Most Profitable Tradeskill?

[OutcastAssassin]

I would like to know what the most profitable tradeskill is. Smithing seems like that in the long run. But Baking and Brewing seems like they are profitable also. Any other opinions?

[Lilosh]

The best way to make a small fortune in tradeskills is to start with a large fortune.
You'll make much much much more "profit" from camping items to sell to players.

For every one player who makes some money doing tradeskills, there are 100 others who lose their shirts.


Not to mention, recent quests have everyone and their brother doing tradeskills, so You'll be dealing with 600 other people selling whatever item you decide to make.

Tradeskill for fun, Tradeskill for Quests, and Tradeskill for friends.
Don't tradeskill for cash.

-Lilosh
(I wonder If I could make this into a copy-paste macro?)

[splunge]

The only exception to this is if you are on a new/young/small server and youre the only tradeskiller in town, or you decide to make something that no one else makes, and theres some semblance of demand for em.

[Cubwynn]

anyone else tired of this question being asked weekly?

[Lilosh]

Originally posted by Cubwynn
anyone else tired of this question being asked weekly?

Originally posted by Lilosh
(I wonder If I could make this into a copy-paste macro?)

[Aethia]

Can I steal that answer?

Q: How do I make a small fortune?

A: Start with a large fortune.

ROFLOL

I get asked this daily. By the same people. I don't know what is sadder, the fact that they can't remember they asked or that I keep answering. <g>

But to answer the poster's question - that depends on your server. And how far you can go to be flagged.

On stromm, one guild is in Plane of Time. Obviously, any tradeskill items from Time (or elemental planes) is rarely seen on the market. If you are level 13 you probably won't be able to get the items to make Earthweave pants yourself, and I would suspect buying supplies in the bazaar can be costly (eating up your profits). But a level 13 could make good money with KC.

A lvl 65 that can solo farm mobs A, B and C could do well in almost any trade, although the standard smithing and tailoring always come to mind.

If it's hard and costly, you ***may*** be able to recoup your cost and make some money. But don't get into tradeskilling because of the money.

[Hurk]

the only way to win, is not to play.

there are no profitable trade skills. thats a myth. rather there are times that items have value above the cost of your effort and skill that return a large payout. but even then your still down long term unless you wait quietly and only tradeskill during these payout times.

the best way to make money in tradeskills is by providing raw matierals, or sub combined matierials. Tempers for instance do not normally require more than 180 brewing, and people who smith would jump at a chance to buy them at a reasonable markup rather than farming the matierials, or spending the time on the combines.

this allows you to avoid the high risk combine marked (click, there goes 20k plat in raw materials)
also you how a much lower investment (killing mobs for loot doesnt cost much except time)

some typical examples:
ldon tempers sell for 40-150 plat. they take one foraged or dropped ingrediant, and 1 water to make, as well as a 180ish brewing.

velium and acrylia are always in demand, and sell for 20-150p per piece/bar/brick etc.

foraged goods sell from 1p to 150p each (or more for rarer stuff like dragon eggs)

[Berusa]

Making tons of Stonewood Compound Bows with fletching could pay off i guess..

[Dragonsoul]

I would have to say Jewlcraft is profitable at least it was before the plat dup bugs... and the JC mastery Nerf.. So I guess no nothing profitable anymore...

[Lone_War]

Profitable

Profitable tradeskills?

Any of them.

And none of them.

A tradeskill is not profitable on its own, it needs one other HUGE ingrediant to make it so, either time or power.

Time comes from the ability to either kill green mobs endlessly or forage or vendor mine or bazaar mine. If you are religious in your mining you will find the items needed to make the items that sell for lots of cash. Time allows any character the chance to make any item, thus allowing a level 1 grandmaster to compete in any market they want.

Power comes from access to more places, or the ability to kill harder mobs. Power reduces your cost per attempt so that almost any item can be profitable even given really a really low price point.

But the most profitable tradeskill is one that is backed by a level 65 with elemental access, no matter what skill they use.

[Chenier]

I like jello.

[FeroceFV]

There are several tricks to making money with tradeskills (and YES, IT CAN BE DONE!) both directly and indirectly.

1. Identify the needs/wants of people trying to skill up. Get familiar with the market, and corner it, so that you become the indespensible go-to man. Bottom line: people trying to skill up fast are chumps with their platinum, so you may as well profit from them. I'll give a few examples:

-LDoN armors are big these days. Forage the temper ingredients, get your buddies/guild in on it, and become THE supplier. Merchant mine all the vendors you can find for these temper ingredients. Buy out the people selling under your price. Corner the market, and make the ingredients into tempers. You've just made money by brewing.

-Tailoring is always a good one to work with. Become familiar with the best farming spots. Decide on a particular area you want to dominate, look around the market, and farm the crap out of it. Spider silk swatches for tailors, leather padding for smiths, there's plat to be made all over the place here.

-Baking is one of those tradeskills that lots of people do. Problem is, not everyone likes to do the farming involved at the top end, or the pain-in-the-rear combines. So do them for them! Become the 1-stop place to get everything needed to make Halas meat pies, Holy Cake, Ohaba truffles, etc. Do all the subcombines, and sell them at a tidy profit, at one convenient location.

2. On the finished product side, it's all a question of the market, and what you can reasonably make. There are several ways to make platinum from making finished products. This is how I do it:

-Stay abreast of current events, especially in regards to tradeskills. New recipes are ALWAYS hot, if you can hawk them well. Pay close attention to the benefits and advantages of new items, and highlight them when you're selling.

-Avoid selling in the bazaar like the plague. The bazaar is completely driven by supply, and works at the convenience of the seller. By selling at the convenience of the buyer (making deliveries), you can get away with higher prices. Sell your items in your server's auction channel, and in your zones. You'll get better prices, and a reputation associated with your tradeskill.

-When you're selling lower-priced generic items like food, drink, and arrows, give out samples to people who port you, summon your corpse, buff you, or rez you as a donation. Tell them about yourself, what you're making, and that you'd love to sell them some more any time they want some.

-If you make specialized items, such as imbued heraldic armors, LDoN armors, tailored armors, etc, then keep your ingredients as ingredients, and make your items to-order. People often get frustrated not seeing the particular slot of a desired type of armor, and are willing to shell out extra cash for you to make it for them, special-delivery.

-Fix your prices. Change them slowly, hesitantly, when the market warrants it. Keeping your prices consistent is pretty key.

-Keep track of a variety of items you can make for profit. Often, some recipes will be out of supply for weeks at a time. Fill the gaps in your server's economy.

-Be polite and nice to people when you sell to them, and after you sell to them. Be patient with the newbies.

-Make as much stuff free for your guild-mates as you possibly can.

I've probably made almost 100kp off of tradeskills, and had fun doing it. Tradeskills ARE a legit way to make money, but only if you want to be a legit trader. If you're just interested in powering up your skills to make an uber item, you'd be much better off farming the materials for said item and having a GM smith click combine for a reasonable donation.

Feroce

[FeroceFV]

Hey, remember the whole role-playing basis for the game? It works out for tradesmen. Here's my bottom-line on how to make money and a reputation as a trader:

If you want to be a tailor, BE A TAILOR! Tailors are NOT Nike sweatshop employees cranking out endless copies of the same product. They are skilled professionals that custome make their products to the dimensions and needs of their customers. Size your creations according to your customer, then provide him/her with a dye to go with it!

If you want to be a grandmaster smith, BE A GRANDMASTER SMITH! The great masters didn't crank out their most prized pieces and sell them on a commodities market. They got commissioned to make suits that fit the size, style, and demands of their rich customers. Again, selling dye with armor is a great way to make platinum.

If you want baking to be profitable, BE A CHEF! Stock up your larder with all kinds of ingredients for exclusive, top-end, expensive foods. The Iron Chef doesn't work a McDonald's flipping burgers. He cranks out what the customer wants, when he wants it, how he wants it.

Don't be a brewer, BE A CONNOSIEUR! Offer a wide range of all the recipes you can get.

Norrath is a small world. Lots of people try to get industrial with it, thinking that it mirrors the economy of today. It doesn't. The size of our servers means that the economy is more that of a small town than that of a state or country. Getting industrial with tradeskills will lead to oversupply of products and high expenses to make them. The final word is, when you're not making money with your tradeskill, shift your attention somewhere else. Flooded economies don't get better if you keep pumping stuff in.

Feroce

[Draggar]

Want to make a profit? One word;

SUBCOMBINES!!

Leather paddings, silk threads, silk swatches (tailoring)
Metal bits, steel boning (sometimes), metal studs (smithing)
Heady Kiolas (brewing)
clumps of dough (baking)

Some also always sell...

Buy a lot of bait and jugs of sauces, fish some place and make fish fillets, when they're trivial move up to fish rolls, that can easily get you into the 130s with baking.

Patty melts also sell well in the bazaar.

Also, none of these will rake in platinum. On a good night, expect 500 PP at best (unless you have an insane amount of items).

Also, doing this is a lot of work. I'll camp spiders in EK for an entire day and get roughly 2-3 stacks of silk swatches, I sell them for 150PP per stack, so that's 450PP for a day's work. I may also get some HQ and MQ cat pelts, so we can add 200-500PP also, but that's not even 1K. I can make that easily in PoI in a day.

I think Lilosh had the best line,

The best way to make a small fortune in tradeskills is to start with a large fortune.

Yes, starting out you WILL lose money. I've dumped close to 25K-50K in tradeskills, and for my efforts I've probabaly pocketed roughly 10K-15K though tradeskills.

[NightGod]

there are no profitable trade skills. thats a myth.

Gonna have to disagree with you there. You basically NEED elemental access to make money, but if you have it, you can make it reasonably quickly. I have over 600K in the bank right now, and its 95% from tradeskilling. And that's on top of the 300K or so I've spent in the past month or so. Though its becoming more and more possible to get the ingredients you need in the Bazaar to do these combines if you check often and have the money up front. It will cut your profit a small amount, but you'll still make money hand over fist.

On the niche market side, I easily made over 1 million PP back when solstice earrings first came into game and I was the first 250 potter on Drinal. I *worked* 8 hours a day farming and combining and it made me ALOT of money. I had exclusive 'contracts' with a few guilds on the server, had smiths and bakers who made other parts who refered buisness to me and I to them.

It's very possible, you just have to watch the market and have the capital up-front to buy things that you can combine into items that sell for more than your initial investment.