Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Fisherman, Cook, Alchemist, Ronin...

Well... I'm not exactly a disenfranchised Samurai, but a Warrior wandering the realm with a fishing pole in one hand and an axe in the other is close enough in my book.

I'll try to make this update quick, since I haven't had much time to blog lately, and still don't. I took the Fish Broth recipe to the cap (37) and started in on the Pie Dough recipe, which required more frickin' flour (I give up). But I bit the bullet and took that recipe through level 41, 1 level away from cap; I can't stand that last level in a synth range and usually switch to a harder recipe when I hit this point. Synthing the Meat Kabob for the test was nothing compared to the Veggie Gruel. I could see this being an attractive money-maker for level 90 somethings who take the time to farm the meat. The Pie Dough sold very quickly and for good profit, so I might look at this recipe again if I need a little variety in my wares. I took the Tomato Juice recipe to level 42 and change, and got tired of the useless, non-stackable product, so I moved on to Pickled Herring.

This was a great excuse to go fishing again, so I eventually headed out to the Qufim ice lake (after getting sidetracked for an evening helping an LS-mate with their Khazam keys) and camped there for awhile, using a Shrimp Lure and Halcyon Rod. It was fun playing night-cop and killing the mobs for crab/worm parties in trouble... I remember what a pain it was to be out there at nightfall with Banshee agro.

Once I skilled fishing to level 18 and took the Herring recipe to 44, I decided it was time to try fishing up Nebimonites for fun & profit. So I hopped on the ferry with some Crayfish Balls and fished away the hours, but stopped after awhile since it was becoming obviously inefficient. Targetting a single fish (Nebs are the only small non-mob fish that bite Crayfish on the ferry), and the wait time between ferry journeys added up to quite a bit of idle time, and not a lot of Nebs to show for it. So de-boarded the ship, synthed up about 8 stacks of ink out of my 2.5 stacks of Nebs and sent them out to the mules for a little profit (about 15-17k per stack), and decided to head out to Sea Serpent Grotto to target more Nebs, check out the area and use the Grotto Key I'd been hanging onto for who knows how long.

Traveling to that gray bubbling lake surrounded by Sahagin and Grimmonite fishers was fun, and the Nebimonite return was indeed faster during the good moon phases, but plummeted to frustrating levels during 50%-ish phases which gave me a lot of item-bites or 'You didn't catch anything' messages. I started to realize that this is a better place to target multiple fish if you have the necessary skill and a Lu Shang, since I was releasing quite a few 'bad feeling' and 'terrible feeling' catches that I knew were either Bream or Grimmonite. To pass the time during the bad moon phase I muled in a Silver Beastcoin and went hunting for the Treasure Chest, which was pretty easy to find, although this NM freaked me out a little (because I had no idea what level he was). So I now finally have a map of the Sea Serpent Grotto, and a free slot in my MH.

My character is sitting in Jeuno now with about 10 more stacks of ink ready for distribution. I think I'll hang onto these and wait for a dry spell in Jeuno, and synth some other revenue items such as Poison Potion, Sleeping Potion, and Firesand and build a good supply of these to sell at the right time. I need to focus on overstocking mules with a variety of products, which will enable me to sell quickly when the demand goes up on a given item. Since I haven't been focusing on making money, my sum is still only at 1.4 million, so I need to hunker down and get that last 600-700k for the Amemet Mantle+1.

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