EQ2 - Tradeskills

[Rumblebore]

EQ2 Tradeskilling is different than EQ1.

The new UI in EQ1 allows you to to click combine and see an immediate result, and also provides the autoinventory to immediately drop it into your inventory. Nice, fast and neat.

EQ2 tradeskilling is interactive. Yep - Interactive.

You choose the recipe (you have to find the book that have recipes and scribe it into your recipe book), make sure you have components that can be used to make the item (sometimes more than one item can be used so you can also select the alterantive item), click combine.

You are now in a process that can net you up to 4 different levels of the same item. For example, I was combining tin, a "wash", and a fuel source, to make a small tin dagger. The dagger essential could be anything from basic to pristine. However, since I was at a forge, the process presented me with 3 possible problems I had to resolve. The first was the the metal needed to be dipped in either water, salt water or oil (Annealing). The second was that it was getting "orange hot" and needed to be 'cooled' for a bit (Tempering). The third was that I would need to address metal quality and hardness (Hardening).

The idea is that these represent possibilities that could cause problems in the quality of the outcome. So, I had to watch for a message to flash and had to respond by hitting the alternate process (part of your skills) to counter this problem with a short term "buff) that addresses the issue. Simply put - these are "counters" to problems that happen in the process of crafting. You have to be attentive and watch for them.

I the case of this combine I mentioned, my failure to apply the correct counter resulted in my char getting "burned" and actually taking damage. In making many of these, I actually DIED from this process several times!! And the XP loss was to my ARTISAN level, not my Adventurer level.

So, I find myself loving this part of tradeskilling.

The side effect of this process is the need for raw materials. You have to pharm or pay the market for needed raw materials. Some items you need at higher skill levels can be store bought, but I think a lot of them can be made by pharming and cross-tradeskilling.

In all, the process for being an Artisan instead of an adventurer does not preclude you leveling the same character in levels.

[Sorill]

It is recommended that you stay on the Isle of Refuge until you have gotten all of your harvesting skills above 40. I did not do that and now that I want to spend most of my exp time in Antonica, I cannot harvest tradeskill components there because my skills are too low. You can only gather, fish, trap, mine or forest in Antonica (or Commonlands) if your skill is 40 or above. You can harvest in the newbie zones, but don't expect much regular exp there. The mobs grey out quickly once you get in your adventurer's teens.

[Rumblebore]

You can harvest in the newbie zones, but don't expect much regular exp there. The mobs grey out quickly once you get in your adventurer's teens.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you stay on the Isle of Refuge, you will not get to level 7 - you have to become a citizen to pass into 7 and beyond. You DO still get XP that will take you up into level 8 once you get your citizenship. However, you will lose all the XP you could have gained while doing the quests leading up to and included in the Citizenship quest.

However, staying and leveling up your tradeskills is a long process. I am staying to do this and it will be a long time.

BTW - I am playing on Highkeep Server because of the lower lagg problem. I still have 2 chars on Mistmoore, but they are both good alighnment. I do not intend to make an evil char on MM Server. In fact, I may kill off Rumble there to make another artisan on HK Server who can specialize in another area of trade.

I intend to get a better processor and see how much that helps. Otherwise I would need an entire new system.

I have chars named Rumblebore and Lynden on HK. I have rumblebore and Synerator on MM.