04-09-2004, 05:24 PM
A lot of people seem to be into the trading game. They might pick a trade skill like skinning, gather up 100 light leathers, sell them to the highest bidder in Stormwind for a ridiculous amount of cash, and then use that cash to by a great item from a blacksmith player (who got the materials he needs by trading in a similar way). If they find something they can't use but they know it is a rare ingredient to make something good, they will save it to sell to other players as well. I think this results in players churning the best items possible via the tradeskills out at a much faster rate than items of that calibre can be found or bought through normal play.
Although I put a lot of time into my characters' trade skills, I am not a big fan of making major trades with other players (an old habit from Diablo with all of the duping, I guess). The best weapons my level 14 warrior has gotten are in the range of 20-30 or 25-40 damage, depending on attack speed. These weapons came from the warrior specific quests, and the Lost Pilot quest sequence. I assumed that more difficult quests would continue to yield better weapons, but it seems this has not been the case for you. My warrior is also a miner/blacksmith, and in spite of not trading for ingredients he is already capable of making a weapon slightly better than the one he uses (IIRC the weapon he could make is a 25-39 damage axe with attack speed of 2.20). The only thing he is missing is 2 bars of silver, which he is capable of mining and smelting. The only problem is that I have not seen a silver vein anywhere in the game.
And yes, sometimes a random monster will drop a great item too. That is certainly not something you can depend on, though.
Although I put a lot of time into my characters' trade skills, I am not a big fan of making major trades with other players (an old habit from Diablo with all of the duping, I guess). The best weapons my level 14 warrior has gotten are in the range of 20-30 or 25-40 damage, depending on attack speed. These weapons came from the warrior specific quests, and the Lost Pilot quest sequence. I assumed that more difficult quests would continue to yield better weapons, but it seems this has not been the case for you. My warrior is also a miner/blacksmith, and in spite of not trading for ingredients he is already capable of making a weapon slightly better than the one he uses (IIRC the weapon he could make is a 25-39 damage axe with attack speed of 2.20). The only thing he is missing is 2 bars of silver, which he is capable of mining and smelting. The only problem is that I have not seen a silver vein anywhere in the game.
And yes, sometimes a random monster will drop a great item too. That is certainly not something you can depend on, though.