High Level Character's Guide to Smithing

[Mikel Morbidus]

I actually followed this route for my smithing. Worked up to 194 on Freeport Plate, then won hammer in a raid. Was going to write how I did it, but you beat me to the punch.

After that, it was rings/rings/rings till I hit 212.

About 1 skill up in 20 seems accurate to me. Of course, the random generator rarely makes things that simple. At least one of my skill ups took about 60 combines to get. Then again, after I made 212, I made two acryila armor pieces and got 213 on the second combine.

I didn't have any 100+ combines hell levels like some other people have posted. Worst skill point was the 60+ one I mentioned.

Also, as a high level character with access to some plat, (I am not rich, but I won a couple items which I was able to sell for smithing money) I found the bazaar a tremondous resource. I didn't have a lot of time to farm and gather components, as I am a leader in a fairly active raiding guild, so being able to walk in and just buy a stack of leather padding, etheral bricks or etheral temper saved me a huge amount of time. Granted, I went through about 30k going from 188 to 213, but I did that in less then a week after I got the Creator hammer. Got very little cash left, but I at least now make sickles and black acryila weapons and start to recover my losses a bit.

Being able to make decent armor with smithing has always been a dream of mine, but one I thought I could never achieve due to my lack of time. However, with the bazaar, Creator hammer, and planes of power its now a reality.

[Walli West]

i have killed well over two hundred owl bears in hollowshade moor in the past week and no wailing substance has dropped, not the first one?!?!

has anyone else noticed this?

am i just really unlucky?

[Walli West]

opps, after reading all the info posted above (instead of just skimming it)
i have the answer to what i was doing wrong


never mind :?

[Monual]

Made one last spelling correction... other than that, I'm about ready to submit the guide to DenMother. Thanks again for your valuable contributions.

[Valatar]

Hallowshade war

I have farmed Hallowshade for several weeks now. I have tried killing the "leaders" of the wolves, bears and grims and do not see an immediate "attack" by the tribe whose leader is killed.

In fact yesterday, i killed the owlbear leaders and placeholders for 3 hours and saw many grims attacks northward and wolves attacks as well but NOT ONE owl bear attack at all.

Finally, i helped the grims defeat the wolves; then an hour later the owls defeat the grims (in the east) then an hour later the owls FINALLY attacked the southern grimlings. Also, for the last hour and a half I found an ally in zone (55 SK) who kept the owl bears chiefs/placeholders cleared.

So in summary, its my belief that (and I have heard whispers of) its not just killing the chiefs of the tribes but also a matter of certain directions need to be done in order to increase certain sequence. In addition, it seemed that the zonewide message occured often on the hour (real life) which would be a multiple of the 12 minute spawn time. However, it could occur more than once per hour (but always at least once).

I would appreciate any ideas as I'm at 225 skill now and have 220 orbs ready to go so I would welcome anyone's insight into shortening what was a 5 hour night last night BEFORE I could farm.

[Garulf]

Since the war is scripted, it may be a timing thing. IE at a certain time (it's time for war to start), if the leaders of one faction are dead, that faction starts an attack.

[Valatar]

However I kept the owlbear chiefs dead for 3 hours (placeholders as well) and the owlbears NEVER attacked once during that time.

I have 4 of those darn earrings and one headband from those kills.

[Hordur]

Ornate Chain

You actually have to do a small quest to do the ornate chain, and the sell back rate is horrible. You lose 8pp at max cha on the silver, I do not know what the rate is on the electrum, gold, and platinum, as I used it to skill up before the patch in may because I was rushing to get the last 65 points to get over 240 before they made it harder = ).

But the way it works is still the same.

What you do is you get a bag from the vendor that sells the HQ ore, he wants 4 bricks of the stuff, combined in the bag, returned to him to restock him. When you turn in the bag he despawns and then almost immediately respawns. The unrefined ore drops somewhat commonly in permafrost, especially deeper in, only the goblins can drop it. Runnyeye goblins can also drop it, but I found permafrost to be easier and that they dropped it more commonly. From a full supply on the vendor you can make about 180 rings if you use the right size ore, and around 216 if you combine the small bricks to make large bricks.

I would not reccomend doing ornate chain unless you want fast skill ups and have the plat to burn, you WILL lose 160 plat per 20 combines if you suceed on making ALL the armor, if you fail any, tack on another 20 plat per failure. I got 40 skill ups before the patch using ornate chain, and it cost, it cost ALOT. Doing ornate chain armor you can crank out over 1000 combines in 4 days, I know because I did. And it cost me 40,000 platinum to do so. . .

If you are still undaunted by the costs, here is a quick guide to doing the ornate chain armor.

1 ) Make, or get a friend to make, a mule on a seperate account to help you out for a day as the unrefined ore is very VERY heavy. Bank anything you dont need and create as much space as you can, hopefully at least 72 slots.
2 ) Head out to permafrost and farm unrefined ore, 4 of any type (small brick, large brick) will work as long as you get 4 of it. When you get back, say "What job" to Yakem Oreslinger
3 ) Combine the ore in the Empty Ore Crate Yakem Oreslinger (who is in South Qeynos on the 2nd floor of the smithing building that is right in front of you when you zone in) and hand it to him. He will despawn and respawn with a full stock of ore. ( Note: if the server has gone down recently check to see if he still has ore on him, and save yourself a trip to permafrost )
4 ) Buy Large bricks of High quality ore from Yakem Oreslinger ( for around 20 pp a shot) until your packs are full. Turn them into Rings and hand them to the mule that you made in step one as you go. Repeat until ore is depleted
5 ) Head to North Qeynos and go into the side building of Ironforge's (Jewel Box) to buy silver, electrum, gold, or platinum bars ( whichever you need ), then directly outside stands Connie Link, buy your chain patterns from her and head back to South Qeynos.
6 ) Luckily, Yakem Oreslinger also sells Flasks of water ( I say luckily because unless you have that mule, you are VERY encumbered at this point and your not going anywhere fast ) Buy the water you need for the combines, then combine : High Quality Rings (1 to 3 depending on piece), the chainmail pattern, a flask of water, a silver bar, and a smithing hammer. Combine until your packs are full, and go sell to the vendors ( Please note that Yakem Oreslinger is not on Qeynos Faction so you may not get the better sell price compared to the other vendors inside the building ) Repeat until you run out of rings
7 ) Congragulations, with luck, you just gained 6 to 9 skill points in smithing, as well as burning at least 4,000 platinum. Repeat steps 3 through 6 until you run out of unrefined ore (or plat), repeat step 2 as needed until you triv the chain or run out of plat.

Best of luck with your combines everyone

[Fallwell]

Re: last post

Overall, I like to think of my smithing time as my "real" time in terms of value on the dollar. If it takes me a week to farm the padding for fine plate, I can save a couple hundered plat over ornate chain (not sure why it cost above poster 40k?) :shock: . In a week of farming cash, I could easily pull in 10k....if I was lazy.

1 week of my time= 500 plat savings?

I'd rather just sit down one night and blaze through 115-155. There will be an insane amount of farming to come....why on earth would you want to start before you have to? lol.

If you really like farming.....go get 10 stacks of padding and sell it in the bazaar...take that cash and it'll get you through ornate, fine plate and further. Like the site of blood? Go beat down guards at Highhold Keep, take their weapons and sell'em/melt them into bricks.

~Fallwell

[kiztent]

Re: last post

Overall, I like to think of my smithing time as my "real" time in terms of value on the dollar. If it takes me a week to farm the padding for fine plate, I can save a couple hundered plat over ornate chain (not sure why it cost above poster 40k?) :shock: . In a week of farming cash, I could easily pull in 10k....if I was lazy.

It cost the poster that much because they were skilling up on ornate chain when the trivial was in the 200s, not now. There was a deadline when the trivial was going to be lowered, so burning plat on ornate chain cut out A LOT of farming.

[teamnoir]

Cleric 64, 187 smith. I was pretty disenchanted with the whole tradeskill thing thinking I couldn't really farm, (3hrs in TS netted me one windstone, 6hrs per combine just won't cut it). I find your guide very encouraging. Thank you.

Teamnoir

[tatanka7th]

Looks good, but a note on the brewing...

If you want to also master brewing, do fetid essence (fishing grub + water in a brew barrel) until skill ~120 (forget exact).

Avoid recipes calling for casks as long as possible, they are a pain cause they don't stack.

Fishing grubs can be foraged, or bought in Kerra Isle and PoK.

Tat

[Kozak]

The minimum required skill for EE Rings is 220, which means you'll need to use Shadowscream to get your skill up to 192. 192 + 15% > 220, so you'll be good to go then.


I tried at 192 +15% and forge wont allow .. ok Same forge at 193 15% mod let me do the combines w/o that stupid message. Thanks for 19 easy Skill points ..

And i refuse to do SS armor H8 Owlbears. Back to Sickles :c)

Great How to though :c)

[Katherin]

I have helped my friend collect components from the war for shadowscream and I noticed something.

When the zone was reset. The owlbears had the north. The sonic Wolves the Cave to the east and the Grimlings to the south.


If we killed the named Owlbear(s) then the sonic wolves or the grimlings would attack the other. If we killed the named sonic wolf, then the Owlbears and Grimlings would fight. We never killed the grimlings so dont know how it goes.

In otherwords, whichever named we killed, the OTHER two attacked, not the camp/side we killed.

Hope this helps anyone with the war.

[Forthofer]

Maxing Wis/Int and Strength

One overlooked technique to maximize your Wis/Int and your Strength is to group with a bard while combining.

They have a song that stack with all buffs, that increase Wis/Int, and another that increases Strength/Dex.