Best way to 220+ as a DE smith?

[Sayleth]

Looks to me like my options are Shadowscream or Cultural. I guess there is Acrylia and Sickles as well, but that doesnt seem as viable as the above two.

I realize there is no 'fast' way, but for the sake of argument, what is the most efficient way? I am no pauper, but I wouldnt enjoy spending 100s of K on this. My goal with Smithing is to eventually get that sweet earring from the Aid quest, but its a work in progress as its a lot more than just Smithing skill holding me back at this point.

Farming Shadowscream stuff I think I could average 30-40 drops per hour from the Hollowshade Moor mobs, based on a limited test run. Havent tried elf blood/essence of shadow farming yet, so not sure there. In the bazaar, blood seems to sell for 40-50per and essence for 100-300(!) per, and neither seems all that common.

I am a 65 Necro, if that matters and have easy access to an Enchanter, and a few other classes, if I need it.

Thanks much
Sayleth

[kiztent]

Shadowscream is much quicker than cultural. It's probably quicker than sickles too, and definately cheaper.

[Reflan]

Being that you are not an AE class, shadowscream farming will not be lightning fast for you. I find sickles to be much faster, myself. As to DE BD cultural, the BD's make it just as expensive as sickles, perhaps more so, depending on BD prices on your server among other things. Some BD sells for a lot, but it won't once you flood the market with it. Sickles sell slowly but steadily, but won't do a lot to recoup your costs until your skill is pretty darn high anyway.

Shadowscream can also be quite slow because a lot of people(on my server at least) like to either kill nameds or just keep owlbears up 24/7 to try to get those rotten owlbear pelts. Sometimes they even want to farm acrylia there(groan, it's not common). This means sometimes a mob type can take over the south islands for as little as five minutes at a time. If you are missing one substance or the other, it can be very time-consuming to balance them out. At one point I had something like 220 owlbear substances compared to 33 wolf substances because people kept constantly trying to manipulate the war. Many times I have simply stopped looting owlbear substances for extended periods because they are so easy to get in abundance just a few at a time here and there while I am waiting for or trying to spawn wolves.

All the new people getting into smithing these days affects your shadowscream efforts a lot more than it affects your sickle sales and costs.

I think the most efficient thing to do is with shadowscream in particular is to not clog up your inventory. Tradeskillers always have no inventory space!

Farm up all the swirling shadows you can, over an extended period of time. Put them on mules if you have to. It takes two of them for every wailing/shrieking you need, so you need a LOT. I did over 750 combines to 209 from 188, so that means over 1500 shadows...SO FAR. However much you build up, you will go through surprisingly quickly.

Multiple people can sometimes farm successfully in Hollowshade, but only one person at a time can farm for shadows in Twilight -- it's just not worth it to share the island, and keeping it clear is pretty easy for high level characters. So get the hard part out of the way first, so you don't build up a big store of NO-DROP substances and have your inventory clogged up while you still need shadows.

Keep a few bagfuls or so on your character or in your bank. Go make some metal rings, and go farm Hollowshade. When your inventory becomes sufficiently crowded with substances, go clear them out as completely as possible by doing your combines; that will free up a lot of space that you can then use. Your inventory will never be too crowded this way.

Think about keeping a mule with lots of shadows nearby where you'll be doing your combining, if you can access more than one account at a time or have a friend help. Get substances, run/port to mule you keep by a forge, do combines. You can do all your combines in Shar Val, if you wish.

[kiztent]

Being that you are not an AE class, shadowscream farming will not be lightning fast for you. I find sickles to be much faster, myself. As to DE BD cultural, the BD's make it just as expensive as sickles, perhaps more so, depending on BD prices on your server among other things. Some BD sells for a lot, but it won't once you flood the market with it. Sickles sell slowly but steadily, but won't do a lot to recoup your costs until your skill is pretty darn high anyway.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you say it takes you 3-4 hours to collect 20 combines 2 boxing non-AE classes?

And you can imbue emeralds, make CE, make dust, make more CE, make tempers, do subcombines, do final combines for 20 sickles faster than that?

3 hours seems about par for 20 sickles for me - from scratch - and I don't even imbue my own emeralds.

[OberonMiM]

220 to 227 do aid grimmel clean the bp (bp is lore though so you do a bit of walking but the acid wash is 3 ce + jar of acid per a combine so its pretty cheap)

and de's imbue sapphires not emeralds

[kiztent]

and de's imbue sapphires not emeralds

Sickles take emeralds. What's your point?

[Velurian]

3 hours seems about par for 20 sickles for me - from scratch - and I don't even imbue my own emeralds.

Admittedly, I haven't made sickles. But it does look like they have about the same number of subcombines/imbues/etc. as solstice robes, which I've made far too many of.

A batch of 20 solstice robes takes me not much more than an hour, once I have the components together, not counting imbue time. (And I do mean from the most basic subcomponents -- 120 spider silks, 60 imbued emeralds, 60 jars of acid, 120 Scent of Marr, etc.) In fact, I end up spending as much time imbueing (level 30 Tunare druid alt) as I do combining.

Am I massively underestimating the complexity of the sickles? I was planning on starting on sickles once I hit 220 or so smithing, figuring on that as the approximate break-even point, and figuring them to be a big time-saver over shadowscream, but it sounds like at least the latter part of that may be way off...

Returning to the original topic: alone, as a non-AE class, I manage about 30-40 substances an hour on the islands, so average about 30-40 minutes per stack. I average a very erratic 20-25 shadows an hour (sometimes as high as 40+, or as low as 4 *shudder*) in Twilight. So figure farming time to be 2-2.5 hours per stack of shadowscream. (Though this is a very rough average -- farming whatever substances are available at any given time and trusting it will average out most of the time, no transportation time, no time with grimlings up on the south islands (and thus no substances at all).) I would figure that as a high-level necro, you ought to be able to do at least as well.

For sickles, it's virtually all store-bought, which can be attractive. But given that your question was about *reaching* 220, I'd advise against them. They are a massive money sink before 220 or so; at about that point (depending on your server's current market for sickles) you can start to break even or even profit above that level. If you decide to continue above 220, sickles aren't a bad option if you've got a fair bit of cash to absorb bad runs.

[kiztent]

3 hours seems about par for 20 sickles for me - from scratch - and I don't even imbue my own emeralds.

Admittedly, I haven't made sickles. But it does look like they have about the same number of subcombines/imbues/etc. as solstice robes, which I've made far too many of.

Assuming you have gem studded chains....

You need:
- 3 sub combines to make 3 silk swatches.
- 6 subcombines to make 6 celestial essence
- 3 subcombines to make 3 blessed dust of tunare
- 3 subcombines for 3 sacred swatches

total of 15 subcombines.

You need to make:
- 9 celestial essence per sickle attempt.
- add on 3 mistletoe tempers
- add on 3 blessed dust of tunare
- then 3 subcombines for the pieces (which require 7 components)

total of 18 subcombines.

The difference is that in order to do 20 combines, you need 76 bag slots available - since the molds don't stack.

The really time consuming part of sickles is running back and forth to get molds as well as doing the combines for the hilts, pommels and blades. As well as praying for the right failures on the sickle part subcombines. And restocking on gems when you fail 3 hilt combines in a row.

Having more failable combines (9 versus 6) as well as 'deeper' subcombines (a hilt takes a temper - which takes an essence and a subcombine - as well as a dust - essence and a subcombine again) really adds up fast. 3 hours is high for 20 sickle attempts, but not by much.

[Sayleth]

As to DE BD cultural, the BD's make it just as expensive as sickles, perhaps more so, depending on BD prices on your server among other things. Some BD sells for a lot, but it won't once you flood the market with it.

There is some stuff that doesnt require BDs that you can work past 188 isnt there? I was looking here http://www.eqtraders.com/secrets/recipes_smithing_darkelf.htm and it looks like there is a lot of stuff that doesnt require Blue Diamonds...unless I am missing something which is very possible.

Sayleth

[kiztent]

There is some stuff that doesnt require BDs that you can work past 188 isnt there? I was looking here http://www.eqtraders.com/secrets/recipes_smithing_darkelf.htm and it looks like there is a lot of stuff that doesnt require Blue Diamonds...unless I am missing something which is very possible.

Sayleth

You don't want to enchant the ore for that if you can help it.

[Sayleth]

What do you mean?

Sayleth

[kiztent]

What do you mean?

Sayleth

I have a level 54 enchanter. My guild leader has a SK she wanted a full set of teir'dal plate for. I spend 3 hours enchanting the ore and doing the combines for 12 pieces of armour (this is with temper components all prefarmed) - after she spent 2 evenings slaughtering shadow men for temper components. A BP combine takes 10 large enchanted bricks which is about 3k mana. And that's 1 combines. Skill up runs are 10-20 combines.

It is really, really, really time consuming and unpleasant to enchant the ore needed for old style cultural combines.

[Sayleth]

When you say old style cultural, what do you mean? Is there something cultural for DEs that I could skill on past 188 that doesnt require enchanted adamantite?

The stuff I was looking at when I posted the first message was enchanted adamantite plate armor http://www.eqtraders.com/secrets/recipes_smithing_darkelf.htm it looks like it takes 1 enchanted brick per enchanted folded sheet and 1 enchanted ring (1/2 a brick) on top of that per piece for the enchanted adamantite jointing. No picnic, but I have access to a 65 chanter so the actual enchanting wasnt my real concern.

The shadow tempers were. I dont think I'd be willing to farm for the hundreds of essence of shadows I'd need to go from 188-220, but I think I could get at least a few stacks just from vendor farming and catching them cheap in the bazaar. I have 1 stack now just from looking the past 2-3 days.

Sayleth

[Kitre Halfax]

Personally, I RARELY find EoS (Essence of Shadow) on a vendor. And when I do find it in the Bazaar, it's insanely priced (>200pp).

What is meant by the pain of enchanting the ore, is this.

You CANNOT enchant a BLOCK of ore. You can only enchant large bricks. However, making folded sheets requires a BLOCK.

That means, in order to prepare a stack (20) of enchanted folded sheets of adamantite, you have to enchant

60 Large bricks of adamantite

smith them into 20 Folded sheets.

With a level 61 enchanter, with a 260 int, and KEI, I can do ~10 bricks per bar of mana (maybe 11? I do it in waves of 10).

To make several stacks of sheets, for skillups, will take an obscene amount of time. I've done it.

And that's just the sheets. The rings take a brick for every 2, and while that's much faster, it's still a pain.

And note that this doesn't even take into account failures converting the 3 large bricks into a block, or the block into a sheet (yes you can fail these combines).

[Sayleth]

Ugh the bricks into blocks part was what I missed. It looks like I am gonna be farm Shadowscream stuff with everyone else.

Sayleth