Exp Vs Tradeskills

[SirBraun]

Greetings,

For some unknown masochistic reason I thought it would be a good idea to GM tailoring as well as all the other trade skills I could :shock: . So far I am master at all and GM at Jewel Craft (with trophy). Yesterday I dinged 61st (woot!) enchanter. I have found with no surprise that the higher your level the easier trade skills come about. Simply because you can farm the items you need easier.

The RNG has not been kind to me these days. I am at 168 tailoring with over 60 combines and not a skill up :evil: . I have tried combines in anything I can get my hands on, but being a penny pincher that I am I prefer to farm most things. I just can’t swallow 100-200 pp a hide. However I have a growing hatred for rockhoppers drop rates! Which brings me to my question. Maybe you guyz can offer some advice?

I have 21 more AA till Dire Charm. Should I concentrate on Dire Charm making farming easier? I could do 21 points. Would take awhile but heck so did level 61. I have heard that Dire Charm makes farming VERY easy.

or

I have about 20k pp in the bank. Should I bite the bullet and just start buying hopper hides? I have about 100 plus wyvern hides to help with later skill ups past 188. But not sure how long that 20k will last with these skill up rates.

Best regards

[Calabar]

I don’t mean this in a bad way, but I feel this is a question you’re going to have to answer for yourself. I agree that the higher you’re level the easier it is to do any trade skill that requires farming. So the real question is how badly do you want to work on tailoring? I’ve known this fact as well from the start of the game. But I was still working on trade skills, including tailoring and smithing, when my first character was 5th level. Granted, I wasn’t getting very far, but I loved trade skills too much to leave them alone. I could be higher level and have much better equipment if I didn’t do trade skills. But in spite of the frequent frustration, trade skills are fun for me.

So if you feel you can keep your hands off your sewing kit for the next 21 AA points then go for it. But if not don’t worry about it. When you get too frustrated with hunting components go get some AAs. And when the tailoring urge becomes too strong to ignore go kick the RNG in the butt and gain a few skill points. Like with most things in this game, do whatever you have the most fun doing.

Best of luck.

[Grenoble]

My guildies tease me about tradeskilling constantly.

I hit 50 not long ago; for the most part I enjoy working trades more than grinding exp. I don't know why. Maybe its my creative side. I'm dirt poor from doing trades (on the plus side, tho, trades are the only thing that brings in consistent plat).

Yeah, my guildies tease me...but when they need good ol lizard blood temper or the like...who do they come to?

[Hzark]

My advice is as follows:

Blow some money on making Solstice Robes or LoY ribbons to get your tailoring to 180.

THEN, go back to AAing, but make acrylia reinforced armour from ingredients bought in bazaar. As long as you avoid making the 1 boning items, you can more or less break even on the others, the only limiting factor being the supply of ingredients in bazaar and the time to resell the products.

Well that is the time that you will be spending on AAing.

And by the time you get Dire Charm you will be well on the way to 240 tailoring and then you can farm or not as you choose if you are determined to get to 250.

If you are of one of the permitted races, make some money back by skilling up on LoY robes. (3rd to 6th tier robes sell well).

I GMd tailoring in 15 weeks without farming anything much, and at a profit.

[Prizzle]

Save yourself 9 AAs you can put in New Tanaan Craft Mastery. Dont buy Dire Charm. Use regular charm instead. The mobs u will be charming for farming purposes wont scratch you much with Arcane Rune and can be mezzed with your level 4 mez, allowing you plenty of time to recharm. As the mobs you are farming will undoubtebly be green they wont be much of a problem either )

[Tashim]

As a fellow masochist, enchanter, and tradeskiller; my advice would be to forget about Dire Charm for now. If you are looking to farm things easier, get to level 62 and use Aeldorb's Animation. It is an effective farm tool, and even without Animation Empathy, its pretty easy to get mobs to attack you by tashing them.

I currently have brewing, jewelcraft, pottery, and fletching to 250; my smithing to 227, my baking to 212, and tailoring to 186 (which is what I'm actively working on now.)

All I can say is... the light at the end of the tunnel is *not* sunlight. It is a train headed your way... :P

Good luck, may your physical therapy be cheaper than your shrink...

[Sylphan]

1. Do ribbons to skill up. Save the silver and gold ribbons for future tailoring if you can. Also start saving reasearch swatches for the future. Remember that the research components for the first three robes are much much more common than 'new' research.

2. The level 62 pet is much better than the earlier ones. I'm an enchanter too, and an avid tradeskiller. I stayed at 62 for a long time doing about 50 AA. I decided to get Animation Empathy instead of Dire Charm, and I really like it. I even dinged 63 for a day so I could get /pet attack, then went back to 62 for a while.

[Narith]

It is much much cheaper to go from gold ribbons directly to the robes that require silver ribbons. Alot of the research material needed can be found in large quantities by vendor scrounging in shadow haven, PoK, PoTranquil, and bazaar. Unless you have an alt who can forage the dye components will cost you an arm and a leg when bought in bulk, buying platinum ribbons just for skilling up on will eat that 20k before you even trivial them out.

[SirBraun]

Well over the weekend I was able to find about a stack and a half of bamboo shoots . Now to fund the plat for the combines. 104pp seems better then the sol robes combines. A beat down on the RNG got me to 170 as well. About time!

Thanks for the advice one and all.

[italica]

Arctic Wyvern Masks

I did 100 combines of arctic wyvern masks at 158 and got 18 skill ups from it...

Did another 100 combines and got to 186.

The 3rd hundred netted me 3 skill ups, and the first one didn't happen until I was 50 combines in... RNG can bite me.

[Kongming]

levels always makes farming eazier, but it all a choice there only so much a difference between 60 and 65 when your killing stuff that level 2 or even 20, new pets are always great, new spell tend not to matter since they just take more mana for the same kill, i mean do you need a 2k nuke on something with 300hp?

[Ceres Whirlwind]

I disagree, new spells do make a difference. It's so much nicer if you can kill that quadkite of Hoppers without running around the zone for 10 minutes and having to resnare at least once

But that's of course from a wizard's POV

Ceres

[Bregalad]

Level 63, AE2(7 AA), ER2(6 AA).

Eldritch Rune is a life saver. If the mobs do manage to beat your AR down, laugh in their face as you pop your insta-cast manaless Eldritch and recast Arcane.

Aieldorb Animation = lvl 58 pet that quads 60, regens like a madman and enrages at 10%. With AE2, you can send pet to do war without the indignity of getting hit.

Speed of Vallon = 68% haste, 51agi 40atk 33dex for said pet, turning it into a mega-blender.

Night's Dark Terror = 45atk 120dex (total with SoV: 85atk 155dex) for your pet - along with a 35hp lifetap proc. And with +155dex 68% haste it's gonna proc like crazy. Priceless for scaring the bejeebus out of teens in Unrest as they see a blood-red con pumpkinhead dual-wielding 2-handers stalk towards them.

Uproar = if you are farming something nasty enough to make a dent in your pet in spite of it lifetapping like crazy, this will slap a quick 425hp barrier on it, without the agi penalty of Bedlam.