The Longshot or the Sure Deal?

[LoganHex]

Quick question for you old time tradeskillers.

Been working up my tailoring (currently at a one seventy three) in an attempt to make cultural armor for myself (Erudite shadow knight).

Even though I farm most of the ingredients myself it is starting to get extremely expensive (not to mention unbelievably time consuming).

Fortunately for me I am a patient man. I do not mind investing the time if I believe the end result is worthwhile.

Unfortunately for me I am level fifty two now and the mobs that I fight are really starting to tear me up in my level thirty armor. Needless to say this is not good for a tank.

Now I do not buy any gear at all so I need to get this armor done as quickly as possible. This is where I get to my question:

Would it be cheaper and/or less time consuming to try making the cultural armor now and hope for successes through sheer number of attempts or should I continue to be patient and work along the natural tailoring progression?

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

Add In: Erudite cultural armor is called Fulvous Steelweave for those who want to look it up. It is pretty easy to make for the most part. Most expensive component is the blue diamond and rarest farm item is Terrorantula Silk.

[Aleksandros]

Plod along, or forge ahead...

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the success rate on Erudite Blue Diamond cultural armors enjoy a higher overall success rate than most. I have little to go by other than my experience with Blessed Full Mithril (smithed), but I believe it would be worth a shot to assemble materials for several pieces you most want to upgrade, and try them. Worst result, no skillups, down a couple thousand pp worth of materials. Best result, a couple skillups paired with some serious upgrades to your current kit. Anything in between, fair result. I'm still wearing several pieces of Blessed Artkeeper's Chain that I made in my 40s, and probably will for quite some time

Never know what you can do 'til ya try

[Yizan_Pet_Pimpin]

What server do you play on? I am a 250 Erudite Tailor with trophy on Xegony, I would be happy to combine for you if you are on Xegony.

Otherwise I would agree you should go ahead and attempt a few combines. I attempted my first combines on Erudite Cultural at skill 190 with a geerlok. I was successfull on 4 out of 7 combines, I made the BP on my third attempt, Legs on my 2nd, and made two Bracers on the first combine attempt.

[Yitara]

Well, I must disagree with the Euridite Cultural being easy. I worked tailoring up to 213 then ran out of bamboo shoots. I had saved up enough BD's to make 15 attempts and thought "what the heck". 15 failures later and I wish I had waited. Sad thing is, my mage is now 64 and probably wouldn't wear any of the pieces. Take my advice, have the GM combine then for you now so you can use them and forget about tailoring your own armour. By the time you could really make it you will probably have gotten better out of LDoN's, etc.

Yitara

[Chenier]

I don't think any culture is "easier" than another. That's a bunch of hogwash.

If you are set on doing it yourself (and by all means, I completely understand), there is a philosophy here that says, yeah, go ahead and try the combines. It'll be just as easy to farm more components for your actual cultural armor as it is to farm more components for skill ups.

The reason behind this philosophy is, from your post, you are only trying to make one thing (well, one suit or partial suit of armor). It developed when folks were working on the shawl quests and everyone was complaining about how difficult raising tailoring was to get a comfortable skill level to try the 7th shawl. The idea is, just go for it, it's easier to farm the quest components than to farm and try to skill up on tailoring (from the good old days of just Velious tailoring...you know, up hill both ways to school in the snow, blah blah blah).

Anywho, if you were dead set on GM'ing tailoring and this armor was just a step on the way (and if it sounded like you were less desperate for the upgrade) and were thinking of using this combines as skill ups, then I'd say no, hang on the components you have. Or if you were looking at GM'ing tailoring so you could sell Erudite crafted stuff, I'd say no.

But, if I were in your shoes, then yeah, make your armor. You're gonna to probably fail a bit more than you'd like, but once you have your armor, you can reflect up on tailoring and decide if you wanna keep going or not; if you do, then you can do it more slowly and at a more leisurely pace.

***
If, on the other hand, you don't care if you specifically make your armor or not, seek out a GM on your server. There is still a failure rate, but less probability than if you do it at your skill level.

[Optimum1]

Rainy Day for a Parade

At the risk of sounding jaded and cynical, I definately urge you to seek out a GM or wait to skill up more if you wish to actually get much out of your attempts. The person who said it's hogwash to think that one cultural recipe is easier than another obviously has no first-hand experience being bent over by the RNG. I am a 250+ trophy ERU tailor and I have a 250+ geerlok Ogre smith and a 250+ trophy Human smith and a 250+ geerlok Dwarven smith and lemme tell ya: Smiths have it so much easier it makes me want to hurl..no, it makes me want to hurl while cursing and jumping up and down. I fail so so so much more at sewing Steelweave than I do at smithing Heraldic, Darkscale and Underfoot. Heed my advice friend and get thee to an Erudite GM before you sacrifice your BDs and terrorantula silks to the RNG. It has been my experience that not only do tailors get shafted more on their combines but they get shafted more on skillups and even gathering FOR skillups. Notice I only have one 250 tailor heh. G'luck to ya.

PS Then again, it could just be hogwash. Really.

PSS wtf IS hogwash? I assume it must be evil by context but wouldnt washing a hog be a good thing?

[Chenier]

The person who said it's hogwash to think that one cultural recipe is easier than another obviously has no first-hand experience being bent over by the RNG.

hahahahhahahhahah......yeah, right.

PS Then again, it could just be hogwash. Really.

PSS wtf IS hogwash? I assume it must be evil by context but wouldnt washing a hog be a good thing?

A polite, EQTraders way of saying b*llsh*t. =)

[Maevenniia]

The person who said it's hogwash to think that one cultural recipe is easier than another obviously has no first-hand experience being bent over by the RNG.

lol, take a look at Chenier's signature, she is part of the 1750 club - she has maxxed ALL tradeskills. So she just might know a little bit about the subject (cultural tailoring)