Don Cultural .. Skill-Up method, or Gear rewards ?

[Master Natura Katana]

From what I can gather, from my experiences hunting for drops and friend's reports, I believe it would be safe to say that the DoN cultural armors aren't intended as a skill-up method.

If in fact, they were implemented as some sort of 'gap-filler' (the high end cultural armors) between raid gear and casual player gears, then of course considering them as a skill-up method would be ludicrous. I do believe however, that they are intended as a way of obtaining fairly *descent* gear while being giving the chance for gear.

Now, I'm sure each race can post with something from their cultural combines being ridiculously rare drop (and while I also hope this is brought to the attention of Sony), I find it highly unlikely...

So... unless Sony changes some things in an upcoming patch, or someone proves different, the easiness of mobs from Velious (example, wyverns for tailoring via hides - vs - or in my case shissar scales, storm volaas hairs) make DoN cultural armors an undesired / unlikely path for skill-ups.

_____________________
Master Natura Katana
Enchanter of 7th Hammer

[YurienStonebow]

typically anything over 200/220 wasn't great for skilling up. even worse now over 250 but thats just imho

[Menellinde]

I honestly don't know because it seems to me that farming the drops to skill up on DoN gear is the best way to go about it at the moment. For example, wood elves at Master level use drake scales as the ONLY farmed component for their tailoring combines. They drop fairly commonly from mobs that can be decently soloed or duoed right at the ent to Ssra temple and will take you all the way to 300 woohoo.

The Grandmaster stuff, on the other hand is rather rare and trivials really high so I wouldn't think that's a very good skill up path.

[Gonodil]

Not sure this would be a good skillup path for anyone thats not extremely rich. The armor combines are pricey, armor that you make with it cant be resold to merchants to make up cost of merchant bought ingredients, the armor has a very small player market due to its race restrictions and its poor stats without an aug added.

Smithing wise I think only iksar would use DoN armor for skillups, due to how rare their temper ingredients (scale temper) are and how very crappy the resulting armor is.

Now in terms of tailoring skillups i also think wyverns are a much better option than shissar scales. They are easy to solo, velium is fairly cheap(easy to farm too), and while soloing wyverns theres also a chance of getting crushed diamond dust for master symbols.

[Obina]

I'm going to look hard at the expert level symbols as a skill up route for tailoring. I think the expert level symbols would be reasonable skill ups for that range for Smith, but I'm personnaly past that stage.

I think the Master/GM level symbols, and the armor itself are not skill ups paths.

For new Smiths and Tailors, the journeyman symbols may also be of some use.

[Boleslav]

I hope they are not intended to be skillup paths. Tailoring is in need of a good skillup item or two from 180 – 250. If this were it, then Dwarves are left totally out as they don't get any DoN tailoring. Since I am a Dwarf with tailoring at 200, I really hope something can be added while I am still a relatively young man.

I think Dwarves are the only race to not get any DoN tailoring. I'm sure someone will point it out if I am wrong though.

Oh well… got lots of work to do for smithing before I worry about tailoring again.

Boleslav Forgehammer
Paladin of Brell in his 67th Campaign
E'ci – Sacred Destiny

[miakiss]

I must say the Expert Wood Elf leather is looking quite attractive as a skill up route to 222 compared to the other options.

Farming HQ cat pelts should be relatively easy compared to Velious pelts and much quicker than Flawless Rockhopper hides. Plus no velium/acrylia required and no fishing/foraging.

I guess the only other option is Robes, but with the high trivial then skill ups will be slower and you still need the silk and all the imbuing.

I'll probably hit EK and collect silks and pelts at the same time and save the silks for when I hit 222 (or even higher if shissar scales are easy to come by).

I found 100 gem studded chains on a merchant for 24pp each last night, so I guess I will be doing robes at some point

[Maevenniia]

I found 100 gem studded chains on a merchant for 24pp each last night, so I guess I will be doing robes at some point

wow, grats!

[Nolrog]

I found 100 gem studded chains on a merchant for 24pp each last night, so I guess I will be doing robes at some point

/GASP.

That's gotta be one of the best vendor finds I've ever heard of.

[miakiss]

Yep - and there were more left, but I couldn't face trying to find more bank space. If anyone on Antonius is looking for some I can point you to the merchant - give me a tell this evening (GMT) as I should be on.

[Ravenswood]

I bet they're already gone, lol. I had someone cuss me out the other day because I beat them by a few seconds to 12 GSC's on a vendor- they were in the process of running to the bank ;P

[Aavar]

sounds like someone was skillingup jewelry crafting.

[miakiss]

Decided to stop being lazy and make some more space. Went back to the same merchant and picked up another 50 or so. Next question is whether to use them now and get more attempts per chain or save them until there are less other options.