Top 10 Update Next Friday

[Cyrint Aircaller]

Ok, think for a sec about all the items that look like they might be used in tailoring. All the skins and silks and such. Imagine trying to collect all of them. If you did that, would you be blaming Sony that too many different skins drop? For the same reason, collecting all the different research components isn't necessary or helpful.
Sony expects you think before you collect for any tradeskill. There are lists available on this site which tell you what recipes a particular component is used in. If Words are used in low-level necromancer research, then a wizard will NOT be able to use it. If a rune is used in low-level wizard research, then an enchanter will NOT be able to use it. If you prefer to stick to in-game research, you can buy and take notes on those books sold by the research vendors.
Hording items in anticipation of future changes is ALWAYS a risky proposition. I don't think the future skill-up paths will use the existing research components that are already too rare. You're free to try, but when the structure of the game and your personal strategy are at odds, it may not be the game that needs to change.

Items i can use to skill up past 202

etched signet, flame of fennin, words of expertise
card of bristlebane, flake of lodestone
dew clover, mist of povar, words of capacity
bolts of tallon, primordial substance, words of virtue
sliver of moonstone, words of potence
words of aptitude, writ of quellious, scales of veeshan
runed emblem, staff shard of luclin.

This is magician only 18 items.

part of toharon's memoir pg. 18 (right), toharon's memoir pg. 19
toharon's memoir pg. 22, part of toharon's memoir pg. 18 (left)
part of yaeth's compendium pg. 112 (left), part of yaeth's compendium pg. 112 (right), rune of divergency, words of agony, words of obliteration
words of asylum, rune of amalgamation, rune of association, words of covert
part of yaeth's compendium pg. 104 (left), words of energy, yaeth's compendium pg. 105, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 94 (left), part of yaeth's compendium pg. 94 (right), part of finnok`s treatise pg. 2 (left), staff shard of luclin, words of comprehension, part of toharon's memoir pg. 21 (right), rune of antithesis, words of constancy, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 114 (left), yaeth's compendium pg. 115, words of energy, words of retention, yaeth's compendium pg. 108, coin of xev, rune of zephyr, yaeth's compendium pg. 81, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 117 (left), part of yaeth's compendium pg. 118 (left), rune of zephyr, rune of coruscating, rune of flash, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 102 (left), yaeth's compendium pg. 83, part of toharon's memoir pg. 21 (left), rune of alternation, rune of coalition, words of expedition, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 107 (left), part of yaeth's compendium pg. 118 (right), words of revenant, words of sapience, rune of amalgamation, rune of incitement, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 70 (right), part of toharon's memoir pg. 15 (right), rune of incitement, rune of alternation, words of intent, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 26 (left), part of yaeth's compendium pg. 26 (right), rune of conglomeration, rune of tempest, words of recourse, rune of complexity, yaeth's compendium pg. 95, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 82 (left), words of invigoration, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 91 (left), words of immunity, rune of conglomeration, rune of contradiction, words of abrogation, words of holding, part of zeannor's thesis pg. 14 (left), part of yaeth's compendium pg. 78 (left), yaeth's compendium pg. 92, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 65 (left), words of stimulation, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 73 (left), words of distress, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 63 (left), words of exhilaration, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 78 (left), yaeth's compendium pg. 113, rune of draught, rune of tempest, part of finnok`s treatise pg. 2 (left), rune of gale, rune of contradiction, rune of opposition, yaeth's compendium pg. 81, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 61 (left), words of comprehension, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 50 (left), rune of impulse, words of recall, words of misery, words of recourse, rune of alternation, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 25 (left), part of yaeth's compendium pg. 25 (right), coin of xev, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 63 (right), words of annihilation, yaeth's compendium pg. 81, part of yaeth's compendium pg. 72 (left),

This is druid, cleric and shaman spells who trivial above 202.
As you can see those incorperate runes (wizard), pages (enchanters) and words (necromancers).
I have tried to avoid getting any duplicates but im not really in the mood of counting how many diffrent there is, but as you can see indiscriminating collecting is quite a must.
Now my 170+ stock is only items i have gathered from high end zones (mobs who give xp at level 70, the lowest zones i am in is CT where some of the mobs is light blue (i only farm the areas with dark blue mobs).
I DONT run around farming gimp zones and components used for level 30 spells.
Research is a mess up, the only explanation is that severel developpers have worked on it and have had a bad communication and here is why.

Toharens page 22 is the RARE research item for Divine intervention.
I have no problem with that at all DI is a super good spell who is rare and by all means so should the research component be, the problem is that developpers when they made the diffrent spells and add components seems to have made it on a random basis, completly common spells have toharens page 22 as a component.
Its silly, none will ever make them if they have ny idea what toharens page 22 is used for, it just mean that none will ever use that recipe.
Skill levels:
You have level 51 spells who trivilize at 227 and you have level 58 spells who trivialize at 207 logical ?

Here is a coupple of sugestions.

RARE spells:
Spells who for some reason is (and should be) rare have a special component who only that spell use (and dont put it in common with severel other rare spells, the only diffrence is that that most valuable spell (DI) will be made every time that component surface).
Remove the RARE components from the none rare spells and either dont replace it or replace it with a common research drop (no research components is common drops but some is more comon than others).

Make it logical: a level 60 spell is more complicated than a level 51 spell (why else do you need a higher level to cast it), adjust trivial level acordingly. (LOW PRIORITY)

Make all spells researchable by all classes, eventually with a penalty (a magician researching a wizard spell have 25 % less chance of succes than the wizard of same skill level), (im not even sure it is a good idea, since it will generate alot more recipes you need to browse through).

When making a zone add research components with the theme (aka flame of fenin have alot higher chance to drop in plane of fire (fenin ro's home).
All zones drop the same components they do now, just tribble (or more) the chance of components who is in theme with the zone to drop.

[Rissenn]

Since SOE wont fix the fletching (hey, they have had a lot of time to do it, why would they change it now?), can they at least make Bow Staffs stackable for when we go and look for 1000+ of the crappy things?

[Sharrien]

Stackable bow staffs, I like that one. Good suggestion.

[KyrosKrane]

If we're going to make bow staves stackable, we may as well go whole hog and make bow strings stackable too. (The elemental bow strings aren't stackable, but the parts to make them are.)

Nolrog, I re-edited the super-trophy text a bit to correct some spelling errors and clarify one point.

And if you want to get really fancy, repeat the item #8 as #10. Maybe the double emphasis will help them realize how important it is to the community ... or at least make them chuckle. =)

[ruodrra]

WOW -- what Cyrint said!!!

To supplement Cyrint's comments, I have changed the spreadsheet on my page to show those components I think are 'rare' for skilling up beyond 202 -- defined by me as components I never/rarely see dropped or avalable at all in the bazaar for a reasonable price.

rare research components

Xulan said:

Slightly off-topic but helpful to those who are needing components. There is one place in one zone where a research component drops off of every single mob, and I can't remember where it is off the top of my head, but I will and I'll post it.

Please, I would love to have this information and I hope you can find it.

[Mannwin Woobie]

Would also love a confirmation on if 300+ modified GM tradeskilling has the proper success/failure rate for DoN armors with Mastery 3 (and without, but the concern seems to be with Mastery 3 as well). Decent thread in the smithing forum, but I'm not sure if it deserves a spot on the top 10 (certainly deserves confirmation though =)

Yes, please!

[mewkus]

Wasn't the difficulty of getting a Spiritual Anchor from the Ghoul of Takish Hiz somewhere on the list? Has that been addressed? I finally got mine after about 40 net hours of killing in SRo last night. For something that ends up being 2hp/mana per tick, the time invested sure seems to outweigh the reward.

[Xulan]

Please, I would love to have this information and I hope you can find it.

I've been wracking my brain. I'm starting to think it may have been a EQ Dream TM. I will definitely post it if/when I remember/find it again.

[Nolrog]

Wasn't the difficulty of getting a Spiritual Anchor from the Ghoul of Takish Hiz somewhere on the list? Has that been addressed? I finally got mine after about 40 net hours of killing in SRo last night. For something that ends up being 2hp/mana per tick, the time invested sure seems to outweigh the reward.

Number 6A:

6A) Ghoul of Takish-Iz broken, very frustrating!

This is very much related so I have combined it in the same item. - The Ghoul is an insanely rare spawn, and almost impossible for a non-tracker to catch without using tools-that-shall-not-be-mentioned. In addition, even when he does spawn and is caught, his drop is way too rare.

"I have killed the Ghoul of Takish-Iz more than 30 times in the last 2 months - he is supposed to drop the last piece I need for the phylactery quest - the spiritual anchor. I know for a fact as recently as late April/early May he was still dropping the anchor. By all accounts the Anchor is a 1/4 to 1/5 drop so the odds of me not getting one in 30 kills are bordering on impossible .... in an ongoing discussion on EQtraders, if you factor in two other player's experiences in the last month we have killed the Ghoul 41 times with 0 drops. The amount of time I have spent on this quest now vastly exceeds the amount of time it took me to get my epic or do anything else ever in this game - hundreds of hours, at least a hundred just on the ghoul..... somethin' ain't right about that."

[Rissenn]

If we're going to make bow staves stackable, we may as well go whole hog and make bow strings stackable too. (The elemental bow strings aren't stackable, but the parts to make them are.)

Well, that the finished bowstring is not stackable isnt a big problem really since the ingrediants are. I just dislike the fact that one bow staff takes a full slot which hinders us to pick them up and save since tradeskillers usually are serious packrats.

[Cyrint Aircaller]

WOW -- what Cyrint said!!!

To supplement Cyrint's comments, I have changed the spreadsheet on my page to show those components I think are 'rare' for skilling up beyond 202 -- defined by me as components I never/rarely see dropped or avalable at all in the bazaar for a reasonable price.

rare research components

Xulan said:



Please, I would love to have this information and I hope you can find it.

Here is a coupple of sugestions to your rare component list.

Flake of lodestone drops very common in KT+ in GoD, i have close to 2 stacks in bank from infrequent farming in those areas.
Staff shard of luclin isnt that rare either (close to 1 stack so far), but it drop in lower level zones wich is why i dont run into it much.
Words of sapience, i have only gotten 1 of those so far so i would call that pretty rare (or i hunt the wrong places), (dont remember where i got it).
Scales of veeshan, only managed to get 1 so far from cazic thule so either they are rare or i hunt the wrong place.

And just so we are speaking same language, common is when you can get 1 drop / 2-3 hours (you will get lots of other reseach materials also in the same 2-3 hrs thou)

[ruodrra]

thanks Cyrint -- unfortunately I dont have GOD.

But your comment gets back to one of the key issues besides rareness -- having to rely on hearsay to find out where components are likely to drop. Again, as a GM baker myself, using baking as an analogy -- imagine decreasing the drop rate and THEN telling a baker that the mammoth meat he/she needs to skill up on for halas pies can drop randomly from any mob in any zone across norrath AND can be used in tailoring and brewing ... and oh by the way, I hear it was dropping from spiders in velks last year -- picture the outcry and how quick it would be fixed. (yes I know that spiders dropping mammoth meat is absurd but play with it.)

Just out of curiosity, other than the recent changes that raised the trivial to 300 but eliminated training to 200, does anyone know when was the last time there where significant changes to research skilling and recipes?

[YurienStonebow]

thanks Cyrint -- unfortunately I dont have GOD.

But your comment gets back to one of the key issues besides rareness -- having to rely on hearsay to find out where components are likely to drop. Again, as a GM baker myself, using baking as an analogy -- imagine decreasing the drop rate and THEN telling a baker that the mammoth meat he/she needs to skill up on for halas pies can drop randomly from any mob in any zone across norrath AND can be used in tailoring and brewing ... and oh by the way, I hear it was dropping from spiders in velks last year -- picture the outcry and how quick it would be fixed. (yes I know that spiders dropping mammoth meat is absurd but play with it.)

Just out of curiosity, other than the recent changes that raised the trivial to 300 but eliminated training to 200, does anyone know when was the last time there where significant changes to research skilling and recipes?

back when EQ first went live??

[Thalia]

Research

One solution to the difficulty to finding the multitude of research items that one must stockpile for skill ups is to let the vendors rotate stock again. It used to be that I could vendor farm items. I could buy 5 runes then close out of the vendor and go back in and possibly find another one or 2 that the vendor didn't previously show because they were full. Since they took that away from the vendors to do so I have found research ingredients a lot harder to find. I believe they stated that they had no intentions of making the vendors rotate stock again.
This is not to mention the drops that are almost impossible to find. It took me 3 months to find Rune of Zephyr after they announced the second time that they had actually finally put it in the game. The ability to farm the mobs that drop the higher end items for a caster is another problem. I don't have a pet to do my dirty work, and I rely on keeping space between me and the mob which I can not do in the tight dungeons that the high end items drop in and research items don't drop in any of the LDoN's I do anymore (I guess I am too high to farm reserach drops in them now)

I agree that request for drop rates should be increased on research items should be on the list. Simply because you have a greater number of them that you need to store to actually find a match to do a combine and the unavailability to farm a lot of them off vendors that don't rotate stock.

Thalia

[KyrosKrane]

Just out of curiosity, other than the recent changes that raised the trivial to 300 but eliminated training to 200, does anyone know when was the last time there where significant changes to research skilling and recipes?

I don't do research, but my guess would be the last big shake-up was when they introduced the "advanced" research books with LoY, along with their associated recipes.