Adorning is just... holy crap... what?

I love complex crafting, and I think that Everquest 2 has the single best crafting system of any MMORPG to date. That being said, I tried my hand at Transmuting and Adorning, and.... let's just say that after a full night of giving it everything I had, I was ready to punch my fist through a wall.
Here is what I experienced...
::Transmuting::
The only way I was able to get anywhere with transmuting was to basically go to the Broker and just buy items... tons of them. Tons and tons and tons of them.
I attempted to farm for the items first. I even used my refer-a-friend account and created a new character to mentor down to and farm for items. I level locked around level 8 in Darklight Woods and farmed mobs non-stop for a couple hours or more. The drop rate of items I could transmute was about 1 in 10 kills. Sometimes it was better, and other times it was worse. Needless to say, after a couple hours of doing this and being completely bored out of my mind, my transmuting had barely gone anywhere.
So, I headed off to the broker to spend my life savings on items to transmute.
***Suggestion Number 1*** Please add a "Transmutable" option to the broker. It would be oh so nice to be able to search for just items that are trasnmutable. After some trial and error, I found that I could get this somewhat by choosing "Treasured" and "Attuanable".
***Suggestion Number 2*** Please add a feature to the item details that says what Transmute Skill Level is required to transmute the item. This would be a God send. All it needs to say is something like "Transmute: 100+" or something like that. Figuring out the formula on what level item you can transmute is just annoying at best. It's something like (your transmute level / 5) + 5 = item level you can transmute. It would be a ton easier if the item just plainly said what transmute level it requires to be transmuted on it.
Ok so after spending a fortune, I managed to get my Transmuting up to level 100 out of 450. It seemed good for me because I was just trying this out for the time being... and... I was out of money >.<

::Adorning::
I go pick up the Adorning crafting ability and grab the available recipes. Out of all the trasnmuting I did, I happened to have 32 Lapis Luz-whatevers on me. I go back to the guild hall and go from crafting station to crafting station trying to find the one that works Adorning. I open up my first adorning recipe and notice there are not many at all... hmm that might be a problem I think.
I start up my first adorning recipe... HOLY CRAP it takes 6 Lapis Luz-thingies! WHAT! I spent a fortune and got 32 of these mats and the recipe takes 6 of them? I almost lost it in real life at that point. The computer was fearing for it's life. One saving grace.. you complete all 4 bars and you get half of those mats back. Ok... but still it takes 3 Lapis to do 1 recipe. That seems extremely excessive considering how much effort goes in to getting a single Lapis in the first place.
But, anyway.. I go on doing the recipes and run out of new recipes and they are all at EASY at this point... I have barely leveled up Adorning ... it was below level 10 out of 450 at this point. I look in my bags remembering I bought all the recipes. I go to click the next recipe..... and it says I have to be level 50 Adorning... again... I am thinking what in the hell is going on with this tradeskill.
So.... yeah.... I wasted a night of my life that I will never get back and most of my character's life savings to get my Transmuting to 100/450 and my Adorning to something like 10/450. And, trust me. I have patients. Almost ever character I have is a crafter. But, this Adorning/Transmuting stuff is just beyond insane. Who ever thought this up I think likes to hirt him or herself at night alone in the dark or something. I mean come on.. there's hard... there's complex... but this is somewhere in another dimension of pain and masachism.

They are not cheap in any way. Either you spend lots of plat, lots of time or a good amount of both. This is how it has always been and always will be.

#1 - Transmuting is a skill that is not intended to be leveled from 5 points up to 450 in a few hours. It sounds like your expectation of how quickly you are going to reach max level is much too high.
#2 - The price of transmutable treasured+ items is very high right now due to the high demand for these items by people thinking they need to get their transmuting skill from 5 points to 450 points in a few hours. Usually the first 50 level 1-9 items on the broker cost around 50s to 3g each. Now the prices are around 5-6g for even the cheapest of the items, due to increased demand.
#3 - There are cheaper ways to obtain transmutable items if you are willing to put in the time. Harvest for rares, especially the ones that allow you to craft spell and combat art upgrades. Once you have a nice big batch of the rares, craft the items and then transmute them all.

not to mention that the NPCs tell you ARE YOU SURE and warn you that it is not an easy skill to do, leaving many in pauper status.

I don't know how much you spent to get to the point you did, but I think a big part of the problem is the demand spike in treasured transmutable items caused the prices to soar beyond even the levels they were when transmuting was introduced in EoF. When the demand dies, down raising transmuting by buying treasured stuff on the broker should be not as bad (I don't think it will ever be cheap to do so, but the difference would be like paying 1-3 gold per item vs the 6+ gold per item it was last time i checked).
A better in-game explanation of how transmuting and adorning works might be a good thing - if you had a transmuting tutorial mission (maybe like the original crafting tutorial on the island or something alternativly something like TSO crafting missions) that got you to T2 transmuting by the tiem you finished, that would really solve a lot of the headaches for newbie tranmusters I think.
Also, its really just getting upto 50 transumting skill through drops thats pure heck. Once you get to 50 transumting...
Commonlands - graveyard near town - there is a crypt instance that is unlimited repeatable. mentor to lvl 15 (if thats too hgih goto 10) and if a named is up you will get at least one treasured item per trip through it (its a very small instance so its very fast).
After you get tired of that, wailing caves has MANY named mobs to run through. If you are not a good survivability solo class, you may want to bring a partner, but its a great place to farm stuff to transmute (lvl 20 is a good levle to mentor to for it).
You can try stormhold after that, but its a bit more dangerous and more spread out so it won't be as quick going.
Once you get yoru transmuting skill upto doing lvl 30is stuff, Ruins of Varsoon is a paradise for farming treasured and legendary (mentor to lvl 40 for best results). Again it can be dangerous for some classes, but its a great place for transmuters.
I have not found a next great spot to try, but I think Obelisk of lost souls will have promise for me when I go visit it (I forget its levle range tho).
The key is to look for fast repoping named mobs that will usually drop at least a treasured item every kill. - a character with tracking could probably do well in any overland zone...

PeterJohn wrote:

5-6g would be cheap from what I have seen ... last time I looked it was more like 30g.

Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:

Yeah this will happen if someone who is very rich is trying to level up their transmuting skill quickly. I would never pay this much for these items, because I don't have that much plat to burn.

With self-mentoring, it's so easy to get transmutables together. Not only do you have a lot of mobs to pull from, but you also have a ton of quests you probably skipped, while leveling up. Before SF went live, I collected somewhere around 10-12 boxes worth of items. I still had some spots to fill in. The total cost was around 10 plat. Neither skill was meant to be all that easy. In fact, I won't be looking to start adorning until I have a large supply of ingredients (if I ever decide to start it).
You can add tinkering to this list, as it requires a ton of resources. You really need to get out there and harvest if you insist on having this skill.

As a raider, I had never raised transmuting skill because we already had a couple and tinkerer was more valuable to me. So, when the expac hit and I got to 90 I decided to look into this skill.
I checked the broker for low level items to begin muting. None available at the time. For any price. At all. What to do?
I visited my local chronomage and mentored to level 5 then started doing newbie quest lines I hadn't done. Most characters only follow one main quest line at creation, usually leaving at least one or two available to be done like this. Most of these quests yield mutable rewards, as well as the treasured drops you get as you kill mobs.
For my character doing this, I completed the TS quests, Butcherblock quests, spent a bit of time in Stormhold and Kaladim, and moved into Steamfont quests. He is almost to 200/450 skill now without spending a single silver on raising it. Yes, it cost some time doing the quests but, hey, a lot of it was actually kinda fun. In addition to the muting skill, I accumulated a fair amount of adorn mats and ... AAs!!!!!!!!! Not a huge number to be sure, but still 5 or 6 AA for doing something to raise a crafting skill isn't bad.
Obviously, YMMV depending on how much low level questing your character has already done and this may not be a suitable path for everyone. But it will be a good alternative for most characters to spending that "life savings" if you have better things to spend it on ... like T9 Experts and Masters.

I agree that transmuting is a real PITA to grind up, but I also don't like the idea of making it easier to buy stuff en masse from the broker. Not necessarily from a cost perspective, but it punishes low level/new players trying to kit themselves out. When Treasured Tier 1 & 2 stuff sits there at 30g+ because someone with plat has bought up everything cheaper its pretty rough to those still only picking up copper and silver from quests and kills.
Yes, there's the argument that 'they could work/harvest/craft for it' but for richer players to destroy essential items in exchange for a few inconsequential early skillups seems wrong to me.
I think I would remove transmuting as an available skill for the first 20 levels. I'd have Transmuting and Adorning start at 100 skill for level 20 items and above. Adorns aren't spectacular stat bumps before this level anyway and it frees up lower level stuff for those who can actually use it for the purpose it was created for.

Valdimere wrote:

Firstly, transmuting is the art of breaking things down, put up with the lower level grind and like all other TS's it pays in the long run. I spent 120p leveling my transmuting from 0 to 375 (start of SF gear) in a couple of hours and have easily made that back since then.
Secondly, learn somesimple maths! Its not hard. Item level x 5 + 5 = level needed for transmuting. Simple.

Adorning: This has always been a problem, but live with it. 1000's of other people have struggled to get their skills up, now you need to too.

personally I love the changes that split transmuting and adorning into two different skills. I am one of those who has been leveling up a character and keeping his crafting level, adventure level, and transmuting at about the same level since the beginning so with these changes its almost impossible for him to loot something that he cant transmute now even if I let his transmuting fall behind a bit as used to happen on a fairly regular basis. Its also quite nice that adornments that are made by only adorers now, for once the adornments that he makes are actually useful beyond a simple weapon adornment, these changes have me quite enthused about skilling up transmuting for something more than just the ability to break down things that I wont use

Transmuting/adorning are not meant to be skilled up over night. Actually, it is far easier now than it used to be. I am sure though with repeated weeping they will stupefy this segment of crafting also to match the rest of it.

I thin transmuting is pretty much supposed to be something you do on one of your characters, maybe even one character in a circle of friends. Then you feed them items from your other characters and playing circle to level it. It and adorning are supposed to be rewarded for the persistence by being able to make highly desirably items.

It's definately not something everyone is supposed to be able to self do quickly so as to get adornments and not have to shell out plat to others. Kinda reminds me of that other game, where people wanted their gear enchanted for a pitance after buying materials and couldnt understand why a person who had leveled the skill expected some compensation or return favor.

I leveled my Illy's Transmuting from 1 to little over 70 as I ran content chronomaged thru Tim Deep, starting with the very first quest. You get a piece of gear often enough to level at a decent pace. That and whatever chest drops you get.
One thing that can help is the Cloak of the Harvester. That gives a 25 to Transmuting. So by the time I hit Mok Rent quests, I could transmute T3 items with the cloak on. Now that I hit Butcherblock chrono'd, with the cloak I can transmute L23 gear or so.
For lower level items, there's always going thru any smaller areas that you've not done yet like EoF, what you can do of Darklight Woods (if you're a good aligned and dodge the guards while chrono'd).
There's also farming the colony islands, just make a little one, run it thru, move any chest drops via shared bank to your muter. You could also save all the quested gear as they hit L10 or so, large enough to leave the island, break that down, pass over the frags and powders via shared bank, and then wash rinse repeat. Sure, it's tedious, but you'll get what you need. I've been considering this myself.

You want to know how to make a small pile of money transmuting?



Start with a big pile.

Valdimere wrote:

Suggetsion 1 - It's already there, and sounds like you figured it out. Treasured / Atuneable pretty much does it.
Suggestion 2 - It's already there. Try and transmute an items that you can't and it tells you exactly what skill you need.

Searching for "Adept" also helps with finding transmutables.

I love how many of these threads/comments there are now.
I just want to reply and say "welcome to transmuting/adoring!" to every one.
This isn't new, and there's no reason to change it. It takes a serious commitment of time/energy/money.
I did Transmuting to 400 pre-SF, and am 450 in both Transmuting and Adorning now, so I'm not just blowing smoke.

First of all, let me offer my heartfelt condolences to anyone discovering adorning post-SF.
1. You are competing against a greater population for transmutables than I did (which now includes folks who previously went for tinkering and are climbing the adorning hill for the first time)
2. You have to level your transmuting skill from 1 to 450, whereas I only had to level it from 1 to 100 and 400 to 450.
3. You have to level your adorning skill from 1 to 450, whereas I only had to level is from 101 to 450.
Even with an easier road, I still spent MASSIVELY for level 1 to 19 transmutables, which was the range where fragment count was a non-issue and I could kill the combine after 1 bar without worrying about the returned raws. The math was 4 items make 1 powder, 4 powders make one skill-up. I did not have the patience to grind kills in the newbie area for treasured drops, I tried it, decided I'd rather earn the plat in high level areas and buy from others willing to do the grinding for me. I usually set a ceiling of 3g per item, and I imagine that won't get you very far on the broker these days.
So.. I have no real suggestions. If I were making the commitment again, I'd really, seriously, pace myself. Let the broker fill back up if the price is out of the range I want. I'm not sure if anyone would accept, but I'd at least try to offer to mentor to a small group in a zone at the range of my transmuting skill, as they might take the quick killing in exchange for all the treasured items.