Wait or Not ???

[Tatianya]

Very new to tradeskills so this forum and website have been my primary source of information. Thank you all for the invaluable guidance you've provided so far!

Anyways, on to the actual question...

I'm currently only level 51 (i.e. INT cap of 255). After readying all the posts from people with 355 Intelligence and the rates at getting skill ups, I'm getting a little <read alot> worried of my chances of hitting 250 in any tradeskill. Is it even worth pursuing before I have the Planar Power AAs to get my INT cap raised? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Once again, thanks to everyone for the great information on this site.

[Groghe]

I got to 250 in baking with 232 wisdom on the final skillup combine.

Having super-duper-extra-special-stats-with-whipped-cream-on-top might reduce the total number of combines you have to attempt to get to 250 a small bit, but its certainly not required.

[Zolina]

I'd definitely recommend getting the cheap skills that don't require risky farming up now. Brewing and baking are definitely 250able at your level. And you can get most of the others up to 200 without breaking your bank account or going crazy farming.

I wouldn't recommend getting the other five skills past 200 until you either have at least 50k in the bank that you're willing to spend or are at least level 60 so you can farm safely.

[Akishka]

Level 52, no major pp investment, wis of 255 - I have tailoring, pottery and baking over 200. A friend, level 51, wis of 255 is making decent money on smithing and is over 200 as well.

If you just want to whip out the skill ups, you should probably wait. If you are willing to take it a bit slow and, more importantly, smart, its easily doable.

[Krazick]

Tatianya,

Reading the forums here and all the tradeskillers with WISDOM or INT maxed out at 305/355 and their chatter about the extreme cost, and skill up rates (or lack of skill up) are really from the very VERY Vocal minority who feel that the only time to do something is when you are sure of success as is possible.

As the other posts here have stated it is possible to reach 250 in ANY tradeskill without being uber. It has been done by many dedicated (but non-uber) tradeskillers in the past.

It won't be cheap... and it will seem like it is taking a long time... and both of those will be true. But if you are a true tradeskiller at heart, cost and time are really un-important to the goal you achieve. And how good it will make you feel to reach it.

[Verdandi]

What Krazick said

If you will enjoy tradeskilling, start now. Your wis/int aren't important if it's the process that's fun for you. Most of the skills can be worked up a good ways pretty cheaply, even tailoring and smithing, if you're willing to do farming yourself.

Honestly, I think the best way to do tradeskills is starting as soon as you can afford whatever materials are only vendor-sold. A great majority of skill up materials drop from lower level mobs. Why not collect and use them while they give exp? That's what drew me to tradeskills in the first place - a use for all the junk that dropped off critters that didn't sell for much. I was in my teens then, with at most all of 150 wis. That was before we knew how stats affected tradeskills, but if I knew I doubt I would have cared. They were fun.

If you get to the point where all the skillup options are impractical or too expensive...then switch to the next skill. You can always come back later when your stats and cash flow permit.

[Koru]

You can do trade skills up to a point for sure without suffering from lower wis. What I mean is that most trade skills don't get expensive until later on. In fact some never get terribly expensive - brewing and baking for instance. I think when I did those my paladin I could hit a grand 220 wis and I still made a profit in the end in those two.

So the extra combines needed are trivial really in a lot of skills. Now on tailoring however, yeah, that skill can be a big hit on the old purse and the higher skill is best saved for a while. But I have done post 200 skill up on a sub-50s char in tailoring. It can be done. Heck, I even made something of a profit selling the things I made. Don't worry about it, when you feel a skill is becoming too expensive, switch to another and see if you don't manage to sell some of the stuff you've made to recoup some money. Some times it takes a while (actually in some cases a looong while) but IMO no good comes out of fixating on mastering a skill at any cost right now before even considering another skill. Burn yerself out that way.

[Kemie Dreamshadow]

I got into tradeskilling well before I was old enough to acquire AA's... in fact I think it was well before AA's existed. This was back following the infamous May 8th patch with the Protection of the Cabbage quest, when our guild thought to get together and have a few individuals master a trade and combine our efforts to make the earrings.

I've been playing EQ for over 3 years now, and my highest level character is "only" 58. I've hit 250 now in pottery, jewelcraft, brewing, baking, and tailoring, have smithing at 230, and fletching and fishing at 200. The most annoying advice I keep receiving is from folks who are uber, who insist I should level to 65 and THEN do AA's. Presumably they all think I should quit wasting my time on tradeskills until I am too bored with the game even to want to play it.

Paying for ingredients isn't really all that hard even if you aren't level 65 or planar. Perhaps it will take you more time, but ... what's the hurry? The game's the thing, after all....

Kemie Dreamshadow, Lanys T'Vyl

[Ngreth Thergn]

Here are some hard numbers.

255 stat at 100 skill for a 200 trivial item:
Success chance = 5%
Chance of skill up on Success: 50%, on failure: 30%, overall 31%

355 stat at 100 skill for a 200 trivial item:
Success chance = 5%
Chance of skill up on Success: 50%, on failure: 42.5%, overall 42.88%

255 stat at 100 skill for a 150 trivial item:
Success chance = 39%
Chance of skill up on Success: 50%, on failure: 30%, overall 37.8%

355 stat at 100 skill for a 150 trivial item:
Success chance = 39%
Chance of skill up on Success: 50%, on failure: 42.5%, overall 45.43%

255 stat at 100 skill for a 110 trivial item:
Success chance = 69%
Chance of skill up on Success: 50%, on failure: 30%, overall 43.8%

355 stat at 100 skill for a 110 trivial item:
Success chance = 69%
Chance of skill up on Success: 50%, on failure: 42.5%, overall 47.68%

These show that yes, there is an advantage to having a high stat when doing tradeskills, BUT if you are carefull with your path, and chose trivial levels near your skill, you can get nearly the same results with a 255 as a 355. Not the fact that the high stat had NO effect on chance of success, just chance of skillup.

[xaanru]

I got my smithing to 250, with 255 wis cap, and honeslty was over 200 smithing before i even could hit 255 wis with buffs.

Currently have 3 250 tradeskills, and wis is still capped at 310. Would be higher if I'd spend my aa points on wis, rather than NTCM.

So the answer is, no need to wait. Might make things a BIT easier, but its definitely possible to 250 a skill at 255 wis or int.

Oh, also have my druid to 201 brewing, 135 tailoring, and hes capped at 255 still.

[Tatianya]

Thank You

Just wanted to say, "Thanks!"

I've done all of the GoD "freebies" since those seemed easy for getting to 54. Have gotten Baking to 180 and brewing to 138, so far. Haven't touched the others yet, but will do so soon.

Once again, thank you all for the info and keeping me from getting too depressed about the whole process.