Crafting: Pamama au Lait and Sole Sushi

Over the past few weeks, I've been working on Qiara's cooking skill, getting her up to 82.6 from 77. I first made some Shallops Tropicale, since she had all the ingredients on hand, and it seems to be selling pretty well these days - decent profit even if you buy the ingredients on the AH. I then switched to Pamama au Lait, making enough to regen an army, but it's so cheap to make, and sells steadily for a profit, so it's not so bad, even as an unstackable item. It was especially handy when Windurst had control of Upper Elshimo, and Qiara could get the Pamamas herself. When she hit 78, I made a Whitefish Stew and turned it into the Guild to pass the test and become an Adept.

Since I knew Sole Sushi would be coming up quickly, I've started having Kiki fish for Black Sole in Port Jeuno. They're a lot easier to catch now than when I tried 30 levels ago, but if I'm not paying enough attention, I still time-out on them occasionally. I seem to get fewer skillups on the level 96 Black Sole (my fishing is at 69) than on the level 75 Kayabaligi, which feeds into my theory about skillups being better when you're close to the cap for a particular fish.

At current prices, it's still better for Qiara to make sushi out of the sole I catch, netting me about 25K for each stack of black sole I catch (two stacks of sole sushi), compared to 15-17K for the stack of sole itself. It's not too profitable to be making sushi if you have to buy your own fish though. I guess some of the anti-RMT measures have been working, since sole was much cheaper not that long ago. Tarutaru Rice isn't so costly on the AH anymore either - it's just a tiny bit more than it costs to buy from the Cooking Guild. I still should be growing my own though, since it's an easy crop to raise.

I had tried going to Oldton Movalpolis to catch Armored Pisces, which I could use for skilling up Bonecraft, but I can scarcely catch those any more. They must have changed how they fight, since I was able to catch them well enough ages ago.

I also entered the Fish Ranking Contest last month - they wanted the biggest Monke-Onke. I caught quite a few of them, and had one that was significantly bigger than the others. I turned that one in, and didn't try for another. However, I came in 24th, so it wasn't good enough.