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Rayjon

Skill Grind Spoilers! (Old Version)

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I thought it would be nice if players with a little experience in one field or another offer some advice to players on the good ways they have found to grind different skills. In some cases when I have added a quote to the Original Post I have taken ideas or information from others wo have posted in this thread. Where feasible to simply cut and paste whole quotes I have. It is a good idea to look through the whole thread if you have the time. I have just tried to place as much here as I can.

Don't worry if you think everyone knows already. If it is not here let us have it :)

The Wiki also offers a wealth of information. Here a couple skill related links.

http://wurmonline.com/wiki/index.php?title=Tips_for_Skills

http://wurmonline.com/wiki/index.php?title=Skills

Alchemy/Natural Substances

uote author=Nothus link=topic=13773.msg123346#msg123346 date=1233086141]

Crops like wemp plants, garlic, onions, corn, pumpkins, and wheat can be used to make crappy healing covers that are great for building alchemy/natural substances skill.

quote]

uote author=Posteh link=topic=13773.msg253903#msg253903 date=1256513234]

Just my tips for Natural Substance (Alchemy), mine's over 60 now.  

The only real way to get there is making heal covers, and really only way to get to 50 is to do it on sleep bonus.  You're only wasting your time not doing it on sleep bonus.  The only main issue with most people is that you have to hunt, or purchase, animal parts to create the healing covers.

What I did was brought rope to the traders at the Shroud, and I assume this works for other main capitals.  I simply traded in the rope for the animal parts.  Most noobies sell the parts for a few copper and iron coins, and the traders are stocked full of hundreds of teeth, glands, horns, paws, etc etc.  You can easily fill small barrels full of animal parts at a well-known popular trader, and wait till your next 5 hour sleep bonus and crank them out.  

You could also just buy the parts from a trader too, but usually using rope discounts it heavily.

uote]

Channeling

Vynora:

uote author=Tilly]Once you have enough Channeling to successfully cast Opulance (sorry do not recall what skill lvl that is) the following is the way that I grind Channeling. It cannot be done every day but can give you ome bursts of gain.

Spend some time creating ropes. Do this until you have several hundred. Also collect plenty of vegatable as well.

When you have done this choose a time when you have some sleep bonus and then stand in front of the altar with your rope and veggies and cast until your sleep bonus is gone or you run out of ropes.

Opulance only requires 10 faith to cast so you can get much more casting in. Opulance will not transfer to meals cooked with the veggies. If you use the method I gave to raise Hot Food Cooking you will have a ton of meals on hand to cast on instead.[/quot

Characteristics

uote author=Rayjon]A guide to what skills raise what characteristics can be found here on the Wiki:

http://wurmonline.com/wiki/index.php?title=Characteristics

uote]

Cloth Tailoring

uote author=EliasTheCrimson link=topic=13773.msg123347#msg123347 date=1233086734]

When improving large cloth tailoring items such as sails that require large amounts of raw material in the improving process, you will conserve precious string of cloth by improving using individual strings (0.1 KG) instead of a combined bunch.

uote]

Hot Food Cooking

uote author=Tilly]10 cooking containers (pottery bowl= casserole  Frying Pan = meal)

In an Oven using seperate pottery bowls get a large amount of filet and a large amount of onion, corn, or potato to searing hot. Then add 1 filet and 1 veggie to each searing hot container. This will produce an instant meal or casserole. Casseroles are better at lower skill (pottery bowls). This method will provide relatively quick skill gain even once you pass 50. I do in tens as that is what size stacks you can grab. This is a great method if you are working on taming too as casseroles and meals can be used to do that.

I believe this is repeated in the wiki but cannot hurt here :) uote]

Forestry

uote author=Dashiva link=topic=13773.msg123356#msg123356 date=1233087598]

Picking sprouts is horrible forestry skillgain. Get yourself a large fruit yard or similar and harvest instead.

uote]

Mining

uote author=Artibaton link=topic=13773.msg123531#msg123531 date=1233116165]

Mining!

When starting off the mining skill, you want up to a 30ql pickaxe, if you cannot get that, than so be it. Do not go higher than 30ql pickaxe unless you want ore. Of course use CoC and no WoA. For skillgain, I have always tried to mine on a wall where I am not QL capped (so if you have 50 mining, I mine a wall with 51ql shards) You will want to mine rock until 50skill. Continue repairing your pickaxe, and keep it at around 10ql. At 50 skill, you will want to switch to iron, the easiest to mine of the ores. Upgrade your pickaxe to 25ql and begin mining the iron ore. Continue mining iron until 60, at which you can switch to copper. Mine copper until 70, where you switch to tin or lead. At 85-90 mining, start on silver and continue to 99. Gold will never be a good way to get skill. You do not have to switch to ore at 50 mining, but it will drastically increase your skillgain. For mining ore up to silver, you will want between a 15 and 25ql pickaxe, whereas silver you want around a 30ql.

Ore difficulty is as follows: Rock -> iron -> copper -> tin -> lead -> zinc -> silver ->gold.

Best skillgain while mining is where you have about a 65% chance of getting ore that is <1/2 skill. You will want ore failures, so you may have to adjust your pickaxe quality. At 90skill on silver with a 30ql pickaxe, I get about 15 1ql ore per 100 mined, and this is the best skillgain I have seen.

Gems you recieve are based on the ore you mined with the gem. If the ore was 1.21ql, then so is the gem, btw.

This is what I have learned from Wurm. ;)

uote]

http://wurmonline.com/wiki/index.php?title=Blacksmithing#Uzetaab.27s_tips_and_notes

Plate Smithing

uote author=Equinox link=topic=13773.msg123354#msg123354 date=1233087461]

Plate smithing:

This is a tough one due to 3 skills being required

Coal making:

    No easy way to grind this, just spam charcoal piles as long as you can stand it.

Metallurgy:

    Making bronze and brass helps raise this skill to increase your chance of success on making the steel.

Plate smithing:

    Materials:

         2 forges

         7 cauldrons

    Place all 7 cauldrons in one forge.

    Cauldron #1 - 100 coal

    Cauldron #2 - 100 iron

    Use the remaining cauldrons to sort your steel lumps - ie: 1-10ql 11-20ql etc.. (This just makes it easier when your trying to imp and keeps things nice and tidy :)

    now your ready to start, make 100 steel plate gauntlets (cool and reuse your scrap from failers).

    Imp all the gauntelets to 5 - then 10 - 20 - 30 - 40 - and finally 50. At about 35-40 skill start spamming 20-30 great helms as well - these can fit in the forge with the cauldrons.

Tip: Use your lowest ql steel for the creation of items, the success rate is greatly reduced but you can cool the scrap and reuse it over and over (placing glowing lumps in a cold cauldron in an unlit forge insta-cools the scrap). Steel being extremely difficult to create this an effective way to use every bit of it.

Good luck and happy smithing,

Eq

uote]

uote author=Gallath link=topic=13773.msg123410#msg123410 date=1233094224]

You dont need to place iron inside the forge, as only coal needs to be glowing to combine these two materials.uote]

Repair.

uote author=Rayjon]This is a useful skill to every player. Even if you are not a crafter you will benefit from a decent repair skill as we all use crafted items of one kind or another which can be repaired.

It can be slow going simply repairing your own stuff and any newb piles you run across so I used grindstones at lower level.

Make a pile of 100 grindstones using low ql shards with a low ql tool and leave this pile in a cave or off deed. (Due to ongoing changes in decay rates you may have to see what works best)

Check it regularly with your sleep bonus and repair away. I found this a very effective way to zero in on this skill.uote]

uote author=Miggy link=topic=13773.msg123332#msg123332 date=1233083297]

Pff, waiting for decay to happen isn't worth it.

Make 50 tackles, put 'em in a burning campfire, pull them out when they hit 99 damage and repair the lot. Even with very high repairing you'll have ~2min action timers, so que up 5 of 'em and you can go AFK for 10 minutes.

This way you can actually grind it, not casually work on the skill.

uote]

uote author=Traxx link=topic=13773.msg123336#msg123336 date=1233084226]

I used to use unfinished clay jars... they are easy to repair and decay fast even on deeds.. make 100 or so and check on them evry other day... then if you need a jar for something its easy to just repair and imp it up...

uote]

Ropemaking

uote author=MadWallaby link=topic=13773.msg213742#msg213742 date=1249008955]

You can grind Ropemaking now by improving Net Traps.  These improve like cloth items once they're made - Strings of Cloth, Needle, Scissors and Water (better make sure it's pre-washed and doesn't shrink on your victim in the rain).  It's pretty heavy on the String usage, so you might want to put your spindle in your fifth toolbelt slot.

uote]

uote author=thorgot link=topic=13773.msg213940#msg213940 date=1249061651]

Rope traps use much less cordage and are ropemaking as well.

uote]

Taming

uote author=Dannyiron's Taming Guide]

Animal Taming:

Animals:

-At a lbeginning level,(about 1 or 2) tame a pig, pheasant or similar depending on the resources available to you. I would reccomend a pig because they will eat a larger variety of items; and should also be easiest to tame. (Pigs may be found wandering the wilderness and forests.)

-At a new tamer level, (about 5 to 10) you may choose to keep taming a pig or pheasant, or you may choose to tame a cat, a rat, a wolf etc. instead, although they will prove harder to grind it with. Keep grinding on the animals, keep taming.

-At a medium level (about 15 to 25) you may choose to keep taming a pig or pheasant, or you may move onto a cavebug, wolf or similar for similar gain plus enhancing the tame level of your own pet of choice. Keep taming them. Bear in mind that you should now be at about bear taming levels.

-At a higher level (about 30-40) you may choose nearly anything to tame - anything virtually up to unicorns, but again, a wolf, cavebug, pig, pheasant, deer, rat, cat etc. will get you more gain. You will not be able to tame many champion animals yet, or unicorns/crocodiles very well, but you will start getting there.

-At a title level (50+) You can tame virtually any basic animal now. Crocodiles will tame with a few attemtps, but taming a cavebug or similar may be your best choice of taming. If not there's always the good ol' reliable pigs.

-At master levels (very very high) you can choose whatever you like. You should also be able to master most champion animals, but be cautious nevertheless.

Taming Food

-If you are a fisherman, you may choose to fish and slice some filets to tame with. Animals you can tame include: Pigs, large rats, wild cats, black wolves, brown bears, black bears, cavebugs, crocodiles.

-If you are a farmer, you may choose to grow some exess seeds to tame with. Animals you can tame include: Deer, pheasant, pig, unicorn, hen, rooster, chicken, bull, cow, calf.

-If you are a fighter or warrior, you may choose to slaughter the bretheren of a carnivorous beast you wish to tame. Simply, you may tame some of the following: Pigs, large rats, wild cats, black wolves, brown bears, black bears, cave bugs, crocodiles.

-If you are a forager/botanizer/herbologist, you may find some odd berries or plants in your scavanges. The only animal you could tame with these is a pig.

-One old trick in the book is to fill a cauldron with water, and add some meat or fish and maybe a plant. You should get a heavy amount of soup. From this, you should fill up a smaller container, such as a pottery jar, and fill up a pottery flask with soup to tame a pig with. This will use 0.25kg of soup per tame and the soup should last maybe 150-200 tames; and is fairly easy to obtain again. However, this does only work with grinding taming on pigs so may not be the best choice, depending on the creatures and resources available to you.

Timespan

-The timespan will depend on your level. At lower levels it will raise fairly quickly, but as it advances it slows dramatically. At skill of 50-70, 400 meat filets taming a cavebug (without sleep bonus) may gain you about a skillpoint in taming, maybe less. (This is without affinities too) but by this level you will respectively be able to tame most creatures.

Hints

-When taming, always have somewhere safe to retreat to if you have to. A tamed pet or aggressive creature, or any animal you're taming can in one fell swoop start attacking you, so you always need somewhere to retreat to/a plan about avoiding attack.

-Sleep bonus is very useful for taming - you should gather your taming resources (your fish, meat, seeds etc.) without sleep bonus, store them in a container near your taming pen or area overnight, get some good sleep bonus and tame with it. This will boost skillgain quite a bit.

-Affinities would help drastically. 5 affinities in taming will boost skillgain 50%, so they are definitely worth seeking/investing in.

-Always carry some healing covers or rags/strings of cloth with you, in-case you do suffer wounds.

-Be fairly patient when you can and if you need to - it doesn't always follow a regular path as other skills may.

-Taming is changed occasionally. Always check out skillgain or how your taming skill changes if any updates occur related to taming (eg. the soup taming method may suddenly proceed to give little skill gain, that sort of general change.)

uote]

Tools

uote author=Rayjon]Low ql tools generally give better skill gain than High ql although the action timers increase...but this is good for skill gain.

For skills I am working I usually keep 1 set of High ql WoA/CoC tools for work and 1 set of Low ql CoC only tools for skill grindinguote]

uote author=Rayjon]Somtimes the wrong tool for the job is right! For instance, many different tools can be used to chop down a tree. If you use a Longsword to cut down a tree not only will you get Longsword skill up to 20 but it will take longer to cut down the tree thus netting more Woodcutting skill. There are many instances of this in Wurm so experiment and see what else you can do.uote]

Weapons

uote author=Rayjon]Longsword and 2 handed Sword skill can be raised to level 20 by activating the Sword and cutting down trees.

This also works for Axe type weapons which can also be used to chop the felled trees.uote]

Woodcutting

uote author=Xallo link=topic=13773.msg123426#msg123426 date=1233097870]

ALWAYS use two different hatchets when cutting down trees. It's always nice to have that top quality wood, so therefore, you need one very high QL hatchet with some nice WoA to speed up the process. Equip your high QL hatchet with WoA and cut the tree down. After you've done that, take out the low QL high CoC hatchet and start cutting the tree into logs. Remember, you gain MORE skill cutting trees into logs rather than cutting trees down. Personally, I use two 1.5kg hatchets, one 15QL w/ 99c, and the other 70QL w/ 97w 95c.

It's always nice to have a toolbelt to speed up the process. I use slot 1 for the high QL, slot 2 for the low QL, slot 3 for water, slot 4 for my meal, and slot 5 for cotton (if you fall).

uote]

Edited by Jberg
User inactive, so unpinned and updated topic. Had to break quotes because of forum limitations.

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I don't think constant grind-repairing works. You have to do it in between other actions, such as imping.

Also, different items have different difficulties to repair. Armour for example, would be better than a spindle.

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It worked very well for me at low level b4 I did any serious crafting. Certainly gave me a good base. Maybe someone who tries it can give further feedback.

Also don't be shy if you think everyone already knows your idea. New people start every day now and its nice to have the forums as a resource when you are starting out.

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Pff, waiting for decay to happen isn't worth it.

Make 50 tackles, put 'em in a burning campfire, pull them out when they hit 99 damage and repair the lot. Even with very high repairing you'll have ~2min action timers, so que up 5 of 'em and you can go AFK for 10 minutes.

This way you can actually grind it, not casually work on the skill.

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I used to use unfinished clay jars... they are easy to repair and decay fast even on deeds.. make 100 or so and check on them evry other day... then if you need a jar for something its easy to just repair and imp it up...

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Pff, waiting for decay to happen isn't worth it.

Make 50 tackles, put 'em in a burning campfire, pull them out when they hit 99 damage and repair the lot. Even with very high repairing you'll have ~2min action timers, so que up 5 of 'em and you can go AFK for 10 minutes.

This way you can actually grind it, not casually work on the skill.

Is that really legal to do? What if they think you are macroing and ban you? how on earth could you prove them wrong?

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Pff, waiting for decay to happen isn't worth it.

Make 50 tackles, put 'em in a burning campfire, pull them out when they hit 99 damage and repair the lot. Even with very high repairing you'll have ~2min action timers, so que up 5 of 'em and you can go AFK for 10 minutes.

This way you can actually grind it, not casually work on the skill.

Is that really legal to do? What if they think you are macroing and ban you? how on earth could you prove them wrong?

Why would it be illegal? If it is, is fishing illegal too? That has just as long of a timer.

You're not macroing, you're simply repairing. And if you're so paranoid of getting caught macroing, just don't leave your computer.

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Crops like wemp plants, garlic, onions, corn, pumpkins, and wheat can be used to make crappy healing covers that are great for building alchemy/natural substances skill.

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When improving large cloth tailoring items such as sails that require large amounts of raw material in the improving process, you will conserve precious string of cloth by improving using individual strings (0.1 KG) instead of a combined bunch.

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Plate smithing:

This is a tough one due to 3 skills being required

Coal making:

    No easy way to grind this, just spam charcoal piles as long as you can stand it.

Metallurgy:

    Making bronze and brass helps raise this skill to increase your chance of success on making the steel.

Plate smithing:

    Materials:

         2 forges

         7 cauldrons

    Place all 7 cauldrons in one forge.

    Cauldron #1 - 100 coal

    Cauldron #2 - 100 iron

    Use the remaining cualdrons to sort your steel lumps - ie: 1-10ql 11-20ql etc.. (This just makes it easier when your trying to imp and keeps things nice and tidy :)

    now your ready to start, make 100 steel plate gauntlets (cool and reuse your scrap from failers).

    Imp all the gauntelets to 5 - then 10 - 20 - 30 - 40 - and finally 50. At about 35-40 skill start spamming 20-30 great helms as well - these can fit in the forge with the cauldrons.

Tip: Use your lowest ql steel for the creation of items, the success rate is greatly reduced but you can cool the scrap and reuse it over and over (placing glowing lumps in a cold cauldron in an unlit forge insta-cools the scrap). Steel being extremely difficult to create this an effective way to use every bit of it.

Good luck and happy smithing,

Eq

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Picking sprouts is horrible forestry skillgain. Get yourself a large fruit yard or similar and harvest instead.

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I was about to say "Where did your cat avatar go" but lo and behold, there it is.

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There used to be a glitch with pegs that they had outrageous timers, 90dmg = 2hr 30min repair timer. I and no i didn't exploit, i only have 30 repairing atm  ::)

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When an item type is changed so that it's always finished, any existing unfinished items get massive repair timers. They do not actually give repair skill, though.

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... lots of platesmithing stooooof ....

You dont need to place iron inside the forge, as only coal needs to be glowing to combine these two materials.

To avoid multiple forges you can use still existing unfinished containers "bug", where you place x amount of unfinished containers in the forge and finish them once they are in. You get lots more space for specially your metallurgy needs by doing this. 20 backpacks... cauldrons... whole platesets fit in to backpacks so this is really useful for your platesmithing needs.

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To avoid multiple forges you can use still existing unfinished containers "bug", where you place x amount of unfinished containers in the forge and finish them once they are in. You get lots more space for specially your metallurgy needs by doing this. 20 backpacks... cauldrons... whole platesets fit in to backpacks so this is really useful for your platesmithing needs.

I would like to include a space saver/workaround section including this and the other forms of this; fountaincart, unfinished slabs in Cart, etc. Could I get an ok from FM to be sure this is appropriate. I know that I have seen these items discussed without issue on the forums. Just want to make sure b4 I add it to OP.

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Woodcutting

ALWAYS use two different hatchets when cutting down trees. It's always nice to have that top quality wood, so therefore, you need one very high QL hatchet with some nice WoA to speed up the process. Equip your high QL hatchet with WoA and cut the tree down. After you've done that, take out the low QL high CoC hatchet and start cutting the tree into logs. Remember, you gain MORE skill cutting trees into logs rather than cutting trees down. Personally, I use two 1.5kg hatchets, one 15QL w/ 99c, and the other 70QL w/ 97w 95c.

It's always nice to have a toolbelt to speed up the process. I use slot 1 for the high QL, slot 2 for the low QL, slot 3 for water, slot 4 for my meal, and slot 5 for cotton (if you fall).

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Hey, it can happen living on a mountain!  ;)

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Wrote this myself, hope it helps

Animal Taming:

Animals:

-At a lbeginning level,(about 1 or 2) tame a pig, pheasant or similar depending on the resources available to you. I would reccomend a pig because they will eat a larger variety of items; and should also be easiest to tame. (Pigs may be found wandering the wilderness and forests.)

-At a new tamer level, (about 5 to 10) you may choose to keep taming a pig or pheasant, or you may choose to tame a cat, a rat, a wolf etc. instead, although they will prove harder to grind it with. Keep grinding on the animals, keep taming.

-At a medium level (about 15 to 25) you may choose to keep taming a pig or pheasant, or you may move onto a cavebug, wolf or similar for similar gain plus enhancing the tame level of your own pet of choice. Keep taming them. Bear in mind that you should now be at about bear taming levels.

-At a higher level (about 30-40) you may choose nearly anything to tame - anything virtually up to unicorns, but again, a wolf, cavebug, pig, pheasant, deer, rat, cat etc. will get you more gain. You will not be able to tame many champion animals yet, or unicorns/crocodiles very well, but you will start getting there.

-At a title level (50+) You can tame virtually any basic animal now. Crocodiles will tame with a few attemtps, but taming a cavebug or similar may be your best choice of taming. If not there's always the good ol' reliable pigs.

-At master levels (very very high) you can choose whatever you like. You should also be able to master most champion animals, but be cautious nevertheless.

Taming Food

-If you are a fisherman, you may choose to fish and slice some filets to tame with. Animals you can tame include: Pigs, large rats, wild cats, black wolves, brown bears, black bears, cavebugs, crocodiles.

-If you are a farmer, you may choose to grow some exess seeds to tame with. Animals you can tame include: Deer, pheasant, pig, unicorn, hen, rooster, chicken, bull, cow, calf.

-If you are a fighter or warrior, you may choose to slaughter the bretheren of a carnivorous beast you wish to tame. Simply, you may tame some of the following: Pigs, large rats, wild cats, black wolves, brown bears, black bears, cave bugs, crocodiles.

-If you are a forager/botanizer/herbologist, you may find some odd berries or plants in your scavanges. The only animal you could tame with these is a pig.

-One old trick in the book is to fill a cauldron with water, and add some meat or fish and maybe a plant. You should get a heavy amount of soup. From this, you should fill up a smaller container, such as a pottery jar, and fill up a pottery flask with soup to tame a pig with. This will use 0.25kg of soup per tame and the soup should last maybe 150-200 tames; and is fairly easy to obtain again. However, this does only work with grinding taming on pigs so may not be the best choice, depending on the creatures and resources available to you.

Timespan

-The timespan will depend on your level. At lower levels it will raise fairly quickly, but as it advances it slows dramatically. At skill of 50-70, 400 meat filets taming a cavebug (without sleep bonus) may gain you about a skillpoint in taming, maybe less. (This is without affinities too) but by this level you will respectively be able to tame most creatures.

Hints

-When taming, always have somewhere safe to retreat to if you have to. A tamed pet or aggressive creature, or any animal you're taming can in one fell swoop start attacking you, so you always need somewhere to retreat to/a plan about avoiding attack.

-Sleep bonus is very useful for taming - you should gather your taming resources (your fish, meat, seeds etc.) without sleep bonus, store them in a container near your taming pen or area overnight, get some good sleep bonus and tame with it. This will boost skillgain quite a bit.

-Affinities would help drastically. 5 affinities in taming will boost skillgain 50%, so they are definitely worth seeking/investing in.

-Always carry some healing covers or rags/strings of cloth with you, in-case you do suffer wounds.

-Be fairly patient when you can and if you need to - it doesn't always follow a regular path as other skills may.

-Taming is changed occasionally. Always check out skillgain or how your taming skill changes if any updates occur related to taming (eg. the soup taming method may suddenly proceed to give little skill gain, that sort of general change.)

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Woodcutting

If you want hatchet skillgain, you should also occasionally cut down a tree with the low ql hatchet.

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There is a Tips for Skills page in the wiki, unless you wanted a forum-based deal?

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I think it's more likely folks will add useful things on a drive by here. The sticky helps too. I will see what I can add from the Wiki.

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