Sidetracks: Tailoring

Tailoring for Beginners

I have added this because I have been trying to work my way through the Goru’kar Mesa quests, which require several trade skills, mostly notably tailoring. The master reference is, as usual, EQTraders. This suggest the Abysmal Sea starter quests, but the Crescent Reach equivalent is very much faster. Just go to the tailoring area near the upstairs bank, and you will soon have skill 54.

Tradeskill Basics

Before you start, there are a couple of things that you need to know; any old Everquest hand will automatically assume that you know these things.

All tradeskills use a container of some sort: some containers are portable, others are fixed. For tailoring, there are static looms near most tailoring vendors and in guild halls, or you can buy a sewing kit. If your sewing kit opens to show a “Combine” button, then you can use it like that; if it opens to show a recipe list and a “Search Recipes” button, then you use it like that, too. But you need the first form to learn new recipes. You can switch forms by opening using control-right-click, and the Options menu can set which version you prefer. Opening as a normal container with the “Combine” button is the more convenient of the two for use as a simple container.

Use to search for recipes and combine should be self-evident. In the other form, put single item stacks of ingredients in (and nothing else), and click “Combine”. You will fail more often than not to start with. Once you have made an successful combine for the first time, you can switch to the recipe list form, which is far swifter once you have learned a recipe.

Tailoring After 54 Skill

As the Mesa quests will require you to make combines with a high trivial of just under 200 (170 - and possibly higher, I thought Ciodaru’s quest requires some combines?), and starting with subcombines of around 50 trivial, it’s a good idea to raise your skill significantly first.

Save all you make, and you’ll probably need more, so don’t worry about buying stacks of ingredients in advance.

2 stacks of 20, 21pp. 10 successes to 66. 6 stacks of combines in total, 63pp, made 39.

21pp for 2 stacks of small bricks, made 35 bonings. 17 combines to hit 76, made 110 picnic baskets, sold for < 6pp; sold the excess bonings for 4pp and the excess Wovn Mandrake for 3pp. Skill now 76, time for the tailor trophy.

Smithing Diversion

Steel boning is a Smithing recipe, trivial 37, so the starter quest in Crescent Reach will be enough to make some.

And the file is:

Metal bits are:

If you’re working on the smithing components, then it’s time to make your sewing needle. This requires a trip to Surefall Glade to purchase the Steel bricks required; if you have a Gold account, you can use the shared bank to transfer cash to a level 1 character (human Karana ranger or druid; make sure you turn off the tutorial button!).

Tailoring Trophy

If you are going to make a relatively high level combine, and 170 counts in my opinion, then the tailoring trophy is probably worthwhile. You need to see Baublie Diggs in West Freeport newbie yard to get started, make the items, then return to there to hand in to the judge. If your skill is still under 100 (but over 50), this is the test you will be given.

All ingredients listed below are given the quantity required per combine. I give a shopping list for dropped ingredients only below, which assumes all successful combines. This requires a low level of smithing skill, and some effort with fishing.

Because of the way that combines work, you stand a much better chance of success if your skill level is well above the trivial for a combine, and even so (without AAs) there is always a 5% chance of failure. So I would strongly suggest using the Fetid Essence (fishing grubs plus a water flask) combine in Plane of Knowledge (Caden Zharik) or Crescent Reach (Innkeeper Seltu, Merchant Kaphiri, Merchant Wyn’las) to get your brewing skill to 122 before making your fish oil, although I’m going to skip the trophy for this.

Assuming no failures. You can get most of these in Crescent Reach, or by vendor diving there. Also a trip to Blightfire will be required, then probably one of the Karanas. There are two good sources for spider silk: East Karana, or Upper Guk. These spiders seem to drop more silk than most others, although you can continue to kill spiders in Goru’kar Mesa for silk and experience. You will need a lot of spider silk to allow for failures in the higher level combines for the silkfang pack. The wolf skin will require a diversion, possibly to Everfrost, and shade silk comes from Shak Dratha in Shadeweaver’s Thicket.

Back to Tailoring

Then what?

If you have a lot of High Quality Bear Pelts, then consider making Hand Made Backpacks (trivial 88, High Quality Bear Pelt, Backpack pattern) as a usable intermediate skill up step. Tailored Quiver has a trivial of 115 (High Quality Cat Pelt, Quiver Pattern). However, there’s a big problem with this skill up path if you are doing the Hero’s Journey: the last cats you will have seen were under level 10, in Crescent Reach.

Start making subcombines to move quest stages forward, and the quest requires that you make them in a certain order: threads, spool, wolf beads, snake beads, string of teeth: and finally the pack. So it is best to make them in that order, in the unlikely event that you succeed on the first try, as you would be required to repeat some of the combines just to complete the quest if you hadn’t make the components in the right order.

The final recipe is:

Note that you could treat this as a free skill up route, as all the items are dropped, with just the sewing needle as a reusable tool.

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