Tradeskill viability/usefulness
 

Thinking about levelling specifically tailoring for monk armor/bags. But wondering how possible it really is to do any tradeskills being piss poor. Tailoring you can at least get most everything you need to get startes while levelling and most people will be willing to get rid of spider silks for spell money or whatever but blacksmithing/alchemy seem like they're going to be delayed a bit if you aren't having others actively feed you mats to get to banded and beyond.


I guess the real point of this post though is: are tradeskills really worth it and if so which ones? Anybody can benefit from some extra ac or a non rusty weapon at low level but how big a difference will a blacksmithed mace make vs something you find by lvl10?

Probably? Almost all low level weapons with any actual stats/procs etc will probably be permacamped with massive rusty trombone lists (with preferential access to friends etc)

I dare say there will be an influx of low level characters for some time and people making alts wanting easy(ish) access to smithed weapons/armour.

Tailoring - Raw silk is great upgrade from cloth and will take a long time to replace all of it. Cured silk even more so, there are some slots that probably wont get replaced until planar gear. Patchwork, Studded, Reinforced are useful for druids, which there will be a ton of. Kind of weird they only put 1 leather class into the game (monks don't really count). Hand made backpacks. Tailoring is very cheap besides the droppable mats, great/easy tradeskill at launch. Many people will probably do it

Blacksmithing - Crafted weapons aren't that useful. many you see on the wiki won't even be in the game until velious. Banded armor though is super valuable for the 8 classes that can wear it. There full suit upgrades but they have issues (bronze - very heavy, 5 classes...rubicite- permacamped) So many people are gonna be in banded until 50, minus whatever they found in dungeons. Blacksmithing cost a few hundred plat (I think) to level up to make banded, at which point you can make it all back on selling a few sets. The nice thing is that all the mats come from the vendors.

Other tradeskills:
Alchemy(Shaman) - SoW, Shrink, and other pots are a luxury that most will not be able to afford for a while. I suspect the market for these won't be there for a while.
jewelcrafting(Enchanter) - Very in demand, but also there will be a ton of enchanters, not sure how many jewelcrafters. Margins may be low...
Brewing, Baking, Pottery range from useless to situational/support tradeskills in vanilla. You won't ever really make money off of these.
Tinkering is pretty bad too. Rebreathers are cool but leveling up costs thousands of plat.

What I perceived as worthwhile

Tailoring:
Patchwork armour*
Raw silk armour*
Tailored bags
leather whips

*if you have access to guk these are only really worthwhile for the boots... unless you also have access to qeynoshills. There are nice quest boots there.

*studded and reinforced armour arguably worthwhile if you are skilling up blacksmithing. Some reinforced pieces match blacksmith AC but beat it on light weight (face, collar, feet iirc).

Blacksmithing
Tarnished weapons
Large Lanterns (ground place them for convenient illumination, give them to pets for mobile illumination / forced quad)
Javelins
Banded armour
Fine plate (if you want fashion quest... I think it is an easier combine early in the server)
cultural (race dependant and later in the server)
Smithed weapons/shields not really worth the hassle in my mind.

Alchemy:
Sow pots

Pottery:
idols

I seem to recall that raw silk was a later addition, can anyone confirm?

Tradeskills will be worth it to the people who go all in. If you want to focus your Green experience around being one of the first to level up a useful tradeskill (Alchemy/Blacksmithing/Tailoring/Tinkering, maybe Pottery), it can pay off. But to be clear, you're going to be spending tons of time farming components, and tons of time selling in the EC Tunnel.

If you're not looking to "play a vendor", then no, tradeskills will not be a path to easy riches. Maybe consider getting Tailoring to 100 so you can make 10-slot backpacks (that's not too hard, and while they won't be fantastically profitable they will sell, and your friends will want some). If you're a Shaman maybe get to Blood of Wolf levels with Alchemy.

But otherwise, if you're smart you'll skip tradeskills. And I say this as an avid EQ Trader's Corner devotee back in the day: I <3 tradeskills, but in classic through Velious they just weren't that good, and once a few people get decent skill the profit margins fall fast.

The other problem is once we are far enough into velious for the tradeskills to start matter we will be rolling into green.

So I would follow up on what Loramin said and focus on handmade backpacks, sow pots, and I'll add 45hp rings if you're a chanter.

I was able to get HMB and 45hp rings in less than a week of casual playing on my first blue character.

Pretty much what everyone has said.

Blacksmithing: The banded market is going to have high demand. Forged Javelins are awesome (highest range throwing weapon craftable by non-humans) but heavy. Fine Plate was not day 1, but there will be a bit of Fashionquesting going on when it enters.

Fletching: IMO pretty much every Ranger on the server will be making their own arrows to pass the time while soloing. :) If you really need a player-crafted bow, you should be able to find one.

Tailoring: a few folks will level this to where hand-made backpacks are trivial then parked until Velious. You might see some raw silk & cured silk sales when the recipes land.

Pottery: mostly a support skill. Dieties came much later, so it's gonna be poison vials (which iirc was not day 1) for poison (ROG) and vials of mana (ENC, Tailoring). Make Poison is such a money sink, too. It's kinda cool, I guess.

Brewing: Support skill - the cultural smithing recipes will not be in day 1, so you won't need brewing for much other than Rogue Redemption, iirc. (Alcohol Tolerance wasn't really even useful until LDoN). Heady Kiolas will be in demand, but the trivial is low so most tailors will probably just skill this up themselves.

Baking: Maybe someone who wants to faction in Oggok. Monks might raise this for fish rolls. The rest of the server will be happy with their muffins, milk, foraged food and looted rations.

Fishing: You might see the odd baby necro doing this to fish up rusty daggers for pet weapons.

Oh, I didn't realise that raw and cured silk wasn't in the game at release. Could you tell me where I need to go to see when it was added to the game please?

Also not aware of this, could not find p99 topic on this, could not find evidence of this.

So unless there is evidence that can be found today, and Nilbog found it and patched it on his own (with no bug report thread or patch notes), I suspect we will see raw silk / cured silk day 1.

Silk does't stack for like 2 years, tho. so be sure to take your sewing kit with ya.