Curse you MTPs!

[Elton]

It took forever and was a huge pain, but I got the sub-combines done to attempt 160 Halas Meat Pies. I went from 191 skill to 197 skill on those 160 attempts. I had 35 stacks of pies in the end, too. The end results weren't bad, but the sub-combines blew so I decided to try Misty Thicket Picnics.

I gatherd all the stuff and made the sub-combines. It all went well. It took some adjustment before I got the hang of it, but everything was relatively easy to find and the sub-combine yields made baking bearable. I figured MTPs were the best route to 250 for me. I go through 160 attempts at making MTPs. I got 2 skill ups near the 40th combine so I was at 199 skill. I ended the session with 44 MTPs also. I knew the success rate stunk so I was prepared for that. I was a little disappointed in the lack of skill points for the final ~120 attempts, but figured I was just having a bad run.

I gathered all the stuff and did the prep work for another 160 MTP attempts. I clicked my way through another 80 MTP attempts. The end result is no points and 19 more MTPs. I got a bit annoyed and just logged. The total now is 200 MTP attempts without a skill up. I have read here that the 190's are the hell points for tradeskills, but 200 attempts at an 8 item combine with the low success rate of MTPs is ridiculous.

Is this common? All buffed up I have 194 INT. I assumed I'd get a point for every 30 to 40 attempts, but going on 200 now with nothing to show for it, but a few pies makes me want to bang my head against a wall. Am I in for more frustration going to MTP route? As much as I hate the sub-combines for HMPs at the rate I am going with MTPs it's worth making the change. Based on my limited results I would have gotten another 70 stacks of pies and 12 skill points if I had stuck with HMPs.

[Hobbun]

Even though baking is probably the easiest tradeskill to skill up on, it is not easy by any means. Especially MTP's. They have lots of subcombines and yes, that is normal for skilling up on them. They have horrible skill up rates.

But...the reason people do them is the components are easy to get and the subcombines have high yields.

I took the MTP route from 195 to 250. Around the area of 199-205, there were a couple times I went over 200 combines without a skill up. It is the RNG for you. Be patient and stick with it.

Hobbun

[Sinjun Evolution]

Skill Ups

Skill was at 191 and did 160 combines and got only one skill up.
Managed to make 42 MTPs though.

I'm going the Halas Meat Pie route now. Hehe.

[Koru]

193 skill. 180 combines, 3 successes, two skillups. 4 tufts of hair pulled out. Kind of disappointing, mostly though I felt bad for my helper. I had a friend use a mule to hold all the subcombined stuff and feed it to me as needed. Took a few hours and for so few successes I felt bad to have taken that much of his time. I still have enough brownie parts for roughly 3000 more MTP combines, but with the space they take I think I'll try to break 200 on truffles at least instead until I can twobox to hold all this stuff.

[Seriena]

Even though baking is probably the easiest tradeskill to skill up on

I soooo disagree on that! Next to smithing and tailoring, baking has the most annoying subcombines! There really is only 2 "easy" routes to skilling up past ~200 and the skill up rates, subcombines and space you need on those 2 are ridiculous.

JC is by far the easiest tradeskill to max. Can get that done in about 4 hours, never having to leave 1 shop with 2 vendors. Then there's brewing, which requires lots of ingrediants, but it's still mostly all vendor sold and you don't have to leave 1 vendor to get to 240 or so.

Anyway, I'm a little frustrated with baking atm if you can't tell hehe I just did 3 backpacks worth of combines on every type of PoP recipe in existance (/hug friends who save meat for me) and only went from 203 to 206 with my wis at 300.

To the original poster, yes...from my experience MTP's are horrible for skill ups but it's that or spending hours upon hours foraging or killing greens for rare drops.

[Elton]

I see the light!

There is light at the end of the tunnel! It didn't happen til after 220 attempts, but I finally got that last point from 199 to 200. I got another 2 points in the final 60 attempts I had left in my bags. The success rate still sucks, but at least I made some progress.

I started the griffon and anaconda meat collecting one day while also camping the Half-Elf mask, but got tired of that scene quickly. The time investment to gather enough material for a decent run at skilling up would be way more effort than I have in me these days. I have been collecting meats while I hunt in PoP. I had Jord meat, but I used it all. I still have plenty of hero parts, mephit meat, and a few other meats. I should probably use them and clear out some bank space, but I just haven't yet. The only good thing about gathering the meats from the various PoP zones is that you can get some XP at the same time. The hero parts drop fairly often and killing them yields a decent amount of XP. I prefer that route, but decided to try the other recipes just to see what they were like.

I have considered fishing in PoStorms and PoWater, but it's so slow and tedious. Even with the low skill up rate for MTPs it's still probably more efficient than fishing or hunting greens for enough material to make a similar number of attempts. It's a nice change of pace though. I usually 2 box a ranger friend and use him to forage and fish while I do the same. I was using him to master the languages, but with the change to language skill increases that was easy to finish.

[Corii]

MTPs

Right now with 290 wisdom my success rate on MTPs is just over 40%. I don't recommend them as a skill-up path before the 220s.

[Hobbun]

I soooo disagree on that! Next to smithing and tailoring, baking has the most annoying subcombines! There really is only 2 "easy" routes to skilling up past ~200 and the skill up rates, subcombines and space you need on those 2 are ridiculous.

JC is by far the easiest tradeskill to max. Can get that done in about 4 hours, never having to leave 1 shop with 2 vendors. Then there's brewing, which requires lots of ingrediants, but it's still mostly all vendor sold and you don't have to leave 1 vendor to get to 240 or so.

Ok, I have to agree, IF you have the money, JC is the easiest. But when you start having to make combines with platinum bars, it is extremely expensive. Very few have the money to do it in one sitting or even a few sittings.

But past JC, I would have to say Baking is the easiest. Even more so than brewing. Yes, brewing is almost all vendor sold. You can take Mino's up to 248, but they skill up worse than MTP's in my opinion and I'm only at 190 in brewing right now. Also, the subcombines for it have nowhere near the yield as the subcombines for MTP's.

Hobbun

[Seriena]

Jc is actually pretty cheap. You can sell back your results to the vendor for nearly what it cost to make them (assume you have decent cha). You take a small loss but it's hardly near the loss you take on other tradeskill items when you vendor sell.

I'm not saying baking is the hardest skill, but you certainly can't sit down and go from 0 to 242+ in a matter of 4 or 5 hours and under 10k pp while buying/selling from the same npc.

I would say from easiest to hardest (in my exp) it's: JC, brewing, pottery, baking, tailoring, smithing. Based on ease of gathering supplies, sell back, subcombines, inventory space and time

[Hobbun]

Jc is actually pretty cheap. You can sell back your results to the vendor for nearly what it cost to make them (assume you have decent cha). You take a small loss but it's hardly near the loss you take on other tradeskill items when you vendor sell.

I'm not saying baking is the hardest skill, but you certainly can't sit down and go from 0 to 242+ in a matter of 4 or 5 hours and under 10k pp while buying/selling from the same npc.

I would say from easiest to hardest (in my exp) it's: JC, brewing, pottery, baking, tailoring, smithing. Based on ease of gathering supplies, sell back, subcombines, inventory space and time

Yes, after thinking about it, I will recant and will agree with you that JC is the easiest to raise, but I would say Baking would be the second easiest. As I mentioned above, I found skill ups for Hero Mino Brews to be rarer than MTP's in the 230's and I haven't even hit 200 yet in brewing. Yes, you can take a couple other routes. But there is usually one item or another on the other route(s) that is not store bought. All items for Mino brew is store bought, and takes you up to 248. But again, I find skill ups rare for them.

Before the nerf/fix with pottery I would have said it is the easiest, but since then, skill ups are a few and far between. Even at mid range. Only in my 120's, and on a consistent basis, I have long runs without a skill up.

But otherwise, I agree with you.

Hobbun