Advice

[Quaras]

So I am stuck at 227 smithing and put my smithing hammer down around the time of Aid Grimel. I have been working on Tailoring and finally hit 300 and now am switching over to Smithing, but am really not sure what to do. I have collected around 40 indium ore, 40 rhenium ore and have maybe 70 cobalt ores. Also have 35 sunshard pebbles and some scattered sunshard ores. Also maybe 10 tungstens. I have not yet braved the shadowscream quests, but think I may have to for the smithing quest so dont really know where to start and in what order. Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

[Xenephex]

I would use up whatever Indium you have and then go do Shadowscream. I find farming for Shadowscream irritating in the extreme, but it's still going to be much, much faster than farming for any of the new cultural ores. Once you have maxed Shadowscream then start in with Rhenium, etc. etc.

[Zaltak]

I'd stick with the pebbles and the new ores IMO.Unless your an AE'ing classs farming shadowscream will drive you nuts.Might look at acrylia armors but you will be spending alot of time farming windstones.:-)

[Aldier]

Another option, though is a bigger pita as far as bag space than Shadowscream is farming Steppes Ore. You need files... lots of files... and make Smithing Ceramic Clay. It trivials at 262 and is another alternative to help break up the monotony that is cultural or shadowscream.

Steppes Ore you can usually find fairly cheap in the bazaar. Or if you hunt the gnolls in the Steppes you will get both the steppes ore and the ores for cultural.

If you want, MCS still could take you to 250 if your looking for a vendor path.

[Quaras]

I am a druid so not really the best of AE classes, but can manage if necessary. On Bristlebane, the bazaar has nothing in terms of ores so may have to do some Shadowscream and I am also annoyed because the smithing trophy has one shadowscream piece to it so I may be forced to hang out in Shar Vahl for hours on end...

[Zopharr]

The two questions I have are – how much do you want to spend, and how fast do you want to skill up?

If money is no object and you simply want to skill up as fast as possible, look for sunshard pebbles, steppes ore, indium ore, bondend loam. etc. in bazaar.

If you aren’t really concerned about how fast you skill up and just want to have a ‘way ahead,’ I’d focus your normal exp hunting in the Steppes to get Steppes Ore (get you to 262) and then humanoids (TBS, for example) for bonded loam, rhenium, tungsten, etc.

If you want to skill up fast but not spend much money, then I’d say get another AE class to help and go to town in Hollowshade Moor to do shadowscream. Doing the quests to get the hammer, etc. for shadowscream takes an hour or so. Once you figure out how to manipulate the Hollowshade war (pretty easy – do a google search and you’ll find a few guides), with one character tagging and another one AEing you’ll be able to get material for 40-60 combines an hour pretty easily. That will get you to 268. Then you can work on rhenium and tungsten.

I’d also look at setting up a buyer for rhenium and especially bonded loam, if you can. I can routinely get items in buyer mode for half or a third of what they cost in bazaar. You can use the bonded loam to make intricate armor, which has pieces that will get you to 300 – and you have a five percent bonus chance to skill up as well. So if you can get bonded loams at a reasonable price, that can greatly speed up your smithing. I did that with Zopharr for smithing before the cultural changes (using crushed diamond dust) and it helped him get from 280 to 295 relatively painlessly.

Garshok

[Gaell Stormracer]

I second the buyer approach - it worked pretty well in getting my main to 300. I generally try to match the best offer price with my buyer, getting into "buying wars" is silly.

[Quaras]

Ok trying the Buyer approach on indium to start with and will see how it works. Thanks for all the advice. One happy point to note is that I dont need to do shadowscream for the smithing trophy at this level which is a relief so will try the buyer/steppes ore/bazaar approach unless it becomes cost prohibitive.

[Aldier]

When you get a bit higher in smithing as well, based on your sig, you could look at Sunshard Ore. It would finish off your JC making the templates and could be used for smithing armor. The first subcombine is trivial at 290, but the templates are 303-330. And the armor is 303-330.

Another suggestion, but those would be for the end of your run. Pebbles probably a better starting point for sunshard combines.

[Zopharr]

Sunshard ore is good for combines. My impression, however, is that on lots of servers it is more expensive that cobalt/tungsten, as it can be used for so many tradeskills. So - assuming plat is an issue (ignore if it is not) - it may be better to sell any sunshard you get hunting and use the plat to buy cobalt and tungsten. The price gap has narrowed on Quellious, but you can usuually buy two or more combines of cobalt/tungsten for the price of one sunshard ore smithing combine.

Garshok

[Aldier]

I agree and on my server, CT, Sunshard still appears to be about 1.5-2x the cost of Cobalt, but noticing he is a 293 JC, the suggestion was he could attempt to kill 2 birds with 1 stone and finish both off.

Also, since the Sunshard Ore is 303-330 smithing combines, those would not be the first thing to start with. Collecting up the sunshard for later use may yield some attempts later.

At 227, Sunshard Pebbles are a good option.