Smithing 83+. Why so hard?

[Aysha]

So I'm trying to figure out why Smithing is so ridiculously hard to level 83+. My smith is the ONLY mule who is not Veteran rank by now, and the problem is that there are no decent recipes I can find to level on at 83.

The only thing that doesn't take multiple Darksteel Ingots I can find is Adaman Ingots, but they need THREE Ores per synth.

The only way to actually get Adaman Ore is by Mog Garden (rarely), or killing the Tortoises in Gustav, but that room is almost always camped to all crap and back, even on a lower pop server like Sylph.

This is rather unbalanced, because literally every other craft has much easier ways to get to 90+. Goldsmithing in particular is pathetically easy because of the Avatar Rocks (Garudite, etc). Leatherworker isn't too hard, because there's lots of options and the skins aren't hard to get at all, Bonecrafting has lots of options around that level.

Even Clothcraft isn't that bad, since King Crawlers were added to Crawlers' Nest.

Here are some suggestions:

1). How about Acuex Ore to make a ~Lv90 ingot? Loads and loads and loads of Acuex Ore drops, but there's only 1 (and only 1) thing in the game it's used for (GEO Artifact). And while you're at it, could you make Acuex Ore stack please? I hate having the stupid things fill up my inventory.

2). Add more Tortoises to Gustav. Why does only one room in Gustav have the Tortoises and the other rooms nearby just have the stupid skeletons?

3). Increase the frequency of Adaman Ore in the Mog Garden and Mining Points. Face it, Adaman Ore doesn't make anything relevant to Lv99 characters today. I don't think it would be unbalanced if this (and Darksteel!) were a little easier to get.

4). Change the recipe: Adaman Ore x1, Iron Ore x3 (kinda like Darksteel). This would make the recipe MUCH more reasonable to gain skill on.

[Nyarlko]

You entirely ignored the "primary" option for acquisition, which would be actually going out and mining it. Which is still an option, regardless of whether it's an attractive one or not.

[Aysha]

You entirely ignored the "primary" option for acquisition, which would be actually going out and mining it. Which is still an option, regardless of whether it's an attractive one or not.

Yeah, if you don't mind 100+ broken pickaxes and 10+ hours of wasted time to get maybe a stack or two.

It would be literally faster to farm gil by some other method and buy it out of the AH for the ridiculous prices they want for it.

[Nyarlko]

Yeah, if you don't mind 100+ broken pickaxes and 10+ hours of wasted time to get maybe a stack or two.

It would be literally faster to farm gil by some other method and buy it out of the AH for the ridiculous prices they want for it.

Devs would say pretty much the same thing I did, though probably with more politic wording. XD


The only way to actually get Adaman Ore is by Mog Garden (rarely), or killing the Tortoises in Gustav, but that room is almost always camped to all crap and back, even on a lower pop server like Sylph.
Just couldn't resist pointing out that there is indeed another method, regardless of how enjoyable that method is to us. ^^;;
The handful of times I've bothered mining in the last couple years, I didn't really have much of an issue w/ broken picks, but always used the related gear. Have you tried doing that?

[detlef]

Keep skilling up on Darksteel Nodowas until the next synth? You could theoretically get to 94 on those albeit slowly.

[Aysha]

Keep skilling up on Darksteel Nodowas until the next synth? You could theoretically get to 94 on those albeit slowly.

Slow ain't the right word.

I've done other crafts in the 80s and 90s where I was above the skill level of the recipe, and I got synths, and I was still getting roughly 1 level out of 15-20 synths during the double crafting campaign.

These Nodowas, though?

Oi. It took me 9 stacks of ingots to barely squeak out the 5 levels I needed to get to 88 to become a Veteran.

Seems they just don't like Smithing for some reason, and have determined that a smith should have to do 5x+ the work to get up there as some other trades.