Help!

[Lemeril]

Well I finally got my Vah Shir beast to the point of making the lower end tailored items and will soon be starting smithing on him, but he is easy. All those shissar scales and Yittrium ore are easy farms especially with an up and coming cleric of 52 seasons and a Paladin of 46 that are both ready or very close to ready to hit the grey for leveling.

Where my problem lies is for my Main, a 70 ranger Half Elf, and my poor Froggy pally and cleric who luckily will most likely not hit 55 until February.

In the meantime I would like to work my main's smithing. Cultural = Unrealistic unless I get the time to go over to PoE and farm basilisks.

I would rather not spend every hour farming greens for drops and I would rather have something tradable, not outragoues to obtain, that I can farm to skill up.

So any ideas on this route?

[Astroshak]

How high is your ranger's smithing?

[Lemeril]

223 with BM2 and a geerlock available.

[Astroshak]

What exactly is the reason for getting high smithing with so many characters? I'm guessing its to make Grandmaster's armor for yourself.

If I'm right, I'd suggest spending some plat on getting a ton of Emeralds imbued and making Mistletoe Cutting Sickles for skill (they may or may not sell to people well, but they tribute well if they don't sell well). When not working on MCS prep, try to exp in MPG for some magnetic armor pieces to play around with. While you're there, get BSM3. But, make BSM3 (and Salvage 3 if you don't have that yet) the goal there, and make MCS your primary skilling route, because magnetic pieces aren't worth buying in baz for skill (unless you think you can sell the finished products, which drastically cuts down on the number of skill bearing combines you can make with them) and you're going to want BSM3 for the GM armor combines.

Once your skill is in the low-mid 230's and you have BSM3 and Salvage 3, then you've got a decent chance to make even the bp/leggings. Granted, it won't be the best chance, but thats the point where I started to make my own GM gear.

The only other realistic option would be to try to play the Hollowshade Moor war game, and do shadowscream. Personally, I wouldn't recommend it. MCS (especially if you have or know someone who can imbue a couple ten slot containers full of emeralds for you) are far more expensive but are far easier on the ol' sanity.

I'd suggest that you take one person (your ranger if no one else is going to be 65+ any time soon) higher than the low/mid 230's, for more reliable GM aug making.

If I'm wrong about your intent, that you merely want all of those characters to have 300 smithing just for fun, then don't stop making MCS until you're there.

For up and coming characters ... this is an easy, but somewhat pricey route. Hit Abysmal Sea for the freebie skilling to 54, and then make cultural sewing kits until you hit 160 or so (enough that with a geerlok, you're 165 or higher). Then make Enchanted Velium Bits to 222, and then cultural (if its a reasonable option) or MCS or shadowscream or maybe even BD cultural (not an option for your half elf).

MCS to the low/mid 230's is what I did with my half elf ranger - and now I've made some chain and plate armor for myself and friends, as well as making some more MCS, some magnetic, and GM augs, and I'm at 252 smithing on him now. I don't see much point in bringing it higher; sure, I fail at augs and armor sometimes, but the worst run of fails I've had was 2 fails before a success (was a guildie's plate leggings). That sort of thing is not unheard of at 300 skill (that same guildie went to a 300 smith to get the BP, and bp aug, made - and that guy failed twice before succeeding too).

[Lemeril]

To be honest I started all this to make GM gear for my ranger. After all the hassle of 140 I found a person nice enough to do the combines for 2K each so had it made.

When I went looking for Vah Shir armor = NONE on the server so I of course started running Tailoring on my beast.

As for my froggies, same problem as my vah shir beastlord so I've been working smithing.

Now why to 300? Well now I have this obsene goal to get each of the three of them to 2100 status. LOL Yes I know obsene goal is the word.

So now comes the fun part. Luckily for my frog he can wait till the february patch when "hopefully" master's cultural's will be better for frogs.

[Astroshak]

Don't need 300 for GM armor, as I said; only need 230's and the AA's (and thats a lot easier to get than 300).

[Lemeril]

Tried 230 on my beast with just wrists, failed. 239 I succeed every time on wrists but I'm scared to try anything higher.

Besides, 300 = Artisan if I get them all there for all 7 skills.

[Angelsyn]

Good mid-200's Smithing: Bazu & Magnetic armours.

Good mid-200's Tailoring: Murkglider & Feran Armours.

All of these, if you farm the supplies yourself, make for reasonable sales to help defray the overall costs of Tradeskilling.

Acrylia Chain/Plate is a fair-to-good path, as is Shadowscream... which should be child's play to farm for your Ranger. Do the quest up to Humming Orbs (or all the way) on the Ranger, then do the quest again (and again) on the other character(s). The Orbs don't stack, but they can be transferred through the shared bank. Plus, the DS clicky is really helpful in groups & soloing... especially for the level your Paladin is.

Personally, I made a bit of everything with Smithing... and am still doing the same with Tailoring.

Your Cleric (and soon your Paladin) can also go hunting in Velks for Velium & the random Crushed Diamond Dusts (save these for 270+ skill combines making Master level Augs). With the increased return on breaking down bricks/blocks, EVBs to the low-200's is an even more viable path now.