Mistletoe Cutting Sickle Questions

[Beaumont72]

Hey guys. I've read several threads on here about raising Smithing, and it seems the real sticking point comes around skill level 222 (after you are done with EVB's). I was going to try and do the Sickles to level up to at least 280. I have the money to buy everything, about 200k, and I actually have a lot of Dust of Tunare left over from making Solstice Robes for skilling up Tailoring. My question is, once you make the Blade, Hilt, and Pommel, are they stackable? Can I just make a bunch of each and then do the final combines later? Also, what is the average amount of combines (with a 380 Wisdom and Strength) it will take me to get up there? Any other suggestions you guys have would be MUCH appreciated!

Thanks!!

[Clamford]

Blade, Pommel and Hilt DO NOT stack, unfortunately. When I did them, I had 8 empty bags to work with, and I made 10-20 of each item, did my combines, and transferred successes to an alt who had more dust/essence/stuff for my next batch.

Get your STR to 400 or above, and you never fail the first check. Its worth it. I think I spent under 200k to go from 227-279 skill. Many subcombines, but a reasonable path, I found. I also didn't bother to go above 279, as I managed very good success rates on my GM DoN armor that that level (292 modified). Good luck.

[Kaalen]

I'm not sure that 200K will get you as far as you want to go. IIRC (and I may not) each combine costs approx 300pp, so you would get about 650-700 combines with that. If you succeed every 20 combines (which is probably realistic at the lower skill levels, more like 30 at higher levels) that means you will get 30-35 skill-ups. You may be able to sell some of them to recoup some costs too.

Have you considered shadowscream? It takes a lot of farming, but it's dead easy and dirt cheap and will take you to 267. You could then save your 200K for post-267 smithing.

Also, beware - the devs have stated that the trivs for shadowscream and sickles will be nerfed - and it may happen anytime in the near future.

Kaalen
66 cleric (and 266 smith - can't seem to squeeze out that last shadowscream skill-up )

[Beaumont72]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'm at 226 currently and have enough stuff ready for about 330 combines of sickles. I've got my strength at 409 and Wisdom at 380. I'll give these a go and see how it turns out!

[mewkus]

If you've gotten your Bertox flag (grummus, carprin, bertox), you can do the cleansed breastplate to 227 at about 1 or 2 plat per attempt. Pretty much all it requires is a bunch of running around PoK (if you can gate, bind yourself at top of library and lev down elevator shaft and run to forge, then gate and repeat).

[oerin trubble]

I used sickles to skill up averaging 1 skill point per 20 combines. It was good also in that I max'd tribute on most of my toons with 1300 trib points per sickle.
I stopped at 288 skill level when it was rumored that the trivial on sickles was to be reduced.
I recently decided to go for 300 but things are no longer as good.

80 combines and not 1 skillup. Anybody notice similar or is the RNG just getting me back for some earlier good runs?

I don't mind putting a few PP into it, but that many with no reward is too much to swallow. 32k PP for nothing.

[Ilona]

I stopped at 288 skill level when it was rumored that the trivial on sickles was to be reduced.
I recently decided to go for 300 but things are no longer as good.

80 combines and not 1 skillup. Anybody notice similar or is the RNG just getting me back for some earlier good runs?

At 288 skill it is not unusual at all to have a run of 80 combines with no skillup. Except maybe if you're doing Grandmaster items, since they should have a higher chance to skill up on. Even then I would expect at least one run of over 100 combines in the high 200's.