Need some advice..smithing 212 and beyond

[Lilandraa]

Been smithing for a about 2 years now, was serious at the beginning then sluffed off. (kicking myself for not getting to 250 with FS before "the changes") Have a skill of 212 and thinking of seriously boosting it to 250 now.

Money is and isn't a big issue, no farming of materials is. I did my fair share of farming materials for baking and tailoring and smithing already, don't want to do it again. Been doing some DE cultural armor for friends, not one skill up

Guess what I am asking is....is mistletoe cutting sickles the way to go? I have searched thru the recipes several times and this is the only thing I come up with where I don't have to go farm stuff and will raise me to 250.

Thanks in advance for any advice I get

Lil

[Myrron]

Mistletoe if money is very plentiful.

Shadowscream if you want to go cheap and pray you don't go LD.

Acrylia plate might be a good mix. If you farm the windstones and buy the rest in the bazaar, it might not be too painful. The temper here is usually the main bottleneck.

Just some thoughts for you.

--Myrron

[Koutarou]

Without comment, my skillup rates since 210:

Acrylia 0 in 20+ tries

Sickles 1 in 40+ tries

Shadowscream 25 in 306 tries (1 skillup per 12.25)

Yeah, yeah, I know, statistically insignificant sample size for the first 2.

[amphitryon001]

I have been progressing using cultural plate to 237

went with enchanted bracers
then imbued enchanted bracers
then to imbued/enchanted BPs

I liked using DE cultural as there are so many constants..just means hanging around a lot with shawomen and wood elves in OoT

i did my runs in lots of 100 combines

now that im 237, ill consider doing sickles..i dont consider camping sistes/shadow men to be all that painful (specialy when i can run a circuit between WC, LS, Nek, The swamp (thanks PoP) and nail ALL the main shadowmen camps)..and sisters in OoT pop fast..als make some change off those stupid belts they drop.

--

acrylia - not horrid..tho hate trying to get temper components
shadowscream - screw it..not worth the hassle imho
sickles - not worth the hassle or expense untill you at a higher skill..least at 237 i have a chance of making enuff to profit from them.

[xaanru]

I'd go with sickles. I recently hit 208 skill, and decided to make a run of sickles.

Out of 16 attempts, I got 5 sickles and a skillup. I know this is not statistically significant, but I was happy with it. Since sickles still sell for 2200pp+ on my server, I came out ahead cashwise. The only real problems with sickles is the subcombines, and the amount of free space you need to do a run of any size, and the fact you need a bankroll of about 20k for materials, if you want to do a sizable run.

I highly recommend moving as much stuff out of inventory to an alt before starting, and make sure you have 8 10 slot bags, or as close as you can get.

Acrylia, while it was one of the items I used to get TO 208, is too rare to use for skilling up. Depending on race, old cultural may be viable, and I would do both as materials are available. However, sickles can be done EN MASSE, with no farming. If you want to do 200 combines, and and have a big enough bank account, you can. The only non directly storebought item is the imbued emeralds. Of course, finding a lvl 29+ tunare druid or cleric is not much challenge, and even at 5pp per gem, plus buying them a KEI, the cost isn't too high for you, and they can make money faster than they would porting D

Of course, since I HAVE an alt druid of tunare, its even easier for me. I plan to do sickles as my main skillup path from this point on.

[Nandiar]

i got 28 skillups in 650 combines on shadowscream which is about one per 23 combines so it's not as quick for everyone as one per 12- 13

[Kethaniel]

I wonder if one of you is the jerk who has recently ruined the sickle market on 7th hammer. Some lamer started using sickles for skills up, at least that is the only reason i can think that he would show up with 20+ sickles at a time and sell them for 1000pp. A number of others were selling them for a decent price of 1800 to 2200. So if others are thinking of making sickles for skills, have some consideration for your fellow tradesmen. When someone plumets the market like that it just hurts us all.

I have a skill of 250 without a geerlok and I am lucky to get 50 percent success rate. Add in the failures on sub combines and it costs me about 800 pp a sickle. Sure I could sell my sickle for 1000 pp too, but it isn't even worth my effort. I just hope that someday, someone finds his little niche in the economy and screws him over.

Kethaniel

[kassan]

People can sell there combines for what they like, it keeps the market healthy and gives people competition. If you are not making a huge profit on sickles then move to something else.

I was selling sickles for trade price, around 800pp or just giving them away as I don't need them and was using them for skill ups, then people started asking me for them for the Sol Earring so I went back to shadowscream. But I am a 65 warrior and 64 cleric combo so farming the ingrediants are not a problem apart from Swirling Shadows.

[Kingbobb]

Money is an issue for me. I've been skilling up mostly on human cultural (Freeport) since 180. With a platinum reserve of about 4K, that just about covers a good burn of 30-50 combines, less now that I'm into breastplates. I supplement my burns with shadowscream (as I gather no drops on 2 different characters to make the orbs, then use what shadows I get during a shade silk collection run), acrylia plate (although cloaks are now trivial, so that path is running out) and Heraldic armor (human blue diamond stuff, but this only rarely).

Until the acrylia plate market fell through the basement, I could count on selling 1-3 pieces a week at about 2K each. With the market now stagnant as lots of others are selling it, I've had to farm various places to raise supplemental cash.

If I had an endless supply of money, I think I'd still go with Freeport Cultural, as I can buy everything but seaweed in the bazaar, and seaweed is fished faster than any other component. Sickles would be my second choice, only for the reason that for each combine you have to have three non-stacking items per final combine. But if you're serious about reaching 250, and you have money to burn, sickles is the only store-bought method of doing it.

[xaanru]

I wonder if one of you is the jerk who has recently ruined the sickle market on 7th hammer.

Nope, not I. As I said, I've done ONE run, made 5. Selling them for 2200pp each. Plan to make money doing this, as everyone else wants 2200 or more also.

Money is an issue for me. I've been skilling up mostly on human cultural (Freeport) since 180. With a platinum reserve of about 4K, that just about covers a good burn of 30-50 combines, less now that I'm into breastplates

sell your successes. I've been doing human cultural as part of my skillup path since the day FS trivialed. I try to get gems to do at least 4 or 5 imbues, then make a full visible set of each. I have a deal with a friend, to sell the results for me, for a 20% commission. Keeps me from filling up my trader on just cultural. I sell the stuff pretty quickly at a pricing schedule of 150/300/500. This means my cut is 120/240/400. This is a TON more than I get selling back to merchants. I'd actually estimate that I've MADE 10k or so off human imbued field plate armor.

OH, btw I usually try to make a set of rodcet, rallos, ero marr, and karana armor, as the gems are not so expensive, and they sell pretty well.

I only make the mith marr, bertox, and Inny armor to order, and my prices reflect the more expensive gems.

[Kingbobb]

The E'Ci warrior/plate market seems to me to be severly depressed. Acrylia breastplates are sitting untouched at 1200 currently. I've sold a few RZ Field Plate at prices about where you hold them, but since I need the funds to be more liquid than that, I only sell 3-5 pieces out of a 40-60 item burn. I have a pocket ogre shaman, but not easy access to other imbued gems. I'll look into other options, though, and see what looks like it would move.