Tinkering

[Catweazel]

Just wanted to thank Gall, Moda, Aslev, Stubs and Argon for helping me over the last few weeks camping in POI. No - I am not finished yet, but I did want you to know how appreciated your help was.

Larphey, Aysis and Thirstin too deserve a big round of applause. Thanks guys and gal.

I am currently sitting at 244, with a Grandmaster Tinker spanner and Tinker Mastery 1. At 250 I can go for the trophy and by that time should have hit TM3 and maybe even Salvage.

Larphey tells me we are looking at about an 80% chance of success on augs at that time. Cross fingers.

[Catweazel]

Progress report:

Tinkering now 246
Completed Tinkers Trophy (Mechanists Trophy) at Level 4/92% and +5% to Tinkering
Half way towards TM3
Still need about 18 aa's for TM3 and Salvage

Still need the odd POI wipeout so will be asking again in guild. I have run out of many critical components again so will be farming this week.

[Thirstin]

How about a list of the items you can use at this point so I and everyone knows what ya need?

[Argon]

yeah how bout a list slacker!!

[Kalthanan]

High tinkering is quite an accomplishment. It's one of the hardest and most tedious tradeskills, not to mention expensive.

[Catweazel]

List of items:

Pinions, Steel Ball Bearings, Mana Battery Class 6.....all from POI
Raw Infused Dark Matter.....Kod'Taz and higher GoD zones (Ikky, Yxxta, Qvic) -- to make Mana Batteries Class 6.

will get me to 262

Brick of Immaculate Steel.....PoE a
Brick of Molten Ore.....PoF
Chunk of Wind Metal...PoA
Chunk of e'cian Ice...PoW

Above need FORAGED Clockwork Grease from POI

No idea on drop rate but any of the above will get me to 282....PoE is just about soloable by me, so should be cake for many soloing classes and it was 3% aa exp per kill.

Knuckle Joints....POI

Will get me to 288 (items are pretty rare)

Clockwork Carapace....POI (off spiders only) -- items are very rare.

Trivial 302

Thanks tonight to Dregg for donating a bunch of pinions and bearings - have used half of them and got up to 248 and evolved my Trophy to Expert level (+8%)

Also thanks to Keannie and Argon who once again donated their time to slaughter POI for 45 minutes.

[Modalex]

maybe we can put togethere an aoe group and do this for an hour to get ya some more.

[Oyvay]

Rumor has it one of the new zones has Brick of Molten Ore as a drop as one of the merchants had 32 on it in sunderrock. Can anyone confirm for Cat?

[Argon]

Hope you bought the 32 in Sunderock.

Moda, feel free to hop in anytime as we generally head there a coupla times a week all damage is welcome AE or not. Cat probably has a few more months of POI killing so he is refusing to stay longer than 45 min at a pop to try and keep down burnout.

[Catweazel]

Final update for a while:

Dinged (??) 250 Tinkering at last on the last pinions from Dreggo.

Although I have some supplies left, I am now missing critical components for any further combines, apart from the odd ones I pick up here and there.

Have seen Bricks of Molten Metal in bazaar for 90pp (which is not that bad) and if they are dropping in TSS, then the price will likely drop.

The big problem now is that I am missing Clockwork Grease (foraged in POI) and Pinions (mob drop in POI). I also need Raw Infused Dark Matter which only drops in higher GoD zones. I really need stacks (as in hundreds) of these things before starting on the next round of skill ups. The rest of the shopping list as above.

Thanks again for your help on this.

[Catweazel]

Burned through 60 pinions/Steel ball bearings and 120 Clockwork Grease/60 molten bricks to achieve the massive total of 255!! 120 combines, 5 skill ups :D

Go Tinkering!!

Back to zero on supplies....

[Catweazel]

Well - another update from Tinkering:

I have moved onto 264 now thanks to some bazaar vendor watching and generous guildees who handed over bricks and POI items.

The remaining non trivial items from POI are now rare drops (Clockwork Carapace, Knuckle Joints) and so therefore my long journey around the POI zone comes to an end. Any remaining items I have will be saved to make various tinkered items for those who want them.

As I have no access to Plane of Fire I ground to a halt with Bricks of Molten Ore in spite of brave efforts by Larphey. Bazaar prices are exhorbitant. In fact they are just plain crazy - no-one in their right mind would be buying stacks of these bricks for 400pp a piece. If anyone has that kind of money, they probably have the capability to get the bricks themselves.

I am now farming The Deep for Yttrium bricks to make cultural gnome armor through tinkering which will skill out well beyond 300.

Current farming list:

High Quality Horse Skin (for levitation packs) POR zones
Severed Feran Tentacles (for variety of items) OOW zones
Bricks of Molten Ore Plane of Fire

Raw Infused Dark Matter GoD zones
Chunk of Discordian Rock GoD zones

Small brick of Yttrium Luclin zones

Shadowmane Pelt DODH zones
Shilliskin Bones DODH zones
Glowgem DODH zones

FINALLY.....

I managed to make my first AAAA (http://www.eqtraders.com/items/show_item.php?item=21438&menustr=080120000000)

which is the device used to combine Bazu augs. Larphey has been working a lot on farming components for this and we finally achieved success a few days ago.

The farm list for these is extremely long, but it is fair to say that any clockwork on the DoDH expansion will drop components for Tinkering for this item.

Corathus Creep will (has) become the new POI....

[Catweazel]

The final stretch is in sight!!

290 on Tinkering now having learnt a valuable lesson about skill up bonuses on cultural armor. Short story, POI drops have very poor skill up success rate (perhaps even worse than other tradeskills). Hundreds of hours of farming in POI yields very poor results. Cultural Gnome armor uses Yttrium (amongst other things) and skill ups come like Papa John's to Dreggo's house.

Nothing is easy and it is all relative, but after a few weeks farming a Small brick of Yttrium in The Deep (and tremendous thanks to Moda, Larphey and Genn for company and help) I have squeaked all the way up to 290 tonight.

The end of the journey is near. Although the combine cost has risen to 100pp each, the sale of farmed trash keeps this down. I reckon about another 200 bricks of Yttrium should do it (probably 10 to 15 hours camping, maybe more).

Latest list:
High Quality Horse Skin (for levitation packs) POR zones
Severed Feran Tentacles (for variety of items) OOW zones
Corathus items (any clockwork TS item, Entrails)

Raw Shimmering Nihilite
Hynid Blood

Small brick of Yttrium Luclin zones

Shadowmane Pelt DODH zones
Shilliskin Bones DODH zones
Glowgem / Glowstone / Glowrock DODH zones

I have had a few orders / requests, but mostly framed as questions. I can pretty much make anything now but would appreciate the supply of the critical ingredient (there is always at least one). Send me an in game email so I don't forget your request or post it here.

Once I get the production machine churning for AAAA's then I will likely have a little more money to supply some rare items myself...but I still need to know what you all want.

Cheers!!

[Catweazel]

Just a quick note. I made my first AAAA from scratch tonight and managed to complete about 95% of the combines myself. Thanks to Keannie and Jules and Heikko (Gotti) for the odd ones out. I will be working on the last few points of tradeskilling fletching and tailoring so I don't have to bother too many people with my whining.

Base price for vendor only components is about 30k

Aggressive shopping for some of the rarer farm items might net you a Shadowmane pelt for 15k, Clockwork Gnome Bolts for 8k (need 5) which pushes the AAAA price to about 85k.

My advice would be to farm the components you need if you have the time.

I will begin providing them to guildees for anywhere between 30k and 90k depending on circumstances and what you are able to provide yourself. If we are able to keep farming Shyra as a guild, I should be able to keep the price towards the low end.

With Bazu and Last Blood augs, we will probably be into aug making for a while. I don't exactly know what else is required, but hopefully the total cost will be pretty damn good for the quality of aug produced and we will see more people joning in the bids on the stones.

As far as the other items (lev packs mainly) it seems as though the market is flooded and the demand and price are way way below cost. For example, HQ horse skin sells for 3k and the lev packs sell for 350pp. The cost of vendor only items alone is over 500pp. I will make these for free if you bring a horse skin to me.

[Catweazel]

Well, an update is in order.

After an enjoyable hour touring the backrooms of Kael, I was lucky enough to win a pair of Flayed Barbarian Leggings, which after selling for 120K bought me almost 180 bricks of Yttrium. Combined with the ones I have been collecting from guildees and camping, I was able to scrounge up enough spare platinum for 80 combines of Masters Leggings......

which, wait for it, got precisely 5 skill ups

So I am now sitting on 295, and Tinkering has probably topped 500k so far just in Yttrium alone (at least the sale value...who knows how much time has been spent getting to know Kozizux (or whatever his name is).

I suppose that means I need another 300 bricks of Yttrium to ding....

As a final comment, I do not really need any other supplies other than Yttrium. The Collapsible distillery is very disappointing (4 slot container) although I have managed to keep the guild bank stocked with collapsibles of all kinds.

If you are out hunting, Yttrium, and the ever useful Coiled Springs would be very welcome.
Please continue to let me know if you need anything, and dont ever go anywhere else for your AAAA's!!!!

[Catweazel]

Well after collecting my 300 bricks of Yttrium over the last 2 weeks thanks to donations from Garcon, Keannie and K2 and another 40+ hours camping in the Deep I sat down and prepared the 300 bricks for combining into cultural armor.

100 combines later (and another 350,000plat worth of junk) I reached....

299 :(

On the plus side I have built a house overlooking the Deep, and Koxiux is now my drinking buddy. Oh the games we play with the Razorfiends shrinking them down. I met Xoix the Slavemaster - he barbeques excellent steaks, although the source of the meat is still a mystery. Women seem to be in short supply in this neighbourhood, and I have popped into Ssra for a couple of parties with the snakes. Those girls know how to dance although the curse seems to hit them way too often!!!

Oh well, I hear Koxiux chinking the glasses - must be my turn to bring the beer.

Drop by if you can :D

[Oyvay]

Cat you amaze me. Ok any Tradeskiller amazes me :)
I'm hoping that along with 299 you are close to maxing your trophy.

[Catweazel]

The trophy maxxes at 400 to 1000 combines beyond "dinging" 300. I seriously doubt I will be actively working on maxxing the trophy, however, each AAAA that I make has about 6 subcombines with a trivial of 351, so after 70 or so AAAA's it should max out. As I have already made 10 or 12 of these, it's not beyond the realms of possibility.

At 300, you get a +12% to skill, and at (a theoretical) 350 it will fully evolve and provide +15%, gaining a new graphic and a flashy new name (Hovering Contraption in the case of Tinkering).

Most people probably stop worrying when they ding 300 as the trophy will summon 100% giant weight reduction bags, and provide no further skill ups to the Artisan Charm.

As a slight aside, I was able to complete a combine for Alexxi yesterday with a trivial of 404, which in turn allowed her to create her Bazu aug.

[Alexxi]

:clap2: And I can't thank you enough for that that Cat. :drunk: You are the bombdidiest :bow:

[Catweazel]

The journey is over.

Dinged 300 today on a sub combine for an AAAA !!!!!!!!!

All that remains is a few clean up tasks to buff and polish the trophy.

I do appreciate all the help I got from everyone in my journey. Hopefully you are forever remembered in the words of this thread :D

[Aslev]

Yeah gratz!!!

[Oyvay]

ConGrats Cat

[Naed]

Grats Cat !

That part of the insanity is over for you... now how about the rest ? :bonk:

[Catweazel]

After nearly 8 months of consistent effort and sadly far too much platinum, I finally maxxed my tinkering trophy last night!!

1127 1128

I guess you could say I am done - except I am still not finished Tailoring...

[Tavrn]

Congrats Cat that is quite an accomplishment. Good luck on Smithing and tailoring.

[Aslev]

Very gratz Cat!!!

[Juliankaos]

Grats Cat!

[Modalex]

Grats Cat...here is to hoping the add around 150 skill to each trade in the expansion!!

[Abiolli]

Grats Cat

~Olli

[Sumdiana]

:bowdown: Grats Cat!! :jiggy: