Quickest (not cheapest) upskilling route ?

[Sharwah]

I'm wanting to upskill from about 30ish to 188 (or whatever is required for the 8th coldian shawl). What's the quickest way, assuming I'm not concerned re cost, resales etc. I guess the question is whether I can buy all the components (off NPC's or in bazaar off PC's) and avoid any farming of components.

Any options/suggestions ?

[Myrron]

Well, no cost considered, I suppose you're looking for purely storebought routes.

Banded armor is all storebought and will take you to 115. Afterwards, ornate chain is completely storebought and if you actually go through platinum ornate chain, can take you to 162. Fine plate is all storebought except the leather padding, but there usually is some in the bazaar, and it can take you to 188.

There's always mistletoe sickles, which aside from finding someone who can imbue emeralds, is completely storebought to 250 (obviously way past your 188 mark), but this would take a ton of money and a ton of sub-combines.

--Myrron

[Reflan]

There are lots of smithing guides all over here. Check them out.

But the important gist of it is, find some recipes(like banded) to get to the point where you can do cultural needles, then do them and save them(they don't stack). That will take you to 120-something I think. Use them to make gnomish cultural needles to like 133. That is not as fast as just doing other things, but it's dirt cheap and you can actually make a profit. If money is totall meaningless, then blow plenty of it on the next stage.

Do either ornate armor or fine steel. I'd go for fine steel because leather padding is always for sale in the bazaar, and if not, the components are, and it's trivial at I think 31 tailoring. Nothing to it at all. Fine plate takes you to 188.

Doing ornate is more cumbersome to me and far more expensive. Your fine plate can be sold back to vendors for near cost for some pieces, especially if you make your own padding or get it cheap. Which is not very hard to swing. Heck, run around the commons, neriak, oasis, south/north ro, gukta if you like, scooping up spiderling silks and low quality pelts(or medium quality pelts to skin down), and you could wind up with a few stacks of leather padding on a good day almost for free. If cost matters even in the slightest.

Anyway, it's really not terribly expensive or difficult to get to 188. Put a little extra work into it and it gets positively cheap; be super duper lazy or sloppy about you buying and you can burn a handful or two of K if you like.

[kiztent]

After banded, Blessed Sickle Blades are 188 trivial - but they require you to consider imbued emeralds storebought.

[Zeralenn]

Unless you can imbue tons of emeralds yourself, or know someone willing to imbue tons of emeralds yourself, go with fine plate instead. You can probably buy leather padding in quantity from the bazaar, as well as LQ hides and spiderling silk or silk thread. Or, do a mixture of the two if your supply of imbued emeralds and/or leather padding is not overwhelming.

Fastest way to get there is to make sure your INT, WIS, or STR is maxxed while you are trying to skill. Staying close to your trivials will keep the number of combines needed to skill statistically lower. Also, sacrifice a virgin or two to the RNG.

...Zera