GM trials

[Daamij]

Currently working on tradeskills and was wondering if any skill is easier to GM than the others?
I am working on baking, atm.
Thanks for any help.

[Healblade]

Brewing and Jewelcraft are both very easy. Going the fastest ways, brewing will be cheaper but take 9 item combines for a while as jewelcraft will cost 15-20k but take only 2 items per combine.

Baking is next in difficulty. My favorite tradeskill, it entails many routes and varying amounts of plat, farming, and subcombines. Not hard and very fun.

Fletching and Pottery are a step further in difficulty. Both can be done to around 200 (202 and 199) cheap and storebought. From there, you can either farm tedious items (heavy clay, acrylia, condensed substance) or lay out quite a lot of plat and power to 250 on bows for fletching and idols or steins for pottery.

Smithing and Tailoring are extremely difficult. Smithing to 188 (fine steel breastplate trivial) is not hard, but will require leather paddings. Tailoring to 187 (LoY platinum ribbon 2 trivial) isn't hard, but will require a lot of farming of various items. Doing both of the above will require a decent monetary investment. Past those levels is "pure tradeskill hell" as some have put it. Using the farming route, prepare to farm velious and hollowshade moor for months and spend quite a bit of money for tailoring tempers. Using the "bought" or "fast" route with PotC items, prepare to spend more plat than most people will ever see and cash in favors from friends to help do subcombines.

[PinyonTreedotter]

I agree with Healblade, except for his estimate of the cost for Jewelcraft. That cost is only if you are an enchanter and try to work up jewelcraft while your int/wis is low. At 255 wisdom, I got to 200 jewelcraft in a couple days for 3kpp. Based on my experience with my enchanter in getting to 250 from 200, I would guess it to be significantly less than 2kpp (more expensive material, but you have already bridged the gap between gold and platinum).

[Tinile]

200 to 250 cost about 6 or 7k for me, with all unchanted bars. If you want to take the time to chant bars your cost will be lower. Under 200 cost about 3k iirc, so it was about 10k to 250.

[Healblade]

I spent 17,316pp doing Jewelcraft.

I got to 191 a long time ago (velious era) at 255 wis. This cost me less than a plat under 3k.

I then followed through gold fire emerald and then through platinum to 250, with 260 wis and at a cost of less than a plat over 14,316pp.

That is where I got my numbers, but your numbers may vary a LOT depending on how the Random Number Generator (RNG) treats you and whether you enchant metals (as a druid, I did not).

Best of luck to you.

[Leana Soulwarden]

I generally agree with the assessment above. However, I'd like to point out that if you have access to the correct imbues, pottery can be essentially purchased to 250 at approximately 15-17pp per combine throughout. Check out imbued idols...

Fletching is MUCH more expensive. The cheapest route involves acrylia arrows. I've found I can purchase acrylia and condensed materials in the bazaar and keep my costs down to approximately 25pp per combine. It is slow, but cheap. Bows are insanely expensive at 25pp per successful combine, 250+pp per failure until 235. That's if you make your own bow cams, which do not stack. Then the price jumps to over 120pp per successful combine, 360pp per failure.

Also, check out the new cultural robes (assuming you are from a race that has int casters). I am managing to take my tailoring fairly quickly to 232 for under 50pp per combine. After that, I'll have to move on to more conventional skill up paths... Wyvern, Othmir, Solstice Robes...

I got lucky. I made mistletoe cutting sickles when they sold for big bucks. Other people paid for my smithing. It is the only purchasable path to 250, and it is insanely expensive. Each sickle attempt will cost over 300pp. The sickles still sell between 1500 and 2500 on my server, so if you can succeed in making them in fewer than 4-5 tries, then you can pay for your skilling up from sales (assuming no one is currently flooding the market). You won't be doing that until your skill is 210 or so. The bad news is that you need someone to imbue, brew, etc. to make these.

Good luck in your skilling up.

[Daamij]

tradeskills

Thanks for the input, it's much appreciated. To me, baking seems the most logical path to pursue, but farming those components and hoping for the rare drops, only to lose them on countless combines. /sigh

Looks like a long road ahead.

[Koru]

I'd say baking isn't too bad. The two items I've focused on, meat pies and picnics are killer of course. But on your wrists, bank space, and sanity (I see creamed fillets). The yields of skillup attempts per item farmed are still the best you'll ever see in a trade you can't vendor buy your way up.

I'm doing brewing on another char and if you just want to GM a skill I'd recommend it. It's reasonably cheap, you can make money off of it, and never have to leave the city zones to GM it. With stackable casks it's easier than ever, and although the 9 item combine is rather painful it's still better than making HMPs in baking.