Casual smithing, 158+

[Sarcazzm]

Ok peeps. Im an agnostic warrior troll and PP is hard to come by. Im wearing at least a couple player made acrylia items atm that arent half bad. I would be very pleased to be able to make some decent items for twink etc. So here's my question.

I have done some fine plate. Its not that expensive to do, but is this the absolute best way to get to 188? I do not have millions of pp to throw around, only a couple k per sitting at MOST, and thats stretching it. A warrior = his gear. My gear is more important than my smithing so its not priority in my budget. So what is the best way for me to smoke a full nights worth farming pp on smithing with the best results in skill ups, sell backs, and usefullness of items, etc? I know thats an exhaustive question but im sure at least a few of you smiths out there at 200+ did so post nerf, my 158 is 100% post. **** myself for not doing it earlier.

[Zhorn]

You are pretty much past the point where ornate chain is an option.
(well ok your could get a few more points from Platinum ornate chain but the bars are real expensive - decent sell back though!).

That leaves Fine Plate (or possibly Shadowscream - easier to do Fine Plate though as you will get real sick of Shadowscream later).

Now on Tribunal each leather padding costs 25pp. That's 500pp per stack.
That + material costs will eat your plat up.

Therefore.... Consider make your own padding.

http://www.eqtraders.com/secrets/recipes_tailoring.htm#basics

Sink 21 pts or whatever the max is into Tailoring and go for it.
Buy up real cheap LQ skins from NPC's/Newbies and check vendors near where they drop.
Also note if you get a skinning knife you can turn MQ and HQ skins into LQ skins.
Also note you can use Shadeling silk + LQ rockhopper hides as well as normal spiderling silk + LQ cat/bear/wolf hides.

Don't buy spiderling/shadeling silks in bazaar. Go to Shadeweavers (for shadeling) and Everfrost/etc for Spiderling silks.

Shoot me a tell on your server if you have more questions, my guild Aurora Noctum is in the same timezone as yours (or ask your guildie Adwene... shes a 250 smith!).

Worry about post 188 (Trivial for Fine Plate BP's) when u get to it!

[Sarcazzm]

Sarcazzm

Dont see Adwene too much anymore
she did the 250 pre nerf i think. so not much help im afriad, though im sure she'd love to help. Hehe i dont wanna annoy her with dumb questions so im abusing the public with them instead.

[Bennan]

I would go Fine Steel myself. The advantages are;

You only require one farmed item, that being the Leather Padding.

And the sellback ratio of successful goods will equal minimal loss of pp.

Hunt the vendors in Bazaar or in zones like E.C for your pelts (personally I would suggest E.C). The spiderling silks I would go to Feerott and hunt around the druid circle. I have not done Luclin paddings, so no idea there.

Hunting in Stonebrunt is very good as well for pelts btw if you want to actually farm them.

You can sell some of the Paddings as well, to help out money wise.

I would suggest doing runs of 100 when you do Fine Steel combines. 100 Paddings = 100 l.q pelts and 200 spiderling silk. You should be able to gather around 30 to 40 spiderling silks per hour in Feerott, and about the same in pelts from Stonebrunt.

A casual player with limited cash, and a skinning knife will not experience any problems with gathering the spiderling silks and pelts imo.

Also, I would suggest that you stick to making Fine Steel items closest to your skill level, that way you are doing your best to actually succeed so that you can then sell the fine steel piece back to the vendor and therefore minimize costs.

Making successful combines, is the real key to Fine Steel. The sellback loss in p.p, is very small indeed.

Once you trivial Fine Steel, making Acrylia Plate (I found) is entirely reasonable, as the success rates are quite good. But don't expect to be able to skill up to 250 on Acrylia as the components are hard to get, and expensive to purchase if not farming.

I went from 175 to 188 making F.S, at it cost me a total of 1 to 2k.

[Myrron]

Just to voice support of the above, farming your own padding will make fine plate go cheap. I lost only about 1k to 1500 from 162 to 188 but I farmed all padding. Innothule for spiderling silk, various places for hides.

--Myrron

[Kradlum]

At 158 I would go for Shadowscream, if you can handle the farming. You can get about 10 points just making the humming orbs (unstackable), which you can then save to make the actual armour, which is not bad for a twink.

It's not the easiest route, but it is by far the cheapest if plat is your limiting factor.

[Frerin the Smith]

You know that zone that you go through to get to Gunthak? Stonebrunt? Yeah, that's the one!

Kill leopards in Stonebrunt by the score and bring in 2 stacks of pelts an hour (no ruined pelts in SB, only quality pelts!). Once you spend a couple of hours or so there, say 5 stacks of pelts, get thee to Feerrott and find the standing stones.

From the standing stones to the Druid ring kill spiderlings and spiders as fast as you can. It still won't be fast enough as they pop so quick. Get 10 stacks of spiderling silks (should take 2 hours, maybe a bit more).

Now sit down and make your leather padding. Get your tailoring up to 50 or so (use the mandrake root method) then start the padding with a 95% success rate. That will give you on average 95 padding for around 5 hours of work.

At 25pp per padding, that would set you back 2375pp. If you can farm the cash quicker than making the padding, do so. If not make the padding.

When you make Fine Plate, the sell back on a success is within a handful of plat if you make your padding.

1 padding farming session should get you between 5 and 7 skill ups, so 5 or 6 sessions should take you to 188 without stressing your bank account too much.

[Zeralenn]

Given that I have a lot of trouble getting skill points with Shadowscream and my smithing level is 191, I would STRONGLY recommend staying with fine plate for as long as you possibly can.

The trivial jump from the mid-150s to the lowest SS armor is MORE than 70 points. Your chances of having successful combines on an item that trivials at 228 is less than 40% per item (which doesn't affect your skill rate but sure affects your pocketbook). At 158 you can be making 1-sheet FP items such as visors (triv 163), gorgets (triv 166) and bracers (triv 168) that are staying much closer to your trivials and will provide more skillups (less wasted time) and more successes (less wasted plat).

As sick as you are of fine plate, you are going to get ten times as sick of shadowscream. Shadowscream requires HOURS of farming just for single stacks of combines -- not compatible with how you describe yourself as a casual player.

Stay with FP until 188. Believe me -- you'll thank yourself for it later.

...Zera

[Tearion]

While working fine steel plate my overall cash expense was minimal. I believe I worked with about 1k pp and recovered most of that from sell backs. I farmed all of my own leather padding. Marus Seru for LQ Rockhopper hides (use the Greyhopper hides to boost your tailoring to 88, can even get to 95 if you want to use 2 skins per combine) and Shadeweaver's Thicket for shadeling silk. I used the swirling shadows for the Shar Vahl smithing quest and then gave away Shadow Disks (5 charge AC buff) to friends; but it's even better now that they are no rent.

I wish Shadowscream were as easy as the fine plate

[Lorthien]

Go to Inoothule swamp, with the influx of the new froggies there are spiderling silks to be had by the tons off of the vendors, then go to East karana and whack whack whack the snot outta those lions. Leather padding cheap for you and sells well on bazaar if you need that fast cash infusion.

[kiztent]

Re: Casual smithing, 158+

I have done some fine plate. Its not that expensive to do, but is this the absolute best way to get to 188? I do not have millions of pp to throw around, only a couple k per sitting at MOST, and thats stretching it.

Ok, simply put, there is no right answer. Absolute best depends on which type of idiocy you have the most tolerance for.

Some options:
1 - farm HSM for wailing and shrieking substances. You can use these to skill up on humming orbs, then use the orbs you make skilling up to get a headstart on SS.
Downside: the HSM war is extremely retarded. If you are not willing to put in up to 5 hours waiting (and assisting) for the right mobs to be up, you have to hike every day to HSM to see if what you want is up. Depending on your play time and zone speed, the latter could be a burden (it would take 10 percent of my play time on a given night to check the HSM war and head back to a zone I find interesting if what I want isn't up).
2 - Self-fund FS plate. That is, farm padding. Sell half the padding, and use that to buy the blocks for skilling up on. Any successes are profit.

[Sarcazzm]

thanks peeps

Thanks for the advice people. A few questiosn though, would it be feasable for me to start making leather padding at a tailoring skill of 0?
(-laff-)

I soooooo do not want to master another tradeskill to do this, but if it is the cheapest way i can do the stonebrunt/feerott route, as it does not seem to be all that time consuming, about like farming the fine steel for the ornate chain. I -can- farm pp probably about as fast as the paddings, but the fact of the matter is, thats more pp in my pocket if i don't blow it.

I guess I will be going the route of fine plate. since the skill rate does not change no matter how much higher the trivial item is, it will be worth much much more to me to make things i can at least sell back or give to newbies who need stuff. jeesh when i was 24 i didnt want to blow a few pp per pop on the banded molds. now i make it though its long since trivial, for the wandering naked newbies in PoK.

[Morgrist]

Gukta has to be the best spiderling silk spot now.

Just walk right outside in the swamp. SWARMS of crab spiderlings. Off them by the dozens,load up on silk.

Stonebrunt is excellent for skins. Nowadays,so are the Commonlands nearest Freeport. Lions + pumas + young plains cats = lots of chances for skins to drop,and plenty on merchants.

[Sarcazzm]

dabadabadoodie

oh i'll definately check the vendors in all the usual newbie zones. guess ill have to make a froggie to check gukta, my characters are evil, and gukta is satan. but thats just bc im a troll and they dirty stinkin frogs, which i'll probably be starting since i have loy now...

[Zhorn]

Most tradeskill people know a bit of other tradeskils....

Leather padding trivals at tailoring 31. That is EXTREMELY easy to get to, though you will want to take it higher than 31 to decrease your failure rate when making padding.
(I'd say get your skill to 50, which is a nice, safe margin past 31 - alternatively stay at 31 and just accept you're gonna fail maybe 25% of your padding combines rather than 5% of them...)

Here is a very handy guide (first sink upto 21 training points into tailoring IF you have any left! If not, no big deal).

http://www.eqtraders.com/learn/learn_tailoring3.htm