What can I expect

[Diemx]

So I am 109 with pottery atm. It was very cheap to do. What sort of cost can I look forward to in getting 250?

[cattywumpus]

Up to 199 pottery is fairly cheap as far as tradeskills go. After that start makking every copper you can cause you're going to need it. It's not as expensive as tailoring or smithing but it will keep you broke until you can find a market for the PoP combines.

[K.Rool]

mmh, also, between 180 and 200 is crap hard. I just did 40 more Casserole Dishes, bringing me to close to 500 combines at 191, without ever getting 192. The RNG is my personal enemy so far...luckily, this works in both directions, i have had serious luck in drop-rolls in the recent times *gg*

[Obina]

The cost from 200 to 250 is (very roughly - rounded like mad for easy math)

Opal Steins cost 20pp. You need 50 combines for level. 22 levels
20*50*22=22K
Star Ruby Steins cost 70pp. Still about 50 per level. 28 levels
70*50*28=98K

So 120K. Think you will get a skill up every 40 combines? Fine, then 96K.

Of course this is the pure cost. I'm following this path (234 down, 16 to go) and have 20K more in the bank now - and this is not from hunting gems in Sebalis! I sell everything to players for what ever the market will take. Though I have given lots of steins to friends, I have never dumped them nor sold them to a random player for a loss. If they dont sell, I just wait. All my excess Opal steins were sucked up within 3 days of LoY.

There are other paths of course. Crucibles of escape, bands, and idols. I've mixed some of them in. But I'm basically following this path, this is about the cost, and it is working for me.

The big question is do I buy a lizard with the 20K, or save it in case the market drops as I get near 250?

Obina (234)
Karana server

[Kaidian Blade]

1000pp (minus the cost of Celestial Essence I made myself) for 90 combines making Opal Encrusted Steins got me from 201 to 204.

I think you get the idea. :shock:

[Feoni]

Personally...

From 199 - 216 I made planar steins (unfired, destroyed)
From 217 - 222 was Opal steins (had banked on my mule for a WHILE, and sold them all within 2 or 3 days on LoY)
From 223 - 250 was Emarr Imbrued Idols (unfired idols, just destroyed them)

My total cost was under 15,000pp from 0 - 250 pottery...
Since then, I have more than made up that 15k

My advice is that if you dont want 300 opal and star ruby steins on a mule forever, is to just attain *a lot* of the components for Imbued idols....

[Reflan]

Obina means well, but reading too much into her note on pure costs and number of combines per skill-up can leave you a bit misguided. It's hard to positing a hard figure for how many combines you need per skill up.

For example, I did over SIX HOURS of misty thicket picnic combines at 201 baking with NO skill-ups. Then I got two skill-ups in three combines to get to 203, and logged out in disgust. In pottery, I leveled like lightning through 148 to 188 doing poison/lined/sealed vials, and casseroles were kinda slow, and opal steins were slow too. White ceramic bands were reasonably quick. Star encrusted ruby steins -- about 80 combines per skill-up.

Add in another factor. My friend has 325 wisdom. I have 260, and am level-locked there at level 61 until I get planar AA's of planar power(5 wis) and innate enlightenment(10 wis). He did all trades from next to nothing to the level of 8th shawl in two days. He told me that the skill-ups came like lightning, and it sure seems so. With my shaman and my druid, I have noted big differences in how your wis/int affects your skill-ups.

So add together your wis/int affecting skill-up chances, the item you're making affecting skill-up chances, and finally a GIGANTIC amount of luck with the RNG affecting your chances to skill up, and you basically have it that YOUR skill ups will not come at the rate someone else's will.

Okay, first point made.

Second, I want to emphasize that component costs have little to do with overall cost.

Making star ruby encrusted steins does NOT cost anywhere near 70pp. Gem cost is 68pp and you have THREE chances to lose your product before the firing is completed -- when lacquering gems, when making the stein, and when firing the stein.

Get JC to 200! It will cost you under 5k to 190, and then you will drop a few K, depending on your success rate. One of the items you make around that level actually has a small sell back to vendors in excess of its component costs, which is pretty nice. Trivial on lacquering gems is 100, but when you're dealing with the kind of money gems costs, and how cheap JC is to raise, just don't fool around -- get well above trivial and save yourself some grief and lots of cash. Anyway, I got JC to 200 so I wouldn't lose too many gems when lacquering gems.

And...I lost a pretty fair amount anyway! If you do NOT get your JC up, pottery is going to put you in a big world of hurt.

Okay, so you lacquer your gems and lose, who knows, zero to maybe 3 or 4 per stack. At 200 JC, I probably lost around 1 to 3 per stack, 3 being less common than 1 or 2.

Now make your steins and lose some more, and fire them up and lose some more!

If you're at the bottom of the range when you start to do star ruby steins, lose some more!

I found that below about 240, I succeeded in getting completed star ruby encrusted steins anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 times, but 1/3 was about fair and pretty consistent over a long period of time. Figuring very optimistically indeed, it cost upwards of 225 to 300pp per stein completed.

You have to figure sales of your product into your overall cost.

I could sell the star ruby steins very slowly at 275 each, but sometimes sold a few a day. I made literally hundreds, though.

After a while, someone came into the market and started a price war, dumping tons of star ruby encrusted steins on the market. Very silly, as these things sell only to people who are doing the POTC earring quest. Most mains have gotten theirs a very long time ago indeed, and most true newbies have nowhere near the money to buy POTC components, so the market is limited to those twinks that mains want to sink cash into that can't be recovered or moved around(POTC earrings are no drop). A small market wherein you cannot sell more by dropping the price; people either are buying the product or they're not, regardless of the price, within reason.

Well, now the steins are down to 145pp each, about half of what they cost to make while skilling up, and still a loss even when you have max effective pottery skill, which I do.

So, if your market is ruined, your effective cost will vary drastically compared to if it isn't. At present I have about 200 steins that I get rid of at the rate of one or two every few days. Not counting 1-199, it has cost me quite a bit over 50k to get to 246 pottery. I made my celestial essences, borrowed a friend's lowbie chanter to do many backpacks of enchanted clay(MANY), leveled my own chanter to 29 to do clear mana vials for imbued idols of rallos zek(not counting cost of staring and equipping chanter), imbued my own jade for the idols, imbued some emeralds here and there for things, etc.

One thing to emphasize also -- I did opal steins before LOY came out and we got improved backpack space. I made many hundreds and transferring them 30 at a time to mules was incredibly time consuming. Eventually I had to destroy many before firing. Even with the new backpack space, I filled up 14 mules with opal steins, and four mules on my friend's account too! Know what? I sold virtually every single one! Opal steins are something every character needs, and needs two of. And they're cheap enough that everyone can afford two of them. Keep all your opal stein product to sell! It eased my pottery pain a bit.

If you can get an erollisi marr cleric to spend endless hours enchanting gems, you're luckier than most of us. That's a great and hugely money-saving way to do it.

[Dvinn]

Feoni has it right, just do planar steins (lots of essence on vendors at 6pp each) from 199-216. Blocks of tannin clay cost 10pp each. So if you average a skill-up every 25 combines it will cost you 6-7k. That's not so bad really, considering you can do 50% success on PoP pottery at 216 plus geerlok.

[Obina]

I agree with Reflan in fact. When you figure the cost of Star Rubies, make sure you are good enough so you fail at the minimum rate. This is 5%. For these you don't get to practice pottery, so they are pure cost. The fails at Wheel and at Kiln cost you sales, but you have practiced pottery

Anyway decide what you want to make, pick an average success rate (I suggest 40 to 60 combines per skill up is conservative - but yes depends on Wis/Int) and figure a cost.

But the point is, it costs NOTHING if you sell wisely. Reflan and I both have more than when we started. But the pure cost is many tens of thousands of pp if you do not sell your wares. So expect to invest pp, expect to sell your wares, and expect to have money left.

But please, no price wars on EoS items. This just hurts potters and helps Brewers, Bakers and Tailors.