Under Review

[GaladorCD]

Actually Kradlum the stats on the tae ew longswords/maces are quite a bit better then a lamentation. The recipes aren't expensive at all either, just have to farm the components. I've only made 1 so far and made it on my first attempt when I was at 201 smithing + geerlok.

http://www.eqtraders.com/secrets/recipes_cazicthule.htm

[Ixiola]

"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"

Kiztent, I understand your point, but your numbers on the tailoring are incorrect. Assuming no failures on any of the preliminary combines (and you will get some) it takes 3 emeralds, 6 celestial essence, and 3 silk per failure. That's approx 50p per failure assuming you farm your own silk. And unless you have a 250 enchanter with the AA in JC, add 500p at COST to that for each success (standard success for GM Jewelers on chains is 50%). If you have to buy your chains in the bazaar, they go for 1K. My husband's 250 JC enchanter is doing precisely this path to train tailoring, so I'm very familiar with the cost.

That being said, I do agree that smithing is very hard to skill up on without a culteral path, and the costs of doing the sickles are an order of magnitude more expensive.

[Kradlum]

The Tae Ew weapons don't really compare well with Lamentation and Defiance, at least not for a warrior, unless the recipes page missed out the damage bonus. With the damage bonus Lammy and Defiance are 16/19 weapons with points in STR, STA and DEX. Warriors have no need for WIS or INT. The resists are nice, but I don't look for that in a weapon, I look for speed and damage dealing.

[jugador]

"With the damage bonus Lammy and Defiance are 16/19 weapons with points in STR, STA and DEX"

Incorrect, damage bonus is a bonus applied to a weapon after mitigation is determined. Anyways, all 1h varieties equipped by the same level person will recieve the same damage bonus. a Lammy is 9/19, not 16/19. A 16 damage weapon would hit for over 100, will a Lammy? Not a chance without a critical hit.

So in summation, damage bonus can not be straightly added to a weapons damage to determine its value and when comparing two weapons (of the same variety, ie. 2 1hs or 2 2hs) equipped by the same level person, both weapons will possess the same damage modifier.

[Zhorn]

Kradlum, damage bonuses depend on your Class and Level.
You get the same damage bonus for any 1H weapon regardless of type.
Of course faster weapons use the damage bonus a bit more but that only really applies at very high levels.

For damage purposes, are you saying a 9/19 Lammy (or Defiance) is > a 12/20 Tae Ew long sword??

I only play a rogue and shaman so maybe it's different for warriors...

[Angelsyn]

Kradlum, damage bonuses depend on your Class and Level.
You get the same damage bonus for any 1H weapon regardless of type.
Of course faster weapons use the damage bonus a bit more but that only really applies at very high levels.

For damage purposes, are you saying a 9/19 Lammy (or Defiance) is > a 12/20 Tae Ew long sword??

I only play a rogue and shaman so maybe it's different for warriors...

Tae Ew Longsword skunks Lammy/Defiance. I should know, I sell Honed Yaks.

[Bennan]

Kiztent,

All I can say is after one month of on and off farming, I have 868 Owlbear Substances, and 624 Dire Wolf Substances in the bank. I went from skill 188 to 195, in just over a week, of hunting for Swirling Shadows. That was doing about 1 and a half to 2 hours a day...

For Tailoring, not every NPC is a goldmine of pelts furs and velium, anything but.

And if you are going to compare difficulties, you should apply the weightings from 1 to 250, for both skills.

You seem to be suggesting that once a player hits 188, everyone skills up on Robes. The prices you mentioned, are wrong as have been pointed out.

Not everyone has a Tunare worshipper that can imbue emeralds for them, btw the emeralds sell for 30pp each on Tarrew Marr.

At skill 188 I can do Flawless, which I have found super hard to get, and forget buying it in the Bazaar, its 300pp a pop ! That leaves Velious Armours... And you must be aware of how much of a pain those recipies are.

If VI removed Shadowscream from the game, and I don't want that, I would say Tailoring and Smithing are on an equal footing.

I am an active Tailor, and an active Smith as well. To get to the 240's in Smithing, I don't need to be a 200plus anything, but Smithing. For tailoring I do.

The effort of gaining 250 in Smithing or Tailoring, is all by itself a great achievment.

[kiztent]

"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"

Kiztent, I understand your point, but your numbers on the tailoring are incorrect. Assuming no failures on any of the preliminary combines (and you will get some) it takes 3 emeralds, 6 celestial essence, and 3 silk per failure. That's approx 50p per failure assuming you farm your own silk. And unless you have a 250 enchanter with the AA in JC, add 500p at COST to that for each success (standard success for GM Jewelers on chains is 50%). If you have to buy your chains in the bazaar, they go for 1K. My husband's 250 JC enchanter is doing precisely this path to train tailoring, so I'm very familiar with the cost.

That being said, I do agree that smithing is very hard to skill up on without a culteral path, and the costs of doing the sickles are an order of magnitude more expensive.

I actually make chains with a 247+geerlok enchanter and sell for 750 each in baz, so I'm not entirely unacquainted with that path either. 50 percent failure rate would add 250 to the cost, not 500 (total cost per chain with failures is about 500pp) - for combine cost I was referring to chain cost and not total combine cost.

And the smithing (sub-)combines are roughly the same (farmed silk versus bought metal sheets), same number of imbue emeralds, etc.

Technically, order of magnitude is 10 times, but I understand your point. I just chose to focus on one aspect of the combine, since the other elements are identical.

All I can say is after one month of on and off farming, I have 868 Owlbear Substances, and 624 Dire Wolf Substances in the bank. I went from skill 188 to 195, in just over a week, of hunting for Swirling Shadows. That was doing about 1 and a half to 2 hours a day...

And how many points in tailoring could you get in 60 hours of killing in cobalt scar? I really don't see how this is a comparison.

I could easily say that in 2 weeks of merchant mining I made a fair amount of plat (on the order of 40k) and enough tailoring components to get someone 6 points of tailoring skill, because I did. I'm not going to turn around and allege that tailoring is easy as a result of this.

For Tailoring, not every NPC is a goldmine of pelts furs and velium, anything but.

I've got a LOT more components from vendors for tailoring than smithing from vendors. More than 20 times more (and I'm being literal here). It has to do with the relative ease and desirability of hunting in the zones where the items drop. I don't claim that vendor mining is the preferred way to skill up (though it's how I'm currently off and on skilling up baking), but it's more of an option of tailors because of windstones and the fact that shadowscream is not available on vendors in any way.

And if you are going to compare difficulties, you should apply the weightings from 1 to 250, for both skills.

You seem to be suggesting that once a player hits 188, everyone skills up on Robes. The prices you mentioned, are wrong as have been pointed out.

Not everyone has a Tunare worshipper that can imbue emeralds for them, btw the emeralds sell for 30pp each on Tarrew Marr.

No, I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. I'm pointing out the differences in the "store bought" paths to 250. We could discuss the relative difficulty of Acrylia armour versus the 2 different hopper armour as well, or the difference in difficulty in velious leathers versus shadowscream. I'm of the opinion that smithing is harder across the board.

You might also note that each smithing sickle combine takes the same number of emeralds, has just as many sub-combines, and does not return the gems of failure. You would also note that imbued emeralds run 45-50pp when you see them (rarely) on stormhammer.

At skill 188 I can do Flawless, which I have found super hard to get, and forget buying it in the Bazaar, its 300pp a pop ! That leaves Velious Armours... And you must be aware of how much of a pain those recipies are.

And windstones are 200pp each in the bazaar, you need 2 per temper, and you need a clear mana vial. Plus acrylia - sheets and jointings, which take more subcombines that bonings and as many as studs. I didn't ever say tailoring was easy. I said that post 188, smithing is significantly harder than tailoring. While hides may be hard to get, windstones are harder.

If VI removed Shadowscream from the game, and I don't want that, I would say Tailoring and Smithing are on an equal footing.

Explain please. What are smiths supposed to skill up on then? Acrylia? Are you serious? Have you not read every post in this thread complaining about windstones?

I am an active Tailor, and an active Smith as well. To get to the 240's in Smithing, I don't need to be a 200plus anything, but Smithing. For tailoring I do.

Oh, come on now. Didn't we just go over the cost of chains, and that they are returned on failures? Anyway, didn't you just get done pointing out that you don't need to skill up on robes? How can you say people don't need to skill up on robes and then turn around and say you need a 200plus something to skill up. You can't have it both ways.

So far, as far as I can tell, you point out that tailoring is hard. I don't think I've ever called tailoring easy. JC, yes absolutely very. Baking and brewing, yes. Not tailoring. In fact, skilling up tailoring pretty much sucked before Luclin. Wu's to velious leathers? Dreadful. So we agree that tailoring is hard. Great.

I've detailed why I believe smithing recipies are harder, and I've detailed why I believe this is so (no drop components, fewer drop zones, less popular drop zones - although I didn't get into zone popularity in this post, I know I've mentioned it on several occasions). Saying that making the robes requires a 250JC is a good start, and if the chains weren't returned on failure, you'd have a very valid point. Unfortunately, skilling up tailoring is cheaper below a 1/4 success rate on robes (assuming 50 percent failure on chains and 2 times markup - if you don't have a 250 JC char). I'm really tempted to dismiss robes and sickles as a wash, since it's difficult to compare the two side by side given the differences.

So, that leaves us matching luclin recipes (acrylia and hopperhide) and the post-250 trivial (shadowscream and velious). Put the drops for the two side by side and show me that tailoring is easier - pick the zones where they drop, ease of getting to these zones, drop rates, need to set a war up to get drops (which both can have), if components are tradable or not.

[Bennan]

Well at least you didn't call me Brennan .

Ok the bit I left out, when I talked about gaining 5 skill points in a week. With exactly the same amount of time that I have spent farming Substances and gathering Shadow Screams, making the Orbs etc. I can say without any fear, that I have spent (at least) 4 times that in C.S, hunting Wyverns and Cobalt Drakes. That netted me, including vendor mining and buying from other players (this is pre-bazaar btw), the following;
[list][*] 200 Cod Oil,[*] 400 odd Arctic Wyvern Hides[*] 40 Cobalt Drake Hides[*] 30 Drake Egg Oil.[/list:u]

And I spent some time in Wakening Lands as well, this time about half of what I have spent in my Shadowscream endeavours;
[list][*] 2 Yew Leaves[*] 40 odd Black Panther Skins[*] 30 odd Tigerraptor Hides[/list:u]

Even with all that, I have zero combines, I have not even started (at that point) on collecting Velium. If I had just farmed enough for 190 combines I have so far done for Shadowscream in Tailoring, it would still come out as 4 times as much time spent farming.

I check Cobalt Scar, and many other zones every single day, and If I can net one or two hides, I consider myself lucky. I find it amazing that you can vendor mine, not only enough Hides, but the tempers and the Velium to have enough to make 6 skill points.

That is my personal experience, and what I have also read of others as well in the tailoring forum.

As it stands now smithing takes 200% longer to hit 250 skill then any other tradeskill in the game.

That is the position, that I believe you hold. And I am arguing against, just to clarify.

And windstones are 200pp each in the bazaar, you need 2 per temper, and you need a clear mana vial. Plus acrylia - sheets and jointings, which take more subcombines that bonings and as many as studs. I didn't ever say tailoring was easy. I said that post 188, smithing is significantly harder than tailoring. While hides may be hard to get, windstones are harder.

I am very aware of how long it takes to farm Windstones, I spent 80 hours in the T.M mines, and netted some 80 Windstones (some had also been given to me, and vendor mined).


If you are skilling up on Mistletoe, or Robes. Cost is obviously non-important. But do not discount the time involved, barring the Imbued Emeralds which both share, you require to either a) buy all the spider silks you can, which you most likely will not find is enough and have to b) farm spiders.

While both are, in the long run, insanely expensive, factor in that you will also have to farm materials for the robe as well... but really I still think people skilling up wholely on the two, are the exception and not fully the norm.

Acrylia is not an option for skilling up, and neither is most of the Velious Tailoring as well, and neither is doing pure flawless after 188 as well. We all know that when the war in Hollowshade gets bugged, always, it is frustrating to wait x days for a reset. Its the same in D.S, I have checked D.S for Rockhoppers over the last 3 weeks, everytime its Sambatas. And forget going to S.D or Mons Letails, if you don't have a tracker. Its just frustrating otherwise.

You have three (two) choices in Smithing, Sickle if you are rich, Cultral which can be just as painful as alot of the Tailoring recipies (and if you have it), or Shadowscream which I have found easier than collecting Tailoring skill up paths.

When I mentioned the removal of Shadowscream, I mentioned it in the context that, there is no Tailoring equivalant to this recipie. And as you rightly pointed out, removing it would make a huge gap. Its in the game, and will be, as an easier alternative to Cultral (at least to Dwarven Cultral) and Sickles...

Shadowscream, is the factor that means saying "Smithing is 200percent harder than any other tradeskill" is just not accurate. If it was not in the game, I would say Smithing was as hard if not harder than tailoring. But its in the game.

The one and only sticking point, I have found with Shadowscream, is the bugged war. Where you can't gain access to one of the substance drops for a period of time. But I always farm in quantities, so that when either side is up, I always have enough.

I can say, that after hunting Rockhoppers in Mons Letails, D.S (When its not bugged) and S.D, that even with the bugged war in Hollowshade and the wait it can sometimes induce, Shadowscream is much easier.

I have hunted Windstones, its a nightmare.
I have hunted Essence of Wind its a pain.
I have hunted Swirling Shadows, its timeconsuming.
I have hunted both Substances, its time consuming.
I have hunted Rockhopper Hides, its a major pain.
I have hunted insert Velious Beast, it ranges from a major pain to unreachable.
I have hunted Velium, its time consuming.
I have hunted Acrylia, its time consuming.

You also need to consider, that to GM tailoring, you must have ALOT of money to spend, or be prepared to spend an ungodly amount of time farming. And you need to be, at least 55plus (At least as a Melee) to make farming really viable. Add, onto that the host of other Tradeskills you need, Brewing, Smithing, Fishing even Foraging and Tracking, which will save you heaps of time. And if you want to gather hides in C.S, you have to work on faction as well.

For smithing, you have the option of only needing under 20k (my cash total spent so far is 6 to 8k at skill 195). And you have the ability to do Shadowscream, which has so far netted me 5k in Perfect Owlbear Pelts, and 2 to 3k in Item and/or cash drops from the shadows in Twilight Sea. And you can go high 240's in Smithing, whenever you reach a level that enables you to kill the the Dire wolves or Owlbears in Hollowshade, all by yourself. Whats that 40's ? For Smithing, you need Tailoring for Padding, if you go this option.

I can only draw upon my experience, as a duel Tailor and Smith, you never said Tailoring is easy, and I hope I have never implied that you did. But "smithing 200 percent harder" is not an accurate statement, in all of my experience, be it actual farming (C.S, HoT, S.S, W.L, C.C, T.S, H.S, T.M, S.D, D.S, M.E just to name a few) for tailoring supplies, and my experience from reading fellow tailors experience on these web pages. I repeat, smithing is 200percent harder, is just not accurate at all.

[kiztent]

Even with all that, I have zero combines, I have not even started (at that point) on collecting Velium. If I had just farmed enough for 190 combines I have so far done for Shadowscream in Tailoring, it would still come out as 4 times as much time spent farming.

I check Cobalt Scar, and many other zones every single day, and If I can net one or two hides, I consider myself lucky. I find it amazing that you can vendor mine, not only enough Hides, but the tempers and the Velium to have enough to make 6 skill points.

Well, I have a hand made backpack full of small pieces of velium (the result of condensing down 80 slots of small bricks) and a second mule full of small bricks, large pieces and blocks of velium. Maybe it's just my server, but Velk's is still packed, and people sell velium to the thurg vendors all the time.

I actually didn't get the oils, and the tailor is question has 300ish wis, but nevertheless, I don't consider velium a sticking point really. It's very common, to the point I almost consider it store bought.

And forget going to S.D or Mons Letails, if you don't have a tracker. Its just frustrating otherwise.

Hunt at the base of the plateau ramp in SD. Spawns there are tribals (which drop acrylia), aliens and scarlet rockhoppers. A fair amount paths near the front of the ramp, no tracker required. Drop rates are pretty high too, since the scarlet rockhoppers just have the hides on their loot tables.

You have three (two) choices in Smithing, Sickle if you are rich, Cultral which can be just as painful as alot of the Tailoring recipies (and if you have it), or Shadowscream which I have found easier than collecting Tailoring skill up paths.

I'd be really careful calling cultural 'just as painful'. Cultural is the only skill path that requires a 49 enchanter working on non-stacking components. Temper farming requirements (except maybe human freeport cultural), are not exactly trivial either. And if you want to take it all the way to 242, you will probably need an imbuer. Human smithing is the exception (doesn't require enchanter, make FP cultural) being somewhat easier, High elf which is so stupid and difficult it's not funny.

Shadowscream, is the factor that means saying "Smithing is 200percent harder than any other tradeskill" is just not accurate. If it was not in the game, I would say Smithing was as hard if not harder than tailoring. But its in the game.

The one and only sticking point, I have found with Shadowscream, is the bugged war. Where you can't gain access to one of the substance drops for a period of time. But I always farm in quantities, so that when either side is up, I always have enough.

I can say, that after hunting Rockhoppers in Mons Letails, D.S (When its not bugged) and S.D, that even with the bugged war in Hollowshade and the wait it can sometimes induce, Shadowscream is much easier.

Sorry, I just don't buy that. If the war wasn't bugged, or if every wolf or owlbear dropped substances, if the components weren't no drop, if the swirling shadows weren't no rent, I'd believe you. None of those things are true.

You also need to consider, that to GM tailoring, you must have ALOT of money to spend, or be prepared to spend an ungodly amount of time farming. And you need to be, at least 55plus (At least as a Melee) to make farming really viable. Add, onto that the host of other Tradeskills you need, Brewing, Smithing, Fishing even Foraging and Tracking, which will save you heaps of time. And if you want to gather hides in C.S, you have to work on faction as well.

I can farm just fine as a mid-50 melee who was working on CoV faction (as side result of raiding Kael). Smithing requires brewing, it requires tailoring as well. It could even be said to require tracking by the same logic you are using. You point would be true if Hollowshade moor was reasonable. It isn't and so I don't buy your point at all. What would I consider reasonable? Removing the dependance on the war.

I can only draw upon my experience, as a duel Tailor and Smith, you never said Tailoring is easy, and I hope I have never implied that you did. But "smithing 200 percent harder" is not an accurate statement, in all of my experience, be it actual farming (C.S, HoT, S.S, W.L, C.C, T.S, H.S, T.M, S.D, D.S, M.E just to name a few) for tailoring supplies, and my experience from reading fellow tailors experience on these web pages. I repeat, smithing is 200percent harder, is just not accurate at all.

Try talking to someone who has skilled smithing up to 250 after the FP trivial adjustments. You can't, because there aren't any people that have - except Elmarr who doesn't count because he did most of the 200s on etherial rings before they nerfed that. While that's not entirely accurate (someone on serverwide has admitted to knowing someone who skilled up on shadowscream and Molasar did 188 to 250 in hollowshade as well) I'd say there are many many fewer smiths who made it to 250 after the adjustments than tailors, and it has been 8 months since the change. Of course, the shawls require higher tailoring, which leads to more tailors and more complaints about tailoring.

I think that's pretty much the most telling point there is. Almost all the 250 smiths you see today skilled up on fine plate. Even with BD cultural in game. Which is due in part to the mistiming of the trivial changes.

My experience just doesn't agree with yours. The mobs you need to farm for acrylia and velious tailoring are always up. The items for recipes are tradable. Shadowscream is an exception in terms of farming level (that is, a level 40 could farm SS pretty easy but not velious leathers), but without it there is no viable path to 250 smithing.

To reiterate, with shadowscream drops tradable and the war unbroken, you have a point and I wouldn't be complaining about smithing. Neither of those things is true. If shadowscream were removed the difficulty of smithing would be staggering. Smithing today is just like tailoring pre-PoP. There is no bridge. Tailors didn't think that was acceptable, and they had their bridge recipes added. That's all smiths are asking for. A reasonable way to skill up from fine plate to 250. Shadowscream as implemented (1) isn't a bridge and (2) isn't reasonable.

Smithing currently has fine plate to get to the same skill as studded acrylia, but doesn't have a bridge along the lines of the recinforced acrylia. Acrylia chain and plate may have been INTENDED to be that bridge, but they still have yet to fix windstone drop rates (or they could just go the baking route and make each temper combine yield 10). Shadowscream would be too easy if the war worked, but the war doesn't so it's much harder.

[Cendorly]

I don't know what I would do if they removed shadowscream as a viable option to get to 250 in smithing. Presently, I'm at 213 smithing, and I did from 190 to 213 ONLY with Shadowscream. I got to 190 before the changes with the trivials on fine plate (and every day kick myself in the arse on that). Shadowscream is a pain, it's time consuming, it's a nightmare, BUT, it's cheap and to me, that makes up for the cost I'm dumping into getting my tailoring to 250 simultaneously.

The trick to doing shadowscream and making it efficient is take a LOT of breaks, and farm in LARGE quantities. Whenever I farm, I gather no less then 10-20 stacks. If I have to take 2-3 days, then sobeit. At least I know once I'm done getting the wailing/shrieking substance, it will be a while before I go back to Hollowshade. The same with TS for Shadows. Sure the bugged war is a huge pain, but that's where working on other tradeskills/leveling/playing alts comes in. It's a good diversion and kind of a "Forced" break from Shadowscream to prevent burnout and total fustration.

What I would "like" to see SoE do is remove the no rent tag from shadows. I personally like the no drop option on the substances since that way it keeps it off the market and prevents greedy people from farming the daylights out of HSM and trying to make a profit. The no rent tag on Shadows is just a nightmare though. Also, I would like to see the shadows and maybe the substances drop in a few more places. TS is so limited in the number of Shadows that drop the Swirling Shadows, that I can clear the island in 15 min, and be ready for more while waiting for pops. Also, TS can't hold more then one person farming. Well, it can, but then things go incredibly slow and it just makes it not worth it at all.

Unless SoE puts in some other alternative to shadowscream, maybe something easier, removing shadowscream is just asking for trouble, and a huge amount of backlash from the upandcoming smiths, and the tradeskill community, in my opinion.

Cend

[Kindir]

bah you yougnsters all have it easy, in my day i'd have to walk from grobb to the rathe mountains through 10 feet of snow, uphill both ways if i wanted a skillup~

skewer? wtf is a skewer? lol

[Gnarl]

Anyone who complains about the cost of GMing JC (especially an enchanter, who can actually MAKE money on vendor supplies by enchanting the bars) needs to be shot. Seriously.

When I GM jewelcraft for the Aid Grimel quest, it will cost me less money to go from 0 to 250 than it took me to go from 163 to 170 in alchemy. A lot less, actually.

I will qualify this by saying that I GM'd JC LONG before they started nerfing sellback costs. But, in that time frame it was NOT cost effective to go from 0 to 250. At about 190 I was able to sell back for a minor profit, BUT, even then I was slowly eroding money, not making it. Further (on my server at least), there were Jewelers who were selling jewelry at or below cost so I could not make money on the PC market. I can't speak to a market on my server for enchanted bars (will tinker with this soon thogh) and personally would NOT consider that in the cost of training up Jewelcraft since it is an unrelated skill.

I will say that Smithing is more expensive either in terms of time or money, but, don't try to sell me on JC being a profitable endeavor unless you are willing to back that up by showing numbers of profitable sellback rates (and you must include failure rates in your analysis to prove this).

GnarliAnna

[Bennan]

Well, I have a hand made backpack full of small pieces of velium (the result of condensing down 80 slots of small bricks) and a second mule full of small bricks, large pieces and blocks of velium

Having a full handmade backpack with 200 pieces and we will add another 40 to make this easy on my poor maths, will yeild you 40 studs for example, after you make 960 clicks on sub-combines, to make the studs. Thats considering no failures. Or for each 2 studs, thats basically 28 subcombines.

Lets do a time comparison, with the consideration that the Tailor is already, or has complete access to a 200 odd Brewer, and a Smith around 150 to 200.

And that the Smith, has completed the Vah Shar Smith quest, and has already set themselves up for substances, i.e has farmed 200 of both at least and pops back in every few days to top up, so that they never have to get stuck on a substance shortage again;

Also note that doing both, is done solo...

To make 40 attempts at Shadowscream, the smith must expend;
[list][*] One hour farming Wailing Substances.[*] One hour farming Shrieking Substances.[*] 20 mins to make 20 rings, and then make Humming Orbs.[*] About 4 hours to gather 80 Swirling Shadows from T.S.[/list:u]

Cost under 100pp, I will gather 3 to 4 perfect owlbear hides, about 200pp in cash from Shadows, and if lucky some drops from the shadows that I can sell to vendor or npc from 10pp to 600pp (for the twilight sleeves, or is it the mantle)

To make 40 Attempts at Arctic Wyvern Hide Masks...
[list][*] 2 to 3 hours to make Velium Temper (We will need.[*] 30 mins to make 40 Studs.[*] Fishing for Cobalt Cods, been ages since I have done this 1 to 2 hours[*] Velium Pieces, also been ages since I did this, 4 to 5 hours in C.C to get enough for 240 pieces of it.[*] Arctic Wyvern Hides, I used to spend 3 odd hours in C.S a night, and that would net me around 10 to 12 Hides from memory. So somewhere between 7 to 10 hours....[/list:u]

Cost is basically just for the Studs, the cheapest way is to make your own, and that is at 10ishpp per Velium Vial. Or since you need 4 velium vials per 2 studs thats 160 in total or 1600pp.

Of course Vendor mining, can help out here, but as mentioned previously, thats not really a reliable path. I can make money, when doing Shadowscream, in fact from the related drops I have made money. I am losing money on Tailoring.

Your server for Scarlet Rockhoppers must be different than mine, I spent ages hunting Rockhoppers at the base of the Plateu, at best I could only kill 4 or 5 before I ran out. And they were spread all around the plateu, not just out in front of it, not to mention the fact that I had to avoid various kos nasties getting to the rockhopper and back.

I have hunted in Hollowshade Moor. You hunt in quantities, you gather 200 of one component or more, then do the same when the next component type is up. You are making it hard on yourself otherwise... Shadowscream, is not fun its not super easy its a big timesink. But, the bugged war means, you are only going to be held up once until you can farm 200plus of the missing substance you need. Once you have large quantities of both substances all you have to do from then on, is check H.S every day or so, and get top ups. Its what I do now, its what alot of people do. The bugged war, means that when you first start out collecting Substances you are stuffed until you can get the second type up. From then on, its just not an issue. The only issue is when players run themselves dry of a substance. The bugged war in Hollowshade, is not that huge a barrier I am afraid.

A 50 Melee, killing stuff in C.S and W.L, at a reasonable rate. When I see a 50 Warrior killing Arctic Wyverns all by himself, one after the other sure I will believe that. Or running around in W.L, killing Panthers for that matter. Or doing the DSP caves, or running around S.D, trying to find Rockhoppers, with never getting an add ever.

The mobs you need to farm for acrylia and velious tailoring are always up

Dawnshroud Peaks, Sambatas (which always seem to be up nowdays) can and do replace Rockhoppers.

I have seen posts here, and people on my server that went to 250 in Smithing, mostly on Shadowscream. Which btw is the way I intend to do it myself.

Those that you see getting 250 in tailoring, many also post they have been doing it for a year or more...

I know you disagree , but I know at the end of the day, when I reach Smithing 250, I will not have expended twice the effort or time than I will have when I GM Tailoring.

Edited to fix my awful math at start.

[kiztent]

Well, I have a hand made backpack full of small pieces of velium (the result of condensing down 80 slots of small bricks) and a second mule full of small bricks, large pieces and blocks of velium

Having a full handmade backpack with 200 pieces and we will add another 40 to make this easy on my poor maths, will yeild you 40 studs for example, after you make 960 clicks on sub-combines, to make the studs. Thats considering no failures. Or for each 2 studs, thats basically 28 subcombines.

80. 240 pieces -> 120 bits -> 40 combines -> 80 studs

Cost is basically just for the Studs, the cheapest way is to make your own, and that is at 10ishpp per Velium Vial. Or since you need 4 velium vials per 2 studs thats 160 in total or 1600pp.

Of course, you mention the cash drops from smithing farming, but casually forget to mention that Acrtic Wyverns drop quest gems (which still sell sporadically here for 1-2 hundred each), decent amounts of plat, and cash jewels/gems in the 50-100 pp range. While wyverns are fairly remote and aren't my preferred exp place, it's an ok cash camp.

Of course Vendor mining, can help out here, but as mentioned previously, thats not really a reliable path. I can make money, when doing Shadowscream, in fact from the related drops I have made money. I am losing money on Tailoring.

It's easy to discount vendor mining since it only helps with tailoring, as the smithing components in question are no drop or no rent...

Your server for Scarlet Rockhoppers must be different than mine, I spent ages hunting Rockhoppers at the base of the Plateu, at best I could only kill 4 or 5 before I ran out. And they were spread all around the plateu, not just out in front of it, not to mention the fact that I had to avoid various kos nasties getting to the rockhopper and back.

Actually I've hunted there on two different servers, and all the servers are nominally the same.

A 50 Melee, killing stuff in C.S and W.L, at a reasonable rate. When I see a 50 Warrior killing Arctic Wyverns all by himself, one after the other sure I will believe that. Or running around in W.L, killing Panthers for that matter. Or doing the DSP caves, or running around S.D, trying to find Rockhoppers, with never getting an add ever.

Shrug. I soloed wyverns at 53 fairly easily - though I'm a shadowknight which gives me an advantage soloing.

The mobs you need to farm for acrylia and velious tailoring are always up

Dawnshroud Peaks, Sambatas (which always seem to be up nowdays) can and do replace Rockhoppers.

Not all of the mobs are up, but we've already discussed how the broken zone war was too hard for tailors, but not too hard for smiths.

This is the kind of stuff that really gets me steamed at tailors. Those convenient omissions. CS is a fine cash camp, but you forget to mention it in your cost. Hoppers aren't always up. Well yes, in one zone they're not. In 2 other zones they are. If there were more than 6 owlbears outside of HSM, well, we'd be even (I actually like hunting in TM and have a stack of substances since I can never find the owlbears up in HSM).

I also prefer a gradual pace to skilling. Pop into a zone, farm an hour or two, do a dozen of so combines, get back to it later (baking 220 via that method). This just flat out won't work for smithing, neither will the vendor mine and do combines from it that I can do with baking and tailoring. So part of my extreme dislike is personal and stylistic.

As for your time estimates (which I ignored), I can't really comment on them since so much of it is level and class dependant. One quad kiter can pretty much keep CS clean, but I myself managed 6-8 wyverns per cycle last time I was there.

Again, personally speaking, I'd drag an alt on a second box for exp (shaman or cleric), either of which could help me kill faster as well, so I'd preferentially farm CS over HSM (where I don't have anyone that could help farming and get exp).

In the same way, while I'd not set foot in Velks by choice, if I was getting exp and velium, I'd think about it. And TofS is still a great cash camp (and alt exp) where I can farm velium as well (my shaman actually did 2 levels sitting and hasting my SK while I rampaged in the wedding and scored cash loot, bags of velium and decent drops). Even if I wasn't getting more velium than I know what to do with from vendors, I'd prefer velium/hide farming over green farming because of the side benefits.

Now maybe if I was a 65 with 100k in the bank, the drops from TofS wouldn't mean anything to me, and if I didn't have a second box for alts, I'd get alot less experience.

Shadows are just plain annoying, even though the named are super common, light blue at 55 and drop some passable loot (darkened mace, dark edged 2 hander and groaning mace in accumulating a stack of shadows - owlbears were up today). Although I nearly died from those stupid lifetap procs (well, 3 adds all lifetap proccing on me after I was finishing an add).

Like I've said: unbreak the HSM war, make all the stupid wolves and owls drop substances, I'd happily agree tailoring was harder. The need to spend up front time to check if the war is up or fix it to your need, combined with the no drop requirements is a pretty steep adjustment in difficulty. I'd say doubling the difficulty is not unreasonable.