I'm trying to up smithing on EQmac, but I don't exactly know what kind of classic armor to craft because I don't know the recipes. According to the recipe lists on EQ traders I won't have a lot to choose from. It seems for instance that the only kind of armors you could craft in vanilla were banded, ornate, and fine plate, and there really weren't any other interesting recipes in the era. Am I getting the jist, or are there other recipes that vanilla had that were worth upping smithing for?

Weren't the racial armor types smithed by crafters?

I think the racial armors were post-velious. I know there was some high end class based gear that required 250 in a skill, such as the Black Pantherskin armor for Monks.

Regardless, these weren't available in Vanilla. I'm not sure how advanced the recipes got in Vanilla but you might be out of luck for anything beyond the norm.

Were they? I can't remember. I played from release into the Luclin Era and even into PoP but I refused to buy either SOL or POP and stayed only in classic zones (nobody else, unfortunately, wanted to stay back with me which helped push me into quitting) so I could be confusing things.

I thought they had some limited diety restricted armors out in Velious - like the Tunare plate stuff? I know for sure there was a lot of high end tailored silk armor during Velious for casters that was really good. However, it required Ice Burrower silks from the ice burrowers in WW which were pretty hard to kill at the time. With the trivials on it being so high and very few people actually killing the ice burrowers, you just never saw much of it.

I think there was a smattering of other high end cultural armor that started coming out in late Velious as well, but most of it didn't make it in until Luclin or PoP (because all the good stuff I remember having recommended levels). Of course, if your original question is strictly concerning original classic, the recipes were very limited back then. I think banded and fine plate were the only significant armors you could make.

Maybe you're thinking of the really good diety armor such as Fierce Heraldic. I'm quite sure this was mid-late luclin, iinm.

http://www.eqtraders.com/items/show_ite ... 5000000000

I could have sworn the original cultural armors were in pre-Luclin. Maybe I was thinking of those racial custom helms from velious.

http://eqtraders.com/recipes/recipe_pag ... 0110100000

Here are some of the Velious 250 skill recipes. They were class based but only for a few classes, not sure what recipes there was for the others.

Pretty nice stuff though. The stats are ridiculously good but the AC is pretty low. These armors also had the custom velious appearances in game.

There was cultural armor for some races introduced during Velious.

Generally speaking, if you look at an "old cultural" smithing page on EQTC, everything that's trivial at 335 (the good stuff) is post-Luclin, and most of what's trivial in the low-mid 200's and below is earlier.

For example, high elves:

http://eqtraders.com/recipes/recipe_pag ... 0040060020

The elven chain, enchanter elven chain, imbued elven chain, Koada'dal mithril, mystic Koada'dal mithril, and imbued Koada'dal mithril armor sets were all around during Velious. Take a look, for example, at the imbued Koada'dal Cuirass on Allakhazam - comments go back to mid 2001:

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=6200

Most people may not remember this armor being available because it was all expensive, difficult to make, and inferior to easily obtainable alternatives. People say that Luclin introduced cultural armor because it introduced cultural armor worth the bother of actually making.

I knew I was right. I'm not crazy after all...Huzzah!

So there really isn't armor worth making in vanilla, is that what you're saying?

That armor would be pretty nice for someone just starting out. Hell, back in the day crafted banded armor was a staple for most of the tankish classes growing up because you generally didn't get full bronze until your late 20s.

Even the oldest and least useful types of the old cultural armor are not vanilla. Vanilla options are banded and *maybe* fine plate. Ornate chain certainly wasn't around.

The more I think about it, the more I tend to think that fine plate wasn't in at release. I can't remember anyone wearing, buying, or selling it - armor pretty much went from banded to bronze to Rubicite or the Sol Ro quested armors once they went in, then perhaps a few pieces could be replaced with Guk/SolB drops before the planes were released and those armor sets started turning up. I also can't find any references to fine plate before late 2000, and it looks to me like it went in shortly before the release of Velious along with armor dye (not LoY-era dye that let you change the tint on anything you wore; dye that could be smithed into fine plate only to give it one of a few different colors).

So, yeah. At release, many of the tradeskills didn't have recipes with trivials all the way to 200. Pottery, I remember, was "mastered" around 100, tailoring capped out in the low 100's before the introduction of Wu's (monk) armor. Smithing, I think, "ended" at 115 skill with the trivialization of banded mail.

Thanks Ravenwing. That answers a lot of questions.

I thought it would be worth noting that there were merchants in at least a few cities (Ak'anon for sure) that sell fine plate armor. It's very expensive - but you can get it. As far as I know, they've always been there. I can't really remember about the fine plate recipes themselves, as I was never into trade skilling.

The very expensive steel plate sold from vendors was indeed in game since day 1. It's not as good as fine plate - in fact, it has the exact same ac as bronze armor. I never saw anyone wearing it; it's just too pricey.

Fine plate is a different, better armor set, and I'm increasingly certain it was added later.

Anyone know a good site that had simply the classic tradeskill recipes? I stopped playing back when Luclin came out and can't remember much from then...

I guess a better way to ask is finding which tradeskills recipes were considered classic...I know about checking eqtrader and all that, but I can't remember what was considered "classic" and which may have come later...sorry for my noobiness

I had a full set of the Wyvern hide stuff for my alt shammy...I wanna say I got it during the Luclin era.

Yes that plates been in there for as long as I can remember but a helmet was I'm pretty sure right around 600 plat an hovering in there for all the other pieces so it was very very expensive for what it's worth not sure if they actually meant t to be that expensive in the beginnig just.. Didn't make sense if you guys see what I mean

When did Blessed Full Mithril armour come out? I remember being paid to make blessed full mithril to level up a friends black smithing.

I suggest using the Internet Wayback Archive Machine and typing in eqtraders.com and going back to 2000 or so. That should do it. I'm at work and access is denied or else I'd get a sample link for you.