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If you've never tried a trade skill before, there are a several things that you should know. Remember that training points can only be spent on trade skills early on. Once you hit a skill of 20 in the standard trade skills, you MUST gain skill increases through hands-on-practice. While tradeskills in EQ increase with practice, trade skills cost you money (in supplies), regardless of success or failure. For the more expensive skills (such as jewelcraft), it's wise to not only stockpile some money in advance, but also spend the training points to get to skill 20 before trying the skill. Low-level players: Before you even train in a trade skill, you should check to be sure that the materials you will need to practice your skill are available nearby. If they are not easily available, you have to make a hard decision -- do you want to try the skill anyway or do you want to try another trade skill? For example, if you want to bake, and the only baking supplies within the nearest several zones are batwings, you'll realize you're going to be running through a lot of zones to get some of your more basic supplies. This isn't meant to discourage you, but to make sure you don't spend a lot of training points before you realize the scope of the task ahead of you. (Higher level players tend to move around a lot, so this isn't as much of an issue for them.) -If you're getting a failure rate that will rapidly bankrupt you, find something that trivials closer to your current skill to practice on. (i.e., don't try to make a silver sapphire necklace the first time you try jewelcraft). -For everything but fishing, sell your goods to other players as opposed to NPC merchants where possible. If you sell to NPCs, you rarely will be paid what the raw materials cost you, much less the value of the item. For example, you'd get slightly over 1 gold for a piece of patchwork armor, when sold to an NPC merchant. The going rate when selling directly to players is generally 2 gold or so, depending on supply/demand and individual whimsy. -When a recipe calls for two or more of a single item, DO NOT STACK the items. Have two (or more) single pieces of the item in your forge, brew barrel, etc., not one pile of two. -Most trade skills are not level-capped, meaning that with enough time and raw materials, you could master the tradeskill at level 1. Other skills, such as fishing and alchemy are limited based on your level, just like your combat and other skills. -When you see mention of a "trivial" on a chart, it means that at that skill level, you will no longer gain skill increases from making the item. You will, however, still continue to fail quite a bit when making the item. Just because something is trivial does not mean you can do it in your sleep. Eventually, as your skill improves, your chance of failing at making the item will decrease, but there's generally always a chance of failure. (silk swatches and silk thread are an exception to this) -Grandmaster: Grandmaster (GM) in a tradeskill is considered someone with a skill of 200+ in a specific tradeskill. Of the 7 main tradeskills (baking, brewing, fletching, jewelcraft, pottery, smithing, tailoring) you may only have one of them above 200 (up to 250), while the rest are capped at 200. -Specialized tradeskills are capped separately. Regardless of whether another skill is above 200 or not, other specialized tradeskills are as follows: Alchemy 130 before level 51/180 at 51+; Poison Making 200 pre-51/250 post-51; Tinkering 250, Fishing 200 |