Any gnomes reach 300 yet?

[Qualan]

Lately i've been wondering how the skillup is going for the tinkerers and how many are actively persuing the illusive 300 mark

This of course has all to do with the fact that my 300 ding is actually looking like being realistic at 295 skill, although the points and materials for skillups are hard to get now

[Druegar]

I'm still trying to hit 250 (currently 247).
I'm hoarding Coiled Springs, Ball Bearings, Pinions, and Elemental metals until I can get up to the appropriate skill levels. But with the dearth of available components (the server merger helped a little, but not as much as I'd hoped), it's going to be a long time before I see 300. In 4 months, I've managed to secure less than 30 Clockwork Carapaces and about as many Knuckle Joints.

But to answer your question, yes, I'm looking forward with great anticipation to having the words "Master Tinker" floating above my head.

[Kahmon]

I'm up to 292 myself & share your pain about lack of options at this point.

[Brodybeard]

I'm up to 292 myself & share your pain about lack of options at this point.

I reached 274 yesterday with molten bow cams. I'm hoarding knuckle joints and clockwork carapaces and have my fingers crossed that the recipes don't get nerfed.

It's very annoying. The Expert DoN tinkered armor is all green to my gnome and it will be a very long time before he reaches 55th to be able to tinker the Master DoN armor.

[Dannbu]

I thought I had a good stockpile of combines to make for my next run, after 3-4 weeks of saving items making subcombines. Sunday morning I sat in Ak'anon to make 134 combines of Observer armor in those 134 combines I received a awesome ONE SKILL UP.

Oh well back to the mind numbing farming of Innovation for some of those non-existant knuckle joints and Carapaces.

[Evram2]

I just Dinged 262 after better than 400 Guaze Presses. Unfortunately, as several other people I assume are hoarding it, Clockwork Grease is becoming increasingly hard to come by. I'm hoping for a decent skill up rate on the 2 or 3 hundred jars of grease I have in the bank. I've also got a stockpile of about 150 BD's for a short run of Observer once I trivialize the cams, but the lack of viable options is a serious downer.

[Drexxell]

it will be a very long time before he reaches 55th to be able to tinker the Master DoN armor.

My understanding is that you need not be 55th level to MAKE the DoN armors at all; the only level restriction is in wearing them (and also in the symbols that augment them).

As such, the cheapest (pp and farming) options to get to 300, aside from Woks, old-cultural armor, and half and full GVDs are:

Master's Metalofiber Breeches (needs 6 Nightmare Arachnid Silks and 1 Innovative Clockwork Gears, but otherwise cheap at about 20pp)

or

(EDITED...Servolinked have only the Ore as a farmed item. My apologies for this oversight...see a later post for more detail...)
Master's Servolinked Greaves (needs 3 Small Bricks of Yttrium Ore and about 90 pp)

Personally, I'd get to the 288 level on Crab Crackers and then work the last 12 off of the metalofiber or servolinked recipe, depending on which pp and farming costs seem less painful. Unfortunately, the silks (for metalofiber) drop rarely (and this is where a "virtual level cap" comes in, as farming them would take a 55th level player or higher).

Drexxell
Wayfarers of Veeshan

[Brodybeard]

My understanding is that you need not be 55th level to MAKE the DoN armors at all; the only level restriction is in wearing them (and also in the symbols that augment them).

Oh...! Thank you. I hadn't realized that the DoN armor could be made after just completing the Ancestral Book quest. I thought you also needed to do at least one symbol task.

Too bad Nightmare Arachnid Silks are fairly rare -- guess my druid will have to explore more of the PoN to find the spiders that drop the silk and go exloring Luclin for sources of Yttrium Ore.

[Qualan]

The need for crushed diamond dust makes symbols an unviable skillup path anyway

I suggest sevolink as the best skillup path though

[Kakg]

Nope, still 274 here too.

Taking a long while to get enough parts together for each skill run.

[Drexxell]

The need for crushed diamond dust makes symbols an unviable skillup path anyway

But "Symbols" aren't a Tinkering recipe, so this is moot.

I suggest sevolink as the best skillup path though

True that Servolinked beats Actuated in that you don't need the 2 Knuckle Joints and 1 Innovative Clockwork Gears, but Servolinked has about a 4-5 times higher pp cost than Metalofiber.

Consider that Servolinked and Metalofiber (and Actuated) have exactly the same trivials, just different farmed items, different platinum costs and different skills required for the pre-combines. As such, the only comparison is which of the following do you feel is less painful (at the Master's level):

1) Servolinked
Need to do smithing trivial=182 pre-combines
Farm 1-3 small bricks of Yttrium Ore (The Deep & Akheva mostly)
Pay ~90 pp per combine

2) Metalofiber
Need to do tailoring trivial=182 pre-combines
Farm 2-6 Nightmare Arachnid Silks (PoN)
Farm 1 Innovative Clockwork Gears
Pay ~20 pp per combine

and, for completeness, though this shouldn't be anyone's choice for skilling up...
3) Actuated
Need to do smithing trivial=182 pre-combines
Farm 1-3 small bricks of Yttrium Ore (The Deep & Akheva mostly)
Farm 2 Knuckle Joints
Farm 1 Innovative Clockwork Bolts
Pay ~90 pp per combine

So while the *farming* for servolinked looks a bit easier, the pp cost is quite a bit higher than Metalofiber. Actuated as a skillup path makes no sense, relative to Servolinked.

Drexxell
Wayfarers of Veeshan

[Qualan]

I wouldn't suggest metalofiber either

Droprates of POI drops are just horrible and farming the gears in sufficient quantities will tripple your farmtime for the same number of combines. This is including the knucklejoints and carapaces you might get while farming for the gears.

Only way i would do it was with a bazaar buyer buying the components which will immediately carry the cost past the level of servolink.


I'd say for the core skillup the best path will be servolink and augment this with anything else you can get your hands on while bazaarfarming/vendorfarming and POI farming

[Drexxell]

Droprates of POI drops are just horrible and farming the gears in sufficient quantities will tripple your farmtime for the same number of combines.

If tripling pp cost is less painful to someone than tripling their farming time, then sure. For me, pp is precious, and as I still get great XP in PoI, it isn't really like "farming" greenies. So, in my case, there isn't much "pain" in going to PoI. Plus, I have been looking ahead to high level tinkering for some time (since I knew I'd be using Coiled Springs for the 236-242 run) and I now have a large, and growing supply of Innovative Clockwork Gears because of the farming/hunting/getting to Nitram by fighting of PoI for these climbs:

Coiled Springs for the 236-242 run
Steel Casings and MB6 for Gauze Press run from 242-262
MB6 and Coiled Springs for CLDs on the 262-267 run
Clockwork Grease for the 267-282 run
Knuckle Joints for the 282-288 run

All of these hunts have yielded (and will continue to yield, as I continue to hunt PoI), as a side product, a few stacks of Innovative Clockwork Gears (and some Clockwork Carapaces). With no use to me besides making Innovative Bow Cams and Grape Crushing Devices, they are sitting in my bank waiting for me to begin farming the silks for the 288-300 climb (supplemented by Woks too).

Again, just an opinion...every gnome has to weigh what is least painful for them. Since I'm already hunting PoI regularly for stuff to take me to 288, I'd rather not take the time going to The Deep or Akheva for the Yttrium (plus, my cash flow has always been low).

Having said that, I can also see the logic in going for the Yttrium(servolinked armband) path from 242 to 248 (one ore per combine...not bad at all) and again doing the Yttrium(servolinked gloves) path from 248 to 263 (again, one ore per combine...not bad at all) to avoid the pain of having to fight to Nitram for non-stackable Steel casings for the long Gauze Press climb.

Options, options...good discussion here,

Drexxell

[EDIT: I decided it was time to be really specific with the costs of DoN recipes, so I went ahead and incorporated a few of the Master's ones into my Tinkering Chart. If you like you can get it here: Tinkering Chart. As you'll see there, servolinked does compare quite favorably relative to metalofiber all the way to the 290 level. From 248 through 290, the servolinked are 47pp + 1 farmed ore, compared to metalofiber being 20pp + 2 farmed silks + 1 farmed innovative gears]

[Qualan]

Don't forget the planar bow cams. Even with bazaar bought components you can make a few stacks and sell em over time ofr a small profit (stay away from molten bow cams though, they are cash burners but a nice skillup path to 282)

[Xislaben]

Gnope, gnot me.

On strike for a bit, left tinkering at 135 because I hate farming.