Smithing on 3k plat?

[Meirril]

"farming" the bazaar for cheep low/med quality hides (and a skinning knife to make med quality into low) and mining merchants for more low/med/high quality hides and spiderling silk is a decent way to go. Never buy spiderling silk in the Bazaar. Lowest price I've seen for it is 1pp each, when you can buy a whole stack from a vendor for less than 2pp is absurd. Generaly, pay 5pp or less per hide. You can use bear, wolf, cat and rockhopper hides for this. To save on failed combines try to get your tailoring skill up to 42 (20 above trivial cuts the failure rate down to 5%).

If you would like suggestions on what to hunt for hides, try tigers and panda in stonebrunt, poachers in jagged pine, or greyhoppers in Marus Seru. All of these have excellent drop rates for low (or better) quality hides. If you need spiderling silk and for some unknown reason you can't find a vendor with enough, slaughter EVERYTHING you see in Everfrost just outside of Halas (ok, not the merchants and guards) which should net ya spiderling silk and a few more hides. Rockhoppers require shadeling silk which is easily obtainable from merchants in Shadeweavers thicket or from slaughtering lesser shades (they have a better drop rate than the worms, honest!). If you ever plan on going past 188 bank the swirling shadows, otherwise offer to trade them for padding, anyone you see farming the shades will jump at that.
ok, enough for now. good luck!

[Aanna]

A few additions to Meirril's post:

First, make yourself a skinning knife. It has a low trivial and it's quite a feeling of accomplishment to make something *so* useful early on. Besides, it's easy and much cheaper than buying it from someone else.

Second, another great place for spiderling silks now is Innothule near Gukta.

Thirdly, they must have changed the rockhopper hide requirements at some point. You can make padding with an LQ rockhopper hide + regular silk thread. However, the opposite is still not true. Shadeling silk thread will *only combine with LQ rockhopper hides.


-Aanna

[Ariene]

Thank you everyone so much for your help. I really appreciate all the advice!

I'm up to 74 now for 22p spent.

I've spent more than that merchant mining (although someone got there before me so there wasn't much - looking forward to next patch!) and buying a few of the really low priced items in the bazaar (not padding but the components for it) but I'm not counting that cost until I use the items I spent toward a skillup. Have a list of what I bought so should be able to keep a pretty accurate idea of cost for those who were wondering.

Thanks again!

[Ogath]

i just started Smithing yesterday, got from 0 to 145 on less than 2k

[Ariene]

Spent another 45p and made it to 122 so I'm now 67p spent for 122 skill (I had the celestial essence in the bank already from baking - used about a stack of it that would add to the actual cost for someone who didn't happen to have that). Not nearly as bad as I'd expected specially since I have 18 needles waiting for essence and then sellback which should get me a few more skillups and a profit for those combines.

I have a couple comments on your guide, Myrron. Overall I love it and it has been extremely helpful. This skill had me completely confused looking at all the recipe pages and I might have just given up. It is hard though for you experts to see it from a true newbie perspective so here is the thoughts of someone who used steps 2-7 of your guide.

Step 2: I wasn't sure if I was supposed to sell the boning back or keep it. It might be nice to make a note of what sort of recipes steel boning is for so someone would know what to do with it. Granted you can tell if it is for a future step by just reading the rest of the guide.

Steps 5 & 6: You give recipe for the sheets of metal in step 5. In step 6 you mention that they can also be storebought. I priced it and it is cheaper by 1 silver/sheet to buy them premade from a merchant. That isn't much but that is assuming 100% sucess rate. Since I failed several of them before I figured that out it would have actually saved over 5p plus a lot of clicks just to buy them. The fact that they can be made is valuable information for zones where they aren't available but I think since it is cheaper to buy them it makes more sense to encourage that route in the guide (why do trivial clicks for no savings?).

I'm looking forward to starting step 8 after I get some sleep. Really do love the guide it has been invaluable!

[Xefin]

I did 0 to 188 on about 4k, with about a 50/50 mix of free paddings and ones I bought for anywhere from 8-12 pp. (This is on Sullon, some stuff is cheap). 255 Wis and a geerlok.

I did something like metal bits - > scalers - > banded to start. After that maxxed I did ornate chain, but only up to 2 ring combines, and only on electrum gold. Bought all the ore and bars. After that it's too expensive to fail.

Then I started on fine plate gorgets and did the standard progression to 188.
-X.

[Silound]

I took the followign route with 255 str and 247 cha

Farmed in Gorge of King Xxorb for ores, saved them (also good for beginning pottery). That allowed me to hit 120ish skill, just on the ore I had farmed, and turn a few hundred pp profit. Next I went to droga during off hours and farmed materials for Deathsteel weapons. Didnt take long, at 255 str, 15 stacks was enough to about 163 (or wherever DS trivials out at). Next started farming materials for SS armor. I saved those and made humming orbs for the last few to 168. Far as I have gotten because I'm lazy.

Now, as I see it, you have an option: Fine plate/acylia/other to 188, or skip straight to SS. If you wish to keep costs next to nothing, opt for SS, keep farming. If you have some cash to spare, you can go for fine plate, though I think SS is kosher enough, Whichever way you choose, GL with it. What I describe should have actually gained you profit in sellback, so you may have 1k more to spend as needed.

Silound
Minstrel of Prexus

[Reflan]

Steel boning is used for making picnic baskets for baking Misty Thicket Picnics. I think it's also used for lower level tailoring.

[Zeralenn]

Now, as I see it, you have an option: Fine plate/acylia/other to 188, or skip straight to SS. If you wish to keep costs next to nothing, opt for SS, keep farming. If you have some cash to spare, you can go for fine plate, though I think SS is kosher enough

I think the vast majority of smiths, myself included, would STRONGLY discourage anyone from starting shadowscream before trivialling fine plate. Because fine plate sells back to so close for cost, if you are staying close to your trivials, using a geerlok, and buying/selling with good charisma and faction, you will have few failures, can sell these back to the vendors for pretty close to what you paid for materials, and have a much, MUCH easier route to 188. Save the pain of shadowscream until after you've gotten fine plate out of the way. It seems expensive but it is not as expensive as you think.

And farming for shadowscream is SUCH a pain -- only recommended for those who truly love days' worth of farming. And I DO mean days.

...Zera

[Ariene]

For those interested I'm at 136 skill now and I've about broken even (10p profit actually) selling back everything I've made. I spent 250p on my geerlock however which isn't included in that total and I'm sure increases my sellbacks so I guess I should say 136 skill for 240p spent.

This information may not be very valuable to most starting smiths however because they are probably going to have half my wis/int/str stat and skill up a lot slower. Although if sucess rate is the same percent it might work out the same just take longer? Not sure how that works.

I've also spent 124p on merchant mining and cheep bazaar mining pelts and spiderling silk which I'll be using in the next step. I have 3 stacks of padding for this so I guess a cost of approximately 2p each is pretty good. Not sure how much padding I'll go through so if I need more I'll probably be willing to pay slightly higher prices as I go but while I was prebuying I only purchased the really good deals (1p each for silks max and 2p each for pelts max - reason my average is so low is that I found a lot more vendor mining then I did in bazaar at the price I was willing to pay at the time).

[Morgrist]

To be honest,you can literally get to 95 skill+ or so at a -PROFIT-,if you work in Freeport.

Only things you'll need are a lot of sharpening stones (easy in North Freeport),water (plenty of that in East Freeport,where you'll be working) and a file mold (again,EFP).

You have a limitless supply of rusty weapons at Hallard's Resales. You literally can sharpen/resell an infinite supply of metal here,given time and patience-and the tarnished can be refined into ore. It also resells back at a small profit,both as some tarnished weapons and/or melted down into ore.

You can easily go all the way up to metal rings and then some,depending on how much time you want to spend. Heck,you could even do banded if you're patient enough. And not end up denting the bank account in the least.

I've seriously got to write the "Bootstrapper's guide to mastering smithing" one of these days....

[Ariene]

Up to 1k spent for 162 skill. Pausing here to collect more padding. The fine steel really didn't cost me much at all ~ only loss is failures the cost of making the FS is about the same as sell back. I lost 700p going from 136-144 on the ornate somehow which is where most of the cost so far has been. I'm not sure what I did wrong because it doesn't seem that it should have been that expensive but somehow it was. I got the skillups from 145-162 for only about 10p each (some less some more but that is the average).

Took some time off to use the 200 zombie skins I'd vendor mined while looking for pelts for padding and got pottery from 130 to 168 as well. Needed that bank bag back! Makes sense to vendor mine for both at the same time so pottery and smithing will both be continuing slowly to 188 I think.

[Reflan]

Just a reminder -- black wolf skins and puma skins also work to make vials in pottery, just like the zombie skins do. Additionally, most people don't know this, so while I sometimes find my usual round of vendors picked clean of zombie skins(people are selling them in the bazaar these days), they are often still stuffed full of black wolf skins and puma skins. Commons, the Ro's, Gukta, EC tunnel, and Freeport I usually see having lots and lots of these.

[Zeralenn]

I've seriously got to write the "Bootstrapper's guide to mastering smithing" one of these days....

Actually, it's already been written.

http://www.crimsonsnow.org/pdfs/economical_smith.html

Shows how to get to 132 with a fairly tidy profit. With the rest you're on your own.

Enjoy.

...Zera

[Calabar]

I just hit 188 smithing this weekend. I didn’t keep track of my costs, but I was very pleased with how little fine plate cost, at least compared to how much I was afraid it would cost. I’d take 1kpp out of the bank to buy all my ore and molds, but by the time I was finished most of it would be returned to the bank. I used a geerlock so I didn’t have a lot of failures, but as my smithing progressed they hurt when they happen. The loss of one chest piece would set me back over 80pp. Sadly, I tended to fail on making my sheets of metal more than the final combines in spite of the lower trivial, which I guess makes sense since I had to make so many more of them.

I’m going to stop at 188 for a while until I get my other skills up higher. Hopefully by then I’ll have gained a few levels and farming for shadowscream will be that much easier. I’m also having connection problems and the though of losing my no drop hammer every time I go LD scares the willies out of me. *grins*