Optimistic potter?

[Vamen]

I have 188 skill and am gathering materials for a 242 trivial combine. Is this an extremely inefficient skill-up approach, or could this work?

[Moraganth]

It'll work, just might be a bit more spendy (although, in turn, it might be quicker).

Generally, you want to stay moderately close to your trivial. This reduces fail, and (generally) gives you lower costing combines... although not always. It's really up to you wether you want to conserve plat, or time.

[Zolina]

You can do opal and star ruby steins to get your skill up higher, it all depends how expensive your 242 combine is to decide if it's worth the trouble.

[bjpotratz]

make casserole dishes to 199 it's a lot cheaper and easier

[emandes]

if you just need one successfull combine for a quest or an item - call for an experienced potter on pok - this would be the easiest way.
if you intend to skillup to 242 - as said
till 199 casserole dish
till 216 unfired planar stein - even the drop component of this recipe is buyable at npc vendors in good quantities - one combine is aprx. 17 pp and best ist to dump the result, whereas all the recipes above 216 need enchanted ingredients this one leaves you independent from the enchanters.
from 216 you will most likely be dependant on enchanters to enchant clay or you have to do recipes that need substantial farming.

[Zaltak]

After casserole dishs I like the advanced poison vials (forget trival atm) .However these need enchanted clay and celestial essenses.

[Akishka]

I just have to add my two cents here (remember, you get what you pay for )

Sometimes there are items which just don't make sense on the surface to make for skill ups but can turn out to be quite worthwhile. For example, I was making the star ruby steins when I was succeeding perhaps 1 out of every 20 times (210 ish skill). On the surface, this is a waste of pp because there are much cheaper combines at that point and also a waste of time since you do skill up faster when its closer to your trivial. However, I could place my few successes up in the bazaar at a high enough cost to cover all my fails, plus a little profit, and those things would be sold within hours! There is nothing I hate worse than making an item to skill up, only to destroy it because its useless, so this was such a great route for me.

So comments like "make casserole dishes to 199 it's a lot cheaper and easier" are very good for broad generalizations. However, keep in mind there are a lot of options out there and if you find one that you like, run with it even if it doesn't usually appear in skill up guides