Want to make sure I've got this straight

[Xenephex]

I haven't done any serious tradeskilling since pre-bd cultural, but I've been farming to save up for some Stormguard armor for my dwarf warrior and it occurred to me that maybe I should just invest some of what I've saved and skill up instead.

1) My str is maxed, though I still need to spend 3 more points in planar power. I notice that when I get a Wunshi, my str goes to 400. Will Wunshi almost give me some 'over-strength'? Is there a point of diminishing returns on str or will it always help with skill-ups?

2) I can farm my own velium and get to 222 with EVB. I have a couple hundred K in the bank - I don't want to spend it all, but I'm wondering how much it would cost me to do like 18 points with sickles? More or less?

3) I don't have access to anything better than a regular geerlok, but I don't have any problem putting 18 aa's into smithing mastery. I've been reading threads and it appears that if I get to about 240 base plus the geerlok, plus the aa's, that it's going to be about as good as it gets in terms of success rates for DoN cultural - specifically the bp and legs. Is that correct? How would I do on the other pieces at just 222 plus geerlok plus aa's? Is that pretty close to max success rate?

Thanks in advance for any information and guidance.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

1) Wunshi raises the strength and dex caps by 85. At 400 smithing, you have maximum chance of skillup. More won't help.

2) Depending on your source of imbued emeralds, somewhere between 130k and 180k probably.

3) There's a calculator link on the main webpage that will answer all questions of this type.

[Ishwar]

1) Wunshi raises the strength and dex caps by 85. At 400 smithing, you have maximum chance of skillup. More won't help.

2) Depending on your source of imbued emeralds, somewhere between 130k and 180k probably.

3) There's a calculator link on the main webpage that will answer all questions of this type.

1) There is diminishing returns way before 400. After 200 str, you only affect skill up rates on failures. Though at 222 making sickles you will fail a good bit, so getting close to 400 would be nice.

2) In that range with good str, you ar looking at 8% chance to skill up, so 13 combine pr skill or so, at around 300pp per combine, thats roughly 4k per skill.

3) the calculator will only give you the succes chance, it does not take the item specific success cap into account. The 386 triv DoN cultural items are currently bellieved to be capped at 70%, so you are right 240 skill and mastery3 should do.

[Xenephex]

Thank you both for the information.

MCS will be way too expensive for me; I just don't want to put all my plat into it, so I'll have to look at either acrylia or shadowscream and try to figure out which one will be less painful.

I used the calculator along with the posted success caps for the cultural pieces and it looks like 258 with BSM 3 will get me to those rates, so that is 246 with a geerlok. I'm sure those last 24 points are going to be a lot harder than the first 222.

I'm at 197 at the moment and not sure I can look at another Tizmak today but hope to be there before the end of the week and will start on either shadowscream or acrylia gathering before then.

Thanks again.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

If you go the shadowscream route you will actually make money. Since it costs practically nothing if you farm your own swirling shadows and the coin loot isn't bad on twilight sea shades. Its also very easy farming... though somewhat boring. Learn how to manipulate the Holloshade Moor war.

Never did a single piece of acrylia myself... it looked too hard to farm the windstones and essences to me. I could be wrong.

[catpower]

Qaladar is right, shadowscream is very cheap, although all the farming will make you see why scream is part of the name

You probably will not need to worry about manipulating the Hollowshade War. The owlbears and wolves seem to auto switch every 45 mins or so, if you just allow the opposing team to win when they attack (they are called fierce xxxx). This is very handy of course!

Good luck with your smithing.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

That only happens when someone has started the war and manipulated it so that grimlings are eliminated hehe.

[Xenephex]

1)
2) In that range with good str, you ar looking at 8% chance to skill up, so 13 combine pr skill or so, at around 300pp per combine, thats roughly 4k per skill.

(above quote referring to making MCS)

I'm re-thinking this. At level 70, even as a warrior, I can make 5K an hour minimum farming stuff for resale, and that's pretty conservative. So that is no more than one hour of farming effort per 13 combines of MCS (not counting all the combines required).

I spent a couple of hours yesterday in twilight sea just testing the waters (so to speak) of farming temper components for acrylia. I tried both on the islands and in the hidden valley, and while I'm sure I could refine my methods with practice, it is clear to me that I am not going to get 13 combines worth of temper components in an hour, and that's not even counting the acrylia.

Maybe shadowscream would be a lot faster, but I'm guessing that it's not. So, I'm thinking it may make a whole lot more sense for me to just farm for plat and spend the profits on MCS combines than it would to spend the time farming.

I have found a ready supplier of imbued emeralds at 10 plat per imbue over the cost of the emerald - maybe that is high and I can do better, but it seems reasonable to me, and will add, I guess, about 30 plat per combine to the numbers, but still doesn't seem all that bad to me.

I figure I can skill up to 148 in pottery using my veteran rewards for a half an hour a day, and get brewing up to a reasonable level the same way and I should be ok for all the sub-combines. I take it that other than the plat, the biggest hassle with MCS is that the 3 main sub-combines don't stack?

Anyway, it seems more cost-effective to go this way than to try acrylia or shadowscream.

Or maybe I'm just lazy.

[mewkus]

That only happens when someone has started the war and manipulated it so that grimlings are eliminated hehe.

Heh, I don't think there's been a time when I've zone in and seen any grimlings up. I suspect they get wiped real soon after server up and no one bothers killing the war reset guy. There've been a couple times when I've zoned in and either the bears or wolves have controlled all 3 camps, in which case I've had to reset the war and wipe the grimlings. But for the most part people just leave the wolves and bears toggling control over various camps.

If you've gotten your Bertox flag, you can do the Aid Grimmel breastplate to 227 for real cheap (somewhere on the order of about 5p per attempt).

[Pootle]

Remember with the Aid Grimel quest (if you have the correct Planar access) you can get from 220 to 227 doing the cleaning the BP part of the quest over and over......

Costs next to nothing,

Good Luck with your skilling.

[Xenephex]

An update, just in case anyone is interested in the numbers:

I have so far done 222 to 251 on MCS. I have done 320 final combines to get those 29 points, which I think means I've been slightly on the lucky side. All combines were done with a geerlok and STR at 400 (with a Wunshi).

I've been selling back the MCS at 200 pp each in the bazaar and they sell very quickly at that price (I auction them with their tribute value). I've succeeded on at least 3 out of 4 attempts average (with BSM 3 and Salvage 3). I tributed 60 of the MCS myself, but if I had sold those 60 instead, by my calculations this has cost me a total of 50 to 55 K so far, with the MCS sellbacks. I did not keep exact figures but it was certainly less than 60K, so no more than 3K per skillup overall. Much better than I expected.

I plan to keep going to at least 254, as that appears to be the maximum success point for some of the combines with a geerlok and BSM 3.

BTW, I set up for 200 final combines for my first run (3 backpacks each of essence, dust and temper) and I promise you I would NEVER do that again. Since then I have been doing them in sets of 40.

I got impatient when I was at 241 and decided to give it a shot with the 3 drake scales I happened to have at the time. I tried 3 one sheet items (arms, gloves, bracers) and ended up with arms and gloves. I actually failed twice but salvaged the sheet on one of the attempts and succeeded the next time. So I pretty much lucked out on that too.

On the other hand, I've had those two items up for sale on my trader for a week at 5K less than anyone else and they haven't sold. They are items that my warrior needs so I can equip them if it comes to that, but I had hopes of being able to make and sell some of this stuff before I started making my own. I can see where it probably would have been smart to have 500k to a million plat in the bank before I started this, but on the other hand I probably wouldn't have bothered if I had that much. As it is I have 100K beside the value of those two Stormguard pieces and so not much prospect of doing anything with it unless I find some customers. So sort of stuck at the moment.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

[Rawckett]

Call me a gnome, but what is MCS?

[Xenephex]

MCS = Mistletoe Cutting Sickle