| So you want to be rich
Your friends tell you they make fistfuls of plat. You see people buying seals from Darkness Falls and wonder what they do with them. You see fancy houses and armor and wonder how these people can pay for it all. eBay? Maybe... but maybe they have a trinketer! The easy way to turn time into money-- but how can you cash in? Don't worry, I'll tell you!
How does it work?
The principle is basic, but not overtly obvious. It requires the following steps:
- Level a tradeskill up into the 800's, including the secondary skills (more on this later).
- Obtain dropped armor and weapons. (Darkness Falls seals work by buying or farming seals, then buying weapons with the seals)
- Salvage the items, turning them into metal, wood, cloth, and leather.
- Craft trinkets from the raw materials.
- Sell the trinkets to a merchant for gold.
Riches and Glory!
Leveling a Tradeskill
Leveling a primary tradeskill up (Tailoring, Armorcrafting, Weaponcrafting, Fletching) naturally levels up secondary tradeskills along with it. Salvaging and trinketing depend on these secondary tradeskills, which are Metalworking, Clothworking, Leatherworking, and Woodworking. Since your secondary skills can never go higher than your primary tradeskill, you must level a primary tradeskill to get anywhere.
Which primary tradeskill you choose is up to you, but I am going to recommend the cheapest route here: Tailoring. It is much, much cheaper than any of the other tradeskills. You cannot be a Spellcrafter or Alchemist to trinket. Fletching and Weaponcrafting are extremely expensive, and Armorcrafting is about five times more expensive than Tailoring.
There is a catch to tailoring, however-- you do not naturally raise Metalworking or Woodworking as you level up. These two secondaries you must do separately. It's not as bad as it sounds, however-- it can be done quickly and easily, using a trick of the trade. As a tailor, you also have access to weaponcrafting, Armorcrafting, and Fletching-- you just can't level them as high as you can Tailoring. But you can get a couple hundred points in each (once your Tailoring is high enough), and as you do, your secondary skills will increase no matter where they are in relation to the skill you're working on.
For example, if your Tailoring is at 600, your Weaponcrafting at 1, and your Metalworking at 400, you can gain weaponcrafting points from 1 to 200, which will also push your metalworking from 400 to 600 (approximately), quickly and easily.
For other tips on leveling up tailoring, read my tailoring guide.
Establish a Plan
The most important thing to do is plan ahead-- lay out your trinketer before you start, and stick with that plan. But-- how high do you really need to go to be able to salvage and trinket everything? The answer isn't set in stone, and depends on how complete you want your trinketer to be. Here are a few scenarios:
Scenario 1: You are so poor your friends point and laugh, but you don't have a lot of patience for crafting. You want to do the bare minimum to make a buck. You also crave the ability to salvage lower level staves and bows.
I recommend you become an emerald seal trinketer. You won't get rich, but you'll be able to buy and/or farm emerald seals, and make 1.5g per seal by salvaging and trinketing. Here's what your plan looks like:
| Step |
Result |
| 1. Level tailoring up to 650 (600 bare minimum) |
Tailoring 650
Clothworking 650
Leatherworking 650 |
| 2. Level Metalworking up to 250 using metal trinkets (bracket, hinge, jewelry box, lantern) |
Metalworking 250 |
| 3. Level Woodworking up to 250 using wood trinkets (breadboard, curio box, whistle, toy sword) |
Woodworking 250 |
| 4. Level Fletching to 300 (lower arrows don't give MW) |
Metalworking 450
Woodworking 450 |
| 5. Level weaponcrafting up to 200 (be sure to make weapons that include wood and metal in the recipe) |
Metalworking 650
Woodworking 650 |
At this point, with 650 Metalworking, you can salvage and trinket adamantium-based weapons and armor from Darkness Falls, though adamantium hinges con yellow, so it is slow going. To turn the hinges gray and double your trinket speed, take tailoring and metalworking to 700.
In regards to seal use, I recommend purchasing the weapon that sells for 20 emerald seals-- it gives the best return (all three realms). At this point, you can also salvage and trinket drops; weapons with DPS of 12 and lower, and armor with AF of 68 and lower.
Estimated cost: 300 gold
Estimated time: 20 hours |
Scenario 2: You have some aspirations of becoming a trinketing tycoon, but you know you're going to get really sick of wasting so much time crafting, so you don't want to shoot for the moon.
I recommend getting to the top seal level-- the ability to trinket any seal from Darkness Falls, which is the level of asterite metal. Your plan looks something like this:
Step |
Result |
| 1. Level tailoring up to 750 (700 bare minimum) |
Tailoring 750
Clothworking 750
Leatherworking 750 |
| 2. Level Metalworking up to 250 using metal trinkets (bracket, hinge, jewelry box, lantern) |
Metalworking 250 |
| 3. Level Woodworking up to 250 using wood trinkets (breadboard, curio box, whistle, toy sword) |
Woodworking 250 |
| 4. Level Fletching to 350 (lower arrows don't give MW) |
Metalworking 500
Woodworking 500 |
| 5. Level Weaponcrafting up to 250 (be sure to make weapons that include wood and metal in the recipe) |
Metalworking 750
Woodworking 750 |
With this level of Metalworking, you can knock out anything Darkness Falls has to offer. Asterite hinges con yellow, so you will ultimately be better off taking Tailoring and Metalworking to 800 to double your trinket speed.
To get the best rate of return in regards to seal use, buy the sword that sells for 21 sapphire seals, and the sword that sells for 15 or 18 diamond seals. You can also salvage and trinket drops; weapons with DPS of 13.5 and lower, and armor with AF of 78 and lower.
Estimated cost: 800 gold
Estimated time: 35 hours |
Scenario 3: You want everything! You've spent so much time in Avalon City, your vault is overflowing with high level ROG drops and you want to turn it all into shiny plat.
Your plan looks like this:
| Step |
Result |
| 1. Level tailoring up to 950 (900 bare minimum) |
Tailoring 950
Clothworking 950
Leatherworking 950 |
| 2. Level Metalworking up to 300 using metal trinkets (bracket, hinge, jewelry box, lantern) |
Metalworking 300 |
| 3. Level Woodworking up to 400 using wood trinkets (breadboard, curio box, whistle, toy sword) |
Woodworking 400 |
| 4. Level Fletching to 350 (lower arrows don't give MW) |
Metalworking 550
Woodworking 650 |
| 5. Level Weaponcrafting up to 300 (be sure to make weapons that include wood and metal in the recipe) |
Metalworking 850
Woodworking 950 |
| 5. Level Armorcrafting up to 100 (Hibernians do scale) |
Metalworking 950
|
You will be able to salvage and trinket everything you run into at this point. Arcanium hinges con yellow, so you will ultimately be better off taking Tailoring and Metalworking to 1000 to double your trinket speed.
Estimated cost: 2000 gold
Estimated time: 100 hours |
There are a dozen other ways you can decide how to best develop the trinketer of your dreams. These scenarios should give you a pretty good start. Your experience gaining secondary skills will vary slightly, of course, but these plans are close to reality.
Some Things to Note:
The level at which you are able to salvage is typically about 100 points lower than the level at which you can trinket. For example, you could actually start salvaging emerald seal-bought weapons (which produce adamantium) with a metalworking skill of around 500, and receive the full salvage amount of metal. But since you can't do anything with that metal until you approach 600, my plans above don't account for this.
You can skip the woodworking aspects of the plans above, but keep in mind the best time to use trinkets to level a secondary skill is when it's at level 1. You don't want to level up woodworking to 400 using weaponcrafting or fletching before realizing it would have been better to use trinkets on the first 300 points, and use weaponcrafting and/or fletching to boost woodworking to 700.
Choosing Weaponcrafting or Fletching as a primary skill may seem like a better option, since both of those naturally raise metalworking and woodworking as you skill up, but trust me-- it will cost you a LOT more gold. On the order of 15 times more gold. And they are both much more painful to level up than tailoring, especially if you use the secret tailoring skill up strategy!
Good luck! For more guidance, please check out the VN Boards, and post your question there. If you don't get an answer that way, feel free to send me feedback. |
