Nasty surprise with using Ribbons to skill on

[Cigarskunk]

Not a rant - just a warning to those who might follow in my path.

You're gonna want to have your smithing skill up to about 130-140 before you even start getting tempers to do ribbons.

The reason for this is that the shear molds cost a whopping 78plat a pop!

LOL - I was actually thinking that I had an easy smithing skill path - was just gonna fill my character with as many shears molds as I could get and then simply bang out shears to 142. I had seen that someone had already sold a bunch of shears to a merchant in PoK, so it seemed reasonable. I got VERY lucky and succeeded on my first one with a 70 skill and then proceeded to burn the next three (I had bought four anticipating failures).

As an additional warning, DO NOT SELL YOUR SHEERS TO THE MERCHANT UNTIL YOU NEVER INTEND TO USE THEM AGAIN - the merchant's sell back price is 450 plat.

[Mendan]

How much do vendors buy the shears for?

[Cigarskunk]

The shears sell back or about 71 plat or so - that means a cost of about 8 plat per succesful combine, but 80 plat for every failure - not reasonable for skilling in my book.

The gold ribbons that I made (steamfront springwater type) sell back for about 15 plat (bought for 31) - I'll try to sell them in the bazaar till I NEED the plat invested in them.

[Hibashira]

Well, if you are trying to skill up with shear, of course it is unreasonable. But the ribbon combine returns the shear so you only need one set of shears (an Elm and a Hickory). So there is really no "nasty" surprise in skilling up with ribbons. No?

[Cigarskunk]

Well, if you are trying to skill up with shear, of course it is unreasonable. But the ribbon combine returns the shear so you only need one set of shears (an Elm and a Hickory). So there is really no "nasty" surprise in skilling up with ribbons. No?

1) It's 80p a pop just to make the two shears assuming that you succeed the combines - that's 160 plat just to be able to get started - I can't think of a single tradeskill which requires a 160 plat investment in capital equipment - it didn't even take my WE that much to make her fletching kit by hoping she got lucky with the RNG.

2) It requires a 142 trivial combine in smithing - a skill that isn't the easiest of skills to increase anymore - you've basically gotta trival normal ornate chain armor to make sure you're good for the combine - otherwise it's pray to the RNG that it doesn't cost you any more than 2 or 3 combines before you get lucky.

So yes, having to pay 80 plat per shear attempt was a nasty surprise for me - I figured 10p or maybe 20p a shot if they had thought ahead and wanted to make it a non-viable smithing skill up route.

[Calabar]

I knew ribbons were an expensive rout for skill gains. That’s why I never seriously considered them. But I had no idea the shears were such a significant investment as well. All the more reason I think I’ll steer clear of them, at least until such time as I can keep more than 2k in my bank as the grand total of my life’s savings.

[Forthofer]

I can't think of a single tradeskill which requires a 160 plat investment in capital equipment

Tailoring doesn't require much investment at all. Just those combines.

That's cheap compared to Grobb Liquidised Meat, which requires a Corking Device, which costs 1-2k from tinkers.

[Morgrist]

And as far as expensive-you can get to banded and actually have made a profit.

No weeping and mourning there.

[Hzark]

You can get blacksmithing from x (whatever it is lanterns trivial at) to 111 cheaply by making worked metal chains which are the basic ingredient of gem studded chains, which are required for Ceremonial Solstice Robe combines. (Don't do this unless you have a friendly GM Jeweller to make the gem studded chains and enchant the silver).

I couldn't immediately find a higher level smith, and was too impatient to wait, so I made both my shears at a blacksmith skill of 104 with only one failure on each.

The real pain was that I couldn't find a forge in Gunthak, so I had the prospect of running all the way back there to buy more shears moulds if I had failed again.

P.S. How do I get one of those drop down skill list things into my signature?

[Lothay]

P.S. How do I get one of those drop down skill list things into my signature?

Information on creating a .sig (including the drop-down list) is covered in the http://mboards.eqtraders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=63FAQ: How to use Signatures</a> post.

~Lothay

[Reflan]

Cigarskunk -- it's a little misleading when you say you have to do or trivial ornate armor. The mid-140's is pretty low, and ornate isn't your only option.

I did like three combines on ornate armor and then asked myself what in the H-E-double hockeysticks I thought I was doing. I vendor mined and bought silks and paddings and did leather paddings, and then did fine steel instead. The sell back is quite good, and much cheaper than ornate. And who can ever have too many leather paddings? If that's even possible, the excess sells off well in the bazaar.

[Cigarskunk]

Cigarskunk -- it's a little misleading when you say you have to do or trivial ornate armor. The mid-140's is pretty low, and ornate isn't your only option.

The point that I'm making is that it was quite the surprise - whether you want to do ornate or FS, it still translates to getting smithing up to around 140 smithing or risk burning a few hundred plat trying to make these things at the mercy of the RNG.

Erf - forgot about the corking device - that was definately a raw one to pull on you brewers.

[Calabar]

Sorry to side track your post, but your last comment hit very close to home. I don’t really mind the addition of a corking device to many of the brewing recipes. What got my goat, as it were, was the requirement of a corking device for each brewing trophy attempt. Bakers have to include a dairy spoon, tailors an embroidering needle and smiths a smithy hammer. But brewers get to include a corking device that at the time I was making my trophy cost about 2k each. Grrr…

To be honest, I figured the reason for the huge added expense was because brewing is easy, and cheap, to GM. But still, that was just evil.

[Minuit]

In all fairness anybody trying to raise a skill like tailoring up to 180-something, where ribbons finally trivial, or deep into the 200s, where robes will take you, should be prepared to lay out a bit of cash. A few hundred platinum should not be that big of a surprise.

Don't have that kind of money? Take some of those spider silks you were going to make Wu's armour with and sell them. A stack of silk swatches should easily pay for a set of shears. Don't have silk? Sell some of those dye components you were going to make ribbons with. There should be enough other tailors wanting to do ribbons and robes to take care of all your needs. Don't have any blacksmithing skill at all? Find somebody else who does. I don't see why this should be so difficult.

[Ryche]

BTW, shears are droppable so you don't have to have smithing up that high to get some made for you, only shell out a few 100 plat.