To fire or not to fire

[Ixiola]

I never understand why most of the pottery training guides recommend not to fire what you make. The generally accepted view is that for unwanted bazaar stuff, the amount you'll get from selling the fired item is not worth the cost of the firing sheet.

But with that advent of tributes (from GoD) that's no longer necessarily true.

Last night I was trolling the vendors for goodies and saw unfired peridot encrusted steins on a vendor for 2 coppers each. 2 copper! Now while they may not have much resale in the bazaar, nor probably sell for much to a vendor (turns out resale was just over 2p), I figured they had to tribute for something halfway decent. I am pretty certain that the person selling this didn't get squat for these steins and firing sheets are not THAT expensive.

Turns out the tribute on the finished product was 30p each. Needless to say, I ended up turning in about 50 of these at a 60 to one return on my investment.

I suppose that the anonymous person who was training pottery might not have GoD so the option to tribute wasn't there, but even if this person had sold a finished product to the vendor, it still should have been a better return.

[Akishka]

You have a very valid point in regards to the tribute points, one that I had not really thought of when I destroyed my many many casserole dishes. However, the idea that the finished product would sell for more isn't always true. For instance, the poison vials cost somewhere around 4 silver to fire. The final product sells back for 3 silver and some copper. You make less than the cost of the firing sheet! Not to mention, at the cost of a couple of silver, most people are more willing to go out a kill a few mobs for the pp instead of endlessly firing a ton of steins.

[qralt]

Why would you do unfired peridot encrusted steins for skillups? Why not poison vials? Now that you don't have to farm pelts or skins for them? Casserole dishes are also a viable thing, I don't bother firing those either.

The unfired planar steins for going over 200 make sense..

[Aalar]

Another thing that has to be considered is time. Once a person gets several hundred thousand plat (or more) - one is just not concerned with a few plat one way or the other. Better to just dump the unfired stuff and move on to the next. It's just not worth the time to fire something to make a few plat.

Aalar

[Nairn Niteraven]

I fired a few Casserole Dishes just see what they would sell back for. I don't remember the exact price, but it was nowhere near worth the trouble to do it.

[Aryse Andenter]

There are times when I just dump stuff on a vendor rather than tribute it to save me a trip back to my home town. When I sit down to do a tradeskill set, it takes me sometimes a dozen trips to tribute the non-stackable stuff, and it's just not always worth the effort and destroying my flow of clicking.

[Tweedledea]

Why not poison vials? Now that you don't have to farm pelts or skins for them?

Could you clarify please? Just looked at the poison vial recipes and didn't see any that don't use pelts.

[Koru]

You can use Crow's Special Brew, purchased from the pottery vendor in Abysmal Sea instead of pelts to make the vials.

[NerissaGoldenrose]

You can use Crow's Special Brew, purchased from the pottery vendor in Abysmal Sea instead of pelts to make the vials.

Unless you don't have GoD... but even then, casserole dishes are much cheaper to skill up on, especially if you're not already an enchanter with some JC under your belt. For Peridot steins you have to laquer the peridot (JC), make celestial essence (no-fail, but requires another container), and enchant the clay. At least you can do all of the steps for casserole dishes at the pottery wheel & kiln, and buy most of the parts at the same place.

*shrug* maybe someone with enough PP to spare that they'd rather spend it than make the trip to JP for sketches?

[Daeanor]

Only the high-end TS items have a reasonable Tribute value. Say, for example, an Erudite cultural robe, the Robe of Tempests - is worth 7500 tributes and is well worth skilling up on. Even with a non-uber skill of 192, I have a success rate of about 50%. Because of the high tribute, the things actually sell, and on the Rathe are going for around 5k. When parts are available, I can pick up enough for ten robes at that price, so I only need to succeed at one to recover costs, and use extras to advance my own tribute needs. At 224 pottery, I nearly never fail at Crucibles of Escape while skilling up, and they turn in for 427 points. These don't sell at all really, and I'll do 20-40 in a sitting to skill up. I generally couldn't be bothered firing them, because the glaze is a royal pain to get. But if I need a quick fix of points, I'll rustle up enough to finish a half dozen or so.

[Quichon]

Another issue with casserole dishes turned in for tribute...

Only two places to purchase casserole dish sketches... JP and AS. I know JP don't have a tribute vendor, think you have to get all the way to Qeynos (assume faction friendly) or PoK to your home town to get to a tribute vendor.

Think about the volume we're talking about here. We're talking about multi-stack combine parties here. Even if you only succeed a third of the time, that's 6-7 successes per stack. The dishes do not stack, are heavy, so large I don't believe they can fit in a normal backpack, and a great ruddy pain to haul all that way for the pittiance of tribute it is sure to generate. Also think of the time having to go through 3+ zones every time you fill up on dishes to go turn them in. It's gonna take you forever to skillup just by transportation time. Oh, I admit you could purchase a few stacks of dish sketches and make up a few stacks of liners and take them to a potter near a tribute master and do it there, but you're still gonna have to go back for the sketches and liners eventually. It's just faster to do it right where the dish sketch vendor is and trash all the unfired stuff.

Oh, Planer Peridot Encrusted Steins I believe is for the beginner's manual of stealth quest, so they do have some resale value in the bazaar, that's why some use it as a skillup route.