There has to be a better way....

[Narith]

Ok I need some advice, I am looking to GM tailoring and though money is not a major concern (I will explain in a sec) I need to find a way to skill up at a decent rate on mostly player bought material (you know, what the level 20s and 30s sell in mass quantities because you hate to farm them yourselves).

Ok I have gone from 172 to 186 in the last 4 days at a cost of 40k (yes 40, 000 plat). Though money is not my concern, that rate is just ridiculous. I pay no more than 30p per velium piece (some people sell em on Brell for 100 each) or 60p per small/large brick or block, I pay no more than 50p/100p respectively for their acrylia counterparts as velium temper costs alot more I am willing to pay more for acrylia... Anyways I do not think I am overpaying by much for materials and have been trying velious leathers as pelts are much easier to attain (I fish in CS for cod while casting c3/4/or 5 for pelts to the quad kiters). The problem with velious studded armors is that you need 4 tempers for 2 studs at 25p each is 100p for 2 mask combines in temper alone which I still fail 19/20 and have to sell to a vendor for 6g and change on the one I do make. Count in buying velium I am going through about 300p or more a combine.

So I tried Acrylia armor, acrylia is a bit more costly from players and I tried farming it myself in acrylia caverns and gave up after 2 hours and seeing 3 bricks. Still it is cheaper to buy from players this way... The problem is that the hides needed I have yet to see for under 300p each and up to 500p, now for something that I cant sell back to players for more than 50p I refuse on principle to pay that much so I farmed them myself. Again the quantity I received farming became a problem... I could keep half of the DS rockhopper cave cleared before respawn and after 5 hours a day for 3 days I manage 12 superb and 14 flawless hides. That will get me to 250 in oh about 14 years.

So I moved on to ceremonial soltice robes. Being a 250 JCer I did the chains myself, it cost me 10k and I managed to make 7 chains. Buying imbued emeralds I paid 30p each for 4 stacks (2400p total) a little more than what I probably would have paid if I offered a good chunk of cash to a druid to imbue and bought the gems myself, but I didn't have to wait for them. 5p each for the celestial essence from the newbies (needed 160) and so on ended up putting me in the hole about 12kish after I sold the 3 I succeeded on for 1k a pop and still left with 4 chains.

Now then as for money I have a few hundred k to deal with, but 40k for 14 points is what I deem insane. The robes seem to be the balance between higher availability than the acrylia and cheaper than velious leather. Velious leathers are a bit easier to come by (I can farm 2 stacks of panther skins a day, if I could find a yew leaf supplier), but unless Sony ups the buy back rate on vendors it is a huge money sink. Lastly, Acrylia... The drop rates on the pelts are horrid, drop rate on the ore is horrid, it's just all round a horrid and painfully slow way to go.

Can anyone please, please, please think of an alternative route. Something that I am not spending 3k+ for 1 point, but is fast enough that I can spend an hour a day getting enough material for 20+ combines. My best bet right now is the robes as far as I can see......

But seriously, there has to be a better way.

[Sealody]

Nope

Tailoring has always been ether incredibly expensive or a huge timesink.

If you farm everything yourself, it's not really that expensive. Now you said you had the money, so I'm going to assume you don't have the time. Just start dumping loads of cash into tailoring. So far. 40k is nothing if you are going that route. Tailors have been known to spend upwards of 400k to GM this skill.

Since you said money isn't an issue, hopefully you have a large bankroll guild supporting you or profit from another tradeskill, there really isn't a 'fast and cheap' way of Tailoring.

Sealody

[Wyrdlan]

though money is not a major concern

Never, ever say this. If you do, it simply means you do not understand the quantities of money you will need to spend.

According to my vender logs ( here ), I have had 353k pp pass through my vender and go back into tailoring. This is since the last time I cleared my vender log. This is not including the estimated 50 to 70k I've made on Leatherfoot Haversacks (gross, not net). This is not including the tailored items I am wearing, that my guild is wearing, that my friends are wearing, that I've traded for other items. This is not including the value of items I farmed myself. This is not including the 70k in BD armor I have personally delivered to people who couldn't make it up to the bazaar because of their raiding schedules.

In regards to money for tailoring, if you have to ask, you can't afford it.

[Lilosh]

Re: There has to be a better way....

So I moved on to ceremonial soltice robes. Being a 250 JCer I did the chains myself, it cost me 10k and I managed to make 7 chains. Buying imbued emeralds I paid 30p each for 4 stacks (2400p total) a little more than what I probably would have paid if I offered a good chunk of cash to a druid to imbue and bought the gems myself, but I didn't have to wait for them. 5p each for the celestial essence from the newbies (needed 160) and so on ended up putting me in the hole about 12kish after I sold the 3 I succeeded on for 1k a pop and still left with 4 chains.

You see, impatience is your main enemy here.

You could have saved 1320 for emeralds, by asking a druid friendwith a few spare moments.. maybe one from your server forum here.

You paid 560 more for CE, then you'd pay combining it yourself..

Thats 2k from your 12k estimate right there. Add to that fact that you seem to be selling your successes for 1k each, and 7 chains = 7k.


Thats 3k for 80 attempts. Statistically, thats 4 skillups. People have collected data and found that 20 is the average number of combines per skillup. There are some long 100+ combine skillups, and some consecutive skillups.

But as you said, you didnt want to wait. And if you are a tailor without patience, you can't expect the best of both worlds. You wont have bazaar convience with farming prices.

Keep at it, and you'll be 250 in no time.

-Lilosh

[Handor]

Welcome to Tailoring

If you want a skill you can buy to 250, take up jewelcraft. Tailoring is only for the hardcore tradeskiller. I would estimate somewhere around 500+ hours farming greens/light blues for tailoring and tinkering drops and doing other non-experience tasks (like fishing/foraging). I'm just glad we had our wizard quad so many wyverns when they were still experience.

If we hadn't bothered with tailoring and tinkering, all our chars would be 65 with tons of AA's. We figure that conservatively we have spent over 150K pp so far buying only the stuff that doesn't drop and farming the rest.

And you haven't even hit the fun part yet -- when you get to the 190's it gets *really* fun. We went through at least 1,000 wyvern hides to get from 190 to 210.

Though it is easier now with acrylia and Solstice robe options, it's still not easy. If you just want stuff you can buy up, stick to Solstice robes. You should be able to buy imbued emeralds, silks, probably even celestial essences on prod servers?

[Valorale]

Handor, 4th paragraph of original post, first line. ... the guy is a 250 JCer

Lilosh pretty much hit the nail on the head here. Your problem is you think because you have money you can buy a 250 in Tailoring, thus your impaitent. Hate to break it to you but unless you have over 7 figures in your bank account that is unlikely to happen without a LOT of clicking... or will have to find someone to come to your house and do the clicking for you.

If you REALLY hate the idea of combining 3000 Celestial essence, I hear rumors that there are programs that can assist with this.

With the number of Emeralds you will need it may be in your best interest to PL yourself a druid or cleric to level 29 so you can do those imbues, thus the emeralds only cost you 13pp, 5gp each and the time to imbue them .. again I hear rumors that there are programs that can assist with this. This would be especially easy if you have a 2nd computer and 2nd account, you could do the C5 yourself.

Dont get me wrong .. having the money helps alot but dont think because you have it, by throwing it at the skill it will go up faster. Expect to spend at least 350,000pp for a 250 skill assuming you planed your route out and did everything with care, time and paitence.

Last .. 10,000pp for 7 gem studded chains? Are you sure your JC is 250? Do you have the +5% mod tool? Were talking a sapphire, a ruby and an emerald per combine along with the metal chain that should cost you no more than 2pp. So total per attempt were looking at what? 275pp at most?
That is over 36 attempts and you mean to tell me you only made 7 chains? You either need to recalculate how much you really spent, or check that JC skill because that is some BAD BAD combines. At worst you should have had at least 15-18 chains made.

Edit| One more thing .. yes the buy back rate sucks .. I seriously hope you didnt go into tailoring thinking you would get rich did you? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Wyrdlan]

Last .. 10,000pp for 7 gem studded chains? Are you sure your JC is 250? Do you have the +5% mod tool? Were talking a sapphire, a ruby and an emerald per combine along with the metal chain that should cost you no more than 2pp. So total per attempt were looking at what? 275pp at most?

At 250 JC I make about 1 in 3 chains. 1k each is a decent estimate, slightly cheaper in the long run. A bad run of luck could easy make him go 7 for 20 to 30.

[Valorale]

I have a 250 JCer with Trophy and she gets roughly a 45% success rate on the Gem Studded Chains. I could -maybe- see someone getting 7 for 20 on a really bad run. But 7 for 30? Or even more ridiculous 7 for 36?! Come on .. at some point you have to stop and say "Whoa I just did 6 failures in a row ..that isnt right" .. step back from the machine take a walk outside, come back and try again.

Edit| Then again LOL .. you may be right .. he did display a lack of paitence maybe he did burn through a REALLY bad RNG streak

[Lilosh]

If you REALLY hate the idea of combining 3000 Celestial essence, I hear rumors that there are programs that can assist with this.


.. again I hear rumors that there are programs that can assist with this.

Macroing programs are not only a Violation of the EULA, but seriously frowned upon by people here.

I wouldn't suggest running one, no matter how timesaving. If SoE miracuously finds a way to detect these tomorrow, you can have all of your PHAT LEWTS taken away, and possibly end up banned.


Not to mention if we abuse the fact that CE is totally vendor sold, they will nerf it. There is no maybe about it.

Play by SoE's rules, or don't play. It's that simple.


-Lilosh

[Valorale]

I am not saying I endorse or use any such programs, but I have heard from people that they exist, so if someone is very impaitent and just wants the end results that is a route they are free to take so long as they are willing to accept the risks involved with it.

[Hanna]

Actually I have seen some really bad runs with making chains. Hows a failure of 18 out of 20 attempts?

The good news, you can increase your rate of success on all jewelcrafting, if you put aa points into Jewelcrafting Mastery. The last time I had chains made, the friend who did my combines had put points into the JewelcraftingMastery. He made 19 out of 20 chains! (I was hoping for 10)! That would cut your chain cost almost in half, and definatly worth it to people who you do combines for. I know people who have gone out of their way and paid more for a jeweler with JCM, simply because they wanted a greater chance of a successful combine.

Hanna

[ArrakeenNaedShoj]

Macroing programs are not only a Violation of the EULA,

Macroing programs are only a violation of the EULA if you are running them without being present. If you are two boxxing on the macine right next to it, you are present and therefore can run the macro on the second machine.

That isn't to say I endorse them, Or that if they "detect" you doing it, they won't take your "phat lewt" away. Just that it isn't in violation of the EULA to run a script or third party application while present, as long as it doesn't provide you with "unfair" information/advantages like spawn tables etc.

[Valorale]

That is what I thought Arra, I mean there are plenty of people with carpel tunnel or some other condition with their motorskills where doing more than a dozen combines would be unrealistic.

As for 18 failures out of 20 on the chains ... ouch ... Maybe I am just spoiled, I have done about 80 attempts on the chain and have had roughly 35-36 successes.

[Lilosh]

Macroing programs are not only a Violation of the EULA,

Macroing programs are only a violation of the EULA if you are running them without being present. If you are two boxxing on the macine right next to it, you are present and therefore can run the macro on the second machine.

That isn't to say I endorse them, Or that if they "detect" you doing it, they won't take your "phat lewt" away. Just that it isn't in violation of the EULA to run a script or third party application while present, as long as it doesn't provide you with "unfair" information/advantages like spawn tables etc.

While I believe what you say is technically true, it is a Grey area that I am not zoning into.

:-) I Don't, and Won't use them.


-Lilosh

[rassy fleetfoot]

tips

a couple other money saving tips.

while its a giant pain in the butt, making your own coldain temper saves about 15p per temper over buying from the vendor. 9-10p is much more preferable to 26 for me. brewing isnt hard to raise and is relatively cheap to about 158 where all this stuff is trivial.

you also said you didnt think you overpaid "much" for things..stop overpaying! yes i know thats kinda iffy, but if the standard price for a block of whatever is less than you're paying, you're paying too much. tipping someone who brings you a lot of ore is nice but no need to go throwing money around for no reason.

lastly..allll those annoying CE combines. i believe you posted you paid 5p per to be combined. try 1p per. MAYBE 2. if you need 1000 ce made, find a newb or 2, offer them 500p for 500 combines..thats a good chunk of change for lower levels..your server may vary of course but even people in your guild may jump at that. 500p for 30-40 minutes work (if that) is a nice return.