Picnic's

[Turzen]

ok.. I started trying these way back from 191 and I am now after at least a thousand or so attempts at 203 and having a rough time of it.. is there some sort of penelty for being a Barb beast or something? Failure after Failure is getting on me nerves. Should I at 203 try something different for a few lvls?

Here are my stats

Str 210
Sta 163
Agi 137
Dex 179
Wis with KEI 237, Without KEI 212
Int with KEI 120, Without KEI 95
Cha 72
Baking 203

Any advise would be appretiated
Turzen Spiritkeeper 54 Beast
Erollisi Mar

[Rewde]

Do griff or anaconda melts. Get a geerlock. Keep plugging away. Yes, it is tedious. You could go halas 10#, but that is worse than MTPs, considering the amount of subcombines needed. But, then again, that all depends on who you ask. When I did my MTPs, I set up to be able to do 600 attempts at a time.

Good luck to you, in whatever you decide to do.

p.s. You could also try some PoP recipies.

[Jaasper]

Re: Picnic's

Originally posted by Turzen
ok.. I started trying these way back from 191 and I am now after at least a thousand or so attempts at 203

Yup, that is about right. I do my picnics in runs of 200, in that 200 I have sometimes had 1 skill up; but last night I had 7 skillups. Is all about how the gods favor you.. and you must have been a bad boy, and have a lot of Karma points to run off.

I'm shy 5 points to 250 so Im planning on 2 more runs of 200 to get me there (now that I have said it it will take me 5 runs )

[Davina]

It will get better. MTPs are really the best way to go, imo. It took me just under 3 runs of 400 combines to get from 209 to 250. I don't remember how many it took for those other 7 points (202-209). Good luck and keep at it.

[Tinile]

You are in the "hell" range of tradeskilling. It should get a little easier around 220. The only thing to do is to keep plugging along and you will eventually reach your goal. I agree that MTPs are the way to go. I also recommend searching your bazaar for low priced PoP meats and skill up on those recipes as well. (Or farm for them if you are high enough). Jord meat pies, Justice fruit pies, boar chops, etc are simple combines that all triv >250.

You might also want to get your wisdom up a bit higher as well, it will definately help you get more skill ups. BST uses wis for mana, so that would be your best option of int/wis.

[Ursawraith]

Aye, the hell levels indeed. I did picnics from about 215 to 250 and averaged 1 skill up every 22.3 combines so hang in there it gets better

Grimrose Darkhunter
65 Beastlord - Solusek Ro

[Sanna]

easier around 220? Mine must have been off....

from 205-217, I was getting a skillup a stack, and it was very rare that within one set of 20 combines, I would not get a skillup.

218-230 - skillup every stack-and-half to two-and-half.

230-235 - hell. don't remind me. getting off of 235 alone took 200+ combines.

236-250 - aside from two and a half back-to-back skillups (240-241, 247-248, and 249-12combines-250), I believe it was a stack-and-half to two per point. Very wonky here, but not bad.


Just keep at it. And don't let people talk you out of Halas 10; there is a market for them, melees would rather have them than MTPs. If YOU don't want to do em, don't do em, but don't let someone else tell you to not do them.

Good luck!

-- Sanna

[Itek]

HMP do sell. They just cost a LOT more, take more farming, and many many more subcombines.

If you have access to JaggedPine Forest (Nerdira's Landing) drops try those, and any PoP items you can scrounge up, to break up the tedium of massive MTP runs.

I would give 3 specific items of advice.

1) Max your Wisdom. (nothing else counts for you for baking, honest)

2) Increase your level. (it is LOTS easier to get skill ups when you are higher level, in my personal experience)

3) Take a break. (the new "interface" / "recipe book" might make things easier, unless you are paranoid in which case cross your fingers and click the mouse till it breaks before the put it in)

[Ndaara]

picnics trivial >250 skill so you should expect to have all the failures you are having. at 250 skill + Trophy most folks have right around 50% success on them.

If all the failures depress you, choose a recipe closer to your skill. The closer you are to the trivial of a recipe, the greater your chance for a success on it.

Really depends what you're after. I know folks have done endless testing to see if you get a better skill up rate with successful combines, but i haven't really noticed it to make much difference. What REALLY matters to me is making useful stuff If what i'm making isn't useful to me or to someone else (i.e. it sells in the bazaar) i just won't make it. If i'm failing too much, that's not really worth wasting components on.

I made Halas Pies til 226 and gave away 99% of them. Sold a few in the bazaar but not many. It is true they are a LOT of subcombines but i had great success on them and stuffed my entire guild's banks full of them. Then I moved on to picnics, supplemented with Griffon & Anaconda recipes. I would have gouged my eyes out with my dairy spoon if i'd had to make just one recipe the entire time. Yucko.

[Rerashyaka]

Keep plugging away, it will get better. When I did baking, I was able to do storm salmon filets until 202, and then MTPs. Yes, my success rate was terrible for quite some time (until about 220). On the other hand, it will get better, although it might not be a blessing towards the end... (my mules are /still/ swimming in MTPs, and it's been three months...)
Anyways, try mixing it up with PoP recipes and if you get frustrated, just take a deep breath and remember: it's not tailoring.

Rerashyaka
58 bard
Druzzil Ro

Baking 250 +trophy
Brewing 250
Smithing 190
Jewelcraft 190
Pottery 190
Fletching 188
Tailoring 187
Fishing 194
Drinking 200

[da_erck]

2) Increase your level. (it is LOTS easier to get skill ups when you are higher level, in my personal experience)

Never heard of that, nor can I say it holds true for me.
I skilled up smithing on my lvl 55 iksar monk recently in order to be able to forge javelins, only to find out a few mins after I got the skill I wanted that there is human cultural javelins that are even better, so I made a lvl 1 human and skilled his smithing up.
Since I had both at 255 str buffed/geared I spent approximately the same cash on both chars.
It might be a misconception that higher level results in faster skillups as you gain better gear with more int/wis, have more money to spent on vendor sold components and can therefore do bigger batches of combines, etc.

Oh and for MTP skillup rates you should take a look at this thread
MTPs are really the most convenient items to make as the only real thing to far are the brownie parts which give you 100 combines per part. The rest is vendor sold or easily found in bazaar for a few gp

[Balkin]

I made my first "run" of MTP's yesterday.

Long story short.

Got my 204 smith to 200 baking...

Got my 250 brewer to 200 baking...

and now building a 250 baker! Hehehe...

Got my 31 druid from 0 - 191 in a couple hours last night (after spending 5Kpp in the bazaar to get his wis to 246), now I plan on MTP'ing most of the way to 250. I buy Jord meat and Vann toes on merchants whenever I find them, so that will break up the MTP boredom some. 134 combines of picinics ready to go now, and another 400 or so about half ready. 250 here he comes!

As far as level, I've never heard of that increasing skill ups in any way. Only insofar as you can use AA's to raise your max stats at high levels, and THAT helps skill ups, but the level's themselves do not. My 250 brewer made his trophy at level 21...

[Turzen]

Thanks

Just wanted to say Thanks for all the encouragement.

I'm not planing on giving up on those MTP's. But, man I just had ta vent. LOL.. and I am happy to know I'm not the only one going through it. Though I really didn't think I was, I am glad to know so many others did too.

Anyways
Thanks again
Turzen 55 BL Erollisi Marr