This is designed as an add-on to Almar’s guide linked below. He has done a great job placing items together for minimal investment. Many of the paths still hold true, so there is little to do for those. Most of the issues come into play once you get around 200+. I am assuming anyone doing these will be level 60, or somewhat higher level. I do not recommend starting these at a low level, especially since it is going to cost you. Level up, get some plat and gear, then worry about these.
BEFORE YOU START:
Keep in mind that since you will possibly need to get items from cities or vendors that don’t like you, making some level 1 characters of different races and classes will be extremely important. With the parcel system in place, it makes life much much easier since you can make a character, buy stuff, and send it off. Some items will require assistance, namely imbued items and some alchemy components. Make some friends, ask your guildies. Tip for their time.
Get a nice stockpile of plat together before ya start as well. Most skills are cheap sub 150, but will start to get expensive after that. Jewelery lets you sell back your crafted items for about 80% of the cost, but you will need a big chunk to mass buy everything.
I HIGHLY recommend doing brewing first. This skill is required for many of the subcombines needed for recipes in tailoring and smithing. Brewing is the cheapest skill to raise to 200+, and is totally worth it. I would also get smithing to around 150 or so as my second pick, since it is also used as a subcombine for a lot of the stuff. After that, its up to you with what you want to do.
A handy link to have at hand: http://www.eqtraders.com/search/search.php
The above is the end-all tradeskill site for EQ. It will become invaluable to you when you look for merchants that sell the items you need. Keep in mind not every merchant listed will be available, and not all of them will sell to you. You might need to do some exploring to see what is actually available to you.
The best guide available that I have found: http://almarsguides.com/eq/Tradeskills/progression/
The above is a guide for progression servers, though it was written from a classic era perspective. It is still quite useful, but the higher end stuff has more routes than listed. I will endeavour to assist in this missing area. Refer to Almar’s guide until you hit the roadblocks.
Luclin recipes:
Tailoring – Forest Green Swatches to 190, then Acrylia Reinforced Cloak to 242.
Continue making the Wu’s till you top out, as this is much cheaper and you can buy everything in the bazaar to get you there. You will spend a lot of time brewing Heady Kiolas, since you need 2-4 per combine for Wu’s.
Next, make Forest Green Swatches to 190. I recommend buying the Dark Green Dye in the bazaar when its available, because the combines to make them are a real bitch. Each one requires you to make a container through pottery, and do individual combines to get the Dye. Also, you will need an alchemist if you choose to farm them and make them yourself. Alternatively to save money, you can buy the parts of the subcombine in the bazaar, which I did but regretted after having to manually make every single dye. Bite the bullet, pay a little extra.
After the Forest Green Swatches, the Acrylia Reinforced stuff is pretty simple to make, requiring acrylia that is easily purchased in bazaar. The big cost comes in the form of Flawless Rockhopper Hides, which goes for 300pp+ in the bazaar. You can farm these, or if you are looking ahead at a lower level you can XP in the caves and farm them. However, there are usually a few people slaughtering them for the hides or VT shards. Either way, its a time sink or plat sink. Another option is Arctic Wyvern gear, though this is also just as expensive.
Smithing– Enchanted Velium Bits – (Coldain Velium Temper, Spell: Enchant Velium, Velium Bits x 2) trivial at 222.
After 188, make enchanted velium bits. The tempers and spell are both sold from the same vendor in Thurgadin. If your faction isn’t above dubious, make a level 1 dwarf and get him over there with some opal encrusted steins to boost CHA, since the spell costs near 30 plat if you don’t have some good CHA. Then, all you need to get are small pieces of Velium. Keep in mind the bits are Lore, so you will need to turn off “Make all” and destroy them as you make them.
After 222, your options really fall to either Tae Ew, Shadowscream or Acrylia armors. All will require a lot of farming. The Tae Ew is trivial at 295, but is probably the most expensive per combine, though it has the fewest needed items and subcombines.
Fletching – Class 6 arrows to 202, then Ice/Fire/Shadow Tipped Acrylia Arrows to 268
Class 6 Wood Point Arrows trivial at 202, and are completely vendor purchased. After this, Shadow/Fire/Ice tipped arrows take you to 268. What you will need for this is pretty simple. Stock up or farm acrylia, you will need small bricks. You can whittle down the blocks and large bricks to make the small ones, or use 3 pieces of acrylia to make them as well. You can usually find the chunks of condensed shadow/ice/fire in the bazaar, ranging from 20-50pp each. Grab a bunch of it all, or farm it in Luclin zones. The arrow heads are trivial 115 in smithing, so its a good idea to do this after you level that up a bit.
PoP Recipes:
As you XP, look up any items you come across tagged as tradeskills. This is a work in progress, but I have found a nice baking recipe that is nice for easy skillups.
Baking: Mephit Sandwiches (Trivial 276)- Mephit meat (dropped off mephit models from all planes), Dressing, Loaf of Bread
The meats drop frequently, and the rest of the ingredients are easily vendor purchased and crafted.
Welcome Back to Norrath 