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Tinkering

Posted: July 21, 2008, 4:13 pm
by Ashur
OK, I'm trying to get this up for Call of the Tinkerer, Wormhole Generators, Feign Death items and all those other nifty toys.

What I've done: Farmed the HELL out of the newbie island's mineral nodes and then gone back on Ash and made eleventy-billion Miscalibrated Gnomish Crosstrainers.

3 Raw Lead (aka lead cluster)
4 Leaded loam <--- The bane of my existence! I've farmed over 1500 of these damn things and I'm only 1/3 of the way to 400
2 Raw Malachite (aka rough malachite)
4 coal (Fuel)

I'm up to 135 skill with this, but updates seem very random and it seems to be going slowly. Does it make sense to keep going this way or does it make more sense to work on higher level/cost recipes?

I got the hint from Vaemas to stop building after the first stage, as it still prompts for a skillup check, but saves a LOT of time.

What do you folks do? Buying loams from the broker seems like a losing game since the T1 loams seem to go for upwards of 2g each.

Am I going about this the wrong way?

Also, I have about 50 of each T1 rare mineral. I understand those are really useful for transmuters to make T1 adept IIIs and T1 MC armors so they can transmute them and make them into adornments for skillup. Should I sell them or are any of you on Guk transmuters who need?

Re: Tinkering

Posted: July 21, 2008, 4:59 pm
by miir
Uhhhh, 135 tinkering is equivalent to level 27.
Why are you still making tier 1.


Just a tip:
Newbie island is awful for harvesting.
Take your main with the best harvesting tools available and farm the plentiful nodes in timorous deep.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: July 21, 2008, 5:21 pm
by Sabek
Ashur wrote: I got the hint from Vaemas to stop building after the first stage, as it still prompts for a skillup check, but saves a LOT of time.
It does save time, but dramatically increases the number of resources needed.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: July 21, 2008, 5:27 pm
by Ashur
Thanks Miir -
Why are you still making tier 1
A. Because it's cheap, gives skill-ups and requires only:

3 Raw Lead (aka lead cluster)
4 Leaded loam
2 Raw Malachite (aka rough malachite)
4 coal (Fuel)
Newbie island is awful for harvesting.
On the newbie island I farm non-stop. There is always a node up within a few feet of me if I'm in the water area near the falls, as there are 8 mineral nodes there.
Take your main with the best harvesting tools available and farm the plentiful nodes in timorous deep.
It's better to fly my main out to TD? Are you saying that making more expensive items will skill me up faster? How well do they resell to the vendor, or will the fuel costs add up? (I'm pretty poor)

Thanks Sabek
It does save time, but dramatically increases the number of resources needed.
My understanding is that loams are never returned and acquisition of loams is what's slowing me down. I have enough malachite to choke Trakanon.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: July 21, 2008, 5:45 pm
by miir
On the newbie island I farm non-stop. There is always a node up within a few feet of me if I'm in the water area near the falls, as there are 8 mineral nodes there.
But you're using no harvesting tools, you're capped on harvesting skill which means you're taking longer to harvest fewer resources from fewer nodes.
Tier 1 and 2 nodes are plentiful in TD.



When I leveled up tinkering, I skilled up making items appropriate to my skill level.
I found that I would get skillups more frequently than trying to level up on lower level recipes.

I have no idea if those mechanics have changed.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: July 22, 2008, 1:55 pm
by Al
I do know this: I have used thousands of loams on my wizard on test, and he is only at about 200 skill. Thousands and thousands. I bet I used 1200 just to get out of T1. Tinkering is EXTREMELY loam intensive.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: July 23, 2008, 12:47 pm
by Kilmoll the Sexy
Seeing as how I have leveled 3 toons on tinkering, I think it is safe to say that you are going about it wrong. It is cheaper for certain to farm that crap, but you would be better off farming those T1's and selling them than to use them to max out your skill. It costs about 30 plat to raise to max skill if you do no farming on your own. There are certain recipes that are way more intensive in certain items and you can work around them for the most part. The loams are generally not your biggest cost....it is usually one of the more uncommon metals that gets you....like adamantine or feyiron. Loam prices on Guk are pretty inconsequential.


My plan for tinkering is to always start out with something that is even con and the cheapest route and buy enough material to make 100 of them. I set my prog up and let it run that 100 off, then check to see if there is a recipe in the next tier that would be cheaper than what I am already doing. If not, then I do an item from the same tier again and rinse/repeat. Generally, I can max out tinkering in 3-4 days unless I really, really wanted it bad and then could do it in a weekend. Fuel cost is absolute zero, since when you sell the completed items back to the merchants it gives you the fuel price it took to create it.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: July 24, 2008, 5:37 pm
by Ashur
In 100 combines, how many skillups would you expect to see?

Re: Tinkering

Posted: July 24, 2008, 7:38 pm
by pyrella
After getting the first few points - I'd pick something that was blue, and do it until it turned green. I got 175 points in a night out of 350ish combines with that method.

Mash 4,5,6 only as only a complete fail will result in no item, resulting in no skill up. However server to server the various tiers of loams vary. t1-t4 medium expense, T5/T6 ridiculously expensive, T7/T8 everything was 1-2c.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: July 25, 2008, 9:08 am
by Kilmoll the Sexy
100 combines....would say somewhere between 40-60 skillups depending on how much the RNG likes you.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: July 25, 2008, 9:50 am
by miir
To emphasize what Kilmol and Py have said... If an item cons blue or higher, you should get around a 50% chance of getting a skillup.
Green or lower, that chance decreases significantly.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: July 25, 2008, 4:47 pm
by Ashur
Hit 195 last night while I continue to clean out my T1 minerals. Probably getting a skillup every 4th combine on the most trivial thing in my recipe book. Will finish up my T1 materials and then re-evaluate next steps based upon my available plat and other minerals I have banked (I harvested like a fiend as I leveled Ash up, so I have several strongboxes of minerals).

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 6, 2008, 12:37 pm
by Canelek
Managed to just get by the pliant loam phase, so at 175 or so now.

Spend maybe 15 plat so far....meh

Any special recipes I can look for on broker that do not use 8+ loams per combine? That burns the piles down pretty fucking quick!

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 6, 2008, 1:03 pm
by Kilmoll the Sexy
they ALL take hefty amounts of loam. It actually gets cheaper the higher you get for the most part. I would figure 30ish plat to max it if you buy everything.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 6, 2008, 1:15 pm
by Ashur
I hit 385+ doing nothing but the miscalibrated gnomish crosstrainers. I did buy two stacks of loams at a little less than 1p each when I got to the 360s and it was late and I didn't feel like mining for a few hours. So its very possible to do nothing but T1s.

Total spent, hrm, probably less than 4-5p. (I'm a cheapskate, as I am usually at 5-15p in my pocket at any given time. I did turn around and spend about 8p to complete about 12-15 collections I was tired of looking at - and it netted me about 2/3 of an AA - yes, I have like 8 to go to get 140)

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 6, 2008, 1:19 pm
by Canelek
Don't do collections for AA! :P

Best thing to do is mentor to one of my alts and get disco/quest AA. :)

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 6, 2008, 1:33 pm
by Ashur
I like that too!

I've been doing that a bit with Siren/Sylvos latest group of alts. I want to do the Bloodlines instance where you kill a dozen named D'Morte vampires.

I still have yet to spend any amount of time in:

Crushbone Keep (20-30)
Deathfist Citadel (36-44)
The Obelisk of Lost Souls (37-49)
The Sullon Mines - Heroic (34-37)
Underrot Caverns: Fetid Halls (35-39)
Crypt of T'Haen (35-40)
Deathfist Citadel (39-45)
Icespire Summit (40-46)
The Temple of Cazic-Thule (41-49)
The Tower of the Drafling (42-47)
Miragul's Menagerie (44-50)
Solusek's Eye (45-53)
Sanctum of Fear (46-53)
Nektropos Castle: The Return (49-55)
Icy Digs (49-55)
Sanctorium (49-55)
Mines of Meldrath (50-55)
Vault of Dust (50-56)
Court of Innovation (50-60)
Scornfeather Roost (53-58)
Acadechism (60-70)
Forsaken City (60-68)
Den of the Devourer (63-68)
The Blackscale Sepulcher (64-70)
The Vaults of El'Arad (65-70)
Obelisk of Blight (65-70)
Halls of Fate (66-70)
Crypt of Valdoon (69-74)
Nektropos Castle: Tribulation (70-75)
Nizara, City of the Nayad (70-75)
Estate of Unrest (70-75)

I have spent very little time in:

The Clefts of Rujark (50-55) (barely scratched the heroic second level)
Living Tombs (50-55)
The Silent City (56-61)

There's also some epic/heroic version of Splitpaw. Who knows, maybe there's 8AAs worth of discovery experience there and I don't need to fight a thing, but running through a slew of greyed out instances is BORING!

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 6, 2008, 1:36 pm
by Boogahz
Mines of Meldrath (50-55)
Court of Innovation (50-60)
Scornfeather Roost (53-58)
Acadechism (60-70)
The Clefts of Rujark (50-55)

did these on my 52-55 Templar the last two nights.

Probably doing Living Tombs (50-55) tonight

You could come mentor me on these if you had rolled on the right server (Permafrost)

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 6, 2008, 1:37 pm
by Canelek
My Defiler is 55 now. We can both mentor to him and hit some of those areas. Still looking for the ever-elusive Ancient Teachings master spells.

Let me know!

Also, you can just run through some of the others to get the disco exp. It adds up quick!

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 6, 2008, 1:40 pm
by Ashur
I'd love to score a Master of Umbral Trap!

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 6, 2008, 1:43 pm
by Canelek
Defiler and Mystic wards stack right?

Ohhh, the possibilities....

I know how to do Mines of Meldrath and Court of Innovation already....able to take most of the named out with just the 2-box, although I haven't been in a couple.

Have not tried CoI yet with defiler, although I soloed it at lvl 70 with the brig.

Sanctorium is kinda boring layout-wise, but there are a few easy named. It is sorta Hidden Cache-like...

I have had horrid luck on master drops of late. :(

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 7, 2008, 12:49 pm
by Canelek
Up to 360 give or take. Will wrap it up tonight if raid does not go too long.

I need what, 3 silicates for CoT? What about mendor bot?

Arg, I hate farming for silicates.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 7, 2008, 1:32 pm
by Ashur
6 loams for CoT (3 are returned).

I think the raid will go long. If not, can we kill the Moppet Shop dude?

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 7, 2008, 1:42 pm
by Canelek
Oh yeah--good idea!

6? Arg

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 7, 2008, 2:04 pm
by Ashur
Ziame made mine. She may have 3 spares for the returnees.

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 7, 2008, 2:10 pm
by Canelek
Will see how many I can farm this weekend--otherwise will just buy some, then farm to make it up. :P

Re: Tinkering

Posted: August 7, 2008, 2:11 pm
by Ashur
Damn things were 3-4 plat when I looked.