Ding 300

[Catweazel]

After burning through about 1000+ Yttrium bricks over the last 6 weeks, I finally dinged 300 on a subcombine for an AAAA.....

For those following in this Gnomish torture I would strongly recommend staying away from POI for skill ups. Gunthak was a sweet place to skill up, everywhere else including the Deep is a drop rate nightmare. Molten Metal cams seemed like a possible solution but it wasn't to be

Not counting the occasional Crab Cracker, Cam or Wok, on average the 1000 bricks achieved about 35 skill ups from 255, with the earlier ones on Master's armor coming every 10 to 15 bricks, and the latter ones averaging 75+ bricks. It was probably the ghosts of gnomes past laughing when my final run from 295 with 306 bricks ended on 299. Happily the AAAA fixed everything right!

[Ozadar]

Grats bro! Tinkering is still a lil new to me. What did you farm in Gunthak besides the quills, riggings, and stuff along the shore?

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

Baking - 282
Brewing - 278
Fletching - 268
Jewelry - 287
Pottery - 252
Smithing - 239
Tailoring - 247
Research - 201
Fishing - 200

(+5-8% to all skills) + Salvage 3

[uncleshmoozo]

Grats bro! Tinkering is still a lil new to me. What did you farm in Gunthak besides the quills, riggings, and stuff along the shore?

There are several different tinkering drops in Gunthak that are used for the LOY era geerloks.

Here's the items, what drops them, the geerloks they make, the tradeskills they're used for, and the trivials. (I've sorted them in order of increasing trivials.)

Maneater Roots, various "deep *** lotus" plants in the tunnels, Geerlok Alchemy Set, alchemy, 222

Scorpion Venom Gland, scorpions on the beach, Geerlok Automated Pestle, make poison, 227

Silver Tipped Quill, various skeletons on the beach, Geerlok Automated Quill, spell research, 232

Waterlogged Rigging, various troll zombies and cast out survivors on the beach, Geerlok Clockwork Contraption, tinkering, 236

When I was working through this portion of tinkering skillups I found I could make a full circuit of the beach and then "cherry pick" the lotus plants in the tunnels and collect a fair amount of some of the drops in the process. By the time I was finished my circuit the beach was respawning. Here's a few helpful tips:

1. Collect all the items right from the beginning of your farming, but stockpile the drops that are used in higher trivial combines until you are ready to make them. That way you won't have to mope around on the beach waiting for the mobs who drop the last few items to respawn.

2. Each of the recipes require one item sold by one of the gnomes inside the lighthouse in Gunthak and each of those items are no-trade. Don't make the mistake of sending an alt over to buy them for your tinkerer. [learn from my mistake. ]

3. There is a modest market for these in the bazaar on my server (Cazic-Thule) and I suspect that's true on other servers, too, but you're going to be making a lot more of them than you can possibly sell. Don't hesitate to dispose of them in other ways if you need the room.

4. Unlike the earlier geerloks some of these actually have fairly high tribute values. If you use personal or guild tribute, check that out before you dump piles of them on vendors. (Like I say, you're going to be making way more of these than you can possibly sell in the bazaar.)

5. The least common of the drops by far was the Scorpion Venom Gland. Feel free to skip ahead to the quills rather than getting stuck on trying to farm those.

6. Be prepared to share the beach spawns with those who may be hunting there for experience. Offer to buy the items you need from them. If you offer them a little more than the merchants will give them they may take you up on that. I rarely encountered anybody else hunting in the tunnels.

7. There's a few other tradeskill drops in the areas you'll be farming. You may want to grab those to sell them in the bazaar. I was able to subsidize my tinkering skillups that way. I'll let you figure those out for yourself. Use the search feature on the EQ Traders main page to look them up.

8. There are a few named mobs who spawn at specific fixed spawn points on the beach and in the tunnels who drop items which can sometimes be sold for a little plat in the bazaar. If you clear both the beach and the tunnels enough times you'll probably figure out where they spawn and what they drop. Make mental notes.

9. There's a few quest mobs on the beach you don't want to kill. The erudite spirits (erudite ghost models, both male and female) are needed for useful spell quests. As a matter of courtesy to other players I made a point of leaving those up when I saw them.

10. Develop a pattern for a circuit that clears the entire beach and get used to using it. It speeds things up a bit if you do this in a systematic manner.

Hope those are helpful.