Last time I posted about what I was up to in EverQuest II, I mentioned I was thinking of making a proper effort to prepare my Necromancer to be the character who takes the lead in new expansions from now on. Contrary to expectations, not least my own, I have actually done something to make that happen: I bought a tradeskill booster from the cash shop.
It's been an instructive experience so I thought I might share a few notes. I don't know if anyone reading this will find it useful - I know there used to be a handful of occasional EQII players amongst my readership but I'm not sure any of them still indulge - but maybe Google will send some seeker after truth my way, one day.
This One Goes To 120
The first thing to mention is that you can't, at time of writing, buy a booster that will take you to the crafting cap. I'm not sure why. You can get one for Adventure level so there wouldn't appear to be an existential objection and I'm damn sure there's no technical reason preventing it, so who knows what the reason is. If there even is one.
The boost takes you to 120, ten levels below the cap. It's then up to you to do the necessary quests or, if you prefer, grind writs until your fingers bleed, to finish the job. Fortunately, tradeskill levels come very quickly via questing these days. Even so, you should probably set aside a few hours to bring your new crafter up to speed.
It's Going To Cost You
Even then, at the cheapest it would run you $26.50, which to my way of thinking is one hell of a lot of money to pay for a shortcut in a video game. On the other hand, at a conservative estimate, leveling from zero to one-twenty in a tradeskill would probably take twenty or thirty hours so set that against whatever you think of as your hourly rate and see how it stacks up. Not going to be twenty-six dollars, is it?
For me, such calculations weren't necessary because, as I've frequently complained, thanks to having been subbed forever and having taken advantage of a number of the extremely ill-advised Triple Value Sales both Sony and Daybreak used to run, until they realized they were giving away the farm, as of yesterday I had a sliver short of 35k DBC on my main account alone. I was glad to find something worth splurging on.
Don't Press That Button!
The process involved in activating the boost is very simple. Too simple in some ways and yet not simple enough in others.
Paying the money puts a token in your inventory, which you then have to Examine to activate. I was expecting a context menu with a "Use" option, which is how other, similar items work in the game, but of course there's no real consistency in these sorts of things in EQII. What with it being two decades old and any and all systems having passed through countless developers' hands over the last twenty years, it's anyone's guess how anything's going to work, most of the time.
Once I'd figured it out, a menu appeared, asking me which specific tradeskill I wanted to raise to 120. My Necromancer had never done any crafting at all so I had a free choice because she was a mere Level 2 Artisan, the generic non-class with which you start before you specialise twice more, at Levels 10 and 20.
If you use the boost on a character who's already made that decision, the boost will jump that class to 120. It doesn't offer you a change of career. If, however, you haven't yet settled on a crafting profession, now is the time. Be sure you know what you want!
This is is where I feel the simplicity goes too far. I wasn't sure whether I wanted Mordita to be a Tailor or a Provisioner. I was leaning towards the latter as I clicked on Tailor, thinking it would merely highlight the option while I thought about it. That was not what happened.
The moment I clicked, a stream of pop-ups appeared, telling me I'd earned a whole bunch of Achievements as my Necromancer morphed instantly into a high-level Tailor. I would have thought a confirmation box with a cautionary "Are you sure you want to use this token to become a Tailor?" would have been best practice at this point but there you go.
Boosts With Benefits
Perhaps the best thing about the booster - and a very good reason why someone might even choose to buy it for a character already at the crafting cap - is that it also boosts several other important skills. I didn't know this so it was a lovely surprise.
Once again, it's not entirely consistent. The booster raises the three Secondary tradeskills, the ones that don't count as classes and which all characters can, if they choose, level independently. Those three skills are Experimentation, Adorning and Tinkering, at least two of which are extremely handy to have, even if you have no interest in crafting. I can't comment on the third, Experimentation, which is a skill I've never used or really understood, but no doubt it's great if you know what to do with it.
As well as those three, it also raises Transmuting, currently classified as one of the Harvesting skills, of which more later. Transmuting is particularly important in that it allows you to convert a large proportion of surplus or unwanted gear into the raw materials used to make Adornments. This means you suddenly have a way of getting rid of all that Attuned and No Drop stuff cluttering up your bags without having to destroy it or sell it to vendors for a pittance.
Tinkering, used to be notoriously awkward to level but a long time ago someone, most likely Domino, added a daily quest that helps you to raise your skill by a few points a day. There are also dailies for Transmuting and Adorning and the same NPC gives them all, so you can, if you have the patience and the personality for it, level all three simultaneously.
Leveling them from zero to cap that way would, I estimate, take you about three months, assuming you never missed a day and the RNG gods were kind to you. Once again, you may or may not consider that a valid use of your valuable time.
I have never gone all the way with those dailies but I do routinely use them to fill in gaps and bring my Berserker/Weaponsmith back to the cap in Adorning and Transmuting as each expansion arrives. Even then, I haven't managed to get Tinkering more than half-way on anyone so my Necromancer is now by far my highest-level Tinkerer.
She is not, however, a max-level Tinkerer because for some incomprehensible reason the booster sets Transmuting and Experimentation to their current level caps but leaves the other two skills fifty points short. Consequently, I'm now doing the Tinkering and Adorning dailies again to catch up. Still, it's one heck of a bonus that I wasn't expecting.
Shortcuts Only Take You So Far
You may be a high-level crafter now but don't expect to be able to craft anything! Not until you go shopping, anyway. The booster doesn't give you any of the 120 levels of recipes you're missing. Not even the basic ones you can buy from the vendors in the crafting hall.
That did surprise me. I would have thought it should at least give you the regular books, which are freely available and only cost a few silver. It would save a lot of clicking.
As for the Advanced books and the many, many special recipes, I guess it's back to questing or buying from the broker. Or, in my case, digging through literally scores of bags and boxes in bank vaults and personal inventories for the numerous recipe books I've stashed away over the years.
Not only does this mean you'll have a really hard time getting your own mats, especially in high-level zones, but it also road-blocks you in certain crafting quests, some of which quite reasonably assume that anyone whose doing them will have harvesting skills equivalent to their tradeskill level. I've already had to drop one questline because of that.
In the old days I'd have been completely screwed because harvesting was directly tied to level. These days, you can at least attempt to harvest anything at any skill level although your success rate is likely to be pretty poor at the top end. You do still require an appropriately high level in the relevant harvesting skill if you want to get any rare mats, though, and I personally cannot cope with seeing the message telling me I've harvested a rare and then not actually getting one!
What this means in practice is that I'm probably going to have to do the entire harvesting timeline and put up with the obnoxious Qho again for weeks on end! I've done this timeline at least three times before and it's honestly not that bad. Domino wrote most of the quests and they're amusing and fun... the first time.
The many rewards they give are excellent, which is a great incentive. Indeed I'd say they're pretty much essential for anyone who wants to be an all-rounder. One of the key reasons I've always backed off from dropping my Berserker as lead character in expansions is that his maxed gathering and crafting skills make any number of Adventure quests significantly easier, or at least faster. If Mordita is going to take over from him, she'll need to do the work.
And that's what she's going to do. Or I am. The boost is just the beginning. I've got at least six months to manage the rest. It should give me plenty of time...
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