Is there a limit on how many Tradeskills one of my characters can learn, or do I need to spread the Tradeskills out over several characters? What is the maximum level of a Tradeskill a character can achieve? On the site linked below it says 300, by using an Alternative Advancement ability...but that page was last edited approx. 6-years ago. http://www.eqtraders.com/articles/article_page.php?article=g179&menustr=030000000000 Thank you for your time and assistance.
Nope, no limit. However, there are certain tradeskills that are limited to class (alchemy for shamans, poisonmaking for rogues) and limited to race (tinkering for gnomes). Other than that, you're free to level up everything. You don't have to pick and choose just 1 or 2 (unless you truly want to).
Most actually go up to 350 now ( again with AA's ), one thing to keep in mind about that is from 300 to 350 you dont skill up with combines, you skill up by learning recipes you dont already know...lol found this out the hard way
You didn't mention if your on non-progression server or progression? Even though some of the pages are old at EQ Traders they are still the guideline most people use. Just keep in mind that the AA you need to advance your tradeskill is not among those that are aut- granted. This is a good way to start: You should not spend training points raising trade skills on non-progression servers. There are "freebie" quests in Crescent Reach and Abysmal Sea that will advance your basic skill in any trade skill to 54 for free. If you're on a progression server, you might want to go ahead and use skill points and train with your guildmaster to help raise your skills as far as possible. At 54 get your trophy from the lady in Freeport so it will evolve easier as you make stuff. And this is the ultimate guide lol http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/showthread.php?37646-The-Ultimate-EQ-Tradeskill-Guide
Basic seven: baking, brewing, blacksmithing, jewelcraft, pottery, fletching, tailoring. All classes now get research, but that stands separate. Class and race specifics are also separate. Out of basic seven, first to break 200 can go to 300. Rest lock at 200. Need to train New Tanaan Mastery AA to unlock them. With all 6 ranks (18AA total) can take all seven basics to 300. For each skill, there is a specific Mastery AA. First 3 ranks (3,6,9) decrease fail chance by up to 50%. Further 10 ranks increase your skill cap by 5 each. The actual skill is determined by how many recipes you know. Example: suppose Tailoring has 300 eligible recipes, and you know 48 of them. Buying rank 4 of tailoring mastery will immediately take your skill to 305. Buying rank 5 will take you to 308. If you learn 12 more recipes via scribing or experimental combining, you will go to 310, etc. With AA rank at 13 and all eligible recipes know, you cap at 350.
A minor addition: with mastery ranks 4-13 you still need to grind first 300 points on a skill the usual way.
There are not necessarily 300 recipes, he was just using that as an example. There are many recopies introduced with the later expansions, but unless they are all listed on a fan site, I do not know of a place in-game to see them all. Just have to look around for them. Best site for trade skills is and has always been EQ Traders. Den mum and her hubby have a little insight to EQ since he works for them, but he is contractually obligated to keep his ogre mutt shut!
300 was just a nice round number pulled out of thin air for illustrative purposes. A lot of recipes can be obtained by scribing and there are guides on the net listing various recipe book vendors. A fair number of recipes you have to 'experiment'. EQTC has fairly extensive recipe lists, you could print/download and then just go through and check off those you got. A fair number of recipes are NOT part of the 350 requirement. I.e. culturals, for obvious reasons.
Fishing is also a tradeskill i did not see mentioned yet. it works just a little differently than the others in that both the act of fishing and combining things in the tacklebox can result in skill ups. it also caps at 200 and again at 250 with the appropriate AAs.
It should be noted that without buying ranks in New Tanaan Crafting Mastery, which is on the general AA tab you can only raise 1 of the big 7 (Baking, Blacksmithing, Brewing, fletching, Jewelcraft, Pottery and Tailoring) past a skill of 200. "For each rank of this ability that you purchase, you are able to raise an additional tradeskill past it's specialization level (200)." To most this is a trivial matter, and something they maxed a long while ago, but I thought it best to mention it, as it's frustrating enough trying to raise your tradeskills, without banging your head off this brick wall!
Do your trophies at a low skill level. I don't think it makes a difference to the evolution of the trophy if you wait til you have higher skill because they will "catch up" to your skill level but it sure makes a difference in the combines you have to do to get the trophy. At low levels, all the materials are vendor bought. Higher levels you're going out to farm stuff.
Ok, right... It's not true that ALL materials for the beginner trophies are vendor-sold. But making them as soon as possible (right after the CR freebie quests still makes a lot of sense, because the "drops" you need to make the trophy quests are easy to get (and often found on vendors too, sold to them from other players). Making a trophy later on (you get a "scorecard" to evolve your trophy to the level corresponding to the 50pt increment you're in) is much more effort, as one or more of the required drops is usually quite hard to get.
For beginner trophies, materials that are not vendor are common drops from starting areas. I stopped playing before trophies were a thing but had several skills at 250 or close (did the original shawl and Aid Grimel). When I returned and went for the trophies, it was... painful.
For the trophies, get them as soon as you can. They become available at skill 50-ish (54 I think someone said?), and get increasingly difficult as you skill up (increments of 50). Master level trophies are a pain to do - higher trivial, more combines, more farming of rare items. For the AAs, try to avoid getting the TS Mastery ones for as long as you can and focus on the TS Salvage ones (or did these get combined into one string in the AA consolidation patch?). Pre-300, you want to fail as many combines as you can in the hopes that you can salvage some of the components. You still get skill-ups from failures, as long as the trivial is higher than your current skill. If you successfully combine, you lose the components. Post-300, you skill up based on number of recipes you know (scribed from books or successfully combined), as others have said.
