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This is my attempt at a simple and quick fletching guide. Suggestions are welcome.
The basic arrow contains four parts: nock, shaft, tip, and fletchings/vane. The basic bow contains two must have parts but better bow staves can use optional tools. Basic, rough, recurve bows are just a bow staff and string.
I suggest always using arrows at least until skill 202 for skill ups. Arrow parts are much cheaper than bow parts and you want to get the most from your money. The best of wisdom, dexterity, or intelligence applies when trying to get a skill increase so get the one you want as high as you can before starting. Dexterity buffs from enchanters are normally higher points than wisdom or intelligence so keep that in mind if you are purchasing a “fletching suit” to were while fletching. A geerlock will add 5% to your fletching skill. This means you will have more successful combines to sell back to the merchant, but you may lose a significant amount of int/dex/wis to equip it, which will get you slower skill increases. It is important to remember that the most difficult piece of an arrow or bow determines the skill level needed to craft it. A steel arrow is harder to make than an arrow with a small nock. If you made a steel arrow with a small nock instead of an easier large nock, the small nock will not effect your chance at success. The small nock will affect the price and statistics of the arrow though. I have already submitted a chart with all the information for trivial and statistics affected by each different part to www.eqtraders.com. The chart is stickied in the Fletching Forum in this thread.
Arrows
The basics:
You can train this skill to 21 at a guild trainer but unless you have no better use for skill points save them. A simple combine of large groove nock, round fletchings, wood arrow shaft, and field point arrowheads will take you to skill 16 quickly and easily. Are parts are about 5c so total money spent per stack of combines at this stage is 2g. That was an acceptable price for me to save skill points.
Once you hit skill 16, its time to start using medium groove nocks on your arrows. These cost 1s6c or 3g2s per stack. Use these until skill of 36.
At skill 36 start using large groove nocks again and use parabolic cut fletchings instead. These are 2s6c or 5g2s per stack. These will take you to skill of 46.
Options:
At this point, there are two options for most people. Make arrows for skill or make arrows for use. Do you make the cheapest arrow possible for skill increases or spend slightly more and make a useable arrow that you can use or sell to other players.
If you are making arrows purely for skill continue on Option A, or if you want to make good, useable arrows go to Option B.
Option A:
At this point, you will continue to use all the parts of the level 16 arrow but change one thing each time. This is cheaper since all the other parts of the arrow are 5c per combine.
Now that parabolic fletchings are trivial, use small groove nocks and round cut fletchings again. These will take your skill to 56 and cost 4s 2c, 8s 4c per stack. Now fairly quickly because its not that hard:
Until skill of 68 use bone arrow shafts which cost 7s 9c each, 1p 5g 8s per stack.
Until skill of 82 use shield cut flecthings which cost 1g 8s 9c each, 3p 7g 8s per stack.
Until skill of 102 use hooked arrowheads which cost 3g 1a 5c each, 6p 3g per stack.
Until skill of 122 use wooden arrow vanes which cost 6g 8s 2c each, 13p 6g 4s per stack.
Until skill of 135 use ceramic arrow shafts which cost 1p 1g 5s 5c each, 23p 1g per stack.
Until skill of 162 use bone arrow vanes which cost 1p 3g 6s 5c each, 27p 3g per stack.
Until skill of 182 use silver tipped arrowheads which cost 3p 9g 9s each, 79p 8g per stack.
Until skill of 202 use ceramic arrow vanes which cost 2p 7g 8s 2c each, 55p 6g 4s per stack.
Option B:
Use Option A for the next trivial, but include small nocks and parabolic fletchings or greater to make usable arrows. You will also want to stay using silver tipped arrowheads. They add 3p to the price of the combine but you make ten instead of five. When using 5p worth of shaft and fletching you actually save money. You may also want to use steel shafts as well as ceramic arrow vanes once you get into the 190s to make better arrows.
Steel arrow shafts also trivial at 202 but cost a little more so they are not used. Silver tips are more expensive than ceramic arrow vanes but yield 10 arrows instead of five so you might make your money back. I do not know if they are still more expensive and would like any information anyone has. It might be cheaper to skip straight to ceramic vanes.
At this point your only option for skill increases are bows or acrylia arrows. Acrylia arrows use acrylia shafts, shield cut flecthings, any condensed substance arrowhead (fire, ice, shadow), and small groove nocks. Acrylia can be farmed many places put you need small bricks, the arrow shaft mold, and a water flask in a forge to make shafts. Chunks of condensed shadow drop from Shak Dratha in shadow weaver’s thicket. They are probably the easiest mobs to kill that drop a condensed substance. Put a chunk of condensed shadow, water flask, and file in a forge and combine. It will yield two condensed shadow arrowheads. Acrylia arrows will take you all the way to 250 skill much more cheaply than bows but require time farming. Acrylia arrows are not trivial at 250 so never expect the 95%, best, success rate on acrylia arrows.
Bows:
I highly recommend skilling on arrows instead of bows until 202. The only bow staff that does not act predictably is the sedge branch foraged in Miragul’s Menagerie. Look on www.eqtraders.com for info on it as they find it. The statistics for all bows can be found using the chart posted in the fletching forum of www.eqtraders.com.
After a skill up 202 you can go the slow route with acrylia arrows or throw money at the problem. Money normally makes up for time but it will be a lot of money as even successes cost you and failures rip out your wallet beat you with it and camp your bank account for a while. Can you tell I am poor?
Bows are made of a staff and string with other tools available for use on some bows. Bow staves include hickory, elm, ashwood, oak, darkwood, and shadewood. Strings include hemp, linen, and silk string. Optional tools are the whittling blade, planing tool and bow cams (either one or two bow cams). A bow with hemp string will be the slowest and will do the most damage. A bow made with silk string and all the tools used on it possible will be much quicker and somewhat less damaging.
For skilling purposes, you are already past the trivial for all but darkwood and shadewood bow staves and compound bows.
Darkwood bow staves and hemp twine will take you to 215 skill, which is the trivial for the darkwood bow staff itself. Darkwood bow staves, hemp twine, and two standard bow cams will take you to 235 which is the trivial for compound, two cam, bows. Shadewood bow staves and hemp twine will take you to 250 skill, but shadewood bows are not trivial at 250. That means that even at 250 skill you will not get the 95%, best, success rate. The darkwood bow staff costs 236p 2g 5s and hemp twine costs 1s 1c, which is negligible, compared to the staff. Standard bow cams are vendor purchased for 39p 4g 7s 7c each but can be tinkered by gnomes for about a third of that. Shadewood bow staves are 374p 6s 3c each. Sedge branches are foraged in Miragul’s Menagerie and the compound bow will trivial at 215. This will help you get from 202 to 215 cheaper than darkwood bows, but since the sedge branch is foraged, you need to find a foraging friend or be a class/race that can forage.
Cultural:
Wood elves have another option for fletching as well. It is supposedly a middle ground between the pricing of bows and the farming of acrylia. It helps if the wood elf worships Tunare for their cultural fletching. Any wood elf may do cultural fletching but may not use deity-restricted items. Worshippers of Karana of any race also have the option of “deity” fletching using with very similar statistics and items to the wood elf cultural skill. These combines and the use of the products are limited by deity so only followers of Karana may do them. Wood elves that worship Karana may do both. You can look at these options yourself because I was an erudite worshipper of Solusek Ro I can’t comment on these and wont have experience with them ever. I also have not looked at this information as much to learn from my peers and since I want this guide to be very accurate wont put in information I’m unsure of.
Credits:
All prices were taken from the www.eqtraders.com web site, and all recipes gleaned from its pages. If my guide is incorrect, anywhere please let me know so I may check it against the web site for typos on my part or incorrect information on the eqtraders web site. For information on other tradeskills go to the learn a skill section of the main page where this will hopefully some day be posted. I don’t think I stole anything from anyone else, other than myself and the fletching chart, when making this guide but will apologize and edit credits if I did and don’t remember.
Edit 10/20/03: added options on cultural fletching. i am tired as i write this so if it sounds stupid and confusing i apologize and please tell me. anyone with experience who would like to comment on cultural/deity fletching please do so and i will add it to the guide and edit the credits. more important to make a great guide than to take all the credit for an ok one. want this to be as complete as possible so it will be used by more ppl.
The basic arrow contains four parts: nock, shaft, tip, and fletchings/vane. The basic bow contains two must have parts but better bow staves can use optional tools. Basic, rough, recurve bows are just a bow staff and string.
I suggest always using arrows at least until skill 202 for skill ups. Arrow parts are much cheaper than bow parts and you want to get the most from your money. The best of wisdom, dexterity, or intelligence applies when trying to get a skill increase so get the one you want as high as you can before starting. Dexterity buffs from enchanters are normally higher points than wisdom or intelligence so keep that in mind if you are purchasing a “fletching suit” to were while fletching. A geerlock will add 5% to your fletching skill. This means you will have more successful combines to sell back to the merchant, but you may lose a significant amount of int/dex/wis to equip it, which will get you slower skill increases. It is important to remember that the most difficult piece of an arrow or bow determines the skill level needed to craft it. A steel arrow is harder to make than an arrow with a small nock. If you made a steel arrow with a small nock instead of an easier large nock, the small nock will not effect your chance at success. The small nock will affect the price and statistics of the arrow though. I have already submitted a chart with all the information for trivial and statistics affected by each different part to www.eqtraders.com. The chart is stickied in the Fletching Forum in this thread.
Arrows
The basics:
You can train this skill to 21 at a guild trainer but unless you have no better use for skill points save them. A simple combine of large groove nock, round fletchings, wood arrow shaft, and field point arrowheads will take you to skill 16 quickly and easily. Are parts are about 5c so total money spent per stack of combines at this stage is 2g. That was an acceptable price for me to save skill points.
Once you hit skill 16, its time to start using medium groove nocks on your arrows. These cost 1s6c or 3g2s per stack. Use these until skill of 36.
At skill 36 start using large groove nocks again and use parabolic cut fletchings instead. These are 2s6c or 5g2s per stack. These will take you to skill of 46.
Options:
At this point, there are two options for most people. Make arrows for skill or make arrows for use. Do you make the cheapest arrow possible for skill increases or spend slightly more and make a useable arrow that you can use or sell to other players.
If you are making arrows purely for skill continue on Option A, or if you want to make good, useable arrows go to Option B.
Option A:
At this point, you will continue to use all the parts of the level 16 arrow but change one thing each time. This is cheaper since all the other parts of the arrow are 5c per combine.
Now that parabolic fletchings are trivial, use small groove nocks and round cut fletchings again. These will take your skill to 56 and cost 4s 2c, 8s 4c per stack. Now fairly quickly because its not that hard:
Until skill of 68 use bone arrow shafts which cost 7s 9c each, 1p 5g 8s per stack.
Until skill of 82 use shield cut flecthings which cost 1g 8s 9c each, 3p 7g 8s per stack.
Until skill of 102 use hooked arrowheads which cost 3g 1a 5c each, 6p 3g per stack.
Until skill of 122 use wooden arrow vanes which cost 6g 8s 2c each, 13p 6g 4s per stack.
Until skill of 135 use ceramic arrow shafts which cost 1p 1g 5s 5c each, 23p 1g per stack.
Until skill of 162 use bone arrow vanes which cost 1p 3g 6s 5c each, 27p 3g per stack.
Until skill of 182 use silver tipped arrowheads which cost 3p 9g 9s each, 79p 8g per stack.
Until skill of 202 use ceramic arrow vanes which cost 2p 7g 8s 2c each, 55p 6g 4s per stack.
Option B:
Use Option A for the next trivial, but include small nocks and parabolic fletchings or greater to make usable arrows. You will also want to stay using silver tipped arrowheads. They add 3p to the price of the combine but you make ten instead of five. When using 5p worth of shaft and fletching you actually save money. You may also want to use steel shafts as well as ceramic arrow vanes once you get into the 190s to make better arrows.
Steel arrow shafts also trivial at 202 but cost a little more so they are not used. Silver tips are more expensive than ceramic arrow vanes but yield 10 arrows instead of five so you might make your money back. I do not know if they are still more expensive and would like any information anyone has. It might be cheaper to skip straight to ceramic vanes.
At this point your only option for skill increases are bows or acrylia arrows. Acrylia arrows use acrylia shafts, shield cut flecthings, any condensed substance arrowhead (fire, ice, shadow), and small groove nocks. Acrylia can be farmed many places put you need small bricks, the arrow shaft mold, and a water flask in a forge to make shafts. Chunks of condensed shadow drop from Shak Dratha in shadow weaver’s thicket. They are probably the easiest mobs to kill that drop a condensed substance. Put a chunk of condensed shadow, water flask, and file in a forge and combine. It will yield two condensed shadow arrowheads. Acrylia arrows will take you all the way to 250 skill much more cheaply than bows but require time farming. Acrylia arrows are not trivial at 250 so never expect the 95%, best, success rate on acrylia arrows.
Bows:
I highly recommend skilling on arrows instead of bows until 202. The only bow staff that does not act predictably is the sedge branch foraged in Miragul’s Menagerie. Look on www.eqtraders.com for info on it as they find it. The statistics for all bows can be found using the chart posted in the fletching forum of www.eqtraders.com.
After a skill up 202 you can go the slow route with acrylia arrows or throw money at the problem. Money normally makes up for time but it will be a lot of money as even successes cost you and failures rip out your wallet beat you with it and camp your bank account for a while. Can you tell I am poor?
Bows are made of a staff and string with other tools available for use on some bows. Bow staves include hickory, elm, ashwood, oak, darkwood, and shadewood. Strings include hemp, linen, and silk string. Optional tools are the whittling blade, planing tool and bow cams (either one or two bow cams). A bow with hemp string will be the slowest and will do the most damage. A bow made with silk string and all the tools used on it possible will be much quicker and somewhat less damaging.
For skilling purposes, you are already past the trivial for all but darkwood and shadewood bow staves and compound bows.
Darkwood bow staves and hemp twine will take you to 215 skill, which is the trivial for the darkwood bow staff itself. Darkwood bow staves, hemp twine, and two standard bow cams will take you to 235 which is the trivial for compound, two cam, bows. Shadewood bow staves and hemp twine will take you to 250 skill, but shadewood bows are not trivial at 250. That means that even at 250 skill you will not get the 95%, best, success rate. The darkwood bow staff costs 236p 2g 5s and hemp twine costs 1s 1c, which is negligible, compared to the staff. Standard bow cams are vendor purchased for 39p 4g 7s 7c each but can be tinkered by gnomes for about a third of that. Shadewood bow staves are 374p 6s 3c each. Sedge branches are foraged in Miragul’s Menagerie and the compound bow will trivial at 215. This will help you get from 202 to 215 cheaper than darkwood bows, but since the sedge branch is foraged, you need to find a foraging friend or be a class/race that can forage.
Cultural:
Wood elves have another option for fletching as well. It is supposedly a middle ground between the pricing of bows and the farming of acrylia. It helps if the wood elf worships Tunare for their cultural fletching. Any wood elf may do cultural fletching but may not use deity-restricted items. Worshippers of Karana of any race also have the option of “deity” fletching using with very similar statistics and items to the wood elf cultural skill. These combines and the use of the products are limited by deity so only followers of Karana may do them. Wood elves that worship Karana may do both. You can look at these options yourself because I was an erudite worshipper of Solusek Ro I can’t comment on these and wont have experience with them ever. I also have not looked at this information as much to learn from my peers and since I want this guide to be very accurate wont put in information I’m unsure of.
Credits:
All prices were taken from the www.eqtraders.com web site, and all recipes gleaned from its pages. If my guide is incorrect, anywhere please let me know so I may check it against the web site for typos on my part or incorrect information on the eqtraders web site. For information on other tradeskills go to the learn a skill section of the main page where this will hopefully some day be posted. I don’t think I stole anything from anyone else, other than myself and the fletching chart, when making this guide but will apologize and edit credits if I did and don’t remember.
Edit 10/20/03: added options on cultural fletching. i am tired as i write this so if it sounds stupid and confusing i apologize and please tell me. anyone with experience who would like to comment on cultural/deity fletching please do so and i will add it to the guide and edit the credits. more important to make a great guide than to take all the credit for an ok one. want this to be as complete as possible so it will be used by more ppl.
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