Seeking Trophy and AA advice

[Jinaabu3169]

I have recently returned from an extensive break, and I find myself wanting to dive back into tradeskills. When I first came back, I spent a good bit of time getting familiar with the game again (so much has changed). I also spent some time getting reacquainted with the tradeskill changes (so much of it has changed as well).

Before I hung up my adventuring hat, I had worked my tradeskills to the following levels:

Baking - 200
Smithing - 200
Brewing - 248
Fletching - 248

I plan to concentrate on these 4 before starting on any others. Oh, and fishing is 148

I see that they have new trophy quest, and a number of AA dealing with tradeskills, and I am having trouble making head or tails of it as it pertains to the big picture. So, should I spend the time on the trophies now before I continue to work the tradeskills? And, what AA should I get before continuing? I have not encountered a very costly skill up yet, but I imagine that may change.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

(If there is a thread that already sums this info up, you can just point me there. Me and search never have gotten along well )

[Paerien]

First of all, yes, do the trophy quests before you even do one more combine. There's really two reasons for this:

1. The lower your skill is, the easier the quests/combines are to acquire the trophy.

2. Once you get the trophies, equip it when doing combines to evolve the trophy. Waiting longer (iirc) isn't a HUGE problem, but it will need to "catch up".

Short answer: Go get all the trophy quests (get your others up to 50, so you can get the quests for those too), and just get them out of the way. Also, the skillup % bonus helps.

You can certainly work on Salvage AAs, which can come in handy in case you fail a combine, but even if you do salvage something, it could be a water flask as easily as it could be an expensive item. I wouldn't worry so much about salvage until you hit 300, especially for tailoring and smithing. Once you get an order for an Elegant piece of armor, you'll want it, JUST in case, but I've only salvaged a Porous Loam once (have made about 25-30 Elegant pieces). The time I did salvage it, I re-combined and failed a second time!

The Mastery AAs are nice as well, but again, for skilling up to 300, I didn't find them necessary.

YMMV - I've been away for about 7-8 months (seems like 3-4 years), myself. One thing to keep in mind (unless this was nerfed), when you get up into the high 200s in Tailoring and Smithing - somewhere in the 280's or so, you can make symbols and cultural armor for very nice skillup bonuses. They'll cost you a more in farming/plat, but it more than evens out in how fast you can skillup with this method. Again, YMMV.

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to give it a go. I'm trying to shake out the cobwebs myself.

[Paloverde]

First of all, yes, do the trophy quests before you even do one more combine.

You can certainly work on Salvage AAs, which can come in handy in case you fail a combine ... especially for tailoring and smithing.

The Mastery AAs are nice as well.

You may recall this, but you need the New Tanan Mastery AA for each tradeskill beyond 200 in the seven major skills. So that should be a priority. I see you have two skills at 200.

Regarding Paerien's advice on when to do the trophies. It is issential to do the two at 248 now. The ones that are at 200, I am not sure whether the demarcation between categories is 200 or 201. If 200 is in the lower category, then the two at 200 are essential now too. If 201 then you may get the AA's and do more skilling but not beyond 250 before you do the trophy.

The Salvage AA (three levels) applies to all tradeskills.

Mastery AA's are specific to the several tradeskills. If you care about producing a product for a customer, then these mastery AA's are really important. If skill-up is the only concern and the products you combine are common and cheap then the mastery AA can wait.

[Gorse]

I am not sure whether the demarcation between categories is 200 or 201.

It is 200.

The tiers are:

Tier 1: 50-99
Tier 2: 100-149
Tier 3: 150-199
Tier 4: 200-249
Tier 5: 250-299
Tier 6: 300


Also don't forget that trophies can evolve to only one tier above your unmodified skill and it will wait until your skill catches up before it continues to evolve. If you skill up before your trophy evolves it will skill up at an accelerated rate (11 times faster for 1 tier, 21 times faster for two tiers, 31 times faster for three tiers and so on) until it reaches the same tier as your unmodified skill.


I also recommend doing the trophies sooner rather than later, mainly because of the rare items for the higher level quest items. Nothing worse than farming for hours per day for days to finally get a part and then blow it up trying to combine.



Gorse

[acoma]

You may recall this, but you need the New Tanan Mastery AA for each tradeskill beyond 200 in the seven major skills. So that should be a priority. I see you have two skills at 200.

I am not totally sure what you mean by this. Does this mean that, with my enchanter, has a JC skill of 270(has no trophy) and a research skill of 200(have a trohpy) that in order to raise my research I need to get an AA that goes along with it?

Also, I thought that you could only get one trophy in a tradeskills per character? Is this not true? Does that mean that I can get a trophy for every Tradeskill I am working on per toon? Sorry if this has been covered just seem a bit overcome with tradeskills latly.

[Paloverde]

I am not totally sure what you mean by this. Does this mean that, with my enchanter, has a JC skill of 270(has no trophy) and a research skill of 200(have a trohpy) that in order to raise my research I need to get an AA that goes along with it?

Research is not one of the "major 7" skills. No AA is required to raise this above 200.

Also, I thought that you could only get one trophy in a tradeskills per character? Is this not true? Does that mean that I can get a trophy for every Tradeskill I am working on per toon? Sorry if this has been covered just seem a bit overcome with tradeskills latly.

You may get a trophy for ALL of the tradeskills. So start filling that inventory with them. Whenever you are processing a tradeskill switch it into an appropriate slot. Add relevant Geerlok too, if you wish.

[Paerien]

I am not totally sure what you mean by this. Does this mean that, with my enchanter, has a JC skill of 270(has no trophy) and a research skill of 200(have a trohpy) that in order to raise my research I need to get an AA that goes along with it?

Also, I thought that you could only get one trophy in a tradeskills per character? Is this not true? Does that mean that I can get a trophy for every Tradeskill I am working on per toon? Sorry if this has been covered just seem a bit overcome with tradeskills latly.

I think what he's saying is that, natively, you're only allowed to have ONE tradeskill above 200. The rest will cap and stop at 200, until you get the AA (is it called "New Tanan Mastery AA"? I ferget. ) that allows you to get another TS above 200. I don't remember how many AAs they cost, but there's six levels to it, because by default, you're allowed one TS above 200, so this allows you to get the other SIX above 200.

And yes, you can get one trophy per TS, per character. So you should have a total of seven trophies, if you plan to work on all seven. Again, the lower your skill is, the easier the "quest" is to get the actual trophy, so it's always recommended to get your trophy as soon as you hit 50 (I THINK it's 50, might be 51...), as the components are readily available/easy to acquire/buy.

I've been away for several months, so I'm a bit rusty, but yeah, TS'ing can be quite overwhelming.

Good luck and let me know if there's anything else you need.

[Paloverde]

And yes, you can get one trophy per TS, per character. So you should have a total of seven trophies, if you plan to work on all seven.

eight, including that research trophy

[Paerien]

eight, including that research trophy

Hiya Paloverde! Hey, I saw that somewhere else - everyone can do Spell Research, now? It looks like you can get it to 300 without another AA? Oh crap, I may have to join the 2400 club, now. Here goes another month and a million platinum down the drain! (exaggerating...a LITTLE)

Thanks.
Paerien

[Yalum]

Int casters and pure melee can get to 300 without AAs. Priests and hybrids need to spend kind of a lot of them, I'm afraid.

[Paerien]

Int casters and pure melee can get to 300 without AAs. Priests and hybrids need to spend kind of a lot of them, I'm afraid.

I'm a hybrid (Ranger) - sorry, but what do you mean by "spend kind of a lot of them"?

[Zukiki]

I can't remember the exact numbers right now, but all Priests/Hybrids can get to a skill of 200 on there own, but to get to 300 you need to spend AA's (something like 10 ranks at about 3 AA's each, and each rank allows you 10 more skill ups). So a total of 30AA's are needed to max out Spell Research I think.

[Aldier]

Priests its 3 aa per rank, 10 ranks... AA is called Written Prayer (under archetype).

[Lemamas]

If I had this to do over, I would have leveled my too to the top level I could, then got my stats up as high as I could, then grind out my tradeskill AA then get my trohphies going, then skill up. If you want the cheapest method available then levels, stats, and AA should be max before you start doing combines. This will ensure the most successes and will hit your pocket book the least but will take a lot more time.

None of the AA other than the one to let you get over 200 are needed and neither is the trophy. I did all my skills to 300 then got my trophies. I'm not sure why though....

[Sumamdar]

This may have been mentioned also But you want to do the trophey quests at lowest possible level, because not only are the combines higher skill level, you start to need other trade skills to do those combines.

Example: Blacksmithing 175 level TS trophey has a combine the requires a jewelcrafting combine with a trivial of 122. If you do not have jewelcrafting you need to find someone that does. Not a big deal but can be annoying.

If you did not do the GoD quest stuff for TSing get those done also. They are Simple and the quest giver gives you everything you need just time consuming standing there hitting combine over and over and over and over and.....you get the picture When you do the other tradeskills you can use the GoD TS Quests to get you to a certain level. It is not much only 54 but every little bit helps.