Will tradeskill caps increase with new expansion?

[Qaladar Bragollach]

I have access to earth/air/water but not fire and I have all but the last earring (hope stone turnin). I have killed 0 elemental gods.

[ColdHeart]

Got AG earring way before joining the pre-CoA flagged guild I am currently in (who are now farming CoA and moving into PoR). Also have only recently killed Fire god, way after completing the earring.

Just because CoA people can get it easier than your average Joe Blog, doesn't mean it should be CoA lvl+. Mainly because it CAN be done before you reach that lvl and also because it is old loot. Are they going to upgrade Time loot because it is easier to get better now? No. Look at VT, I've not even started the VT keys and yet I have better gear than anything I could get in there... Old loot.

If you are properly EP flagged but can't even start the quest... your flags are bugged. However it seems odd if you are correctly EP flagged. Do you have 220+ unmodified skill in all TS? Maybe a reason as well.

[Nolrog]

I heard the cap was going to 500*

*just kidding.

[filobeto]

I heard the cap was going to 500*

*just kidding.

/spork

[Chakua]

Personally, there is no reason to get this ear IMHO unless it is majorly upped.

I am flagged all the way to Demiplane and ToB and in a high-end raid guild and I still wear my Grimel ear. Check EQRankings and you will see many like me in the same situation. Is it the best out there? Absolutely not. However, with the rarity of ear and finger items out there in relation to the number needed to equip a guild, the Grimel is not THAT bad. With a good aug, it becomes a fairly decent piece of gear.

For me, it was always the pride of having completed the quest more than anything else. While I look forward to the day that I can bank it, I will be very sad to not see it on my profile anymore.

[Devilcharm]

No lowest tradeskill on my mage is 242 on pottery. Well research is even lower, 188. But research is not needed for the quest at all.

As for getting Demi-Plane and Anguish geared, it is much easier then you think. On almost all servers there are multiple CoA guilds, either fresh to it or farming it for the alt of an alt. All you need to do is 1 group signet quests which if your lucky can easily be completed in one day. You combine the signets in a container getting a box. Then either on guild recruitment boards or /general and /ooc some simple advertising of say..... Level 70 Beastlord, looking for raiding guild. X amount of AA's, signet quest done. Looking for CoA guild.

Boom, odds are you'll be scooped in on the first day, the first CoA raid you'll be on the first event. http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=16831 and probably get a lot of his loot topped with your seal Mastery of All and 1 or 2 ancient runes depending on class. Anguish guilds also generally Qvic/Txevu flag new members too if they dont have the flag and give them Tacvi gear while alts of the mains get the CoA gear. Not always, but as a general rule of thumb, thats how it works.

Now compare getting EP flagged to CoA... you will see that CoA is so much easier to that of EP's. Dreadspire is almost just as easy too. You do 4 missions to get non-instanced zone. The 69.1 spell mission is one of them, odds are everyone 65-70 on server have it. The other three missions are easy too. Just like CoA, you loot something to backflag you the 5 prior raids. If that guild is not done with the 5th one, but at least did 4 of them while the curses are active, I can guarantee you they are CoA farmers. Getting past Emporer Draygun (however his name was spelt) is a CoA difficulty raid. And he is only the second one to do. Matriach Shyra can be done with a Qvic guild easy. Perhaps even a Time guild if everyone does everything perfect with no mess-ups.
So CoA and Demi-plane are easy. The new PoR, for Theater of Blood is easy as well. 7 1 group missions, 8 if you cant find anyone to unlock the samples of corruption mission for you, you would have to do the skins mission to unlock it.
So yeah, by a far and large margin, CoA, and Demi-plane access and gear is by a very large margin easier then EP to get for everyone... well unless you ruined your faction with the CoA guilds :P

On Tunare, the following guilds are CoA. Talisman, Dai Shan, Infinit, Grey Horizon, Arete. I think Anthem is too, I might be mistaken tho. The following guilds on Tunare are about to break into CoA. Fusion, Gale of Destruction, and Nefarious Order. The following guilds are Time guilds. Primal Vengence, Black Tower... and I think that is all tho, but BT did have a coalition with Crystalline Waters. Not certain if they still do. There might be a couple more high end guilds out there that are CoA or beyond. I do not know tho, they are foriegn speaking guilds, I never see them raid. But a lot of them weild their 2.0's

There are a number of other guilds on Tunare as well. I do not think ANY of them are EP guilds, but I can be wrong. One guild close to EP is 'only' three kills away from EP. But they have been on those same three kills for over 7 months now. There are two new guilds that might become EP, Sanctum of Shadows and Tears of Hate. It is still to early to tell tho, and on top of their petty rivalry on racing to kill a PoP god, they have to deal with the fact that a lot of those gods are one grouped by 'uber' people and both get shafted. From what I can see on Maelin Starpyre, the same story is happening there. CoA guilds recruiting everyone before they even step foot in EP's. So yeah, getting EP flagged is by far the hardest flag in game. Dont be fooled by anyone who says otherwise.

[Carmaris]

That's all nice and well, but if your play time doesn't mesh with your server's CoA+ guilds, then getting Elemental flags via your current guild or through pickup raids is still going to be easier. Don't make the mistake of thinking that everyone has the opportunity--or even the desire--to jump into a guild that's doing CoA+ content.

[Kahmon]

I heard the cap was going to 500*

*just kidding.

Someone is asking be be hurt. lol

[ColdHeart]

Getting the arcstone cloak item is a walk over, doesn't even need a full group if you are CoA geared. But it equals or beats most stuff up to Qvic imo. Does that mean all items up to Qvic should be made better?

I upgraded a Time earring with a DoD task reward (keeping my AG earring to do so), a groupable fixed item vs a Time raided item...

Just because the AG earring has harsh flagging requirements does not mean it should keep being raised in power to compensate. I don't think this has ever happened with any item. AG isn't going to be different.

As for caps on TS... I don't see why it shouldn't go up to 600 even :-p

[Xodar]

Is this a complaint because your twink doesn't farm as well as your raid geared main? Or that someone else looted a pizza and some ancients? Not sure what your point is. I am in a small guild, have been since level 25, and am 50 points in pottery and jewelry and 9 points in tailoring from the 250 club, several of those others are on the way to 300.

Yttrium in the deep, as a 70/1250 ranger (still not raid geared) I don't really have downtime and generally keep 2-3 on me for the extra dps from ds. I can pretty much kill non-stop in Ssra too for scales for tailoring too. Tradeskills are far far more accessible to players who aren't raid geared anymore.

Arcstone cloak, don't need CoA gear to shortgroup it. Just Friday night Me, a 70 mage, 70 shaman, and a 68 SK helped some recently returned guildies (65 druid and necro sporting skyshrine armor in some spots) do the cloak, borso's ring, and the shopkeeper aug. In one night. With 6 people. Albeit it was a pretty busy and productive night but still.

What do you need for access to do Aid Grimel these days? Sol Ro (can get there with alt access) and RZtW + the twins? I personally duoed TZ with a necro friend, lol. AG and the concertina were intended to be quests for those people who went through the hoops to get the flags, and those hoops are a lot easier to get through these days. The first people to complete it did it before anyone could zone into BoT, HoH, CoD, Storms, or anywhere but the first 4 planes, much less any alt access quests.

[Gaell Stormracer]

I don't think there is any reason to raise the cap anytime soon. There isn't many 400+ recipies and with salvage aa, mastery aa, and 15% mod a lot of those high trival recipies are sure to become too easy with raised cap.

I had some thoughts along these very lines a few days ago -- a multiplicative bonus is inherently open-ended and therefore help cause mudflation. If the Trophies were changed instead to be +skill based on their current caps, they do not add to the problem in the same way -- eg the current +5% trophy, acquired at 200 skill, is worth +10; the Master trophy at 300, +12%, would be worth +36 -- and finally the GM trophy (+15%) would be worth +45.

Along the same lines, the Luclin era skill mods could be converted to be based on the maximum skill cap of that era (250) -- so the +15% smithing hammer would be a +38...