The Path of the Sage : EverQuest 2 General Discussions

The Path of the Sage – A Gnome’s Guide to Scribing in EverQuest 2

Chapter One: The Basics

What is a Sage?

Of all the different crafts you may chose to acquire when you begin your travels in EverQuest 2 the path of the Sage is the least interesting and most difficult. This is not a path that will make you enormously wealthy or one that will allow you to show off your wares. The benefits of this path is that you will be able to craft spells for yourself, your companions, and eager buyers.

A Sage does not make pretty armor or lovely furniture to show off. A Sage does not mix complex potions to give new abilities to the drinker and nor does a Sage bring anything new. A Sage scribes upgrades to spells. They do not make new spells to add abilities, but they create better versions of spells the buyer already has. These upgrades heal more, enhance more, and do more damage. Some spells will have a very noticeable effect when upgraded while others might not be noticed at all. One of the keys to making any coin in this craft is to know which offer the greatest gain and are most sought after by others.

A Sage is limited in that they can only make spells for Mages and Priests. Other scholarly professions make the skills for Fighters and Scouts as well as additional items. This may make the path of a Sage seem pointless but since Mages and Priests rely greatly on their spells it is one of the most appreciated crafts.

What is needed?

To scribe a spell there are two basic things that you require. First, you must have the facilities to create all the items that you will use. Second, you must have the basic components to create each combine.

In each outlying area of the city you will find crafting societies. You must join the wholesaler society that is open to everyone. Within the society you can find a broker, a merchant with basic crafting supplies and recipes, and all the facilities you will need to craft. You will be using three different facilities for crafting a spell. First the alchemist facilities to mix up subcomponents and ink, then the woodworking station to create the quill and paper you will be using, and finally the scribing station which is where you will put everything together to make your spell.

Every time you craft you will use up a variety of materials. First there is the primary ingredient, which will decide the maximum quality of an item. Then there are secondary components that are also consumed when the item is made. And finally there is the fuel, which will be consumed as well. The primary item will originally be harvested or a component that was created previously. The secondary component(s) will either be purchased off the crafting vendor or made from an earlier combine. The fuel you can always purchase off the crafting vendor though different combines may use different types and quality of fuel.

The basic components that you can’t purchase from the crafting vendor or make yourself are the roots and wood to make subcomponents, quills, and paper as well as the stone/gem to make the reagent for the ink. The amount you need varies with your successes and the difficulty of the spell you will be making.

The Creation Process

Each spell takes considerable work with a minimum of 10 combines per spell.

• Alchemy to make the Wash
• Alchemy to make the Oil
• Alchemy to make the Resin
• Alchemy to make the Reagent
• Alchemy to make the Dye
• Alchemy to make the Ink
• Woodworking to Refine the Wood
• Woodworking to make the Quill
• Woodworking to make the Paper
• Scribing to make the Spell

As you can see from the above list more of the Sage profession revolves around alchemy than scribing. The Wash, Oil, and Resin are used as components to make the various components. Their quality is not essential though the better the quality the more that will be produced. This will make your crafting time more efficient as well as less costly. The wood, quill, and paper quality does not matter since higher quality will not effect the end spell or the amount of items made. Of all the steps the most important are making the Reagent, the Dye, the Ink, and the Spell. The quality of these will effect your crafting. If you do not make a Pristine Reagent then you can’t make a Pristine Dye or Ink. Pristine Ink is required if you are going to attempt to make the best version of the spell.

When crafting there are four different qualities that you can create. The first two are fairly poor quality, with the third considered normal, and the fourth considered exceptional. To get the most out of your time and coin you should always work towards getting the exceptional results. As stated previously this is most important when making the Reagent, Dye, Ink, and Spell. A spell’s rank will vary depending on the quality it ends up as.

Since you will be working so closely with spells it is important to know how they are ranked in power. Spells and skills are generally more powerful the higher their rank. The rank of the spell also determines how the spell is obtained.

• Apprentice I – The initial version of the spell. When you receive a new spell they will always begin at this rank. These are not player-made.
  
• Apprentice II – This version is bought from various scribe merchants in the cities. It can also be created when scribing of an apprentice spell goes poorly.
  
• Apprentice III – This is the ‘standard’ result when scribing a spell. All scrolls of this rank are player made.
  
• Apprentice IV – This is the ‘pristine’ result when scribing a spell. It is the highest player-made version without using a rare material. All scrolls of this rank are player made.
  
• Adept I – These scrolls are found occasionally in chests that monsters may drop if they give experience. These are not player-made.
  
• Adept II – These scrolls or ‘training spells’ are given as upgrades every 10 levels. These are not bought, player-made, or dropped spells. And they go under completely different names than the spells they upgrade. They often add an additional bonus aside from their normal use.
  
• Adept III – The best player-made scrolls, these can only be made using a rare material component for their level. These spells are highly sought after and you will want to choose carefully what spells of this rank you make.
  
• Master I – The highest rank of spells, these are very rare and drop only off very difficult encounters. These spells go for large amounts of coin. They are the best a spell or skill can become.

The knowledge of spell ranks and quality is more important to Sage than any other crafting profession. While making Adept III spells it is not as important, you will find yourself working on many Apprentice IV spells to fill in gaps for yourself and others. The components used for making Adept III spells are rare and often only used for the most useful spells. When you make Adept III scrolls every quality level will end up giving you the Adept III scroll, whether it ends up poor or exceptional it is exactly the same. The only reason to go further than poor is to gain crafting experience. Making Apprentice scrolls is far different as you can see below.

• Very Poor makes Apprentice II
• Poor makes Apprentice II
• Average makes Apprentice III
• Exceptional makes Apprentice IV

The differences between Apprentice III and Apprentice IV are often only a difference in spell cost. However the power of a spell is very noticeable from Apprentice I or II to Apprentice III or IV.

Chapter One Conclusion

This is the end to the first chapter of the Path of the Sage. Following chapters will include detailed information on gathering as well as advice on how to quickly advance in experience and skill using the least amount of resources and time. Future chapters will also included information on Racial Traditions and how they influence crafting (For example, boosted Alchemist skill tends to aid a sage more than boosted Scribing skills).

This chapter is also still under construction and more information will be posted to it depending on responses from the readers. If the response is highly positive I will add pictures to better show parts of the guide. If it is useful to you give me a reply telling so or write me at codewolf@chartermi.net, all opinions and thoughts are welcome.

I would appreciate comments and thoughts on the guide. Its been up for a few days and a few dozen have viewed it. The next chapter would be on reactions, workshop tasks, wholesaler tasks, and gathering.

Is this guide decent? And if not (or even if it is) what else should I put in it?

Very good write up thanks.

Very nice

I'd include the casting level adjustments when describing the spell levels. Its posted elsewhere here, I belive, or maybe its on Tault...ie. app1= spell cast at your level-1, app2= spell cast at your level, app3=spell cast at your level+1, etc. Been playing since beta, I only just found that out, so its not common knowledge.

From my understanding the 'casting level' of it is just hearsay and not backed by any research so thats why I didn't include it. It could be possible but I don't want to include it in my guide as fact till I find it proven.

Can you guys give me tips on how to make some coin??? pls... i really nead it

Thanks

This is great information, really helped me understand scribing better if only I could make better then Apprentice 2 most of the time. I'm Awsome at making my potions. My scribing skill is 67/100 I really suck at scribing spells past 2 =(. I find myself spending so much time making potions and quills that by the time Ive finished making enuf most of the day is gone and buying the combines I need from broker/players cost me more money then i can profit...so there is like no profit if u cant make past app 2 =(. I'm finding out that scribing is a painful process.

I could use help on how to make app 3 or better spells...

well those are my thoughts/feelings about Scribing

I'm adding this topic to my favorites =)

Just a quick note on how to make app iv spells with almost 100% efficiency.

Use your reactives. The level 10 reactives will increase durability. It will take longer to make the items but they will allow you to make maximum quality spells. You can balance these with the beginning or the level 20 reactives (and of course higher reactives) that give you progress when you gain excess durability.

By doing -all- 3 of the durability reactives each 'wave' you will be almost guaranteed to get the 'pristine' quality items or 'app iv' spells. I put my alchemy and scribing reactives on a hotbar and use them that way. Hit all 3 for each wave.

There are a variety of other methods that you can do balancing this with the progress reactives but that I will include in a future guide if this one recieves enough recognition but just using 2-3 of the durability reactives EVERY pulse should give you pristine every time. This does increase the time it takes to make the item however so I only suggest using it on critical items (reagent, dye, ink, and the spell itself). For items like washes, resins, and oils I tend to do just progress reactives. Normally those are enough to get me pristine items very quickly.

Using the above method of 2-3 durability reactives per pulse I have been able to get pristine every time even when the item was 'yellow' (one ability level higher than my own).

I hope this helps. You can perform this method once you hit 10 (Scholar). At 20 when you get the better progress reactives you can really begin mixing those with the durabilities to increase your speed.

A final note... if you increase durability while the durability bar is all green... you WILL get 'padding' so it fills an invisible bar. So it still pays to do this when you are at 'maximum' durability. Though normally I use a few progress ones after the 'crude' version is completed since I have built up a store of durability.

Also (alas the final note was not so final) if you have dropped down in durability you can push the durability back up to the higher level if you keep increasing it. But you can NOT do this if it started below that level. (You can not get a pristine ink if you started with a 'normal' dye).

I hope this helps explain this better.