Tradeskill suggestions to raise all tradeskills

[Uroc]

I would first like to say that I appreciate these boards and all the effort everyone of the tradeskill community have put into learning recipies and gaining skills through the carpal tunnel syndrome causing click, click, click method. Most of you are a seriously dedicated bunch who deserve a pat on the back for doing something the majority of players shy away from due to the serious dedication involved.

My knowledge of tradeskilling is limited and I'm one of those non-dedicated people that wouldn't touch tradeskills due to the fact I don't have the patience to do multi ingredient combines. With the upcomming changes to tradeskills, I've actually considered doing them, now that the click method has been seriously decreased. I don't mind farming my own ingredients, I just mind the tedium of clicking each item into a comine container of some kind. Now that that part of the equation is going to be removed for the most part, I'm working on building a bunch of tradeskill items to prepare for the changes.

I want to work on the Aid Grimmel quest when the changes go live, therefor I need to build all my tradeskills. With this in mind, I would appreciate any information on how to build a solid inventory of every tradeskill item I can before then. For instance, building an inventory of ore has been a priority, because by doing this, I have a solid smithing stockpile which can be forged into a solid tailoring stockpile with studs, boning, etc. I have a bag full of rockhopper hides, a bag full of spider silk, etc.

I've put a lot of time and energy into reading up on what I can, but being a tradeskill community as great as this one, I figured I'd ask the pro's, since there is so much one person can overlook. Thousands of heads put together is certainly greater than the simplistic utiliage of my poor brain alone. I hope I can draw up a guideline for future tradeskillers using the combined effort of everyone here. I don't want to give the impression that I would plan to take credit for this, but something like this would be a great asset for future tradeskillers, since the change is going in, pretty much regardless at this point, from what I can gather.

What I'd like is a way to formulate a map to gain skills in each tradeskill by utilizing the efforts from every tradeskill at the same time. For instance: I want to raise skill in Tailoring, but I could gain some skill ups in smithing by preparing boning, studs etc. first in smithing, maybe some brewing for dyes etc, THEN using the items created through previous tradeskills go into tailoring, with the combined effect being a solid skill up in 2 or 3 skills at the same time using the same material.

The proposed map would show a solid way of going from 21 in each skill to 220-250 while maximizing the materials from all skills so nothing is wasted, sold, thrown away that could be used to skill up another tradeskill.

I want to throw in a disclaimer though, because I know the timing of this may appear to walk a fine line on what you all have worked so hard on. Meaning that the majority of you have done it the hard way. The click, click method with years of time invested, so a clown like me who plans to utilize the new method of pre-loaded recipies without the constant re-equipping combines in containers appears to be treading on hallowed ground or treading on the memory of something that you all worked so hard on. I don't want to abuse this community, and I don't want anyone to think I came here to get my tradeskill increases handed to me. I plan on doing it either way, and the changes in my eyes are a long needed implimentation that doesn't "dumb down" the skill, it simply removes a tedium that causes injury.

Thank you for any time you can give to this, and I appreciate any suggestions that you can supply.

[Cubwynn]

My advice? Take the time and read the boards. There are lots and lots of threads about raising skills. There is even the "Learn a Skill" on the main eqtraders.com site. Heck, go to each skill and sort the recipes by trivial, that works as well.

No offense, but your plea for help sounds more like a (very and sadly familiar) demand for a walk-through. Most of us look upon that very poorly. If that's not the case, I wish you luck. If it is the case, however, you're probably not going to find much help here.

YMMV.
Good luck!

[Ndaara]

http://mboards.eqtraders.com/upload/...threadid=13128

I started to write something but then I recalled this thread which is essentially the same thing only smithing-specific.

Cubwynn nailed the other part of what I wanted to say, though, go to the main site and you will find all the info you need. Everything about this entire site is already set up to be about as clear a map as one could need!

Not to mention that EVERY skill-specific forum will have at least 1 new thread every few days asking for the best, fastest, cheapest route to XYZ Skill Mastery. Read em and weep.

ps: stocking up in advance is a great idea! Just be prepared to use everything you saved up in the first 5 minutes.

[ColdHeart]

Nice idea, but I doubt you'll be able to store the smithing and tailoring supplies that easily for 21-250. Also while attempting to minimise wastage, you may be better off accepting a lose and burning through each skill individually.

IE, you may try making studs for smithing skills ups to later use in studded leather attempts. But you'll never be able to guess exactly how many you'll need in the end. Also you may triv studs way before/after making enough for the tailoring.

If you go the Wu's armour route, you may want to make Heady Kiola's while skilling up Brewing, but you will never make enough before you pass the triv level. You will always have to come back and make more.

I can see where you are coming from, a nice easy way for 0 - 250 in all tradeskills working together. But many of the tradeskillers here have chosen one tradeskill and got to 250 in that way before the others, so cross skilling has rarely been done. Also many don't have the money/ AAs to do this either.

Most of the "Experts" here have done tradeskills for the love of tradeskills, not some quest. Most of the people who do TS for AG just pass by for a few helpful hints, then move on once they have finished it. Also I wonder how many of the experts here have or can even try to do the AG quest because of the flagging requirements.

[eniamn]

save 1 stack of fruit, 1 stack of brownie parts to make winter chocolate, and at least 7 stacks of veggies for baking post 191 on mtps. easiest to gather for and yield is high so less space. like said before the baking guide will get you to 191 pretty easy.

either save at least 2 backpacks of zombie skins for vials or blow more money on casserole dishes which are difficult to get too.

go ahead and do woven madrake to 66 then make at least a full 10 slot of leather padding for smithing.

fletching you don't need to worry about saving parts for but if you find condensed substance keep it.

jc you don't need to save stuff for.

tailoring save at least 1 backpack of dye components for plat ribbons, save at least 2 maybe three backpacks of silk swatches, maybe 5 stacks of hq cat pelts to get to 115.

brewing you dont need to save for but can get some stacks of payala fruit to use after 122 or 151 if you do the cyclops skull ale route.

that should get you to near 200 in everything if you follow the guides for the store bought stuff. your welcome. most here see tradeskills as an alternative playstyle to raiding or even some xping. we get to 65 slowly and with much farming of greens on the way. the new ui will be nice but a lot more people like you who don't really enjoy tradeskills will start gming them. i don't mind new tradeskillers entering the market. i just hope you actually enjoy tradeskills because i have a lot of fun with them.

eniamn
baker of picnics
feeder of guilds

edit i recommend just doing the guides. the amount of successes you will get skilling up even if you are going to use them will prolly still be more expensive. you are not a true baker until your 3rd 200 run of mtps in one night. hehe jk.

[Uroc]

Most of the "Experts" here have done tradeskills for the love of tradeskills, not some quest.

I've tried my hand with the current version of tradeskilling because I like the idea of working at something other than bashing on mobs, but the strain to my arms and wrists was too much to handle. I've done brewing to 166, pottery to 121, brewing on 2 other characters to 122 *fetid essence style*, several attempts at the other tradeskills to under 100, but I can't take the pain that went with the constant restocking of containers that's involved. The quest is a very good one, IMHO, since it utilizes several aspects of the game, which include PoP advancement, raiding, AND tradeskilling. I've always wanted to work on tradeskilling, but looking at some skill ups requiring several stacks of ingredients to go up 1 point was like facing down the barrel of a loaded shotgun.

I know there will be a lot of bandwagoneers shortly after the change that will attempt to rush into tradeskills, but even then, it's still a lot of work unless you have 1 million plat and nothing else to do. A lot of people will still be put off by bashing green mobs to get items, or the time involved just farming the bazaar. I haven't gone into this half cocked, I'm planning a route before I start so I don't kick myself as much later on.

IE, you may try making studs for smithing skills ups to later use in studded leather attempts. But you'll never be able to guess exactly how many you'll need in the end. Also you may triv studs way before/after making enough for the tailoring.

For what it's worth, when I take on this task, I just don't want to rush into tailoring for example making something I can't use in another tradeskill. For example, I can make studs with smithing while getting skill ups now, make studded leather later on and it works in two tradeskills. If I decide to make non-stick frying pans early on, then go over trivial on studs, meaning now I have to do studs with no skill ups or buy studs from other people. I understand I won't hit the nail on the head and make enough studs or always get skill ups for making studs, but reducing the loss factor is my goal.

I appreciate the input so far. I've dusted off my 53 druid for foraging, and started working on fruit, veggies, assorted rares, ie. tufts etc. I've started collecting what I can, and I know I'll never get everything I need before the change, but anything I can do before then is all the more time I'll have to dedicate to skill ups when it does go live.

[eniamn]

if you are really cost consious. just do the skill up path and then backtrack to make stuff once you hit the 95% mark. it really is better most times. the extra cost of the non-skillup path combine can make it so you lose more money.

on the other hand. the low end stuff is chump change to most nowadays so if you dont want to make 1400 studs later go ahead and and start them early.

i reccomend woven mandrake to 66. spider silk sells for 10pp and the mandrake takes 8pp. its actually better to sell the farmed silk and skill up with mandrake. also it will give you a few stacks of woven mandrake when you start picnics later. i suggest greyhoppers after that though. the greyhopper hide trivs at 88 and other pieces at 95 and they drop lq hopper hides for padding as well. i so need to go back to marus seru and farm some more soon. the stonegrbbers drop iron oxide sometimes too which i beleive is used in later pottery.

[Lokase]

Hi Uroc,

I would also suggest that you concentrate on one skill at a time. It would be nice to know what your pp situation is like as this will mostly dictate how you go about your tradeskill paths.

If you have alot of pp - like 250-500k pp you can burn through all the skills in very short order. If you are like me however and have limited pp supplies you are going to have to pick and choose your tradeskill paths very very carefully.

As was mentioned above - read, read, read and formuate the recipe paths you would like to take to achieve your goals. Cultural recipes are a great way to bridge certain trivs and many offer cheap solutions. Each race/class combination is going to have slight variations on how they approach a tradeskill - the hard part is picking the best one based on your pp situation, hunting preferences, guild commitments, etc, etc...

I also agree with the comments about how many peeps will jump on the tradeskill band wagon only to discover that the new UI only helps during combines. So instead of spending an hour or two for a run at say smithing, it will only take 15-20 minutes perhaps with the new UI. You will still have to spend endless hours farming mobs, vendors and the bazaar - you will still have to read a lot on the forums - you will still have to formulate your triv paths for each tradeskill.

In my mind you either love or hate tradeskills. The hardcorre tradeskillers are a different breed in Norrath - choosing to spend much of their time alone farming, combining or reasearching. I wish you the best of luck in your tradeskill endevours and remember that www.eqtraders.com is your first and last stop for everything tradeskills.

Cheers,

Lokase

Fletching 240 + Trophy
Baking 200
Brewing 200
Smithing 200
Pottery 200
Jewel Craft 200
Tailoring 187

[Xefin]

There's no need for what you propose, really. I could skill a character to 200 in everything but smithing and tailoring in less time than it would take me to make a post mapping out how to do it.

In addition, the interactions between the skills are actually minimal in practice. The idea is to bang out an easily repeatable combine over and over to skill up, and the last thing you want to do is bag 500 of something so you can use it later.

My little theories on skilling up quickly:

a) If you can avoid farming, do it.
b) If you have to farm, farm only those things that are cost-efficient. If you can make 1k an hour farming pp, or you can get 10 leather paddings, make 1k, and buy a lot more leather paddings with the 1k.
c) Do smithing to 130ish first, so you can make all the implements you might want for skillup routes in the other skills.
d) Buy every geerlok and every relevant collapsible container.

As for the individual skills, Jewelcraft is trivial. Fletching is simple, with a bit of cost at the high end. Ditto Pottery. Brewing is mindless and cheap, but breaks your wrist. Baking to 191 takes about 10 minutes. Tailoring and Smithing are still a sizeable time investment, but LDoN and LoY did a lot to make your life a little easier.

[Pootle]

Only problem i can see is that sometimes the pre combines you are talking about can cost more (and be more of a pain in the butt) that the 'usuall' skill up route.

Example.

Studs/Boning for Velious Tailoring.

I would not want to 'skill' up on CVT brewing. And then on top of that making the studs.... too many fails when they are not trivial.

Nice idea tho.....

Your best bet is to research your skillup route in the various skills. Write them down and hopefully you will find some crossover points.

Trying to choose a skillup route based on crossover precombines will be way too complicated and probably wont give you a very good route.

There is also the sotrage problem, sure you can skill smithing up to 66 (i think) on picnic baskets... but where are you gonna keep em all ready for when your baking is 200+

[eniamn]

woven mndrake takes tailoring to 66. then the next combine has tailor to 76 but yields ten. i suggested keeping several stacks of mandrake not baskets.

[Silverfish]

Overlaps

While I understand your desire to provide for skill B by making stuff in skill A, in many cases it's counterproductive. For example, you suggested making studs and bonings for tailoring. The problem is that the faster skill route, unless you're quite poor, is to take woven mandrake to 66 and then greyhopper hides to 95. Given that path, you're not going to be using studs or bonings at all, so your stud/boning work ends up wasted anyway.

Your best bet is to get into each of the guides on the site, for each skill. Find the best skillup route for yourself in each of them. Once you do, you'll find that the overlaps become obvious. For example, if you'll be farming silks to do Wu's armor for tailoring, then it becomes obvious that going to 41 brewing by making heady kiola is better than the simple fetid essence route. Look for those as you proceed in each, and you'll be able to maximze your overlap. Also, don't forget overlaps in farming. For example, while you're farming greyhopper hides, you'll get a lot of LQ rockhopper hides. Save these to make leather padding, and you'll speed your trip through fine steel plate smithing. If you're hunting crag spiders for silk, be sure to whack the lions at the same time for quiver pelts.

In short, don't just look at the obvious overlaps. Spend some time determining the best skill path through each skill, then look for the synergies afterward.

And on one last note, don't stockpile ore or clay. It's too heavy and takes up too much space, and it's trivially cheap to buy when you need it. The things I'd lay aside are pelts of all kinds, zombie skins, silks of all kinds, gems dropped by creatures, heady kiola as you make it, condensed substances, LDoN tempers and other foraged stuff, LoY ribbon dye components (or the dyes themselves), any meat except "chunk of meat', velium and acrylia ores, and any rare items like PoP rares and such. You can buy most of the rest as you need it for peanuts, and when it gets costly you can always reassess or go farming some more.

[Arghargh]

Unless you have a legion of alts to store items on, I don't think you can do this. On one toon you have 26 bags, 10 slots per bag, 20 items stacked per slot for a max of 5200 stackable items on one toon. Getting smithing and brewing both took me 2300 to 2400 combines to GM. One toon just can't hold enough subcomine items for all the trade skills at once, especially since most recipies take more than 2 items (jewelcraft excluded).

I thought of doing something similar with all the research pages I looted. I've stashed them on alts in anticipation of someday leveling those toons and having everything there for spell research. Those toon are completely packed, and probably still don't have enough to train research up and make their spells.

You might be able to save lots of gems, skins, pelts, etc. as you play EQ. This will certainly cut down the buying or straight farming time, but it won't eliminate it. Grind XP/AA in places that drop trade skills items is a very good way to reduce farming time. I levelled two toon in Cobalt Scar, and saved all the wyvern pelts for later use. When I tried manipulating the Hollowshade Moore war (when it was still broken) for smithing componants, I saved all the acrylia I looted. Same for pieces of condensed shadow/flame/ice I've looted on Luclin.

In EQ, pp=time. How fast can you earn pp? How much time or pp will you save reusing all your earlier subcombines? You will often lose pp trying to make subcombines items as skill up items since you will fail more often.

Arghargh Grumble, Darkblood
65 Ogre Shaman of Rallos Zek

200 Alchemy
221 Baking
250 Blacksmithing
250 Brewing
200 Fishing
200 Fletching
200 Jewelry
200 Pottery
170 Tailoring

[Auricula]

I, too, understand what you are trying to accomplish, but think it is more effort than it is worth. Although it probably would be of real benefit to real, honest-to-goodness Newbie EQers (there are still one or two out there, right?) But really there is just no one-size-fits-all skill up route.

For example, I see several folks recommending Woven Mandrake as a skill up path to 66 at a mere cost of 8pp per combine. Okay, not a bad deal for a level 65 who just wants fast skill ups with minimal effort. It would be absolutely out of the question for a newbie who plays a couple hours a day, and has the nerve to use their computer for other things and therefore can't keep a trader up and running 24 hours a day to sell off any spider silks they might loot.

Fish rolls are often recommended as a skill up route for baking. My main has baking skill of 250, and I have 3 alts at 200 baking, one at 147 and three more at 142 skill ... and I don't think I have EVER made a fish roll. I play a foraging class and get enough fruit, berries, veges, mushrooms, and eggs to make more varities of pies than I could ever dream of eating. I have simply handed down the ingredients as I gathered them, and let alts cook 'em up until they became trivial. Same with Brewing, I pass along forages to alts until they can't advance their skill with them anymore. Would my method work for someone who can't forage? Not really. Is it the fastest skill up route? Not by a long shot. But then, I have never been in a hurry for my alts to skill up.

[kiztent]

Without delving into a lot of detail, stuff you would want to do subcombines on is not stuff you would want to skill up on, in general.

To pick some examples...

You wouldn't want to skill up brewing on Distilled Lizard temper to save time on skilling smithing up on Tae Ew shields.

You wouldn't want to skill up JC on storm emblems to save some time skilling tailoring up on storm rider leathers.

There are a few exceptions, but I think the best way is to back track. That is, check the optimal skill up paths for each tradeskill and check for subcombines that require other tradeskills. Then map the cheap subcombines back and skill up on them in the appropriate range.

That is... if you are trying to skill up baking and expect you will make MTP, you will notice that you will need jum jum beer. So spend a portion of your brewing time skilling up on that. BEWARE. This is probably a waste of time since the common examples are below 100 skill (studs and studded leather) and won't really save you any significant time. Oh, and watch the yields on jum jum spiced beer if you make it.