Most profitable Tradeskill?

[Daivam]

Generally speaking, what is the most profitable tradeskill? I'm hoping to rely on others as little as possible, so jewelcraft is likely out as my character is a gnomish shadowknight on the firiona vie server. I hear to really make money I'm probably still going to have to rely on foragers and enchanters quite a bit anyway, but I'm hoping to keep that to a minimum.

I'm guessing smithing is probably my best choice, since my only racial bonuses come with tinkered armor. However I hear good things about Tailoring and baking. Also I only have 600 platinum to get started. Which tradeskill do most of you reccomend, and will 600 platinum be enough to get it to a decently profitable level where I might fund further advancement?

[Yalum]

Right this second the best money is in jewelcraft, but the new PoP stuff (which doesn't require enchanted metal, btw) will stabilize eventually.

Tinkering is very nice if you're willing to put in the time and cash to skill up. Being gnome-only there's a built in low supply which means the profit margins stay high for a lot longer than in other skills.

Baking and brewing are good for low (cash) investment, high return. You don't make much per sale, but it adds up relatively quickly. The advantage of selling consumables is obvious.

Pottery and fletching have nice items at the very high end. Not enough to get you rich but you won't be hurting.

I would advise against smithing, the real money there is in cultural that we can't do. Tailoring is similar.

Ultimately it depends on your server though. Look for an item that people want but isn't being made, and make it. And sometimes you just have to get lucky, having 250 in the right skill the day after a big tradeskill patch is like hitting the lotto.

[BuilderOfCastles]

First of all, Don't take up trade skills to make money.

If you wish to make money, sell tradeskill components.

All tradeskills are money sinks, but if you are a shrewd
merchant, then you can make money on anything.

But if I haven't dissauded you yet then:

Givens:
Low startup cash.
Continual income.

Your Choices:

Baking - need to get to 220
Slotter, hundreds of wolves or bears and start baking them up.[list]bear sandwiches
bear steaks
fish rolls - You can sell these
fillets - Save these for the halas pies to come
patty melts - You can sell these
halas pies - You can sell these
Misty Thicket Picnics - they still sell[/list:u]

Brewing[list]coldain velium temper
purified water
Demi-sec Champagne - the only one that needs above 200 skill[/list:u]

Fishing[list]Cobalt Cod - also can be sold as the Oil(brewed)[/list:u]

Tailoring[list]padding - take all of those Quality bear pelts you got with the meat and turn them into padding. Requires getting your skill to about 100.
spider silk - This still sells. Farm the day and sell by night
Acrylia - Farm any size of acrylia. sells well[/list:u]

Smithing[list]Don't put a point into smithing (You don't have enough Plat to do one stack of Ornamental Chain or Fine Steel armor)
Acrylia - Farm any size of acrylia. sells well[/list:u]

Pottery

• Don't put a point into pottery (You don't have enough Plat to do one stack of high end pottery. You barely have enough to do a stack of opal steins- the middle of pottery)
  Iron Oxide - Still sells for 200pp each on an old server.[/list:u]
  
  
  Marriel on Fennin Ro
  Shaman of the Frozen North, 51 Winters
  <hr>Brewing-184 | Baking-191 | Fishing-200 | Fletching-180
  Jewelcraft-185 |Pottery-250 | Tailoring-154 | Smithing-194

[Arghargh]

As EQ gets new recipies, which tradeskill is most profitable changes. The PotC quest probably made a few EQ millionaires. I can still sell mistletoe cutting sickles, and blessed fishing rods on a regular basis. Some of the new pottery recipes are profitable, but you need items from PoP planes. Baking and brewing both provide ongoing income since the items are consumables, but prices are rock bottom.

I wholely agree that some of the best items to sell are tradeskill componants. I think I spend about 5kpp a week in the bazaar for spider(ling) silks, pelts, imbued gems, foraged items, celestial essences, soem tempers, acrylia, and velium.

Arghargh Grumble, Darkblood
57 Ogre Shaman of Rallos Zek
Alchemy – 165
Baking – 200
Brewing - 200
Fishing - 200
Fletching – 200
Jewelcraft –200
Potting - 200
Grandmaster Smith - 250
Tailoring – 159

[sir0die]

i think an answer to your question would be all of them. work all your skills up to about 100 (usually easy to do with a few cheap items)


once you have that, forge metal rings and sell them (farm weapons, fine steal, then convert them into blocks, then into rings)(HG hunting in Rathe Mountains, get plat also)


goto EK farm lions and spiders

Lq cat pelts combine with silk thread makes padding, used buy smiths
MQ cat pelts you can work into poison vials. If you have a lvl 8 enchanter, make vials of viscious mana (tailors will buy thes for wu's armor)
HQ cat 0pelts can be used to get your tailoring up to 116 with quivers, or sell in bazaar for about 25-35p each)

not to mention you can then fillet the lion meat and cream it, then sell to high end bakers (the ones working on halas 10lbs meat pies)

with smithing at about 120ish, you can make a wide variety of pots, pans, skewers and other assorted baking nessesities.

brewing, gather up a ton of fishing grubs, combine with flask of water, this combo will get ya to a brewing of 122. Pretty cheap huh, pick a grub off the ground and walla.

with the brewing skill make alot of heady Kiolas, lazy tailors will buy the heck out of these.


the best profit is an item created using 1 skill, but nessisary for another. Sub combines for high end stuff sell pretty good also.

I think that halas pies and misty thicket picnics each have something like 16 sub combines. the lazy will buy them from ya, the greedy will suffer from carpal tunnels disease.



alot of folks focus on one skill (tailoring as an example), when you get to the mid 120's then need make Wu's Armor, when Wu's armor needs a heady kiolas(brewing triv 46) and vials of viscious mana (poison vial triv pottery 148 and 8th lvl enchanter spell)

now some folks are working hard on their tailoring look at that and say"heck, i just got my tailoring to 122, i don't wanna get pottery to 148 just to make theses. Let's see whats available in the bazaar.

Of course your profit is directly porportianal to your prices and the amount of time you leave your trader in the bazaar

[sir0die]

oh, just thought of another.

celestial essences, they are a no fail combine using a mortar pestle.

cost about 2plat each to make, can buy one ingredient (celestial solvent)right in the bazaar from the first merchant on left. i usually buy the second component (highend research item, promise of marr) at the first inn in EC, when zoning from WC. I go there because you can buy an unlimited amount, with a cha of 160, they cost me 1p 2s.



most tradeskillers will buy these as long as they are 5p or less. you figure you spend less than 2 pp on them, sell for 5pp, you've more than doubled your money.

[Anofalye]

Simple explanation...

For a tradeskill to be profitable you have to bewith players)

--- The best to offer this service(skill and/or price)

OR

--- The first to offer this service

OR

--- Very nice and very wanted items

OR

--- Availibility of yours products, Customer want to buy when they want to buy, and if you go to them, you sell easier as well.

Combining many of these details matter.

I was the first to sell the PoV ring a lot on my server, thereby even if JC is not generally the best tradeskill, atm I bet any smith or tailor drool over my sells even if usually I am drooling over them.

If you can be the best smith on your server or a GM smith/tailor/jeweler and many more but never the best, I would tell you the best is more profitable, peoples want the best, nothing less. Of course how we define the best is hard and subject to peoples knowledge and appreciations.

On a side note, you are likely to be the first to offer another product since...someone like me that was able to be the first to offer PoV rings a lot is not working that hard to be first on others, yes I work on it, but not close as hard as I did for the rings...

You really should concentrate on a new market (like the earring from PoTactics) rather then work on fighting a market that have been exploited and that is getting more and more competition, don`t avoid that market, but if you can concentrate yours efforts, pick a new market when you can, new market is always good(unless the item suck).

[andaerice]

Yes, the 600pp limit is going to be a big restriction. I must agree that selling components is a huge money maker. It's actually quite easy (at least on my server) to sell leather padding for 25pp. Yes, that's 500pp a stack.

With plat being a large concern, you're probably going to want to look at brewing, baking, or fletching. I think I did my 200 in fletching for under 600, and the baking and brewing I kind of did off and on for a while before pushing them to 200 and never kept track of how much plat went into them, but I'm guessing it was about the same.

Tailoring was never expensive until I got to doing Wu's. Viscous mana usually goes for 200pp a stack, so attempts were costing me right around 11pp each, but merchants buy them back for only about half that.

[sir0die]

most trade skills don't take too much plat to get to master level (100+)

with a 600p investment you could easily get 4-5 diffent trade skills to 100+ if you farm SMARTLY. or, you could invest all 600p into one skill and maybe get in the 150 range. with multiple master lvl skills, you could use your skills to finance them, and as you farm more stuff continue to progress.

you can buy infinate fishing grubs somewhere in OOT (i think) that you can use to get your brewing up to 122 by combining with a flask of water. at about 1s 3g per attempt and only 2 ingredients, best route i know to get to 122 in ANY tradeskill. you dont even need to waste pumping but 1 initial training point into brewing. i think i spent a whole 15p to get from 1-122. Then ya can make what the tailors realy want. HEADY KIOLAs


if you farm alot of cats in EK, you can up your tailor skill to 116 with the HQ pelts and a pattern that cost maybe 1s5g.

you could use the mq pelts to work your pottery upto 148 by making poision vials (which hopefully will be bought by someone needing some sort of mana vial)

the lq pelts can be leather padding (tailor triv at 31) which has already been pointed out to be around 500p a stack.

you can take the lion meat and a fillet knife and work your baking up to 148. (this might take alot of failed attemps, but the meat is a freeby because your really there to farm the pelts)

if ya want to kill the snakes while you're there, the eggs could be used in baking also, or ya can farm alot of them and just sell them in the bazaar.

and of course there is ALWAYS the spiders for the silk.

so you could effectively raise 3 skills above 100 for probably less than 100p, the cost of raising the skill is proportianal to the amount of farming you do.

and EK get's the occational HG or Cyclops to break up the monotony of farming non-stop.

most people will argue that the high end tradeskill item make more profit. Not if you have sink all you plat into being able to make it. But the master lvl will suport your tradeskill till you can get that Grand Master title, you'll be more independant, only need folks to imbue stuff or cast class specific spells on things (mana vials).

[Aandaie]

Good plat is made by figuring out what tradeskillers need for the skill,
then selling it for a bit more than it cost you on an npc vendor you
got it from with little or no effort.

People sell spidersilk for as much as 15 plat in the bazaar.
I sell it for about 3 - 4 plat because I got it from a vendor for 2 gold,
my profit is huge. My profit is much higher than someone getting
spider silk in the wild because they spend far more time and effort
getting it than I do shopping. Time is money.

I was making and selling leather paddings, then I figured out that If
I just sell all the hides and spiderling silk I get off npc vendors
that I'll make as much or more. The bazaar is great!

Do heady kiolas even sell anymore???

I've looked at cultural high end smithing but the plat you need to raise skill to 250 or so seems like it would never be returned via selling the items. With better and better VERY affordable DROPPABLE pop items popping up on bazaar vendors, its even harder to sell that cultural stuff.
My dark elf cleric could see buying the Dark prince whatever BP for 10 k plat, but not more than that.. yet people feel they have to sell it at 35 k to get their money invested back.

That stuff might all drop though because I saw some guy selling 6 blue diamonds for less than 500 plat each the other day. Seems those are dropping again with market saturation and not as many people tradeskilling?

[Zacatac]

Have to disagree a bit Aandaie, I have yet to see anything in PoP that compare with the cultural BP for substantially less in price.

I'm at 25k right now on the Full Mithril cultural BP.
51 AC, + 5 sta, +5 cha, +40 HP, +40 Mana
(add +10 Wisdom for tunare imbued)

Now of course you have race restrictions, making it more of a niche market. But other races have similar BP's. I've yet to see a PoP Nightmare BP or other BP for less than 25k. And even the Kunark armor BP's still sell in the 40K+ range (Singing steel, cobalt, etc).

All said, I still think there is a market for cultural. And I've been steadily lowering my prices as the market on Blue diamonds goes down. However, my time investment is still there. I spent many hours and 1,000's of plat restocking velium sheets last week. Another 1000pp spent on morning dew alone. I would never drop my BP price down to the 10k you mentioned, it just wouldn't be worth it.

[sir0die]

farming stuff off vendors is nice, deffinatly a huge profit, but you still have to run around everywhere, might be nice if you a druid, port everwhere and check out all the vendors.

in fact, i just recently came from halas, i logged twice and checked all the vendors, i got about 34 wolf meats, which in turn will become roughly 300 fillets of wolf, which high end bakers are gonna want for the halas pie.

if i sell them at 5 gold each (i bought the meat for what? 1silver, filleting it yielded 10 fillets) i still come out like a bandit.

[Aandaie]

Ah, well 25 k for that is more reasonable than like 45 or 36
The dark prince stuff I've seen seems high, I think only one or two people were making it.

RE

I can't believe no one mentioned backpacks

They have a trivial of 88 and require only a pattern and a HQ bear or Rockhopper pelt.

Farm a few hundred silks and make raw then cured silk to 80 or so, then start making backpacks.

I was selling them for 60pp each and they sell FAST, people were instantly messaging me asking for 5-6 each.

So with an investment of under 600pp you can easily get to this point.

Then just stay in bazaar, buy HQ pelts that are 30pp or less, then advertise and make them as they are ordered.

With no room for bags I was literally opening a trade window, making a backpack, putting it in the window, repeating as needed. You can't get more instant gratification than that.

This doubles your money (or better if someone has hopper hides at 15pp), or make more if you farm the pelts. Can probably sell for higher than 60pp, but they go very fast that way.

[sir0die]

Packs are indeed a good profit, you just have to spam the auction channel all the time.