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**Flabbo McFattyfatfat** · 12-13-2002, 01:35 PM

God, do sickles! You can earn a profit on them at your skill level. Or farm cash drops. At 240 you have max skill, I would suggest beginning on your bd armor. Around 220 skill, which would guve ya about a 20 to 30% success rate. At that point, even if you sold the things for 6k a sheet (rock bottom pricing in my opinion) you would still make money. Do sickles for a bit to pad your wallet, but dont sell off everything. You wont even be able to afford your own armor at that point!

**Glatius2** · 12-13-2002, 02:34 PM

Make some acrylia plate too, the success rate is very high in the low 200s, and you can usually still sell the breastplate and legs for 2k or 3k each.

**Mochaboy** · 12-13-2002, 02:51 PM

This might not be the answer you're looking for but I ran into the exact same issue you're facing. Smithing to 230 is nothing but a money sink until you can get to the more profitable items (bd armor, sickles, contract combines for seru or ssra weapons etc...). In all the time I've been smithing, I've sold exactly 1 FS Breastplate and 1 suit of Visible Imbued Field Plate for Rallos Zek. Grand total of 3250pp (whoop). The FS bp was for the Emerald Dragon BP quest, and the suit was for a twink.

I realized early on that if I didn't have a method of bringing in some cash, I was going to run out of it before I could finish skilling. So I redirected what funds I had left at maxing out as many other skills as possible. I maxed out jewelry (200) in 2 hours and 2400pp, I took tailoring to 158 for about 4k (2 days), pottery (skill 200, 3k, 3 days) I did for kicks after a bad forge session, brewing I already had maxed out 250 and has been my primary source of income for this project. So with all those skills in place, I invested about 5k for 15 velium hound furs and have sold 5 royal velium field plate pieces for a combined profit of about 30k, brewing brings in about 5-10k a week depending on who's buying, tailoring acrylia studded cloaks (the 10 wis ones) brought in an additional 5k (but was too much time invested for the amount gained). Taken as a whole, I was bringing in just enough money to break even on my smithing expenditures. It's a lot of work though, I spend at least 2 hours before I start raiding/smithing/hunting/questing, just gathering components or preparing batches but without that kind of focus and dedication, there's no way to continue funding my skillups.

In any event, a more direct answer to your question might be, don't worry about the profit. The market you're trying to sell to is already tapped so the only customers you have left are the up and coming generation. Every so often, get a pen and paper and do a /who all 55-60 human and take note of those names and engage them directly. Just introduce yourself and your skills and build a rapport with your potential customers. These kinds of sales don't happen over night, so you have to work at building that clientele ahead of time so they know who to go to when they're ready.

Now as far as selling your equipment, you might want to reconsider that because you need a way to collect these components and if selling that equipment will stymy your ability to collect components - it will eventually catch up with you. Just try to identify a method where you can bring in additional funds, and be patient but persistent. Smithing is a game of endurance of plat...the person that consistently puts in the effort over a given period of time will win in the end (a la turtle and the hare). Oh and as far as the sickles are concerned, take a look at the sickle market before you plop 8k down for 20 combines. If your market is already flooded with other smiths doing the same thing, that option will take you *longer* to skill up because you can only do 20 combines (or 40 if you have the cash) per session and you can't do another session until you sell off all those sickles. So plat becomes your bottleneck there, however with Imbued Plate, the only bottlenecks are seaweed and sea foam, yet going this route - unless you can sell your creations you'll run out of money. You have to find a delicate balance between time and resources to come up with the answer.

Hope that helps some and good luck with your skillups...

**Fallwell** · 12-13-2002, 04:32 PM

Thank you so much for the thought and advice.

I think perhaps I've had too many 100+ dry runs and lost track of the big picture in my panic to skillup. All your points are valid and important, and switching gears a little bit might both ease my mind and infuse more enjoyment into the game. I HAVE noticed a desaturation in the acrylia/sickle market lately, which might allow me to both a)make some armor someone will use and enjoy and, b) create a small cash flow desperately needed.
My other tradeskills are in the 190 range, except tailoring (113) which has been raised mostly to create padding....making quivers as HQ cat pelts were looted. Brewing (188) for creating tempers, ofcourse. Fishing (200)to dredge up that seaweed. Baking (193), pottery(187), fletching (190) and JC (191) mostly just for the fun of it.
Tradeskills began for me as an escape from the tedium of camping xp day after day...and turned into my main focus in EQ. The thought of making money from them wasn't something I actively pursued. Making money now is a defense mechanism from taking such a financial beating. Again, thank you and I'll put your well meaning advice to work asap)

Regards,
Fallwell

**Hjalmarr** · 12-13-2002, 05:04 PM

thanks

Hey all,

I just wanted to say thanks for the thread. I'm a level 32 cleric with 206 smithing, and this has helped me a lot as well.

Hjalmarr
Innoruuk

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