To Stonemasons and Blacksmiths, Hello!

[Greb]

I recently completed my journey to 500 Miner. I started from level 60, and kept everything that I mined, dropping nothing except Cabranese Ore between levels 403 and 419. Also I skipped Cabranese Ore and Death Stone every other time it came up prior to that, for reasons. I'll have to go back and mine the Cabranese Ore that I bypassed / dropped later on with some Fear Potions or something.

Although I upgraded my pickaxe immediately as I was able to, I didn't really enchant it until level 333, and I barely used XP potions, except during the 403 - 419 Temeric Cabranese ore sprint. Also, once the burn of being 200+ kicked in (at level 223, precisely) I began using every Knowledge Point I had on XP too, which definitely reduced my total stone and ore count quite a bit. Helped to keep me sane, though!

I am planning on going straight into Stonemason and then Blacksmith with these materials, but I need some help from any budding masons or smiths here, to set me on the righteous path.

First though, I wanted to list everything I walked away with:

Stone:

Flint:

• Average Flint: 1,080
  
• Fine Flint: 744
  
• Sturdy Flint: 771
  
• Perfect Flint: 13,757

Basalt:

• Average Basalt: 768
  
• Fine Basalt: 672
  
• Sturdy Basalt: 1,068
  
• Perfect Basalt: 5,873

Andesite:

• Average Andesite: 2,337
  
• Fine Andesite: 2,803
  
• Sturdy Andesite: 5,830
  
• Perfect Andesite: 9,443

Granite:

• Average Granite: 762
  
• Fine Granite: 1,799
  
• Sturdy Granite: 7,047
  
• Perfect Granite: 6,900

Ore:

Iron:

• Goethite Iron: 972
  
• Hematite Iron: 918
  
• Magnetite Iron: 27,645
  
• Siderite Iron: 8,089

Flantium:

• Holmitite Flantium: 2,257
  
• Amirite Flantium: 950
  
• Eysite Flantium: 5,416
  
• Seethalite Flantium: 7,834

Adathril:

• Rigic Adathril: 900
  
• Portoic Adathril: 958
  
• Caric Adathril: 912
  
• Masic Adathril: 9,607
  
• Fortoic Adathril: 13,215

Hopefully those numbers will be useful to anyone planning on going for 500 Mining too with the weapon making skills in mind.

If any aspiring Stonemasons or Blacksmiths have any information on how much stone or ore you need on the journey to 500, as well as what are considered the best items to craft along the way, I'd really appreciate that. I feel completely lost whenever I look at weapon making skills.

Thanks!

[ConcealedXeno]

Gz on the 500 miner!

[Greb]

Thanks!

[weirdee]

You should check out the wiki's numbers on exp vs cost and training speed. Generally, crafts fall into three categories, and the data should tell you what you need to know at a glance:

- recipes with the highest exp per material possible but not necessarily the fastest exp wise, depending on where you are, which is the most efficient use of those materials without taking other factors into account
- recipes with the highest exp rate for your level, but perhaps due to difficulty obtaining the materials, you may end up buying them to save time instead (to a certain point. transporting inventories of items from the store to storage is also a time cost factor)
- recipes which are a total waste of time for exp, money, and/or speed of crafting, which we will not use at all, and want to push past using other means. you can generally tell what this looks like because they'll demand more wood, which is in of itself a waste of time unless you already have it stockpiled from carpentry, and it still might be a waste of time in general if it asks for a whole lot of wood, and the wood in general is more valuable for bonewright because it's mandatory there

Since you've already done lots of mining, you should also know which resources are the most reasonable to stockpile, and should lean towards those unless you plan to leverage your higher earning potential with 500 mining to just buy out levels where no better option exists. In fact, you should probably just do this with the initial levels if you find it to be slower going than you'd like. Excess wealth is its own power.

You should also know that in terms of resale value, unless you plan to just drop everything on the ground, that it's more economical to make items at combat level 19 until you reach level 37 because of how the drop rate for rares at combat level 20 abruptly plummets, and it is only at combat level 37 where the base value of the craft exceeds the greatly reduced profit from not crafting as many rares. Once again, if none of the crap you're making at the lower levels compares to just selling bulk raws at your level 500 mining, you can just ignore this entirely and drop all of the crap on the ground.

[Greb]

Didn't know about that Combat level 19 rarity plummet, that it would effect weapon making skills. That's rough. I've dabbled a bit in Smithing and Masonry when I was getting the requirements for Lost and Found a while ago, but I just copied everyone else instead of thinking for myself when I did that, I have to admit. I dropped all of the greens and just focused on blues and purples...I think I remember complaining about blues and purples being uncommon after a fashion but I thought that was just my own terrible luck, lol. Damn.

I remember hearing that things made using less materials at once are more efficient but will be slower XP rates in general, I think. For Stonemason and Blacksmith I was hoping to completely avoid having to use wood at all.

The only material I'd have "issue" with obtaining would be Cabranese Ore or Death Stone, but I could mine Cabranese if I had to, I just didn't like doing it when it was "aimless" back on the climb to 500. When I have an exact amount I need to collect it'll feel a lot better, just have to calculate that.

I suppose I need to look at where I am and calculate what weapons are needed to be made for that level. Looks like weapons remain consistent as you level up, so if I just pick a selection from the "Basic" tier then I could probably use those again for every tier after that one. I imagine the stone / ore counts needed per tier increase by x4 at 200 though.

Thank you for the advice. Could you elaborate more on what you mean when you say "buying out levels" when no better option exists? Do you mean just buying the materials from an NPC instead of collecting them?

[Robique]

Originally posted by Greb:

Didn't know about that Combat level 19 rarity plummet, that it would effect weapon making skills. That's rough. I've dabbled a bit in Smithing and Masonry when I was getting the requirements for Lost and Found a while ago, but I just copied everyone else instead of thinking for myself when I did that, I have to admit. I dropped all of the greens and just focused on blues and purples...I think I remember complaining about blues and purples being uncommon after a fashion but I thought that was just my own terrible luck, lol. Damn.

I remember hearing that things made using less materials at once are more efficient but will be slower XP rates in general, I think. For Stonemason and Blacksmith I was hoping to completely avoid having to use wood at all.

The only material I'd have "issue" with obtaining would be Cabranese Ore or Death Stone, but I could mine Cabranese if I had to, I just didn't like doing it when it was "aimless" back on the climb to 500. When I have an exact amount I need to collect it'll feel a lot better, just have to calculate that.

I suppose I need to look at where I am and calculate what weapons are needed to be made for that level. Looks like weapons remain consistent as you level up, so if I just pick a selection from the "Basic" tier then I could probably use those again for every tier after that one. I imagine the stone / ore counts needed per tier increase by x4 at 200 though.

Thank you for the advice. Could you elaborate more on what you mean when you say "buying out levels" when no better option exists? Do you mean just buying the materials from an NPC instead of collecting them?

Congrats on the 500 Greb.
Just so you know, there's another rarity plummet at 200+. The rares become actually rare, in my experience about one in every 40 crafts or so. To compensate, they're worth about 4x as much as 199 weapons.

I'm taking the approach to level mining and stonemasonry gradually and about 80% of knowledge points from both activities I have to pump into mining so it can keep up. Then again, I'm only mining stones and ignoring the ore.

Regarding "avoiding wood entirely", it sure is possible, but I'd say it's not the most efficient way for Stonemason.
For example a hammerfist uses 2 stone, 1 wood and becomes available right after skipping the entire deathstone tier. Buying the wood from carpenter is waaaay more efficient than crafting whatever with the lower tier granite. Also, weapons that have a wood component tend to fetch a higher selling price at a vendor, so overall you'll never lose money.

[weirdee]

Originally posted by Greb:

Thank you for the advice. Could you elaborate more on what you mean when you say "buying out levels" when no better option exists? Do you mean just buying the materials from an NPC instead of collecting them?

Basically, if you can harvest the top tier materials with your level 500 mining, sell them for cash at the vendors, and then use the cash to buy lower level crafting materials to train with, you don't have to worry about running out and harvesting more lower level materials if you can buy them with the profits from selling relatively less higher level materials to those vendors. This applies to both ores and wood.

For instance, Perfect Granite costs 3 silvers and 580 coppers, but something like Rugged Basalt only costs 315 coppers, so you can accumulate money via mining highest level stones in much greater quantities faster than you would if you just mined the lower level materials you wanted to use just for yourself.

You'd have to run cost comparisons of buying stuff versus selling stuff, of course, but it's pretty straightforward.

In theory, rushing the highest levels in the most profitable skills would enable you to level up crafting skills even faster in that sense, but the numbers still need to be run on how efficient that is.

[Greb]

Originally posted by Robique:

Congrats on the 500 Greb.
Just so you know, there's another rarity plummet at 200+. The rares become actually rare, in my experience about one in every 40 crafts or so. To compensate, they're worth about 4x as much as 199 weapons.

I'm taking the approach to level mining and stonemasonry gradually and about 80% of knowledge points from both activities I have to pump into mining so it can keep up. Then again, I'm only mining stones and ignoring the ore.

Regarding "avoiding wood entirely", it sure is possible, but I'd say it's not the most efficient way for Stonemason.
For example a hammerfist uses 2 stone, 1 wood and becomes available right after skipping the entire deathstone tier. Buying the wood from carpenter is waaaay more efficient than crafting whatever with the lower tier granite. Also, weapons that have a wood component tend to fetch a higher selling price at a vendor, so overall you'll never lose money.

Oh man another rarity plummet? Well, at least that makes infusing Epic weapons in the far future when I reach 500 in every weapon skill somewhat more difficult than I thought it would be, which might reduce how many get flooded into the market. Damn though, that's going to be so much work just for a single one! I'm thrilled and also depressed about that

Yeah I've already had someone tell me I did it wrong and I should have picked either Ore or Stone to level up with and just stick to that. Maybe they're right. However I mined Magnetite Iron from 197 to 247 and it made me want to die, so...maybe not. lol. Maybe the pro strat is to pick either one and then get 500 Stonemason / Blacksmith from the produce, and then use the money made from that to buy the materials for the other. I dunno. That's kind of why I made this thread, to offer insight and such. Also to get insight from others like yourself, so, thank you!

So that means I'll need to level Carpentry and Woodcutting too? Or can you buy those materials from an NPC somewhere? Was kind of against buying things from an NPC, just kind of a principles thing, I don't look down on anyone else who does it I mean, just infinite stock NPCs feel kind of weird to me.

Also thanks, by the way

Originally posted by weirdee:

Basically, if you can harvest the top tier materials with your level 500 mining, sell them for cash at the vendors, and then use the cash to buy lower level crafting materials to train with, you don't have to worry about running out and harvesting more lower level materials if you can buy them with the profits from selling relatively less higher level materials to those vendors. This applies to both ores and wood.

For instance, Perfect Granite costs 3 silvers and 580 coppers, but something like Rugged Basalt only costs 315 coppers, so you can accumulate money via mining highest level stones in much greater quantities faster than you would if you just mined the lower level materials you wanted to use just for yourself.

You'd have to run cost comparisons of buying stuff versus selling stuff, of course, but it's pretty straightforward.

In theory, rushing the highest levels in the most profitable skills would enable you to level up crafting skills even faster in that sense, but the numbers still need to be run on how efficient that is.

I thought about this but it seems like it'd be crazy loss in terms of value. Like to buy Perfect Granite from an NPC it's probably at least 20 silver per stone, right? Selling them to an NPC for 10% of the value seems like a bad trade. Maybe I'm wrong about how much it'll cost to buy Perfect Granite and such. I just caught the backend of a conversation once about Temeric Cabranese Ore being stupid to drop (like I did, lol) because each inventory is worth like half a gold or something, but only from vendor buy prices. I've never actually checked.

The idea of not suffering through "Past Action" and instead to just mine the best thing I can instead and then sell it to buy the lower tier stuff does sound appealing though. However, I'm not entirely convinced even when trading comes out if anyone is going to be interested in buying Tier 6 resources, at least not right away.

It just feels like such a waste selling it to the NPCs though. I used to sell all of my passive materials I got, like Dark Marble or whatever, before I realised I was probably selling it at a massive loss and people are probably going to want it for their 500 grinds. Maybe I'd even want it myself!

But NPCs I guess are 100% reliable and always going to be available. Finding players who want to buy your stuff though...might be a challenge.

[Robique]

Originally posted by Greb:

So that means I'll need to level Carpentry and Woodcutting too? Or can you buy those materials from an NPC somewhere? Was kind of against buying things from an NPC, just kind of a principles thing, I don't look down on anyone else who does it I mean, just infinite stock NPCs feel kind of weird to me.

You can buy them from vendor in Carpentry workshop. You'll have to run outside of the workshop to store them. I always do a couple of runs back and forth depending on how much I'm planning to craft. It goes pretty fast.
In my mind, I justify the infinite vendor stock as they're reselling the planks that other players sold to them. Trust me, there's a whole bunch of carpenters being too lazy to store their produce, not thinking about the future (been there, done that).

Leveling woodcutting and carpentry, just so you can save a couple silver coins seems kinda pointless to me (unless you're planning on leveling Bonewright).
With my stonemason routine: "mining stone myself, buying all the wood, selling everything I craft" I was always making money.
Only when you craft a green rarity weapon you sometimes lose a very miniscule amount of silver. Blues and purples are always profitable, especially after 200.

[Greb]

That's useful information, thank you. Yeah I've seen a lot of people selling their wood crafts in that place, although I never thought anything of it. Not all of the things you create are useful I think?

I was planning on doing Bonewright as well yeah, after Stonemason and Blacksmith. Good to know blues and purples remain profitable though. Question is, do you need the appropriate Carpentry or Woodcutting levels in order to be able to buy high tier wooden weapon materials? I've not done much NPC purchasing at all, so I don't know the mechanics around when you unlock them for purchase from an NPC.

Will I be able to buy say, Perfect Poles or whatever if my Stonemason is 450+ but my Woodcutting and Carpentry is like 50?

[XJ9]

Just make them as you go? If you need more resource, just do the math? Just craft lowest level to highest?

Weird flex

[Greb]

Originally posted by XJ9:

Just make them as you go? If you need more resource, just do the math? Just craft lowest level to highest?

Weird flex

It's not intended as a flex but as a source of information for people to use. I was surprised myself when I counted them at the end and discovered quite a small amount of the T3 and T4 materials, I figured I'd have more, but I guess you fly through the lower tiers pretty quickly. Quicker than I remembered, anyway. The information could be useful for people planning ahead in the future, maybe.

Yeah calculating things using the wiki isn't a problem, but I was curious about what people choose to make as they go, sharing experiences and things, passing down information, that kind of thing?

When I got the skills for Lost and Found I don't believe I did it efficiently, I ended up with too many bars and stones, and focused on all manner of things. It was very chaotic, very random, using whatever I had access to.

Maybe there's a standardised method people are using, like I remember hearing that Bucklers and Thrown Knives were popular when going to 61 Blacksmith, so I was wondering if there have been any typical methods figured out by people who have focused on both skills yet.

All I really know at the moment is something I saw someone mention, which was having 2000 of every stone / ore at any tiers below 200, and then 8000 of every stone / ore at tiers above 200, should be able to reach 500.

I haven't worked anything out yet though, as I'm currently working on the Brannof Inheritance quest so I can get that expander-thon thing first.

[Robique]

Originally posted by Greb:

Question is, do you need the appropriate Carpentry or Woodcutting levels in order to be able to buy high tier wooden weapon materials? I've not done much NPC purchasing at all, so I don't know the mechanics around when you unlock them for purchase from an NPC.

Will I be able to buy say, Perfect Poles or whatever if my Stonemason is 450+ but my Woodcutting and Carpentry is like 50?

Yep, all you need is the appropriate weapon crafting skill.
Since I have 200+ Stonemason and Blacksmith/Bonewright only at "Lost and Found" requirements, I'm seeing a much broader selection of stonemason-specific poles at the carpenter shop.
i believe carpenter skill is required to purchase better logs from a different vendor outside the carpenter workshop.

[Greb]

Well that's not too bad. I'm hoping I'll have quite a nest egg saved up after using all of my stones and ores etc, so maybe buying some stuff wouldn't be so bad. If the poles don't require Carpentry but instead a specific weapon skill threshold then, wahey. Getting 500 in the three weapon making skills doesn't sound as messy or tedious now then.

Thanks

[Greb]

Hey so, another question for budding or blooming Blacksmiths / Stonemasons - do you use any resources for passive training? Are there any you crave more than anything else?

I've got access to all of these sources of passive resource gathering with Mining but I don't know if anyone would even want or buy them, when trading comes out. Or which ones would be the most desirable?

Do you even bother training passively for Blacksmith / Stonemason or do you go elsewhere and train something like Minefighter instead?Or do you just buy that stuff you need from NPCs? Is it even able to be bought from NPCs?

It'd be helpful to gauge if it's worth my offline time to build up a stack of future cash or not. If it's not going to sell because you can just buy from an NPC it might not be worth it, right?

Apologies for double posting, totally not a bump or anything shameful like that

[Robique]

With Stonemason I didn't really bother with passive activities until 200.
After 200 it has become the main source of XP, since I'm focusing on other skills and not really in a rush to hit 500 anytime soon.

Concerning buying passive activity materials from NPCs, at 220 stonemason I'd need to spend 1 gold per workday (20 hours offline time), which I definitely won't be doing lol.
Instead I'll get mining up to 239 first, to get the purple limestone myself.

Imho, it's not worth it to buy the passive mats from NPCs, and once player trading is a thing they'll sell for a reasonable price. In your place I'd use the saved up mats when able to and save the surplus, if any, for player trading.