Tradeskill Questions

Discussion in 'Tradeskills' started by SentinelBasch, Feb 4, 2013.

  1. SentinelBasch Active Member

    Hi, there.

    I started EQ2 a few days ago, and I'm really enjoying it so far. I do have some questions about the tradeskill system. I've looked at different guides about it on the net, but it's still confusing, so if you could me out, I'd really appreciate it.

    1.) At Level 9 when I choose a specialty, can I still use the Level 1-9 recipes from other specialties? For example, if I choose the Scholar path at Level 9, can I still craft a Level 6 Rawhide Leather Backpack from the tailor recipe? Or do I lose my Level 1-9 recipes that aren't from the path I've chosen? Same at Level 19 - for example, if I choose Outfitter at Level 9 and Armorer at Level 19, can I still use tailor/weaponsmith recipes through Level 19 even after I choose Armorer?

    2.) How does equipment level relate to the recipe level? I'm noticing that the equipment recipes for Recipe Levels 1 to 9 are all for Level 1 equipment. Will all the Recipe Levels 10 to 19 be for Level 10 equipment? How does that work?

    3.) I've started as a Paladin and I'm planning to use alts sometime down the road. What would be a good tradeskill choice for my main? I'm thinking either Alchemist or Armorer. As an Alchemist, I could make potions which are useful for all classes, as well as upgrades to my combat arts. As an Armorer, I was thinking I could always stay in top-notch plate armor, but if I can only craft new armor for Level 1, 10, 20, etc. and not in-between I'm thinking it might not be so useful. Of course I'm open to other options if anyone thinks a different tradeskill would be better for my first character.

    Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
  2. Lodrelhai Well-Known Member

    Welcome to the insanity!

    1) You keep all the lower-lvl recipes - if you go Scholar for lvl 10, you'll still have the 1-9 carpenter, provisioner, tailor, etc recipes. However, your skill at making those recipes will never go above 45. Likewise if you go Alchemist for 20, you'll still have the 10-19 scribe and jeweler recipes, but your skill in those won't go past 95.

    2) All handcrafted gear is _0 (1, 10, 20, etc), and all mastercrafted is _2 (2, 12, 22, etc). Mastercrafted recipes are in "advanced (name of class)" recipe books - the tier 1 books are available from any Crafting Trainer, and there are tradeskill quests to unlock merchants that sell the tier 2, 3, and 4 books. While you're right it's a long stretch to wear one set of gear, it's perfectly suitable for most tiers, for starters if nothing else. Most of my chars get full sets of handcrafted at lvl 20 just because they outlevel the quest-rewarded gear they have long before they get quests for the next level of gear. IThat isn't as much an issue as leveling slows down, and while crafted gear is good, it is almost never the best available. I generally advise if you hit a tier and you have greyed-out gear, at least check the crafted offerings to see if it's better than what you've got. Armor and weapons in particular need to be checked, because they lose their effectiveness. Jewelry stats remain useful, but I don't know if their procs lose effectiveness.

    3) The first bit of advice I can give is try the class that interests you most. For usefulness... well, most classes are useful for most playstyles. Of armorer and alchemist for a paladin, I personally would lean more towards alchemist. Armor has the issues you've already noted concerning how it levels, potions are often a major help, and spell/combat art upgrades range from useful at low levels to required at high levels. That said, food, jewelry, armor, ammo, weapons, and storage boxes or bags are needed for almost everyone. Odds are, if you find that you enjoy crafting, you'll end up making one of each (or at least most) classes.

    Some other useful bits:

    1) Learn the crafting rhythm. A round of crafting takes 4 seconds (I think it's 4, might be 6). At the end of each round progress and durability are adjusted, and an event to counter, if any, will show on your crafting window. I usually find it easiest to set my view so I can see the name of the crafting station - the progress/durability numbers will show up there, so if you lose track of the rhythm you can use the numbers to keep you on pace.

    2) Know what your counters do. Unless you swap them around yourself, the first three increase durability and the last three increase progress, at the cost of power, success chance, and the opposite stat respectively (third increases durability but costs progress, sixth increases progress but costs durability). At lower levels I use the first three each round to keep my durability up, and if I'm getting too many fails or crit fails, I only use buttons 1 and 3. Unless there actually IS an event to counter that round, in which case use the counter first! In later levels you can pre-load some extra durability the first few rounds, then spam progress to finish quickly. They are useful for MUCH more than just countering events as they happen!

    3) Visit EQ2 Trader's Corner if you haven't already. Naomi Den Mother has put up lots of guides and screenshots and other random usefulness, and updates regularly with new new information (especially about live events). While EQ2i and Zam both have excellent quest guides, I find Mum's stuff to be useful and entertaining for more than just which quest to do next.

    4) Best leveling strategy is a combination of writs and quests, and there are lots of quests. Almost every tier has its own quest line or faction to work on and are a great way to break up the tedium of writ-grinding. Crafting writs are available starting at lvl 15 (timed "rush order" writs are available at lvl 20), and they repay your fuel cost in addition to giving coin, faction, xp, and city tokens. Most tiers the writs are lvl _0, _4, and _9, and that long stretch from _4 to _9 can really turn into a slog, so around _6 is when I usually work on the tier's crafting quest.

    Hope this stuff is helpful, and hope to see you around a lot!
    Feara likes this.
  3. SentinelBasch Active Member

    OK, I looked at the Trader's Corner, and found out the answer to #1.

    I also think I know the answer to #2, but I'm not sure. From what I can tell, it does go up in increments of 10, but you can add a level or two by using a rare material. If that's true, then I really can't see Armorer being useful until the end-game.

    I'm not so sure that Alchemist will help much, either. Does the most powerful healing potion really only heal for 900 something damage? I've already exceeded that at just Level 20, and 2 minutes 45 seconds is a really long cool-down time. For a Paladin, I imagine power potions would be more helpful, but they don't look very impressive either, especially with the cool-down.

    Would I be better off doing something utilitarian like making strongboxes as a Carpenter for extra storage, or picking Tailor for the bags instead? I am a hoarder so storage is really important.

    I really want to pick a tradeskill that will actually help me the whole game, not just at cap, and can help my alts in the same way, too. What should I pick?

    Thanks.

    EDIT: Oops! Someone responded the same time as me. I'll check it out and then respond again. :D
  4. SentinelBasch Active Member

    Thank you, Lodrelhai.

    OK, I've decided not to do Armorer on this character. I think quest gear will suit me just fine.

    After poking around the Trader's Corner and considering everything, I think I'm going to go with Alchemist this time around. I really like the combat art upgrades that you get, and the potions are a nice little bonus to that.

    Thanks again for responding, it was very helpful. :)
    Feara likes this.
  5. Kethryl Active Member

    Jeweler (Swashbuckler) and Alchemist (Bruiser) were two of my first crafters, and I'm constantly logging into my Alchemist to craft poisons and potions for /ALL/ of my characters. Alchemist is a good choice. =)

    I get a lot of crafting commissions for spells on my Alchemist, Sage, and Jeweler as well. You can't go wrong with the Scholar classes. =)

    My Woodworker spends a lot of his time making ammunition for my bow and thrown weapon users, and totems for various toons.

    My Tailor has created a /TON/ of backpacks.

    My armorer has been useful in creating better armor for some of my characters as they leveled, and I also get commission requests for certain specialty and/or appearance armor. Same goes for my Weaponsmith.

    My Carpenter used to make strongboxes for me, but now just spends her time making a lot of great furniture.

    Now to work on my Provisioner.. =)
    Feara likes this.
  6. SentinelBasch Active Member

    Well, I've gotten my Tradeskill level up to 31, and I'm very glad I chose Alchemist. My character level is still 24 - I've been pumping up Tradeskill and AA (currently at 33). The combat art upgrades are really, really helpful. Yes, I can research them in game, but by the time I could get all of them to expert, they would already be obsolete. :p Since the time cost increases even more with higher-level skills, I'm sure I'll be very happy to have Alchemy by end game. :)
  7. Deathbecomes Member

    You have made your choice and seem happy with it so gratz. I'll give my opinion in case anyone else comes with the same question.

    I would want a jeweler first. Jewelers can provide 8 pieces of gear for all 25 classes plus combat art upgrades for scouts. Depending on the alt classes and when you are going to level them I would at the same time work the other Scholar classes for spell upgrades. If you aren't leveling any mages/priests for a while don't worry about sages. I wouldn't worry about carpenter or tailor for storage as with mass produce boxes/bags barely cost more to buy than fuel costs to make them and even at your lower levels you want the biggest you can get. Of the outfitters I would do armorer tailor then weaponsmith depending again on wether you are going to have any mages/priests if not then you don't really need tailor. Weaponsmith isn't a biggie either as you are only talking about 2 pieces of gear for any 1 toon per tier. Of the craftsmen provo is still nice to have if you have a lot of alts to keep them in food and drink. Woodworker if you have classes that need a lot of arrows carpenter unless you are really into decorating don't need while leveling up.

    All classes are useful at end game and with apprentice and other special recipies all can make some gear. If you are going to have several alts across the spectrum of classes then you will eventually find it nice to have all 9 classes.

    Start doing your adorning (adorning and tinkering are ts subclasses) dailies now you really don't need adorns until endgame but leveling them up then will either take a long time or be very costly ( you only need one adorner and one tinkering toon)
  8. SentinelBasch Active Member

    Thank you for the advice.

    I saw the Adorner and Tinkerer trainers in Butcherblock, but haven't done anything with them yet, so I guess I should start soon.

    When I do alts later, I was planning to do Jeweler and Sage next (for a scout and magic character, respectively), because I have found the skill upgrades to be very, very useful. Eventually, I would like to have all 9 professions covered.

    I was planning to put all my Evil characters on a different server, because you can't trade between Good and Evil characters, right?
  9. Deathbecomes Member

    Not able to trade between evil and good might be the case if you are on a PvP server but on normal servers all your toons share the same bank and you can trade between evil and good. It was a long time ago that evil and good had different shared banks but you could still trade in person or by mail. If you are betraying and an outcast at the time is the only time tou wont have shared bank access. The only thing that evil and good really effects is what guards will attack you at least on PvE.
  10. Eradani Well-Known Member

    only on Nagafen do good and evil have different shared banks and can't mail or trade. However, creative use of the fence in TD means you can trade anything you can put on the broker.
  11. SentinelBasch Active Member

    Cool, thanks.
  12. Kisy Active Member

    By End Game you will realize that making Expert spells and then researching them to Master is the best way to go unless you can find said CA / Spells on the Broker for cheap ( which is relative to the spell, and how much Plat you actually have on hand )

    Those of us who have been with the game for a long time, and actually have the patience and insanity to stay with crafting ( there are lots of people out there who can't stand it. My husband says he rather watch paint dry... in an asylum before crafting .... EVER! ) do tend to have multiple crafters if not all 9. Then there are even crazier ones who have multiple of the same craft ( HEY! To my credit... two of them are on seperate servers!!! Yea Yea Yea I know. )
  13. Rotherian Well-Known Member

    I wish that I could claim that my duplicates are on different servers, but they aren't. (Well...most of them aren't.) On Unrest, I have 2 alchemists, 2 provisioners, and 2 sages. (But, in my defense, only one of each is max level. The non-maxed ones are working their way up and hopefully I'll get a few of the lower level reactants in the process. Because I only have one lvl 95 adventurer, a 92, and about eight 90s, and the rest - of my many, many toons - are mostly between 20 and 60 in adventuring.)
  14. mague Active Member

    It is possible to trade between good and evil. As far as i remember the restrictions on the shared bank are gone. Otherwise its still possible to trade between good-neutral-bad alts.

    It is possible to be a max. level crafter while being level 1 adventurer. My advice is always to roll a Provisioner or a Carpenter or maybe a Woodworker or one of each profession.

    In the bigger picture armor, weapons or spell upgrades are useless. Only food, boxes/furniture and maybe totems are useful. If you have one of each profession, then you can finish the epic crafter quests on your own. A full set of crafters is a different story tough.
  15. SentinelBasch Active Member

    Thanks for the responses.

    I'm at the point now where I'm starting to run out of storage in the bank. I've crafted a whole bunch of 12-slot boxes (from the beginner recipes), but they're becoming insufficient. Some of the items I just don't know what to do with yet so I'm keeping them.

    I really don't like using the broker system - I like to earn everything on my own. Without giving details, just answer this for me - will I eventually get better boxes as quest rewards, or is my only way to get them by crafting, the broker, or SC? If they will eventually show up as quest rewards, I'll just hang tight with what I have for now.

    Thanks again.
  16. Rotherian Well-Known Member

    Although there are some available within the game as quest rewards, they are few and far between (I think less than a handful - although I could be wrong, since I haven't complete every single quest within the game). You can, if you so choose, decide to change your tradeskill class, but I think that starts you over at level 1, so you may or may not want to do that.

    If you do decide to switch, carpenter can make strongboxes, and tailors make bags. Each (of the same tier and rarity) has the same number of slots, so the only difference beyond those is whether you want to be able to make leather and cloth armor (tailor) or house items and salesman crates (carpenter).

    There are also a few bags that you can get from collections (those glowing ? that you see when traveling around). I think there is one for antonica leaves, and one for commonlands leaves that yields a bag as a reward. If I'm not mistaken, there is another as well that gives you a bag, but I can't remember which collection it comes from.
  17. SentinelBasch Active Member

    OK, thanks. I've put too much work into Alchemist to start over now, and I really make great use of the combat art upgrades. I forgot, too, about the six slots in my house, which I haven't made use of yet. So...I'll stick it out for now. If I run out entirely, I might just have to start an alt earlier than I thought. No biggie.
  18. Kethryl Active Member

    There are very few quest/collection/drop bags that are bigger than 24 slots (in fact, the Box of Nil Space [http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/2834265450] is the only one that comes to mind). There's also the Wantia Artisan's Satchel [http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/1516549339], but that's only for harvestable items.

    If you want to take advantage of the larger bags/strongboxes (40+ slots each), you'll need to level a crafter (Tailor or Carpenter), spend some time on the broker, fork over some StationCash, or do some Dungeon Maker dungeons (I think there's one you can get that way).
  19. Kisy Active Member

    If you can make some gold, you should be able to get the 40+ boxes without too much of an investment on the broker, and they will be well worth it.