How to Become a Mistress Tailor

By Sinuuyanea Nocturne of Quellious

Tailoring is the fine art of skinning helpless and not so helpless animals of their pelts and sewing them into garments to provide warmth, protection, or glamor. Fortunately for us Norrathians, Greenpeace doesn’t exist to stop us professional furriers, so I’ve taken it upon myself to guide the future fashion experts on this fine art.

Glossary

Arctic Wyvern—Shaman-only armor made from arctic wyvern hides. Studded.
Black Pantherskin—Monk- and Beastlord-only armor made from Black Pantherskins. Reinforced.
Cobalt Drake—made from cobalt drake hides. Can be worn by all except intelligence-based casters.
Fizzle—failing the creation of a trivial item. Regardless of skill, there is always a 5% fail rate on any given item, even if it is trivial, unless it is no-fail.
Fur—see Pelt.
Haze Pantherskin—Rogue-only armor made from haze pantherskins. Reinforced.
Hide—see Pelt.
Ice Silk—Caster-only armor made from the silk from Ice Burrowers. Silk.
Imbued—to bless a piece of armor or a weapon with a diety’s power. This is usually accomplished by putting an imbued gem with the rest of the items when doing the combine.
Infused—the most powerful version of a cultural armor. Requires much more expensive components.
Leather—armor designed from hides, pelts, skins and furs, designed for monks, druids, and other leather-wearing classes.
Leatherfoot Bags—made by Halflings. These bags come in various sizes, and are all 100% weight reduction.
Mana Vial—always entitled ‘vial of [adjective] mana’, these are made by enchanters. They require a poison vial and an appropriate gem:

Viscous: pearl, Thicken Mana (level 12)
Clear: emerald, Clarify Mana (level 29)
Distilled: 2 sapphires, Distill Mana (level 39)
Purified: 4 rubies, Purify Mana (level 49)

Mithril Leather—also known as wood elven cultural. Can be studded or reinforced, made from sabretooth tiger hides. Made by wood elves, humans, wood elves, and high elves can wear. Can be imbued with Tunare’s power only.
No-fail—regardless of skill, no fail items will always result in successful combines. Currently, only silk swatches and silk threads are no fail.
Oil—see Tannin.
Pelt—the skin, hide, or fur used in the construction of the leather-class of tailored armors.
Random Number Generator—or RNG, it is the bane of all tradeskillers. It is the last word on the success or failure of any combine.
Reinforced—armor made from regular, velium, or acrylia bonings.
Silk—armor designed from silk, designed for monks, beastlords, and intelligence-based casters.
Skin—see Pelt.
Steelsilk—also known as Erudite Cultural. Made from Terrorantula Silks. Can be worn only by Erudites, and can be imbued with Prexus’, Quellious’, or Cazic-Thule’s power. Plate and chain classes only.
Steelweave—the infused version of Erudite cultural. Same restrictions as Steelsilk, but humans may wear as well.
Stormreapers—the infused halfling cultural armor. Available in reinforced for druids, chain-type for rangers and plate-type for paladins. Halfling, human, and half elf wearable, it can only be imbued with Karana’s power.
Studded—armor made from regular, acrylia, or velium studs.
Swatch—two silks of the same types combined together.
Tannin—the ‘temper’ used in some leatherworking.
Thread—two lesser silks (usually has the suffix –ling in its name) combined together.
Trivial—when you can no longer raise skill through the manufacture of a given item.
Tunarean Soldier—a special armor made by wood elves. It is the upgrade to reinforced mithril leather.
Vale Leather—also known as Halfling Cultural. Available in studded and reinforced, and made with brute hides. Halflings, humans, wood and half elves can wear, and it can be imbued with Karana’s power.
Woven Platinum—infused Erudite Cultural armor that can be worn only by intelligence casters. Same restrictions as Steelsilk.

So, you want to be a Tailor, do ya?

For the beginning tailor, you will require at the very least a small sewing kit. These are sold in most cities on Norrath, but I recommend upgrading to a large kit asap, as most of the advanced recipies require them. Large kits are located in the inn in North Ro, the Feerrott, Qeynos Hills, Thurgadin, and many other locales that one should easily be able to access.

Here, kitty, wolfie, teddy, spidery…(0-36)

At this point, you are given several options. If you have the points to spare, you can simply train your way to 26, and proceed to the next step. If you wish to save your training points, however, you will have to make raw silken materials or patchwork. The raw silken materials, silk threads and silk swatches, are made by combining 2 spiderling silks for silk thread, or 2 spider silks for a silk swatch, in a sewing kit. This never fails, and becomes trivial at 15 skill. These will both be used for important items later on, so you may wish to stockpile them. Patchwork/tattered armor is made by combining a ruined cat, bear, or wolf pelt and a clothing pattern in a sewing kit. These all trivial at 26. The type of pelt will determine the size of the garment: cat for medium, bear for large, wolf for small.

After patchwork becomes trivial, you’ll be putting those silk swatches to good use with the manufacture of raw silk garments. To make these, combine a clothing pattern and 2 non-stacked silk swatches for tunics and leggings in a sewing kit. For every other raw silk piece, only 1 silk swatch is needed. These become trivial at 36, and at that point, you’ll be ready to move on.

Uh…what’s this metaly thing? (37-84)

For this step, you may want to make friends with a brewer and a smith, or if you’re a perfectionist like me, become one yourself, as this step requires items from both of those trades. Also, you will learn quickly that the mask pattern is your best friend…

From 37 to 56, you will want to make studded masks, which take a mask pattern, a medium quality wolf, cat, or bear pelt, and 1 stud, which is made through smithing. I suggested masks, as they require the fewest studs. Studded masks become trivial at 56.

From 57 to 84, you’ll want to sell off your remaining studs, and buy or make heady koila, which is brewed. You’ll now be making cured silk masks, which require 1 silk swatch, 1 heady koila, and a mask pattern. Again, I suggested the mask pattern, as they require the fewest koilas and the fewest swatches.

Side note: Once you reach 84 skill, hand made backpacks (backpack patteren and high quality bearskin) and Wu’s Fighting Gauntlets (glove pattern, greater lightstone, silk swatch, 4 heady koilas, vial of viscous mana) become trivial. These items, especially the 10 slot backpack are highly prized and popular, and will sell well.

Redirect all my mail to the Karanas (85-115)

Load up on quiver patterns and get to East Karana, you’re going to be there a while. This is the step that seperates the men from the non-men, as you’ll be making quivers from now until 115. (Note: make certain that you purchase the Quiver Pattern, not Fleeting Quiver Pattern.) Combine in a sewing kit, a quiver pattern and a high quality cat pelt. Quivers are containers that will only hold arrows (bah!), so you’ll have to decide on wether or not to resale them to merchants or drop them to the ground. These become trivial at 115.

As an alternate to making quivers, you can make reinforced armor. Once again, mask patterns are the absolute best: combine 1 mask pattern, a high quality wolf/cat/bear pelt, and a steel boning (made by a smith) in the sewing kit. These will also take you to 115, but are a hassle to make, and considering that high quality cat pelts would be better suited for quivers (fewer ingredients needed) and high quality bear pelts make better and more profitable backpacks, and high quality wolfskins are so rare…

S-so C-c-cold (100-131)

With the addition of Scars of Velious™, new sets of tailoring recipies were introduced. Over the course of several patches, it became painfully clear that unless you were a wood elf or halfling, you’d never be able to make the darn things with a reasonable success rate without spending lots of platinum. Finally, a new product was added to attempt to bridge the gap; unfortunately, it only goes a third of the way. Still, we take what we can get, like the trained harbor seals we are. Ranting aside, I now present to you Crystalline Silk Garments.

Crystalline Silk is harvested off of various crystal spiders in Thurgadin’s mines, Velktor’s Labyrinth, and Crystal Caverns. It’s stackable, but cant be used in this form; you must make it into swatches. Combine 2 crystalline silks, not stacked, mind you, in a sewing kit. This never fails, and becomes trivial at 26. To make the garments, combine in a sewing kit a clothing pattern, 1 silver thread (purchased in Thurgadin, possibly Erudin?) and 1-3 crystalline swatches (1 for caps, masks, gorgets, shoulders, and wristbands, 2 for sashes, sleeves, gloves, and slippers, 3 for tunics, cloaks, and legs). The best way to get the most skill for your silk is to make mantles (1 swatch) until 118, then sleeves (2 swatches) until 124, and finally tunics (3 swatches) until 131.

Koila’s bite! (128-158)

The elusive Master Wu, after years of silence and mystery, has finally released the remainder of his ensamble…or, more importantly, the recipes on how to make them. To create Wu’s Fighting Armor, you need a recipe similar to the already existing gloves; combine in a tailor’s kit a pattern, a vial of viscous mana (enchanter made), 4 bottles of heady koila (brewed), and silk swatches. For best results, follow the same progression you did with Crystalline Silks.

Not that forge thing again! (159-242)

Shadows of Luclin™ added a new set of tailoring recipies to make it slightly easier to bridge the gap on the road to grand mastery; Acrylia Studded (trivial 188 on all pieces) and acrylia reinforced (trivial 242 on all pieces). Acrylia studded armor is made by combining together a superb rockhopper hide, the appropriate pattern, a paeala bark tannin (brewed), and 1 to 5 acrylia studs. Acrylia reinforced armor is made much in the same manner, except a flawless rockhopper hide is used instead of a superb one, and 1-4 acrylia bonings (instead of studs) are used in it’s creation. Once again, the mask pattern will become your constant companion (if you are going for skill alone), as each mask type takes only one stud or boning.

Questions? Comments? Am I off my nut about something? Find me on the serverwide.eqtraders channel in-game, or check out www.eqtraders.com . They are the first and last word for everything tradeskill related.

The fine print: All text on this site is copyright by the respective authors. The game EverQuest is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. This site is not meant to represent official EQ policy, and we are not responsible for errors/omissions that occur due to changes in EverQuest trade skills.