What did you grind on....

[ArcticZero]

Well I made a choice to make my 2nd crafter a tailor.... now with that out of the way I wondered what it is that ever uses to grind out skills as a taylor.. the first 20 levels need to be gone through before I even start to think about making things for people...

[DeWeasel]

I usually work toward backpacks, because they sell relatively well. I spend the first levels of each tier harvesting and refining hides into stretches of tanned leather, then work those into hide plates and straps. Especially if you make your own worts and buckles, you can work up several stacks of components before you get the actual packs. Then I make backpacks and put them up for sale.

If I need a break from the grind, I'll divert into leather padding (which still sells pretty well, on my server anyway) and/or headgear (either leather or cloth). I usually only do other armor pieces to order.

A quick tip that I picked up kind of late -- if you come across a rare pelt, hold on to it and make it into the rare backpack for that tier. They are really nice upgrades! My tailor got 3 rare pelts in T2, and was able to make them into essentially T3 backpacks at level 15.

Good luck -- I enjoy tailoring myself, hope you do too.

[Mithas]

I usually work toward backpacks, because they sell relatively well. I spend the first levels of each tier harvesting and refining hides into stretches of tanned leather, then work those into hide plates and straps.

Just so no ones makes a lot of stuff they end up not using, backpacks require cords as a sub, not straps.

[Kinday]

I'm not sure if the rare pelts to backpacks tip is as true now as it was earlier on in the life of the game. A few months ago, there weren't many tailors selling the higher tier backpacks, so being able to make a bag with a couple extra slots was very nice. Now there are a lot of higher tier bags as well as some very nice quested bags available, so aside from the T5 rare pack, I'd be more inclined to try to fit someone's twink/alt with a rare imbued BP or pants.

[Lemamas]

If you are in a guild do tradeskill writs. They don't seem to reward as much status as adventure writs but they pay you back on your costs fairly well as long as you get cheap deals or harvest yourself.

If writs are not for you then broadcast in the crafting channels for what people need and get some business going. Lots of people are either lazy or they are trying to PL their other class and would rather spend time making finish combines then making the subs so they will pay you fairly well for the sub items.

Otherwise go the bag route as listed above.

Personally if I were to PL a toon I would buy all the refines and then make subs like crazy. Subs end up yeilding more exp it seems than finish combines.

I did about 2500 refines/subs to get from level 39 to 45 to get to the bags without a single finish combine as there were no sages at level 40 to make patterns at the time.... I was disappointed in hte exp gains from finish combines as opposed to sub combines.

[Valendur]

I made a little of everything in order to get the discovery xp. Especially working the low levels, this is a very good way of working. Once you get past level 10, be sure to get all your apothecary, timbercraft, geomancy and weaving (yes, weaving for a tailor, more on that in a minute) books. Make each combine at least once to pristine. That includes reagent, dye, ink, boards, turned, planed, paper, metal bars, *everything*. The discovery xp is incredible. Remember that even though weaving may duplicate lots of tailor recipes, that's moer discovery xp, as well as patterns. Making patterns is necessary to get all the tailor discovery xp.

Once you run out of new things to make, be sure you grind in each of the refining arts at least enough to keep your skill up so that you can make your necessary sub-combines, as well as being prepared to make the next tier of discovery xp when you reach it.

Past the discovery xp, I'd suggest refining whatever is cheap and selling it to the wholesaler. Or writs. Doing writs is nice because it makes you get a good feel for how much time it takes to do a commission job. As you level up, you'll get a good feel for what items to try to keep in stock for writs, which will be the same things you need for commissions.

[Rontero]

I grind on new recipes. Keep your secondary skills maxed, such as geomancy, apothecary, timbercraft and weaving.

I spend the 0-10 levels grinding on food. Lots of new recipes so lots of discovery exp.

10-20 grind on all new armors and weapons.

I am lvl 28 now and I did the same thing, grinded for discovery exp. Once I hit 25, I had all recipes except bargainers so I make lots of bags and do writs.

BTW, I have only one T3 item so far that I cannot seem to sell for a profit. Canvas slippers. The rest I have been able to sell in my vault for at least a 10s profit usually I get 25 to 33s for armor and 75s for backpacks.

[Durgrok]

Bearing in mind that I invested early in very large boxes and utilized them, my system to 50 (worked pretty well) was this:

Level 0 of that tier (20,30,40) : Grind stretches and yarns
Levels 1-2 (21,31,22,32,etc) : Grind cords, harnesses, padding
Levels 3-4: Grind plates and swatches

This setup is done deliberately. If you do your stretches and yarns early, you can split your non-pristines from your pristines, for later grinding into padding/cords/harnesses, where quality doesn't matter. Your quality DOES matter on plates and swatches, and so I grind those on the last levels of pre-"major item" in the tier, to prevent significant "real" quality drops when possible.

Level 5-6: Backpacks
Level 7-8: Backtrack and do all the armor recipes for their discovery bonuses, also hitting the cross-class discovery bonuses as well. (See below.)
Level 9: Usually by this point I've got a pretty solid idea what the market is for certain items and I'll go after that, but here I'll dabble in writs and so on as well.

The ninth level is the only one that doesn't tend to pass swiftly for me - the first four are all preparation grinds and the backpack levels pass fast as a result of the higher experience for the backpacks as compared to refines and interims. Level seven is often my "armor recipes: common" level, and I'll do "armor recipes: rare" in the level eight, causing both those levels to slip by pretty quickly... especially when you bear in mind you're doing "Cross-class" recipes to make your patterns that level as well. People often forget there's a huge wealth of recipes in the cross-class skills that you can get "first time pristine" bonuses for, just like your main class. You can usually get ALL of your level 7 just going through what's available in Geo, Timber, Weaving, and Apothecary.

Hope that helps.

[Prrasha]

Actually, with the new imbue recipes, x9 is almost as fast as x0; you get 22 new recipes at level x9 (5 normal hex dolls, 5 rare hex dolls, 2 normal leather armor, 2 rare leather armor, 4 normal cloth armor, 4 rare cloth armor) that you didn't get before the imbues went in. At 29th, discovery + vitality gave me around 5% per new recipe, so I'm halfway into 30th and haven't touched a T4 item yet.

I do agree with using the cross-class books for the discovery bonus... you can even get it twice for the recipes you already have (Weaving thread is different than Tailoring thread, apparently).

[Durgrok]

Heh, nice. I forgot about those - they didn't have them back when I ground my way up, back in the day. ;)

[Gedwin]

Keep in mind while doing writs is good for getting a little coin and status for your effort, you don't get as much xp for making the shaped item as you do for making the pristine item. If that doesn't bother you though then the payoff is better than selling back to the vendor (but not much better... doing a T4 writ I think I made a profit of 80s or so).