How do you stand this crap?

[thrawn43]

100 solstice robe combines (assuming no fails on precombines)

-600 celestial essences to make dusts and silks
-150 combines to make swatches if you dont buy em (assuming you buy the silks too)
-300 imbued emeralds -300 combines to form dusts
-300 combines to form sacred tunare silks
-100 actual combines for attempts at skill ups..

that works out to a grand total of 1350 combines/imbues.. for 100 actual skillup combines.. and a grand total of .. 2 skill points (woo.. 189 to 191) ... how the {heck can you stand this stuff}?
Edited for language - this is a family site, and I am stilled tempted to move this to Primal Scream... - Heartsong

[Hibashira]

Move to rant?

[thrawn43]

no.. its a valid question im asking.. how do you manage to keep going? its so **** frustrating...

[mepper]

i dont skill on robes..i skill on wyvern caps

[Aandaie]

I can't stand it.
So I don't do it.

Problem solved

I gave up on the way tradeskills eventually get long ago.

[Pockets FullOfGold]

In my estimation, it's called one of two things. Dedication, which I consider the main point of doing it in the first place... and Crazy, which most of us are to be doing it in the first place *cackle*

Most of the people are doing Robes, which you have most definately shown to be massive combines for... me, I've done/am doing Acrylia Studded, Acrylia Reinforced, Arctic Wyvern. Not so many combines but when I get directly into doing Arctic Wyvern, I see it going up significantly. Making my own Coldain Velium Tempers in PoK takes alot of combines in brewing and a mortar/pestle. 4 Celestial Essence per Temper... ugh

Pockets FullOfGold

[Handor]

Tailoring

I have a 250 halfling tailor and am working up my wizard's tailoring now for the Signet quests (he's only in the 190's so far). What you skill up on depends a lot on your server and your level. Some options besides the robes:

Reinforced acrylia trivials at 245. The other options all trivial 250+:

Arctic wyvern is probably the second easiest velious armor to make -- kill wyverns (or buy the pelts off quadders in CS), fish some cobalt cod, get some small pieces of velium and make studs. A bit spendy to make, I think around 50 pp per attempt -- the market may be a bit saturated on masks so not much resale value.

Othmir caps are always popular, can probably sell them yet, and are easier to farm ingredients for (fur, mana vial, thread from what I remember). And if you farm your own othmir fur the stuff you sell (the crustacean armor pieces, etc) will more than offset what you spend on the remaining ingredients. BUT... you lose faction with the cute otters in CS and can't vendor dive any more. One of my druid friends gets around this by having a second account with 29 chanter loaded, can sell all the junk and make the vials while he meds between quads. You'll want to be mid-upper 50's at least before trying these.

If you're looking for an easy way to skill up tailoring, stop now -- you're just hitting the tough part. Anyone can buy up tailoring to 188 with LOY (I just got my clericbot his 8th shawl, and on the way used LOY to get his tailoring skill up quite a bit). From there on it starts to be work. I spent at least ten times as much effort getting my halfling from 190 to 220 as I did to get my wizard from 0 to 190. Granted, I had some bad 150-200 attempts with no skillup runs in there.

[Ceres Whirlwind]

@thrawn: Either you have money to buy your way up or you go the farming route. Both don't grant you any skill ups neccesarily.

I try farming things that still give me exp, even if it's not much. That somewhat keeps the frustration down inin betweenkill-ups. Boring combines are made while I med and if I can't stand it anymore I go fish

I think that variety does the trick. Some robes here, some wyvern there. A little bit acrylia studded in between

You have to see what works for you.

Ceres Whirlwind
Lvl 54 Wizard

[Mahlig]

Well, simply stated, Solstice Robes are not the best route. In theory (if there is a market for them still on your server), it is a very cheap and easy to farm method as spider silks are VERY common and the gems are easily purchased from a JC vendor. Level 8 enchanter to enchant silver and a JCM3 enchanter to make the chains for you (ok, that last piece is tough). If you are not unlucky and never make a robe, you can skill up quite cheaply (45pp per attempt roughly). Acrylia armor is cheaper if you farm, but *much* harder to farm (limited camps and relatively uncommon drop). I would suggest Acrylia armor or Velious armors. Better skillup rates. LOY Robes (if you can make them) are a relatively cheap alternative as well (well, the low end ones are), but I have gotten 0 skill ups on them in my 35 attempts. Then again, I can say that about everything. =/

[SirBraun]

Just as a side note on LOY skill ups.

Did 50 ribbon combines yesterdays. I went from 170 to 175 for around 5k pp. Was it worth it? I think so. Will I contiune just ribbons? No, I work on anything I can get my hands on.

I set limits on how much I spend on certain combines. Once I reach that limit I stop and raise the pp for more or exp. The next set of comibines are usally a differant type. Just to do something differant.

Best of luck

[kiaora]

171- 174 took me just 22 combines, mostly robe of the radiant (20 attempts, 16 successes) and 2 robes of the inverse (2 attempts, 2 successes). int was only 190.

[Volante]

honestly, i have no idea...i spent 10 hours over the past 3 days converting 636 silk swatches into 610 sacred tunare silks.

i made celestial essences during raids...over 1200 in total...
have a cleric friend at my disposal to make emeralds...
suffer my own pain making those gem studded chains...

in the end, 9 checks.

then i proceeded to spend another 500pp on 20 LoY robes, no checks.

right now i'm trying to sell off the robes i made so i can dive into another batch of tunare silk...

mostly i try not to think about it, combination of insanity, dedication and pride. mostly insanity though i bet...

on the other hand, it is rather fun to link my 6 trophies in PoK ooc

--Raedron V`Lante, 64th Arch Mage of the Spurned
Eternal Advocates, Vazaelle

250 Baking / Brewing / Fletching / Jewelcraft / Pottery / Smithing
198 Tailoring

[Tweedledea]

My advice... step away from the solstice robes.. very... slowly....

After 220-230 or so, you get enough successes that it starts being a nuisance to supply yourself with more chains. And you can't even sell your successes at cost price any more, at least not on Fennin.

I have sworn not to return to robes. I am having to give away the few that I have made because I can't sell them.

[Volante]

yea, robes are bad...but the only hard part is the silk. (and the time)

rockhoppers are overcamped and pelts sell for 200pp each, and they're painfully rare to boot
wyverns aren't fun either, then there's getting the velium
i do loy robes whenever i scrounge up a stack's worth of combines, but those are sporatic at best

none of these ways are easy...robes are just the easiest to get the components for.

my only mistake was leaving tailoring for last instead of working on it while doing everything else. now i have nothing else to occupy my time with...

--Raedron V`Lante, 64th Arch Mage of the Spurned
Eternal Advocates, Vazaelle

250 Baking / Brewing / Fletching / Jewelcraft / Pottery / Smithing
198 Tailornig

[Flix_Flax]

Hehe.. remebering the good old days

boy.. you guys sure do whine alot.. try getting to 250 PRE Luclin.. talk bout a nightmare.. and cost .. dont even get me started..

I was the first 250 tailor on my server by a LONG time.. in fact #2 I gave 400 combines just because I didnt want to be the only one.. Tailoring isnt for the weak of heart you must ENJOY doing it.. otherwise your just PL it for some stupid quest.. and IMO you need to just bite the bullet if that is your key.. because tailoring IS NOT MENT TO BE EASY deal with it..

yea.. i know you wish it woudl be like brewing.. stand in front of barrel.. click combine 2k times.. get to 250..

oh well rant over..

FLix Flax
Retired Tailor on MT