Best Cleric Race for Cultural Smithing?

[Tiosan]

Any suggestions?

I am considering making my first alt, and I want it to be a cleric. I have gained immeasurable amounts of benifit in my tradeskill efforts from this site and these boards (thanks Denmom & Moderators!!), and I look forward to everyones wisdom on the matter.

A few questions:

1) Is it futile to consider cultural smithing even on a Dwarven Cleric considering I have limited play time and not much ability/funding to twink or aquire a tradeskill outfit?

2) Which race's cultural benifits the most races/classes? (not for profit, but because I love handing out my hand made items to newbies and guildies)

3) Suggestions on a "better" smithing class than Cleric? ( I may want a cleric for personal rezzes, but I am open to options...)

I appreciate any responses, and look forward to reading them!

Jrath Silverpaw - Khati Sha of the 44th Cycle, Prexus

[Naxy]

I am a cleric smith. Once you get a little higher as a smith you need to farm stuff. Alot of stuff. Clerics are pretty miserable at farming (even though we get a little better at it at 56 with the summoned hammer, which seems designed for farming).

A human can smith armor used by more classes and races than any other race. An E.Marr cleric can buy the imbue gems for 1pp each (I am a Karana cleric and foraging or buying 1000 plains pebbles is a major pain.)

A high level smith requires a high level farmer. You don't have to combine them. I would propose a level 55 necro as your farmer (strong solo character), or a ranger possibly if you feel the need for tracking.

2cp

[Kaylya]

Cleric is good, since the highest of INT, WIS, or STR is what affects skill gain, and clerics are a wis class.

It's not futile to get to 188 skill with limited play time. After that, things will probably go VERY slow, but you can make some fairly nice armor at that point (Old cultural, acrylia).

Races which can have clerics (and have cultural smithing) are Dwarves, Dark Elves, High Elves, and Humans. (Erudites and halflings have tailoring, gnomes have tinkering

Humans can make stuff for the widest variety of gods; and a fairly wide range of races (but mostly obscure gods for that race). They can make plate and melee chain; and the chain sucks.

High Elves can only imbue for Tunare (there is also non-imbued armor with reduced stats). They can make low end armor for all classes (but the chain is still caster-oriented), and high end stuff for plate and caster classes.

Dark Elves are in the same boat as High Elves, but restricted to Innoruuk instead.

Dwarves can make plate and melee chain for Bristlebane and Brell, wearable by most of the little folk.

[Tiosan]

Thanks for the rapid replies!

Naxy:
My Main (and only char so far on Prexus) is a Lvl 44 Vah Shir Beastlord. I have found they make amazing solo characters and are practicaly built for farming. I can sic Morrigarr on one mob and take out another myself all day long without even loading combat spells if it just light blue/green MOBs. With KEI and Aego I can farm Dark Blue to yellows with almost no down time at all. So farming pelts, etc. isn't a problem yet. I have gotten every tradeskill to at least 100 on Jrath, and I am concentrating on Tailoring GM for him (blech, time for Wu's). Unfortunately, Vah Shir have no cultural whatsoever, so I was wanting to get a cultural tradeskiller going.

Kaylya:
I have noticed other topics here mentioning E. Marr clerics are rare, any reason? Perhaps their imbued armor is worse stats, or just poor combinations of benifits? Or is all human cultural identical, just differing Gods?

Jrath Silverpaw- Khati Sha of the 44th Cycle, Prexus

[Lling]

With the exception of Rallos Zek armor, all human BD cultural is the same. So E Marr = Karana = M Marr. RZ is superior for the warriors and the bards for whom it is geared because rather than splitting between mana/hit points, all goes into hit points.

[Kramadon]

Don't forget Barbarians have their own cultural smithing.

I play a Dark Elf Cleric who's slowly tramping through the skill points in smithing. Farming pelts, spiderling silk, and Essence of Shadows are all very very simple, just time consuming. I refuse to purchase easily farmable components in the bazaar, no matter how many Shadowed Men I have to kill. The price for Adamantite and finding a 49+ chanter is the drawback, although I would imagine it'd be that way for any cleric smith.

The armor I'm making (and hope to make) will be usable for very few races, and half of the armor is / will be for Innoruuk followers only. If you're looking for a larger base of clients or guildies to give armor to, I'd go with a human cleric.

Kramadon SoulStealer
Karana Server

[ArrakeenNaedShoj]

Personally, as a HIE Cleric, if you are definately set on making your smithing character a Cleric I would go with Human, or barring that a Dwarf. I say this for one primary reason, the 'old style' cultural.

As a human cleric(this is true as well for the Dwarfs, but it will be much more expensive and the temper components are a pain) you will be able to smith the purely imbued type armor, without any help from another alt. If you get yourself to the right level, you can farm all of your own components and imbue your own gems relatively easily. Heck, if you take the time to farm your own HQ ore, as a human, even selling the results to a vendor will be profitable.

If you are certain you wish to have another race as your cultural option, please for god sakes play an enchanter. You will have a hugely easier time farming the materials, and if you level her up, you won't have to waste any time finding a 49+ enchanter to enchant your metal for you. This is personally the biggest waste of my time as a Cleric smith(besides foraging the Morning Dew, but I won't go into that) and is a real bottleneck to the process for many others.

just my 2cents

[Queletan]

While I can't comment on other races I can tell you a bit about the dwarven path.

Lava rocks, while not plentiful, are not too difficult to come by, and you can now have a rogue make Drops of Mercury with the Make Poison skill, which is quite nice. Both items can also be farmed at a variety of levels (while not always good drop rates :P it is viable).

Imbued armor for Brell is a pain, in that it takes a Ruby for its component. Bristlebane is a Peridot, which isn't so bad.

The stats on both seem fairly nice, but living on Rallos Zek, the demand for Droppable armor is such that they don't move very fast for me, nor do they fetch a high price. I imagine on other servers you would probably find more luck in that department.

If I were to do smithing all over again, I wouldn't . But I think I would prefer a human smith, not only because more people can use the armor, but because there are two types of armor to be made, which gives me a better chance of scraping the stuff for the combines. Of course I really hate being nightblind :P .

As other people mentioned, if you do plan on playing this character alot, an enchanter might be nice for the enchant metal spells, of course a 49 cleric (if it is on a different account from your main) can be really nice too.
Find a class you enjoy, and find a race you enjoy, because smithing will burn you out, and I imagine you would be even less happy if you didn't enjoy the alternatives of playing that character.

Best of luck.

Q

[Kethaniel]

human

I originally made a human cleric for the purposes of smithing. Humans have the most options of what they can make hands down. Also, soething no one has mentioned yet isthe rodcet nife armor, salubrious heraldric. Its amazing. Unfortunatly, it didn't work out well for me at all. Couldn't farm. Was always broke from grouping (everyone wants to be symboled but doesn't want to reimburse the costs). Shelled out gobs of pp to get my wis up since humans have the suckiest wis of any race that can be a cleric. Etc, Etc, Etc.

If you choose thehuman cleric route I wish you better luck than I had.

Kethaniel

[aramere]

I'd wait and see what Froglok's turn out to be like.

There might even be some a market for somebody that can become one of the few froggy smiths (assuming they get decent smithing, that is).

But then, i just think Frogloks are cool

[Angelsyn]

High Elf Cultural: This is a royal pain due to the Morning Dew factor. I don't recommend it, personally.

Dark Elf Cultural: This is a royal pain due to the (still) low drop-rate of Essence of Shadow. I don't recommend it, personally.

Human Cultural: While Essence of Sunlight is still a pain, skilling up on Imbued Field Plate in addition to Acrylia & Sickles should be relatively easy. Additionally, if there aren't many Human Smiths on your server, you'll have an excellent market.

Dwarf Cultural: Lava Rocks & Drops of Mercury are easily farmable (especially by your Beastlord) in Twilight Sea. The ability to make Imbued, Enchanted & Enchanted/Imbued old-style cultural, while expensive at times, is a huge boon to skilling up. The market for your Cultural goods as a GM Smith may be rather small, but there are other things to do (once you get above level 55 and start hunting PoP/CT).

[Danthen]

All heraldic isnt the same, although most is. Salubrious (Rodcet Nife) has more WIS, Dragonkin (Veeshan) has more CHA and Fierce (Rallos Zek) has more HP.

I would definitely say start a Human if you want to make BD cultural.

[Bennan]

Lava Rocks & Drops of Mercury are easily farmable

I have had the worst luck ever in T.S, and I have spent ages and ages hunting that place, recently I took to just AOE the whole island. I hardly ever ever see any Mercury, and Lava Rocks, maybe 3 to 5 an hour.

So many players have reported success in T.S, with those components, I must have the worst run ever !

Anyways

Dwarven Cultral (as a cleric of course)

You have these options after 188;

You can make Enchanted Armour, which requires Enchanted Brellium, and you will need access to a 49 Enchanter. This will get you to 215 I think.

You can make Imbued Armour, you need access to a 29 Cleric to imbue your gemstone (that should be no problem hehe), only bad thing is your gemstone is a Ruby, which is quite expensive.

Then there is Imbued-Enchanted Armour, so you need the Enchanter and the imbued Ruby...

Then there is the Earthen Temper, which I find very hard to gather myself.

All in all, Dwarven Cultral is expensive (no real idea about the others), but you do make pretty good stuff imo. Although, I would say the market would be very saturated by now, so selling would be hard.

If I didn't have two Rabid halflings to clothe, I would of gone with a Human myself...

[Zopharr]

And the winner is ... Dwarves!

I'd say go for dwarf.

Besides our natural charm, the extra str and HPs are good for day to day adventuring if you want to level him. Wisdom is relatively easy to boost, so maxing wisdom on day-to-day gear in the higher end 'mid-game' (40-60 or so) is pretty easy, and even easier for a smithing suit.

And lava rocks/mercury are both pretty easy to come across, especially compared to elves, or even essence of sunlight for the human stuff.

[Akassha]

High elf smithing is very hard - somewhere just harder than poking out your eyes with a dull spoon.

But, if you have lots of time and enjoy the process, by all means go ahead!

Alternately, if you have lots of money and can skill up on sickles, it won't matter much which race you choose - go for the hole in your market's economy, or whichever race you like best.