When to start TSing?

[ColdHeart]

What lvl do people recommend to start trying a TS?

I started a new character on a different server to my main so could not twink him. So I did smithing... but it did occur to me that I could save the money i spent on smithing and buy better items than I could make in the bazaar. The time I spent doing the combines I could then spend getting more exp/cash to help me further.

But I'm a smith. I made banded mail for all the bits I currently didn't have armour for.

Still, what about brewing. So much easier and Kaladim's are fairly easy to make.. except the Corking Device.

JC would need too much initial investment I would have thought for a low level to afford and unless you can get enchanted metal does not give you an income.

Tailoring may be a good option if you are hunting animals for exp. Collect the pelts and turn it into tailoring combines. Once you get good enough to make Handmade backpacks you can start trying to make an income as well.

Opinions, ideas. When is a good lvl to start and what is a good TS to start with?

[Draggar]

When you have the money, but a large sewing kit.

When killing spiderlings, make silk threads. When you move up to the pelted animals, buy a stack of oe pattern and work up from there.

But a spit and bread, make sandwiches.

I usualy do that with any char and before I know it, I hae 3 or 4 skills at or above 50.

Since a lot of my toons are melee class, they also get a fletching kit.

[Nolrog]

I agree. Start right away. You can sell the silk threads (two spiderling silks in a sewing kit) and silk swatches (two spider silks) for a nice amount of plat.

Check the main page for recipes you can make at low skill levels.

[Zeralenn]

They key to making money on tradeskills is not to do tradeskills, but to sell stuff TO tradeskillers.

Things like: leather padding, silk thread, silk swatches, heady kiola, celestial essence.

...Zera

[Reflan]

I wouldn't do them unless you are actively hunting the stuff you need for them at the time. Like if you are leveling outside Grobb/Gukta, kill spiderlings and loot their silk, turn it into silk threads and either sell those outright or use them to make leather padding.

Go to East Karana in your low teens and hunt spiders, especially the Krag spiders, and also lions. Bring tons of patterns, and combine the pelts with the silks to skill up. You can still get experience there on the crag spiders till 28.

Go to marus seru in your early 20's, say, and bring a huge number or patterns with you...stick some on your friends maybe too, they're cheap. Bring some silk with you and make greyhopper clothing while you experience for the next half dozen or more levels.

Otherwise, I wouldn't blow your money buying tradeskill components and investing in tradeskills. Most trades are very expensive for new characters, and characters short money could actually make good money selling the very tradeskill items they might be wanting to buy.

If you spend more time leveling, you will get higher skills needed to make your tradeskilling go faster, and it will become ridiculously easy for you to make money compared to how much you might have to fight for it at lower levels.

For instance, if you have 160 wisdom and you're trying to skill up, it will cost you much more and take vastly more time to do it than if you wait till you are a higher level toon with better equipment. You can actually hit 350 or 355(I forget) wisdom/INT if you're a priest/caster class, and get I guess 305 strength if you're a melee, etc. At that level you'll rocket through your skill ups, spending minimal time getting to your goal and therefore spend a lot more time just being there. You'll save yourself weeks and months of effort, seriously. After getting 250 in all skills and 200 in alchemy, believe me, I know.

Don't rush things. Wait till the odds are stacked in your favor before sinking any serious money into tradeskills. If you absolutely MUST tradeskill due to some misreading of your DNA while your cells were first dividing in the xygote or something, do brewing first. Ingredients for tempers and dyes can be foraged or found on vendors all over the place, and they sell for a lot of money these days -- 100pp and up on my server for the temper you can make with steamfont water, for instance, or a plains root, both of which are common forages(free!) or drops in certain zones and can generally be found easily. Qeynos teas and kaladim constitutionals can be made fairly cheaply in large quantities even by people without too much money, and sold reasonably quickly either on a bazaar mule overnight or by running around selling them from zone to zone, /ooc'ing out your wares. Same with grobb liquidized meat, and ethereal tempers that people need to make elemental armor and ornate armor from molds and patterns. Smiths and tailors both need tempers, and plenty of them, both for skill-up practices and to make stuff they really want to make so they can wear it or sell it. If you really dig around through the brewing recipes and the temper recipes, you can find an awful lot of things to keep an eye out for, kill things for, whatever, so you can brew them into profit.

You can max brewing for very little money and make quite a bit of money once you have.

Just keep one thing in mind -- that combine that could make you a lot of money? DON'T SKILL UP on it unless you don't care about that money. There are almost always multiple ways to skill up, so before you burn valuable components up just to skill up, be dead sure you really have to. It's much better to use those when the thing you want to sell is at a trivial level to you, so you succeed more and get your money's worth.

I built brewing and baking, starting with a pretty much empty bank account, into the money for every other tradeskill to be maxed. Slow and steady wins the race! I saved the expensive combines for when the time was right -- my stats were high, and my skill level was as high as possible for my money combines. Start early and combine foolishly, and you'll honestly spend a staggering amount of time and money compared to someone who does it a little more carefully.

[Koru]

For someone starting out untwinked I'd say tailoring at first. Selling silk threads and swatches from spider silks and spiderlings will keep a low lvl char in some much needed spell funds. Swirling shadows and shadeling silks as well, heck steamfont spring water seems to sell too on my server. Once you have a bit of a base to work off of, maybe 300 plat - which shouldn't take long selling silks, raise brewing to the 122 by fetid essence and make up some kiola if not too many people are selling them on your server.

The ideal goal for a new character is that when you're not playing you're making money in the bazaar off of the things you got/made while playing. Selling partially processed items both saves on space, helps to raise some skills, and lets you put higher price on them. So I'd say start tradeskills around 2nd lvl (tailoring) with the items you get killing spiderlings. This is not to say "expect to grandmaster a trade before 10th lvl keeping and using all your tradeskilled objects" since you'd be selling a lot of supplies you might otherwise use to skill up on, but it will get you money now and skill later as opposed to skill now and money later.

It's also a question of what can you sell in your trade of choice to others? Banded armor probably doesn't sell very well. But non-stick frying pans? Filleting knives? Skinning knives? I've sold a fair share of them, especially lately. Almost every trade has some fairly low skill items you can make and sell to others to help finance your skillup.

Brewing: Heady Kiola, dyes, and later on tempers and stat drinks.

Baking: Fish rolls or patty melts can sell, and I'd imagine creamed filets would sell as well considering the subcombines for them.

Tailoring: Silk swatches, silk threads, shadeling silks, leather padding.

Pottery: Ceramic linings. Seriously, I could sell these in batches of 200 pretty darn quick. There may be some market left for poison vials but I wouldn't count on it.

Smithing: Baking implements like filleting knife or non-stick frying pan, metal bits, metal boning, even folded MQ sheets will sell.

JC: Uh, unless you're an enchanter I wouldn't bother with this until you have enough money not to care about the loss involved in getting the skill up. There's really no low cheap subcombines in this trade you can sell well.
Fletching: I don't think it has any low skill high demand items either. I've never tried to sell arrows to players though so you're on your own here.

This doesn't factor in the possibilities from class/race selection. Foraging classes can get a nice addition from foraged goods, tunare druids or clerics can later on imbue emeralds to sell, or make them into dusts or silk and then sell them. Some other classes and religious selections can sell their imbued gems. Enchanters somewhat obviously can try selling enchanted clay and mana vials.