Smithing worth it?

[Sithro]

I'm a High Elf Mage. And since I'm a mage I can only do one thing... And thats far. I mean, wizards and druids can port, enchanters can buff and snchant, etc. But me, I can only summon stuff people really don't care for. I need some ways of making money. So about two days ago I took up blacksmithing. I'm now 72 if I remember correctly and it is eating a hole in my pocket. I've been making Banded armor to bring my skill up, and getting KEI before I do it. This is taking large amounts of money away. And I'm not making much back. I was wondering what smithing lvl do I have to be before I can actually profit off of this? I'm trying as hard as possible to get it up.

I went from 406pp to 132 within 5 hours...

[Tozo Vexatious]

Before your smithing reaches 200+ it is only a money sink, getting past 188 in skill is also going to cost you a **** load of money unless you do Shadowscream armor

Masked one word ~ Sumamael

[Sithro]

What makes Shadowscream Armor?

[Saphir]

you must make a quest first (quite short, a couple of hour).

after this, you can do shadowscream armor.
it is mainly based on 2 component, where 2 are nodrop and one norent.

the only way then is to farm all theses component yourself.

to give you an idea, i farm theses component alone, in ae, and miss very few mob. it takes me like 5 or 6 hour to farm enough component to make 20 combine, for 1 skill up in average with 280 in wis.

it's a real timesink, so you have to like it. if you add all the time needed to farm to be a GM, if you do it only for money, it don't worth it.

it's easier to camp named in place like CT. they will earn you far more money in my opinion (and you'll make also a little xp, thing you don't earn while farming greenees)

[Bennan]

You can make some real money starting at 188 (well thats when I started), and thats making Acrylia plate. The Bp's and Legs still sell at around 2k each on Tarrew Marr. Of course getting the Windstone's is a hassle.

You can make cash by making arrow heads also, but not sure on what type of money you can make doing it.

Smithing is not *that* easy to make money from, there is a bit of competition around. Most servers have 1 or more active High Elf Smiths of 250 one would think nowdays. So if you are looking to make cash, you are going to have to really work at it.

I would suggest visiting the recipies page and looking at the Smithing recipies there for cultral and non-cultral, and also looking at your Bazaar, and seeing what items you could make, would have to compete against. That will give you an idea of what market share (hence cash) you can expect...

[xaanru]

Actually, there is a real good money maker, if you have BOTH smithing and jewelcraft over 180 or so. Etched royal velium armor. Insane profit, if you can farm your own material for padding. However it is rather time consuming that way.

[Zeralenn]

Cash

There are many ways of making cash:

1. Farm stuff tradeskillers want and sell it in the bazaar (silks, pelts, leather padding).

2. Go after mobs that drop items people want and sell those in the bazaar.

3. Go after mobs that drop decent loot for your level (aka farming plat).

Note that "do tradeskills" is not on the list.

Yes, you can make money on tradeskills. However, in smithing, it's going to take you months to make back the money you sink into developing the skill.

I am a 190 smith and I can sell make, sell, and even skill on Dark Elven cultural plate. However, the market is small, I generally only make enough to help defray SOME of the costs, and I also have a second account with a full-time trader toon selling my wares.

I have heard that baking and brewing are more profitable -- i.e. easier to skill up without spending so much money and the end products, specifically stat foods and drinks, are saleable. However, I wonder how much money is in that now; the bazaar has driven down the prices on these items significantly.

People do tradeskills for many reasons. The most successful tradeskillers seem to do it for their own satisfaction, or desire to achieve or from an overdeveloped stubborn streak -- or perhaps a combination thereof. Those who are in it to get rich are almost always disappointed.

...Zera

...Zera

[Gnomtrix]

Re: Cash

I have heard that baking and brewing are more profitable -- i.e. easier to skill up without spending so much money and the end products, specifically stat foods and drinks, are saleable.

And let's not forget that those items are consumed, and must be re-purchased, so the market is never totally saturated.

Once you own a high-end piece of armour, that toon doesn't usually buy another.

[kiztent]

Re: Smithing worth it?

I went from 406pp to 132 within 5 hours...

Judging by the size of your pocketbook, smithing is not for you.

I sold a handmade backpack (10 slot) full of leather padding to a smith yesterday. He handed me 5k, and got if for a third to a quarter of typical bazaar prices here on Stormhammer (40pp is rare, typical prices are in the 75-100pp range).

You are much better off farming tradeskill components and selling them to suckers, er, tradeskillers.

Also consider leaving one of each focus item for a few plat on you when you go into trader mode for the night.

Assuming you are over level 30 (if not, get to work!), parking a buffed pet in mseru will yield you a decent amount of pelts (and exp if you are just 30). Then head to Shadeweaver for silk, make threads and make padding. Auction any swirling shadows you find (no rent). Sell padding and count your coin.

Alternately, you can compete with every druid who tailors in East Karana for cats and spiders. Sell silk swatches and make pelts into padding.

[Zyrtryx Conjureblade]

Before you go to Luclin to hunt for pelts and silks, go to North Ro and try checking Murissa Sandwhisper and the vendors in the inn, if you don't mind spending some cash to get started and to save the hassle of farming and a trip to the moon (and maybe check the fishing village vendors while you're in North Ro, but they rarely have anything worth buying to resell - at least on The Rathe). (If you've camped Dervish Cutthroats, you'll need an alt to check Murissa with - She's on Derv faction) I've bought several stacks of spiderling silks and quite a few pelts off of her on several occasions, and the vendors in the inn usually have pelts.

I only farm Bears for pelts, because if you get an HQ pelt or a Thick Grizzy skin, you can sell those as-is, and I use Bear Meat for Baking. If you're not able to get exp off of wolves and cats and don't do Baking, then farming them isn't really worth it.

[Sanna]

I went from 406pp to 132 within 5 hours...

You say that like it's a lot of money to loose at a tradeskill. Don't talk to any tailors soon. ^_^

I dropped 120 plat on four skillups the other day. I was lucky; I got five succesfull combines and two or three failed. And I know I haven't scratched the surface.

Hardly a week goes by when SOMEONE in pok or the bazaar is like:
/ooc How much profit comes from maxing out (insert tradeskill name here?)

I type '/ooc laugh' and repeat it about five times. On Sullon, the easiest skill to max (Baking, esp for a forager) will offer you the least profit and might be the most dangerous to your charactor's health (YOU try making a Misty Thicket Picnic when the MT book is just as camped as the GFay ones). Yet no one who is in actual NEED of what I can make (leather, raw silk, barely banded) or will be ABLE to make (studded/reinforced leather, Cured Silk, Wu's) can AFFORD to pay even cost (newbies in gfay!) much less any kind of profit. By the time anyone has any money, they want the BEST armor they can buy. And on Sullon, at least, there's a lo~~~~~t of high level armor floating around in easy reach of relative newbies. The customer market here is destroyed.

General Rule of Thumb for Tradeskills:
DO NOT do it for the profit. Do it because you like to make stuff. Do it because you want to be the Baker for your guild, or be able to make the PoP armor. Don't play this game for anyone else but yourself.

Or else do it because you want to be able to help the people who are
/ooc Looking for a Baker with 250 skill, PST.

[Velurian]

If you want to do something tradeskill-ish to make money, start with getting your brewing up to about 75 or 80 (which should be easily possible even on your limited funds), and make Heady Kiolas. Absolute pain in the wrist, which is why people will pay 4 or 5 plat each for something for which the components barely cost a quarter of a plat and are all storebought.

So if you can get together 100pp, you can make almost 400 kiolas, which with patience you can probably sell for 1600 to 2000pp. Do that a couple more times. (Leather padding can be a nice addition to this if you want to go out and farm greenies, or, once you've got a bit more money, if you happen to find a large number of cheap pelts and spiderling/shadeling silks in the bazaar.)

Then you can start thinking about smithing. (And it'll be about time, because you'll never want to see another kiola sap again.)

[Frerin the Smith]

I went from 406pp to 132 within 5 hours...

I went from 13,000pp to 5,800pp within an hour and didn't get one skill up last week. That was 20 attempts at Mistletoe Cutting Sickles, which is the only way to pound out attempts at smithing post 188 without having to farm for a long time, or find an enchanter to hire to enchant metal.

Intead of dropping that kind of cash on tradeskills, drop 100pp on an enchanter selling extended c3 and go camp one of the highland kobold camps in Stonebrunt. In 5 hours, you can clear close to 1kpp easy from the weapon and armor drops, and the Kejek village isn't too far, so selling is a breeze.

That is how you make money. Smithing, until you get to the very upper levels, isn't going to do it, and even then, you have to make the sale.

(BTW, on TP acrylia plate is selling for between 900 and 1500pp for BP and Greaves, the velium stuff is selling for 3kpp on down, and the sickle market, while steady at around 2kpp, is flooded.)

[Cavel]

I personally Tradeskill to help out my guild. We have several folks in Thurg armor and using good weapons, however some folks have room for upgrades (HoT style armor). So I bang away at the forge attempting the Tae Ew Shield, Nightmare Armor, Tae Ew Chain and High elven Blue Diamond Cultural. at 208 skill with my geerlock I am fairly successful. Got a Ranger into a Tae Ew Tunic last night, have BP, arms and a Bracer from the High end Cultural for myself and one Tae Ew shield waiting to be distributed in the guild.
I smith because I wanted to be able to say to people "see this armor and weapon? I MADE all of this!" it has been a LONG and expensive road but I am finally getting to the point where almost everything I have is stuff I made.

[Raiyaeq]

Smithing is a good way to make money, but it won't take it far before you reach 250. Thanks to the PoTC, Tae Ew, Black Acrylia stuff. I've made some decent pp by making those. I did well while PoTC quest first came out since I have a 250 smith, sickles were the money maker.

Lately, I've been doing combines for people who bring me components to make Tae Ew chain/plate armor for them. I normally just ask fo donations, most of the ppl give me 500pp and couple of them were nice gave me load of velium for my tailoring or 2500pp/combine. Of course I've done some for guildies for free. But if you really want to do it, smithing is a way to go, just expect you'd spend a lot of pp before you see any back.