Any crafters that can give me an ideal of the plat outlay to raise Smithingfrom 100 to a level that can reliably do fine plate?
Finish banded. Go to Bile Spines. Then just start fine plate bracers at like 132. May cost a lot, but leveling with fine plate is expensive anyway. You can't avoid it. You should be able to reliably do all fine plate around 160ish with a failure here or there.
Ive a human smith but kind of wish that I had went halfling...they look like they get the easiest path to a higher skill.
Antonican Sewing Kit to 162 - Maybe 20p / combine with capped CHA? Fine Plate to 188 Field Plate to 215^ Imbued Field Plate to 242* Sickles to 250 ^Unclear to me yet if these are an option in Classic or Kunark *When Imbued Cultural becomes an option: Level a Zek Shaman to imbue Jade (Ogre I think?) Speculation has imbued options launching potentially in Velious. Kind of puts your laundry list for combines at: Fish a whole heck of a lot for Seaweed. Slay goblins in OOT by the thousands for Mugs of Sea Foam. Become a master at farming lions and spiders for pelts and silks.
Cultural sewing kits are in the game. It's the easiest route to 160 but it is expensive since they don't sell back for anything. When you hit 153 or so, you can start fine plate. If you vendor back the armor you will probably only spend like 2k raw pp from 153 - 188
HIE smiths get the HIE sewing kit for around 7pp I believe. These make nice bank slot items since they are 10 item, GIANT. However, they are worthless otherwise.
Anybody know when the gold ornate chain recipes become available? If Velious, I'll wait; if not, I'll just push through my stock of padding since Erudite kits can't be crafted yet, either.
No rush to get smithing up for erudites before Luclin really unless you are doing Shawl quest. There is no plat to be had until acylic plate and the competition will be stiff for that. Ultimately smithing is not a money maker for Erudites, it just is required to complete the tradeskill quests. If you are doing tradeskills for the plat, stick to Alchemy, baking and brewing...your stuff is always in demand and cant be improved on through combat.
Not worried about money. I enjoy tradeskills. I enjoy tradeskills so much I'm planning on doing the shawl on a SK.