Can some one clear this up for me.

[Bedazzlerr]

I started smiting on my warrior to get him better armor and am at 159 (warrior is Leel 80 in a very casual family guild so high end stuff is out). We have one ogre gm on server and his prices is insane so figured be cheaper to level up. Im stuck now as guild shows shadowscream and im an ogre. I read soemwhere you coould level up on patterns or something. Is the an easier path as I really would like to get him in culturaled armor. By my current calculation fo prices it woud cost me armor X 7 = 2,800,000 plat and sublime X 600 = 4,200,000 plat for a total of 7 million. I dream of 50 to 100k so this is out of reach for me.

[Tawko]

I would use visor templates to skill up. Rubicite trivials near 200, then you can use higer level metals such as indium / tungsten / cobalt. I may have left out one or 2 types of ores, but just play around with it.

[Zolina]

Don't buy elegant/sublime armor, you can't afford it. A better option would be to farm cobalt ore and soluble loam to make elaborate/eminent oe elaborate/exalted armor, which is not much worse statwise but a heck of a lot easier to afford. I don't know if your guild farms bazu stones or last bloods, but if they do, you'll have a quite respectable set of armor. From there, you can go hunting in the higher SoF zones and gradually upgrade to elegant/sublime from the porous loam etc. that drops there by making the armor yourself.

[Bedazzlerr]

No we dont farm those, have not even been in the zone to be able to yet. And i can get the books and templets from vendor I take it. This new system really drives me nuts. I have a gm jeweler and alchemist and all the changes have boggled me and now im doing armor. I have some cobalt and about 10 soluable so will keep banking it.

Also I had a barbarianthat did a littel smiting and had ot do quests to get books so could get molds, is that still the case for all races? Sorry but i am smithing dumb)

[Sylphan]

I've always thought of Shadowscream as the easy way. Far easier than what we had to do before Luclin came out. Once you learn to manipulate the three warring factions you can farm the components (it's easy at level 80).

But making patterns with Fulginate, Rubicite, and Indium ores bought in bazaar might be a good choice nowadays. They should be cheap, since they have no other use than skilling up (can't make armor or symbols from them).

[thomenthechanter]

Except of course that the bazaar hawks have bought them all and set them at the same prices as the stuff that *is* used to make actual armor pieces... either because they don't know any better, or because they do, and want to try to force the market to pay the higher cost.

::Puts on his miner's cap, and lofts a pick:: See ya later, I'm goin' minin'.

[Leana]

I couldn't stand the shadowscream path. I tried it on two separate occasions and just couldn't stand the constant farming. It was just too slow. A faster and more reliable route, providing you aren't planning on using the new cultural armor is enchanted velium bits, which will take you all the way to 222. You can choose your poison depending on your play style and farm velium in Crystal Caverns or Velkator's Lab, or you can kill the goat men in the Great Divide for velium weapons and cut them down into velium pieces. It's fast, easy, and cheap.

[lothartx]

I loved shadowscream because it was cheap and relatively mindless. Sure, enchanted velium bits can take you to 222, but shadowscream can take you to 268. And at virtually no cost. Farming he substances was pretty trivial, it was farming the shadows that was more painful. I couldn't kill fast enough to clear all the substance droppers, but the shadows are pretty much found on one small island and you need two per combine.

[Kross]

symbols are the way to go, especially the lower 200's. people sell the lower end "rare" components cheaper than the higher end commons. theres a skill up bonus on the symbols also so thats the kicker

[Unapuma]

I could easily kill fast enough that I have a long 15 minutes wait on repops of shadow. But the mobs in Hollowshade were harder. THey didn't like to chase me and I had to aggro them. Beastlord don't have any AE spells so I had to tag each one and pull to an open area for easier looting.

A few days ago when working on the shadowscream armor for the trophy quest, I spent 4 hours killing grimling invaders because the dumb wolves wouldn't move in to take over the south (already took over owlbear cave). Grimling kept trying to take over east.

4 hours wasted on the war, 5 minutes on the wolves just to make 1 lousy piece for the trophy quest.

[Bedazzlerr]

Do you have to quest for the molds now or are they all vendor and youjsut buy the books form the guys in PoK?

[Aldier]

symbols are the way to go, especially the lower 200's. people sell the lower end "rare" components cheaper than the higher end commons. theres a skill up bonus on the symbols also so thats the kicker

The skill bonus is only on Sacred and higher symbols that are high 200s and even 300/306 trivials on legs/bp.


The templates require a dropped ore and the rest is vendor sold. To make the armor, you need to do a simple quest in your home town to get the Ancestral Book of XXX Culture to make the molds for the armor. To do symbols, you need to complete a more difficult task that involves killing X number of mobs and getting impressions.

The books from the vendor in PoK (also in AS and CR) are just lists of the recipes that you can scribe to learn all of the recipes for the tradeskill UI. You can just search for what you want to make and dont have to experiment.

[Zaltak]

Shadowscream will be a problem for you being an Ogre due to faction issues with the quest NPC for the hammer and anvil IMO.Another idear since you said you are a GM JC is to make iron and copper conduits.They aren't too expensive but silver conduits can get pricey.The conduits can be used for smithing/tailoring/tinkering/fletching etc.Otherwise i'd do the new SoF cultural.:-)

[uncleshmoozo]

I couldn't stand the shadowscream path. I tried it on two separate occasions and just couldn't stand the constant farming. It was just too slow. A faster and more reliable route, providing you aren't planning on using the new cultural armor is enchanted velium bits, which will take you all the way to 222. You can choose your poison depending on your play style and farm velium in Crystal Caverns or Velkator's Lab, or you can kill the goat men in the Great Divide for velium weapons and cut them down into velium pieces. It's fast, easy, and cheap.

That's the hot ticket to 222 once you get to where you can do it. After that just switch to cultural templates now and use those to finish off to 300.