Alternative thoughts to raise smithing?

[Devilcharm]

Had a really bad run with the RNG on my rogue making some "of pure" augs, so I ended up buying 4 discordant scoriae's about 4 days ago leaving me with 11K plat left over and I accidently used it on my already mounted kyanite of minor sundering instead of the unmounted one to sell it... but that is a different story.

So I finally started playing with my new Drakkin warrior I rolled when the expansion came out, but never played it till 3 days ago. I had enough left over gear saved to get it's STR to a decent level unbuffed. 239, just a simple storm strength maxxes it to 255.
So I started off doing all abysmal sea quests to get it's tradeskills to 54, then did store bought stuff to get all to 122 on the first day with the exception of tailoring (I have no leftover low end tailoring material, though I do got a buncha mid range stuff).
I made crystalwing sewing kits to 162, fine plate bracers to 165, enchanted velium bits to 201, then experts gear to 214 on the second day with leftovers. Third day I logged in my main to farm to shadowscream stuff and did the luclin quest with it for my drakkin. Today I started doing the shadowscream boots and got my smithing to 235 respectively, and will continue to do so till 267 which I approximate 2 more days of farming.

Problem comes in after 267. With my plat gone the way of pony express on those black gold inlays, I cant buy magnetics or make MCS's till I get more platinum saved up, which will be a long time I think. Being I have a main as a mage I can farm tradeskill componants like mad hell (as evidenced with the 214-235 for shadowscream in one day).

But what else can I easily farm to increase smithing? I tried farming in Maidens Eye a little earlier and it was just insane amounts of adds of dogs, skellies, aliens, and ghosts while trying to farm essences of darkness (though I did manage 4 stacks) at the same time as swirling shadows to be a viable option to get to 295 making black acrylia stuff. However the drop rate of Akheva blood is unacceptable to make that a viable option to 300.

Is the componants for Yttrium Steel sheets something that is easily farmable with acceptable drop rates? I know the yttrium ore itself is cake, in The Deep I can easily handle 8 mobs at once. But I never seen any of the other componants drop other than shissar blood (which I have 5 stacks stockpiled from farming shissar scales).

If Yttrium steel sheets is not a good alternative method to 300, what else is there thats doable? Masters gear is not a good choice as it requires piles of gravel which is very rare in my experience.
My mage is elemental flagged so I can farm PoP stuff that trivs at 335. Does anyone have any experince farming that stuff? I never soloed in the EP's before, but that was short of a 2.0 raid 7 levels ago since I was last there before I got into tradeskills.
Or any other methods to bridge the gap to 300 that can be "feasible" in a short amount of time.

[Queletan]

As far as yttrium sheets go the fungoid sap is really the limiting factor in my experience. It drops from the mushies on the far side of the chasm in the deep (on the way to where yttrium drops), but it is a really rare drop (I think when I was farming them for weapons back in the day we were getting one about every 10-15 kills).

I used to duo in PoEarth back in the day, but drop rate and the number needed to make 1 item make it restrictive (do chain not plate if you do these). Gravel is definitely out as something to farm.... aside from MCSs, these are the only other things I can think of:

Magnetic Armor (doesn't get you the whole way), takes a fair number of drops
Bazu Armor (ditto Magnetic) - Might be able to farm WoS more easily though
Seals (If you've done the quest) - Not sure where the steels drop, and each one takes a Vial of Purified Mana
Nightmare Armor (295) - A bit easier to farm than Elemental but again, it takes a number of drops
Tae Ew stuff (295) - The chain armor requires Vial of Distilled Mana which is a bit pricey. The shields take the iksar cultural temper (restrictive part here is iksar blood - usually gotten from the necros in OS) so they're a little better cost wise. I might recommend this route if you want to go a farmed route.
Black Acrylia (Again VoDM here)
Hurricane Armor - annoying to farm, but again probably easier than Elemental

If you're firm on farming drops to smith with (I'm presuming you're a 75 Mage based on your comments), I would go Tae Ew shields/Nightmare to 295, then maybe hurricane/yttrium sheets? or just save up crushed diamond dusts for Masters augments? Really unless you're a class that uses Yttrium for its Masters armor, there's no easy farming path. If you can destroy the Deep that well, I'd be inclined to see if people on your server are buying bricks, and just sell them.

Q

[Devilcharm]

Yeah my main is a 75 mage DoN/Demi raid geared (for those that think plat is easy for high end, think again, it costs me 4K to remove every aug I have if I get a gear upgrade). I am doing smithing on him too, but I am torn. Get his smithing up with 1 brick yttrium to 290. Or use it for the drakkin since HIE market is saturated with cultural doing sheets.

Akheva bloods drop like mad puppies in VT, but I cant seem to get a group to go there on a XP/Farm run with the release of TSS. I tried soloing but it was difficult at best with the mad ads and getting the key to enter the castle was a royal PITA on which I had to zone out 5 times before I got the kill. I was getting one blood per 4-6 kills the last time I was there trying to farm clickies with some other coa or better geared people.

I never thought of Nightmare. That is a easy zone on which to solo in, I was only soloing there for nightmare silk which has a fairly decent drop rate. I suppose I can switch over to the mobs that drop smithing stuff, be a change of pace. Thanks for the idea, I'll have to try it out.

Now I dont know if the RNG was being nice to me on molten ore, but it seemed to have a decent drop rate comparable to nightmare silk in PoN. The fire mephit blood was a little more uncommon, but I did manage to get 12 of them in about 1 hours time. Is this a typical drop rate in PoFire? Or was I just lucky? I had to log for a emergency before I can spend any quality time there.
While I do have 64 crushed diamond dusts saved, my warrior is only level 15 so it is a long ways off from doing the masters augment quest So that kinda X's the whole thing out.


Funny how a bad run of inlays ruined my plan on magnetics/MCS in just under a hour. Lol

[Queletan]

Oh, one other note I forgot about Black Acrylia weapons - they're all lore... so it's kind of a pita to have to sell/tribute each one as you make them.

If you do decide to try yttrium sheets, just remember that you have to farm the bricks (deep), fungoid sap (deep), meteor dust (grey), Shissar Blood (Ssra Temple), and Shik'nar Ichor (Fungus). You might spend a day or two comparing the rate per combine between that and the stuff for Tae Ew Shields - Tae Ew blood has a 1 per 3-4 drop rate, Froglok and Sarnak blood are both really common, and Iksar blood you usually get 1 per clearing in OS (the only problem being that there are only 4 necros there, so you're looking at some downtime between kills (maybe farming Nodding Blue Lillys for Alchemists?).

Q

[Eleena Transient]

Considering the 210p per combine for tae ew chain (from the distilled mana), you almost might as well do MTS and save yourself the farm time.

Also, nightmare stuff requires an Emblem per piece, which takes an enchanted brick, which takes a 210p distilled mana also.

[Queletan]

Good points... its been a while since I've done anything but DoN stuff... rusty ol' brain

Q