How best to procede with gm armor

[mulleteer]

Hi all

I am a 251 smith with a 15% mod gloves (289) modified. Salvage 1.
I tried gm bp for the first time last night went 1/2. Not really a large enough sample to base anything off of.
I have 240k in the bank plus i can sell the bp mayber for 115 to 120k. Scales on my server typically sell for 14-15k.
I could make sickles to fully skill up sickles go for abou 210pp on my server.

I have read the thread on gm bp/legs succes and failure and wondering what peoples opion on how to best succeed.
I am going to get salvage 3. However with respect to skilling up anymore
I am at a loss. Do I skill fully up. Do I work on black smith master. Do I do both? or just one.

Mulleteer Combover 70 sk

[Rhumba]

Hi all

I am a 251 smith with a 15% mod gloves (289) modified. Salvage 1.
I tried gm bp for the first time last night went 1/2. Not really a large enough sample to base anything off of.
I have 240k in the bank plus i can sell the bp mayber for 115 to 120k. Scales on my server typically sell for 14-15k.
I could make sickles to fully skill up sickles go for abou 210pp on my server.

I have read the thread on gm bp/legs succes and failure and wondering what peoples opion on how to best succeed.
I am going to get salvage 3. However with respect to skilling up anymore
I am at a loss. Do I skill fully up. Do I work on black smith master. Do I do both? or just one.

Mulleteer Combover 70 sk

I would avoid mastery like the plague until we get an answer as to how it's bugged. People without mastery are having much better luck.

[Leana]

I would avoid mastery like the plague until we get an answer as to how it's bugged. People without mastery are having much better luck.

I have smithing mastery 3 and am very happy with it. I find it to be working very well for me. I also have salvage 3, and despite the many complaints by others that it only returns crap have had upwards of 10 drake scales returned from failed combines.

Remember, anyone can have a bad string of failures, especially if you have a significant possibility of failure. I'd much rather have a 70% chance to make an item than 40% chance to make an item that will cost me 30-50k when I fail.

Your milage may vary.

Leana Soulwarden
Blacksmith
Inevitable Storm
The Seventh Hammer

[Rhumba]

What is your modified skill? and what is your sucess rate on BPs/Legs?

[Phantron]

I have been making GM armor from 250+15% mastery 3 to 280+15% and there is absolutely no evidence that having a high skill or mastery 3 makes anything worse.

Now since GM bp/leg seems to have a very high elevated chance to fail it is possible that higher skill/mastery 3 doesn't improve your chance of making them, but it doesn't make it any worse.

[Leana]

What is your modified skill? and what is your sucess rate on BPs/Legs?

I personally have succeeded in making 76 grandmaster items in 124 attempts, for a grand total of 61.29% That includes starting at 250 with no mastery through 266 with 3 mastery. Since I didn't track mastery vs succ/attempts, that data is lost, but I am certainly enjoying more successes now than I was at 250 with no mastery. When I get home and can play with the numbers more, I'll plot a trend and be able to respond better to what my improvement on combines has been. For reference, 117 of those combines were grandmaster BP/Legs or BP/Leg symbols, so I'm not doing the easy stuff.

On the BPs and Leg combines (you know, the ones you flinch when you click the button because it eats three drake scales), I am currently 5/6 on success/attempts.

A member of my guild (270+ skill/mastery 3) did a few tailoring combines for me the other night. He informed me at the beginning of the session that he was going on 35 consecutive gm combines with no failures. He promptly failed three times in a row, and in all went 4 of 9 on combines. He was highly distressed at the end of that session.

All combines made with 5% augmentation. I'll leave it to you to pick over the details.

***Edit*** Oh, one other point, which is definitely worthy of note. I have gotten exactly one skill up on grandmaster armor from all of those combines. Considering that there is now a (quote) 10% chance (/quote) for a skill up on GM combines, I am certainly not enjoying that benefit. If I were the suspicious type, I'd be asking if that really went in on the build the GMs stated it did.

While the mastery appears to be working fine for me, the skill up formula does not.

Leana Soulwarden
Blacksmith
Inevitable Storm
The Seventh Hammer

[Xulan]

I have almost the same success rate as Leana with higher skill (Leana's is most likely higher due to a greater number of symbol combines). I've always had mastery 3 since my first GM combine and did not do my first GM combine until 297 (311 with 5%). I got to 300 on GM combines.
(from my data http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/show...0&postcount=53)

16/31 bp & legs = 52%
24/45 all armor = 53%

21/33 bp & leg symbols = 64%
35/54 all symbols = 65%

59/99 all armor & symbols= 60%

There is either a bug or a failure modifier as this success is not consistent with the standard success formula. Not only that, but I have practically the same success rate as someone who is 36 points (with 5% mod) lower in skill. The calculator shows that she should have 70.5% success rate for bp/legs (386 trivial) and I should have 88.5% success for the bp/legs.

What has stood out in the data collection topic is people with either lower than 300 skill and Mastery 3 or with higher skill (~300ish) and no mastery having incredible success rates (though mostly small samples).

[Angelsyn]

I'm working without any Smithing Mastery...

I did not start working on GM armour until I had 290 unmodified skill... though with a +15% item you could probably start at around 270-ish skill.

I have made something like 3 BPs, 3 Leggings, 2 Vambs, 1 Gloves, 2 Helms, 1 Boots & 1 Bracer... no failures, so far.

[Rasky]

This is from a slightly foggie memory.

I haven't made a lot of attempts at BPs/Legs. I have +15% gloves. Base Skill is now 266 (modified is 305/6 area). Salvage 2.

With SM2 and with < 300 modified skill I it took exactly 5 scales to make 3 BPs - 3/6 with Salvage 2 saving a sheet each time. To make the BP symbols I think I was 3/5 at around 250 raw tailoring skill using hides with no tailoring mastery.

On plate legs I was 1/1 on the legs using smithing, and 1/2 on the symbol using tailoring.

I've also made a couple Chest symbols for other people and I think the cost has been 3 scales for 2 successes.

I then got BM3 recently and upped my base skill to 266 to get the 305/6 modified skill.

This weekend I made legs and I was 1/1 on legs but 1/3 on the symbol (total cost was 6 scales). I blew 3 hides (0/3) at first attempting to make the symbol with tailoring at 263 modified (251 + 5%). I've had fairly good success with doing the symbols with tailoring prior to this attempt this weekend. With a modified Jewelry skill in the 290's area I failed making one of the GM waters for these attempts too (skill level is 94 on them).

Wondering if this was due to the post patch RNG being crappy.

Rasky
Quell