Brewing to 248 in 5 hours

[Itek]

Howdy,

Ok there was a thread about where to brew Mino Hero Brew best, and I was gonna reply that I did it pretty easy in East Freeport.

Then I read about Abysmal Sea... and since I didn't have then expansion until recently I decided to try it out.

Everyone should ALWAYS do ALL their brewing to 248 in Aby.

malted milk - 21 - store bought
short beer - 31 - store bought
mead - 41 - store bought
short ale - 51 - store bought
ale - 68 - store bought
ol'tujim's fierce brew - 135 - store bought
faydwer shaker - 188 - store bought
Mino Hero Brew - 248 - store bought

All the below noted ingredients are sold on three vendors standing in a line one floor down from the "zone in magus" and you can use "FIND" to get a path to Corkpopper. (He's the Brewing Supplies vendor in the find window you want.) Right next to these three is a brew barrel. If the barrel is in use there is a brew barrel one floor down, if you go to the banker (use find window) one floor down from Corkpopper instead of turning RIGHT to enter the bank, turn LEFT to go to the second brew barrel.

Took me 5 hours or less, and 186 pp or less. And I wasn't pinching coppers and had a CHA of 55 on my little cleric.

BEGIN EDIT:

I -forgot- to mention, my cleric had a WIS of 245 so if you have LOWER or HIGHER wis/int score you will probably see different skill up rates. YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD!!

END EDIT

Total combines = 1675
Total successes = 1208

Success ratio 72%
Skill up ratio 15% (3 skill up for 20 combines... wow)

>>>> Skill Zero to 26 on malted milk <<<<

Need malt, bottles, bottle of milk

Attempts = 52
Successes = 28 (save successes to drink, you will use water flasks later in recipies)
Skill ups = 26

Ratios .... Success 54%, Skill up 50%

Sell off both bottle and extra milk you don't intend to drink.

>>>> Skill 26 to 31 on short beer <<<<

Need malt, hops, barley, casks. (all recipies from now on require ONLY casks so don't sell leftovers after runs)

Attempts = 8
Successes = 3 (save them for later)
Skill ups = 5

Ratios ... Success 38%, Skill up 62%

>>>> Skill 31 to 41 on mead <<<<

Need hops, malt, yeast, casks

Attempts = 19
Successes = 12
Skill ups = 10

Ratios ... Success 63%, Skill up 53%

Hang on to the mead.

>>>> Skill 41 to 51 on short ale <<<<

Need barley, hops, water flask, casks

Attempts = 28
Successes = 15
Skill ups = 10

Ratios ... Success 54%, Skill up 36%

Sell the short ale

>>>>Skill 51 to 68 on ale <<<<

Need barley, malt, water flask, casks

Attempts = 36
Successes = 18
Skill ups = 17

Ratios ... Success 50%, Skill up 47%

Sell off ale

>>>> Skill 68 to 135 on Ol'tujims Fierce Brew <<<<

This recipie was NOT found on search. Took 4 "old interface" attempts to learn the recipie for the new interface.

Need barley, hops, malt, yeast, casks

Attempts = 215
Successes = 143
Skill ups = 67

Ratios ... Success 67%, Skill up 31%

Sell off fierce brew, barley and hops

>>>> Skill 135 to 188 on Faydwer Shaker <<<<

Also need to use old interface, only took me two tries to learn it, your mileage probably WILL vary.

Need dwarven ale, gnomish spirits, elven wine and mead (use up successes), plus casks

Attempts = 433
Successes = 320
Skill ups = 53

Ratios ... Success 74%, Skill up 12%

Sell shakers, dwarven ale, gnomish spirits, elven wine and mead.

>>>> Skill 188 to 248 on Mino Hero Brew <<<<

This one took 5 old-style tries to learn.

Need yeast, malt, water flasks, short beer (use up those successes now) and casks

Attempts = 881
Successes = 669 (kegger at Itek's)
Skill ups = 60

Ratios ... Success 76% (nearly 90% for the last few runs) Skill up = 7% (averaged about ONE skill up in TWENTY combines toward the end)

Sell everything you aren't going to drink!!

Longest streak of no skill up combines... 79 straight MHB combines with no skill up. Only noted 4 other runs of 30 or more with no skill up. But on average 1/20 seemed a good estimation.

[suineg]

I am debating on going Brewing or Baking but if I finish out Brewing this will be the way I go. At 160 now gonna finish to at least 200.

[Maitreya]

You should to the freebie quests to 54 for any tradeskill, as the NPCs give you the components for those for free. For brewing, talk to the female gnome vendor, Ytimis Grogglenog is the name, I believe, to get the quest.

[Itek]

Um... no.

Sorry, it -sounds- like a good idea, but in reality it's MUCH slower.

MUCH MUCH slooooower.

I tried doing this (the freebie quests) for tailoring. With max wisdom I was getting about 9 successes a stack. (You can ONLY get one stack at a time) Then you have to hand the successes back, all of them. Then you can get another stack. Then when you get 100 total successes you get the next batch of materials. There are -5- batches of materials to go thru.

500 successes at 10 a stack is -50- stacks. That's _1000_ combines for 54 skill points.

BEGIN EDIT:
Almost forgot, see you could say 'well just do as many combines as you need to do to get to the 54 trivial and forget the last 500 combines' ...

Nope, see the trival level for set one is low, but the trivial level for set two isn't much higher... you HAVE to be working on the fifth set to get 54.... and if you are -already- working on the 5th set you pretty much have no logical reason to stop till you finish completely and get to refine materials.

*shudder*
END EDIT

The method I used was 143 combines for 68 skill points. And that's on brewing, a difficulty FOUR skill where tailoring is a difficulty TWO.

Unless and until you need to be able to refine the materials... those 'freebie' quests are a complete waste of your time and effort. They exist ONLY so that you can refine the material if you don't want to collect the materials for the other "refine" quests. There they actually do save time, but for skilling to 54... no.

[KyrosKrane]

Well ... yes and no. For something like baking or brewing, where supplies are vendor sold and cheap, the freebie quests don't make sense as a skillup path.

For tailoring, though, where supplies have to be farmed (think spider silks), the freebie quests might make sense, especially if you can scrounge up a few of the items needed to do the "collect" version for lower required combines. (I often find the supplies on vendors, and spending 10-20pp on them may be a better use of my time than trying to farm an extra few stacks of spider silks.)

As another example, if your prime stat is well below 200, it would take you longer to skill up, and with something like tailoring (farmed supplies) or jewelcrafting (a small loss on sellback, even with a success), the cost in time or plat could add up. The freebie quests really are free, other than the time required for the combines themselves.

Each person's circumstances are unique, so blanket statements can't always apply.

[Itek]

Well ... yes and no. For something like baking or brewing, where supplies are vendor sold and cheap, the freebie quests don't make sense as a skillup path.

For tailoring, though, where supplies have to be farmed (think spider silks), the freebie quests might make sense, especially if you can scrounge up a few of the items needed to do the "collect" version for lower required combines. (I often find the supplies on vendors, and spending 10-20pp on them may be a better use of my time than trying to farm an extra few stacks of spider silks.)

As another example, if your prime stat is well below 200, it would take you longer to skill up, and with something like tailoring (farmed supplies) or jewelcrafting (a small loss on sellback, even with a success), the cost in time or plat could add up. The freebie quests really are free, other than the time required for the combines themselves.

Each person's circumstances are unique, so blanket statements can't always apply.

Um... smithing is generally agreed to be just about as pricy as it comes.
0 to 18 .. Metal Bits
18 to 31 Sheet Metal
31 to 76 Fillet Knives
Simple, storebought, cheap, fast. (Economical Smith path, but skipping a few steps to be faster) Takes under 100 plat and about an hour.

Tailoring is hard. But using
raw silk to 36
cured silk to 82
Both take only 1 silk swatch (4.5 plat each roughly in the Bazaar) and have roughly a 2 in 5 skill up rate. That's about a thousand plat and an hour.

Seriously, if you are broke to the point that 1k will be unattainable... don't start tradeskills yet. If you have 6 hours you can either spend 1k on tailoring and 5 hours hunting to earn it back... (gaining exp in that time) or all 6 on tailoring.

And if your wis/int don't hit 200+ with KEI ... maybe your time would be better spent gearing up rather than tradeskilling.

AND if you INSIST that you MUST tradeskill NOW... Doing the freebie quests with lower int/wis will just take EVEN LONGER. Now instead of sinking 2 hours and 2k plat (presuming -half- the skill up rate) in tailoring 54 (82) you just invested _12_ hours into tailoring 54. Imagine what that 10 hours of hunting could have netted you instead?

I'm the first to admit I suck at this game. I frequently wind up taking the longer harder road. But I at least don't put marbles in my shoes before I set out.

If you can't lay out 1000 plat for tailoring ... you aren't gonna get very far. (Don't platinum ribbons cost 100 plat each... with a skill up rate of about 1 in 10? Wouldn't that mean that the average tailor trying to get to 180'ish is spending about 1000 plat a POINT?)

There are some absolutes. Spending sixfold the time to save a few plat is absolutely a bad idea.

A person making 36,000 bucks a year is driving down the freeway and sees 2 dollars stuck under a rock by the side of the road. They take the next exit, swing around and drive back. They pull over to the side and pick up the 2 bucks. Pure profit.

Wrong. They drove 3 miles (1 mile north, 1 mile south, 1/2 mile east, 1/2 mile west) out of their way. They spent 10 minutes, at least and used 1/5 of a gallon of gas.

36k = 18 / hour * 1/6 hour = 3 bucks
2.27 a gallon * .2 gallon = 45 cents

Add in the wear and tear on the car etc at .10 a mile for another 30 cents.

So, neglecting the effects of probability of accident or receiving a ticket, we add up the COST of this little venture at $3.75 to pick up $2.

Our guy is OUT $1.75

Time value of money. It's why almost every lottery winner takes the cash rather than the annuity. Because $500,000 today is worth more then $100,000 a year for 5 years. Because the 100k four years from now is worth LESS than it would be today.

Really... honest... I'm not trying to bilk the new tradeskiller out of their "free" skill points. Your time and plat are much better spent going fast than going slow. Unless you NEED or WANT to refine materials these quests are much less attractive than they sound.

[Eleena Transient]

Why not just do fetid essence to 122 from the start. Water + fishing grubs...

[KyrosKrane]

Itek, you're right, but you make a number of assumptions. None of these are always true.

1) Assumption: People know what's optimal. (I.e., best skillup path, why wis or int should be maxed) I won't even discuss this one; I've seen some stuff that would make you boggle.

2) Assumption: People do what's optimal. I have a friend who's a very good druid and hurting in the gear department. She's working away slowly at tradeskills. When she can, she gets some exp here and there. And yet, she still gave away a hefty chunk of change to help gear up a friend's alt.

3) Assumption: People value their time as much as you do. In your cash example, what if our driver was unemployed? Or what if he had nothing better to do at that moment? Suddenly that two bucks looks like a good deal because his opportunity cost is a lot less. A lot of people play for fun. So long as they perceive that they are "having fun," they couldn't care less if they're farming, exp'ing, tradeskilling, or just sitting in PoK shooting the breeze with friends.

4) Assumption: The prices for the tradeskill items you listed are representative. On my server, silk swatches are 10pp and up.

5) Assumption: People would rather buy the silk than farm them. See my earlier points.

Please understand that I'm neither disagreeing with your fundamental point nor arguing with you. I'm just saying that you cannot assume that any one specific set of circumstances applies to all people. Just because a path makes sense or appears obvious to you doesn't mean it will work for me or for any other person.

[Itek]

Um... true?

Also, in my last post I got the math wrong (camping level 1 mobs for spiderling silk drops will rot your brain... "your target is straight ahead" for 2 or 3 hours and I've got pudding between my ears)

Even with VERY low int/wis you would certainly reach 54 skill before you ran thru all 1000+ combines. So it'd take the same time either way, while the more expensive route would in fact double in time and cost.

I wasn't saying "never do the freebies" ... Just that you need to be warned it's not as attractive as it sounds at first. I myself tried them. (Me = non-optimal in nearly every case.)

I guess my 'hyperbole' disclaimer goes unnoticed more often than I thought.

On cleric boards recently I said

"nuking damage > melee damage, clerics should never melee as it's awful mana regen and you do more damage nuking."

Oy, did people hack me to bits....

"with level 70, 500 AA and Time+ gear I melee solo BoT and WoS all the time."
"battle clerics solo with melee and porcupine spells/equip constantly"
"blah blah blah..."

I was speaking to a 40 cleric that had 1600 mana pool and no access to the "solo friendly" spells that don't start to hit for clerics until the mid-50's.

Hehe, I frequently find myself camping stuff rather than paying exhorbitant Bazaar "not selling" prices for stuff. Currently there is NO silk thread for sale on my server. So I have to dust off my tracker/forage/taxi and hunt level 1 mobs for hours. *sigh* Fights take 6 seconds, finding the mob takes 5 minutes. TheWife and I can make 500 plat in two hours caming dark-blue mobs at 51 and gain decent exp. So we can then turn that 500 over to someone who spent 5 hours camping spiderlings for 100 pp an hour for their efforts.

We spend our two hours earnings to buy ourselves 5 hours of NOT getting exp.
Someone else makes their desired income (100 pp an hour rocks in the mid-teens/20s) for their full 5 hours.

Win/Win

Everquest isn't a zero sum game.