Shadowscream Route VS Cultural Route for Skill-Ups Post 188

[Benedetto]

Hello all,

I'd like to post this question to any who have had the option to choose between skilling up on cultural or shadowscream armor.

I'm a level 57 Bard, Human, Rallos Zek deity, and I have been collecting items to make Sea Tempers for the lower-end Field Plate armor.

However, I'm finding the Mugs of Sea Foam that are needed to be pretty uncommon. I was wondering if it really is more worth it to go the Shadowscream route instead, despite the fact that this armor probably won't sell too well. This is not a big deal to me, since I'm really looking for the cheapest way to get to skill 250, even if it means making no money in the process (Note ... I don't mean losing lots of money when I say that, heh.)

Could anyone offer some insight into this decision that I'm trying to make? Any feedback and/or suggestions would be appreciated, and if you want more details from me on anything, let me know, and I'll post more info.

Thanks!
~Benedetto, Level 57 Bard, Human Bard, Luclin Server

[Silound]

Ok, this has been run over by I dont know how many big rigs inthe past few months, I'll try and summarize fast:

Shadowscream is the cheapest route cash wise. However it takes a lot of time to farm the componenets. A LOT 3 different components, and one is disgustingly overpriced in bazaar. Chance you can make a few gp off combines selling to a vendor.
Field plate is rather mid priced, all you need to buy is the ore, which can get pricy, but not near as pricy as sickles/acrylia/Tae Ew/BD stuff (dang Essence of Sunlight).

Personally, I vote Field plate, mugs are usually on sale in bazaar, ranging from 5-10 pp per mug. The weed, if you have a good amount of it, sells for up to 75pp each on Prexus, which can fund a good deal of foam. Farming foam isn't much better than farming Shadowscream stuff, I tend to just sit in OOT and offer cash for it. I make Celestail Essences or any other portable item that sells well while I wait, them move to a mule in bazaar for selling overnight. It really depends on your interest in time and money invested.

Silound
Troubadour of Prexus

[Hallace111]

Making Armors and Skiloing up.

I am a worshiper of the Tribunal as a Barb Shm. I know Human Brds
can worship the tribunal so u can make the stuff for Human Brds BUT they have to be Tribunal heh. See the thing with Cultural armors
are the multi numbered races / deities that humans can wear, thus making it hard to pinpoint which to make and which not to make.
Thinking Warriors and God of War Zek would be a popular guess in
Armors to make. The thing I would do is make those and sell them.
I have used 2 stacks of BDs and made a near full set of gear for my Tribunal Warrior, a Visable set anyway. One stack I paid an avg 500pp for
a single BD would make me spend 10k and another Stack for 300pp each
and totaling 6k. 16kpp and sold BP I made and sold for 21kpp. So I made
5kpp and gained 5 skill ups. I would go the Cultural way since if you can make some PP on any armors sold you can readily buy or FARM a much more available peice for the combinations. Some other things like Padding
HQ metals, Acrylia, Goblin blood from Perma, Essence of Winter are also cheap to buy an attain w/o time sinking. I buy the Essence for 20pp each and if I remember correctly you need 2 essence for each combine.
All in all after you are ready to make your 1st combine and something in the neighborhood of 500-600pp you stand a chance to make 20kpp (BP)
or 4500pp (Bracer) If you fail say 19 Times (1 Bd per bracer being the largest amt to pay) and combine once you can break even at a 5k Sale.
This post is vague on prices depending on server to server BUT IMO well worth it because it allows people a chance to skill up for the greater prize and thats Questing for items from NPCs that are flat out AWESOME !!!

Hallace~~~

[Benedetto]

Unfortunately, I have not had any success in finding sea foam in the Bazaar. Likely, someone beats me to it.

To be honest, it seems like shadowscream might be less painful in the long run, although I would like to make the Field Plate. Reason being ... assuming you need, say, 1000 combines to up skill to around 250 (maybe this number is way off in reality ... I don't really know), that would mean you need 2000 foams, which is 100 stacks of 20 ... incredibly nuts to try to get, though possible perhaps after a long, long time. Ah well, something to think about.

Thanks so far for the responses; I look forward to more, if people have them.

[lionwind]

...

Human monk here, 57 too. Obviously, you can solo alot better than I can, so Shadowscream might be more of an option, as you can go to TS and farm the shadows there. Personally, the shadows are my biggest problem as I can't go to the source and am forced to camp shadeweavers. I spent three hours there, got 10 shadows and said screw it. So I went human cultural and haven't looked back.

On seafury island at 57, there are no green cyclops, I've grinded out 8 AA's there on light blues to give you an idea of how many of those things i have killed. I make excellent money, usually am able to buy out all the other foam in the zone on my profits from killing the seafurries and easily walk away with 500-1k in pp and gems a night, so you just funded your padding and other stuff right there.

Yeah, its more expensive, but well worth it in my opinion. Besides, I would rather farm one mob for my components than three mobs. If I dont feel like grinding, I fish, and then I'm still getting components. At 180 skill, I catch more of that stuff than I know what to do with.

In fact, I just logged from a run. Ended up with about two stacks of foams between foams I bought off vendors in oot, off PC's when auctioning, off merchants in the bazaar with the cash from the gems, and obviously what i farmed (maybe 10-15 or so). Took me about 3 hours and I wasnt trying all that hard, as I would go afk to work on a paper.

Long and short, I saved up an entire backpack full of sea tempers (and two extra stacks) and then did a run. Went from 188-201 on those 12 stacks. In the two days since, barely playing, I'm now at 3 stacks of foam and 8 stacks of seaweed on my quest to restock for my next run of 10+ stacks. It's really not that bad.

If you have cultural, use it.

Lionwind, 57 monk of TP.
Levels are for suckers.

[Bennan]

Well cheapest route seems desirable right now at 188, but as you progress that may start to crumble.

Do both is my advice, sick of Sea Fury's go kill some shades. Don't limit your torture options, when you have more than one.

Do both, and see which one you lean towards, see exactly for yourself which one is preferable. Which one suits your playstlye etc, you are the best judge of that.

A fair few smiths have done Shadowscream from 188 to 250 as the main combine. It is a time sink but honestly what isn't really.

Also, start watching for other components Acrylia, Black Acrylia etc, if you are not already.

[Zeralenn]

From "The Economical Smith" -- the pros and cons of shadowscream vs. cultural:

Advantages of shadowscream:

- Items are comparatively cheap to make. The only items that need purchasing are the armor molds and water. Anything you can sell shadowscream for is almost pure profit.
- You get good Vah Shir faction when you do the quests.
- The farming can be relatively low level; the highest mobs you have to encounter are around level 30, and many of them are significantly lower. Depending on your level, you may have the option to combine experience with farming, depending upon where you go.
- No brewing skill required, since no temper is involved.
- Shadowscream armor fits all races and is not sized for small, medium, and large.
- No enchanting or imbuing is required.

Advantages of cultural armor

- For those races for which cultural armor is a viable option (dark elf, dwarf, human, and ogre) the materials are often easier to farm than other paths.
- Cultural armor generally sells well in the bazaar.
- For those races for whom cultural armor is a viable option, the trivial paths are smooth and without huge gaps and bridges.
- For humans, field plate requires no enchanted ore.

Disadvantages of shadowscream

- The farming is incredibly tedious.
- The tools are nodrop and require four quests to gather.
- Because two of the ingredients are nodrop, you can’t buy them, nor can you have others find it for you. You must farm wailing substance and shrieking substance yourself.
- The necessary drops seem to be uncommon to rare.
- The secondary market for shadowscream is not great, so you will not be able to sell your items for very much.
- Humming orbs do not stack, which makes it difficult to make several in advance for later smithing.
- It is possible to lose your shadowscream tools, requiring a lengthy GM petition (which may not work) or doing all the tool quests over.

Disadvantages of cultural

- Cultural tempers require a brewing skill of 135. Higher is better to help prevent failures.
- Not all races have cultural armor options; only dark elves, dwarves, ogres, and humans have cost-effective cultural skilling options. High elves may also use this option, but the difficulty in obtaining morning dew hampers this.
- Temper ingredients may be difficult to find and farm.
- Most cultural armor requires enchanting large bricks of specialized ore – adamantite for ogres and dark elves, brellium for dwarves, mithril for high elves, normal metal for human royal plate (Freeport armor requires no enchanting, though Qeynos armor does). Enchanted large bricks must then be converted into enchanted blocks by combining the bricks and appropriate liquid in a cultural forge. Blocks cannot be enchanted directly. Enchanting requires the assistance of a level 49+ enchanter. Depending on your situation, you may have to pay for enchanting service.
- Imbued cultural armor requires imbued gems, which requires the assistance of a cleric, druid, or shaman of the appropriate deity of at least level 29. Depending on your situation, you may need to pay for imbuing service.
- Cultural smithing may only be done on a cultural forge, located within a home city. It also requires the use of a cultural-specific smithing hammer. Cultural forges are rarely located near banks or convenient vendors.

My advice goes along with the others: do both. You don't have to do one or the other.

...Zera

[Malathos]

Dwarvish cultural

My smithing is pushing through fine plate just now, but I've already had a bash or two at the dwarvish cultural.
I'm currently wearing a full set of imbued dwarven chain (which makes me look like a rogue *sigh*) which i crafted myself and I'm looking forward to being able to knock out some enchanted dwarven plate - which for me looks a much better option than shadowscream. At least I only have to contend with the rarity of lava rocks (and the absurd price people try and charge for them )

And I can sit and drool longingly at the underfoot defender plate :shock:

[Reflan]

Zeralenn, don't mean to sound nitpicky or fussy, but in the interest of clarity, feel that I must note that you do not always need to make blocks of enchanted large bricks.

As an ogre, I have made all my BD plate options -- crimson darkscale, fulvous darkscale, and blacked darkscale. Each requires enchanted large bricks for both the rings and for the making of folded sheets of oggok adamantite. I have never needed to make a block.

And I guess it may sound nitpicky too, but another negative to some of the cultural is the cost. The darkscale plate I speak of takes blue diamonds, as you know, which you can lose while making the tempers for the BD armor, and while making the folded sheets of oggok adamantite, and again during the final combine, where you risk up to three sheets of folded oggok at a time. In all, you risk a minimum of three blue diamonds for every complete combine of the simplest one-sheet items, and up to five blue diamonds for the three sheet items like the breastplates.

On my particular server, BD's have a market value of 400pp, so there is a minimum 1200 risk per combine on the simplest items when considering the blue diamonds alone, rising to up to 2k a combine. You must also add in the cost(and failure cost) of the sheets or folded sheets of velium, which are made out of small bricks of velium x2 and single blocks of velium, respectively, plus the cost of a single shot of coldain temper for some of that. (there are also rings to be made) And there are various other nominal costs, like the costs of the enchanted rings that every darkscale plate item requires, which are made from the enchanted bricks and celestial essences.

This weekend, at 244 raw skill, I put on my geerlok and failed four BD legs in a row(2k a pop). By the fifth time I got lucky, but I was already 10k in the hole. A nice fellow just offered to buy my greaves for 10k. I don't think so.

I'm sure most people won't try to skill up on BD armor, but I have heard of some people trying it.

Anyway, you don't always have to make blocks, and also, cultural can be more expensive than it seems when you start adding up all the blue diamonds and the multiple combines you have to lose them in, and the higher failure rate even at max effective skill. Three to five chances to lose the cost of a blue diamond per combine, minimum. Substantially more chances if you hit even a pretty small bad streak.

[Benedetto]

Thanks very much for the responses so far, everyone!

I've decided to stick with cultural & Sea Tempers for now, simply because of the good point that I only really need to worry about camping one item. Well, two actually, but I find that with a high fishing skill, the seaweed isn't too bad at all to come by. Also, since I am trying to do as much of the farming as I can now and get it out of the way, the Mugs of Sea Foam and the seaweed have the advantage of being able to be transferred to another one of my characters (mules) because they are tradeable, whereas the shadowscream stuff is not.

Anyways, I'm glad to see all the posts here, and I probably will try some shadowscream, as a few have suggested. Please continue to throw some posts up about your smithing experiences if you want; I'm enjoying reading them, too.

[Leewei]

I've done both the human cultural and the Shadowscream armors. I have a decided preference for shadowscream due to what I see as easier component camping as well as a less complicated final series of combines.

With Shadowscream:
Make stacks of metal rings.
Farm roughly equal stacks of the two substances.
Farm about twice as many stacks of swirling shadows as substances.
Buy stacks of water and bracer / mask / whatever molds.
Combine ring and substances into humming orb, then orb, 2 shadows, water, mold into the shadowscream. Repeat until you're out of molds, then sell and restock.

With Field Plate:
Make stacks of HQ folded sheets (expensive).
Farm or buy Mugs of Sea Foam (I consider this about equivalent to killing shades for swirling shadows in Twilight, except the drop rate is very low).
Farm padding material.
Fish for seaweed.
Imbue or purchase imbued gems (optional, but probably better than doing 2 sheet combines).
Make metal rings.
Buy water flasks.
Buy about half your available inventory space in the appropriate molds.
Combine rings with water and tools to make unstackable jointing. Fill up remaining space with these.
Combine jointing, temper, sheet(s), mold, tools and padding.

In either case, there are bottlenecks.
With cultural, sea foam, seaweed and paddings are your bottlenecks. If your server economy allows you to buy these, cultural may well be the way to go.

Likewise, shadowscream requires swirling shadows and substance farming. Humming orbs aren't stackable, but can be traded, so it may be possible to buy your ingredients for shadowscream as well.

Farming seems to be in favor of shadowscream. Each cultural combine requires two mugs of sea foam, which drop off of roughly 1 in 6 seafuries. Each shadowscream combine requires 2 swirling shadows which drop 1 or 2 at a time off of every 3-4 shades in Twilight. Better drop rate makes shades the more desireable camp. Likewise, padding + seaweed is something of a toss-up compared to substances.

Something else occurs to me, though. This isn't necessarily an exclusive path. I'd suggest farming shadowscream but also buying cultural ingredients when you see them cheap. Padding is almost never cheap, and seaweeds are almost never for sale, but if mugs are cheap, the other items are probably worth farming.

[Maryiene]

Shadowscream Route VS Cultural Route for Skill-Ups Post 188

Personally, I like the cultural route. I have a level 51 shaman sitting in OOT farming the mugs of seafoam and fishing the bags of seaweed. I do log on in the early morning hours and there are seldom many people on during this time frame until I log for work. I have obtained 6 AA points on the shaman while farming these and probably will continue to do so for quite some time to come. Since the Seafuries are dark blue to her at 51, she's probably going to stay there for a while longer farming her way through AA points.

[Kegas]

Check merchants, everytime I am in freeport, docks especially, I see merchants with seafoam on them. Things might change now that the tradeskill tag is on items but in the past I would see them more often in freeport than in the bazaar. There will always be people camping j-boots and for that reason alone human smiths are a lucky bunch.