Cheapest Path: 202 - 250?

[yawp64]

Howdy, Fellow Fletchers,

I'm a few ranks away from 202 on arrows and have been researching what will be the least expensive path from there to 250.

I've come up with some results that stagger me, so I wanted to run them by this board for validation.

My basic assumptions are:
1) I will forage things that could be foraged;
2) I will be forced to get non-foraged stuff from vendors;
2) I will require 20 combines per skill up.

So --
202 - 215 = shaped sedgewood compound bow
each bow costs 92 pp (sedge branch foraged)
13 ranks X 20 combines
23,920 pp

215 - 235 = rough darkwood compound bow
each bows costs 277p (all components bought)
20 ranks X 20 combines
110,800 pp

235 - 250 = rough shadewood recurve bow
each bow costs 374 pp (all components bought)
15 ranks X 20 combines
112,200 pp

That's a total expenditure of 246,920 pp.

Obviously, I'm looking for ways to lower those costs. Ideas I have:
1) Kidnap or befriend a gnome tinker and have him make cams for me at cost.
2) Sell the bows as you make them. What sort of loss can I expect selling them back to vendors?

What have you all done to support your skill-ups?

Lathen Maplehurst
Stromm Server

[Oualawouzou]

I don't know about your race, class or diety, but since you can forage, you are:

-Ranger, Druid or Rogue
AND/OR
-Halfling, Wood Elf or Iksar

Therefore, there is a good deal of chances that you worship Karana or that you are a Wood Elf.

If you worship Karana, consider doing the Karana-only arrows in Surefall...

They trivial over 250 and it will cost you about 35pp per combine.

Using your assumptions (20 combines per skill-up), I come to a total of 35 000pp to get from 202 to 252 (though technically, you can only skill-up to 250).

35pp/combine * 20 combines/skill-up * 50 skill-ups = 35 000pp. That's not counting what you may make by selling back arrows or selling them in the Bazaar (there is a little more market for arrows than for bows).

Unfortunately, I don't know much about Wood Elves, so I'll leave that to someone else.

[Jaasper]

Your logic is flawed:

First the cheepest skill up is acrylia arrows. I am a godless Hafling Rogue (ie no easy path for me).

Went 202 to 220 on the arrows and it didnt cost me anythign cuz I was able to farm the shadow and acrylia myself.. If you have to buy these then your costs will rise.

I failed my first attempt at the Grimell bow and decided it was time to take fletching to max skill. Went from 220 to 240 on bows (I was in a hurry) sure you have to make a lot of bows, but you can sell the successes back to the vendor.

In my 20 points I sold 400 rough darkwood compound bows (total sales 92K) and 123 rough shaewood 1 cam bow (total sales 34k). Of course I had the 1 in 20 failures which added to the cost.

Overall the bow skillups cost be 24K so just over 1k per point. However if I had of shot for 250 would have cost me much more as the shadewood points cost about 3 times as much as the darkwood points.

Oh.. sucess on Grimell bow attempt #2 and proud owner of a signet of might.

[Tinile]

In your initial layout of costs, you don't include money back for selling the bow to the vendor. IIRC on the vendor bows, there is about an 80 plat loss per success. Failures are full cost, of course. I didn't use too many, but I tried a couple sedge bows, they sell for silvers to the vendor, but was able to bazaar them at a very tiny profit, but this was when the LDoN expansion was new, they may not sell anymore.

Assuming good faction and decent CHA, I would expect to spend 70-100k from store bought fletching > 202.

[eniamn]

definetely do acrylia arrows if you aren't extremely rich. normally even the bazaar prices for the acrylia and condensed substances are better. i have been saving up since i farm shadeling silk, rockhopper pelts and essescense of shadow in shadeweavers for smithing.

[yawp64]

Wow, my bad.

I totally missed the acrylia arrows. (Which is why I posted the question here! Thanks!)

So ... if I use acrylia arrows as the path from 202 to 250, that equates to 48 ranks requiring an average of 20 combines per skill-up, for a total of 960 combines.

That means I need to go farm 480 small bricks of acrylia ore and 480 chunks of condensed <item>.

Better get crackin ...

Thanks for the input, Fletchers!

Lathen

[Saleani]

I did darkwood bows from 202 to 220.
Selling successes back to the vendor = 80pp loss
Failures about 280pp.

I have 295 wis unbuffed (pretty good for a paladin that used to be 85 wis naked) in my tradeskill suit. To get wis any higher I need to ding 65, and put 3 more aa into planar power.

I spent 26kpp getting from 202 to 220.

I don't know which recipe will be better for the next phase, as I am farming velium and acrylia with my shaman. Also, just having spent about 30k getting JC to 250 (from 178), I am kinda burnt out on tradeskilling for a week or 2. From 220-235 in JC, I was getting around 1 skill up per 20 combines. From 235 to 250 it was closer to 1 skill up per 40 combines. I don't know if I had bad hair days or not. These were done in 2 sessions over 2 days in qeynos.

[lonewylfe]

It's a lot more than 960 combines (at least it was in my case)...
I ended up with at least 700 combines on acrylia, and that was post 215 with a lot of other things thrown in (did at least 5 levels with TS bow, at least 15 total levels with nightmare bow). Don't remember what I did 202-215...think it was acrylia and mithril.

Good luck with your fletching!

[eniamn]

well yawp your pm's are disabeled it looks like.
i highly suggest condensed shadow. its by far the easiest to farm in mass. anyway good luck.

http://mboards.eqtraders.com/upload/...&threadid=7712

its the master tradeskill guide list with links to the others. i made a fletching guide from what i've read here and what i've done so far. anyway it has info on all this. just skim down the page till after normal arrows are trivial.

[Laearya Lifeblood]

I did bows straight to 244 from 202, tinkered the cams to save some cost...and got a good run overall, costing me just over 43k in that stretch. By far, my best run of any.

[illovich]

Originally posted by yawp64
That means I need to go farm 480 small bricks of acrylia ore

That almost made me cry when I read that.

[yawp64]

That almost made me cry when I read that.

So did my wife, who gets stuck farming with me! LOL

[Leriane]

Good luck with 20 skillups per combine. I did 5 stacks of sedgewood compound with NO skillups. 206 Fletching, with geerlok, and 355 wisdom. RNG hates me

[Yroc Morf]

Nod you won't get a skill up per 20 combines.

My estimate is one skill up for every 60 combines.

[Pootle]

IGNORE THIS!

Your skill at Maths has NOT improved.