tinkering what's the secret? think they may need to tweak it a bit

I've been trying to get my tinkering up so far 2 weeks and I'm only at 14. I have about 4 things I can make and it just won't go up anymore. I have some tinker gear that makes it go higher but for the most part the skill never goes up when I'm using it.

I tried just doing the one bar trick, nothing, tried all bars no up skill.

How the heck do you get to 450 in this?

If you have any potions of progress...and you have access to a fully stocked depot (home or guild)...you pretty much just do the highest level recipe you can on "simple work bench" and continue scribing recipes as your skills go up...doing the highest level recipe you can until you are 450. You will have to stop and sell to a vendor every 10-20min as your bags will fill up quickly.

It took me under 2hrs to go from 0-450 and I only had a few potions of progress to work with. If you don't have any potions of progress, then just grind through it hitting the 4-5-6 counter abilities to speed up the progress (even when there is nothing to counter, mash them).

During tinkerfest (going on now thru the 13th of the month) is the best time to level tinkering. Do the quest "Great Balls of Fire" at least 5 times (right outside Gnomeland Security), then head up to the entrance to Gnomeland Security to pick up the quest "If They Only Had a Brain". That quest gives you the blueprint for a tinkered clockwork brain, which takes less material and crafts faster than any other tinkered item. You can make as many brains as you want, as long as you don't complete the quest (may have to start destroying them to make room in your bags, but any left in the bags will be removed when the quest is turned in).

If you have the tradeskill apprentices, use the potion of progress, which increases progress by 200%.

Goes a bit faster if you use a simple workbench, which only crafts to the first bar (no need to click the stop button each time).

Probably averages 3 or 4 items to get a skill up, but only takes 4 or 5 seconds per item if you have all the tradeskill AA assigned, and a bit of tradeskill equipment to increase success chance.

Otherwise, just keep making lots of tinkered items, you will get a chance at a skill up even on the greyed out items, but a better chance if you make higher-level items. Buy the blueprints off the merchant so you can scribe the recipes as you level up, and have a good supply of materials, because tinkered items can take a lot.

I'm wondering what your adventure or crafting level is at. You can't level your Tinkering higher than the highest of these two. You can have a low level adventurer with level 95 crafting and gain your 450 points with tinkering (and also the reverse). All tinkering and for that matter adorning skills are based on your highest adventure or crafter level.

did not think that potions of helped in tinkering, since it is not a percentage increase but a numerical increase or did this change recently

I'm a 95 adventure, 95 tailor 320 AA.
14 tinker very frustrating.

I'll have to check out those quests in steam font.

The potion of progress lets you complete combines faster, so you can make more things in less time, therefore more chances for a skillup.

Wow!! at 95 on both then something is definitely bugged and I would report it as such. There is no way in the world it should be doing this to you.
With a bit of perseverance I have been able to take all of my master tinkerers through in a matter of days. The latest one during this Tinkerfest period and she didn't even rely on the Tinkerfest Blueprints but did scribe every level and did the first bar of the highest level each time.
I'm sorry you have had such a frustrating time.

OK, I just did an experiment. I took my 95 Bruiser/95 Tailor to Butcherblock, trained tinkering and bought the first 3 blueprints. Went to guild hall and started crafting. I did not use any potions. My results:

12 minutes and 33 Automated Rounding Hammer to get to 20.
5 minutes and 15 Gnomish Cyclone Generator of Ultimate Evil to get to 30.

Edit: I was crafting only the first bar, so a bit material heavy, but the number of crafts vs skillups looks like what I've experienced before with raising the skill.

Ok after reading some replies it seems that maybe it's a question of quantity. My feeling is it works simular to the regular tradeskill. I did not do 33 rounding hammers but when tinker was at 1 or 2 it seemed like it was going faster, now it just seemed to stop all together. So what I'll do tonight is go to tinkerfest do the quests then do the brains. Then just start hammering out some stuff. Should I use that gear that brings my tinker skill up or should I leave it off? with it on I can bring it up to 29. I have the +5 stuff

I haven't tried crafting using any +Tinkering gear. It just might make the recipe easier to craft and lower the chance of skillups. Or it might not.

With tinkering you can be 400 and still have a chance at a skillup from crafting a level 1 item...a very small chance. The best chance at a skillup seems to be from crafting the highest difficulty recipe you have, so I wouldn't want to make it easier by using +Tinkering gear.

yeah that's the first thing that came to my mind. Tinkering is not a tradeskill, it's a skill. Like all other skills, it's based on your level. if you are trying to do tinkering on a level 2, it won't work.

I tinkered from lvl14 to 460 last Saturday. I will say this, level 0 - 14 took me a lot of time. Seemed I only got a lvl up every 5 or 6 items. Once I hit 14 I was getting a lvl up 2 out of every 3 items made provided I took the highest level items.

I did not use any potions and it took me 9 and a half hours to go from 14 to 460. It was boring but well worth it now that I can make the depots and the repair bot.

Did you go to the Butcherblock docks (or Gnomeland Security) and purchase the Tinkering Reaction Arts?

I know the vendor sells the reaction arts, but I've never had to buy them. They auto-scribed when I trained tinkering.

It takes a while to skill up in tinkering but I recently went from never tinkering on a character to maxed level (she's a 95 alchemist) in two play sessions. Probably 7-8 hours total.

Skilling up isn't broken. Like adorning, tinkering levels up nothing like regular crafting other than using the same interface. You will not see skill ups often if you just make one or two things. You have to sit there and make a quantity. I generally sit there & make the highest thing I can until I get to the next blueprint level then I scribe that & repeat until I get to the point I wish for that session (or til I'm tired of tinkering whichever comes first).

Skilling up adorning and tinkering has ALWAYS been weird. Points 1-20 take f o r e v e r.

Then it slowly gets better. Get into the 50-100+ range, and proper-level stuff skills up 50% of the time. I've never figured out why those first few points are such a beast, but they have been on every alt I've ever run.

What level is your primary tradeskill?

I found tinkering to be the easiest skill i ever raised. It took me all of about 3 days. First, go to a tinker trainer and make sure you buy all of the ability blueprints. without them you won't get anywhere. then go to steamfont- not the tinkerfest part although those blueprints will help on skilling up a tiny bit - but there is a trainer there who gives you several quests. he also sells the higher level blueprint.

Do the highest blueprint you can do. do it repeatedly. it may take awhile to get there but you will

For me I observed it took about 15-18 combines if I did the highest level item I could make and about 22-27 combines if I stuck with the lowest level 1 skill items per ten points of tinkering all the way to 475. That said with a max level crafter there is something wrong if you have not gotten a single skill up past 14.