Post by Tatianna on Sept 29, 2007 21:27:10 GMT -7
Ok, so even though I have decided to lay down my crafting tools for a while (I want to focus on getting Renei/Tati to 70 first). I figured I would share a few of the things that I have learned about "the system" in my time in Norrath. This may be all stuff you already know, it may be something you disagree with, but my hope is that you find a thing or two that makes crafting a little bit easier for you
Early tops (pre-20)
A few tips for the first 20 levels. One, don't worry about your skills when you ding 10 and 20 all of your skills will be maxed. Two, as soon as you ding 9 and 19 go to your trainer and pick a profession. As soon as you do you will ding 10 and 20 respectively. No reason to waste time "earning" any of those levels.
Skills
I am sure most everyone who has crafted for any length of time has noticed that you get new skills every 10 levels while crafting. First set is "Progress" buffs and then "Durability" buffs and back and forth as you level. In order to get your skill up you have to use your new skills for that tier. I like to get my skill up on the first or second item, so I will "spam" all three of my skills on the first couple of items to re-max my skill. If you keep up with your skill, (which you should from 20 on), this will only take a couple of items. Just spam all three of your new skills each "round" until you are remaxed.
However, beyond those first 2 items, take a look at your skills and don't assume that your "newest" skills are your "best" skills and for all situations. In crafting everything you "gain" has some cost. Each skills fall into three categories:
1. Power: These are straitforward. Gain Progress or Durability for some of your power. Later skills take a good chunk of power.
2. Rob Peter to pay Paul. This is either take progress to gain durability or take durability to add progress.
3. No Whammy No Whammy No Whammy Please No Whammy. Lower your "Success" rate to gain Progress or Durability. These can save your bacon or put your tail in the burner. If you win your bet, you get absolutly free durability or progress with no side affects. Unfortunately, if you lose your bet your item blows up in your face and gets all messy.
Each of the skills have their own uses and times to use which I will cover later on.
Pick your skills, don't let SOE pick them for you
As I said above, your first couple items after each level you should spam your recent skills to max out your skill. Max skill is the most important thing to making items efficiently, so get it maxed out right away. However, past those items, pick the most usefull skills rather then the most recent skills. Newer is NOT always better.
What To Do Each Round
Alright, now we get to the meat of why I decided to create this post. What the heck do you do with all those crazy skills that I listed up above. Well, I don't want to tell you what to do, but I will tell you what I do with a few key rules:
1. Use your skills. Don't be afraid to use your skills, these are your friends. Use at least 1 skill in each round.
2. Dont be afraid of your power buff. I hear this one a lot. First off, use your power buff whenever you have full mana. If you have full mana then you are wasting your power regen. Didn't your mom ever teach you not to waste your food? Well, mine didn't either, but never ever waste your power regen. Full Mana is wasted mana when it comes to crafting. So if the bar is blue, use your power skill, in fact use it a couple times, it wont bite.
2a. As a corallary to rule 2, if you are going to mini ding after this item, or if you are going to have a break after this item (finishing a writ and need to turn it in, going to grab a soda, really need to scratch your nose), go crazy with the power buff. Again, what are you saving your power for you are going to get it all back anyway. So use that power, no don't run out of mana, but if you finish the item less than pristine with power left in your bar, then you lose
3. I really find this to be the most powerful rule in the game, so if I distracted you with terrible attempts at being funny then start paying attention again now. Whenever you SUCCESSFULLY counter an "event" then ALWAYS use a negative success buff. The reason for this is simple, when you successfully counter an event you get a large boost to your success chances and it is HIGHLY unlikely that you will "lose" this round even with the reduced success chance from the buff. So, in terms I put above, it is a free "No Whammy" round so go ahead and "spend" that success into free durability or free progress.
4. Other uses for the success buff. If I am doing a white item I avoid the negative success buff like the plague. Put quite simply, all things being equal, the house wins this bet every time. Sure you will win a couple times here and there, but like in Vegas, if you keep playing this bet the house will come out ahead EVERY time. On Blue items you can risk it every once in awhile, and on green items you can use them on most rounds. If you do not have max skill, then remember even those green items are not green for your skill level, so use these skills at your own risk.
5. This one is a little bit finicky, but if you don't need to make an item QUICK, but you want to make it pristine, then this one might be even more important than my big one on number 3. When you first start an item you have 0 progress and 100% durabilty. The interesting thing here is that your durability CAN go over 100% but your progress CANT go below 0. So if you want to "stack" the deck early on, then SPAM your durability buffs for the first 2-3 rounds. If you use your best durability buffs then you will have almost no chance to lose durability each round and while you will gain less progression due to failures and spending progress to gain durability, you CANT go below zero so it is a no risk game. You can add an extra 50-100 points in the first few rounds then you are basically playing the rest of the item with two "pristine" bars to burn through before you lose pristine.
6. Always keep your biggest -Progress +Durability on your bar regardless of its level. Nothing will save your bacon faster then this skill. This is the perfect skill, if you slip under "pristine" level, then this will be your best friend, because not only does it build your item back up to Pristine, but it will also slow your progress down long enough to give you time to rebuild it back up. While you dont ever want to slip below whne making a pristine, a skill with -30 progress +15 durability means that by itself you will gain 5 durability every round (throw in power durability or success durability and you start going right back up the chart).
Using these tips I make pristine almost every time I make an item if I want to. Sometimes I just want to make something fast and dont care about the quality, but most of the time you need pristine and these tips always get me there (once I get a decent set of durability/progress buffs which can take awhile depending on the class).
And finally, if you want to level with any sanity, never try to level in crafting without vitality and ALWAYS ALWAYS get your bonus XP for making the first "Pristine" of each item. Even make those MC you don't need if you have the materials. You will thank yourself for it when you are back out fighting in the wild with your Tradeskilling all done.
I hope you found this useful and maybe even a little entertaining. If you don't agree with me, well then keep your opinion to yourself, only praise and worship please on this thread. Ohh fine, if you insist on disagreeing with me then please feel free to share your ideas no matter how wrong they might be
Have fun and see you in Norrath!
Early tops (pre-20)
A few tips for the first 20 levels. One, don't worry about your skills when you ding 10 and 20 all of your skills will be maxed. Two, as soon as you ding 9 and 19 go to your trainer and pick a profession. As soon as you do you will ding 10 and 20 respectively. No reason to waste time "earning" any of those levels.
Skills
I am sure most everyone who has crafted for any length of time has noticed that you get new skills every 10 levels while crafting. First set is "Progress" buffs and then "Durability" buffs and back and forth as you level. In order to get your skill up you have to use your new skills for that tier. I like to get my skill up on the first or second item, so I will "spam" all three of my skills on the first couple of items to re-max my skill. If you keep up with your skill, (which you should from 20 on), this will only take a couple of items. Just spam all three of your new skills each "round" until you are remaxed.
However, beyond those first 2 items, take a look at your skills and don't assume that your "newest" skills are your "best" skills and for all situations. In crafting everything you "gain" has some cost. Each skills fall into three categories:
1. Power: These are straitforward. Gain Progress or Durability for some of your power. Later skills take a good chunk of power.
2. Rob Peter to pay Paul. This is either take progress to gain durability or take durability to add progress.
3. No Whammy No Whammy No Whammy Please No Whammy. Lower your "Success" rate to gain Progress or Durability. These can save your bacon or put your tail in the burner. If you win your bet, you get absolutly free durability or progress with no side affects. Unfortunately, if you lose your bet your item blows up in your face and gets all messy.
Each of the skills have their own uses and times to use which I will cover later on.
Pick your skills, don't let SOE pick them for you
As I said above, your first couple items after each level you should spam your recent skills to max out your skill. Max skill is the most important thing to making items efficiently, so get it maxed out right away. However, past those items, pick the most usefull skills rather then the most recent skills. Newer is NOT always better.
What To Do Each Round
Alright, now we get to the meat of why I decided to create this post. What the heck do you do with all those crazy skills that I listed up above. Well, I don't want to tell you what to do, but I will tell you what I do with a few key rules:
1. Use your skills. Don't be afraid to use your skills, these are your friends. Use at least 1 skill in each round.
2. Dont be afraid of your power buff. I hear this one a lot. First off, use your power buff whenever you have full mana. If you have full mana then you are wasting your power regen. Didn't your mom ever teach you not to waste your food? Well, mine didn't either, but never ever waste your power regen. Full Mana is wasted mana when it comes to crafting. So if the bar is blue, use your power skill, in fact use it a couple times, it wont bite.
2a. As a corallary to rule 2, if you are going to mini ding after this item, or if you are going to have a break after this item (finishing a writ and need to turn it in, going to grab a soda, really need to scratch your nose), go crazy with the power buff. Again, what are you saving your power for you are going to get it all back anyway. So use that power, no don't run out of mana, but if you finish the item less than pristine with power left in your bar, then you lose
3. I really find this to be the most powerful rule in the game, so if I distracted you with terrible attempts at being funny then start paying attention again now. Whenever you SUCCESSFULLY counter an "event" then ALWAYS use a negative success buff. The reason for this is simple, when you successfully counter an event you get a large boost to your success chances and it is HIGHLY unlikely that you will "lose" this round even with the reduced success chance from the buff. So, in terms I put above, it is a free "No Whammy" round so go ahead and "spend" that success into free durability or free progress.
4. Other uses for the success buff. If I am doing a white item I avoid the negative success buff like the plague. Put quite simply, all things being equal, the house wins this bet every time. Sure you will win a couple times here and there, but like in Vegas, if you keep playing this bet the house will come out ahead EVERY time. On Blue items you can risk it every once in awhile, and on green items you can use them on most rounds. If you do not have max skill, then remember even those green items are not green for your skill level, so use these skills at your own risk.
5. This one is a little bit finicky, but if you don't need to make an item QUICK, but you want to make it pristine, then this one might be even more important than my big one on number 3. When you first start an item you have 0 progress and 100% durabilty. The interesting thing here is that your durability CAN go over 100% but your progress CANT go below 0. So if you want to "stack" the deck early on, then SPAM your durability buffs for the first 2-3 rounds. If you use your best durability buffs then you will have almost no chance to lose durability each round and while you will gain less progression due to failures and spending progress to gain durability, you CANT go below zero so it is a no risk game. You can add an extra 50-100 points in the first few rounds then you are basically playing the rest of the item with two "pristine" bars to burn through before you lose pristine.
6. Always keep your biggest -Progress +Durability on your bar regardless of its level. Nothing will save your bacon faster then this skill. This is the perfect skill, if you slip under "pristine" level, then this will be your best friend, because not only does it build your item back up to Pristine, but it will also slow your progress down long enough to give you time to rebuild it back up. While you dont ever want to slip below whne making a pristine, a skill with -30 progress +15 durability means that by itself you will gain 5 durability every round (throw in power durability or success durability and you start going right back up the chart).
Using these tips I make pristine almost every time I make an item if I want to. Sometimes I just want to make something fast and dont care about the quality, but most of the time you need pristine and these tips always get me there (once I get a decent set of durability/progress buffs which can take awhile depending on the class).
And finally, if you want to level with any sanity, never try to level in crafting without vitality and ALWAYS ALWAYS get your bonus XP for making the first "Pristine" of each item. Even make those MC you don't need if you have the materials. You will thank yourself for it when you are back out fighting in the wild with your Tradeskilling all done.
I hope you found this useful and maybe even a little entertaining. If you don't agree with me, well then keep your opinion to yourself, only praise and worship please on this thread. Ohh fine, if you insist on disagreeing with me then please feel free to share your ideas no matter how wrong they might be
Have fun and see you in Norrath!