Why skill up in MTPs?

[Theodir]

With most people skilling up with MTPs post 200 the skill up rate is bad. my question is why not skill up with halas pies to 226 and then holy cakes to 242 and tae ew pie to 252. yes i know the pies require a lot of subcombines (i skilled up from 180 to 200 with the halas pies). but wouldnt it be better to skill up that way rather then shoot for a trival that is 335.

just my thoughts on it, tell me what you think?

[Aalar]

Much easier to skill up using the beer-battered tuna or crab and the beer-battered souffle. The only ingredient that is not obtainable by any class is vegetables - which can be readily bought in the bazaar for a nominal fee - or bummed from your ranger/druid friends.

Aalar

[ancarett]

I don't have GoD, so most of the GoD recipes are out for me, unless I run across a lucky find of meat on an NPC vendor.

I'm currently 218 with baking, slowly skilling up on HMP which sell well enough in the bazaar to fund my slow tradeskill path. I did a few stacks of combines for Holy Cakes to have some resist food for my husband's warrior and my cleric, but otherwise I'll continue on HMP until they trivial.

Then it will be MTP to 250. They also sell well enough in the bazaar and I have lots and lots of casters who can use them as stat food. (The joys of many lower level alts.) So MTP are good in many bakers' eyes because a) they're widely recognized and somewhat marketable, b) they don't require any GoD items, and c) stretch out your brownie parts a looooooooong ways.

[Silound]

The simple reason is that Halas Pies have a rediculous number of sub-combines per attempt, and have 3 dropped ingredients. MTP have two/three foraged (cheap in baz) and one/two dropped (very common) part, and each sub-combines yields a large number of parts used in final combine. Overall less combines for MTP and the relative ease and cheapness tend to keep people making those over HMP. Plus HMP are heavy and huge...

[Arghargh]

Plus, you can sell MTP easily, while HMP sell for almost nothing. I banked the hundreds of HMP on an alt, and have lived off them for the last six months. At this rate, I won't have to buy food for several more years.

Arghargh Grumble, Darkblood
65 Ogre Shaman of Rallos Zek

200 Alchemy
250 Baking
250 Blacksmithing
250 Brewing
200 Fishing
200 Fletching
250 Jewelry
206 Pottery
187 Tailoring

[Eoghnved]

Since I'm not a forager and since I've exhausted most of the foraged vegetables I had in stock, I've gone to using the picnics exclusively. The problem is that at skill level 208 I've gone through two Brownie Parts (the most difficult component so far) without a single skillup. It looks like it will take several years in real time for me to get the other 42 points.

[Tudani]

When I was skilling baking (pre-GoD) I skilled most of the way on PoP combines (post 202, yay truffles). Jord meat pies, mephit sandwhiches, etc, anything I could get my hands on from either drops or vendors, the fish recipes too, I skilled up fishing while doing that. I finally did the last 10 or so points on MTP I think, and it was so much easier than HMP. You can do it all in the same zone really, and it took me less time to get 100 combines worth together for MTP than it did to get 20 combines worth for HMP. Plus, the MTP sell really well in bazaar, so I made a bunch of money off of them while skilling.

[Nairn Niteraven]

I made 250 in Jaggedpine from the Foraged Plant Shoot, and looted Anaconda and Griffon Meats. Granted, it wasn't fast, but it's a relatively low number of subcombines and the targets are everywhere. Nobody hunts there anymore.

Obviously the Forage is out if you can't Forage, but if you can safely hunt there, the place is a Goldmine for Bakers; you can even get the eggs from the Basilisks (this is all about the Casserole's).

I really don't remember it taking that long. If you can, Charm an Anaconda and tear up the Griffons, it's really not that bad at all.

And another plus, the Meats sell for at least 25pp when you don't need the skillups anymore

[Aluaeia]

GoD souffles suck for skilling because they need 1 vegetable per combine, MTP needs 1/10 of a vegetable per combine (because the vegetables are used in the Jumjum salad subcombine that yields 10).

[Toppo]

It really depends on what you can get your hands on.

To get the components for MTP's is easy and fairly cheap. My best skill up runs have come from other things, but its not often someone hands me 50 Justice Fruit or Lotus Sap or whatever.

I have 300 crab in the bank ready to be combined...300 veggies might be a pita though - bought 140...which I could use for 1400 MTP's

MTP still the easiest to get together

[Abazagaroth]

I did MTPs from like 199 or so to 250. The 199 to 215 or so stretch did sucks, as with so many failures the skillups were few and far between. But for the amount of effort involved it wasn't bad (I collected the stuff needed for like 2000 combines (except for the jum jum stalks, did get like 10 stacks though and banked them)) doing them 200 combines at a time.

After 215 it was a breeze as I started being successful more and more and skillups became more and more frequent.

Did it all in one night. Once I had the route to go down for where everything was sold, and figured out the most efficient route to buy and combine components, 200 combines worth of subcombines took maybe 15 minutes.

[Zyrtryx Conjureblade]

Halas 10lb Pies have been a major pain for me when it comes to skill-ups. I was doing HMPs (to sell for profit) starting in the mid-180's, and during the time I went from 184 or so to 200, I got exactly 2 skill-ups from HMPs. The skill-ups I did get were from Ohabah Truffles and Griffon Melts.

If you have no problem hunting all the ingredients for HMPs, then by all means go for it. (I personally still hunt Mammoths when I'm in Everfrost, but that's due to how much I can get for their tusks, not for the meat)

I'm doing recipes using the saltwater crab and tuna now, as they are easier to come by. (My only problem is getting eggs, as I don't hunt anything that drops them. I have a Wood Elf Druid alt and a Halfling Ranger alt I use to forage vegetables and the occasional Griffon egg if I'm in EC. Depends on which of the alts I'm in the mood to run....)

I'm just glad they added the Abysmal port to the Magus in Nedaria's, as I had zoning issues on the blasted boat, and would've likely had to perma-park an alt there and raise its fishing skill!

[Turner_USA]

...

My skillup of choice was breaded storm salmon from 201-215. Then Justice Fruit Pies from 216-240 (or 250 if you want to be part of the 1750 club).

If you have a forage bot you can get about 100 or so fruits a day and just wait till you have about 200-300 fruits. Should yeild about 10 skillups.

[Aamdor]

After HMP, I tried MTPs and just got frustrated at the lack of successes and hence skillups (200 combines to get one skillup to 230). I noticed that there were a lot of vegetables for 2gp(!) to 3pp in Morrel-Thule Bazaar (yep, there were traders all the way to 10pp) so I bought them out (about 15 stacks). Since I had a fair number of eggs saved and a Ranger who was skilling on genitors in JPF, I said the heck with it and used Gate's recipes to get to 240 in a few hours (about 1 skillup for 30 combines). Yes, each meat represents three subcombines (meat, sauce, sauced meat) but it went quicker than all those combines for MTPs (didn't have to run all over Shadowhaven and didn't have to make all those different final items). Now that I'm at 240, I have saved 3 stacks of vegetables for going back to MTPs once I get my INT from 270 to 295.

[muana]

Baking and MTP

Well since I started my baking pre-pop I started trying to do many of the other recipes like Halas, while it was decent, MTP was so much easier to get the necessary parts for. (Druid). I was lucky in that the Solstice Earring had just been found, while I couldn't afford it at 30k...I was able to sell my MTP for 500pp so at 166 skill I began making them (about 5% success rate). While now you can get much higher with other combines first off, MTP selling at 5pp each can earn good sums of money and can sell real fast at 2.5pp each if you want to sell it to other resellers. That is why I still say that MTP is the best skillup route, no way am I gonna waste 10000 vegetables on GoD combines.

Always look for Jord meat and other easy 250+ combines on merchants.