How I skilled up in smithing from 196 to 250.

[GaedarofVazaelle]

First off, I started this final push to 250 skill and was a 60 level warrior and ended with a 59 level warrior (see story later on that). Weapons I had, Lurid dagger and Frostbringer (in primary hand). Full SS gear and Chestplate of Vindication.

Now the REAL part, took me over 8 weeks to collect the supplies to skill up on Shadowscream armor. Had a little help from a few friends but mostly I soloed all the way.

Collected 960 wailing substances (should have collected 1020 because of failed attempts on humming orbs - 5 percent), 1020 shrieking substance and 1920 swirling shadows. The best place for the wailing and shrieking are on the islands in Hollowshade moor (/em cheers Owwiefixer for putting me on to this. The swirling shadow I farmed off of shadows in Twilight Sea. The Hollowshade moor zone I had help from a good friend Kelec, wizzy with nasty AE, killed owlbears dead, helped me farm the last of the owlbears I needed. I then moved onto Twilight Sea farming, wanted to leave shrieking substance for last as it would be easier than the shadows. This part took me about 6 and a half RL weeks to farm, I spent at least half my time bandaging. My camp was on south side of island at location neg1700, neg535, best pull spot because you can run the zone wall east and north to Katta if you mob gets the best of you which they did many times. The named can be nasty, had many times these green named mobs proc their 150 life taps 10 times during just one fight and some of these are 3 hits back to back. A few where light blew to me with same nastiness. I sent /ooc and joined taxi channel to give away drops like Darkedged dagger, Darkedged 2hder, Groaning mace and Blackened mace. As for saving these No Rent items, I did this trick as I zone way slow. I had my wizzy camped there with me in Twilight Sea, collected the swirling shadows with my 60/59 warrior and then dropped then to my wizzy. You should have a wizzy or druid who can port a group to TS, just in case you die there and need a rez, hehe. Took my wizzy to bazaar arena and got him killed and left no rent swirling on corpse.

Now the bad part of doing arena deaths, I lost exp. 5 times to Dots in arena deaths, two on my warrior and 3 with my wizzy. Oh yea, I didn't have space on bank for wailing substance (no drop) so I stored that on corpse in bazaar also. Made sure to refresh corpses when timers got under 3 days and refreshed them every night before patches to be safe. Some my say that they have fixed this and say that they have dot'ed players in arena and they never lost exp., this may be true but there is still a bug that a random person will lose exp. and ALL arena deaths, the game doesn't put any exp. on it for even a GM rez can give back.

Now I was told this but its not confirmed in any way, if I had lost a corpse for some reason that the ones with the no drop items I could get a GM to give/get them back but on the no rent items that I wouldn't ever get them back. I chose to take the risk.

The final key supply needed was shrieking substance, thanks Danta for the loan of her Earthshaker 2hs weapon for farming, which took me back to Hollowshade moor islands. Do the war and you will be set, but be careful of the 5 defenders as they will summon and from a long way off.

To keep all my stuff organized I did this. I used only Fletching kits to store stacks of wailing substances on corpses, used only standard backpacks for shrieking substances, and Large sewing kits for Swirling shadows. When I had all my collected supplies that I wanted, was 3 stacks of wailing short but wanted to do my combines before the big LoY patch, I moved my stuff to Shadowhaven. I looted two fletching kits, two backpacks and with the help of friends (thanks Alina and Dp) four large sewing kits, went to PC zone line so away from guards, rearranged the items so that in each container there was two stack of each wailing and shrieking and four stacks of swirling shadows. Got killed and was all set for combines. Did this and had three corpses with 8 - 8 slot containers of supplies and kept the extra shrieking substance on me.

Last step before the massive combines was the metal rings, I made 51 stacks of them as i hoped to finish farming the wailing and have complete combines. Bought more containers and put four stacks of metal rings in each and four stacks of water in each, got killed again and kept these corpses separate as they used same containers.

Now for combine day, with gear i had wisdom/int. of 83 or less and strength of 252 and woven frost giant beards with storm str. which lasts one hour, this took me to 255. Moved my corpses next to forge, put the three corpses with the key supplies on one side of room and ring/water corpses on other side. Oh yea, it cost about 1kpp for all the metal rings and I was walking very slowly to get to zone to die, hehe.

After about 10 hours of combining to make a humming orb then make collars or gauntlets, was going to skill up on boots but the mold cost 3 times as much as the gauntlets and gauntlets will take you to 250 skill, it took me 814 combines from a start level of 196 to get to 250 and here is that info.

level amount of combines - failed skill up - failed humming orb
196 11 - 2 - 0 Shadowscream Collars
197 3 - 2 - 0
198 4 - 0 - 0
199 20 - 2 - 2
200 1 - 0 - 0
201 22 - 4 - 0
202 12 - 2 - 0
203 30 - 7 - 0
204 11 - 0 - 0
205 22 - 3 - 0
206 4 - 1 - 0
207 5 - 1 - 0
208 16 - 0 - 1
209 8 - 3 - 1
210 24 - 0 - 2
211 3 - 1 - 0
212 1 - 0 - 0
213 4 - 2 - 0
214 7 - 0 - 1
215 1 - 0 - 0
216 3 - 0 - 0
217 20 - 3 - 1
218 17 - 5 - 0
219 35 - 5 - 2
220 2 - 1 - 0
221 5 - 1 - 0
222 21 - 1 - 0
223 55 - 2 - 1
224 40 - 2 - 2
225 1 - 0 - 0
226 32 - 1 - 1
227 11 - 0 - 0 Shadowscream Gauntlets the rest of the way
228 1 - 0 - 0
229 11 - 7 - 1
230 8 - 1 - 0
231 14 - 2 - 0
232 23 - 4 - 1
233 4 - 2 - 0
234 5 - 1 - 1
235 51 - 4 - 2
236 10 - 2 - 0
237 9 - 0 - 0
238 12 - 1 - 0
239 18 - 0 - 0
240 13 - 1 - 1
241 2 - 0 - 0
242 5 - 0 - 0
243 53 - 2 - 2
244 41 - 0 - 2
245 14 - 0 - 1
246 16 - 0 - 0
247 45 - 4 - 2
248 2 - 0 - 0
249 6 - 0 - 0
250 Uber Grandmaster Blacksmith is born.

Luck to you all and safe farming to you.

[Kradlum]

So what you're really saying is, it didn't take you just 2 days. It took 8 weeks, and the use of an exploit.

[Menion]

Corpse locking isnt an exploit. And if it was 1/2 the game would get banned for doing it at one point or another. I spent this entire weekend farming swirling shadows and cursing the Dev that made them no rent the entire time. I would have lost 160 shadows to a server crash if one of our GMs on Stormhammer wasnt cool enough to replace them.

It is idiotic to make items for smithing combines NO RENT in the 1st place, especially considering you have to farm 2 shadows per combine.

[Shjekai]

Very nice chart. Almost makes it look possible for me

[Thorac the Rogue]

I won't go into the storage issue, but farming time definitely counts in the skilling up process.

8 weeks and 2 days from 196 to 150 is about right, unfortunately. I don't curse VI/SOE for the No Rent thang, but they have my undying ire and ill-will for nerfing the triv levels and making SO few viable skillup options from 188 to 240 (240+geerlok = 252 = max).

[Bumbleroot]

Bait and Switch.

Don't be so delusional- 8 weeks is 8 weeks, not two days.

[ArrakeenNaedShoj]

It is idiotic to make items for smithing combines NO RENT in the 1st place, especially considering you have to farm 2 shadows per combine.

Not to get picky, but the NO RENT Item was designed to be used for a quest, not smithing skillups. Yes the quest combines are generally the fastest of all the methods for most players to reach 250 in skill, but it is still a quest.

It's a problem that a quest is the only viable skillup method for many, but it's one that has been ranted on many occasions.

[Melchiord]

According to that logic it took me a second to get a VT key. :P

Gratz, but it took you 8 weeks. Sorry.

[Shortyrez]

Yeah heh this thread is misleading from the outside...if you had called it 196 to 250 in 8weeks, I wouldn't have opened it =/

[Sethlic]

I will say gratz!, even 8 weeks is an accomplishment. The chart is nice too thank you.

[Maevenniia]

hehe, nice way to suck people in to reading the thread

Grats!

[Dvinn]

I think the poster is expecting people to say how impressed they are with him.

In reality, 8 straight weeks of farming greens is about the most boring way to play EQ I could possibly think of.

So grats...I guess.

[GaedarofVazaelle]

Well looks like people just don't see it for what I intended to to be, if you had the supplies and did the skill ups it would take you the combines and time listed. I have a friend who says he player is nerfed and the amount of combines I did would only get him THREE skill ups. I have been on chat channel and have been told that people have had one skill level of combines of 260 and more. These are scarey things that would make anyone not do tradeskills.

So the fact that I choose to farm supplies for 8 weeks instead of getting loot and selling and then buying other supplies in bazaar to skill up on was my choice.

As for the so called exploit, the different from me farming the no rent stuff each day and at end of each day zoning, changing gear, run to forge, do combines, run back to bank and change back to normal gear OR saving all the no rent stuff on corpses and doing combines in one day I would say their is no difference. JUST a whole lot of time saved.

[kiztent]

Well looks like people just don't see it for what I intended to to be, if you had the supplies and did the skill ups it would take you the combines and time listed. I have a friend who says he player is nerfed and the amount of combines I did would only get him THREE skill ups. I have been on chat channel and have been told that people have had one skill level of combines of 260 and more. These are scarey things that would make anyone not do tradeskills.

Well, we're not seeing it as you intended because you are wrong. It took YOU that much time to get smithing up. Someone reported doing 1120 non-trivial combines with no skill up. In that case, they would've pissed away 2 months of camping and a lost level for no skill ups. 1-2 hundred non-trivial combines with no skill up is not uncommon - even after smithing was made "easier".

My enchanter on the path to 248 JC was averaging 1 skill up per 2 stacks of combines. This would result in 1k combines giving 25 skill points, not 62 as you got.

It's random. You got extremely lucky (although smithing supposedly had skill ups made easier). Don't try to pass that off as a general result, because it isn't. It's one person's reslts.

And personally, I'd consider 8 weeks of nothing but eye bleeding solo boredom and losing a level to be very not worth getting smithing from 188 to 250. I don't care how good the smithed armour is.