Casual Tradeskilling: Methods of Mastery in a day

[FeroceFV]

Balkin, I'm a little surprised, and a little surprised at a lot of brewers, that the skull ale method is not used more. There's no container needed for it, and all the ingredients for it (and the Minotaur Hero's Brew) are available in Halas.

[PinyonTreedotter]

For fishing:
On my server (Luclin) right now, there are about 350 foraged roots for sale in The Bazaar with prices ranging from 5gp to 2pp each.

Foraged root + filet knife + celandine (alchemy supply) + fresh fish (bought wherever there are fishing Barbarians) combined in a tacklebox.

Gives you fish bones (used in making fishbone darts) and prepared fish (used in making Fish in Cream Sauce) and trivials at 171.

Probably expensive, but not nearly as time-consuming as actually fishing.

[Morani]

Some more cheap and easy non-foraged item brewing recipes:
Malted Milk: Milk, malt, bottle. Triv = 26
Soda water: Water, Soda. Triv = 58 (sell results in bazaar cheap)
Fish Wine: Water, Grapes, Fresh Fish, bottle. Triv = 62
Snake egg oil: Snake egg (lots found on merchants in snake infested newbie zones), water. Triv = 68

[Faymar]

For fishing:
On my server (Luclin) right now, there are about 350 foraged roots for sale in The Bazaar with prices ranging from 5gp to 2pp each.

Foraged root + filet knife + celandine (alchemy supply) + fresh fish (bought wherever there are fishing Barbarians) combined in a tacklebox.

Celandine is 150pp a stack and then to bake the fish you need fennel. A lot of precombines and even though I <i>hate</i> wasting anything I have stopped preparing fresh fish unless someone wants to make the darts.

There's a suprisingly decent guide to various skill-up paths for baking stickied on the baking forum though. *grin*

[Kronepsis]

Re: Brewing

3) Faydwer shaker: Elven Wine, Gnomish Spirits, Dwarven Ale, Mead, Cask (gives 4 empty bottles on success or failure) --- Triv 188

All ingredients (and brew barrel) can be found in East Freeport, Skyshrine. Several other zones have "most" ingredients, but not all. (I was surprised, I thought there were more zones with "everything")

Everyone ALWAYS forgets that you can make Faydwer Shakers in Highpass...*Sigh*

Tiger's Roar tavern. More exotic ingredients upstairs, plain old Mead downstairs, brew barrel right across the room.

[Balkin]

Dang!

Ya know, I remember hearing that about Faydwer Shakers in high pass many many times, but I went to the tradeskills supplies page and looked to make sure, and didn't see elven wine! So I didn't list it.

Now, you mentioned it, I went back and looked again... and **** me if it isn't there right in front of me!

So, I'll edit my above post to list it. Shoulda just put it down and trusted my instinct in the first palce. Thanks for the reminder!

OH! EDIT!

FeroceFV I know skule ale is a nice drink, but again, I wanted to list specifically all vendor bought, no forage items. I suppose I should have mentioned the Undead Cyclops Skull as well. The problem is, I lot of brewers start long before they can take on the Undead Cyclops. Not to mention he's at least an Uncommon spawn.

For those reasons alone I didn't list it. *shrug* I don't see why someone couldn't get a character to 200 brewing in a matter of hours if they set their minds to it. Unfortunately, hunting the UC might take entirely to long, even assuming the brewer could take him.

Good idea if you can get a skull quickly though.

[Eumerin]

You can also make Faydwer Shakers in Sanctus Seru, of all places.
One of the bars has all of the supplies you need sold on two or three of the vendors in that particular bar.

[Calabar]

I hunted the undead Cyclops with my 51 druid when my shaman started his brewing. I found two up in the zone, but when I attacked one I found I couldn’t snare or root him even though he was green to me. So for someone of only a few seasons, trying to take his skull could prove somewhat challenging. However, if you could find the skull for sale in the bazaar, skule ale might still be an option.

[Balkin]

Really??

Really Eumerin?

Dwarven ale, Elven wine and Gnomish spirits are not listed on the brewing supplies page on the main site for Sanctus Seru.

Could you verify that and put a post in Denmom's corner about updating the supplies page if true?

Awesome! hehehe

[Eumerin]

Look again. Gnomish Spirits and Dwarven Ale are both listed as sold by Jaeger Mort (loc unknown). I can confirm from personal experience that those items, along with Elven Wine (not listed in the supplies list, but I purchased multiple stacks of it while skilling up), Mead, and a cask, are all sold in the same building. Said building also has a brew barrel.

[Gwendelyne]

Tradeskills Made Easy/Cheap

This is how I did it and how I've instructed other (non caster types) to do it. Since not being a caster under normal circumstances you won't have high Wis or Int unless you keep a spare bag for just tradeskill armor.

Baking (0 - 191) -
Batwing Crunchies (46) - batwings and frosting
Fish Fillets (82) - fresh fish, jug of sauces
Fish Rolls (135) - fish, batwings
Patty Melts (191) - beat/lion/wolf meat, cheese, loaf of bread, non-stick frying pan (returned on success/failure)

Pottery (0 - 122)
Pot (56) - large block of clay, pot sketch, metal bits (water is used for making the end product which really doesn't matter if all your trying to do is raise skill)
Small Bowl (102) - small block of clay, bowl sketch
Medium Bowl (122) - block of clay, medium bowl sketch

Brewing (0 - 248)
Mead (41) - Yeast, hops, malt, cask**
Ale (68) - Barley, malt, water, cask**
Ol' Tijim's Fierce Brew (135) - Barley, hops, yeast, malt, cask**
Minotaur Hero's Brew (248) - 3 malts, yeast, 2 waters, 2 short beers, cask**
**Casks are returned on failures, but not successes.

I'm working on blacksmithing currently, but if I find something out that is useful for it, I will pass it along.

Gwendelyne Lifewind
Grandmaster of Night Eternal
Karana Server

[Zeralenn]

The problem with "fast" tradeskilling is that you do make a tradeoff: it's also more expensive. Also, although it saves you time for having to buy different sets of materials, you fail a lot more and actually spend more time making stuff than you do by going to a smoother progression.

The least expensive skilling path is one where you stay close to your trivials to minimize failures. By skipping ahead forty, fifty, sixty trivial levels, you're also failing a lot more. I did an experiment (under the section if success affects skilling) where I did 1 to 46 in brewing with 2 identical level 1 toons; the first did 1 item to 46 and got there in 191 combines, and the second did four items in succession, never more than 20 levels from trivial, and the second one did the same 1-46 progresion in only 131 combines. Oddly enough, the rate of success (1.8 per skillup) was the same for both paths, but the failure rates on the single-item skillup method were almost twice that of the smooth progression path. More failures = more money wasted and more time wasted.

I think there are many people out there who, being faced with failure after failure after failure (many of my early combines for my first toon, doing one item to 46, took more than 10 combines without a single success or skillup) will just give up tradeskills entirely. One could argue that it's just preparing them for the high levels where you can easily do stacks of combines without a single skillup, but you want to ENCOURAGE tradeskills, not discourage them.

There are many good guides out there that show smooth progression paths and some very nice websites; I'm currently following a great JC site to get my JC up to the point where I can do engraved velium armor.

Just my .02s -- I would strongly discourage casserole dishes until 188. They are a major butt-pain to make. Stick with vials; they are much, much easier to make. Relax, take your time, get the zombie skins, and enjoy the process.

...Zera

[Faymar]

I tackled one tradeskill in a manner of "I just want to get this up" and I have to say for me it was a mistake.

I realised just this week that I was growing to hate the tradeskilling sessions, resent every celestial essence combine, glare at bazaar vendors selling components I needed for more than I could afford.

I have "some" skill in most tradeskills on most of my characters, as a result of them getting something useful and using it. If they make something useful or even get to a useful level then it gives me a warm glow. Sitting and clicking watching for that illusive skill up message doesn't, in fact it has exactly the opposite effect.

Then again, I feel the same about levels

[Balkin]

Brewing

Well, just because I HAD to do it, I conducted a little experiment.

I already have 4 brewers above 150, so I'm reasonably familiar with the skill up path. Here's what I did

A friend of mine...

22 Froglok Shaman WIS 162 making Fetid Essence from 0 to 122. He did not train at his guild either, it was 0 to 122. No Geerlok device.

28 stacks +6 of both Water and fishing grubs in PoK.

566 combines, 170 successes Total Cost 9P 8G 0S 6C now a 122 brewer.

MY attempt.

20 Erudite Wizard INT 255 making Fetid Essence from 0 to 122. No training at the guild either, a true 0 to 122. No gearlok device.

19 stacks +5 of both water and fishing grubs in PoK.

385 combines, 126 successes. total Cost 4P 6G 7S 1C now a 122 brewer.

Both attempts took less than an hour. the merchants are about 30 seconds apart, and there are 2 brew barrels withing 20 feet of the water merchant.

That's just insane. WAY cheaper than even the pottery to 122. Interesting though isn't it?

[Carmaris]

When I did my brewing, I had to do it old school--various alcholic beverages to trivial levels. Everything I did was store bought, but it was still a bit of a pain.

When I decided it was time to do the shawl for my cleric, he did skull ales to 151, shakers to 173 or so (might be 171, I forget). Anyhow, skull ale is incredibly easy, I highly recommend this as a skill up path.