250 jc, back from long absence - various questions

[gilauran]

Hi Folks,

I'm a old 250 jeweler (hit 250 before luclin came out) who's just coming back to the game after a long absence. I stopped playing a couple months after PoP came out. I clearly have a lot of catching up to do, thought I'd start with some questions here if you don't mind:

1. What's selling well these days? Back in the day, used to be able to make a decent living selling resist gear and velium fire rings, clearly those are passe now. What are modern jewelers making that moves well?

2. Is the old strat of skilling up using the next trivial still relevant? So I just need to find a trivial list somewhere and go for it? Any advice for skilling up in general?

3. Is it worth the money and effort to skill up? Sounds like I'm looking at a $100K or more to get from 250 to 300, is there any hope i'll see that back from profits on sales?

4. I gather that a trophy and a geerlock are both devices that improve your combine success rate? Where do I get these?

Thanks !

Gilauran Dangerelf
Phantasmist - Guardians of Valour
Tholuxe Paells

[JMorgana]

Hi Folks,

I'm a old 250 jeweler (hit 250 before luclin came out) who's just coming back to the game after a long absence. I stopped playing a couple months after PoP came out. I clearly have a lot of catching up to do, thought I'd start with some questions here if you don't mind:

1. What's selling well these days? Back in the day, used to be able to make a decent living selling resist gear and velium fire rings, clearly those are passe now. What are modern jewelers making that moves well?

2. Is the old strat of skilling up using the next trivial still relevant? So I just need to find a trivial list somewhere and go for it? Any advice for skilling up in general?

3. Is it worth the money and effort to skill up? Sounds like I'm looking at a $100K or more to get from 250 to 300, is there any hope i'll see that back from profits on sales?

4. I gather that a trophy and a geerlock are both devices that improve your combine success rate? Where do I get these?

Thanks !

Gilauran Dangerelf
Phantasmist - Guardians of Valour
Tholuxe Paells

1. I don't do a lot of selling finished pieces to anyone other than NPC merchants. However, there is a market to be had for cutting OOW augment upgrades. Personally, I mostly do them for guildies since I have no JCM3 or Salvage 3, but I still get paid from time to time for doing the cuts for strangers.

2. Skillup-wise, it can be done simply by pulling a trivial list as you suggest, but you want to be careful watching for the merchant buy-back values in EQTraders, as well as whether or not the gems can be bought off NPC's (other than vendor mining). The palladium pieces for example sell for less than one plat each, regardless of the gem.

3. This one is purely your own choice. Obviously the higher you get in skill, the less likely it is that you will fail when making pieces for guildies, etc., but it is really up to you whether it is worth it. I'm going for 300 myself (295 atm) but mostly because there are only a couple on my server so far and I will be the first in my guild.

4. Finally an easy one! The trophy is a jewelcrafting combine with an extremely high trivial which has some fairly uber stats, 5%mod to effective skill, and also has a right-click effect that summons a no-rent 10-slot 100% weight reduction bag. ONE of these can be traded to a NPC in the Bazaar for a non-no rent version, but this version is lore. The Geerlok also has the 5% mod, but no stats and no right click effect. This one is tinkered, but can be found fairly cheaply in bazaar or can be made for you by a tinker on your server.

Good luck and happy tradeskilling!

JM

[KyrosKrane]

1) A jeweler friend of mine has made a substantial income buying the tradeskillable augments from Omens of War, cutting them into Radiant cuts, then reselling them. Other than that, I can't say what still sells.

2) Yup, that strat is perfectly fine. There's a fairly smooth progression of skillup items until mid-high 280's or so, at the very least. After that, it gets a bit bumpy, but it's still feasible.

3) If you do a lot of JC work, particularly if you get involved in Omens tradeskill augs, it's definitely worth it. It reduces fail rates on hard combines to a much more reasonable level, and most JC combines (including the tradeskill augs) become almost no-fail -- assuming our success formula is right, you should be approaching 95% success for most combines. As to the actual price, it depends on your wis/int and what skillup path you choose, not to mention your server's prices for player-sold components. It also matters whether you choose to make stuff and dump it on a vendor, or make stuff you can resell in the bazaar.

4) Both a trophy and a geerlok have a 5% bonus to your skill. A geerlok is tinker-made and tradable (check in your bazaar for a Geerlok Gem Setter). A trophy is no-drop; each person has to make their own. Here's the recipe info: Grandmaster Jeweler's Eyeglass

[AB-girlie]

I gather that a trophy and a geerlock are both devices that improve your combine success rate? Where do I get these?

note ; both got +5% , and they do not stack...some ppl still think they do

[Obina]

If you do choose to skill up, it is more likely for the mountain climbers reason -because it's there! Hard to think you will ever earn the plat back.

If you do decide to go for it, you should consider vendor mining for Diamonds and especially Blue Diamonds now. If you look at 285 and up, you will see clearly that Blue Diamonds are a girls best friend. I'm still at 295 and buying BD's everynight I can! I wish I had started sooner. (Hidden in this advice is my belief that the most cost effective skill up route is simple Platinum and Velium pre LDON Jewelry - though I may have a go at Gem studded chain for my last few points)