Well I know its a little late, but I have found that during frostfell, doing the tradeskill quest got my remaining 6 main tradeskillers (have 3 at 100) up to around high 70's to low 80's. I was getting anywhere from 2-3 levels per day (only took like 10 minutes if you use those potions from your apprentice rewards. They are the ones that are 10 minute potion to increase your completion rate). if they are around mid 20's when you start, you'll get like 5 levels a day.
The Goblin mercenary is supposed to be as good as Zhugrus, if not better. You get access to a rares-producing flower in your house, but it produces one random rare per day, and it's unclear what's going to be the usefulness after the next expansion is released. Right now it's a license to print money, in the long term YMMV. AoM TS questline should give you enough experience to hit 98 (99, depending on your buffs). The dailies and weekly should be enough for you to hit 100 easy. You will receive the mount even before you have access to the cloak, the stats are good but not as good as the adventure one (or the looted one).
It would be really nice to hear about that goblin merc from those who got it So far I am most or less constantly using Zhurgus although I do Sarnak ranger as well (both are leveled to full) I Iike inquisitor better for more consistent heals and cures plus verdict also neat . From what I heard about goblin he is Brigand and Fury so he buff well (you) and debuff mob well (brigand)
My question is, the gathering goblin originally requires assigning a point in prestige tradeskill AA. If you convert him to the plant/merc, does that free up the AA point?
Nope - from what I have read so far In order to convert goblin to the merc you need to have 1 point to that goblin (to trigger quest) and once you done this ability with be replaced with buff that effectively reduce you time for harvesting node down to 1.5s. No (I know it could be consider as cheating) - what if after I get goblin merc I decide to change spec in trade skill (new template to use ) - does this will cause me my merc?
Once you convert him, you "can" respec and free up the point. It does nothing to your merc one way or the other. However, if you keep it, you have a harvesting speed buff that is REALLY sweet. (Base harvesting time to 1.5 sec, that is then modified lower with harvesting tools..)
Personally I use Zhugrus because he can be kinda tanky and can take a beating, the others have consistent dps but just melt if a mob hits them. Zhug is my molo-PL machine.
The goblin gardner is a brig merc with proc healing based on the merc's DPS. As long as you do not need cures, its competitivewith healing mercs. Slightly higher dps, slightly lower healing.
I'm going to disagree here. The extra xp from gaining the ring honestly isn't worth the time it takes to do all of AoM's quests which involve a lot of flying around 2 huge zones. Again, earning the privilege to do the daily quests in AoM takes more time than you'll save, and individually you could finish several work orders in the time it takes you to run around doing the AoM quests. Honestly the only reason for an adventurer to do AoM crafting is to get a ralic pack.
The AoM has been a massive help on both my toons that got to 100. With no vet bonus, a few work orders will net the same amount as the questline, which takes about 40 minutes. (Thats WITH harvsting times.) Again, with no vet bonus, any little bit helps. Can't emphasize the weekly enough.
All right here is some updates (since I got myself to 98.5 - and bracing for last 1.5 levels) First of all from my view point comparing AoM vs. Rush orders (both full vitality and 110% exp bonus from portion plus rush orders actually had 20% exp bonus from the ring) AoM quest line itself (if you not mind use broker) take at most 1-1.5 hours most important reward is ability to do right away daily and weekly. I started AoM when my char was with full via (no portions no vet bonus) at level 95.5 in about 1-1.5 hours I got done AoM and earned total 1.5 level (up to 97 or so). Doing daily + weekly with portion and vitality within 10 minutes gave me another 1.5 levels so in less than 2 hours I got 3 levels (from 95.5 to 98.5) Now about rush orders At 98.5 they HORRIBLY slow even with full vita, 20% exp ring and 110% exp booster. Each rush order give you less than 10% with some efforts you can push for 4.5 minutes per 1 rush order so I'd estimate 1 level per hour (optimistic estimate) by doing rush orders for level 97 - after doing about 4(?) rush orders and barely moving my exp bar upward 30% I got frustrated and logged off. Lucky, I might just been doing weekly just in time (before midnight Wednesday) and hopefully I will be able grab another weekly today (taking daily obviously given) with this (again full via + ring + portion) I expect to be carry forward for 1-1.2 more levels and will do rest of way grinding my way via rush orders
I do not consider myself to be an expert crafter despite having 22 maxed out crafting toons, but I get them all from 20 to 95 in a few hours in Moonlight Grottos (equipped with an xp pot or two). I do the epics and questlines at 95, before taking them to 100 on writs.
I bet Vet bonus (for having those max TS skill toons) might contributed to this success a bit I do admit that leveling from 20 to 95 is not horribly bad specially if you take break or 2 (waiting for hammer to reset) I'd say between 20 to 60 with full vita and draft of wise (110% exp bonus) knowing what are you doing (say having mana regeneration adorn ) can take couple hours. From 60 to 95 a bit longer but I'd say between 60 to 80 on average 6-7 levels per hour (so give or take 3 hours) none stop rushing orders will do a trick From 80 to 95 its a bit slower 3-4 levels per hour From 95 onward with rush orders its' more like 1 level per hour
Since you went ahead and did the AoM quest line you might as well make sure you get the Ralic Pack since it is still considered a very good bag. On Tuesday the AoM daily quest has you knock out a Grimling Runner and take the contents of his pockets to the quest giver. There is a rare chance of getting a Ralic Pack Pattern to drop when you loot the Grimling Runner. The fast way to do this is to loot the runner and check to see if you have the pattern. If you did not get one, delete the quest and start over. This could take a lot of attempts, though the most its taken me is 6. Honestly its all up to luck. The pack itself is Lore, no-trade so you only need to get the pattern once per crafter.
My grind way is: 1-9 just craft "something" at 9 pick up your next profession, which levels you to 10 right away 11-19 just craft "something" at 19 pick up your final profession, which levels you to 20 right away 20 to 80 rush orders 80 Pudding quest - planning on the long run as well .. 80 to 95 rush orders 95 Tranquil and Phantom Sea Crafting timeline (for 20% more tradeskill xp item) 98.5 to 100 - Rush orders or Daily Crafting Quest in Tranquil Sea or Weekly crafting quest in Phantom Sea - Chance to get the bad on tuesday daily at 100 Thalumbra/Maldura Crafting timeline followed by Obulus Frontier Crafting timeline for the 20 Resolve Cloak. I grinded a level 8 Artisan with no other artisans on the account to 95 in 7 hours while the new Year 100% server bonus ~4 to 6 hours till 100 on the next day and got the Cloak on the third day make sure you have 100% reuse speed when you use Adept Hands so it' up after 3.5days again.
Also, do the daily tinkering, adorning and transmuting quests, especially at lower levels. I got a level yesterday from turning in each one (that's three levels, total) on a very low level crafter. You only have to finish the first bar on tinkering and adorning, so you can do all three of these in about 5 minutes. They don't appear to use up tradeskill vitality, either, which is a plus.
Speaking about adorning - is it still actual anymore? As alchemist I can craft latest purple adorns as is Oh yeah as I promised - update Took me about 30 minutes to get from 98.5 to 100 ... lucky me I got my 98.5 on Wednesday and next day I recycle weekly + daily which gave me full level and a 0.2 so I had to grind only 99.7 to 100 I got my cloak and decided what the hell and went to make myself ally with goblins doing that gardening goblin transformation to merc quest as well (mostly due to massive faction gain). Since my first ascending class is thaumaturgist - alchemy choice turns to be double down win - this class spells done by alchemy. Now can someone enlight me what is involve in self production of infusers? First of all - kxm are junky 5 resolve pieces from lowest grade key produce salvageable pieces? Other question is anything particular useful can be crafted off goblin scrolls? (I am at 28k faction so ... ). I found particular useful for status to do weekly/daily crafting with goblins - do not take much time and net massive chunk of status. With Maldura censer and pack pony cost of doing daily/weekly just cost of fuel from vendor
Adorning still lets you craft the white adorns, and the older purples for primary/secondary/ranged/waist/cloak. Some of those are still very useful for mages and priests (stun resist and the like) There will be three grades of infusers, based on the quality of the items you salvage. The "junky" stuff will give you standard fragments used to make the standard. The better pieces that you can sometimes get from advanced solos, and from heroics, will salvage into heroic fragments. The epic stuff will come from fabled items, Since you're coming at this as an established Ascended adventurer, you likely have some pretty good merc gear for your mercs, but you may want to check to see if any of the Bloody Tooth (rare) mercenary gear looks better in any of their slots, since that is an all-class recipe book.
