New Baker needs meat

[lumpy125ca]

Ok, I was looking around on this site for some help in raising my baking skills. I read the guides and both of them told me that the easiest way was to fillet meat. So I got a very nice person to smith me a filleting knife and went to work. I ran out to east commonlands and killed a whole lot of animals and wound up with about 3 pieces of bear meat, lion meat, and only 1 piece of wolf meat. After being a little frustrated with the drop rate of tradeskill items I went to every merchant and bought all the meat I could find. Then I spent about an hour or so filleting and raised my skill to 25. Now I'm wondering...is there a better place to buy meat. The guides told me to go to Thurgadin or Shadowhaven to buy meat, but My faction standing with Shadowhaven merchants isn't high enough and I can't buy anything from them and I have no idea how to get to Thurgadin(newbie). Can anyone help me? Is there a better place to buy meat? How do I raise my faction standing with Shadowhaven?

[Akishka]

Thurgadin - take the Great Divide stone out of PoK (right next to the nexus stone), turn towards your left as you zone in (you should be facing the book and a rock wall), follow the wall down to a narrow valley with a waterfall in the end. Walk through the waterfall and you are at the zone in for Thurgadin. Its a pretty quick run.

Note: there are giants wandering through Great Divide and they will kill you. You didn't say how newbie but anything under 40 ish, you just need to avoid them. That should be easy, they are huge and spread out, just pay attention. Pretty sure everybody is indifferent to the Coldain but when you reach the narrow valley, you'll see little short guys walking around, might want to con them before you go any further If you are KOS to them, you are out of luck since they run Thurgadin.

There are quests to raise SH faction, see allas for details. However, if you can avoid the giants, Thurgadin is pretty easy so you might want to just do that.

[Grenoble]

There is a gnome in SH who isn't on the usual merchant faction and will sell to anyone; she's near the pool at Nexus pop-in spot. She sells bear and lion meat and a few other types. And there's an oven not far from her.

[Quichon]

What's your skill at so far?

If you're under 54, I would suggest you go do the GoD freebie baking quests.

If you're under 135, I suggest you do fish rolls. Buy a spit (like around a plat from vendors). Go to the far western trade center in PoK (where the fishing pool is). The dark elf vendor has the bat wings, and one of the barbarian merchants has fish from inventory (although the other one may have a few thousand from PC sell-backs). One bat wing plus one fresh fish equals one fish roll, trivs at 135.

If you're between 135 and 191, I would actually suggest patty melts. Head to Jagged Pine Forest with a 10 slot container (either a tailored backpack or just get a delux tink kit from the gnome tink merchant on the north side of the centeral part of PoK over by the jewlcraft merchant). If you're a good race, buy cheese from the merchants in the town (take port from surefall glade). If you're an evil race, buy from the gnolls (take port from BlackBurrow). Buy ten stacks of cheese. While you're there, pick up a nonstick frying pan mold and ceramic lining sketch. Find a tradeskiller willing to convert these and other raw ingredients into your very own nonstick frying pan. Head to Thurgadin (see previous posts on location and warnings about the giants and drakel dire wolves). When you can't go straight anymore (you're looking at a bar with a path going left and right) take a right and go around the bend. On your left will be a store called "Moradin's Meats" (which by the way is a D&D reference, Moradin is the head dwarven god in D&D). In there you will be able to purchase bread and lion/bear meat. One cheese, one loaf of bread, one lion/bear meat, and your trusty nonstick frying pan (which is returned on a success or failure) goes in the oven (which is in the store just behind the merchant). Trivs at 191.

If you want to do more from there, you can look at halas 10 lb meat pies, some of the GoD recipies (like beer-battered cragbeast steaks), or you can do PoP baking, or you can do misty thicket picnics.

Welcome to the wonderful world of tradeskilling. Say your goodbyes to your wallet, you won't be seeing much of it anymore.

Oh, pardon me, I need to go try for attempt number three on my mounted blue diamond for my artisans seal. /twitch

[BlueViolet]

Abysmal Sea!

Hi!

Just a quick addendum to Quichon's excellent advice:

The Abysmal Sea is a Baker's Paradise!

• See Ordin Wheasley in the Abysmal Sea for the Freebee GoD baking Quest. (Keep in mind: its really tedious).
• The baking merchants in Abysmal Sea now sell the makings for patty melts (cheese and meat and bread); fish rolls; etc.
• You can also fish for crab meat and tuna...to be used in increasing baking skills and also producing enhancing meals.

This is a relatively easy skill for a forager.

Have fun!

BlueViolet

[splunge]

Personally, i dont reccommend the Abysmal sea freebie quests.

In the same ammount of time it would take you to get to Abysmal sea and do the umpteenjillion combines and turnins, you could just go kill a few mobs somewhere, go back to PoK sell the loot, buy fish and bat wings and get to 135 and still have some money in your pocket.

[splunge]

Actually, now that i think about it, im gonna test that and post results.
How long it takes to start from pok and
1. get to 54 with the freebie quest and
2. just buy bat wings/fish and fo fish rolls

[Nolrog]

Personally, i dont reccommend the Abysmal sea freebie quests.

In the same ammount of time it would take you to get to Abysmal sea and do the umpteenjillion combines and turnins, you could just go kill a few mobs somewhere, go back to PoK sell the loot, buy fish and bat wings and get to 135 and still have some money in your pocket.

While that's true, if you don't do the Abysmal quests, you can't use the abysmal drops in the recipes. For some, it's not really worth it, like brewing and baking, because you can pass 54 so quickly and cheaply. But for tailoring or smithing, it might be more worth while.

[Xodar]

While that's true, if you don't do the Abysmal quests, you can't use the abysmal drops in the recipes. For some, it's not really worth it, like brewing and baking, because you can pass 54 so quickly and cheaply. But for tailoring or smithing, it might be more worth while.

To be quite honest, the only drops I use are the mountain tea leaves and the shimmering ore. Although I did the pre-quests to refine, I do not see these in such quantities that it has been a big advantage to refine myself rather than hand in, hopefully that ratio will shift as time goes by (discounting when you almost always refined 2+ before the formula was patched).

[Sanadila]

Shadowhaven quest for merchant faction

http://www.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=1449


This is a great quest for merchant faction. With one run with my necro gnome I got faction up enough that with the amulet equipped, I can buy and sell in Shadowhaven. Doesn't take that long, and if you want to be a serious tradeskiller, it's really nice faction to have.

[Voltai Ausra]

Freebie Baking

The freebie tradeskill quests in Abysmal Sea are the best thing ever. Yes they are tedious, yes they are retarded. But it's 0 cost to get to 54 in tradeskills and it gives you the ability to refine all the raw products that drop in GoD. White Mountain Taelosian Tea anyone! Baking past 191 is also extremely tedious without the GoD conversion ability....pixie cinnasticks....dragon steaks....misty thicket.....um....yuck!

Learn to Love abysmal sea if you like tradeskills. It'll be your home away from home for them I assure you

[Neebat]

Abysmal Quests not needed for Baking, maybe others

The freebie tradeskill quests in Abysmal Sea are the best thing ever. Yes they are tedious, yes they are retarded. But it's 0 cost to get to 54 in tradeskills and it gives you the ability to refine all the raw products that drop in GoD. White Mountain Taelosian Tea anyone! Baking past 191 is also extremely tedious without the GoD conversion ability....pixie cinnasticks....dragon steaks....misty thicket.....um....yuck!

Learn to Love abysmal sea if you like tradeskills. It'll be your home away from home for them I assure you

I love the Tealosian teas! In fact, the tradeskill quests there are great for brewing, fletching, smithing, maybe even tinkering.

BUT, there is NO reason to do the freebies for baking. Converting Tealosian Wheat does you absolutely no good, since it has no known use. The newbie tradeskill has no effect on baking past 54. Conversion is not used for the meats at all.

Yet, even for bakers, Abysmal Sea rocks. I suggest checking the Magus and any nearby vendors in Nedaria, Natimbi and Abysmal Sea. First time I went there, I bought more crab and tuna meat than I'll ever be able to use. The four common meats from GoD are pretty simple to prepare and there are recipes in nice easy intervals all the way over 250. I'm 238 now with Geerlok, and every time I forage a veggie, I get another chance to go up.

I don't know how this applies below 200, but the stuff I've made has nice stats. Seems to me these meats are targeted at specific classes:
Cragbeast for priests (wis/sta)
Hynid for tanks (sta/agi)
Tuna for casters (int/cha)
Crab for DPS (str/dex)

For skilling up cheap, you don't have to be choosy. Tuna and crab are available from fishing (more common). Hynid and Cragbeast come from foraging (bit more rare).