Pies or Picnic's?

[Caethe Darkraven]

Hey folks... question to pose

Many many hundreds of combines later I am finally getting there. Im 3 points away from 202 (and 2 from 201!!!!!) and from 202 Im troubled because I see it two ways.

Halas Meat Pies. I have to do mega mega farming for those blasted mammoth/wolf meats. And the fennel/sage is expensive.

Picnics. Almost ALL of the ingredients are bought, and the subcombines arent too bad, plus they sell for more.

Which to do? Geh..confusion.

thanks!

~Caethe

[Bennan]

Misty Thicket Picnics, even though the list of combines may seem a little daunting, its not really that hard to get all the stuff together. If you have a single account, just try and make as much room as possible first. They also, as you said sell for a higher price, but on the bad side they do have a higher failure rate than the pies.

With the pies, its a real pain to get all the ingredients together (if you can't just find the mammoth and wolf meat in the bazaar that is). I believe someone worked it out that the pies have more clicks to make than the MTP's. The plus side is that the pies have a higher success rate.

I would go Misty Thicket Picnics, which is what I did...

[Calabar]

My druid finally trivialed on Halas Pies, thank the gods. And right after that I started playing a shaman as my main. *sigh* So now I get to look forward to doing it all over again. I have never tried making Misty Picnics, they were next on my list, so I can’t compare the two. But I can tell you that Halas Pies are a major pain in the butt to make. Right now half my druid’s bank space is taken up with baking supplies and well over half of that are supplies for Halas Pies. All the sub combines are a nightmare. Thankfully one day I found about 9 backpacks of creamy fennel sauce on an NPC merchant for just a couple of silver each. It took three characters to hold it all, but I loved not having to make those combines.

Anyway, Halas Pies are a valid path for skilling up if you have access to the wolf and mammoth meat. My ranger leveled in Eastern Wastes killing mammoths so I have stacks of mammoth meat in the bank. And my shaman skilled up in East Karana on gorge hounds so I also have stacks of wolf meat. If you have characters who can hunt those zones you shouldn’t have any problem getting the meat. And don’t forget that each mammoth and wolf meat produces 10 fillets instead of the one that the store bought meats produce, so you don’t need nearly as many of them. The rest of the items are store bought. You won’t be able to sell the pies for very much, but they have a surprisingly good success rate. I sold some of mine in the bazaar, but most of them went to friends. That’s why I haven’t cleared out my bank, I’m sure I’ll get another request from friends for more pies.

If Misty Picnics are easier to make, then they may be the way to go. But I’d suggest making pies somewhere along the way. Its one of the staples of being a baker and if your in a guild I wouldn’t be surprised if your asked to make some from time to time once they discover you have the skill to do so.

[Cyrillia]

What a coincidence...

I was just about to ask this very same question when I saw this topic. I hit 203 a few days ago and am lucky enough to have two accounts so my plan was MTP's. Stocking up a mule with enough for 600-ish combines at a time as I've already managed to collect enough components for 2000 combines.

My next question is... do you guys think that 2000 combines will get me from 203 to 250? This is with my druid, wis capped out at 255 (lvl 45).

Thanks,
Cyr.

[Caethe Darkraven]

Thats a good question Id like to know as well...

How many combines might i be looking at for 202 - 250 if I do misty thicket picnics? I dont have a second account but I have an EMPTY bank. As it stands now Ive got one 10 slot bag with a few baking ingredients. One 10 slot with already BAKED stuff I still havent sold. And One ten slot with gear. That leaves me (thinks in his head) 130 slots. plus if I need too I have a friend who I can steal every once and again for mulage during the day. he started workin graveyard so he's off during my playtime usually.

~Caethe

[Cyrillia]

Free space

I worked out that per 200 combines you'd need 7 10-slot backpacks. One completely empty character could hold 24, so you'd have three left over (on an empty person). I'm doing it the mule way so that I can hand stuff to myself 200 combines at a time as it'll save my space as you also need to remember that any successes will stack up quickly as the recipe yield is 4.

If you accounted for success space you could stock yourself alone with enough material for 400 combines at a time (14 10-slot BP's) and not accounting for successes you'd have enough spaces for 600 combines (21 10-slot BP's).

Cyr.

[brial]

I went the HMP route... currently 227... and although there is some difficulty at times with wolf and mammy meats, overall I found them to be quite easy. Not to mention that, at least in Vaz, they sell like... well hotcakes... I have trouble keeping up with stocking my bazaar mule. So they sell cheap, but at the end of the day I can rake in 1kpp on HMP and Grobb Liquiwhatever meat.

Wolf meat is relatively easy, I have my ranger alt farm it in Everfrost, as with mammy meat. I have noticed, btw, that calfs have a better drop ratio on meat than mommas.

Now, that they are trivial, I am still doing HMPs to sell, since my other main tradeskill is smithing (oy the cost )

[Xerelise]

re:

I am currently at 211 and use a geerlok. I have been doing pies to raise my skill, I got tired of it and decided to try picnis out. I did 100 combines, who is suppose to make 400 picnics if you have a 100% succes rate. I got no skill up, and I made 72 picnis out of 400

From this experience I think I will stick to pies until it becomes trivial. I get more skills up and I can sell them with profit to sustain my tradeskills habits or make guildmates happy and tummy full.

[kiatek]

re

I actually did both until pies went trivial. I gained alot more skill points on pies though. This adds fuel to the fire in the success vs skill gain debate.

If i had it to do again, I would do pies exclusively until they trivialed. They sell really well, and despite the extra subcombines, I think it was pretty time comparative to picnics for me. I gained skill faster so it was worth doing them. /shrug

[Annywyn Picnicmaker]

Re: re:

I am currently at 211 and use a geerlok. I have been doing pies to raise my skill, I got tired of it and decided to try picnis out. I did 100 combines, who is suppose to make 400 picnics if you have a 100% succes rate. I got no skill up, and I made 72 picnis out of 400

From this experience I think I will stick to pies until it becomes trivial. I get more skills up and I can sell them with profit to sustain my tradeskills habits or make guildmates happy and tummy full.

Picnics have around a 50% fail rate (even at 250 skill, with Geerlock) I get 2 stacks (sometimes a few more sucesses) for 20 combines.

[Dith]

Currently 226 baking and trophy and Ive never made a picnic or a pie, I went the PoP route, Storm Salmon Fillet to 202, Breaded Storm Salmon to 215, Justice Fruit Pies and whatever else I can get my hands on from now on.

Pros: Far less combines, less bank space taken up, cheap if you do the foraging and fishing yourself.

Cons: Need a high enough forager to get into Justice and Plane of Storms flag to catch the fish, although Crawdads from Nightmare will go to 208 but its not as safe to fish there, Storms is very safe.
You're not going to be making a product thats in demand till you move on to Justice pies.

[Caela]

I've done both the pies and picnics.

Just got done with a run of 290 picnic combines today (failed at slicing a cake, and didn't have another brownie part). I went from 207 to 218, and made 128 picnics (success 32 times).

After I reached 211 my skill up rate improved dramatically!

I enjoy making the picnics more than the pies - not sure if it's less clicks or not, but it's just more enjoyable. The brownie parts are the sticking point for me... but I go down to Rivervale and kill Nillipus - he almost always has a brownie part on him.

I also will make the foods with griffon/anaconda meat and plant shoots when I can get the ingredients - but since the last patch Jagged Pine is too laggy to fight in, and I rarely find them on merchants.

[Gargazon]

I'd do pies for at least a little while. I know it can be a pita to get mammoth meat, but wolf meat is easily found on ec vendors. If you are an evil race you can probably find it in neriak as well.

It's not like you can't get skill ups, or some successes with MTPs, but pies cost about a pp or less to make while MTPs cost over 3. You will have much more sellable product making pies at your skill level than picnics. I'd do a few pies and then move on to picnics.

[Tiniane]

I did pies and then picnics, but in retrospect as picnics are so much easier to make than pies I'd probably focus more on picnics if I was doing it again.

And incidentally, at 250 skill with baker's spoon I usually get a 50% success rate on picnics. They're tough to make.

Hugs,
Tiniane.

[Sanna]

It's that sort of success rate (or lack thereof) on the picnics that keeps me away from them.

When I first got all the stuff together for the picnics (someone was dropping beer and baskets on pok merchants like you wouldn't BELIEVE for about a week, and since those are the two non-baking combines, I made a mule alt and she is half full with all of it) I did six combines (skill 187 or something). Just six. All failures. But it made me happy: "Look, MTP combines!" fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. "Ok, no more. Enough for me. On to Pies."



Frankly, I love pies. yes, the subcombines are beginning to get on my nerves, but not because there are so many; I HATE LAG. Pok-lag sucks like Jaggypine-lag now! So I generally buy two benzoin and 16 fennel and just take my entire self to nexus.

I also love pies because I just bought myself a pair of Golden Efreeti! Yes, at lvl 31 I have the money to buy GEBoots. Not that I have much left over now, but they would have been out of the question before baking.

Here's the other reason why I don't hate the pies. I don't really care about skill points. that is, yes I 'care', but I don't watch for them all the time. I check when I'm done to see if I got any, but since I'm apparently going to GM baking first, and everything else is way down there, and since there's not a lot of trivial finding I can do in baking, I don't worry. And frankly, it's saved me so much stress. I don't even do 20 HMP combines anymore, can't spare that much bank space. 6 or 8 combines is all the bazaar bag space I've got left (mostly b/c I have so many pelts waiting for me to find studs and go on another tailoring streak -_-).

Here's my other, and final ^_^, comment.



Do what you want. Do what makes you happy.
Pies make me happy for now. If Picnics make you happier, do Picnics. My piece of biased-advice is 'don't do it for the points', not until you get to 246. But tradeskills should be fun. When they've become un-fun, then you're wasting your money and time. And do not get to the point where you cannot smile.

SMILE! You're a higher level baker than all those noobs in gfay put together! ^_^