Why velious/luclin, instead of cultural?

[xaanru]

Ok, tailoring is my latest hobby, but I've always considered myself a smith first. I've wanted to avoid too much insane farming when I skilled up, so I chose to buy the swatch components for cultural robes in the bazaar. I also have been usually able to buy the cultural ribbons for below the cost of the materials to make them. Then the robes sell for 3-5 times my cost to make. This is human cultural, which isn't even the best robes, based on effects.

Now, with all this being the case, why do so many people still skill up on velious and luclin leathers. The flawless rockhopper hides cost more than the armor does on rodcet nife, and velium for the velious armors is ridiculous, since EVBs came out. Plus all the foraging/fishing etc for the tannin materials.

I tried to make a stack or two of wyvern armor, lost money on all of it, failed a LOT, and it was a royal PITA.

I also tried solstice robes, which seem to sell for about 1/3 the cost of the chains, and lost a ton of pp there as well, in addition, there were about 100 robes for sale in the bazaar at that time, and fierce undercutting.

IMO, the only tailoring path thats halfway decent is the cultural robes. (btw, I sell them based on tribute values - at a ratio of 3-4 tribute per pp).

Did I miss something better? PoP armors perhaps? What other paths are not ridiculous plat sinks?

[naura]

Now, with all this being the case, why do so many people still skill up on velious and luclin leathers. The flawless rockhopper hides cost more than the armor does on rodcet nife, and velium for the velious armors is ridiculous, since EVBs came out. Plus all the foraging/fishing etc for the tannin materials.

because only pure int casters can make the robes.

[Rerashyaka]

Actually, only pure int casters can make the swatches. Any race that has the potential to be a pure int caster can make the robes. This means that ogres, trolls, barbarians, vah shir, half elves, wood elves and halflings are unable to use LoY tailoring past 187, and the non-casters of the other races have to go through the extra step of finding a caster to research swatches for them. So for a lot of people out there, velious and luclin are the only real options, lousy as they may be.

Rerashyaka Mousekiller
65 Vah Shir Bard
Druzzil Ro

250 baking + trophy
250 brewing
200 fletching
199 pottery
191 smithing
191 jewelcraft
188 fletching

[xaanru]

Rarashyaka is correct, I play a cleric, and have skilled almost exclusively on cultural robes since I trivialed ribbons.

[Tweedledea]

I think the more cost-conscious tailors amongst us DON'T buy their velium/hides etc at the extortionate bazaar rates

In terms of foraging, the dye components tend to be rarer forages than, say, drake eggs. Especially maneater roots. (Ikkie robes). There are a gazillion sucky forages in that zone.

[Zolina]

Don't even think about wood elf cultural tailoring, it takes an hour of killing tigers to get an excellent sabretooth tiger hide and 15 minutes of foraging to get an oak bark, you'll go crazy before you max tailoring that way.

[Tower]

I do human cultural tailoring too, the items are kind of easy to get in the bazaar and with some vendor mineing, and i have a necro alt who can make the swatches easy, and no it isent only caster who can make it.

[Myrron]

Don't even think about wood elf cultural tailoring, it takes an hour of killing tigers to get an excellent sabretooth tiger hide and 15 minutes of foraging to get an oak bark, you'll go crazy before you max tailoring that way.

Actually, once you hit, say, 230 or so, this route is not that bad if bazaar prices are fair (which of coruse varies by server). I would routinely buy up 10 hides, 10 oak barks, and 10 blue diamonds and go on little bursts of cultural tailoring. (Note: on Vaz, I never spent more than 100pp on hides, 80pp on oak bark, and 350pp on BDs...if prices were higher, I just waited.) As long as I averaged a 1/3 success rate on the wristbands, I could make back the cost selling them in the bazaar and even profit a little. It's a gamble of course, and you have to know your server's economy, but making the right pieces can sometimes pay for itself.

Of course, having a mule or two parked in Loio or the outpost in Overthere scanning merchants for hides cuts down the cost tremendously.

I agree with Zolina, farming the pieces for cultural skillups is not advisable. I will freely admit I did the majority of 240-250 on Velious stuff. But every so often, a small burst of cultural is not necessarily out of the question if you have the money for the initial investment. As it turned out, after 240, most of the pp I wasted on velium was achieved from cultural gear profits from raw supplies bought in the bazaar. And please, no one get me started about dropping 5k without a second thought on velium deals...ugh...

--Myrron Lifewarder

[Yitan]

As said, just int casters can do it. And int casters are well known for their foraging skills :P

I can agree the Robe of Tempest is sold quite often and at fair prices (5-7 K on AB server) but NOONE forage bamboo shoots. Leveled a druid to 20 just to forage in Stonebrunt Mts. but the rate is ridiculous: 2-3 every 4-5 hours if im lucky.

So i use it to get PPs, not to raise skills.

[Troodon]

As far as I know, the only int casters that can forage are iksar necros, and then only 50, lol...

Anyway, theoretically cultural robes shouldn't be too bad an option over Velious and Luclin stuff. It all depends on how easy it is to get the items you need. I actually tried skilling up on Robes of Abatement... honey berries a pretty common drop in DL, and if you shout that you're buying them while you get your own (off of drachnids and drolvargs) can get quite a bunch pretty quickly. Words of Abatement aren't too rare... but so much other stuff can drop instead of these, hehe... ironically because these wrods are pretty common most people don't bother to sell them in the Bazaar, as they don't command good prices, and may as well jsut dump them on vendors. Vendor shopping can turn up quite a few.

Getting swatches made is no big deal, my guild has plenty of researches. If none are available usually can find somoene in PoK to make swatches for me for a reasonable donation.

Maneater buds are a serious PITA to get, lol... so much junk you can forage instead, and the plants that drop them aren't too common, and rarely drop the buds. I only farm these to make Robes of Misery for sale, hehe... for sake of skillnig up I just do the robes that can be made with berry dye.

Basically it's a plat vs. time issue... if you want to save plat, cultural robes are they way to go, but can be very time consuming. If you want to save time, Velious/Luclin the way to go, but can be very expensive. So take your pick, hehe... it depends on how easy it is for you to get plat I guess.

[Deedolith]

You can reduce the cost of velious / luclin tailoring, depend how fast you're able to farm.
I used to AoE in skyshrine to farm velium, and I usually get at least 5 bricks / blocks per pull.

[Aauminki]

To the original poster, I did some robes but getting the research drops were a total PITA on Vazaelle. Then I started kiting the wyverns in CS for hides and they weren't too bad, and the cash is nice as well. Velium I've gotten by farming it myself in Skyshrine as said above, it's mostly deserted zone anyway but the drops are nice. Got enough for 100 studs in about 4 hours time, so not too bad I should say - certainly getting research stuff would have taken me much longer, especially after the first round or two of vendor farming the vendors seem to clog up with useless stuff and I'd have to wait for a patch, while Wyverns are available most of the time

[Ersiusp]

Why velious/luclin hides? 3 words.

I'm a dorf.

[mikebridge]

getting the dyes and appropriate swatch or research component is whats holding me back on using exclusively cultural to skill up. velium farming is cake (40+ small pieces per lap) and the wyvern hides aren't that rare (but still rare enough to be a pain), so i'm just collecting stuff thats free/cheap for skill ups, and then do large batches.

on that note, anyone know a good place to get essence of rathe or salil pg. 90 (right) ?

[Zeralenn]

I surmise by "Archon of Marr" that you are human. Human cultural robes are much easier than most. My mage Csimene skilled up on Robes of Scent (ribbon ingredient was plant shoots, research item is Essence of Rathe) and it was pretty easy to obtain the ingredients.

However, not everyone has life so good. My dark elven necro friend has a devil of a time finding her ribbon dye ingredients, namely cursed clover of viesar and ashweed. She can have her ranger foraging and killing cacti all morning in OT and only get six or seven clover. Ashweed is worse.

Different races have different ability to get their ingredients. Gnomes might not have it so bad (haven't looked at the research items but at least the steam dye is easy to get ingredients for) but it would be a PITA for erudites with their less-than-easy-to-get dye ingredients.

...Zera