Making ribbons good tailoring course? So expensive!

[Whipcream]

Working on tailoring now. I am currently at 158 skill.

I was looking for an easier way to raise tailoring other than ripping through all the rockhoppers and grimmlings for ingredients. So I noticed you can raise your skill by making ribbons all the way to level 187, I believe I read it about it in one of the tailoring guides. After a few days I farmed up a whole bunch of lichenclover for making Lichen Dye I packed up and traveled down to the Gulf of Gunthak to sit myself down for some ribbon making. Imagine my surprise to find out the gold ribbons are 31 plat each, and the platinum ribbons cost 105 plat EACH!

People actually do this as an alternative to Acrylia Studded armor!? Holy Moly, how do they afford it? 2.1k plat a stack is just jaw-dropping for me. Keep in mind, I am just a poor Monk. I literally have about 4k plat in the bank.

With Prophecy of Ro out now, I don't suppose a better tailoring method has come along for raising skill has there? Preferably one that is cheaper, and required less farming than acrylia studded/reinforced.

..............and what do I do with all this dye!

[Angelsyn]

Honestly, at that range of Tailoring I was making large amounts of money on Smithing.

It's a fast way, and easier than Rockhoppers... but expensive.

Much like making Sickles for Smithing, rather than farming.

[Ozadar]

I was in the same situation years ago with only 20k or so in the bank, but am very glad I did this course. Not only will ribbons be your friend to 187, they will also be your friend making 222 if not 262. So, my advice would be to save your hoppers and acrylia for the 222-242 bridge, make your ribbons and save them for robes later, and pick up your cultural books for silk armor also to 222. If you're low on plat, probably best to farm plat for a while to buy your ribbons, then jump into cultural and robes to 222 to get your plat back, then grind hoppers to 242.

This is my plan but it was debunked with a 0 for 40 attempts on pottery a couple nights again, which made me timid on my next tailoring push that same day. Sigh . . . I think I'll regain my courage this week.

Ozadar of the 70th Corpse
Tradeskiller of Zek

Baking - 200
Tailoring - 195
Pottery - 219
Smithing - 227
Brewing - 248
Research - 200
Fishing - 200
Jewelry - 253
Fletching - 200

(+5% to all skills) + Salvage 3

[Zaltak]

Don cultural expert armor for the WIN:-)

[Queletan]

I think the robe combines that the ribbons use are race restricted, I belive the hail for the pattern requires you to be of the same race as the person who hands them out - not 100% sure tho.

If you are one of the races that has the cultural robes (Erudite, Dark Elf, High Elf, Human, Gnome, Frog I think), it might be worth your while to see which robes you can make, and collect the runes and the dye for those, so you can skill up on the robes too rather than just sell the ribbons back to the vendor.

In my experience the gold ones were good, the platinum was a bit of a money sink, but still alot easier than any other route I found.

Q

[Taushar]

Imagine my surprise to find out the gold ribbons are 31 plat each, and the platinum ribbons cost 105 plat EACH!

People actually do this as an alternative to Acrylia Studded armor!? Holy Moly, how do they afford it? 2.1k plat a stack is just jaw-dropping for me. Keep in mind, I am just a poor Monk. I literally have about 4k plat in the bank.

It's been a while since I did LoY ribbons to skill up but I did notice at that time that my skill ups were much higher with the ribbon than Rockhopper combines. It was in the order of 2x to 4x more, very significant. So, I stuck with the ribbons until I maxed out. I am not sure if this still is the case but that's one of the reasons why most of us stuck to that route.

Taushar

[Centuri]

Congratulations oh insane one on attempting the (debatable, but not by much) most difficult and frustrating tradeskill.

I would love to tell you there is an easy (even if it was expensive) magical skillup path that will get you there in no time.
There isn't.
The only skillup method I've really found for Tailoring is grab and stockpile -anything- you can get your hands on that will give you, now or in the future, a skillup. And, the higher up you get, the harder and more expensive it gets.

I know it feels to you that spending 150pp or so per combine is painful. And, as I look back, I remember it feeling that way too. Now I'm finding myself spending 1k or more per combine and sometimes thats even just on Vendor stuff, not even considering the farming involved. (purified mana... ick)
So just to let you know... it gets worse.

Excited yet! Still looking forward to 200, 250, 251... 300? Oh, I knew you were.

Right now, take a look at your cultural options. Figure out if they're going to be workable paths. I do know you're a monk but I don't know your race so I can't advise you directly.
Human? Expert's DoN takes Drachnid Silk. Very Do-able to 212!
Master's DoN tailoring takes Shissar Scales. Also very farmable. Good to 300 if you work it. You'll never want to step foot in Ssra temple again but it's better than Storm Volaas Hairs.

The LoY robes and ribbons are also a decent, fairly easy option up to 222 or so. You'd need a friend with research to help you with subcombines.


Iksar? Expert DoN takes Excellent Sabertooth tiger hides and Master's takes Ice silk swatches. Ouch. Not nearly as good of a path. If you're an Iksar I'd actually look somewhere else for heavy farming but take these combines when possible.
LoY robes still an option.

I can't think of any other monk races offhand.

Other possibilities not to overlook:
~Ceremonial Solstice Robes.
~Arctic Wyvern masks.
Fairly easy farming and it's an alternate path to 252 after you burn out on rockhoppers.

After that it gets tough.
Murkglider and Feran armor is decent to 262. I found that when it started taking more than 2 blood per combine it was less stress to go with othmir/holgresh combines.

Since 262 I've been working my way up through the Othmir/Holgresh stuff. I've also been doing PoP tailoring combines when I can get my hands on the stuff for them (PoN leather isn't bad if you can get midnight stones). I'd save your Velium Mastodon/Velium Hound/Ice Burrower silks until you get past 295 if you can stand having the things laying around while you claw your way up to that level. Unfortunantly I couldn't. /sigh. Back to the holgresh cave for me.

Best of luck!

[Kaaba]

Corathus entrails are a good skill up option to 252, you can make epicthiek's power belts with them. They are also expensive, however.

[Bara]

I have to assume Corathus entrails would be expensive, since I have never actualy SEEN any for sale in the Bazaar on Prexus server.

But I agree, if you can afford the 210pp for the platinum thread per combine they are another path. Also remember that each power belt can be used for another skill up attempt in making a small epikthiek's power belt (cha-ching 210pp for more platinum thread). The 5 small power belts resulting form a sucessful combine sell to merchants for 47pp and change. I think 2 combine attemps for 420pp is good and if I can regain 235pp of that off of sales to merchants that is even better.

[Grolyn]

Both belts are using in tinkering and I wouldn't be surprised if they are virtually nonexistient in bazaar because some tinker keeps buying them. After all not all tinker has high enough tailoring skill to make the belts.

[Elyssanda]

I have to assume Corathus entrails would be expensive, since I have never actualy SEEN any for sale in the Bazaar on Prexus server. .

Wow. and heres yet again a major difference between servers. Nightly there's usually around 20-30 of them in our bazaar on Fennin and they run about 15-30p apiece.

[Ozadar]

Just did 50 combines last night making symbols and robes and got a whopping 7 points! I'm timid no more and here comes 222!

Ozadar of the 70th Corpse
Tradeskiller of Zek
Member of Club 1450

Baking - 200
Tailoring - 202
Pottery - 219
Smithing - 227
Brewing - 248
Research - 200
Fishing - 200
Jewelry - 253
Fletching - 200

(+5% to all skills) + Salvage 3

[Bara]

Wow. and heres yet again a major difference between servers. Nightly there's usually around 20-30 of them in our bazaar on Fennin and they run about 15-30p apiece.

Eh, well I don't check for entrails often since I can work on AA exp off of Corathus Squirmers. Speaking of which, I guess I should log on and see If I can get the camp.

[Grolyn]

15-30 each? Dang that is dirt cheap I rarely see any below 200pp on Maeline and often the big supplier are vchsrging in the 4 digit range. I got most of mine through /buy line at 50 each.

[Queletan]

Depending on your financial resources, ability to solo (or group if you have friends willing to go), and/or concern about faction hits, prepared sporali skins are also a route that can get you to 276 - it takes a Sporali skin (from the shrooms in Corathus, perhaps elsewhere but not sure) and a Witheran bile (only from Stoneroot Falls as far as i know). I love them (probably my skill up route from 271-276 because I also have a 245 spell researcher with the holepoker). Even if you don't have a researcher, if you can farm them or buy the parts reasonably you could probably at least break even if you're not of the sort to mark stuff up absurdly when you resell it. At the least, it is another path you can look at to pick up the parts for, but what others have said is pretty much the truth for higher end tailoring.. find all the stuff that works, farm some, buy some, collect all that you can, do a tailoring run, repeat

Q