Advice to a middling-level, middling-skill smith...

[greebmushroome]

Hi,

My smith is a high-elf cleric, lvl 49 currently. Wis 219 w/ KEI (as a cleric, I always have all my Wis gear on). Smithing 175. Also, I'm quite poor -- usually 1-2k in the bank at any time. I'm finishing up to 188 on fine steel plate now.

My question is: what should I do after that? This is not specifically about what things I need to smith to raise my skill level (I can read about those elsewhere). Rather, are any of the post-188 avenues viable and worthwhile to someone of my condition?

- should I focus on levelling (and thereby get to higher-level zones in which drop equipment or gems that sell for more), and so get the multiple hundreds of thousands of plat need to skill up quickly?
- should I focus on maxing my Wis and then continue?
- should I continue as I have with little bits of smithing now and then?

Thanks,
-Greeb Mushroome
Ayonae Ro server

[Zopharr]

Max Wisdom, Then Smith

Whetever else you do, max your wisdom before doing more serious smithing runs. Having 255 wisdom rather than 219 will *greatly* increase your skill-up rate - and you are about to start the hardest part of your smithing career. Save yourself frustration, minimize the hell-levels, get that wisdom up.

No idea what your gear is, but if cash is an issue, you may want to look at quests - shield of bane warding gives a +20 Wisdom shield, and if you have friends you normally group with should be doable (though just) at 49. Take a look at stat foods for smithing as well - the right food and Qeynos Tea can add +10 wisdom if you aren't using stat foods now. (Just buy a few, keep them in the bank except for skill-ups, then before you take them out eat as many summoned food and water as you can.) I'm sure others can give you better advice, but look at your equipment.

So you might be ready to enter a phase of questing/getting new gear (and exping at the same time) for a few weeks before picking up smithing again. Don't give up on smithing, though.

[ArrakeenNaedShoj]

I am a 54 Hielf cleric whose skill has been at 193 since just before the June 8th patch that lowered them. I have done over 300 non-trivial combines since then with no skill-ups.(mostly bad luck with the RNG)

You know your options pretty much boil down to 3, which I will explore seperately as advice.

1. Cultural.
Unless you have a pocket enchanter, and a pocket forager, this really isn't a good skillup path for clerics. At 49, I could easily farm the EoM in Mistmoore, and the Swirling Mists in steamfont both in ample qualities to make this a valid skillup method. It isn't too expensive a method for the materials, and I could actually earn a little cash in MM while I farmed. Unfortunately, because you need a minimum of 3.5 Morning Dews per peice, you will never be able to forage enough of them. Even if you do, if you are like me, you will be forced to spend upwards of 1000pp just to attract the attention of a 49+ enchanter to come enchant bricks for you. To make this a 'quick' skillup method you will need to do them at minum of blocks of 50, which may take as long as an hour for the chanter to do, depending on level. No 49+ chanter wants to sit down for an hour doing the most boring thing possible when they have soooooooooo much else they can be doing.

2. Shadowscream.
This is an extremely viable method for you. It is easily farmable if you are careful, and extremely cheap. The only downside to this method (if you consider it one) is that in order to make it truly 'quick' you will need to farm your wailing and shrieking substances in blocks greater than 100 (or you will waste more time than it's worth for most people reseting the war, or trying to catch it, running back and forth for each set of components etc.) This is something you are easily capable of doing. But if you don't have the time to do it all in one or two sittings for each set of 100, it's EXTREMELY frustrating. If you like me, only play for an hour or so at a time 2 or 3 days a week, it makes this method worthless.

3. Sickles.
People talk about this being extremely expensive. And it is. It isn't just expensive either, it's a pain in the wrist. You will have to make I believe 9 trivial subcombines for every 1 non-trivial combine. Talk about long-winded. However, since you are a cleric, you can do this entire process entirely by enteracting with the server. All your supplies will be vendor bought, and the only thing you have to worry about is farming cash. If you can find ways to farm cash while farming XP or faction or whatever, all the better. But this isn't a method to just jump into. If you cannot farm more than 1000pp an hour or so, or if you cannot save up a good 200kpp to blow all at once(total cost from 188 to 250, minus sales to players is estimated between 200k and 600kpp) then this probably isn't the method for you.

So my advice to you, as one Highelf cleric to another. Is to explore your options. If you have, or are close to a high to midlevel enchanter, and can find a friend to help kill brownie guards for xp/morning dew, or don't mind leveling up a woodie druid, Old cultural may be your route. If you can bring yourself to farm 400 or 500 of the same peice, you should probably go with shadowscream (overall the easiest choice for most). If you would rather XP over farming greens, and willing to try and hang out at cash camps in places like Sebilis, DN, SG, or whatever, you might be better off just saving up and going for sickles.

[Mahlig]

Ummm...Acrylia armor? You can farm the mines in Tenebrous Mountains (grimling orefinders drop acrylia and windstones), kill grol baku soldiers (also in TM) for acrylia, kill cral ligi soldiers (and warlords) for windstones and essence of wind. Slow? Yes. Tedious? Yes. Exp? Yes. Raise Blacksmithing skill? Well, maybe. My advice is to take LOTS of weight reducing bags or make lots of trips to the forge/bank.

My High Elf cleric has 188 skill and is going this route. However, I have a different method of gaining the acrylia. First, you PL a necro to 60... :twisted:

[Boleslav]

Nice description of the options Arrakeen!

Uban, gathering the acrylia is the easy part of that recipe. The drop rate on windstones is such that people generally don't use this recipe for gaining skillups quickly. Let me know when you get to 200 using Acrylia Plate for skillups, then I will be ready to listen.

I would recommend Shadowscream Steel.

Boleslav Forgehammer
Paladin of Brell in his 60th Campaign
E'ci - Destiny Awaits
Blacksmithing - 250

[greebmushroome]

Thanks, all, for the replies! Special thanks to Zopharr and Arrakeen for their detailed advice! Some notes:

- I started working on the quest for the Sheild of Bane Warding tonight. Of course, the spawns were bugged, so I only managed to get one skull (and couldn't get a reset of the mob over the course of 4 hours waiting! Argh!)

- the stat foods are a good idea, and one I'd not thought of before. I may even be able to make myself the Qeynos tea (took up brewing while pissed with smithing a while back)

- I don't have the ability to generate 1kpp/hr (at least, I haven't found it yet). Funny, I always expected smithing to be a money maker rather than a money sink .

- Re: shadowscream: I just can't farm enough of the components quickly enough, I think, to make this my main skill-up method. I may try to accumulate some while hunting other things and have a run or two at it.
(but maybe this will turn out to be so easy that I'll keep it up).

- my current plan is to do cultural armor. Yes, I started a wood elf ranger, whose forage is up to about 80 or so, and who has a foraging machette . He does "okay" foraging in lfay. He picked up 6 over a couple of hours the other day while I was doing some reading and occasionally remembering to hit "Forage". However, I'm sure this will not be enough (and is not really viable). I have plans to hunt brownies in lfay with a baker friend of mine, so I'll see what the drop rate is there, and if i can generate a few stacks.

I'm awash in essence of moonlight -- I found a trader in bazaar selling 4 stacks for 10 pp per essence. I also got some friends together to go on a run through MM, and this resulted in another few of stacks.

Swirling mist has been my problem, though. I have a bard friend run around Steamfont near the minotaur caves with slow song and thereby train the whole area. I then cast my AE nuke and wipe the whole crowd. This cycles the area fairly well, and results in a few swirling mists, but not nearly as much as my other production. And I _never_ see swirling mist available in the bazaar. I will have to go check out Twilight Sea to see if the elementals there will drop more.

An interesting question will be whether I am ever able to smith myself useful high elf cultural armor (that is, by the time I get to the good stuff, will I have already surpassed it with equipment I've gotten elsewhere?). I really want to make myself some Blessed Plate gear, at the moment .

- acrylia. Ugh. I tried to farm some of the components while waiting on the Bane Warding shield quest. Out of probably 50 kills (in the east grimling cave, and from wandering aliens), I got a single essence of wind, no windstones and no acrylia. Yuck. I'm hoping that the acrylia temper shortage will be fixed in the LoY release (but I don't know, since morning dew is still rare...)

Thanks again for the advice! See you all at the forge!

-Greeb Mushroome
Ayonae Ro server

[arnalh]

acrylia

i camped tm cave a lot of time, but i m only a 45 bard, most of the acrylia i looted was dropped by the runner and the laborer, frequently drop 2 at time... but the windstones are rare as hell.. i managed to get enough acrylia for a stack of rings(making armor for an alt char, not skilling...) and during this time i only found 3 windstone of regular grim... it might be a great idea to check if merchant in katta have windstone to sell since they sell em for only 17p, cause i really can't aford windstone for 200p in the bazaar, and i m sure it's bad for skilling up....for the windstone i ve heard that the cave far from katta drop em more... good luck for your skilling up...

Arnalh Freesinger
bard of Vallon zek

[ArrakeenNaedShoj]

An interesting question will be whether I am ever able to smith myself useful high elf cultural armor (that is, by the time I get to the good stuff, will I have already surpassed it with equipment I've gotten elsewhere?). I really want to make myself some Blessed Plate gear, at the moment

At 54, as a casual player. I am wearing 5 pieces of the Old Style Enchanted/Imbued Cultural (Neck, Arms, Hands, Back, Chest) which are all better for a cleric than most other gear that can be gotten at that level (save of course the chest slot, which I will replace with something As soon as I feel like raiding heavily again). I have made over 300 peices of the Enchanted Imbued cultural and have a cumulative 95% success rate over all at 193 skill. You can certainly smith some useful armor to you. Look and see what you are wearing, I am sure at least one peice is probably better. Some of these peices (back, arms, hands) are about the best non-uber peices in the game.

[OberonMiM]

dont count on shadowscream if your a casual player.

Unless you can catch the war before someone "Bugs" it then you will be SOL on the substances (on Rallos there is usually some @#$#$ druid bugging the war towards grimlings to farm acrylia when they can farm it in SOOO many other zones)


I have NEVER seen the vah shir outpost taken over by any of the races. That part has been bugged for what seems forever. Have to wait for a zone reset

[Mahlig]

Sorry all. Greeb asked for a path and I offered one. It may not be a path you would choose, however, it is a path that offers exp for killing the mobs, not farming greens. So, Greeb does not have to live on a diet of no exp while farming for smithing supplies. I have gathered multiple stacks of both Windstones and Essence of Wind...and so much acrylia that I have had to SELL ot other smiths. Perhaps Stormhammer and Bristlebane are unique in this aspect (God of Mischief after all), but I consider this a MUCH better route than Shadowscream. Exp AND cash loot AND smithing supplies? Is that not the DREAM for a smith? Well, it is for this smith. =)

[Menion]

Swirling mist has been my problem, though. I have a bard friend run around Steamfont near the minotaur caves with slow song and thereby train the whole area. I then cast my AE nuke and wipe the whole crowd. This cycles the area fairly well, and results in a few swirling mists, but not nearly as much as my other production. And I _never_ see swirling mist available in the bazaar. I will have to go check out Twilight Sea to see if the elementals there will drop more.

Not really sure what the damage on your AE spells are right now, or if you have a few friends who can AE also. But you can apply the same techinque to the Hollowshade Moor war that you did in Steamfont. The max HP on either the Sonic Wolves or the Owlbears is around 900. So you should be able to AE pretty effectively. If not get a few more levels and then try Shadowscream. Or just make your friends decimate the Southern islands in HSM a night or two a week. The respawn there is crazy fast, I was only doing half of the island circle and mobs were repopping faster than I could complete my run.

Shadowscream is a PITA no matter how you look at it. It took me all weekend to farm 1000 shrieking and 1000 whailing substances. And that probably wont even cap me out in smithing unless the RNG really likes me. And even with all these substances I still need to farm 2000 more NO RENT shadow pieces to empty out my bank.

[Boleslav]

Uban,

After re-reading the thread, I think my earlier post came across harsher than I would have liked. I'm sorry, I did not intend to come across that way.

Acrylia Plate offers a path to advance in skill. Many believe it to be one of the slower paths. However, you can gain experience and pp from the exercise.

When I did my runs of Shadowscream the Hollowshade War was mostly messed up, and I din't understand enough about it to make logical petitions (this was almost exactly a year ago). So I hunted the Owlbear spawns in Paludal Caverns and the Dire Sonic Wolves in Tenebrous Mountains. I went from 45th to 51st level hunting enough substances to get from 239 to 250. So our poster could still get some experience hunting the Wailing Substances if she wished. I agree that there are a lot of exp giving mobs that drop acrylia though. I'm not sure about exp mobs that drop Essence of Wind or Windstones though. Maybe someone else can chip in with that info.

Boleslav Forgehammer
Paladin of Brell in his 60th Campaign
E'ci - Destiny Awaits