Vah Shir Smith?

[Jagore]

well, i've been messing around with smithing for a while. currently at 125. please don't flame my question, i really need some honest answers...and just a side note i do NOT enjoy blowing tons and tons of money "just for the rewards of being a GM". as you probably guessed, i'm a kitty. i've read how kitties don't have cultural so basically its FP then off to shadowscream/acrylia. am i going to have to spend alot more money since i can't make cultural (thus make some money to fund my smithing)? if so, how extreme are we looking at? is it even worth my effort?

sorry for all the newbish questions, thanks in advance!

Jagore
Kitty bard of Tallon Zek
<Darkstar Elite>

[Mahlig]

More money? Not at all. Fine Plate is no more expensive for anyone else. Shadowscream is only as expensive as the parts you buy (and will cost the same for anyone on your server). Your race will not determine your cost, but your server will. GL on GMing smithing. It is a long row to hoe.

[Jagore]

well, yes that's true. but correct me if i'm wrong, but most smiths from 200-250 use cultural smithing to further fund their combines (not to mention money to buy new gear, etc etc). i gues what i'm trying to say is...

is there a "reward" so to speak for non-cultural races? or is it one of those, do it just for the title type of things?

[Lothay]

Since there are no "special" items to make for your particular race/class/diety combination, you do it for quests, to make other things that are hard, love, or for prestige.

~Lothay

[Barb_Smith_01]

Not all races have a cultural bridge.
Barbarians like myself have nothing in between Fine Plate and BD armor.

Trying to skill up on Acrilya is a total joke (try finding a few windstones... once you realise the cost/time involved in that and multiply it by 20-ish per skill up...).

Shadowscream ain't so bad, especially if you got a friend who can help AE large numbers of Wolves/Owls.

Mistletoe sickle's break even maybe around 220-ish + geerlok. Depends how busted the market is on your server.
As for the 320 subcombines per 20 sickle attempts... *cough* {URL removed - We don't condone the use of programs that break the EULA} *cough*.

Once you do hit max skill (i.e. 240 + Geerlok), you CAN make plat selling PoP armors. I.e. Hurricane and maybe Night Terror.
You can also make plat on some servers selling Tae Ew weapons/shields/BP/Legs (though in most cases the profit has dropped to maybe 3 to 4k per item sold, dependant on how much you pay for the ingrediants/how screwed your servers market is....).

As a barbarian smith I sell bugger-all cultural as it is, so its not a great hinderance. Some races got it easier though!

As for quests, 8th shawl rocks for casters and the Aim Gimmel(?) earring is to die for (though you need to be in Elemental Planes to make the last one).

[Jagore]

Once you do hit max skill (i.e. 240 + Geerlok), you CAN make plat selling PoP armors. I.e. Hurricane and maybe Night Terror.
You can also make plat on some servers selling Tae Ew weapons/shields/BP/Legs (though in most cases the profit has dropped to maybe 3 to 4k per item sold, dependant on how much you pay for the ingrediants/how screwed your servers market is....).

thank you for those inspiring words. i think i'm going to go ahead and invest my time and money into it. hell, maybe someday verant will decide to give kitties cultural. ('Catnip Covered Breastplate' anybody?) lol, i can dream and about the server thing...i come from Tallon Zek, we probably have the most screwed up economy next to sullen. i see tae ew going for insane prices, but i never knew those were made through smithing....

anyway thanks for all the replies guys 8)

[Darksun003]

I'm currently working to become a GM smithing by doing the Shadowscream path. I'm a beastlord vah shir as you can guess from the path i've chosen since we kitties don't have cultural.

But I would like to know is. Is there any items that are worth around 10kish in tribute pts like the dwarf Underfoot cultural smithing. I'm looking for items in the same caliber as that Underfoort cultural armor that i can make which is not cultural.

Thanks in advance.

Darksun

[Thorvari]

Since you are a Vah shir, reasons that you would want to raise your smithing skill are:

1. 8th Coldain shawl (has FT3)
2. Aid Grimel Earring (has FT3)
3. Prestige of getting all of your skills up
4. Being able to do other quests that involve smithing combines with a fair chance of success on the first try
5. Making items for twinks/guildmates (Engraved Royal Velium armor, Mistletoe Cutting Sickles, etc.)

[Boleslav]

I would recommend most smiths to use Shadowscream Steel over thier cultural armor anyway. Human, Ogre, and maybe Dark Elf smiths have cultural recipies easier to gahter for than Shadowscream, but the rest might as well use Shadowscream.

Some of the Tae Ew chain tems have very nice tribute values, and if you can get the blood yourself there is nothing else to farm.

Smithing is more equitable between races than Tailoring at least.

Boleslav Forgehammer
Paladin of Brell in his 65th Campaign
E'ci - Sacred Destiny
250 smith - old school - exactly 0 (zero) skillups made from cultural armors

[Darksun003]

Thanks Boleslav, that's the answer i'm looking for.

Currently i'm skilling up by doing Shadowscream at 199 now

Tons of farming but at least now there's something i can look forward to when I GM smithing. Have checked out the Tae Ew blood thingie. Pretty easy to farm, coz i'm a beastlord.

Hopefully with the new expansion there is something new to make that is worth good in tribute value.

Darksun

[Kheera]

Don't forget LDoN plate armor in your skill path, that trivials into the low 200's I believe.

Also, you might check up in Sanctus Seru and try finding and killing Praesertum Bikun for the 10% smithing mod belt (restricted to large races, but you're a kitty, so you're set). He's not too hard to kill, the trick is that he procs a single-target banish, so best way to kill him is with pets. With that, you can start in on ethereal metal ring smithing at 200 and get inexpensive skillups to 212; it more than paid for itself when I did that, even buying the blocks in bazaar (borrowed my partner's brewing skill for the tempers, since that takes 220 skill to attempt combine).

There's a couple 15% mod items but they're rarer drops off harder mobs; if you can get them, though, you get to attempt the ethereal metal rings sooner (though if you're to 199 already, doesn't make much difference to you).

[Darksun003]

I just realized by skillings up on LDoN plate armors makes more sense when i'm at 199 coz it's trivial is closer. To top it off they give decent tribute values. So at this point i'm going on that path till I reach the last of the trivial values which is at 210/212.

Currently I'm at 204 in smithing. Then i decide to check out the messageboard and saw your message Kheera. You mentioned about that 10% smithing belt mod in Sanctus Seru.

Some information about my status in Sanctus Seru, I'm actually KoS in there now coz i hunted the lucid shard, which is required for the VT key quest. So is it possible for me to solo Praesertum Bikun for that belt or it's just strictly group attainable? If it required a group. Can you recommend what are the group make-up pls.

Thanks in advance.

PS. Even if i decide to get my skills up to a point where i can do that Ethereal metal ring(which is 210 if i use geerlok). That 10% smithing belt mod is sweet for my future smithing on making those ridicously 300ish trivial items. So i'm hoping i can get that 10% mod belt easily pls.

Darksun

[Kheera]

He is not soloable; the Praesertum has a nice lot of hp (Luclin named after all, /sigh) and can't be tanked easily because of the banish proc, and this particular one isn't slowable. The banish doesn't work on pets, so you pet tank him and do ranged damage. So, you'd want other pet classes, range damage classes, and at least one healer, and careful of aggro. Might be able to entice help with the shard he always drops for the Arx key/Seru earring ... or the rare chance at the silken bridle ^_^

The other trick may be getting to him, for kos party members. There's four similar buildings where the Praesertum spawn (there's 4 of them); and a ton of different Seru factions, some of which are raised by killing members of other factions. I've helped killing all the Praesertum for the Arx key/Seru earring quest a few times (how I got my belt), so my factions are quite scrambled; some love me, some hate my guts. You might be lucky and be non-kos on whichever faction he's on (forget which). If not, or other party members are kos, two of the four buildings you can get into easily with invisibility. The other two have some nasty see invis mobs -- one (Eye, I think) has one not easy named (who doesn't drop anything, just seems to be there to be evil to people trying to sneak in); the other building has lots of yellow-to-65 guards who see invisible wandering around. Scout carefully. I don't recall which building he's actually in, might send someone good alignment who hasn't killed in SSeru to poke around and check the layout first.

[centx]

evb's

Dont forget the possibility for EVB's the velium is much easier to farm than shadowscream and brining you to 222 it will alleviate alot of the stress of farming shadowscream and the lower trivial will increase skill up rates. my suggestion would be ldon armor until 210 2 ethereal freebies then EVB's until trivial then go for shadowscream

[Aalar]

Another little trick is to get to 220 then make up a bunch of acid wash (for the Aid Grimel quest) then keep cleaning the BP (the first part of the quest) till you get to 227 - which is where cleaning the BP trivials at.

Granted it is a lot easier for caster classes. We can bind by Grimel so we only have to make one half of the trip.

Aalar