250 potter (with numbers from 220)

[Quesci]

Got 250 last night, woohoo! I had been 249 for weeks, mostly because I didn't have too much motivation to get that last point. I had planned on just letting it come naturally from the 10 or so PoP combines per week, but I hated having that 249 there in the listing. Anyway, for those who care, here are my numbers from 222 (when I started keeping track) to 250. I only know the numbers based on the batches, as I like to look away and be surprised after the batch.

30 combines to go from 222 to 223
40 to 224
210 to 225
40 to 226
20 to 227, 228
20 to 229, 230
20 to 231, 232, 233
50 to 234, 235
60 to 236
20 to 237
50 to 238
10 to 239
20 to 240
40 to 241
60 to 242, made trophy
40 to 243
60 to 244, 245
155 to 246
30 to 247
10 to 248, 249
170 to 250

Unfortunately, I forgot to mark down what each batch was. Up to 243, I worked on batches based on which components I could get. I did a lot of white ceramic bands (I think I still have about 60 in my trader's bank) when I had a ready source of cloudy mana. A couple of shamans imbuing jade and amber allowed me to do imbued idols (didn't fire them). And when I couldn't get mana vials or imbued gems I did star ruby steins. Above 243 I did star ruby steins exclusively, as I could recoup my costs on them, mostly.

Average cost on the approximately 700 star ruby steins that I made was 158pp, and the price only recently dropped to 150pp on Quellious. Last night in the Bazaar there was someone selling for 90pp Glad I am almost out of that market. Just 50 or so more to sell.

[Reflan]

Grats on 250! Wow I am envious of your PoP combines. I've been 246 then 249 pottery for ages, and have made a grand total of zero PoP combines.

Good luck on the star ruby steins. I made hundreds but eventually sold them all. During a price war some idiot started, I couldn't get rid of them for more than 100pp, but sold most for over 200pp. It took a LONG time though. But...at least they sell.

[Quesci]

I refuse to sell them below cost (well, rounding down . I'm down to thirty of them, thanks to being on 24/7. I also sell a bunch when people stop at my shop to buy Golden Idols. Saving a few plat isn't worth having to track down another merchant.

Now the trader two stalls down from me lowered her price to 80pp! She also happened to be my major supplier for imbued emeralds and distilled mana--I bought 20-40 vials per week from her. I left her a message saying that I would not be buying any more from her. I am not going to support someone who has blown the market out so badly.

Steins were 250pp on Quellious 2 months ago. Skill up recipes suck.

[EnfinitiStarr8]

Sorry to hear the market is not looking good for you but congratz on 250!

[Reflan]

Unfortunately, too many tradeskillers don't give a darn about the market. They can't sell something in an hour, they have to sell it NOW, even if it totally destroys the market so the skill isn't even worth it anymore. Guys are doing that a lot in pottery on Drinal now, selling stuff like spiritstones -- which are expensive to get components for, have a very high failure rate even at max skill, and have a tiny, mostly saturated market -- for right around cost. Gotta wonder, what's the point of making them even for those guys?

Crashing the market on star ruby steins sucks too, but at least is a bit more inevitable since it's a skill up path. Right now the two things I have access to for decent money -- pottery and tae ew bloods/armor making -- are both racing to the bottom by people who don't want to sell in a few hours or a day or two at far better prices, but want to saturate and then quickly and permanently hollow out their own market to see if they can make a sale in ten minutes. Bah -- they need to invent a tradeskill you need a brain for.

[Quesci]

I understand that it is inevitable that a skill up recipe has no market. That is why I don't mind people who sell them for 150pp when my cost is 158pp at max skill.

What is STUPID is selling them for 80pp. That is taking at least an 80pp loss on every stein, or 40+pp per combine. But for 20-30pp you can do Imbued Idols and not have to worry about selling at all. You don't have to fire Imbued Idols, just drop them on the ground.

Costing yourself money while screwing people who are hoping to make their costs back is mean and irresponsible and stupid.

[splunge]

What do they sell to vendors for? And whats the buy-back cost?
It could be that someone sold a bunch to a vendor and someone else bought em up for less than 80p each and is making a profit that way.
I see the 25CHA seins on vendors near pottery wheels often for 3p each. I usually buy up some and stick em on my trader for 5p each so newbs can get em for max CHA to npc vendors. Im pretty sure they cost far more then that to make. =)

[OberonMiM]

The problem is so many people are upping tradeskills for the earring quest that they want their money now so they have enough cash to continue skilling up. So they will sell their items at a huge loss to recoup at least a fraction of their costs (for pottery its horrible cause their cost to vendor sell back ratio is pathetic at best)

[Quesci]

The problem is so many people are upping tradeskills for the earring quest that they want their money now so they have enough cash to continue skilling up. So they will sell their items at a huge loss to recoup at least a fraction of their costs (for pottery its horrible cause their cost to vendor sell back ratio is pathetic at best)

Pottery sellback value is pathetic, and so the people pricing too low are not merchant mining.

For people who want their money now so they can go back and do more combines... I suggest that you spend less money to begin with and go with a cheaper recipe. Throwing away 40pp per combine on steins (that you have to sell) is silly when you could just throw away 25pp per combine on imbued idols.

[Taraddar]

The problem is so many people are upping tradeskills for the earring quest that they want their money now so they have enough cash to continue skilling up. So they will sell their items at a huge loss to recoup at least a fraction of their costs (for pottery its horrible cause their cost to vendor sell back ratio is pathetic at best)

Pottery sellback value is pathetic, and so the people pricing too low are not merchant mining.

For people who want their money now so they can go back and do more combines... I suggest that you spend less money to begin with and go with a cheaper recipe. Throwing away 40pp per combine on steins (that you have to sell) is silly when you could just throw away 25pp per combine on imbued idols.

it's not always that simple.

Off the top of my head steins require magic clay, Laquered gems and Ce's. The clay is the only thing that anyone with appropriate skill can't do and it's a lvl 8 spell and cheap so anyone can easily level up a mule or pretty easily find someone to make em for em.

idols on the other hand require an imbued stone and a mana vial if memory serves requiring not 1 but most likely 2 casters doing the spells and they are significantly more mana intensive and higher level making it hard to level up your own mule.

Don't get me wrong I've been doing idols since the market on star ruby steins seems to be compleately shot on my server, fairly consistantly seeing people selling multiple steins from 100-150pp each, but not everyone has easy access to a high enough lvl enchanter and imbuer of reasonable deity to do them. Remember there are only 3 or 4 dietys really worth trying to do for skill ups others either get to expensive or possibly even require dropped components.

[Quesci]

That's true, imbued idols do require more. I bought them all in the bazaar (well some from a guy that I paid in PoK). If I had an enchanter or shaman it would have been even cheaper to do idols.

I maintain that it is easier to buy the stuff for two imbued idols for 35pp and throw the unfired idols on the ground (net loss, 70pp) versus

Spend 150pp for two attempts at steins to get one made and fire it and sell it in the Bazaar for 80pp (net loss, 70pp), thus hurting all of the potters out there trying to make these items at a break even point.

Merely my opinion, and believe me I understand that SR steins provide an ease of gathering materials that is very attractive. It seems that the hassle of selling balances that ease out nicely.

[Reflan]

A problem though is that if you want to do the steins because you will keep a bunch to sell, you need oodles of bags. I made many hundreds of them on my way to 250, and eventually filled up every single mule on two accounts and a few empty mules on a friend's account. That's a lot of transfers, which both requires a ton of space and the time and effort to transfer stuff after doing part of a run of skill-ups attempts. Even with my mule next to me, it's not super easy; he fills up his 10-slots fast, I fill up my 10-slots fast, and then we both zone in to the bazaar and dump our junk on yet another mule(or two).

Takes a significant amount of time. Throwing away stuff is actually quite a relief in comparison. I did old world jade idols for a while and was really kicking myself that I hadn't done them earlier(they triv 248). Throwing them away after making them was sweet, let me tell you.

[Quesci]

I have no more concerns at this point. I am all sold out. It was actually a pretty humorous way for me to clean out my inventory. I was the only merchant in the bazaar with SR steins, and they were priced at 150pp. A player came by and browsed my wares about four times. He then bought my last 8 steins.

Two hours later they were still up on his merchant at 250pp. I guess he thought I was dumping. I hope the price stays high, for the sake of the up and coming tradeskillers, but I fear that this guy is gonna learn a hard lesson when the next guy to set up shop prices them at 100.

[Reflan]

There are guys who sell the entire POTC bunch of items as a single package, and I've had a lot of people buy multiple steins off me who were doing that. They're a tiny minority, but it's nice when they clean you out of 8 or 10 at a time. Price on POTC has gone down to 7k recently on my server.