Route from 222.

[silent_hand]

Approaching 222 smithing, from 195-222 I burn't alot of cash and went the velium route.
I am a human monk, lvl 70, time/Qvic flagged.

Not a big fan of pre-combines, prepared to spend a lil cash.

What is my best route? Shadowscream? If so if there a guide for it around?

Thanks for any advice.

PS is it worth going for the tradeskill trophy or is there a skill limit attached to it?

PPS At what skill can I start doing combines with the meldstone for teh qvic armor pre-combines?

[Starlight]

Tradeskill trophy has no minimum required level, I did my smithing trophy at 205 skill and there are people who have done it before 200 (though I wouldn't advice it ;P). You can do it now if you wish. Beware though that the trivial is over 250.

http://www.eqtraders.com/search/reve....php?item=4073 lists the items of which you speak, required level seems uncertain there and as such, noone really knows yet. It is narrowed down somewhat at least.

As far as post-222 goes, I have yet to get there myself (hope that EVB recipe is learnable on live servers soon ;P) so I will not try to give advice on what to do. Zeralee has Shadowscream covered in her big smithing guide though, check it out. And doing the Aid Grimel combine over and over will take you to 227 from where you are without much fuss. If money is not an issue, just hire a couple of coth mages to send you back and forth

[Nolrog]

As far as post-222 goes, I have yet to get there myself (hope that EVB recipe is learnable on live servers soon ;P)

Should be in the patch today.

[Starlight]

Somehow my brain worded that wrong, I meant "hope it is in today's patch". Glad to hear you confirm that it should be, been waiting for that and holding off on further velium combines ever since someone on Test announced it was learnable there...

[Boleslav]

You are nearing the end of things you can do without a lot of subcombines. As mentioned before, you can try to work the Aid Grimel breastplate cleaning to get to 227.

You have several options to get from 227 to 250, here are the ones that make the most sense to me.

Shadowscream Steel – lots of farming of greenines, but not a ton of subcombines once you have the drops. Cost is extremely low unless you try to buy the Swirling Shadows. Still relatively inexpensive compared to some of the other options.

Human Cultural – Imbued Field Plate then Full Plate: More farming, but only of temper ingredients. Sea Temper, used in the field plate, requires a fished item and a common dropped item that is often available on merchants if you look for it. This might be the quickest option for you initially. The full plate requires Essence of Sunlight, which is hard to gather in quantity. This requires subcombines for folded sheets and chain jointing. Each piece requires a leather padding. Some versions will require enchanted metal and/or imbued gems.

Acrylia – requires Acrylia ore and windstones. Windstones have become much more readily available, and acrylia can usually be bought in the bazaar for a price. I would hit the bazaar and do some merchant diving to grab as many windstones as you can, then buy acrylia to go with it. The BP trivs out at 242. This requires subcombines to make folded sheets and chain jointing. Also requires a leather padding for each piece.

GoD Weapons – While hard to get supplies for in quantity, the recipes yield decent weapons. Keep an eye out for the supplies for this and add a few in here and there.

Magnetic Armor – Again, hard to gather components in quantity. However, the result is a salable armor. Another item to add in here and there as components are reasonably priced. This has the benefit of having very few subcombines.

As you can see, there is no path that has readily available components combined with relatively few subcombines. I might suggest trying a farming session or two for Shadowscream Steel while adding the other pieces in as you find components for them.

As for the meldstone, if you used a geerlok smithy hammer (+5 % Blacksmithing mod) you should expect a 73% success rate on that combine with your current skill. You can expect that rate to increase 1% for each new skillup you get to a maximum of 95%.

Good luck to you!

Boleslav Forgehammer
Paladin of Brell in his 66th Campaign
E'ci – Sacred Destiny

[silent_hand]

Thanks

Thanks for info, I'll check out the shadowscream guide and give it a whirl, while mixing in some aid Gimmel to start.
Do I need to do some kind of hammer quest for teh ss combines? << Answer probably in guide

[Silound]

I'm a Human bard, so I pretty much have the same options as you do. Given that, I found old cultral to be by far the best. The trivials are well spaced, and I use imbued plains pebbles. Find a friendly karana druid and get them to imbue 1000 odd pebbles. I paid less than a plat per pebble mostly. If I recall, 235, or 242 somehting like that is the highest trivial. And other than the foams being absurdly rare to collect (I can't seem to kill the buggers fast enough, so I vendor mine/buy it) you can fish around 100 saltwater seaweed in about an hour 30, maybe two hours max of constant fishing, or better yet pay someone to fish it for you (I offered 20p per weed and had 9 people fishing at one point).

Everything else you need is in two zones of Freeport, and is easy to do. Fastest route is to stock up 8 bags of 10x slots, make a lot of sheets, prep a lot of jointing in stackable form, then load up on molds and smith away. I had a lvl 1 mule there who made runs back and forth as I smithed replenishing me with whatever the materials were that I needed to zone to get. Simply trade full bags of product/supplies and go back to work.

[splunge]

For you, the trophy isnt worth it. Heck, for pretty much anyone, the trophy isnt worth it. (Yes, ill kep harping on this till im blue in the face!)
Failure rate at 250 is too high, and you get 1 no-drop bag, where you can take less money and buy a Haversack from a player, which weighs less (iprobably important to you as youre a monk) and, you can always sell the bag for what you paid for it if you need the cash. A trophy youre stuck with the loss and a crummy stat item (especially for Qvic geared) and 5% modifier, which you already have in a geerlok.
And no, its not proof of skill either, as you *can* make one at (1) skill. The new titles are proof.

[YurienStonebow]

what in Tunare is Qvic?

[Secone]

a zone ...

[Erikanudan]

I had been muling raw pale nihilite and aligned ore that i got as drops and from vendor farming ... did pale velium cestus' on my ogre from 222-232.

If you have a pocket chanter to enchant the velium, the resell on finished product actually covers the cost of the materials.

[Bregalad]

Note that bloodling plate tunic is not nodrop, and is returned to you along with practice mallet. Which means some of your friend smiths might have one still sitting in bank, and might let you borrow it so you don't have to hunt bloodlings ad nauseum.

[Boleslav]

Yup, I still have my Bloodling Plate Tunic in the bank. I have lent it out several times too.

Boleslav Forgehammer
Paladin of Brell in his 66th Campaign
E'ci - Sacred Destiny

[silent_hand]

Meldstone combines for Qvic armor.

Thanks for all your help again, I am now at 250 skill with a 5% modifier hammer, I have a question about the minimum skill requirements for a combine with meldstone for the qvic armor, I know its 247, will I be able to do the combine at the moment using a modifier or not?

Thanks

[splunge]

Probably take ya less time to put the stuff in a forge and hit combine than it took to post that. =)