Still mastered only by gnomes, tinkering brings wonderful contraptions to the residents of Norrath.
Below you will find guides that will help you master the art of Tinkering should you be a gnome so inclined.
This skill can only be learned by Gnomes who have reached level 16 (reconfirmed October 2022 that this is still true).
The first thing you must do is acquire a toolbox, the container in which this tradeskill is practiced.
There are several types of toolboxes. These are portable and kept in your inventory.
There are also stationary containers that can be used to make combines.
Once you have your toolbox, make your way to Crescent Reach, and seek out Matrum Geerlok on the ground floor of the main building behind the bankers. He is on find.
If you prefer, there are also Freebie quest versions for tinkering offered in Abysmal Sea.
NOTE: Gnomes start with a base skill of 50 in tinkering, so you don't have to do this step. However, IF you want to refine Dark Matter from Gates of Discord zones on your own in the future, you will need to do the Abysmal Sea Tinkering Collect quest.
Notes:
Alternatively, you can acquire a Geerlok Clockwork Contraption from a more highly skilled tinkerer, it will add 5% to your base skill to help with successes.
You must equip it to apply the boost to your base skill. The modifiers from the Trophy and the Geerlok do not stack. You will get the highest benefit between the two equipped items.
Once you have evolved your trophy to Journeyman level, you no longer need the Geerlok.
You may be staring in wonder at this section. There are Tinkering AAs? But I don’t see them in the Alternate Advancement window anywhere!
The first three levels of AA for Tinkering Mastery work a little differently than other tradeskills.
Grab your toolbox, head over to Ak’Anon, and find Rylin Coil (he is on find).
He gives you a very simple task to obtain books that can be clicked to award Tinkering Mastery levels 1 – 3. They still cost AA points, so you will need to have 18 AAs available to spend to click all three books.
You do not need to purchase a level of New Tanaan Crafting Mastery to raise Tinkering past 200.
How you raise your skill from 55 to 300 can depend on your tradeskill style.
Some folks prefer to figure it out themselves and find things from the quick trivial list that are slightly above their current skill level, some will just pick a high trivial recipe and make those combines until they are maxed.
Others seek advice from those who have gone before. Below you will find links to a page with a suggested path and the quick trivial list. Use whichever meets your needs the best.
If you are new to raising a tradeskill from 301 to 350, check out the article below for the basics:
There are currently 866 Tinkering recipes that count towards 350 mastery, and you must learn 791 of those recipes to achieve 350.Skilling up from 301 to 350 is completely different than skilling up from 55 to 300.
This extended skill level is obtained by learning unique tinkering recipes. See the general guide above for skilling up from 301 to 350.
Remember you will need to purchase levels 4 – 13 of the Tinkering Mastery AAs as well. Revisit the Alternate Advancement Points – Tinkering guide above for details.
There are currently 870 recipes that count towards 350. To reach 350, you must learn 791 of those recipes. The good news is 567 of them can be learned by scribing the following books:
Up to 8 recipes can be learned if you did both the Crescent Reach Freebie or the Abysmal Sea Freebie and the Abysmal Sea Collect quests.
If you did not do any of these quests and aren’t inclined to go back and try to do them, you can at least visit Matrum Geerlok in Crescent Reach to get his 4 recipes.
Simply hail him and say [recipes]. Getting the Abysmal Sea Recipes isn’t quite as simple.
That should leave you with 218 – 222 unique recipes to learn and about 275 to choose from.