Specific Question: Those of you that used Sickle's to level

[Laearya Lifeblood]

At what skill did you start them, and how much did it cost you to hit 220? or to GM?

[Laearya Lifeblood]

Wow....um....no one used just sickles and pp to level?? hehe

There's gotta be some cash cow person out there that did, no?

[Krazick]

Maybe... but sometimes they might take a week to respond...

As for when or if to try this...

START with a VERY Large Fortune. It is Very Expensive (or so I have read) to do it this way.

[Impudent]

From what I've gathered.. scickles are BARELY worth it anymore, atleast on my server.

[Tinile]

Sickles cost about 6500 per stack to combine.

[Laearya Lifeblood]

I'm aware of the costs per stack to combine, and am sitting on 3 bags full of stuff to do some combines soon. 6500 is almost exactly the cost per stack.

The market has definately tanked for them on practically all servers, mind you, the same can be said for solstice robes, and I still recouped my costs (for successes) on each one that I sold.

I'm not making them for a huge profit, obviously. I'm one of the people that is looking into a few different avenues (SS, Cultural, Sickle's) for getting up to 220 for the Aid Grimel questing.

I could spend a ton of time farming greenies, and get cheap combines, or spend a ton of time XP'ing and getting drops for PP (Thanks Sol Ro Ornate drops) and just use the PP to make sickles in less time.

I'm just not sure on how many combines/how much PP it may take, and was hoping for some insight on that end from anyone that has taken the hi cost route.

[Taushar]

I have been doing SS to skill up in the past but I am seriously considering using sickles to skill up from now on. I am at 216 now and I am hoping that 150kpp is enough to at least close to 250. I will let you know in a week or two when I have chance to give it a try.

Taushar

[Eidolon Faer]

I used Mistletoe Sickles to skill up. What ya wanna know?

My experience is not, shall we say, typical of the starting Smith though. To my knowledge I am the first 250 High Elf Smith on Brell, and was at skill 243 or 244 when the Solstice Earring quest went live.

I went to 242 on Fine Plate Cloaks, well before I heard rumors of the nerf.

If you want advice on the sickles, all I can suggest is level up a Tunarean Druid or Cleric to 29+ as an alt. Getting the backpacks and backpacks full of Imbued Emeralds will cost you friends and fortunes if you need to go begging.

Mind you, the PARTS provide a reasonable skillup path in the 180-range, if you've got a friendly grandmaster to bang them into finished sickles and hand 'em back for you to sell. I did that for a guildie or two in my day.

But I would not recommend even CONSIDERING sickles as a skillup route 'till skill 225 at least. You're just flushing plat down the toilet. You're still looking at 45-50% failure at max skill + trophy on these.

[Cavel]

I have attempted many Sickles and failed on well over half of them. I have some plat to burn but would rather not. IF you do not mind tossing the entire 150K that you gave as a total away to get a few skill ups then go the Sickle route. Someone here had said about 5 months ago that this is what they did and have fairly good success rates (Around 1 skill up every 20-40 combines).

The real question is are you willing to toss 150K plat at this and possibly not get ANY skill ups? I did well over 100 combines between my last skill up and now.

If I am calculating this out correctly your 150K will get you roughly 23 skill up attempts. If you are INSANELY lucky you will see 1 to 4 skill ups on that few combines.

[tawnos]

150k / ~300 pp per combine looks more like 500 combines to me. I would be hoping for 25 or so skillups from that, at least with 355 int, wis, or str.

[Taraddar]

I did sickles for skill ups but it doesn't really apply to your situation since it was back in the day right after the quest was put in and I was selling sickles for 3k a peice and selling out practically as fast as I could make them. If you do use sickles for skill ups I'd recommend against just dumping them all on the market at once. Keep your vendor stocked with 3 or 4 to sell so you always have some for sale but if you put 20+ up for sale at once your just gonna beat up an already bruised market.

If you really have plat to burn and want an easier combine check out the Pure bar of velium. A little more expensive but much simpler combine.

[Laearya Lifeblood]

level up a Tunarean Druid or Cleric to 29+

I'm a Tunare Cleric, I have no worries there

Failure isn’t really a big deal, I’m going for the skillups over anything else, success on finished sickle’s is just a bonus (Yes, some will look at me and say “Why are you throwing all that plat away?”, because my time is worth more than the pp that I can earn back

If you really have plat to burn and want an easier combine check out the Pure bar of velium. A little more expensive but much simpler combine

I don't quite have that much pp to burn though, hehe.

I think I'll give 2 bags a go, see where I end up, and toss in the odds and sods Cultural and Shadowscream parts that I have and decide from there. I'll keep ya'll posted incase anyone's interested

[Celdil]

Actually, that 150k represents 23 runs of sickles (at 20 sickles per run). And following the expected skill up ratio of one per 20 combines above lvl 188, that represents ~ 23 skill ups.

Obviously each person will experience different results, but on the whole, that is what you can expect. I didn't have the plat to try skilling up entirely on sickles. So I chose the Imbued Field Plate/Shadow Scream route for my Human Cleric. I did attempt one run of 20 sickles before I was lvl 200 (around 194, I think). The end result was one success and one skill up. I attempted my next run at 218, and got 6 successes and one skill up. From that point on, tho I didn't use them as a skill up route, whenever my bazaar mule would sell out of them, I'd make another run. Prices on Tarew Marr for the sickles are such that six sickles is enough to cover cost of materials and still make a little profit. Since then, I've effectively GM'd the skill with my trophy (actual lvl 240), and I see runs between 7 and 12 successes. Albeit a very limited sample.

[wombat]

Hmm

It depends how lucky you are, on fine plate I went 320 combines between 195 and 196. and 126 combines between 208 and 209.

I averaged 30 combines per skill up as a Paladin with wis 210 at the time between 190 and 220.

If you get a bad run early you will blow all your cash for 1 or 2 skillups.

Feeling lucky?

[Qualan]

Sickles still selling around 1k on saryrn - so i made quite a few and didn't lose money on em

The biggest issue i had with the sickles was the non stackability of components so basicly it has to be don ein small runs (20 sounds about right)

Skillups of 1 per 20 seem a bit optimistic to me- i think i had an average of around 1 per 35 or so (290ish strenght 305 wis)

SS is tiring in farming but at least i could click away at smithing in runs of 100 or so. It seemed less depressing than sickles, due to the odd skillrise you'd see each run