maxing md bs / armors don't grant more PROF

Edit - solved. Summary:

If you've noticed that armors have an "in-between" smithing difficulty compared to weapons, don't let that fool you into thinking they ought to grant more proficiency gains when you craft them. Adventurer's Garb gives the same proficiency raise as a Longsword, despite being more difficult to create. They're the same item level.

This is relevant only to smiths specializing in magic devices and I guess halberds, because those smiths will have no DEX or TEC. Your crafting choices are limited and around PROF 13 you hit a wall, where craftable stuff isn't raising your PROF. To level PROF for these smiths, you'll want to get custom-statted slotted weapon/armor (+13 DEX statted, +3 DEX xtal) and a slotted Chignon Cap (+6 DEX, +3 DEX xtal) and a Dexterity Talisman III (+6 DEX) which gives you +47 DEX, total 48 DEX, which lets you craft at +8 difficulty. You can get by with only one xtal, resulting in +7 difficulty, if need be.

Here's the original post:
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Hi, all. My smiths so far have all had either 80 TEC or lots of DEX, and leveling prof was fairly straightforward. I never had to pay close attention to the minimum proficiency for making items.

Now I've decided to venture into actually making magic devices. Created a new character, leveled a bunch, statted myself 240 AGI and all the rest into INT, figuring I'll hit INT 100 in the next level cap increase. So far so good, it seemed...

Cranking out shortswords/rods to prof 8 worked like normal, then, turning ruin rats into iron knuckles and longswords got me to prof 12... and here at prof 14, Adventurer's Garb is no longer gaining me any proficiency. Without my +DEX equips I can't even *make* the things, and I'm getting 0% prof raise.

Through equips & xtals I do have barely enough +DEX to move on to the next difficulty level [edit: more importantly, the next *item level* tier]. After seeing how quickly Adventurer's Garbs became worthless to make, I'm worried I'll just stall out and won't be able to continue raising PROF.

My question is, am I going to hit a point where it's literally impossible for me to gain proficiency, or where I'm only gaining 1%? Will I be able to get to PROF 100? Is this something weird with Adventurer's Garb, or do most items fail to raise proficiency even before you're able to make them while unequipped? [Edit: the answer is, most *armors* fail in this way.]

 

yup you can increase prof with crafting more item

 

*removed wrong answer lol*

 

See, this is why I'm asking -- what you describe is what I *thought* would happen but it's not matching reality!

Right now my PROF is 14, I'm crafting an item with difficulty 15, and I'm getting no experience, not even single-digit.

Not yet. If it wasn't for +DEX gears I wouldn't even be able to, because Adventurer's Garb is the only item with difficulty 15. I posted my question in part because I don't want to spend hours farming mats for difficulty 20 stuff only to find I get stuck at that step with difficulty 25 completely out of reach.

Yeah, but then even after I create the new smith and level it up, I will then have to buy a reset book to get rid of the TEC, and if that's what it takes then my heart's really not in it.

That would make logical sense, but Toram is weird about this. There is no such thing as a *main* stat for items with two stats; they get +1 potential per 20 points in either of their stats. This means an INT 240 / AGI 80 smith crafts the exact same magic devices as an AGI 240 / INT 80 smith. Strange but true! And since I already have an INT 250 / TEC 70 staff smith in progress, I figured I'd create a smith who can also make pretty good knuckles.

 

For anyone who happens to read this, yeah, I figured it out:

Shortsword | Item Level 5 | Difficulty 10
Adventurer's Garb | Item Level 5 | Difficulty 15

PROF gains are based on item level, not difficulty. Apparently armors have +5 difficulty compared to weapons of the same level. I had assumed this meant they had +5 item level, but nooooope.

Anyway, the solution is to equip a bunch of +DEX gear and move on to crafting from the next *actual* item level tier. Thanks for reading!

 

http://toramonline.com/index.php?threads/blacksmith-guide-level-100.4129/

 

That post, sadly, quits giving prof-raising advice after Ruin Rats (and doesn't mention Beaks, though now I see why...).

Hmm. Maybe I'll do some legwork and then write up a post on which materials to farm after that, now that I actually have to grind through every item tier. I might as well experiment and farm a little of everything, see what drops fastest, who actually bunches up nicely for Storm, etc.