BD Culteral, When should I start?

[tenniel]

When should I start making attempts on BD culteral smithing with success? This is a question that has been haunting me for the past few months. Every time I try, I fail. Well today was the success day for me. After just hitting skill 216 base [227 with geerlock], I made 4 attempts on human culteral.

2 attempts on Fine Heraldic Bracers = 1 success
2 attempts on Radiant Heraldic Bracers = 1 success

I know this isn't many attempts to be significant, but I still like to smile at the thought of a 50% success rate on BD culteral. =)

[Kaysha Soulsinger]

My only answer: when YOU feel like trying.

Personally, I've been making them since 207 (unmodded) skill. Climbing up from an abysmal successrate of around 10-20% back then, I'm currently doing about 40-60% at 229 (unmodded, 240 with Trophy).

What bothers me a little is that in the several hundred Heraldic attempts I made in the mean time (I lost count, but more than a hundred successful pieces anyway), I NEVER got a skillup on those. My skillups have all come from Field Plate and Tae Ew stuff and all that. :?

I want a skillup on Heraldic too, just to say I had one, darnit! :P

[Silound]

Unless you are making it on commission, I wouldn't bother. Those **** Essence of Sunlights are a pain to farm. Field plate was a good deal for me, found a guy with 400+ mugs of foan for 5pp each. Then got 3 200 fishers toghert with me and fished up stacks of seaweed. I really prefer a cler/dru/wiz AE the whole of HSM and farm SS componantes though.

Silound
Troubadour of Prexus

[Barb_Smith_01]

That's a tough question alright!

At max mod skill (252) you have about a 40%-ish chance to succeed.
Subtract 1% for each point under 252 that you are. But dont drop below 5%.
At mod skill 227 you're looking at about a 15% success rate (approximately).

It's REAL hard to fight the urge to try before max skill, so it all comes down to whether you are willing to accept the failure rates.

[Cavel]

I agree with the when ever you feel like it comments here... I only add that you also should consider the following:
1) do I have plat to fund this project?
2) how easy can I come by BD's?
3) how easy can I come by the cultural tempers?

If these questions are trivial to you then by all means attempt BD cultural untill it is falling out your.... for me it is difficult to come by BD's and my cultural tempers (high elf, people on Tunare are selling Morning dew for 100pp now?!?) so I horde the items and wait to try the combines till after a skill up.

[Reflan]

It's simply a matter of how much money you have, and how you feel about that money, and how quickly you can replace it once you lose it.

Me, I don't mind using money, but I hate to throw it away. So with the lousy success rates of BD cultural, I waited till I was raw skill 243 to even try it.

With geerlok my skill is maxed, and I've still had plenty of failures. Just this weekend I failed four greaves in a row(12 sheets), and that cost me a pretty penny. What with failure on even just making the tempers and sheets alone...OUCH! that can hurt! BD's are 400pp on my server.

So the average guy has to take the possibility of that kind of thing into account, and then also remember it all the more if he's not max skill. You have to be prepared to eat some heavy losses if you take up that kind of high stakes gambling.

If you don't care, then more power to you.

[Hallace111]

About Essence of Sunlight...........

Essence of Sunlight is not a hard farm. I think if memory serves me right
you can find or make a group of people and be sure to invite a clr w/o epic and head to SF. Since the shards are a random drop all you have to do is pull butterflies. Puller = Run3 or Jboots and be sure to have a Shm/Enc for slowing. XP is terrilbe there if you are 61+ but with a group of friends and a hungry epic seeking clr you could be there for hrs and hrs collecting them heh. Thats one mob in the game that there are
a zone, give XP, drop something you need, and PLENTY of them
ASLO !!!

Hallace~~~

[tenniel]

On vacation, but anxious

Bah, can you believe my family made me go on vacation? OMG, 4 weeks no EQ. I am going nuts here. Well, soon I will be back in the hot seat.

As for farming Essence of Sunlight, its easy just a little time consuming. I usually log on my 65 Ench and farm in Skyfire. I know Chromodracs hit you and ur pet with cancel magic, so I just stop by the Bazaar and pick up some summoned pet weaps for pet haste and buffs. I can usually get about a stack every hour and a half or so. Being and ench helps alot when fighting chromadracs. I can always re-kei myself as well as cast slow on the mobs.

As for BDs.. easy to get in any grind group in BoT. Just let your group know that u are using them for smithing and they usually have no problem letting you have them.

Tae ew? From what i hear, its sounds like too much of a pain in the butt, hehe. I hate farming in CT.

[xaanru]

I started making my own personal set of Luminant heraldic at 220 raw skill+geerlok. Went 4/9 my first run. Had the full set completed, before I hit 230 skill.

My longest run without a success was 7 tries (on boots, so not too painful).

I had made one earlier attempt, at 210 skill, and failed 3 straight pieces.

From my personal expreience, I'd say, start anytime after you hit 220+ geerlok/trophy.

Also, if you farm places like BoT, you might be able to put together a raid to get yourself the 15% hammer. Then you have no worries.