188, level 41 now what to do ?

[Curufea]

I cannot control the war in hollowshade...
I managed to get 17 substance form the wolves in about 1h30 or so soloing them when they, by chance, won the war.
If I want to do shadowscream, I'm basically set to wait for one camp to win the war, then farm the substance it drops... (never seen the owlbears win the war yet, and grimlings seems more likely to win it after patch reset than the 2 others).


If I want to go acrilya, I have to farm (no huge bank account to buy in the bazaar) :
essences of wind, I got about a stack so far in 4-5 hours of farming (including 1h30 with an AEing 60+ there for quest items) on the elemental island (I'm now dubious to all type of elem)
Acrilya itself is not really a problem to come by
Windstones : 2 so far on the elemental island, 1 bought in the bazaar and I'm now ruined..., any better place for that at my level ?

cultural : 2 essences of shadow per attempt is a long time to gather, plus I don't succeed in selling it in the bazaar, and it's costly. (Enchanting is not the problem here)


Well all being said, what should I do ?
Keep up on shadowscream when I get lucky with the war... go on farming elementals, and any other spot you might think of ?
Or just put my smithing aside for a moment and start lvling again ? (I'm at 41 for about 3 months now) If so, what should I aim for before getting back to smithing ?
I was hopeing to make myself some pieces of acrylia before getting back to leveling... but that seems impossible at the rate of windstones drop I have...
Last possibility I can think of : selling the essence of wind I get to buy windstones... but is it really worth it ?

[Mahlig]

My High Elf cleric smith has 188 skill at level 21 (all of this was PRE-nerf). I feel your pain. What I would do at 41 is head to either Dawnshroud or Tenebrous Mountains and gather acrylia. At 41, you should be able to handle the alien looking guys in TM. The grol baku soldiers consistently drop 1-3 bricks of Acrylia (as well as gems). The cral ligi soldiers/warlords drop Essence of Wind regularly and the occasional Windstone. You should be able to handle any one of these mobs solo. Work on the Acrylia Chain/Plate. Good Luck.

[Llwyd]

At 55 I can't control the war solo. But I created a new kitty character to go sit on the south wall of HS and allow me to check the status of the war easily. When the right side for what I currently need is up, I bring in my cleric and AoE them. I can easily keep the small island clear, with occasional forays onto the big one for a round.

It's slow. It's boring. But it's what smiths without big bank rolls that want to go over 188 have to do.

[kiztent]

Another technique someone on my server has suggested is to farm for the forge and farm for the bank.

Take half of what you farm and sell it. Use the cash to buy the components you can't farm.

Yeah, it's slow post-188. You're probably better off levelling. Levelling will increase farming speed and smithing skill faster than anything you can do.

[xaanru]

The way I see it, you have several choices

1) go back to levelling. Once you get higher level, you can make plat a lot faster. However, this puts off tradeskills until a ltaer date.

2) "/auc 188 smith offering Free (or cheap)combines for non-trivial items" This could generate you some combines, particularly if you advertise this while farming in zones where acrylia/windstones drop. Some of the folks there would probably take you up on the offer. However, be careful in doing this, or you may end up creating a huge flood of badly priced items in the bazaar, making your life tougher in the future. Also, you may not make to many friends among the other tradeskillers this way, depending on how you go about doing it.

3) Choose ALL of the types of armor you mentioned, as your skillup path. Farm acrylia, when you can, shadowscream, the same. Cultural components.... Sell what you can. I've been doing most of my post 188 skilling on acrylia and cultural, and have sold enough of both to start doing some sickles and black acrylia, now that I am 209 skill. However, this has taken constant smithing/bazaar buying/selling since the smithing nerf, and I am still only 209. Slow but profitable.

4) Farm plat or items, to finance the smithing. Group in Rathe mountains (hill giants), Group or maybe solo in crystal caverns, farm silks/pelts, etc and sell in bazaar. Make lots of plat, and buy what you need. Advantage to this is, you should still get exp in CC, you'll definitely get exp in rathe, and there are several spider type creatures you can kill for exp, that drop silks (eg drachnids in DL). Of course farming greens may be faster, and make more plat.

[Kayc]

Those clerics that are smiths as mine farming shadow scream. 1 word upheaval.
Simply talk a friend or pay a tank a 100 pp or so to run around and aggro 30-50 wolfs then run back top you 1 cast kills every 1 of the critters.Same for the bears.

Generally i end up with about 50 substances per hour in this manor i am still scared of the twilight sea shades so i buy swirling shadows from people in shadeweaver for 5 pp each.Will try the twilight sea soon.

Also want to save your swirling shadows when you log off simply get a container thats different from your other bags i use a mortar for mine since it holds up to 120 at a time fill it with the no rent items you want to save duel some 1 and don't loot them until your rdy to use them the next day or what ever. They even survive server patches this way.

[VikingNoah]

This may or may not be helpful to you... at the very least, it shows one method to press on.

Folks on my server REPEATEDLY help the Grimlings win the war in Hollowshade. My begging, pleading, bribes, and threats mean nothing, since (unconfirmed) a named Grimling occasionally drops a NODROP Haste belt. (NODROP = gold mine on PvP server)

For Shrieking Substance, I just head to Tenebrous Mtns and hunt Dire Sonic Wolves there. Drops are about 1 in 4 on about a level 36 mob.

For Wailing Substance, I now camp the group of 4 Grimy Owlbears in Paludal Caverns. Drops are about 1 in 4 on these as well, but mob is much lower level (20-ish?) on a 5-7 minute spawn. When they've been cleared out, I just camp my substance farmer and log on another character to gather Swirling Shadows for a few minutes.