Nope, that's what I meant. And thanks for updating the info elsewhere. At this stage of the game, success and fun in EQ depends a lot on what you know. The more info we can spread, the better!
The one thing I would cation with this advise (if I am understanding this correctly in that instead of just doing the repetitive combines to get to 300 and trophy 7/7 people should instead try to just work up the recipe list) is the rarity of some of those combines. I would strongly advise nobody ever attempt even a low trivial combine that requires a rare material until they are at least 300 with max evolved trophy. Doing so will probably result in more time and plat spent vs just doing the repetitive combines first. Just my 2 cents having about 10 toons at 300 and maxed trophies in all the base tradeskills and a toon for all of the specialized ones. I can max a toon in all 7 base tradeskills with max evolved trophy in a day or two with some pre planning so its not all that bad (if you know what you are doing and plan ahead).
Absolutely. I don't disagree at all. I guess I just have the "low hanging fruit" mentality so ingrained, I don't even think to mention it. But yes, definitely just skip the recipes which have rare or expensive materials. With this one caveat... all recipes, no matter how high your skill, have a 5% chance of failing. Once a recipe has a trivial near your current skill level, the failure rate will be .... 5%. So, even with Aura's cautious advice, those low trivial recipes can still fail even when you have a high skill level. Once it's 95% chance of success, there's no point in putting it off, other than to just skip all expensive/rare-material combines. You can get to 350 in a skill without making every single last recipe for that tradeskill (now that we've had more expacs with more recipes). And also, you can max the AP without maxing all 9 tradeskills (you need 420 of the 450 possible skillups post-300). You can use the calculator page at EQTraders (http://eqtraders.com/calculators/main.php?menustr=130000000000) to see what the expected success rate will be for any combine. OK, upon further review, at lower skill levels, combines near but just slightly above your skill level still have a 30-40% chance to fail. So, stick with Aura's advice
Not overly common, but yeah, it happens from time to time. Better to ask it than not, though. It's more of a red flag if it's missing than a green flag if they have it. But it depends entirely on the class.
Yep. As a druid who never did the 2.0 when it was current, you can see from the focus info that there's no reason to do it later. The obsolescence is baked right into the item. What really frosts me is, it's the only 2.0 I've seen which has this "feature". Interestingly, the OoW robe/chest armor is also like this. The Druid BP has a focus which drops to zero effectiveness at level 95. I only know a few of the other classes' items, but I know the necro robe is useful still, even at 110. Several other classes recommend going back to get the OoW robe for it's usefulness. Makes you wonder if somebody on the dev team (or, at least, when OoW was being made) hates druids.
Just my thoughts. Not one single item is make or break. Often it feels more like a guild filtering apps.. ie list a few things we doing want to repeat, or leadership feels is trival. Just a few things to judge the want to of the app in question maybe. Nothing sucks more in this game that dude and brings drama about never getting help, groups etc.. yet they never dislay effort. Of course effort and knowledge with a willness to learn over come any gear. Retooling that grasshopper that shares the want to, and rare ability to listen and follow direction is so mega rare. Yet so Uber. Example.. how many guild push so hard on Blocker, EoTD1, yet only did 1 raid a week that needed it? Epics, TBM eyes, blockers are all frosting.. give a teamplayer and display effort and willingness to learn. Happy faces all around.
I did this in part on my paladin. For instance, in tailoring, I learned all of the cloth and leather template pattern recipes for a given level of silk and animal pelt before mindlessly making 1 pattern over and over. However, I caution people to be careful when taking this route if they also want to max their tradeskill trophy. If they've already purchased purchased the ranks of the tradeskill AAs that allow skills to go higher than 300, then it's possible to get a skill that is too high to use the most convenient combine to max the trophy. For instance, I believe a velium bar + a blue diamond is by far the easiest way to max the jewelcraft trophy. If they've learned enough jewelcraft recipes getting to 300 and have the AAs, they might go from a skill of 299 to 305. They would not be able to use the velium and blue diamond to max their tradeskill trophy. So I guess the moral is try to max your tradeskill trophies before purchasing ranks 4 and above of the tradeskill AAs, unless there is a high trivial combine that has easy to acquire components for that tradeskill.
It looks like I need to add some information on leveling tradeskills that includes how to level your trophy while doing so. Anyone have this information that they wish to share? They are welcome to edit my wiki directly or send me a private message here with the information and I'll add it myself.
Quite so. As has been noted by others, Everquest is not a game that requires exceptional skill to be successful. But many of us, I think, have encountered folks who just are quicker, more attentive, who don't give up the first time something fails, who may, or may not, have the most AA and the latest and greatest stuff. These folks are the ones I like to group with. It just makes things go better.
And even here, there are exceptions! The basic: Get the trophy quest early (once you hit 50), since the quest combines are much easier (clarification: the mats you must gather are easier to get), and you get the trophy quickly. Then, once you have it, just keep using it as you go, and it will evolve. There's really not much more to it. If you wait, and get the trophy quest later, the trophy still starts out at level 1, but you get a certificate to evolve it up to the level your skill is at (more specifically, corresponding to the quest you did). The trophy can't get ahead of itself. Each level corresponds to a 50 point spread in the skill. So once a level one trophy evolve to level 2, if you haven't hit skill level 101 yet, it stops evolving until you do. So you can see, your trophy can't get to level 6 til you've hit a skill of 250, and it can't go past level 6 til you hit skill 300. If you get behind, then the trophy levels a bit faster til it catches up. To get to level 7, you have to make combines with trivials higher than 300. There's a chart in the guide on EQTraders (in the forums) showing how many successes it takes to gain 1% on the trophy for each skill. Unlike general skillups (you can get a TS skillup on both successes and failures), trophies only evolve on successes. Here's where the rub comes.... some skills are a pain to get to 300, mostly due to mats being hard to gather. Most skills require 30-40 combines per skillup once you hit 250, so that's a LOT of mats needed. One way around that is to use a Draught of the Craftsman on combines likely to fail, since you CAN get skillups on failures. Since you want to MINIMIZE the likelihood of a success, you probably don't want to use your trophy. So, in those cases, your trophy won't be level 6 once you hit 300, and you'll have to do some catching up before it can start evolving to level 7. Two more helpful points: Getting a trophy allows you to obtain a 12 slot bag. Completing the evolution allows you to get a 24 slot tradeskill-mats-only bag (not that useful in an era of extraplanar bags) Once you trophy is fully evolved, you can put it in your house, and use it via the real estate tribute window (found using the EQ button). But to evolve it, you must wield it.
If you are wanting to raid, and you are already posting in a public forum your disagreement with the guild leadership. Then I suggest that you are not a good fit for that guild, and for the good of everyone in that guild and yourself... Find another guild to raid with. Instead of jumping through the one hoop they want you to jump through. You instead come to the forum and post. Think back 20 years ago when jboots were a requirement. Along with see invis items or enduring breath. How about that shrink clicky. There has always been some requirement. When a person decided to not meet that requirement, it was always an easy decision to not invite them to raid. If a guild can't count on you to do the work to get one little aug, then how can they count on you to perform on raids and not complain. You haven't even gotten into the guild yet, and your already complaining.
