Skill Up vs Successful Combination

[Benthair Dunthat]

This has probably been answered many other times but I couldn't find a definitive explanation. When attempting to raise my skill, is there more chance of doing so by attempting a combination on which I am also likely to be successful?

I have reached 188 in tailoring thru acrylia studded armor, and as a Karana halfling my next coices are:

1) Vale reinforced - tedious forage acorns, tedious forage plains pebbles, kill the not very plentiful brutes, or

2) Acrylia reinforced - I can easily farm Acrylia Caverns and the hopper cave with a high rate of success in collecting the necessary ore and flawless hides.

Problem is the acrylia trivials much higher than the vale reinforced, so I am likely to have far fewer successful combinations.

So, like the man said "Which way do I go George?" :>)

[kiztent]

No one knows and no one is willing to test it.

[Tinile]

Don't forget the wonderful array of velious tailoring as a third option. What I have found out, is that you basically need to do all types of combines that you can in tailoring. If you are farming it yourself, you need to farm what you are able to, and augment it with bazaar purchases. I doubt there's a type of tailoring I didn't attempt in my quest for 250. Gather up anything you can combine and then select the best order for the supplies that you have and then do your combines.

[Dalur]

I agree with kiztent. I don't think there is a good answer.

From my personal experience there seems to be a point where it switches from failure to successes and then back and forth.

For example

In tailering, a lot of people will do Solstice robe combines around the 185 to 215 range. Even though the robe trivials at 335, you will see the majority of your skill ups when you fail to make the robe.

On other items where the trivial isn't so high, it seems that you gain more skill ups on successes.

[crystilla]

Aye, I started on the rockhopper acrylia studded, then went to "try" the acrylia reinforced only to find the hides needed just wern't dropping.

So I stopped the reinforced about 193 and jumped into solstice robe making until I hit 220/221. By then I had bugged my friends way too often to imbue the emeralds (I'm the drink happy cleric, not the leggy one) and make the blasted gem collars.

I had some really bad or good luck (depending how you look at it) on the robes and ended up making an ungodly # of robes for the attempts I did. (When you make the robe, the chain gets eaten, but the chain is returned on a failure - so do NOT put a geerlok in if you're doing solstice robes for skillups.)

At 221 I jumped over to Arctic Wyvern hides which I did until I stopped at 235/236. If/when I start back up on tailoring to GM it, I'll stay with the wyverns as I found them easiest overall. Do a little bit of fishing for the cod in CS, kill a few wyverns and farm/pay for the velium.