Under Review

[Bennan]

There are three skill up paths after 188 in Smithing, that I am aware of;

Cultral, Mistletoes and Shadowscream.

I am leaving out Acrylia as its not a feasible skill up path.

Mistletoe Cutting Sickles are for the very rich, to get to 250 in smithing from them, it removes alot of cash from the game. I am happy having this route in the game, as it is.

Shadowscream, is for those that don't have the money for cultral or resources. Its cheap, and you can regain any money expended from drops picked up by farming. The one change I would like to see, would be;
[list][*] Making Swirling Shadows, either no-drop or tradeable.[/list:u]

But in truth, I am generally happy with this skill up path as it is. A path I am currently going through. I would hate to see a change in place, that could unbalance this whole skill up path.

Cultral
Is unfairly balanced at the moment, some races have a cultral path others just don't. For some races, buying armour created by OTHER races, because its better is also unbalanced.
[list][*] Barbarians, Iksar, Ogres and Trolls, put something in to breach the gap between 188 to say 240's.[*] I believe with races like Ogres, its more sensible to buy the Human created armour, than the armour made by themselves.[*] Or reduce the market, all new smithed items will only be wearable by that culture's race(s). That being Dwarves = Halflings, Gnomes and Dwarves. High Elves = Wood Elves and High Elves. Humans = Humans. etc etc (yes I know that for Dwarves what I at least stated is already in the game).[/list:u]

Those are the only changes, I can think of that I would like to see. Thats my 2cp

[Liakim]

Smithing changes

I myself find myself in the same boat as Koner. I don't play alot each week, and the time I do play I spend working on my tradeskills. I am not in an uber guild, not even close - so most armors that many people think of as "easily obtained" is for me unattainable. Please don't tell me to find a better guild, I don't want to - I am quite happy in a guild that doesn't mandate raids, leveling, etc etc etc - the only mandate is to have fun. That being said, the only viable option for me is 'new cultural' (human paladin). That would at least put me somewhat in the league of all the Velious equipped peers of mine.
Cultural - very nice AC, stats, nice looking........holy crap look at that price! Dunno about you all, but 20k is way out of my price range. So, being the type of guy that thinks to himself "Why pay him to do something I can learn myself?", I set out to learn blacksmithing. This in turn has led me to master tailoring, brewing, pottery, fishing......all to aid in my blacksmithing.
Now at 195 and doing SS mostly and a few occasional 'old cultural' Freeport combines. 88 combines at current skill, no skillup (argh). I know most GM smiths want no change in smithing progression, because they are already there and don't want more people in their market....... but for those of us who play to have fun, not playing to have 1000000plat in the bank and uber phat lewt equipped, I really do wish something would be done. Let me make myself some kickass armor at 200 that is NODROP. Or fix that god-forsaken war. Or make it so wolves/owlbears will drop those stupid stones no matter where they are. Drop the NORENT off swirling shadows and make them NODROP - the other components already are. Please, do something.
I do not want to nerf smithing, nor do I want to muscle in on the GM smith's market. All I want is to be able to make myself some nice armor..... I think that would just be the greatest. "Hey nice BP! Where'd you get it?" "I MADE IT"
Oh well, enough for me. Maybe just venting more steam after 25 more SS combines with no advances......

[javalin]

Ummm. How can they nerf smithing anymore then it already is? As it stands now smithing takes 200% longer to hit 250 skill then any other tradeskill in the game. And that is a LOW estimate

Have you tried Tailoring

[kiztent]

Ummm. How can they nerf smithing anymore then it already is? As it stands now smithing takes 200% longer to hit 250 skill then any other tradeskill in the game. And that is a LOW estimate

Have you tried Tailoring

Yes.

[Rotian]

I Think One Of the Real Big Changes Should Be The Need For Chanters In Smithing... I Don't Think Anyone Will Debate The Fact That A 60 Chanter Can Make More Money With KEI And Chant Steel/Mana Vials Than They Can Pharming. Remove Some Of The Dependancy From Enchanters, That
Would Help Things.

Also, Level The Playing Field With The WIS/INT Combine Stuff. A WIS Caster Is At A Serious Disadvantage For Skill Ups Over the INT Caster. That's A Fact! (56 Cleric 208 Smith Human 2 Year Old Smith VS 62 Necro 192 Smith, Went From 0 To 178 In One Sitting 178 To 192 the Next Sitting Oh Don't Forget The 275 INT ) The Idea That A Warrior With Low INT Can't Learn To Make Armor As Well As An Enchanter Or Wizard Is Silly Considering The INT Caster Can't Even Wear The Product! It Didn't Take Me Long To Realize That My Human Cleric Was Never Going To Hit 250 In Smithing, I Could Not Only Hit 250 In Smithing, But Could Get 3aa For Crafting, Hit 250 Brewing And 250 Smith With My INT Caster By The Time The Cleric Made 210!... 400 Combines At 242 Triv Didn't Even Give A Point To The Cleric At 208... 200 Combines At 222 Took The Necro From 178 To 192. You Do The Math...

Either Way, I Really Have No Faith In SOE For Making Any Descent Decisions. After All, They Won't Even Confirm There Is Such Thing As A "Camp" In Everquest...Go Figure...

[rassy fleetfoot]

Im with Brennan on most of what he said, i would be personally thrilled if they just dropped the no rent tag off the swirling shadows and made them no drop. After farming shades for 3 or 4 hours i usually dont want or dont have time to sit and smith..but i could easily do that the next day if they didnt disappear on me.

and i would love, for wood elves to get some cultural of their own for those bards and rangers and warriors who dont want to hunt down a high elf.

[aramere]

As a ~220 smith i want smithing to be ****ed hard. I like the fact that there aren't many GM smiths around. It isn't because i want to make trillions of pps, but because i want to look back on the hundreds of hours I have put in and feel proud. However there are limits, and farming HSM/TS for 14 hours just to get one skillup is a bit extreme even for me.

If the RNG were 'fixed' and the HSM war were fixed that would go a long way towards making things better IMO.

Making swiring shadows nodrop and removing the no-rent would be a dream come true for me personally.

I agree that cultural armour/weapons needs to be looked at to 'flesh' out some races skill-up paths.

With the new PoP smithed armour that is appearing GM smiths will be in for an interesting time. I understand that for some people there will always be issues with access to tier 3/4 etc drops, however that is the nature of the game. People who are flagged for those zones will always have an advanatge just like people who are in guilds that can get the 15%mods will always have an advantage.

I may sound greedy but I don't want smithing made much easier, just a little more consistent.

[Bennan]

Thanks Rassy, thats Bennan btw hehe.

Kiztent, I don't want to turn this into a this skill is harder than that skill ( ha I suppose I am), but Smithing 200percent harder than Tailoring, is just not an accurate statement.

[Bobbun]

Here's my take:

If you don't have "old cultural" as an option (and as a halfling smith I really don't) there is indeed a skillup gap in smithing. It's either sickles or shadowscream all the way from 188 to 250. There should be something in between, and indeed there is: acrylia chain and acrylia plate form a nice stepwise progression that nicely fills most of that gap. Unfortunately, as has already been stated, it's useless for skilling up due to the incredible rarity of windstones.

My suggested fixes are somewhat reflective of what's been stated before, with some small differences.

On shadowscream, I agree with permanently disabling the Hollowshade war and making the wailing and shrieking substances drop from any owlbear or sonic wolf. I would also like to see swirling shadows made rentable, but instead of making them no drop, I'd make it so that the owlbear and wolf drops are the real bottleneck and make shadows much more common. Specifically, I'd like to see more mobs drop them, including mobs that yield experience all the way up to level 65, and the number of shadows dropped per mob commensurate with the risk taken. There's next to no difference in swirling shadows per hour in Twilight Sea and Shadeweaver Thicket, and that's ridiculous. Stats on shadowscream are fine, IMO... It's a skill up path, not really intended to be anything other than twinking armor for people who can't afford the good stuff for their twinks.

Rather than giving up on acrylia, I'd like to see something done with it. On that subject, I think it's inappropriate that the bottleneck component is the temper drops, especially with acrylia itself rare enough that it's the bottleneck in tailoring! Given the trivial level of low 200's for most acrylia armor and the fact that you can't get to 250 with it , I think the 50pp or so per combine (20pp for clear mana, plus another 30 for not getting to vendor sell two windstones, more or less) and the rarity of acrylia are more than enough impediment for skilling up on it. Make the windstones and essence of wind fairly common in lots of places, or possibly make them available via a "weapon conversion" like HQ ore from fine steel weapons. The trivials on most pieces could probably be dropped by 15 or so points if there's concern about people skilling "almost" to GM with it (plate BP trivials at 242).

Sickles are fine, I think. A skill up route for the super rich. As long as there are alternatives for the rest of us, that's fine, IMO.

For cultural, I would like to see options for other races, but I also think it's unrealistic to believe that that's going to happen. Giving every race a cultural smithing option for skill-up would mean adding a LOT of new recipies and would probably also mean giving every race a cultural option for other tradeskills as well to make it "fair". I think that's just too much to ask for, even if it would be very nice.

For smithing I don't think stat changes along the skillup route are needed or particularly desirable, nor do I see much need for new recipies for skilling up, unless acrylia is indeed to be abandoned. What is needed is drop rate adjustment to make some of the existing options more realistic so that the existing recipies can be utilized more effectively for skilling up.

[Bennan]

Bobbun, I for one would be just happy with implementing what you just stated.

Adjusting the drops on Windstones, is imho, a reasonable alteration. And I agree with what you said, Acrylia farming itself is a time sink in itself. And personally, I don't find the chore of farming Acrylia insanely horrible. Only difficult, which is what it should be...

Cultral, for all, yeah I guess its un-realistic. But it would be nice to see, and would really flesh out the existing Smithing recipies.

Again, imo, Smithing is very very near right for a few of the races, those that can do Cultral and Shadowscream and Acrylia. The tweak to Acrylia, and removal of the Hollowshade war, would be a good move. Adding Cultral to those that don't have it, would be as good as it gets.

I should note, that I don't feel to strongly about giving Halflings and Wood Elves Cultral, as they have their own Cultral Tailoring.....

I am a (former) Hobbit Smith myself, switched over to a Dwarf for obvious reasons...

[kiztent]

but Smithing 200percent harder than Tailoring, is just not an accurate statement.

Prove it.

Here's my take:
pre-188: tailors farm, wu's sucks (this needs to be reviewed actually - it's not reasonable in this day and age). Fine. Smithing is easier. Getting a tailor up to that level is not that difficult, in the grand scheme of things, ut it is harder than smithing to that level. Given that you could easily get 4-5 skill points for the combines of a single common hell level in the 190 to 220 range, I don't really worry about difficulty here.

post-188: To clarify 200 percent means twice as hard.
- I would say that having no drop components for the primary skill up recipe makes it twice as hard, just by iteself.
- I would also point out that when Luclin came out, hopper hides only dropped from a single zone with a zone war (just like smithing you note), but since that was too hard for tailors and they complained, 2 other zones were added with hopper hides. The wolves in TM do drop substances, but the 6 owlbears in PC aren't a good source of their substances. PS: did I mention the smithing components are also no drop and therefore can't be found on vendors unlike tailoring components?
- the gem studded chain is returned. Yes, in that ever so expensive skill up path that you just throw money at, tailors get the most expensive part of the combine back on a failure. Which means that the chain instead of costing ~250pp a combine costs ~12pp a combine at 5 percent success rate (pre-220 in other words). Even post 220, all the way up to 250 (50/50 success) getting a chain back on failure makes this a much cheaper path for tailors. Even at 50/50 success, skilling up on sickles would be twice as expensive (or 200 percent).

If you feel I've neglected to mention important details, show me. Link recipies and show me where I'm lax in my understanding of the difficulty of tailoring, or that smithing skill up path I'm trying to sweep under the carpet because it destroys my thesis that smithing is harder.

- OR -

Say that tailors would like to switch difficulties (all hopper and velious hides no drop, acrylia and velium ore no rent in return for silk vendors and no vials for wu's), because the differance in difficulty pre-188 outweighs the post-188 differance.

[Daethaan]

Windstones

How about a 3 to 4 ratio for crushing windstones? It would be in line with the planar stones needed for smithing tempers. As it is 2 to 1 is ridiculous.

[Koner]

After reading all of the responses that have been made here I have revised my personal opinions on smithing. Thanks Brennan and Bobbun. I found your arguements to be most helpful in reforming my beliefs on what should be done to the tradeskill. I tend to agree with everything the two of you suggested. Windstones. Fixing that one small item alone would be huge. Rotian, I am with you 100% on the enchanter issue. I hate nothing more than having to sit in the bazaar looking for an enchanter to enchant some metal for me or to summon some vials. Hey they but in a NPC to bind people to zones. Put in an NPC to enchant and summon. Would be simple enough to do. Enchanters, for the most part, hate doing it anyway as it takes away from doing what they want to do. Put an NPC near all forges that when given the proper components (ie emerald and a posion vial) plus a small fee (a few plat at most) will summon or enchant for you (in this case summon you a vial of clear mana). That would be a huge help for the cultural smiths. On the other hand doing something like that would then beg the question, Why not make a brewing NPC that will brew you a temper when you give him the proper components. So that might not be a good plan after all. My answer to that is simple. Brewers have NEVER been the bottleneck in smithing. Enchanters however are MOST unhelpfull. Anywho thanks to those who have help me out with my smithing woes.

[mrjimorg0]

Humming Orbs

If they'd make humming orbs stackable and take away that stupid "Effect:Obscure" then maybe they could be sold in the bazaar. As a 191 skill smith I'd much rather sell Humming orbs for 50pp each (I have components to make 200) and use that 10000pp to buy the cultural armor I want from a higher level smith. Then I could give up smithing completly (something I've wanted to do for a long time).

[Kradlum]

I make about 150pp a night selling shadowscream, I price everything at 50pp, and mostly sell boots and collars (I mostly make boots and collars tho). Anything that doesn't sell before the next smithing run get's given to newbies in GFay or Oggok (I have found 1 newbie Ogre in all the time I have been smithing ). It's worth the loss from not selling it to a vendor to see it being used, and the gratitude.

I also try to use it as payment to get people to farm swirling shadows for me, but there only ever seem to be lowbie beast lords in Shadeweavers.

I would like to see some decent smithed weapons put into the post 188 skill up route. The current ones are pathetic, I wouldn't be seen dead with them. I make my own bows, arrows, quiver, bags, food. Soon I'll be making my own armour. So why can't I make a weapon worth wielding?

In fact, I'd be happy even if it weren't part of the skillup route. If I could smith a no-drop weapon with stats equivalent to Lamentation or Defiance, I'd be overjoyed.