Where to go from 182

[marshti]

I recently finished my Coldain Prayer Shawl and want to take my smithing to mastery. From what I have read, it seems I need to keep my wisdom (shaman) and strength maxed. But what should I be making from here? Should I farm, or I am stuck to the bazaar?? I do not have uber plat, maybe 50k at any one time. I had considered the Soulscream armor, (maybe its too hard) but then someone told me that its been nerfed...???

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

(Oh, I am a 61 shaman)

[Treesong]

I recently finished my Coldain Prayer Shawl and want to take my smithing to mastery. From what I have read, it seems I need to keep my wisdom (shaman) and strength maxed. But what should I be making from here? Should I farm, or I am stuck to the bazaar?? I do not have uber plat, maybe 50k at any one time. I had considered the Soulscream armor, (maybe its too hard) but then someone told me that its been nerfed...???

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

(Oh, I am a 61 shaman)

Enchanted Velium Bits is definately the way to go to skill 222. You need to farm Small Pieces of Velium for this, but since the conversion of veliumweapons has gone in, farming this is now a breeze. See my Tizmak caves post here for details. Furthermore you will need the actual Enchant Velium spell (can be bought in Thurg, sode not stack) as an ingredient, which costs 12+ plat and a velium coldain temper which can be bought at the very same thurg merchant for 5+ plat(stacks) So once you have gathered several stacks of velium pieces( breaking down the small bricks to pieces too) you just go running back and forth from this merchant to the forge, which is in another shop. I made it from 188 to 222 in about 6 hours, doing 5 Tizmak runs, for 50+ velium weapons each.

Total cost around 5k in Spells and Tempers but I made quit a lot of money back selling the surplus velium pieces I had at the end.

[Obina]

EVB are fine, but be sure to include the cost of the velium in your choice analysis - since it can be sold, is still a cost.

I like variety in skilling up. So as well as EVB, making LDON armor is nice - yes bazaar is your friend here. Look not for the temper but for whatever makes the 5 tempers. Buy when it is cheap and you may get away cheaply. And you end up with armor to sell or tribute.

Shadowscream is still fine for now. I really do like managing the war. Perhaps you will too. So consider mixing in LDON and shadowscream armor.

[Treesong]

EVB are fine, but be sure to include the cost of the velium in your choice analysis - since it can be sold, is still a cost.

I like variety in skilling up. So as well as EVB, making LDON armor is nice - yes bazaar is your friend here. Look not for the temper but for whatever makes the 5 tempers. Buy when it is cheap and you may get away cheaply. And you end up with armor to sell or tribute.

Shadowscream is still fine for now. I really do like managing the war. Perhaps you will too. So consider mixing in LDON and shadowscream armor.

I had been saving up Granite, pondweed, Lichen and the like too, buying it for no more then 15 pp tops when I saw it. However, once veliumconversion was implemented, I sold my stock of LDoN ingredients immediately, for 40pp a pop.

I could be wrong, but I have calculated that each LDoN armor is at least costing 25pp in loss of *bought* ingredients per combine, and this is when you actually succeed in the combine and can sell it back. At least it is for the armor pieces that need you to bring to the max skill that LDoN can bring you.

So if you get the temper-ingredient for free even, and succeed in the combine, you are still about 8pp worse off then doing an EBV, with a free velium. Free velium now being much, much easier to come by then then a free LDoN ingredient. Now you could try to make your own bricks of ore by converting fine steel weaps, but I think for one Breastplate combine, you would need like 21 small pieces of ore, if not more. Which is 11x times as much as the velium you need for an EVB. And this is with velium weapons being more readily available then fine steel.

I honestly do not think LDoN armor is a viable path anymore with so much velium available. I have another stack of 167 pieces of velium up for sale for 20pp each (by far the cheapest in bazaar, next up is 40pp) and it's not selling. The LDON armor off course does not sell at all on my server, this could be different on your server. Dunno about the tribute value, you may have a point there. Never use tribute myself so I am not savvy in the tribute market.


You have to ask yourself though: can I make a combine that is as easy as EBV and will only cost me 18pp and the farming of half a veliumweapon(each wepaon yields 3-4), in the end?

[Wystler]

I recently finished my Coldain Prayer Shawl and want to take my smithing to mastery. From what I have read, it seems I need to keep my wisdom (shaman) and strength maxed. But what should I be making from here? Should I farm, or I am stuck to the bazaar?? I do not have uber plat, maybe 50k at any one time. I had considered the Soulscream armor, (maybe its too hard) but then someone told me that its been nerfed...???

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

(Oh, I am a 61 shaman)

I wanted to answer these two points since it looks like the other guys got the rest of your questions.

As a shaman, for smithing I wouldn't worry about wisdom at all unless you're able to buy all the Wis cap increaser AA's before you skill up more. It's going to be far easier for you to cap out your strength (and maybe even overcap but not sure at your level, I know Wunshi works at 70). It's the highest of the two stats from everything I've read.

As far as the other question, when you say Soulscream, I think you mean Shadowscream from Hollowshade. There was a dev conversation that warned that Sickles and Shadowscream trivials would be lowered during some retuning of the Tradeskill system. That retuning didn't make it into the patch we expected it to. I would go ahead and assume that it is coming though and if you want to skill up on either of those methods you should get going on it. I would assume that Shadowscream is a good alternative for you since you can farm it all yourself. After 222 that is. The EVBs to 222 are great advice. I would kill for a similiar way to skill up that cost 10 times that much at my current skill level.

Best of luck with your skill ups! I recently trivialed out on Shadowscream and although it wasn't all that fun after a while, it was cheap and easy.

[Centuri]

A good way to go about farming shadowscream armor parts (wailing and shrieking essences) is to get an AE group going at the south camp. Respawn is fairly fast and it would take at least 2 pullers to keep the entire south area clear. I've never been able to clear the thing with just myself and a nuker.

The best place to find swirling shadows (other than the bazaar) is the shade island in Twilight Sea. Sorry, gonna be a long camp because a 65 pally can easily clear this solo and have to wait for respawn.

btw, while the essences do stack, they are not droppable. Takes a bit of bank space to gear up for a good run.
You can make them into Humming orbs, which although not stackable, ARE tradeable and can be shuffled to an alt. (Park alt somewhere safe. Orbs are heavy and chances are your little guy won't be able to move once you've filled him up.)
Swirling Shadows are both stackable and tradeable so that's the good deal.

[Sharrien]

LDoN armors isn't a bad way to skill up. Some of the pieces have a very good tribute value. Look them up on Lucy before you do a skill up run, the point values vary widely. Unless you've maxed your tribute already doing endless repetitions of the Sickle Cycle, I would look for cheap LDoN temper components.

[marshti]

Thank you for all the info!!

I used the GD EVB to get to 222. I got about 1 lvl per 10 combines til 190, then it slowed to about 1 in 30 (str:260, wis:270, geerlok).

Shadowscream seemed cheapest , so I completed the mallet quest and went to farm in HM. The war is problematic to say the least. I finally got the Owlbears to take the entire zone and was able to farm in relative peace for Wailing Substances. I was never able to get the Sonic Wolves to take the zone though and had to keep defending the south area which took time away from farming , only to have the Owlbears eventually sneak in and take the south . At this point it had been 7 hours in HM; I had 100+ Wailing, 40+ Shrieking and I needed a break .

Prayer to the Sonygods: Don't nerf Shadowscream yet! If they do, it looks like LDoN progression, or should I say Bazaar progression. Ya know, it'd be nice if they set up Instanced Zones specific to tradeskill drops, where you could get exp and not have to compete to farm what ya need.

Thank you for everyone's suggestions! I keep posting here to let ya know how it goes for me...

Probable progression:
__Aid Grimel til 227 (I have made a ton of CE thats still in my bank)
__Shadowscream till 267 (because this is within my budget)
__and... hmm... DoN armor??? (I am only lvl 61)
__Mistletoe Sickle (this costs how much per combine??? 4 emeralds, 1 ruby, 1 sapphire??? any other choices here?)

[Wystler]

I'm just pasting in a post I made with my Shadowscream experience.

I'm finished with this process finally.

687/24 = 28.625 combines per skill up. I've got Smith Mastery 3 and Salvage 3 and 15% gloves. I never make a skill up run without Wunshi and a Str of 450. I may have failed 23'ish times in that entire 687 run.

I'm so sick of of Hollowshade that the meer idea of farming more parts makes me want to camp out for the night.

When figuring out how many you'll need, something else to consider aside from Fails/Salvages is that you'll need to move to parts that use more than two swirling shadows later on. You'll never really go wrong farming and extra stack of two of the shadows though cause when I'm on a run, I pay dearly for them. Anything I can do to cut the farming of this stuff is plat well spent imo.

EDIT: Edited in my 167 combines and their skill ups (I got one skill up doing a meldstone for a guildy). I'm now at base 267 before mod gloves, I've destroyed my Vah Shir hammer and anvil and going to go get drunk.

[Wystler]

*snip*
__Mistletoe Sickle (this costs how much per combine??? 4 emeralds, 1 ruby, 1 sapphire??? any other choices here?)

I've talked my guild into donating any magnetic parts they come across and that is working out pretty well. If they don't have an alt that needs a piece, I make them and break them down over and over again until I'm out of pieces. So far it's resulted in a couple skill ups at about the same rate as everything else. 25-30 per imp. I also do the majority of the guild's meldstone combines for qvic armor.

I'm affraid sickles still seem to be the most expedient method to skill up on at this time.

[KB1]

HSM, omg, how I hate thee, I believe I shall pay for smithing instead of farming.

[Kilzen]

Think you all have convinced me - that I'm better off farming Raw Plat and doing sickles.. I don't think I want to subject myself to the nightmares of hollowshade.

I may well end up running into psycopathic smiths in the zone that do not know how to leave anymore... Perhaps they have fallen into complete insanity and dwell within, like their own personal hell....

Thank God I have a Tunare Cleric with Imbue Jade in the book already...

I guess I'll begin doing some pottery tonight... lol

Lest I end up insane, like the above in this thread......... heheh

[Kaaba]

Are small pieces of velium stackable to 200 now?

[Angelsyn]

Again, let's not forget that Tae Ew Smithing can take you to 295.

It's not an easy solo at 61 (CT Enterance), but a Paladin/Shaman duo could probably handle it pretty easy... especially with a Steadfast Servant, if you have that.

[Wystler]

Again, let's not forget that Tae Ew Smithing can take you to 295.

It's not an easy solo at 61 (CT Enterance), but a Paladin/Shaman duo could probably handle it pretty easy... especially with a Steadfast Servant, if you have that.

Tae Ew is basically what I'm doing till 295. Solo at 70 with 100% AA it's very slow XP, but it is XP which is a grand improvement over Shadowsream. Take me 90-120 seconds to kill one of the lizards as a bard. I'm basically living there right now while not raiding because nobody farms the place and the few blood in the baz are ridiculously priced. =/

Unfortunately the bloods seem to be 1 in every 10 mobs or so and the boots I'm using require two bloods (I didn't want the hassle of farming a sec set of ingredients for the shields).

My first run of 101 boot combines earned me 4 skill ups with all the same situation. Wunshi for 450 Strength, +15% mod gloves and working from a base skill of 269 unmodded to stop at 273. Meldstone combine got me skill up 274 yesterday as well and I'm back to farming up another 200 Tae Ew bloods now for my next run. Slow but steady. Roughly 220 plat or so per combine with 800ish trib each. (I happened to be "lucky" enough to be trib broke when I started farming these).

I know sickles are the more logical choice given costs involved but I honestly can't stand the subcombines anymore. I know that I have a TON facing me for the other skills runs to 300.