I was just wondering what tradeskills were the least and most used. I don't know which one to get yet!

Herbs is the most used, poisons the least used.

Is there a reason why poisons is least used?

Poisons are quite widely used, but are too easy to come by. They require little or no "seed money" except to own a vial or keg, and be able to kill the creatures that put out the venom. Personally, I enjoy having a venomist alt, it's not a HARD trade skill, and there area few decent skills lower down (Mantakaya, anyone? )

Dunno WHY people don't take it.

Because of the limitations of respawn rate? Poisonists have the least amount of supply for the huge demand required of them (thus it is more economically balanced if there's only a few poisonists, less fish in a tiny pond.)) Most respawn rates are 40 minutes, and besides gilas and cobras, there aren't many of each type of critter that are used for the poisons.

Poisons also require being able to get to, hunt in, and survive in, Glomdoring, Earth, Water, and Astral to get a full assortment of poisons. So you need to be a capable hunter, and nearly trans Planar (or cubix etc.), and friendly with just about everyone, just to get a few vials that you probably won't sell for more than a few hundred gold profit.

With tradeskills, you have three choices. You can take something that makes money, or you can take something that lets you be creative, or you can take Poisons.

(If by chance your character already is a good hunter with good abilities to get around and who is welcome in all those places, Poisons can be a good trade. In that case, you're sure to tell everyone else, "I don't see why you're having trouble with Poisons, I do fine with it.")

Don't be an artisan

Or bookbinder.

Or a bookbinder

Which makes the most gold?

Which is the most creative?

Herbs and Alchemy are the gold kings.

What about jewelery?

And why should I stay away from artisan and bookbinder?

Because artisans make furniture and they have ridiculously long decay times...so even though furniture is expensive, the demand is very low. Most people can't even afford manses to put the furniture in. As for bookbinders, not many people need books.

Jewelry is nice, you can be creative, but you have to factor in cost of comms since you use gems and metal. But you can cut powerstones and sell them for decent money

Because furniture decay times are completely ridiculous. Thrones last up near 600 months, chairs/tables, aka anything useful, lasts for something like 200-300 months.

It is -difficult- making gold as an artisan. You have to charge a lot to make stuff for people's manses - even then, a lot of people don't want their manse to be decorated that way. And if they do, most people will just buy manse artifacts to keep furniture from decaying (I know Talkan and I sunk 200cr alone on stasis gems for our manse).

The only reason I stay an artisan is because I like the trade and I'm pretty much the only person (outside of maybe a Mag shop), who supplies a large amount of pipes, baskets, and boxes for cheap. That's really the only place I make gold (and it peeves me when people make those stupid oaken pipes... their decay time is sad and you end up spending more money in the long run). Even then, I had to buy a shop for 120k and have to pay 9k a year to keep the shop leased to me to really make anything.

The skills in general suck. The trans skill isn't worth it (although I abused it to preserve my throne, but then I turned around and got a stasis gem, so it was completely moot and a waste of 10k). Most of it is just for aesthetics... it doesn't really provide anything useful.

The artifact for the artisan skillset isn't even worth the 200cr I paid for it. It's worth 75 to 100 in my opinion. The only thing it does is give you 50% more space in a room. It doesn't give you comms back, doesn't cut comm costs (that'd be so nice if it cut a fourth of the comms), you can't really roleplay with it, and it's not even pretty.

When constructs came about I remember thinking: jackpot! But Celest never paid me for making the construct miniatures, and construct battles were pretty short-lived.

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As a bookbinder, you can actually make bank. If you hook up with a bunch of shops (maybe even get one of your own) and get a quill, you can probably make a profit selling healing/protection and various other scrolls. But since bookbinders can't sell books in shops, their trade is dead.

edit: Another thing about artisan stuff... instruments. I love to make them and I stock a TON in my shop, but instead of paying 11-12k for one of my instruments, most people talk to artisans about getting that all-unique design, which is frustrating because you end up having a lot of competition. And I absolutely love seeing people wielding instruments I've made.

Tch. Attai has every instrument, basket, pipe, tent, and box that I can make that isn't restricted. I doubt anyone else has so large an instrument stock.

I rarely get to install any furniture though, and people are cheap despite the huge duration furniture has. People would much rather pay for overcharged potions on a IC daily basis, then fork over an extra 20k for an item that'll last near forever in month duration alone (bookshelves DO last forever.) I'm constantly outbid by eager/desperate artisans, and I'm not really interested in lowering my fees. People charging very little to make designs private (ie instruments) means that it is hard to sell instruments as well. You can always get arts pipes for way cheaper (unless you're in one of many of Lendren's cartels.)

I keep plenty of commodities in my rift, and for an artisan that is quite a feat. To be fully equipped to do thrones and chandeliers, you need thousands of commodities. If someone wants a room fully furnished from nothing, an artisan can easily clear out multiple villages in order to get the necessary commodities.

And then you got the pantograph, which is quite possibly the lamest of the trade artifacts.

So...take herbs.

I agree with all of that about artisan crafts, and to add: We can't deconstruct, or repair, anything. And when stuff does get deconstructed, zero comms come back. Plus our designs are saddled with an indoor/outdoor flag which makes no sense and just gets in the way in manses, the one place we do most of our furniture business. Well, essentially all of it: the only other places stuff gets built is city/commune/guildhalls, and your city/commune and its guilds will probably expect you to donate your skill and labor and maybe even design slots for free. In fact, more than likely, you'll be given the hairy eyeball and/or the runaround if you want the cost of comms reimbursed, whenever the commune loses a desk or table; since people in other trades might donate the 1,000gp they spend on comms for something, people will consider you unpatriotic if you don't want to be 20,000gp out of pocket every few years. As if it's your fault that your trade takes 10x as much comms as anyone else's.

There's one reason alone to become an artisan, and that's because you really enjoy the creative process of designing things. You don't even need a cartel: odds are your city/commune cartel never uses its slots (I know mine doesn't). However, note that you can get the creative process with other trades which can also turn a profit. (Not a herbs-scale profit, or even an alchemy-scale profit, but at least a profit.)

Yeah, I sympathize here. I just helped replace a desk and chair in the Glomdoring Post office, when they offered payment ( I didn't run for the comms, but I did get a tip for 'prompt service') I said no because it was a necessary item. If they had asked me to go get comms, I would've declined for both selfish reasons and because I just can't get into most villages. However, when I left I said I was only doing this on the basis that it was a -necessary- item for the commune, because everyone needs a desk and chair to write on.

I took tailoring just for splendor robes. Tradeskills are very hard to make money off of. I think the only fully fleshed out tradeskills are alchemy, herbalism, enchantment, and cooking. There's a price in peoples' minds about how much "labor" should cost, and when an alchemist takes longer to fill a keg than an artisan can assemble a desk, we end up paying alchemists 1500-2000 for their time, while only paying the artisan 2000 or so per item. Like Aison said, the problem is that Artisans create items that last for like 2 years, so the demand is very, very low. Most people who take tradeskills are more or less resigned to making stuff at cost for their friends.

The way to make other tradeskills 'viable' as money makers is to have them create items that are necessary in the creation of other objects, so that there's forced integration. For example, if instead of being able to buy rope, a tailor was needed to make it? Or instead of buying cloth, it needed to be spun? If instead of buying iron, a blacksmith would need to smelt it into bars? (some of these are WoW analogies, but you get the point). Maybe have the items we make vary slightly in effect. By having lots of little steps necessary to build items that actually mean something, we can really flesh out the crafting system in Lusternia, instead of having the relatively one-dimensional system that we have now.

How many unnecessary things does your commune buy, though?

Once, Lord Charune suggested what Serenwilde needed was something like a tapestry that symbolized what Serenwilde was about and would help motivate and unify people. I spent hours retooling a design, then paid the design fee for it. Trouble is, there's nowhere to hang tapestries except fairly out-of-the-way places. I did finally put it up, even got a communefavour from the Seneschal for it; but when it decayed, hardly anyone had seen it, despite it being pointed out many times. Never got a penny back for the cost. Put a second one up, but when that one decayed, I stopped bothering. So far as I know, no one even noticed.

But boy, do they notice fast when a desk decays. Fast and loud and often.

The only other thing we have is the table and chairs in the dining hall. That comes out of my pocket too. And we got a rocking chair put up after a lot of ruckus, but I don't know if it's being used, and don't know if it's likely to be replaced when it decays.