High Level Character's Guide to Smithing

[Monual]

This is a repost of something I put together a year ago. Smithing has changed a lot since then... there are other paths you can take, like Enchanted Velium Rings and the new LDoN recipes. Still, I thought I'd offer this up as a still-viable method for becoming a GM smith.

The High-Level Character's Guide to Smithing

by Richard Lawson (aka Monual Lifegiver on Drinal)

Revision History:

December 8, 2002: Initial Draft

December 10, 2002: Added component cost for smithing throughout the guide. Corrected target skill levels to reflect that 252 is the maximum adjusted skill, not 255. Removed section on creating Ethereal Sheets of Metal, since their trivial is 212, the same as Ethereal Rings. Added Gauntlets of Dark Embers as another item that confers a 15% modifier to Smithing. Corrected various spelling errors.

December 11, 2002: More spelling errors, bah. Plus I realized that 212 minus 192 is 20, not 10. Double-bah.

December 20, 2002: Yet more spelling errors. Added some information about the Hollowshade Moor War based on feeback from others.

January 30, 2003: Added some more tidbits here and there, nothing major. Final edit hopefully.

March 13, 2003: Swirling Shadows are no longer no-drop, yay! Changed guide to reflect that.

January 6, 2004: Reformatted for new forums, updated a lot of information.

Here's how my 60th-level Human Cleric became a GM Smith. During the course of his blacksmithing he went up to 63, which made a couple of things easier (hunting shadows in Twilight Sea, for instance). Here is the underlying philosophy:

-> I was not interested in making money. I simply wanted to become a GM smith as quickly as possible. That meant I was willing to attempt combines I'd surely fizzle on just so I could try and get a skill-up. Everything I made I immediately sold to a vendor.

-> I didn't want to spend a lot of money. When I started my smithing quest, I had 50,000 plat. During the course of my smithing my account balance fluctuated as I sold outdated equipment and bought peridots for grouping. 50,000 seemed a reasonable starting point.

-> I was willing to spend some time farming. That meant that I had to turn down requests for groups as I farmed stuff for Shadowscream armor. I'm in a raiding guild, so I always showed up for raids, but afterwards, I'd disappear from sight as I farmed and farmed. I could have dinged 65 and accumulated quite a few AA points if I'd stopped. I sacrificed that to become a GM smith - you'll have to be prepared to do the same. Normally if you explain to your guild that you're working on smithing, they'll understand. Occasionally I'd take a break to help with a shard camp or help get someone through a Plane of Justice trial, just so I wouldn't fall completely out of touch with my guildmates.

-> I wanted to be self-reliant. That meant no chanters to enchant my ore or summon vials of mana for me. As you'll see below, that also meant not needing to find a grandmaster brewer. I wanted to do everything myself and not have to waste someone else's time.

Some general notes:

Whenever a recipe calls for two items - two metal bits, two swirling shadows - you must put them into the forge *unstacked*. At best, the combine will fail. At worst, the combine will eat your entire stack when you only needed one. The latter happened to me once; the forge ate an entire stack of ethereal energy bricks and I was very sad.

Get a Geerlok Automated Hammer. These player-made items cost 100pp or less in the Bazaar. They add 5% to your smithing skill. Since 252 is the highest your adjusted smithing can go, that means you'll only need to get to 240 in smithing to have the maximum allowable skill.

Always have your WIS or INT or STR maxed out when you attempt a combine. This will maximize your chances of getting a skill-up. Since I was a cleric, my WIS was near-maxed. Still, I made sure I always had KEI cast on me before I attempted a combine. I preferred KEI over other WIS/INT buffs because KEI lasts two and a half hours - longer if the chanter has some focus items or AA abilities. That's far longer than any other WIS/INT buff you can get. If you don't have access to a friendly chanter that will cast this on you, you can usually buy a casting of KEI from a chanter in the Plane of Knowledge for 100pp or less.

The Plane of Knowledge is a tradeskiller's paradise - everything you need is right there. This guide was written under the assumption that you have Planes of Power installed. If not, you may want to consult one of the other guides for alternatives to some of the recommendations I make below.

And, finally... do what you can to get your guild to raid and kill Xerkizh the Creator in the Temple of Ssra. He sometimes drops the Hammer of the Ironfrost, an all/all item which adds 15% to your smithing skill. With that, you only need to get up to 220 in smithing which is a *tremendous* savings in time spent getting skill-ups. Plus, with this hammer you can take a shortcut from 192 to 212 (see below). I realize this may not be an option for many folks, but if XtC is within your reach, do what you can to try and get this nice Hammer. Another option, if you can raid in Vex Thal, is to get the Gauntlets of Dark Embers from Kaas Thox Xi Ans Dyex; they also add 15% but are not all/all.

Before I begin, I'd like to thank everyone at the EQTraders web site and message boards, who provided me with the information I used to create this guide and provided very helpful commentary on this guide. Without their info, it would have taken me *much* longer to become a GM smith. My sincere appreciation goes out to all those folks who did the legwork that made smithing much easier for the rest of us.

OK, on with the show:

Step 1: Equipment

Make sure to get a smithy hammer and a smithy chisel, both of which can be bought in the Plane of Knowledge (PoK). You'll also need a file, which you'll have to make. Start by making a few metal bits. Combine two small pieces of ore (which can be bought in PoK) in a forge with a flask of water. Buy a file mold and put it in a forge with 1 metal bits and a flask of water. It may take you several attempts, but eventually you'll make a file. Keep this file; you'll always find a need for it.

Step 2: Banded Armor

What... no metal bits or pots or needles as an intermediary step? Nope... I started out by making Banded Armor. Some folks have maintained that you're more likely to get skill-ups on items that you are close to being trivial for you, but I didn't find that to be the case. Sure, I failed a lot of combines at first, but I still got skill-ups. And banded requires few ingredients that are relatively cheap.

Sheet metal can be bought in quantity in PoK for about 1pp each. Buy lots. Also, buy lots of flasks of water. Then buy as many banded boot molds (1.7pp each) as your inventory can hold. Go to a forge and combine one sheet metal, one boot mold, and one flask of water. This will produce banded boots. Repeat until your smithing skill is 95. Then buy helm molds (0.6pp each) and combine those with two sheets of metal and a flask of water. This will take you to 106. Then you move on to mail tunics - combine a tunic mold (1.3pp) with three sheets of metal and a flask of water. This will take you to 115.

Gosh, you're halfway there already? Yup, and it will go quicker than you might think. With everything within easy reach in PoK, it's simply a matter of devoting time to clicking "combine" over and over again.

Step 3: Fine Plate

For this you'll need "medium quality folded sheets of metal", lots of 'em. To make these, you'll need to combine one block of medium quality ore (20.5 pp each), a flask of water, and your smithy hammer in a forge. (Note that on success or failure, your smithy hammer will be returned to you.) Medium quality ore can be found on a vendor in the PoK. Make stacks and stacks of them.

You'll also need leather padding. I had no trouble finding lots of leather padding available for sale in the Bazaar off of player traders, usually selling for 20-25pp each. I preferred buying these off traders rather than farming pelts and making leather padding myself. Yes, it can get a bit expensive, but you can also sell your successful plate combines back to vendors and get some plat in return, helping to offset your cost a bit.

Combine a plate bracer mold (6.3pp), one medium quality folded sheet, a flask of water, a leather padding, and your smithy hammer in a forge to make a plate bracer. Continue making these until your skill hits 168. Then move on to plate helms - a plate helm mold (10.5pp), two medium quality folded sheets, a flask of water, a leather padding, and a smithy hammer. When you hit 179, move on to Fine Steel Breastplates: a plate breastplate mold (21pp), three medium quality folding sheets, a flask of water, a leather padding, and a smithy hammer. This will take you to 188.

Your hand cramped yet? Well, take no comfort in the following fact: the *easy* part is done now. After 188 it gets... complicated. However, it gets much cheaper on the pocketbook, so you won't have to make any more large investments.

(continued next post)

[Monual]

Step 4: Shadowscream Armor

There are more alternatives now to getting your smithing up past 188. A popular method is to make Enchanted Veliums Bits, as described on this thread:
Enchanted Velium Bits thread
The only downside is that farming velium has become quite contentious, and velium is hard to come by in the bazaar and is expensive when you do find it. Still, eventually the 'craze' may die down and this may become a lot easier to do. What I will describe, though, is the methodology I used: Shadowscream Armor.

First, you'll need to do the Shar Vahl smithing quest:
Progressive Shar Vahl Smithing Quest
Follow this quest until you have a humming luclinite hammer and a Vah Shir anvil. This took me three hours, most of which was spent farming the newbie area around Shar Vahl.

Once you have those things, it's time to begin farming. I'll discuss a few methods for farming wailing and shrieking substances:

Shrieking Substances, the Slow Way

Go to Tenebrous Mountains. Kill sonic wolves. They wander all over the zone and are plentiful. The annoying thing are the bats and grimlings which may add. Still, you should be able to get a decent drop rate, 15 or 20 shrieking substances an hour if you're a good soloer.

Wailing Substances, the Slow Way

Go to Paludial Caverns. Yelloweyes, near the Shadowhaven zone line, drops a wailing substance upon occasion, but he is usually camped. There's a camp of four grimy owlbear cubs deep, deep within Paludial Caverns, at about -2000, -500. Kill them all. You'll average about one wailing substance out of every four owlbears. Sometimes you'll get two, sometimes you'll get zero out of the four owlbears. I averaged about six wailing substances an hour here, which is a definite bottleneck. I would definitely recommend the Fast Way.

Shrieking and Wailing Substances, the Fast Way: The Hollowshade Moor War.

This can be a frustrating war to manage; getting the right race in the right place can be a chore. But it gives you *lots* of Shrieking and Wailing Substances if you can get it to work, so it's worth doing.

Basically, you have three camps whenever the zone is reset. Grimlings to the south, Owlbears to the east, Sonic Wolves to the north. Every so often (about twelve minutes or so) one camp will attack another and try to take it over. These random, automated attacks will stop after one race has successfully taken over all three camps.

What you're trying to accomplish is to get the owlbears or sonic wolves to take over the four islands in the southern part of the zone. The sonic wolves and owlbears that spawn on these islands will comonly drop shrieking and wailing substances, respectively.

What you want is for the owlbears or the sonic wolves (depending on which substance you wish to farm) to attack the grimling camp to the south. Listen for the zone-wide message that says who is attacking and who is defending. When you hear that the owlbears (for example) are attacking the grimlings, run to the grimling chieftan at -2800, -600. In front of him are a couple of grimling bodyguards. The attack of the owlbears will spawn four grimling defenders. These mobs are perma-rooted and *summon*, so be careful. Do what you must to kill all these guys - defenders, bodyguards, and chieftan. You have about ten minutes from the zonewide announcement to do this. Then the owlbear attackers show up. If they can get into the chieftan's hut, the owlbears will have won the battle, the grimlings in the area will despawn, and owlbears will spawn in their place. Follow this same sequence if it's the sonic wolves you want to win.

If one race completely owns the zone and you want to reset the war, go to the fort near Shar Vahl. There will be a named representative of whatever race controls the zone. Kill the named to reset the war.

Also, let's say owlbears have taken over the southern grimling camp and you've got all the wailing substances you need for now. Wait until you see that sonic wolves are attacking the owlbears. Then run to the same place the grimling chieftan used to be (-2800, -600) and kill all the owlbears you see there, including the perma-rooted summoning owlbear defenders. Then the sonic wolf attackers will waltz in and take over the camp.

Properly managed, this war can make farming wailing and shrieking substances trivial. You may often have to run from back to the chieftan's hut to help defenders against an invading force when you don't want ownership to change hands. Still, the benefits are worth it.

Okay, you've gotten the sonic wolves or owlbears to take over the southern camp. Start killing the mobs that spawn on the four islands. As a 62 cleric I was able to be a one-man AE group: I aggro'd about eight or ten sonic wolves, then cast Upheaval and wasted them all. Doing this with KEI, I averaged 30 drops an hour. What's best, though, is if you can get an honest-to-goodness AE group together, with a tank puller and a wizard to AE nuke. Then you can get 50 drops an hour.

This will be your best source of wailing / shrieking substances if you can manage it properly.

Swirling Shadows

You might be able to get Swirling Shadows from a vendor in the Bazaar; they're certainly worth checking for every time you pass through. However, you'll need so many Swirling Shadows that you'll almost surely end up farming them yourself. You can get swirling shadows from lesser shades in Shadeweaver's Thicket, but they are uncommon drops (about one in five lesser shades drops a swirling shadow) and it's a real pain chasing down the lesser shades all over the zone, so I recommend farming lesser and greater shadows in the Twilight Sea.

There's an island in the Twilight Sea at about -200, -1000 where the shadows roam. It's a relatively small island that's relatively close to Katta Castellum, so it's convenient to farm. Be warned, these mobs are not necessarily pushovers. They are level 40 and they lifetap frequently. I definitely needed KEI to farm there, since I had to heal myself often. Also, because the island is small, it is not difficult to get two or three adds during a battle. If that proves to be a problem for you, I'd recommend pulling the shadows to one of the nearby islands, where you won't get adds. Soloing, I got about 20 swirling shadows an hour. I'm certain my drop rate would have gone up with some help; this would be another decent place to AE, I think.

I should also mention that it was easier for me, a cleric, to farm the mobs in Twilight Sea since I could heal myself after getting lifetapped constantly. If you're a class that can't heal themselves effectively, you may want to consider getting help, or just go back to Shadeweaver's Thicket and farm the lesser shades.

You need at least twice as many swirling shadows as wailing or shrieking substances for Shadowscream armor, so plan accordingly.

At Last: Combining Everything into Shadowscream Armor

OK! You've got your swirling shadows and your shrieking substances and your wailing substances. Time to actually make some armor. Go to the Plane of Knowledge and find the vendor that sells large bricks of ore. (Plain ore, not high-quality or medium-quality.) Combine one large brick of ore (1.5pp) with a flask of water and your file in a forge. You'll get your file back and two metal rings. Then combine one metal ring with one wailing substance, one shrieking substances, your humming luclinite hammer, and your Vah Shir anvil in a forge. This will produce a humming orb.

Now place two swirling shadows, one humming orb, one banded boot mold (1.7pp), a water flask, your humming luclinite hammer, and your Vah Shir anvil in a forge. Hit combine. On success you'll get Shadowscream Boots.

Keeping making Shadowscream Boots. They become trivial at 248, but remember you only need to get to 240 if you've purchased a Geerlock Automated Hammer. As a guildeline, I found that I averaged one skill-up per twenty combines. That means that to get from 188 to 240, you'll need approximately 1040 Wailing Substances, 1040 Shrieking Substances, and 2080 Swirling Shadows.

If you've gotten this far... then congratulations Grandmaster!

(continued next post)

[Monual]

Addendum: For those with 15% Modifiying Items

So you've helped kill the Creator in Ssra and have been awarded the Hammer of the Ironfrost. Or you've hunted in Vex Thal and got the Gauntlets of Dark Embers. That's great. That means that you only need to get your smithing skill up to 220 to become a grandmaster. Plus there's a small shortcut you can take: Ethereal Energy Rings.

The minimum required skill for EE Rings is 220, which means you'll need to use Shadowscream to get your skill up to 192. 192 + 15% > 220, so you'll be good to go then.

In order to make those, however, you need Ethereal Temper, lots and lots of it. This requires a Grandmaster Brewer to make. Rather than try to find one willing to make hundreds of Ethereal Tempers for me, I decdied to become a Grandmaster Brewer myself. This is much easier to do than you might think. That also meant I was willing to spend 3 AA points in New Tanaan Crafting Mastery to allow a second skill to rise above 200. If this seems excessive just to get 20 skill-ups in smithing, keep in mind that this will still be a useful skill after you've maxed your smithing.

You need a brewing skill of 220 to make Ethereal Temper - or a skill of 210 plus a Geerlock Fermentation Device. The Geerlock Fermentation Device is another player-made item that adds 5% to your brewing skill. I found one for sale in the Bazaar for 50pp.

Everything you need to become a GM Brewer can be found in Shadowhaven. Combine barley, hops, malt, yeast, and a cask in a brewing barrel. Repeat until your skill hits 135. Then (ready for it?) do a nice little *nine*-item combine: Two flasks of water, two short beers, three malts, yeast, and a cask. Repeat until your skill is 210. Overall, it cost me two days, 500pp, and an extremely cramped hand to get to 210 in brewing. Still, this is one of the easiest and fastest tradeskills to master - if only smithing was this easy.

Now for Ethereal Tempers. Everything you need is in the Plane of Knowledge. First get a mortar and pestle, then combine a Scent of Marr and a Celestial Solvent to get a Celestial Essence. (You can also find Celestial Essences for sale in the Bazaar, often hundreds of them.) Then, in a brewing barrel in the Plane of Knowledge, combine two Celetstial Essences, a soda, and a emerald tea leaf to make Ethereal Temper. Make lots. Lots and lots. What I would often do is buy a bunch of Celestial Solvents and Scents of Marrs and take them with me while we were raiding. During downtime, I'd combine them into Celestial Essences. I discovered that you can even do this while auto-following someone. If you want to save time making Celestial Essences, you can usually find them for sale in quantity from player vendors in the bazaar. When I was in a hurry, I could find them for 5 or 8pp each, which is not entirely unreasonable.

Now all you need is a lot of Ethereal Energy Bricks. If you group in one of the PoP planes you'll find that these drop in quantity. I also would buy them from traders in the Bazaar if the prices were reasonable, although that could add up in a hurry.

Making EE Rings is easy: Combine one Brick of Ethereal Energy, one Ethereal Temper, and your file in a forge in the Plane of Knowledge. These become trivial at 212.

From 212 to 220, revert back to Shadowscream armor. Or you can start making Heraldic armor, which has the potential to make you lots of plat while you're getting skill-ups. I won't go into detail on those recipes here; check elsewhere on http://www.eqtraders.com for details on what you can make and how you can make it.

That's it! You're a Grandmaster Blacksmith.

-Richard Lawson

Monual Lifegiver
Archon of Rodcet Nife
Silent Tempest
Drinal server

[eniamn]

uh. go farther down. this goes in tradeskill ui and guides forum. breif scan looked ok though. nice job.

[Elyssanda]

also brewing to 122 is super super cheap.. Fishing grubs and water... make it to 122 under 10p

[Monual]

Ah, I didn't know that, thanks Elyssanda.

[KyrosKrane]

Very nice guide, Monual, and still quite applicable. I just want to touch on a few points.

Originally posted by Monual
Whenever a recipe calls for two items - two metal bits, two swirling shadows - you must but them into the forge *unstacked*. At best, the combine will fail. At worst, the combine will eat your entire stack when you only needed one. The latter happened to me once; the forge ate an entire stack of ethereal energy bricks and I was very sad.

Thankfully, this is no longer as bad as it was before. You can no longer combine stacked items in the forge, so there's no risk of losing anything due to bad combines. There's also a minor spelling error -- "but" instead of "put."

Originally posted by Monual
There are more alternatives now to getting your smithing up past 188. A popular method is to make Enchanted Veliums Bits, as described on this thread:
Enchanted Velium Bits thread
The only downside is that farming velium has become quite contentious, and velium is hard to come by in the bazaar and is expensive when you do find it. Still, eventually the 'craze' may die down and this may become a lot easier to do.

You really should elaborate some on this point. EVB is probably the fastest and easiest way for a high-level character to go from 188 to 222. The cost per combine is very low indeed if you farm your own velium; it's cheaper than LDoN armors (another option you don't mention), even accounting for the sell-back of LDoN successes. EVB is even reasonable if you have to buy velium; the trick is to go to Velks and buy it off the people doing exp there. They'll be happy to sell for far less than bazaar prices; cash weighs much less than blocks of velium, and they can still farm more while they exp.

A friend of mine decided he wanted 250 smithing as fast as possible; cash wasn't a problem. EVB is by far the easiest way to get through those 44 points if cash isn't a problem; it's much faster and easier than shadowscream.

You still need to do Shadowscream past 222, though. You may also wish to mention that many people have cultural options open to them to ease skillups too.

[eniamn]

ldon temper components. know them so you know what to ask your group for when you ldon.

evb. make sure you can get to cs for the brown algae as you can no longer buy cvt in thurg.

fishing grubs to 122 like el said. i found skull ale to be quite easy and cheap. payala fruit was pretty easy too. run around shadeweavers for a bit. if you bring water there is a brew barrel in zone too i hear. then go to mhb. 9 items hurts.

i beleive tae ew shileds are triv > 250 and only need the blood for them. its not easy but you are xping there for stuff anyway.

[Candiil]

Aid Grimel

And if you have 220 raw smithing skill and are lucky enough to have the correct PoP flags (Bertox maybe?), you can do the first step of Aid Grimel's quest to 227. Cost is 3 Celestial Essences, a jar of acid, and the time to run from the top of the Library to a forge and back. I experimented yesterday and it took me about an hour to do 20 combines and I got one skillup (221). I would have spent that much time farming velium and making CVTs for 20 combines anyway.

[Candiil]

Aid Grimel

double post

[Cragzop]

An addition to the Aide Gimmel step:

Porting classes can do the aid gimmel steps very very fast. The trick is to bind within hailing distance of the aide.

The PoK gate drops you relatively near the forges, you run there do the combine and then gate back to bind. Talk to Gimmel, rinse and repeat. Because you're using gate and you're already in the zone there is no zone loading time, essentially just the time to cast the spell and you're at your destination.

Any class that can gate can take advantage of this at least in one direction.

Also the skillup ratio for this part seems to be better than almost any other method. (My experience would say the ratios, best to worst go Gimmel, Shadowscream, Enchated Velium, LDoN, but I represent a small sample size)

[Myrron]

Added to the sticky. Once I get some computer problem worked out, I'll be adding a bunch of guides to the main website, so keep an eye out!

--Myrron

[Taushar]

Originally posted by Monual

Now place two swirling shadows, one humming orb, one banded boot mold (1.7pp), a water flask, your humming luclinite hammer, and your Vah Shir anvil in a forge. Hit combine. On success you'll get Shadowscream Boots.

Keeping making Shadowscream Boots. They become trivial at 248, but remember you only need to get to 240 if you've purchased a Geerlock Automated Hammer. As a guildeline, I found that I averaged one skill-up per twenty combines. That means that to get from 188 to 240, you'll need approximately 1040 Wailing Substances, 1040 Shrieking Substances, and 2080 Swirling Shadows.

Nice post. Couple of things I can add. Swirling Shadows are expensive and hard to get. I would do the single Swirling Shadow combines until it trivials before moving on to the boots (is the bracer that requires one Swirling Shadow and one Humming Orb? I can't hit the main site at work to check it or the trivial). I think it trivials at 220 range iirc. It stretches your lower combines to twice as many. It really helps stretching your pps.

Taushar

[Cragzop]

Every shadowscream armor recipe listed requires 2 shadows. I did bracer to 220 and it always took 2...

Are you thinking of the shadow disk (trivial 108). That needs only 1

[Taushar]

Hmm, gonna have to check tonight. I can't access the main site at work. I could have sworn that there was a shadowscream recipe that used one of each. I know I used it earlier until it trivialed for me. Maybe the recipe has changed or I lost my marbles. I will check and report back.

Taushar