Am I smithing for the right reason?

[Carleton]

I have been playing EQ for 19 months and none of my toons have hit 60, so I am neither a total newbie nor do I have high level experience. I've spent every minute playing over the past two weeks skilling up smithing and now that I'm at 218, I wonder how much higher I should go.

I did not intend to spend any time on tradeskilling until recently. It seemed to me that high-level tradeskilling was a time and money drain, with little reward except pride and bragging rights. I decided to leap in because it seems that DoN armor is the first higher level multi-piece set of armor I can attain without a 65 toon and without spending every pp I have. It seems all I have to do is a reasonable quest (Master's), skill up smithing and find the components. Am I right about that?

If my current objective is to successfully make Master's augments and Gnome Master's pieces (not to wear, but to resell for the sole purpose of paying myself back for skilling smithing and perhaps earn some plat to buy CDD), how high does my geerlocked skill need to be? My current thought is 248 + 5% geerlock is very safe, but I wonder if I can get away with 230 + 5%?

Although I intend to try farming it, it looks like buying CDD (avg 8k on my server) is smarter---if I can farm something else. Right now, velium pieces looks most efficient (5k for roughly 3 hours). Looking through the bazaar, I don't see anything that is smithed as a real money maker for a skill level 220-250. Is that correct?

The DoN armor might work. Ive been picking up Yttrium for an average of 250pp and I think I can sell the smaller pieces for 1500-2000pp each. I don't think the market is very big however.

I'm also wondering if my original idea about DoN armor is true. Maybe it would be smarter to farm velium and buy ornate molds and patterns? The smaller pieces there go for 8k minimum.

Finally, the OOW armor doesnt look so bad for a bunch of 50s toons. I was wondering if I should farm the lower level drops in DS and farm velium to buy the harder pieces in the bazaar. I'd buy the dented versions and smith them. Is a 230 + 5% geerlock high enough to get a reasonable success rate for smithing those?

Also: I haven't seen anyone post recent skill-up ratios for EVBs. My primary stat is maxed at 255 and I got 8 skill-ups for 189-196 in 100 combines, 8 again for 197-204, 7 for 205-211 and 7 again for 212-218. I seriously need wrist braces after farming all that velium. Which reminds me. I wanted to say that I farmed about half the hides, all the silk and all the velium to go from 0 to 218. I have spent roughly 10k so far, with nearly 8k for the EVBs. Ornate was the next biggest expense.

Thanks in advance for your replies!

Carleton

Stromm (55 ENC, 55 SHM, 54 CLR, 54 BRD, 54 WIZ)

[Qaladar Bragollach]

You can do Shadowscream armor all the way to 267 and it costs essentially nothing. If you farm your own swirling shadows, you will actually make a small amount of money from coin loot.

At 230 +5% you will have max chance of success on most pieces of master level armor. Exceptions will be sleeves (290 triv, 75% chance) and leggings/BP (304 triv, 65%).

To get max success on sleeves, you'd need 249 raw skill and at that point you'd have about 84% chance on BP/leggings.

You'd need 260 raw skill to have max chance of success on all master level items.

My suggestion is to finish off EVB's as it never gets any easier than that. Then if you have Bertox flag, you can do breastplate cleansing till 227 but it sounds like you probably don't so I would suggest doing Shadowscream till you tire of it or feel comfortable with your chances of success at the pieces of master armor you want.

[Voltai Ausra]

Go Higher

Personally I'd say go for your expert title via any of the hugely discussed skillup paths. IE Shadowscream, sickles, cultural, DoN. Being an expert smith or at least 240+ opens up many avenues of monetary gain. Which fully compensate for the cost of smithing. Plus the fun of being able to make armor for any character you want. Hiho shared bank!!

[Kilzen]

And as for the right reason - I'd think... you gotta enjoy Smithing mainly

I'm not sure I'd do it *just* to get a specific kind of armor - but if that is your wish and you are persistant enough to see it through for that reason, then by all means, stick with it Either way, I'm pretty certain you won't regret it, there may well be more armor in the future that can use the skill also - at this point though, I'm wondering how many more expansions we will see.

[YurienStonebow]

prolly more expansions then are needed at a rate far too quick to be needed

[Voltai Ausra]

To Smith or not to Smith

Honestly why to smith is a question all of us have asked ourselves from time to time. And to be honest as much as a time and money sink as it is. Really it's about doing something you enjoy. If you find yourself cursing and hating every moment of clicking hte combine button. Then perhaps smithing and maybe even tradeskills in general aren't for you. But if you do that hard combine, and get the item you want. The warm fuzzy feeling of a job well done is a reward in itself.


I'd say stick with it because it's fun and you can make money doing it.

[Angelsyn]

prolly more expansions then are needed at a rate far too quick to be needed

I would expect more it more likely to be 2 expansions per year... just like they've been doing recently.

[Winenose]

The DoN armor might work. Ive been picking up Yttrium for an average of 250pp and I think I can sell the smaller pieces for 1500-2000pp each. I don't think the market is very big however.

One thing you could do is get to that market _now_ before someone else floods it. And I think 250pp per piece of Yttrium is like.. WAY too much. You can probably go farm it somewhere even at lvl 55.

[YurienStonebow]

I would expect more it more likely to be 2 expansions per year... just like they've been doing recently.

like i said....too many too fast