Balanced Play v. Grind - what is possible?Follow

I don’t particularly enjoy the grind for Mats. I thought I'd ask how to best integrate tradeskill development into normal PvE character development. There is a wealth of information on how to most efficiently max a tradeskill. There really isn't much on how to efficiently work skill development into regular PvE play. The quick grind information has been useful to get my tradeskills up to a similar level of the Mobs I am killing these days. Will I soon find myself again killing beasts just for their meat - will I soon have to go back again to areas where I have finished all the quests in order to get some Mat? I wonder if there are tips to help integrate the Mats and skills one acquires into a development that keeps pace with quests of my character and the kills I am making and the resources of areas I travel in. Are there certain amounts of Mats that one should try and farm in an area before a quest takes you to a new area. Condor Meat and Eggs seem like something one should stock up on for cooking reasons before one moves on from Westfall for example. Was there a way to naturally progress without now spending an hour or two fishing – or going back and killing things that now no longer offer experience? I wonder if folks have noticed any tricks to help keep collecting mats an integrated part of play and not something one has to grind on now and again – or is that simply impossible. Sorry if this subject has aleady been hashed out elsewhere.

bad thing about cooking is if you go off the drops you get while leveling, your kills will out pace your cooking skill, unless, you take a couple hours and level fishing and cooking at the same time.

first aid... really easy to level as you go, but i always find myself throwing away stacks of bandages i don't use. plus, it's really only necessary to level one toon to 300 to make heavy runecloth bandages. all your alts can stay at 225 as that's the skill required to apply a heavy runecloth bandage, and just mail cloth to your main who can mail bandages back.

check the official boards, professions forum, and read GeneriKB's guide to making money. read it a couple times :)

to summarize the money-making guide:
you really can't level a crafting profession as you go without grinding for mats. thus... pick two gathering professions, ie skinning/herbalism or skinning/mining, and sell everything you come across on the auction house. you will have nooo problem buying your mount at 40. then at level 40 you will have enough money built up to drop a gathering profession, start a crafting profession, buy mats, make stuff, and sell them for a profit.

alternatively, i kept both gathering profs on my main and do the following:

main - 54 warr with 300 skinning, 300 herbalism, 300 first aid, 280 cooking

alt1 - 29 warr with 225 leatherworking, 225 enchanting
this one gets all the skins and worthless green items, and can make a bit of money when i want, selling leather items, or making leather items, disenchanting them, and selling the dusts/essences.

alt2 - 39 warr with 300 alchemy, 160 mining
this one is the moneymaker... main mails all gathered herbs and this one mails pots back, or sells them on the ah. very easy to make buttloads of money with a 300 alchemist and a bankroll of about 50g. the alchemy profits from this one bought my main's >>axe of the deep woods<< imperial boots and helm... and epic mount when the time comes.

i also have 3 other alts i play from time to time... one a priest for mind-control gankingness, who will also switch to alchemy at level 35 so i can do two transmutes.


obviously, the downside to having so many alts is that your main will level much slower, however, each one is gaining rested xp... so they'll really level faster 0.o and you will truly have more gold than you care to spend lol.

that's just the short short version... check out the official board for teh whole story.

Edited, Fri Apr 14 13:20:32 2006 by axhed