In need of a little advise

[Zee]

Hi everyone this is my first time on the message boards I'm a level 58 weezard on Druzzil Ro. I started doing tradeskills for my shawl quest and then got sucked in to keep going on them.... I just can't stop Currently I'm at baking: 200, Smithing: 145, Brewing: 200, Fletching: 152, Jewelcraft: 200, Pottery: 191, and Tailoring: 186. I want to make things to sell for pp, but I'm not sure what to make that sells quickly or makes a good profit. If anyone could help me out and give me some ideas it would be much appreciated. Thanks

[Fulminate]

Unfortunately, most of the trade skills dont render much profit.

The 2 General Rules of Tradeskilling for Profit :

1) The sale price of a finished product you are capable of making in quantity will be so low that it doesnt justify the time spent farming green mobs for the dropped component, the money spent paying vendors for the vendored components, or the time/effort spent doing the numerous subcombines.

2) Products with a good enough market price to justify the time/effort put into making them will require drop only ingredients that are nigh unto impossible for you to obtain. Either they will be located only on mobs you dont have the flags to even get to, or, if they arent behind flags you dont have, they will be incredibly rare drops.

Addendum to 2) : Inaccessible/rare components will be available in the Bazaar, but only at prices so high that you'd actually lose money if you bought them, made the combine, and sold the product at the going Bazaar rate.


The 2 Special Rules of Tradeskilling for Profit :

1) Right after a patch is a special time. You can actually make good money with tradeskills then, until the community figures out what drops are junk and what ones are valuable, and the market prices on the new items settles down. Check vendors often and widely right after an expansion. Or be a greedy little *&^*, volunteer to be looter, throw a few extra pp of your own into the eventual split, and dont mention to the people you were grouped with that some ot those items with the tradeskill tag that dropped were worth a lot of money.

2) Someone out there is always trying to skill up, and often they have more money than time. So dont sell finished product at low prices, sell components (possibly subcombined) at higher ones.






Edit : Ok, this was a little negative, maybe. You can make money on trade skills, but mostly tradeskill profits seem to end up getting sunk back into trying to raise one's tradeskills. Now that I'm at 1750, maybe I will have a better view on the profit side of tradeskilling.

[Akishka]

The soltice earring components are always a nice choice but, oddly enough, rotate as to which is the best at any given time. Take a few days and price what things are going for and then decide what you want to try. I've never had good luck with the robes but everything else has been a good seller for a while. You can also go ahead make / buy everything for the kit and then make an extra 500 pp or so for giving it to them in one nice, handy toolbox

[Silound]

The fail all else cash cow is, and probably always will be, Misty Picnics. I can sell em for 7-15p each depending on sellers up at any given time, and I can sell upwards of 3000 on a good day. I'd say Baking has the game ball there. Why you ask? Because foods are consumable items, and most people would rather pay 15p per and buy a few stacks tahn force feed.

[Turlo Lomon]

Set up a bazaar mule. Do not have the bazaar mule be guilded. Do not tell anyone the name of your bazaar mule. Do chat with friends from your bazaar mule.

Part of making profit is not giving away freebies. For some reason, my friends/guildies/etc. expect items to be given to them at an extremely discounted price or even free, just because I have them available for sale. When I have spent the time to collect the items myself, combine the items myself, and basically forked out a bunch of cash for the vender sold components, I do expect to at least make my money back.

I do help friends, but on my terms. I hated logging in and being spammed with requests for items off my vender for discounted sale, gifts, or "loans".

I have some general rules about tradeskilling. This is from a profit perspective, not a skillup perspective, because that can seriously change things.

Never, under any circumstance, make something for a loss. It sounds like common sense now, but you will be surprised. For example:

Component A: Vender Sold 100pp
Component B: Item Drop. Sells quite well in bazaar for 1kpp

People always forget what the value of dropped items are when calculating prices. I would not sell a finished product for 500pp when I can sell dropped component for more. As such, I never make that product.

That's my input. Hope it makes sense.

[Obina]

As well as the 9 gifts (you are a bit low in skill for most in fact), you can make Vial of prismatic dye. And artisan's seal. And leather padding.

But as it says on this board in lots of places, once you are into tradeskilling, you get insight into the cost of materials, and realise that selling spiderling silk and small pieces of velium will make you more pp than you will ever make on Black Acrylia Halbards. But this is a real help - non tradeskillers are less able to understand and work to meet the needs of tradeskillers.

[Baltazor Goldsinger]

I will add some advice that I haven't seen mentioned as yet... and this applies to anyone at your current skill & player level in the game... "Beware, lest you fall into the Path of Ruin!" This should be one of those cautions engraved on the ancient Tradeskillers Tablets!

There is a tremendous gap between skill level of 190 +/- and that of 250. If I were graphing tradeskill in any trade and cost to improve tradeskill it would looking something like an exponential curve. The point at which the curve shots upwards on the cost side is right around 190. That's when the actual tradeskill difficulty changes and most items you make require something that isn't vendor sold ie you either have to kill something for it or forage it (or both).

Tradeskilling can be relaxing, fun and a nice thing to do in game when you are bored or tired of doing the exp grind, HOWEVER, do not EVER think of it as a gold mine. You would be more correct generally, if you thought of it as that house that Chevy Chase buys in the movie "The Money Pit"... You only get into 'skillin imo IF you have a love of making things, LOTS of spare time on your hands, you are independently wealthy and have very steady wrists.

[Eatbugs]

Someday, I hope to make back all the cash I've spent skilling up.

Also, I'd like a nuclear powered pony. With lasers. Gotta have lasers.

Turlo's last bit of advice is probably the best here - I've wasted a TON of cash and time making things I later discovered were inferior to drops that sell for half my cost in making the tradeskilled item.

[Niami DenMother]

You really have to study your server's market before deciding what to make for cash.

Often, it's the farmed components, or the time-consuming made components that will make you the best profit.

One of the things I do, when I have the time to play these days, is try to do my xp'ing in zones with tradeskill drops.

My BL did most of levels 60 through 62 in Acrylia Caverns, for example. Even though a lot of the stuff in the front area is light blue (good for low key soloing that way), it got me some xp, some weapons that vendor very well, runes that vendor for ok cash ... and a solid chunk of acrylia to bazaar, since I'm not going to work in acrylia-anything right now. The black acrylia goes to the vendor, due to current bazaar pricing, the blocks of acrylia as well, since the bazaar prices are as low as 25pp, and the vendor pays me 31 for it, but the rest bazaars nicely and quickly for 15-25pp each.

Velium from Velious, condensed shadows, ice, etc from Luclin and so forth also sell well.

Other than that, most of my coin comes from vendor diving after patches and reselling goodies, but again, it requires that you know your bazaar prices pretty well, to make sure you don't take a large loss on stuff.

If you don't mind some farming, Halas 10-lb meat pies tend to be popular, Grobb Liquidised Meat, etc.

There's no one road to fast tradeskill profit, and what might be profitable one day, will cost you a lot the next as prices drop and you're caught with stuff that cost you more than folks are willing to pay for it.

My last two cents on it: Focus on the having fun part of tradeskill addictions and go blow things up with those lovely wizzie nukes when you start running low on cash to keep skilling.

[Cerpicio]

I haven't played in the last few weeks, but before that I sold Prismatic Dyes and made a steady income off them. They still sell well even this far after their original release (which was the real time to make a killing with them).

I think they cost about 30p to make (if you have good CHA). I try to sell them for 45p, but I'm usually under-cut and have to go down to 42 or even 40. I won't bother selling them for less than 40p.

With a stone in PoK down to Gunthak, it's even easier to get there. And the new tradeskill UI helps a lot (I started with these dyes before either were available). Actually, it was even before shared bank slots, I think.

Anyway, I'd make 4 stacks, and for a long time they'd sell out in a day or two. I think the market has slowed down now, but it's still worth looking at.


YMMV
-- C.