So this is a stupid question, and I know it's a stupid question, but I figure if I ask it, I'll at least gain a bit of understanding as to why it's a dumb one, which is pretty useful in and of itself. I recently returned to EQ2 after having played it initially during retail, discovering my PC couldn't handle it, and promptly getting distracted by a shiny object until a friend recently reminded me of it. In doing so I picked up the expansion for Beastlords, and have been enjoying it quite a bit on the newer PC I have. (Went from being unable to handle it at lowest settings to being able to multitask while on Extreme. My, how technology marches on.) The only problem I have right now is that I haven't gotten into tradeskilling, and I rather enjoy doing so in just about every MMORPG I play. (The exception being EVE Online, but that's a whole other ball of wax.) Now, in EQ1, crafting weapons and armor tended to be a waste of time, as the resources you needed to get made them inherently weaker than anything else you could get at level. They were, however, usually quite good for twinking alts. I'm not noticing that problem in EQ2. Harvesting seems to be quite forthcoming, even as I just run around blindly leveling without a coherent plan. Outside of not quite getting everything to 20 skill in time to see the next level of stuff (something that 5 minutes of work fixed) I haven't had any bottlenecks -- so far. However, a few friends have told me that generally speaking tradeskill gear gets outleveled rather quickly, especially once I hit the Golden Path content, making it less useful than it could be. (To say nothing about the endgame gear being Epic weapons and armor sets from dungeon content.) They seemed to feel that instead of Armoring or Weaponsmithing, I should aim for consumables -- Provisioner for Food/Drink, or Woodworker for Throwing Weapons -- as I'll always be using consumables the entire way up, and having them available to me "for free" makes things quite a bit easier, even at the highest levels. A third option that I noticed late last night was Jewelry -- which would get me some gear, but also would get me skill runes, which I apparently need for my skills at higher levels. And, of course, there's always crafting my own bags to consider, especially since I am still a Silver account and bag space is always at a premium. The general consensus I'm hearing is that there's no "Right way" to do it -- all the tradeskills have something useful to use and there is not "best" tradeskill for any given class. So here comes my stupid question: What is everyone's philosophy on tradeskills? Do you go for a tradeskill that gets you gear? Skills? Consumables? That has a high value on the broker? Do you pick a tradeskill that corresponds to your character's "hook" in your mind? Or do you take the longer view, and go with tradeskills that would be useful to gear up alts?
eldarmark wrote: All of these are valid ways of choosing a tradeskill. Personally, I never choose a tradeskill for a toon that they get no benifit from... so I'd never make a sage who wasn't a priest or a mage, for example. But other people do. What tradeskill your toon is will not make or break your adventure toon. It can make things more conveniant and/or cheaper, but that's about it.
My initial choice was something that sounded like it would be fun for me... carpenter. Profit was never a consideration. It still isn't and I generally lean towards adventuring for profit. When I found a guild to play with, my later choices would be geared more towards a spot to be filled. I picked up Jeweler and Sage to help with people's expert spells. Eventually, I just made one of every class, so I could help out anyone with anything. My approach to those was to focus on the tradeskill and choose the best race and then pick a class that seemed to match up with it.
Well, how does the crafted gear stack up at 92? On the way to 92? I know later on I have an Epic weapon awaiting me, does that preclude Weaponsmithing at 92? (I heard Weaponsmithing switches to temp-buffs for weapons later on to counteract this.) Same worry with dungeon dropped and quested armor -- does that kill off armoring as a viable gearing option? I guess I should be keeping an eye forward, towards maybe twinking gear, and filling in spots as I level. 1-92 is just as important as the game at 92. What about getting CA books on the way up? The ones I've searched for seemed to be a bit spendy, although someone in my guild was talking about some raid that people can do every few days that has played games with the economy in recent months, so, eh? Maybe that's just me looking remembering release date when a plat was an absurd amount of money. Ditto food / drink / thrown weapons -- it's always going to be one of those things I have to buy every so often, does crafting it make a noticable difference, or do I not need to bother
MC gear is good for leveling. Period. Even following the "golden path" there will be holes in your gear that if you happen to have a rare or two you'd like to fill. That being said...how many alts are you going to level? If your leveling a lot, then you should do ALL of the crafts like a majority of the crafters out there. Crafting is easy and fast to level. Grind writs = 92 in about 2 weeks. I'm talking 6 hours of grinding a day and a lot of goofing off in there too. Seriously, leveling crafting is easy. Now if your talking about doing one crafter, go for one that makes consumables you'll use. Provisioner and Woodworker are the obvious two. Alchemist can make potions that you normally wouldn't consider paying for but if you can get the materials for "free" then making some MC potions for your own use wouldn't be a horrible idea. And with any crafter start doing the apprentice stuff at 10. No reason not to if you don't mind spending a little time to set it up and visiting your house. You have a house, right?
Meirril wrote: Yes, have a basic house in Kelethin, the Inn. Had to -- no inventory space, heh. (Wish there were bank slot unlocks, I'd be happy to pay $10 in SC for each.) But yeah, that was kinda what I'm thinking, avoiding alts for now. I guess I could start making my plans around getting some tradeskill alts rolling -- no reason not to I suppose, outside of needing to work around my Silver account's character limit (which I can expand, so... yeah). I had no idea it only took a little bit of time like that to grind tradeskills all the way up. Does that assume some form of monetary support from a main (twinking with money, I mean)?
eldarmark wrote: A bit of monetary support would be helpful, but since rush orders and other quests tend to cover the cost of fuels, you could just give your alt single stacks of fuel for each level. After the coin limit is removed on the 13th, you could just give an alt 5p and they'll be pretty well set.
