Lower Level Crafting - A Few Suggestions

[Dreyco]

Hello!Another feedback thread.  Isn't is joyous?I wanted to offer some feedback based on my experiances going through the lower level rungs of crafting again on one of my alts.  As a veteren crafter on my main character (Coming through Tier 7!) these are issues I never have at higher levels.  Yet I could see them as being very aggravating for a new crafter just getting started with their Tradeskilling <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" /><ol><li>Skill Ups Don't seem to Happen very Frequently</li><ol><li>While powering through weapons, I ensure that I use a good combination of both durability and progress abilities.  There really isn't a time that I am NOt pushing a button at any given moment.  Yet skill-ups seem rare.  There was one point in time, JUST making weapons, that I was a whole 20 points behind, despite me using this variety of skills for skill-ups.</li></ol><li>Pristine? Difficult.  Sometimes Impossible.</li><ol><li>Domino has more than once talked about how crafting requires the use of abilities to succeed at getting a pristine.  And, oftentimes, if you don't "Fight the Random Number Generator", you will find yourself getting a mediocre quality item.  However, during levels 10-20 (sometimes even just after that, low 20's for instance), there are times that no matter how hard you fight it, no matter how much durability you spam to try to get that bar back up, the RNG throws you a series of failures to counteract it, and leaves you with a shaped quality item.</li></ol></ol>With that, here are a few suggestions!<ol><li>Increase the rate of Skill-Ups happening at the lower levels.</li><ol><li>Give these guys a hand! Let their crafting skill stay on level with their tradeskill level.</li></ol><li>Greater Chance of Success for Skill Points at the Lower Levels</li><ol><li>"Fighting the RNG" can be frustrating, especially for a new player still learning how crafting works, now that the tutorial isn't holding their hands.  Give the earlier tiers a little boost in success chance so they're not pulling their hair out, or wondering what they might be doing wrong.</li></ol></ol>These are just two things that I noticed while going up through the crafting rungs on my new characters.  While i'm rather used to it, after going through this process many times, I could see this as being very frustrating for a new crafter, or a new player.

[malletta74]

I posted about Item 2 and got told i was crazy and not doing it right.Sorta proves Im not crazy after all.. or we both dont know how to craft <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Calthine]

If you're not getting skillups regularly you I'll practically guarantee aren't using your newer, white-con arts.  Check your Knowledge Book:  you get new arts every Tier.  You can get skillups using arts that have gone grey, but they are few and far between.We've discussed this a couple of times recently; part of the issue is that tradeskill XP goes really fast now, lol.  Try:<b><a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=381607" target="_blank"> Possible issue with Sage skill up rate.</a>  </b>In that thread I gave specific instructions for catching your skill up when it's fallen behind.  If your skill has fallen well below it's cap, yeah, Pristine becomes almost impossible.  Get your skill caught up and see if that helps.  If not, try one of these guides on successfully applying your Arts.:<span class="postbody"><b><a rel="nofollow" href="http://eq2.allakhazam.com/db/guides.html?guide=909" target="_blank">Understanding the Arts</a></b> - <i>How to Successfully Apply the Tradeskill Arts </i><b><a rel="nofollow" href="http://eq2.allakhazam.com/db/guides.html?guide=928" target="_blank">Power to the Pristine - It's all about the buttons</a></b> <b><a rel="nofollow" href="http://eq2flames.com/showthread.php?t=3671" target="_blank">Pristine - how to get it (almost) every time</a></b></span>

[Rijacki]

Until 30 or even 40, it is quite possible for your skill to fall behind your level even using nothing but white arts because the rate of leveling is so much faster now than it was before.  I've seen it myself, too, on my arasai coercer/tailor and my other below 40 crafters.  Unless you spend time doing -grey- combines, your skill -will- fall behind (even using nothing but white arts).  Since Calthine is advocated doing runs of grey combines, it does work as a solution.  It doesn't help, though, if you want to advance your level -and- advance your skill.  Doing grey combines works, too, because it slows your rate of leveling to match your rate of skill increases.It begins to even out in the 30s and 40s because the amount of time to gain a level (without slowing it with greys) increases enough to cover the amount of time needed to gain skill.As a challenge, Calthine, if you have any slots left, level up a crafter with -zero- grey combines (and minimal green combines) and see what your rate of skill increase is vs your leveling.  It -is- a problem. Telling new crafters they need to do grey combines (slow down their leveling) in order to gain enough skill to be able to make stuff isn't really a good solution, especially with the no item except on pristine coming soon.

[Calthine]

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>As a challenge, Calthine, if you have any slots left, level up a crafter with -zero- grey combines (and minimal green combines) and see what your rate of skill increase is vs your leveling.  </blockquote>Level up to 20 using nothing but white-or-better recipes and see where my skill's at?  Sure, I can spend a slot on that.  It'll be interesting to see, 'cause I've never had a problem with it.  I think part of the issue is new crafters not learning to apply their Arts pro actively from the get go.  I'll grab some raws from Kiana tonight and see what we can see; level 20 should only take me a couple of hours.I came back to the thread to comment that Pristine at the low levels, specifically lvl 2-9, will get easier after the TS Arts revamp that's supposed to hit with Rise of Kunark in November.  Because Not only will our Arts upgrade (we'll only ever have six at any given time) but we'll have both progress and durability Arts from the get go.

[Dreyco]

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>Until 30 or even 40, it is quite possible for your skill to fall behind your level even using nothing but white arts because the rate of leveling is so much faster now than it was before.  I've seen it myself, too, on my arasai coercer/tailor and my other below 40 crafters.  Unless you spend time doing -grey- combines, your skill -will- fall behind (even using nothing but white arts).  Since Calthine is advocated doing runs of grey combines, it does work as a solution.  It doesn't help, though, if you want to advance your level -and- advance your skill.  Doing grey combines works, too, because it slows your rate of leveling to match your rate of skill increases.It begins to even out in the 30s and 40s because the amount of time to gain a level (without slowing it with greys) increases enough to cover the amount of time needed to gain skill.As a challenge, Calthine, if you have any slots left, level up a crafter with -zero- grey combines (and minimal green combines) and see what your rate of skill increase is vs your leveling.  It -is- a problem. <b>Telling new crafters they need to do grey combines (slow down their leveling) in order to gain enough skill to be able to make stuff isn't really a good solution, especially with the no item except on pristine coming soon.</b></blockquote>That's the point I was trying to make <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />A lot of folks are veteren crafters, and have been doing it for a good, long while.  So we know how to compensate.  I was speaking in more regard to NEW crafters, who would probably find those two items to be very, very frustrating to approach <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Rijacki]

<cite>Calthine wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>As a challenge, Calthine, if you have any slots left, level up a crafter with -zero- grey combines (and minimal green combines) and see what your rate of skill increase is vs your leveling.  </blockquote>Level up to 20 using nothing but white-or-better recipes and see where my skill's at?  Sure, I can spend a slot on that.  It'll be interesting to see, 'cause I've never had a problem with it.  I think part of the issue is new crafters not learning to apply their Arts pro actively from the get go.  I'll grab some raws from Kiana tonight and see what we can see; level 20 should only take me a couple of hours.I came back to the thread to comment that Pristine at the low levels, specifically lvl 2-9, will get easier after the TS Arts revamp that's supposed to hit with Rise of Kunark in November.  Because Not only will our Arts upgrade (we'll only ever have six at any given time) but we'll have both progress and durability Arts from the get go.</blockquote>I think you know I've been around quite a while and have also given advice on how to proactively use arts.  Please don't assume it's because new crafters not learning how to apply... because I have seen it myself especially more recently.  Rjack on Guk is my newest character (my arasai coercer) and her skill fell -way- behind her level and is still behind even though she is a bit into her 30s.  It's started to even out, though, as I said in my earlier post.  The reason I still have a high pristine rate, though, is because I -do- know how to use my arts proactively even with a horridly low skill vs level of recipe.  There was a change a few months ago, one which was unannounced, that affects the rate at which one gains skill while doing something.  The non-tradeskill related things that are affected are safe-fall and swimming.  When the frequency of skill ups on those dwindled to nearly none (evidenced by a rise in the number of posts grumbling about them), there was a corosponding rise in the number of posts on the tradeskill forum by new -and- old crafters (Dreyco's been in the game from release or shortly after and has leveled up several crafters in the past.  The new incarnation of Dreyco hasn't been around as long as the player, though). I really truly think they're related and there has been some totally unannounced (and entirely unacknowledged) change to the frequency of skill ups for most things.  BTW, in combat related skills, my arasai coercer was also behind on many of them, even the ones she -always- uses, until she hit her 30s.  Since I solo with her most of the time, it would be hard to say I wasn't using my skills.  The widest gap between skill and level was through the teens.

[pointytail]

But we already know why skills do not catch up to the cap until the 30s if someone is just using recipes that give XP. It's not due to not proactively using their arts but more to do to the rate at which why level up. How fast they level up far outstrips the rate of the skill ups that can be currently achieved until the 30s. Those of us that have been through the system several times already know how to get the pristines consistently once we get to T2. But that might soon be a problem in the past once the revamped Arts come out.This leads me to think that while changing the skill up rate might be a good idea for the newcomers, the newcomers might also be not getting the high amount of pristines veterans get and will be redoing recipes to get that pristine result and a few more skill ups along the way. The only other thing that I can think of to get a bit more parallel rate between the rate of leveling and the rate of skill ups is to slow the XP rate of the really early levels (2 through 19).  Currently, the amount of XP needed to level for those first levels is very little and how fast you gains levels is through the roof. It begins to level out in the 20s and finally starts feeling like a grind in the 30s. There's also an inverse relations with the number of recipes as we get hundreds of recipes in the first 8 levels, less so in 10 through 19 and then starting on the recipe track of their class.Now, I probably had a point in there somewhere but I lost my train of thought as I typed it all out. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/499fd50bc713bfcdf2ab5a23c00c2d62.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Ciarr]

<p>you can level on whites just fine, I have just done that for my 2 new alts, one is 38 the other is 22, all you need to do is to sneak in level 20 buffs here and there while going 10-30...  easy as a pie... both have skills within 5 from max, I made a few not whites here and there because I needed them for these alts, but it is not something a new crafter wouldn't do</p><p>pristine in 2-9 are difficult, but honestly.. who cares? you make a few items and you are 10... of course if you make items from your future tradeskill class it helps with  skill</p>

[Calthine]

Okay, there seems to be some confusion here.Skillups have nothing, repeat, <i>nothing</i> to do with the con or level of the recipe.  On my "Tried and True Method for Catching Your Skill Up to Your Cap" I only recommend T1 coffee because it's cheap, and if your skill has slipped way below your cap you don't want to run the risk of throwing money down the drain if you fail a combine and lose fuel.  That's all.You can do the same method using any con recipe you want.  But if you always incorporate white-con Arts into your routine your skill will keep up.You do not have to do grey recipes to keep your skill up.Rijacki:  My Outfitter just dinged, going tailor.  Her tailoring is 76/81 (because she just dinged).  She did Seeking a Profession for T1, doing tailoring recipes when she needed an extra combine to ding.  She's done no grey combines, and since dinging 10 has only done white-con recipes.

[Dreyco]

Keeping going Calthine.  I didn't run into any of the problems above until I hit level 10-20, and beginning 20's.  That's where the challenge started!I did do a few more attempts with rush orders.On a 60 Jeweler... I use a tried and true formula that yields 100% success (generally) on rush orders (and I have a friend to thank for the advice!).  I never have problems getting pristine every time, and have minutes to spare on completion.On my 22 weaponsmith, out of six crafted weapons, he was yielding an average of three forged quality, three pristine (Using tinkered items, and the tradeskill tunic).  Out of five rush orders, one was completed successfully, four were failed.  Out of 30 weapons crafted, 18 were pristine, 12 were forged.This is horrible, as Work Orders are the only real way that Outfitters get to really boost their tradeskill level with the few recipes, and the lack of bonuses!

[Calthine]

You could try Work Orders instead of Rush Orders - they give XP and don't have a timer.Just for giggles at 19 I'll pick the class with the LOWEST skill.  Betcha I can keep it up, no problem.

[Dreyco]

Well, here's an example of the SKILL argument.My sage, whom I just popped onto, is level 24.  The only recipes he did were related to Spell Scribing <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />He is currently, at level 24, at 95/120, a full five levels behind.  And his durability does suffer trying to scribe con white spells.

[Calthine]

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well, here's an example of the SKILL argument.My sage, whom I just popped onto, is level 24.  The only recipes he did were related to Spell Scribing <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />" />He is currently, at level 24, at 95/120, a full five levels behind.  And his durability does suffer trying to scribe con white spells.</blockquote>And...  did you pick up your new Arts at level 20, and if so, are you incorporating them into your crafting routine?  PS - it'll be interesting to see how my test crafter works out <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Dreyco]

<cite>Calthine wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well, here's an example of the SKILL argument.My sage, whom I just popped onto, is level 24.  The only recipes he did were related to Spell Scribing <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />" />He is currently, at level 24, at 95/120, a full five levels behind.  And his durability does suffer trying to scribe con white spells.</blockquote>And...  did you pick up your new Arts at level 20, and if so, are you incorporating them into your crafting routine?  </blockquote>Yep! Jehiro is using the most recent crafting arts offered <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Tokam]

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote><ol><li>Skill Ups Don't seem to Happen very Frequently</li><ol><li>While powering through weapons, I ensure that I use a good combination of both durability and progress abilities.  There really isn't a time that I am NOt pushing a button at any given moment.  Yet skill-ups seem rare.  There was one point in time, JUST making weapons, that I was a whole 20 points behind, despite me using this variety of skills for skill-ups.</li></ol><li>Pristine? Difficult.  Sometimes Impossible.</li><ol><li>Domino has more than once talked about how crafting requires the use of abilities to succeed at getting a pristine.  And, oftentimes, if you don't "Fight the Random Number Generator", you will find yourself getting a mediocre quality item.  However, during levels 10-20 (sometimes even just after that, low 20's for instance), there are times that no matter how hard you fight it, no matter how much durability you spam to try to get that bar back up, the RNG throws you a series of failures to counteract it, and leaves you with a shaped quality item.</li></ol></ol></blockquote><p>There are 2 basic problems that you face leveling in the high teens / 20s</p><p>a) Your durability buffs are the lvl 10 ones and they do absolutley [Removed for Content] all. Really just almost pointless and you have to use them all the way till level 30 <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I tend to be a bit more aggressive with my spam, to try and get the combine done before I have to buff some durability.</p><p>b) Sages and the like level quickly in the lower levels (mucho disco xp) and its quite easy to outstrip your skill. Iirc you should catch up at around 26 or so. Like others have said just make sure you are spaming white arts and not the grey ones.</p>

[Calthine]

Durability on my Sage sucks, but she never had a problem keeping her skill up.  I'd be double checking to be sure you have the lvl 20 Arts in use, seriously.Dang it, missed a Pristine....

[Tokam]

<cite>Calthine wrote:</cite><blockquote>Dang it, missed a Pristine....</blockquote>Oh noes! Nauty Calthine... But then I did just make my house so laggy the altar is unusable.

[Calthine]

That's pretty laggy <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />My Outfitter's about to ding 19...

[Calthine]

Okay, this is where I finally got Baby to fall asleep, lol.Thus far, I stand by my assertation that keeping your skill at or near it's cap is a matter of using your Arts correctly.  I say this while agreeing that the learning curve is way too steep there and hoping that the TS Arts revamp and the ideas we gave Domino for a Crafting Tutorial remove this issue by the end of the year....Level 10.  I was shooting for Tailor.  I did Seeking a Profession, and when I needed an extra combine to level I did a tailoring combine.  <img src="http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a230/calthine/FifthStar-lvl-10.jpg" alt="" border="0" />Level 19.  All white combines since I dinged.  I didn't do any imbues (except Hex Dolls).  When I got all my Tailoring discovery I'd go work WS or Armorer recipes until I dinged.<img src="http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a230/calthine/FifthStar-lvl-19.jpg" alt="" border="0" />One point shy of my cap.  No problems with skill there.  BTW, those T1 Arts didn't go grey until after level 16 sometime.

[Tokam]

A power pool of 17 is the winningest <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Ciarr]

<cite>Calthine wrote:</cite><blockquote>Okay, there seems to be some confusion here.Skillups have nothing, repeat, <i>nothing</i> to do with the con or level of the recipe.  On my "Tried and True Method for Catching Your Skill Up to Your Cap" I only recommend T1 coffee because it's cheap, and if your skill has slipped way below your cap you don't want to run the risk of throwing money down the drain if you fail a combine and lose fuel.  That's all.</blockquote><p>to be precise: con of the recipe influences the skillup process indirectly, the higher con you make the less item you need to level which in turn reduces your chances for skill ups so it is not 'nothing' <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>but yes.. skillups comes from using your arts and the con of art is what matters</p>

[Oe]

<p>I know I don't post a lot but I've been around a while and have 4 level 70 crafters, I've just started doing a Sage now and got him to level 30. I've had no problems making pristine along the way (in fact since 1-10 I don't think I've failed to make a pristine) nor have I had problems keeping my skills up to max.</p><p>All I've done is work on the make one of everything idea, I think I'm still making level 22 spells, perhaps the OP and those having problems are hitting a new level and making there items from that level for more xp and leaving the lower level items.</p>

[Barq Bandit]

<p><span style="font-size: small;font-family: comic sans ms,sand;">I have five lvl 70 crafters on under my belt, and I can't recall a single instance where my skill trailed well below my skill cap.  My skill was almost always capped, until those couple of combines just after I dinged each level, and that never lasted very long at all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;font-family: Comic Sans MS;">I haven't tried Jeweler, Armorer, or Weaponsmith, but all the others I had no issues with beyond the usual challenge.  The only way I fail to get a pristine is if I'm chatting and goof it from not paying attention.  There've been other times where I ran out of power because my drink and totem expired or I accidently left my armor and weapons on and I hadn't noticed.  Only during those times have I faced extreme difficultly in getting pristine.</span></p>

[Jesdyr]

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote><ol><li>Skill Ups Don't seem to Happen very Frequently</li><li>Pristine? Difficult.  Sometimes Impossible.</li></ol></blockquote>Well .. if your skills are that far behind then, pristine will be a total pain. But yah sometimes the RNG really hates you. Lastnight while doing a rush order I had one combine with 8 failures in a row, followed by 2 rounds of success then 2 rounds of failures another success and then another failure. After that I was able to finish that combine. The next combine had 6 failures and the last had 5. It is normal for 1-2 failures but this was insane. I still was able to finish the writ with about 1 min left but wow the game was hating me.My biggest problem is that rush orders are a total pain until lvl 30. This should get changed with RoK (not sure I am really looking forward to it). We shall see.

[Calthine]

<cite>Oeho wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I know I don't post a lot but I've been around a while and have 4 level 70 crafters, I've just started doing a Sage now and got him to level 30. I've had no problems making pristine along the way (in fact since 1-10 I don't think I've failed to make a pristine) nor have I had problems keeping my skills up to max.</p></blockquote>I have the same experience.  Lots of folks have had problems keeping their skill at or near their cap recently. Rijacki and some folks think there's a flaw in the skillup system that didn't become apparent until TS XP went lickity split; I and some other folks think the problem lies in learning to use one's arts.  Hence Rijacki's challenge to me and why I'm leveling up *another* crafter, lol.What class should I take her?  I'll warn you, this challenge ends when it costs me 3 stacks of T7 fuel!  (She's about 1/3 through the first stack.)

[Calthine]

Took the night off from my Outfitter 'cause 19 levels right off the Isle = no vitality + tendonitis. 

[Tokam]

slacker!

[Calthine]

<cite>Tokamak wrote:</cite><blockquote>slacker!</blockquote>/me mutters something unfriendly and goes to refill her coffee.

[Lightfoot]

<p>I always remember the first time I started crafting, didn't realise you had any buttons to push.  I just started the recipe off and stood there wondering why I kept getting zapped, thought there was some invisible beasty there.</p><p>Now I'm running 9 crafters (one of each) and never miss a prestine.  My skill ups are always maxed before I ding the next lvl.  </p><p>My method is:   I do 3 full runs on the durabilty buttons then switch to the progress buttons catching as many of the negative effects as I can.  If the durability bar goes below 50% I switch back to the durabilty skills til it starts rising again, then back to the progress skills. If my power stats to run low I just use the non power skills.</p>

[Calthine]

My tailor is just about 25 and her skill is at her cap.  When did folks say they started having problems? Oh, and the last time I made a gree recipe was during Seeking a Profession.  I've made no grey recipes.  I haven't had to "grind" my skill at all.BTW, Tailor is cake compared to WW. Everytime I scribe a book I'm tickled at how many recipes I get!  Oh, and I'm selling T3 common stuff nicely.

[Rijacki]

<cite>Calthine wrote:</cite><blockquote>My tailor is just about 25 and her skill is at her cap.  When did folks say they started having problems? Oh, and the last time I made a gree recipe was during Seeking a Profession.  I've made no grey recipes.  I haven't had to "grind" my skill at all.BTW, Tailor is cake compared to WW. Everytime I scribe a book I'm tickled at how many recipes I get!  Oh, and I'm selling T3 common stuff nicely.</blockquote>Other than when you run out of first-time combines, how many recipes have you had to repeat because you didn't get pristine?I will readily admit I wasn't using my "white" arts every single recipe all the time because I wanted pristines.  Then again, there are times the RNG absolutely hates me (and other times it's my buddy).Oh.. and I noticed an increase in T2-T3 item sales after the appearance slots went in.  I haven't had time to craft to refill my box and everything that had been sitting there for weeks before the GU is now sold, gone. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Previous to the GU, I'd make a few sales of the T1 to T3 stuff but most of it was just sitting there (especially the fluff stuff was sadly just sitting there).So... it is a good time to be a tailor or armorsmith.

[Calthine]

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>Other than when you run out of first-time combines, how many recipes have you had to repeat because you didn't get pristine?</blockquote>Almost none.  Let's see.  Three, I think, and one of those was the baby's fault <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" />  I've only had to do about a half-dozen combines level 2-15 to catch my level too, and I did the first 19 levels without any vitality (except what you get every hour).  <cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><span class="postbody">I will readily admit I wasn't using my "white" arts every single recipe all the time because I wanted pristines.</span></blockquote>And that's why you weren't getting skillups.  I'm using at least one white-con Art every other round (every round until the last Tier's Arts grey out about 2/3 through tier).  It doesn't take a lot to get those skillups.It's not leveling speed that's the problem, it's how you're using your arts!Anyway, my tailor ran out of roots yesterday (gee, surprise, surprise!)  But she still has 23g of the seed money she swiped from Kiana, so I'll keep here alittle while longer.