addicted to forums/tradeskill questionFollow

I've noticed a trend. I check the forums at least 10 times a day. I get off EQ early so that I can check out Allakhazam. It all started when I didn't have internet access for over a month.

I'm working on the Coldain Prayer Shawl Crawl. My smithing is a miserable 35, and my tailoring is about 100. Today, someone in the bazaar was adverting shadeling silks at 2p each... so i bought all 320 of them. I now have 8 stacks of the threads. Should I make leather padding for my smithing skill? Should I just sell the threads for a nice profit? Should I make the leather padding and sell that for an even nicer profit?

I have about 2.5kpp to my name now. So, I could really use the pp, but I'm not greedy. So, what do you guys think? Oh, I will have to farm or buy the low quality rockhopper hides for the leather padding. I also have 2 tool boxes full of acrylia that I was going to save for smithing. If that info helps at all.

I'm leaning more towards just keeping it all for my skills, but my greedy side could be coming out... TY for the entertaining posts in advance.

Leather padding is always needed in higher level blacksmithing skills, so eventually you will need it (albeit not right way). You won't need the padding until you start working on fine plate armor. For raising your blacksmithing skills my recommended progression would be: tarnished weapons, convert tarnished weapons to raw ore (save the ore), bucklers & shields, banded, ornate chain, fine plate. If you have the patience and want to save some cash, go out and hunt any lower mob that will drop a rusty weapon. Hoard these and convert the rusty weapon to a tarnished weapon, and then melt it down into raw ore. The ore received from the rusty weapon will carry you all the way through banded armor. Ornate chain requires HQ ore, while fine plate requires MQ ore.

(p.s. I don't know if they fixed the price yet on some ores only costing 1-2sp. If it hasn't you can always take the smaller pieces and combine them into blocks for relatively little cash.)

Several ideas here. I use to farm/sell leather padding and made a nice profit to fund tradeskills -- so after a while, I started keeping the leather padding for blacksmithing. 2.5K isn't much once you reach the fine plate level of smithing, and you will need much more than 8 stacks of leather padding (not to mention you desire to raise your tailoring skills <shudder, twitch>).

First, it is important to raise your INT or WIS as high as it will go (255 until you are lvl 51, I think). STR will also help with smithing, but it won't do squat for tailoring so work on the mind gear (and KEI buff if you are of an appropriate level).

Also, you may want to consider the market on you server for leather padding -- some servers will only get you 25pp for each, while on mine (M. Marr) I had trouble keeping it in stock for long at 60pp each. Unless you are going to make a big profit (50-60pp range), you might want to hang on to the padding. I made about 30K from leather padding before I got out of the business.

Be prepared for a long haul in terms of smithing -- I personally went the dairy spoon, condensed shadow arrowheads, ornate route before tackling fine plate. No problems for my shammy with 255 WIS until I hit the 170 level, and then I was burning through leather padding at an astonishing rate (used about 25 stacks of the stuff in total). Then you get to scrounge for LDoN tempers or farm shadowscream components -- but I'll wait until I can raise my WIS for that.

P.S. Save the acrylia for tailoring (acrylia studs).

Edited, Tue Apr 27 23:34:39 2004 by barfly