I'm curious what everyones opinions are as to what the most profitable tradeskill is. I personally feel it is a toss up between a few.

Cooking can be very profitable if you own a shop, and really push with aggressive prices, because damn, you need to eat alot here. In my shop, for the longest time it seemed like that was all that sold.

I also see Jewelry as a good craft, mainly for the sale of gems, you can make a decent income off of those.

Forging, I never felt to be that great, because it always seemed more beneficial to yourself, then as a trade to market to others, due to long decay times (Meaning very little repeat business). I could be wrong, so forgers speak up.

Poisons? Anyone had any luck?

Enchantment seems like it is quite good, I mean you use like 7 enchantments to just place your defenses. And I burn through web and icewall enchantments pretty fast. You could also do pretty well if you targetted Serenwilde for the sale of scry and window enchantments, since every guild here lacks a sensing ability.

Alchemy, I never saw it as that great of a tradeskill. I like it mostly for the enhanced sipping at transcendent. The profit margins are rather slim, because to be competitive, you have to sell very little above the cost of herbs. I'm sure many Magnagorans who do not possess the skill will say otherwise. But this isn't Achaea/Aetolia/Imperian, you cannot pull your own herbs out of thin air.

Don't have any thoughts on the others really.

I went with cooking, it is the only commodity that aboslutely everybody MUST have. You can choose to never buy herbs or jewels, or weapons or armour. You have to eat. Admittedly you need the shop to go with it. But otherwise its a real winner

I agree Alyssandra. It is the only tradeskill that everyone needs, regardless if you are a pacifist and never fight. I get hungry every few hours of play time, and have to eat two filling meals to fill me up. It is difficult to walk around and sell food, because it decays rather quickly. However, if you have a shop with a wide variety, it is probably the most profitable trade. When we first had our shop, we'd have like 40 sandwiches, which would sell in one day, then we'd buy more, and 60 would sell in one day. It was crazy.

Havent bought any food since newton .. ahh carrion, take a couple steps east, fall into a pit, kill a gravedigger, fill up.

I'd say Alchemy and a few steps behind enchantments, and herbs, generally just due to extensive use , and so bulk sales, forging i do one every now and again, though most of the money is based of the forge, not tryin to resell comms. Yah so looking at mag' market, 2 outta the 3 guilds is ignoring most of the cooking stuff.

At the moment, I think Alchemy is the greatest *potential* income, simply because it can be controlled by one entity, and black market prices during war times could be more profitable then anything else.

I understand it may not be the best everyday income, but frankly, since almost everyone from 3 cities has to come to the slice of Serenwilde that has the skill, I think you should be able to turn a tidy profit.

I forge, and it certainly isn't consistant income, but on those days when someone will pay you to reforge something until it is 'quality' you can make a lot of money. And hopefully those people will look me up again in another 231 months

I think enchantment should be the best day-in and out income...I constantly need something enchanted and I don't even use window or icewall atm. Between mercy, kingdom, perfection, waterwalk/breathe I could feed an enchanter.

I'm sure cooking is good...just not in Magnagora, where 2/3 of the population eats carrion...Only time I've eaten real food recently was when I used athletics hunger twice in the same day and didn't die inbetween...that makes a bear hun-gry!

Thing is Graal, you don't make much on selling health refills. Alchemists are so competitive, to actually make sales, you have to sell 10gp above what the herbs/powerstone cost you in the first place. So it really isn't that profitable, even though it is widely used.

I don't see how anyone could make much money selling food. I die so often I barely ever have to eat anything.

I voted on herbs because they are 100% profit.

I like forging... it gives me enough money once in a while that I don't need to sit at the forge all day to make enough to fund hunting and such. But again, its not the best if you plan on opening your own chain of stores. And I never buy food. Even in Imperian where I play a Lycean (has to eat twice as much) I never bought food. There always seems to be someone around you who is more bothered by your constant passing out than you are. Often they are the cooks.

Psh, you don't HAVE to eat...just die when you're hungry.

The need for food over here is greatly increased compared to Imperian, even more so then the Lycaeans.

as a geomancer, I have to eat real food. a cook in magnagora would only be able to sell to geomancers and low level urgards and nihilists. A cow fill syou up full so i hear.....Its often easier to get to a cow and kill it than get to a food shop, not to mention killing a cow is free (and you can tip it too)

Poisons makes no money, for several reasons:

1) The cost of empty vials is more than what most people will pay for a vial full of poison. And that's even having a skilled jeweler for a fiance willing to sell me bulk gems at her cost.

2) Only 1/3 of people can even use poisons, and many of them don't. Given that you're more likely to sell to your own communemates/citymates, that makes for a very tiny market.

3) A few rich poisonists give away poisons, ruining the skill for everyone else.

4) The one poison everyone wants is only available on the Astral Plane which means to have any practical way to get a reliable supply, you need to almost transcend Planar. I'm not sure if any other trade skill only becomes vaguely useful when you have transed another skillset too; I know some herbs are only found off-plane, but while sparkleberry is very valuable, plenty of other herbs are valuable.

So even if you have trans Poisons and Planar and can survive Astral reliably, you might sell a few vials a year at a net profit of at most 800 coins each.

Fortunately, I didn't take it for money, I took it out of duty since my guild administrator said we needed people to take it. That said, saving up to found a family is hard without trade income.

I voted alchemist because everyone really uses vials, and many people get like 100 refills at a time, which is better than the 1k per ring that I get. I don't think cooks are really as good as people say, because I know there are some alternatives to cook food, like ethereal honeycakes (mmmmmm...) I didn't know you could eat hows, though. Interesting

Yea, that is what I foresaw as the fate to poisons. To bad you can't enforce minimums, and have a cartel for it. It's the only way it'd be profitable. Make the venoms rub off of weapons more often, and vials deplete faster at the least.

The profit margins for alchemy are a -litte- better than 10 gold. The herbs for bromides, for example, can be found for less than 140 gold and the standard sale price is 240-250. You do need a fairly huge outlay on herbs to begin with though, unless someone is willing to prepay you.

Actually, average of what bromides is sold for is 200 gold. So that is a 60 gold profit per vial of bromides. I rarely refill for people, it isn't worth my time. Just use it for myself, friends, family, SEG, etc.

Whoever you're buying herbs / powerstones from, you're paying too much, hehe. Wanna buy from me?

I know some alchemists who make 90-120 gold per health refill or more. Oh, and I voted alchemy, but that's _if_ you're trans. Herbs and cooking (if you have a shop) are my second choices.

Let's put it this why. Herbs is guaranteed more money then alchemy. Why? Well, to make a 200 gp Bromides refill, I pay an herbalist 140 gold for the herbs. I then make a 60 gold profit. Ummm.. right, the herbalist got those herbs for free, he doesn't have any costs associated with his trade. People who believe alchemy is the best tradeskill, are rather ignorant.

Sure alchemy is in high demand. But herbs are in even higher demand, since the alchemists have to pay the herbalists for tons and tons of herbs, and everyone else has to buy herbs from herbalists, though in smaller quantities.

Yes there are more herbalists then alchemists, but with aggressive pricing, and going after the rarer herbs, you can make a killing. I still think cooking is better though, after seeing how fast sandwiches sell in my Seren shop.

*laugh* I was right. You're paying too much. Even without _any_ discount whatsoever at the prices I sell at, it's only 123 gold per vial. Mostly I end up selling for 85 - 100 gold per. And I'm far from the cheapest supplier around.

Sure you can make a killing on herbs... if you work at it for hours and hours. The rest of the tradeskills seem much faster to me, leaving the rest of the time free for bashing and other things. Oh, and forget aggressive pricing. Most demand for herbs comes from alchemists, who buy so much that it's worth their time to search for cheaper alternatives unless they have other reasons to buy from you.

Still, alchemy isn't THAT great. It's good, but people in the cities who don't have it are always sort of like "OMG! You have Alchemy! YOU MUST be rich like all the forestals from other IRE games!!" Sorry, but no, I would be rich if I had herbs and alchemy combined into one, but split apart, no. I would have chosen another tradeskill, but I just wanted the philosopher's stone.