Alternate Advancment Progression

[bitesyurr]

Hi,

Just planning ahead, I am nearly level 70 now, so I will be hitting the AA's soon.

Should I go for Blacksmith Mastery to max, then Salvage, or Salvage first? Or would I be better getting 1 level in each and building them up together?

At the moment my skill is at 259, plus the PoR trophy.

[Elyssanda]

Personally I took the salvage first.. because it applies to ALL tradeskills, whereas the masteries only apply to the particular one you are doing. Now, if the ONLY one you are doing is Smithing....I dunnno, I still might take salvage, just to get a chance at getting items back if there is a failure. at 259 + trophy you are close to 300 as it is. and if you are doing smithing for the DON cultural, it has a success cap,but salvage can fire any time.

[Dutchy]

I'd go with salvage as well, the chance at getting components back on failures is nice and the salvaged materials can allow you extra combines (thus more chances at skill ups).

Like Elyssanda said you're close to 300 skill already. And there are currently no smithing recipies out there that would benefit from mastery AAs if you are at max skill + 5% modifier. (or close to it with a better modifier). So once you max out smithing the 18AA's you put in mastery will be wasted untill higher recipies come out. Salvage on the other hand will always remain usefull.

The first time I took smithing to 300 I got the mastery AAs first and did salvage after that. I really regretted buying the mastery AA's afterwards =( I'm currently working on 300 smithing on two of my other chars to create different DoN cultural sets but I have decided not to do any mastery AA's on them but just the salvage ones. My toons are in the 300-600AA range, but theres still lots of AAs out there that I'd like to get and all of those will remain usefull. I'd rather get those and get a few more fails untill I max my skill out, than to spend my AAs on abilities that will end up having no benefit at all.

It's all a matter of personal preferance though. If you don't plan on going for max skill right away but want to create the really high end items mastery AAs might be worth the investment. I suggest looking up the calculator on the site to see if mastery will have enough benefit for you before you start putting points into it. at 259 skill with a 5% modifier for example it will show you alrdy have the maximum succes rate for any item up to a 303 trivial. So unless you're doing 303+ trivial combines, mastery will not affect your succes rate.

[Tokkyl]

I'd say it depends on what you want to do and how easy it is to get the AA's.

Are you only doing Smithing, as what is the goal? If your goal is to make some DoN armor or symbols then go with the BM3, as then you don't need to even level smithing anymore for max success chances with current skill and the trophy.

If you plan on doing other tradeskills and NOT doing for DoN, then salvage since as noted it applies to ALL of the tradeskills so more bang for the AA's spent.

Plus, it's always gratifying to recover the water flask, pattern, etc. instead of the 20k+ part(s).... HEHE

[bitesyurr]

The primary driver for me doing this is so that I can make my own GM armour, I have had 1 peice made for me (the Cuirass), but want to make the rest myself.

Short term I want to get to the point where I can make everything up to a trivial of 334 - I have good sleeves, and the Cuirass anyway so would only be missing the Greaves.

The calculator shows that I will need an unmodified skill of 272 without the AA's, so I will go with Salvage.

So, 13 skillups required - any guesses on how many brick of Yttrium that's going to be, and will the time farming it be sufficent to max out the salvage AAs!!

Lol - some fun times coming up - and I am begginning to dislike the Deep almost as much as Hollowshade moor!!

Thanks for the input.

[Liwsa]

OMG Hollowshade don't curse at me like that .

At your skill rate you are looking at 15-20 combines per skill-up if you use culturial master level combines.

[KyrosKrane]

I'd also point out that the Advanced Calculator on the main site can get you a reasonably close estimate to how many combines you'd need, and your expected cost to skill up.