of it.
1a) DoN Master's BP & Greaves both trivial at 302.
1b) Tae Ew Weapons & Chainmail all trivial at 295.

According to this link, as a Half-Elf bard, I need to farm Great Reptile Teeth to do Master level smithing. Unless they increase the drop rate on these items, it is highly unlikely I could use that as a skill up path.

If Sony increaseses the drop rate, then there will be a flood of master level armor on the market, and they don't want that to happen.

2) Nothing at all requires you to level up to 65 to reach 300 in a Tradeskill. Absolutely nothing.

The teeth drop off summoning mobs that hit for 350s in PoNightmare. My toon isn't PoEarth flagged, so I dont' know how hard they hit there. I think both of these require you to level up. Maybe you don't have to be 65+, but you had better be in a strong group if not.