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I'm still exhausted from a 16 hour marathon smithing session to complete my last batch of 140 combines so I apologize in advance if I ramble or seem incoherent. I just wanted to make sure I got this data into the hands of some of the more talented tradeskillers for analysis as they continue to explore the plumbing of Everquest's tradeskill engine.
It's hard to believe that this tradeskill madness started with a simple quest...The Coldain Insignia Ring - the 9th one to be exact where you need 248 or better brewing to do the Tainted Avalanche Ale. That one quest introduced me to the vast world of tradeskills and ever since then, I've been hooked foregoing raids, xp, and loot, but it's also been one of the most rewarding experiences I've had to date. My initial goal was to GM brewing to do the ale, until I discovered the tradeskill trophy, then suddenly I found myself maxing out pottery (Hi my name is Ephemeral, I hate pottery /wink Khoren), jewelcraft, fletching for kicks, baking, fishing and finally smithing (tailoring stuck at 162).
Some background data. I'm a level 60 Paladin on the Karana Server, in a rather active mid level guild. I started this project sometime in September (all seems a blur as I look back) but didn't really pick up the pace until I started smithing at the end of October. Prior to brewing, I never had more than 3k in the bank and that was a hard fought 3k skrimping and saving every last copper I could get my hands on, until I discovered the stat drinks. Within a relatively short period of time, I sold enough stat drinks to finance not only my smithing endeavors, but max out all my other tradeskills, and every penny I made after that went straight back into smithing. Not including skillups prior to 188, my total out of pocket costs hovered somewhere between 60k and 70k. The buyback on Imbued Field Plate isn't great, but it's manageable, and I was making just enough money through brewing, jewelcraft and tailoring to just about break even.
Skillpoints 188-239 gained from cultural smithing consumed the following components:
~1750 mugs of sea foam (~18k, purchased 90% at 10pp-25pp apiece)
~850 Saltwater Seaweeds (ding fishing (200)!)
~830 Jades and Plains Pebbles (~3.5k including tips)
~830 Leather Paddings (I hunted for roughly 80% of them) (~16k in spiderling silks)
-1023 HQ Folded Sheets of Metal (53k but you get back about 63% on sellback)
Mind you these costs don't account for what I spent to max out my other tradeskills. The biggest expense really was gearing up for tradeskilling. After reading enough convincing data, I knew it was critical to do tradeskills at max wisdom, and the payoff for that decision was tremendous. I smithed every session with 255 wisdom *with* a geerlok equipped and I think that shows from the relatively low number of failures throughout the project.
The interesting thing about this data is that I had projected my numbers based on 2 data sets provided by a druid that smithed on sickles (1 Skill-Up per 17.36 combines), Aargargh's baseline of 1381(?) combines (1 SU per 19.7), and Elmarr's sickle adventure (I forget your #'s but they were higher than 1 per 20) but to my utter surprise, I was able to manage about 1 skillup per 15.2 combines. However, I still have 11 points to go and there is the distinct possibility that that final stretch could require 220 combines and if that happens, that will put it right around 1 SU per 19 combines..
For completeness sake, I'm making available the spreadsheet I used to log successes, failures, attempts and misc data. I remember reading that there was an interest in trying to find out whether or not there was a bias to skillups on successes somewhere. Over 91 Skill Points, every point gained was on a success (which doesn't say much because I only did pieces that were within trivial range). I logged each success with an "s" and each failure with an "f" simply because it was easier than drawing tick marks on a piece of paper (not savvy enough to use a parser). However, I think the only way to know if there was a bias would be compare the data against another smith that used sickles to skill their way up.
SP,Item,Attempts,Failures
155,Visor,7,0
156,Visor,15,0
157,Visor,13,0
158,Visor,1,0
159,Visor,3,0
160,Visor,7,0
161,Visor,4,0
162,Visor,2,0
163,Visor,11,0
164,Bracer,5,0
165,Bracer,3,0
166,Bracer,2,0
167,Bracer,3,0
168,Bracer,12,0
169,Gloves,3,0
170,Gloves,1,0
171,Gloves,2,0
172,Gloves,2,0
173,Gloves,10,0
174,Gloves,5,0
175,Gloves,4,0
176,Helm,18,1
177,Helm,8,3
178,Helm,17,1
179,Helm,6,0
180,Greaves,21,2
181,Greaves,9,1
182,Greaves,16,2
183,BP,4,0
184,BP,6,2
185,BP,1,0
186,BP,10,1
187,BP,3,0
188,Bracer,21,1
189,Bracer,36,0
190,Bracer,6,0
191,Bracer,30,1
192,Bracer,9,0
193,Bracer,22,1
194,Bracer,10,0
195,Imbued Gorget,7,1
196,Imbued Gorget,3,0
197,Imbued Gorget,3,0
198,Imbued Gorget,1,0
199,Imbued Gorget,4,0
200,Imbued Gorget,12,0
201,Imbued Gorget,7,0
202,Imbued Gorget,39,2
203,Imbued Gorget,1,0
204,Imbued Gorget,14,0
205,Imbued Gorget,12,0
206,Imbued Gorget,57,4 (Hell level 1)
207,Imbued Gorget,108,8 (quickly followed by Hell Level 2)
208,Imbued Gorget,22,1
208,Fierce Heraldic Bracer,5,4
208,Imbued Visor,11,0
209,Imbued Visor,25,2
210,Ethereal rings,6,0
211,Ethereal rings,28,1
212,Imbued Visor,2,0
213,Imbued Visor,40,1
214,Imbued Visor,1,0
215,Imbued Visor,6,0
216,Imbued Bracer,8,0
217,Imbued Bracer,37,2
218,Imbued Bracer,9,0
219,Imbued Bracer,9,1
220,Imbued Bracer,18,1
221,Imbued Bracer,28,0
222,Imbued Helm,6,0
223,Imbued Helm,10,1
224,Imbued Helm,6,0
225,Imbued Helm,6,0
226,Imbued Helm,3,0
227,Imbued Helm,23,1
228,Imbued Helm,14,1
229,Imbued Helm,46,1
230,Imbued Helm,34,1
231,Imbued Helm,14,0
232,Imbued Greaves,3,0
233,Imbued Greaves,6,0
234,Imbued Greaves,4,0
235,Imbued Greaves,1,1
235,3 Sheet Acrylia Plate,7,0
236,3 Sheet Acrylia Plate,2,1
236,Sickles,8,3
237,Sickles,5,0
238,Sickles,7,3
238,BA Halberd,3,2
238,Fierce Heraldic Boots,1,0
239,Fierce/Luminant Heraldic,21,10
Total combines: 1121
Total failures: 69
Average skill up per combine 188-239 - 15.19298246
Average skill up per combine 155-239 - 12.45555556
***NB - When I say "hell level" I mean it was a personal hell level, though I will concede it's no where near the severity of what the pre patch smiths had to endure
I hope this data helps any aspiring smiths looking to tackle this beast of an adventure if for nothing more than to understand the sheer resources required to complete it. I recall reading over and over again how if you wanted to be serious about taking smithing all the way, that you had to devote your life to it until it was done. So that's what I did, 3 months where 90% of my time online was spent mindlessly slaughtering every component mob within my clipping plane, or preparing batches of 100 or 200 combines.
I'll continue to collect data to complete out this data set but for now, I think I'm going to go chase after some yellow text. Again, thank you for all your words of wisdom - no doubt they set me on my path and led me to this point.
With faith,
Ephemeral Bliss
Pacific Paladin of the 60th Storm
Officer - Silver Daggers
It's hard to believe that this tradeskill madness started with a simple quest...The Coldain Insignia Ring - the 9th one to be exact where you need 248 or better brewing to do the Tainted Avalanche Ale. That one quest introduced me to the vast world of tradeskills and ever since then, I've been hooked foregoing raids, xp, and loot, but it's also been one of the most rewarding experiences I've had to date. My initial goal was to GM brewing to do the ale, until I discovered the tradeskill trophy, then suddenly I found myself maxing out pottery (Hi my name is Ephemeral, I hate pottery /wink Khoren), jewelcraft, fletching for kicks, baking, fishing and finally smithing (tailoring stuck at 162).
Some background data. I'm a level 60 Paladin on the Karana Server, in a rather active mid level guild. I started this project sometime in September (all seems a blur as I look back) but didn't really pick up the pace until I started smithing at the end of October. Prior to brewing, I never had more than 3k in the bank and that was a hard fought 3k skrimping and saving every last copper I could get my hands on, until I discovered the stat drinks. Within a relatively short period of time, I sold enough stat drinks to finance not only my smithing endeavors, but max out all my other tradeskills, and every penny I made after that went straight back into smithing. Not including skillups prior to 188, my total out of pocket costs hovered somewhere between 60k and 70k. The buyback on Imbued Field Plate isn't great, but it's manageable, and I was making just enough money through brewing, jewelcraft and tailoring to just about break even.
Skillpoints 188-239 gained from cultural smithing consumed the following components:
~1750 mugs of sea foam (~18k, purchased 90% at 10pp-25pp apiece)
~850 Saltwater Seaweeds (ding fishing (200)!)
~830 Jades and Plains Pebbles (~3.5k including tips)
~830 Leather Paddings (I hunted for roughly 80% of them) (~16k in spiderling silks)
-1023 HQ Folded Sheets of Metal (53k but you get back about 63% on sellback)
Mind you these costs don't account for what I spent to max out my other tradeskills. The biggest expense really was gearing up for tradeskilling. After reading enough convincing data, I knew it was critical to do tradeskills at max wisdom, and the payoff for that decision was tremendous. I smithed every session with 255 wisdom *with* a geerlok equipped and I think that shows from the relatively low number of failures throughout the project.
The interesting thing about this data is that I had projected my numbers based on 2 data sets provided by a druid that smithed on sickles (1 Skill-Up per 17.36 combines), Aargargh's baseline of 1381(?) combines (1 SU per 19.7), and Elmarr's sickle adventure (I forget your #'s but they were higher than 1 per 20) but to my utter surprise, I was able to manage about 1 skillup per 15.2 combines. However, I still have 11 points to go and there is the distinct possibility that that final stretch could require 220 combines and if that happens, that will put it right around 1 SU per 19 combines..
For completeness sake, I'm making available the spreadsheet I used to log successes, failures, attempts and misc data. I remember reading that there was an interest in trying to find out whether or not there was a bias to skillups on successes somewhere. Over 91 Skill Points, every point gained was on a success (which doesn't say much because I only did pieces that were within trivial range). I logged each success with an "s" and each failure with an "f" simply because it was easier than drawing tick marks on a piece of paper (not savvy enough to use a parser). However, I think the only way to know if there was a bias would be compare the data against another smith that used sickles to skill their way up.
SP,Item,Attempts,Failures
155,Visor,7,0
156,Visor,15,0
157,Visor,13,0
158,Visor,1,0
159,Visor,3,0
160,Visor,7,0
161,Visor,4,0
162,Visor,2,0
163,Visor,11,0
164,Bracer,5,0
165,Bracer,3,0
166,Bracer,2,0
167,Bracer,3,0
168,Bracer,12,0
169,Gloves,3,0
170,Gloves,1,0
171,Gloves,2,0
172,Gloves,2,0
173,Gloves,10,0
174,Gloves,5,0
175,Gloves,4,0
176,Helm,18,1
177,Helm,8,3
178,Helm,17,1
179,Helm,6,0
180,Greaves,21,2
181,Greaves,9,1
182,Greaves,16,2
183,BP,4,0
184,BP,6,2
185,BP,1,0
186,BP,10,1
187,BP,3,0
188,Bracer,21,1
189,Bracer,36,0
190,Bracer,6,0
191,Bracer,30,1
192,Bracer,9,0
193,Bracer,22,1
194,Bracer,10,0
195,Imbued Gorget,7,1
196,Imbued Gorget,3,0
197,Imbued Gorget,3,0
198,Imbued Gorget,1,0
199,Imbued Gorget,4,0
200,Imbued Gorget,12,0
201,Imbued Gorget,7,0
202,Imbued Gorget,39,2
203,Imbued Gorget,1,0
204,Imbued Gorget,14,0
205,Imbued Gorget,12,0
206,Imbued Gorget,57,4 (Hell level 1)
207,Imbued Gorget,108,8 (quickly followed by Hell Level 2)
208,Imbued Gorget,22,1
208,Fierce Heraldic Bracer,5,4
208,Imbued Visor,11,0
209,Imbued Visor,25,2
210,Ethereal rings,6,0
211,Ethereal rings,28,1
212,Imbued Visor,2,0
213,Imbued Visor,40,1
214,Imbued Visor,1,0
215,Imbued Visor,6,0
216,Imbued Bracer,8,0
217,Imbued Bracer,37,2
218,Imbued Bracer,9,0
219,Imbued Bracer,9,1
220,Imbued Bracer,18,1
221,Imbued Bracer,28,0
222,Imbued Helm,6,0
223,Imbued Helm,10,1
224,Imbued Helm,6,0
225,Imbued Helm,6,0
226,Imbued Helm,3,0
227,Imbued Helm,23,1
228,Imbued Helm,14,1
229,Imbued Helm,46,1
230,Imbued Helm,34,1
231,Imbued Helm,14,0
232,Imbued Greaves,3,0
233,Imbued Greaves,6,0
234,Imbued Greaves,4,0
235,Imbued Greaves,1,1
235,3 Sheet Acrylia Plate,7,0
236,3 Sheet Acrylia Plate,2,1
236,Sickles,8,3
237,Sickles,5,0
238,Sickles,7,3
238,BA Halberd,3,2
238,Fierce Heraldic Boots,1,0
239,Fierce/Luminant Heraldic,21,10
Total combines: 1121
Total failures: 69
Average skill up per combine 188-239 - 15.19298246
Average skill up per combine 155-239 - 12.45555556
***NB - When I say "hell level" I mean it was a personal hell level, though I will concede it's no where near the severity of what the pre patch smiths had to endure
I hope this data helps any aspiring smiths looking to tackle this beast of an adventure if for nothing more than to understand the sheer resources required to complete it. I recall reading over and over again how if you wanted to be serious about taking smithing all the way, that you had to devote your life to it until it was done. So that's what I did, 3 months where 90% of my time online was spent mindlessly slaughtering every component mob within my clipping plane, or preparing batches of 100 or 200 combines.
I'll continue to collect data to complete out this data set but for now, I think I'm going to go chase after some yellow text. Again, thank you for all your words of wisdom - no doubt they set me on my path and led me to this point.
With faith,
Ephemeral Bliss
Pacific Paladin of the 60th Storm
Officer - Silver Daggers
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