How many combines from 188 to 220?

[Amenarra]

Having 255 WIS , full course of mind buffs etc I still had a NASTY streak of 350+ combines to get from 191 to 192. I would say the average for skill ups is around 20-40 combines per point, but it is totally up to the RNG so expect at least one or two bad runs in it as well.

[Reflan]

Good God, that IS nasty! I feel better about my two skill ups in 96 combines now.

[Niech]

Skill up tips

I thought I read somewhere that making items that are trivial closer to your skill level will help in the amount of skill ups per attempt. From my little bit of experience this seems to be true. I was making Enchanted Dwarven helms (trivial at 206 I think) at skill 200. Got 201-203 in about 60 combines.
I then tried SS boots (trivial at 248?) and got one skill up to 204 after about 58 combines. I'm now still trying to farm more SS components to try again. This is just my experience and is pretty limited, but I thought I'd share

[Dulsin]

I wonder if there is an Innoruuk equiv to St. Jude?

...Zera

I think there is .. it is a spell involving the ritual killing of snow bunnies. :twisted:

[rassy fleetfoot]

I get i imp in maybe 18-22 with 255 str, skill currently 215. Been doing mostly shadowscream since 196 with some sickles thrown in sparingly and a few acrylia plate combines but only got 1 improve on sickles and none on acrylia. Last time i sat down to work a mighty 15 combines, i got 3 imps, go figger

[Koner]

Well after 305 attempts with no skill improves at 195 I have done 75 shadowscream attempts in the last 4 days. Last night I FINALLY hit 200.
So my grand total from 188-200 is in the neighborhood of 1150-1200 NON trivial attempts.
No that is not a typo. I have had extremely bad luck with the random number generator. I hope that the last few days is an indication of better times in my smithing future. I'm hopefull once again.

[Iceblossom]

I have roughly 50 combines in at skill 191 with no skill ups. Wis is maxed and I use a geerlok.

No successes on any of the 30 or so blue diamond Artificer combines.

No failures on any of the 5-10 acrylia combines.

About an 80 percent success rate on the 10 or so shadowscream combines. Did the boot quest plus a couple other pieces. Now if I could only get those darn wolves to drop some substances for me, I have all the swirlies and shriekies for about 20 combines...

[Bitter-Eci]

Do you feel lucky, punk?

My smithing has advanced in 3 stages from 188 to my current level of 217.

Well, really, I was at 178 when I got the Hammer of Ironfrost from XtC, which has a 15% skill mod, so I'll start there. I made blessed hilts, pommels, and sickle blades to 183. These I banked. I cooked up a batch of 50 of each and parked them on a mule. So I got 5 skillups in 143 combines there (the last few were trivial).

I did 211 fine steel breastplates to get from 183 to 188. Hey, it was a lot, but there were padding player vendors in the bazaar, and I could buy the rest right there off NPC vendors. I then combined the 50 sickles and got 2 skillups to 190. I made acrylia chain gauntlets to 192, took a total of 67 combines.

40 stacks of bricks of ethereal energy later, and a tired wrist from making celestial essences for the ethereal tempers, I was at 212. I've had a little better luck since then. I did a three stacks of sickles and got a whopping 5 skillups! 3 more skillups for max skill (with the hammer).

As you can see, I've had my best luck with sickle skillups. They're not cheap, though, and my success rate has been less than 30%.

Bitter Disillusioned
"With a name like mine, I was born to tradeskill!"

[Reflan]

Well over 300 shadowscream combines from 188 to 195 -- how much more I really don't want to think about very much, thanks.

[Raiyaeq]

110 combines took me from 188 to 200 avg 9 combines/skill
117 combines took me from 200 to 201
30 combines took me from 201 to 205 avg 7.5 combines/skill

total 188-205 took 257 combines.

[Zaviax]

I'm guessing I'm getting really lucky.

Hit 188 last weekend and been farming for Shadowscream components nearly every day.

255 str, 210 wisdom with geerlok. I've done approximately 60 combines on Shadowscream Bracers.

I'm at 201 now.

But what scares me is that everywhere I've read on the boards I see people talking about doing hundreds of combines with one or no skill ups. Leads me to wonder am I getting really lucky or is this somewhat normal only people tend to post only their bad luck all the time. I'm just worried my luck is bound to run out soon. :?

[Gezmel]

Doing Old dwarven cultural it took me about 250 combines to go from 188-189 then another 150 to get to 190, then 12 to get to 191, and 350 to get to 192. I've since only done another 40 attempts towards 193, but haven't gotten my skillup from it yet.

Gezmel

[Amenarra]

350+ to get from 191 to 192 and I would say maybe 80 more combines to get from 192 to 194.

[brilgain]

The following was using a geerlok with 255 strength. I made shadowscream gorgets and had right at 80-81% success rate.

I just completed a large batch that I've been collecting for the past month. I started at 188 and finished at 206. Total number of attempts was 510. Average skillup comes out to 28.3 for a total of 18 skillups. Not quite as many skillups as I'd hoped for but it could have been much much worse and from what those above me posted could have been better. I'm not complaining though at all. I'm pleased with my results. They seem to be very average and right in the middle. Only cost me a few pp too but a ton of time.

Hopefully another 500 combines would get me to 220. Minus the two 'free' skillups from ethereal bricks I'd need 12 skillups from those 500 combines. That'd be an average of 41.6 combines per skillup which is a pretty poor rate.

So, in the end I think you'd have a pretty good shot at needing 1000 combines to get you from 188 to 220. Of course, this is all considering that you don't get a HORRIBLE run of 300-500 attempts without a skillup or any smaller number of bad runs to equal that. I do believe I'd seriously throw in the towel if that happened to me.

Good luck.

[krunt]

BAH, don't get me started, i am 824 non triv combines into 212... this is with max (265)str... some of the combines were at 255 str, but i have dinged here and there. I don't want to hit the 1k mark, but basically the benifit of doing soooooo many combines to skill up is that you stop carring about what you combine.

I combine everythign and anything i can get my hands on. Funny thing though, My grilfriend wants a cultural helm. Failed it over 300 times now. I can make BPs, Legs bracers, acrylia, shadow scream, tae ew chain, plate, weapons, whatever... but for the life of me i can't make an Underfoot Helm.