Cost-effective Tradeskills?

[Tassica]

Just a question from a newbie who's incredibly fascinated with the whole idea of tradeskills. Are any of them at all cost-effective for a low level character to at least break even on? Not looking to get hordes of easy money; just enough to continue funding my trade would be fine. Also, is any particular race/class combination that's especially well-suited to being a tradeskill junkie? Anyway, just hoping for some general opinions.

Thanks!

[Galathnor]

Well from my experience probably Baking is the least expensive to get into to start with. And you can also sell your products to other players for a little profit. If you are thinking about starting a character just to do a trade skill, I would suggest a druid for the foraging ability and the ability to port places in later levels. Be aware though that until you get to the highest levels of a skill you wont really be making any money and will probably loose some depending on which skill you take up. Also the higher the skill the more it cost to get an increase in skill. Anyway from reading your post I would just suggest that you try several of the trades, Baking, Pottery, Brewing, maybe even jewelcraft if you have a friend that can enchant the bars of metal needed for that. Then see which one you enjoy the most and go for that one. Even if at a later date you decide that you want to try another one, most are not to expensive to get to around 100 skill level or so. Main thing though is to just ENJOY whichever one you chose.

[Calabar]

As for classes, I would agree that a druid would be a good class for trades skills. My first character was a druid and he was my main trade skill character until I started playing my shaman. As for what race, wood elf would be a good choice. Wood elf druids are not unique by any stretch of the imagination, but if you get into tailoring or smithing I believe you have some good cultural options. A halfling druid would be a good choice as well for the same reasons. And both races have very good starting stats for the druid class.

As for trade skills, baking is a lot of fun and easy to gain skill in to 199. Baking is also very useful, as you can use what you make from day one. Brewing is by far the fastest skill to take to 250. Unfortunately its not as useful as baking unless you want to work on alcohol tolerance. At higher levels you can make stat drinks that are very useful, but at first you’re stuck with booze. On the bright side, brewing isn’t very expensive and when your making Hero Brew for skill gain you’ll actually make a small bit of money selling back to the NPCs as you near 248. Tailoring and smithing can be fun too at lower levels and not overly expensive. It’s a shame they get so expensive later on, but they’re good skills is you like a challenge. There are some good guides for most if not all the trade skills on the main page. They’ll set you on the right path.

I do feel I should give you a word of caution. If you get addicted to trade skills like most of us here be prepared to spend a lot of money on your addition. Trade skills in general are a money sink. But they’re also a lot of fun, so I figure it’s a fair tradeoff. *grins*

[Pojodan]

If you're liked in Freeport then baking is a great way to make cash at early levels.
Getting baking to 135 is easy. Go to EC and then vendor near the WC zone in a small hut that sells spell compoents. Buy 3 or 4 backpacks worth of bat wings
Go to East Freeport to the merchant in the building beside the docks. But the same number of Fresh Fish.
This all shouldn't cost very much, 40-50pp, I beleive.

To to West Freeport and find the oven which is in an abandoned house not to far from the East Freeport zone line. Put one Fish and one wing at a time into the oven.
Depending on luck and WIS/INT you'll likely hit at least 80 in baking if not over 100. Buy more wings and fish till you hit 135.
Now you'll have a ton of Fish Rolls.
Go to West Freeport to the gnome merchant out in the newbie grounds. Buy as many Fizzlecutter's 5000s as you have Fish Rolls.

Go to bazaar and sell each item for about 1pp each (Check what others are selling for and price competatively). You'll easily make back the money you spent plus some.

Repeat at as much as you can stand.

Fish Rolls are very light (.1 weight) and last a long time, so they're a good source of cheep food.
Fizzlecutters are also very light and last even longer, so they're also a great source for cheep drink and since they're only sold in Freeport evil races have to rely on others to get it for them.

[Reflan]

Fuzzlecutters and fish rolls are a good idea; I've sold endless stacks of both. Druids are great for vendor mining too -- find a pelt or someone's leftover fishing rolls from skilling up(I find that ALL the time) on a vendor somewhere, fill up and port to Nexus and put them on a mule or a friend's mule, and go get more...check zone after zone real fast, foraging all the while.

I would recommend brewing. You can get to 250 for very little money. And you can combine fishing grubs(sold at a vendor in POK) and water to something like 150-ish or so(I forget). So cheap and easy, and no zoning, that it's practically free, and it's very fast.

Keep an eye out for zelniak fat too. It is VERY often on vendors in shadowhaven, and often elsewhere. You can do a super cheap super fast brewing combine on that too, for skill ups. Useless product basically as is the fishing grub/water combo.

Anyway, see how cheap all this is? Pretty soon you are at the level to make grobbs liquidized meat drinks. This takes a bit of investment, but not too much. At level 200 brewing, I can make stacks of it very fast(each success gives six bottles of it, I think) and profitably, since it sells for 7pp and up. There are far more active bakers than brewers from what I see, so if you want a dirt cheap skill that can pay off well, definitely check out brewing. You can use your brewing skills later in tailoring and smithing and pottery, too, which is nice. Anyway, all told, you can get to 250 brewing very cheaply and have a profitable start. From there, if you add in baking, you will have a non-stop revenue stream. Not a fortune, but I can make 3-7k a week off baking(250) and brewing(200). Baking is much more expensive than brewing to level, FYI.

Don't forget your vendor mining though. You can make a lot of money reselling silks and pelts, and even more combining them into leather padding usually. Leather padding trivials at 31, though you want to be higher than that to reduce failure rates. I can often buy spiderling silks for next to nothing on NPC vendors, or for 1pp each in bazaar, and low quality pelts or higher level pelts I use a skinning knife on to convert to low qualty for a cost of 5 to 7pp to make a padding that almost always sells for 25pp and up. If any of the pelts I get are off vendors, the cost for a leather padding is almost no thing, and the 25pp each is almost pure profit.

It's a fantastic way for newbies and poorbies to make money.

[Gargazon]

Not sure about vendor placement in freeport, but I'd say screw using the oven on fish rolls. Buy a spit, they sell for under 1pp (I know they can be bought in Thurgadin in the bank area, not sure where else).

If you are an evil race (I'm a troll) I found the best place for me to do fish rolls was feerrott/Ogguk. There is a bat wing vendor in the shaman guild in Ogguk. Buy as many stacks of bat wings as you can hold and still leave 2 open slots. Then run outside and hang a right, by the CT moat there is a vendor who sells fresh fish. Buy a stack and start clicking.

When you run out of stuff buy as many fish as you can hold while leaving 2 slots open and run stand in front of the bat wing vendor.

At 135 go to thurgadin and start buying and making lion/bear fillets til 143. Save the fillets. Make lots and lots of them. Go to, or have someone bring you LOTS of cheese from Jagged pine. Stand at Mordrin in Thurgadin (who sells bread) and combine 1 fillet wolf/lion + 1 cheese + 1 loaf bread + non stick frying pan (pan returned) until 191.

This should take no more then a day in most cases, and you are at 191 skill and can make all Non PoP recipies other than MTPs pretty easily. Should cost you very litte cash as well, and you can start making a profit off HMPs.

Brewing is another excellent choice. You can get to 248 brewing cheaper than in any other tradeskill that I know of.

Which ever on you choose though, make sure it's something you like. There are two you should DEFINATLY AVOID though at low levels, unless you have someone bank rolling you with unlimited funds. Smithing and Tailoring. Both fun, both highly profitable once you GM them, but they will both cost you hundreds of thousands of PP to GM.

If you do decide to bite the bullet and do smithing or tailoring, I would choose tailoring to start with. In the long run it will cost you as much or more than Smithing to GM, but 10 slot backpacks trivial at 88 (I think) and sell pretty well. You can make descent money if you farm your own skins.

[DaariAyre]

money sink?

Padding is a good way to make money. It can be made for free really, if you want to spend the time. Get your spiderling silks in the ferrot, around the druid ring, and farm the pelts yourself, and the stuff does sell, I spent probably 4-5k buying it from people while I increased my shaman's blacksmithing from 140s to 188.

I also wouldn't call tradeskills a money sink...I suppose it depends on which one you choose, some make trivial items even at grandmaster and would be considered more of a sink, or for the helluvit. But others, and I'm not naming names, can be quite lucritive.....ask my enchanter with over 250k worth of gear from making money on tradeskills.

Least competition, I would have to say is blacksmithing, now with the racial armors it's really far spread across races and classes, you might literally be one of a dozen people on your server who can make some of the top end blacksmithing items for your race. And those armors are actually quite decent.

Most competition and most fierce- I'd add- is jewel craft. Everyone and their pocket chanter does it and prices are literally barely over cost on the lion's share of the stuff they make. New PoP jewelry is the only new avenue for JC, and it's plummeting. Hold off on buying that vallorium ring of gallantry, won't be over 5k in a month or so.

/laugh

Good luck to ya new tradeskiller. And yes it is very hard to only do one, for 2 reasons really. Because most require something "at least one stupid little thing" that could be done if you just raised "this or that skill" to "this or that level" And because they are a lot of fun, once you get to higher levels with them.
-and of course a 3rd reason from good ole SoV made everyone a jack of all trades to get the shawl.

P.S. if you pick druid and tailoring may want to look up the nice bag that can be made from foraged "tufts of dire wolf fur" I think it may be halfling druid only. But sniff around not too many people make them, they would be a good money making venture I think...

[DaariAyre]

extension>>

Knew it was real had to know.....

Patch of dire wolf fur: 3 tufts dire wolf fur (foraged), embroidering needle 46
Woven dire wolf fur: 3 patches of dire wolf fur, embroidering needle >41 <=46
Leatherfoot Bags: (100% weight-reducing) infused platinum thread(s), woven dire wolf fur(s), acorn oil

wrist pouch: 1 woven fur, 1 infused platinum thread
small pouch: 2 woven furs, 1 infused platinum thread
shoulder bag: 3 woven furs, 2 infused platinum threads
backpack: 3 woven furs, 3 infused platinum threads
haversack: 4 woven furs, 3 infused platinum threads

Leatherfoot Wrist Pouch, Wt: 0.1 2 GIANT slots, trivial >159
Leatherfoot Small Pouch, wt 0.2, 4 GIANT slots, trivial 190
Leatherfooot Shoulder Bag, wt 0.4, 6 GIANT slots, trivial >214 <=250
NEW Leatherfoot Backpack, wt 0.5, 8 GIANT slots, trivial >223 <=243
Leatherfoot Haversack, wt 0.6, 10 GIANT slots, trivial >250


It is halfling tailoring only, but tradeable and very nice bags go to halfling tailoring to get the links not provided here for explanations.

[Obina]

Another class to consider is of course enchanter. They are needed for all sorts of things. I got my chanter to 39 just for mana vials, now she is heading to 49 for further trade skill needs.

If you do create a chanter, you can do well financially on Jewel Craft. Not sure if still true, but I was able to self fund on silver and electrum jewelry. I'm now on gold, and can easily make a small profit. I don't do JC much - I'm focusing on pottery - but I am ahead.

Oh and please make up some Celestial Essense. I'm sick of those things and will be happy to pay a fair price!

Obina

[Tassica]

Thank you all for the advice. I've started with baking and brewing, since those seemed to be the easiest to advance for someone who's relatively clueless. Both of those are progressing nicely (around 150 in each now!) and my pottery and tailoring are slowly but surely chugging along.

Quite funny, since I decided I'd like my main trade to be smithing. Eventually. It just looks way too expensive to contemplate at the exalted level of 11. *laugh*

[Zyrtryx Conjureblade]

If you're doing Baking and Brewing, you should also take up Fishing so you can catch your own fish.

You can actually make a profit by selling the junk you catch from fishing. The poles do break, but they're fairly cheap and so is bait.

[Calabar]

I would also recommend fishing whenever you have the chance. You can sell the junk you collect for a small profit, but fishing has other uses as well. The obvious benefit is being able to eat the fish you catch. And if you are not a class that can forage, it’s actually a very handy skill to have. But fishing can also help you in your trade skills. If you are just starting your smithing career, save the rusty daggers. When you have several buy a stack of sharpening stones, which are extremely cheap, and sharpen your daggers by combining one dagger and one stone in a forage. You can get your smithing skill to 18 this way. Then you can either sell your tarnished daggers or combine them in a forge with one flask of water to make a small piece of ore. The small pieces of ore will stack and you can later use them to make metal bits.

Fishing is also used in other trade skills such as pottery. One of the items you can make to skill up on when you reach 199 pottery is a crucible of escape, a very handy magical item for druids and wizards. If you wish to fire the crucible in order to use or sell it, you’ll need to make misty glazing. And misty glazing requires kunzar glue, which in turn requires bones from the Kunzar Koi fished up in Sebilis.

You can also use fishing for your smithing skill at a higher level. Making racial needles from 122 to 132 is a great skill path. And one of the easiest items to acquire for making racial needles is clockwork koi fished up in Ak'Anon.

And if you decide you really enjoy fishing, there is a magical quest item I’d highly recommend you get. It’s called the Fisherman's Companion. It summons a fishing pole that adds +3% to your fishing skill and the fishing pole also summons an endless supply of no rent ale. But the best thing about this item is that whenever your fishing pole breaks, and trust me it will, all you have to do is summon another one. The quest is simple but it isn’t easy. All you have to do is give Ramos Jerwan, the barbarian fisherman in the center section of Plane of Knowledge, 2 Nightmare Cichlid Bones and 2 Valorian Discus Bones. Sounds simple, yes? Well, just try fishing in the Plane of Nightmare. I died before I could even get to the water. :roll: And the Plane of Valor is a second tier plane so you have to be flagged to get there. Three of my characters have the fisherman’s companion and they got it by buying the bones in the bazaar. I’ve seen the bones for 100pp each, but every time I’ve wanted to buy them they were 200pp each. But then my timing usually sucks. I’d suggest keeping an out for them whenever you pass through the bazaar and see if you can find them at a good price. You may not be able to afford the bones until your higher level, but you’ll have a good idea what the going rate is on your server.

Best of luck and happy fishing.

[Galileio]

Continuing with Class/Tradeskill

Hello all

From what i have read it seems the Druid/anytradeskill is the perfect option for a lot of the tradeskills if no all of them.
But, what I don't really understand is why there is no a 'better fit' class/tradeskill, the only one I can think of is the Chanter/JC.
When I begun playing EQ and discovered the tradeskill route I thought a 'leather class' should fit in tailoring, and now, when I have reached the 158 'skill cap' I discover I need to forage things if I try the LoY approach. I can understand you should need other tradeskills to get up on you main, but doing things impossible for your raze/class is getting me crazy.

Perhaps I will level up my druid just to forage things (but 1min40secs to push that button...)

Thanks for your advice.

Gali