Hi Everyone,

This is my first contribution to the forums and I wanted to throw out some ideas. My guild mates and I were talking about socketing gems and repair skills and I wanted to let everyone know what we came up with. First, We felt that socketing gems should not be part of blacksmithing but instead be something that a jeweler does. It requires special tools and knowledge to work with the small gems and sockets. A blacksmith really doesn't make sense. They are really for pounding big pieces of metal and not for intricate gem work. One person said they would break the gem . The jeweler (or include with gem cutter) would create the socket and socket the gem. When the gem is put in the piece of metal or leather, the jeweler would be the primary skill and the leather working for (LA) or blacksmithing for (MA and hopefully HA soon) as the secondary skill needed. You could even just use armor making for the secondary skill as well.

The second idea is I thought the repair armor and repair weapons skills should just be taken out and both rolled into blacksmithing. A competent blacksmith should be able to repair weapons and armor easily. This has two positive effects. First, it will let blacksmiths concentrate on one skill and second, it will take out two skills that take a ridiculous amount of time to train.

Well those are our thoughts. Please let me know what you think.

Thank you