Mistletoe sickle

[Kongming]

I was wondering are the stuff to make them all store bought? and if the things stack before the final combines. SS armor if driving me nuts

[Zeralenn]

Everything is storebought, but you have to get emeralds imbued.

Sounds good right? Wrong.

You need to complete 18 subcombines PER final sickle combine attempt required -- this is minimum, assuming no failures (bad assumption).

Sickle hilts, blades, and pommels do not stack, so it gets very cumbersome to make combines. For 20 combines, you need the following minimum, assuming no failures (bad assumption):

1 stack of sapphires
1 stack of rubies
1 stack of emeralds
3 stacks of imbued emeralds (for blessed dust)
9 stacks of celestial essence (for blessed dust and mistletoe temper, and for pommel, hilt, and blade combines)
3 stacks of mistletoe
3 stacks of jars of acid (for blessed dust)
20 curved blade molds
20 pommel molds
20 hilt molds

Minimum cost per final combine, assuming total success on ALL subcombines: 312pp (again, very bad assumption).

I tried two stacks' worth of combines at level 192 with max intelligence -- total skillups 0, total successes out of 40 final attempts, 1. Mistletoe cutting sickles do not have a high success rate at 250 (grandmaster) skill.

Mistletoe cutting sickles are best kept until you have progressed far in smithing, if at all. Some people think they are okay but early on you will just be wasting thousands of plat.

...Zera

[Kongming]

Well im currently im 212 skill with 10% mod so that pushes me to around 230ish skill. I'm looking for a way to get to 220. I might try it a bit, it might be a bit better then SS. I dunno I guess i'll try a few and see how terrible it is. 312 per combine. if i can sell at 1500 then if i go 20% which i expect. i might break even. shrug i'll see. SS is getting costly as it is with shadows costing me 50pp each.

[Sabine]

Sickles are a rough path to follow when skilling up, but in many cases not as rough as competing for heavily camped hunting areas for shadow scream. I suspect this varies a lot from server to server, and also what time of day/night you are hunting.

Sickles cost a lot of plat to make, but assuming you have a mule or two on another computer or computers, you can streamline the production process and not worry about running out of supplies (assuming you can imbue your own emeralds).

I found it VERY helpful to load up two mules, each with lots of 10-slot backpacks. I loaded up my temper mule with 8 10-slot bags of each stackable item (ce, temper, dust), and had to refill that mule after getting to 215 skill (starting at 188).

I refilled the temper mule half way (4 bags of each component) and got 220 with some stuff left over.

My other mule was there to hold empty 10 slot bags that I could swap for full bags of blades, pommels, hilts. The process I used was temper mule hands 4 stacks of stuff (gem, dust, ce, temper) to me, then I purchase a stack of metal and 20 molds, then I make 20 parts. Then I hand the 2 bags of parts to the part mule in exchange for 2 empty bags. I repeat that process for the other parts (sickle, blade pommel), then make 20 sickle attempts, passing off successes to the part mule for selling later.

If you have three computers and three accounts it is somewhat less painful. I spent about 225k doing this, and made back about 60k selling sickles. I have enough left over for about 4 more points of skilling, but I will get to 227 with breastplate washing before moving on to using those supplies.

[tenniel]

my experience on sickles

1-188 was a breeze... then came the wall.. yup, that 188 to 201 wall. Spent well over 30k, made all kindza stuff, SS, human culteral, acrylia.. But after 201, things became more stable. It seems from 201 to 219 was pretty much 1-2 skill ups per stack of combines. This phase, I stickly used human culteral (imbued field plate). I seem to hit another wall at skill 219. Spent another 20k and over 80 combines, and got 1 skill up. 220. Ouch.. Farmed more, and combined another 60 combines.. and not a single skill up. I don't know if it was pure dumb luck, but for the hell of it, I wanted to see what this, cutting sickles deal was all about. Yes, no farming required becuase everything was store bought.. which was really nice. I spent about 7k for 1 stack of combines, to test out sickles. To my surprise, I was only able to combine 17 times due to some failure and what do u know... I made 12 of 17 sickles and SKILLED UP 3 TIMES. Wow.. 223 feels good. I wonder if this is a fluke. I went to bazaar and sold all 12 sickles in less than 30 min at 3am pst. I sold them really cheap at 1100ea. Not only did I skill up wildly, but i actually made a profit.. and fast !!! I am omw to go do another stack of sickles... Takes me bout 2 hours to get everything i need. brb, I will let u all know my results. =) hehe

[BrewtPhorce]

12 of 17 is an awesome run. At 250 skill + trophy, I'm ecstatic if I make a 50% success, usually I only get 40%. Good luck though. If you're human, I highly recommend taking freeport cultural route till 225ish. Once there with a geerlok or trophy you should have decent success on Blue Diamond cultural.

Brewt Phorce
62nd Meat Shield
"Dovie'andi se tovya sagain ... Time to roll the dice." - Mat Cauthon

[Celdil]

I agree, 12 of 17 is an excellent success rate even at full GM. I make a run of 20 sickles about once or twice a week or so, depending on how well they sell. Skill lvl 250 with Trophy. The best run I've had is 16 for 20. The worst was 6 for 20. In all 9 successes out of 20 attempts would probably be my average since I reached lvl 250.

I make all my components myself (pocket wood elven druid for imbues). I start by buying 11 stacks each of Celestial Solvent and Scent of Marr. Then purchase 70 emeralds, put them all on the druid and go to town with the imbues and essence combines. (I also use the time to forage for guildies).

Once done, transfer back to my Cleric where I turn the emeralds into Blessed Dust and then brew up the Mistletoe Tempers. My goal is to have 70 of each. I then purchase 70 sheets of metal and 22 each of Rubies, Sapphires and Emeralds.

The tradeskill trophy is invaluable here so my entire inventory is filled with 10 slot bags, all empty except for components, my hammer, and a little food and water.

Then I purchase 22 blade molds and head to the forge. Rinse and repeat for Hilts and Pommels. Once I get twenty blades, hilts or pommels, I stop making them and just sell back any gems and molds. I lose a bit in this but I hate having to run all around to purchase more items for the failed subcombines.

Once I have 20 of each I do the final combine and pray that I get better than 50%.

As a skill up path, this is a pretty expensive way to go. I tried at lvl 200 to do a run and got one. Tried again at 220 and got 4. Eventually, at lvl 235 or so I could make enough to sell them and make a small profit, so everytime I would run out I'd make more. I didn't use it as a skill up path, per se, but I did allow it to augment normal path. I did, in fact, get my last two skill ups to 250 on sickles.

[Boleslav]

12 of 17 successes and 3 skillups definitely qualifies you for the "your results are not typical" club. Enjoy it, it is not likely to happen again.

In general, conventional wisdom says you will skillup slightly less frequently with sickles than with Shadowscream or old cultural. This is because the trivial for Shadowscream and old cultural is lower than for sickles. Many people believe that you have a slightly better chance to get skillups on a successful combine than on a failed combine, and you are more likely to succeed on SS or old cultural.

That doesn't mean that you can't succeed with sickles. But expect it to be tough.

Boleslav Forgehammer
Paladin of Brell in his 65th Campaign
E'ci – Sacred Desitny

[Taushar]

Sickles are definitely the way if you don't want to farm SS items. I have been doing this route in mix with SS since I don't want to spend hours farming all the time. I am at 217 skills atm have been averaging 3-4 sickles per stack of combine with my trophy in hand. One thing I hate about sickles is the nature of non-stack sub-combine items. I have to use my mule with at least 4-5 empty bags in addition to me having 4-5 empty bags to be efficient on making these. Each stack requireds 60 open slots for 3 subcombines. And the sub-combines need room for non-stackable molds. If at least the molds stack, I would be going sickles mostly. Just my thoughts.

Taushar

[tenniel]

my second set

Ok. I just got back from unloading these sickle in the bazaar. Sold them like hotcakes for 1100pp each to bazaar scalpers. Went back to doing another run on 1 stack of sickles. This time, I had a little extra cash, so I bought a little more gems, little more this and that so that I would get 20 complete combines on sickles. I have a 65 ench, with over 180 skills in pottery and brewing. This really helped in success rates on tempers and tunare dust; as well as, keeping costs of supplies down due to 280cha. Last time, i went to bazaar for celestial essence because i was lazy, but not this time. Average in bazaar is 5pp each and to make is about 3pp. Doesn't sound like alot, but when combining a whole stack of stickles, it takes 180pieces at least. (900pp vs. 540pp)
Got all stuff together and headed to Rivervale for the combines. With all the stuff in my bags, I can only do a 10sickle set at a time. 30 pommels, 30 hilts, 30 blades; then combine into sickles from there. OMG, only made 1 success of 10 tries. Ouch... I guess it was pure dumb luck for making such a high success rate the first time.... Or was it? I look up at my buffs. I didn't have an str buff. With kei and gear my wisdom is only 233, and str was only 123. I bummed "storm strength" from a passing druid in RV. Not sure how much it did, maybe took me upto 163 or 173str. Now time for my 2nd 10sickle set. What do u know?, I succeeded on 8 or 10 tries. I never thought that str made such a huge difference in smithing. It didn't seem to change my success rate on human culteral, but perhaps on 250+ skilled items.. it does make a huge difference. So this run, i was actually 9 of 20. This wasn't bad considering on my first set was 1 of 10. It probably would have been higher, yet I didn't have str buff.
So does this count as pure dumb luck? I am not sure. All I know, is that my success rates seem to be nice on sickles. And I ran back to bazaar and unloaded all 9 sickles at 1100pp each and still made a decent profit. But more importantly, on the last set of sickles... I skilled up 2 times on the 2nd set. Skill 225 (unmodified)now, and I have never felt so good about smithing before. I will take a break now, but will repost my results on the 3 stack of sickles when I return. Hey, if you're on a roll.. why stop? =) See yall soon.

[Suva]

I did SS til about 235 and then I switched to just sickles since I could not force myself to farm anymore. Sickles seem to sell rather slow and I average about 3 per week. I have 1 alt dedicated to nothing but holding the bags of completed sickles.

[tenniel]

dry spell; kinda

Went through 1 stack of sickle combines today. Sad to say only 1 skill up; 226 unmodified. But there was good news. On sickles i was 14 for 20 today. At the moment, i am selling these things pretty easily at 1300 each. I usually sell out by the time I wake up in the morning.(using over-night bazaar trader) I do run a special while I am online. I sell multiples to other vendors at 1100pp each if buying 4 or more. This works out great. I seem to have no problem selling all my stock over night. Not too sure when I am going to start working on BD culteral though. My last success rate was more like failure rates... truely pathetic. I am thinking of waiting till this weekend. I should be around 230+ unmodified by then. As for sickles and skilling up, you can go ahead and call me a sickle-feliac.

[tenniel]

Mistletoe; the way to go =)

Back again for more results. Just unloaded yet, another bunch of sickles to a vendor in bazaar at 1100pp each. This person is now my official sickle-salesman. He made a nice profit of over 8k yesterday selling my sickles. Sickle-Set #4 was pretty good I would say. Of my 20 combines I only succeeded 10 of 20. I can live with 50% considering I still sell 10pcs for 11kpp. I will walk away from maybe 1k or a little more, but more importantly... I SKILLED UP 3 TIMES. Yes... that's right... 3 times on 1 stack of final combines. Now I am up to 229 unmodified.
Since I started skilling with sickles, it has only been 3 days and my results are:

3 days
4 stacks of final combines
skill 220 to 229 = 9skill ups
total cash = Profit of a few kpp due to sales (over 5k for sure)
and NO FARMING (all store bought items)

Mistletoe Sickles have made my week. They actually brought some happiness back into smithing. I don't recommend anyone skilling with sickles till at least 225 modified, because of failure rates. Unless you have plenty of cash to throw around. But if you are tired of countless days of farming old world culteral, acrylia, or ss.. my friend.. i tell ya.... mistletoe is the way to go. Sure made a believer out of me.

[Ndaara]

Will you please bottle your sickle luck and sell it to me? PLEASE?

[kiztent]

I was making some profit on sickles too until someone startng hardcore skilling on them and now has ~40 for sale at 500pp each. Bam, dead market.