Its Growapair here giving you the goods - here's the ditty on 399 - 400 Armorsmithing...

1. First step is to take the WO from the trainer there. You craft 18 shields and probably already have the mats for it as they're standard vendor WO mats. I think this is the "Beginning" quest result: Craft: Commander-in-Chief's Shield - Recipes - Aion.

2. Second step is to take the follow-up "Expert" quest. It involves crafting a
Shining Strengthened Adamantium Shield . This is a white recipe that you are trying to proc a green from. You probably already learned the white recipe as a WO reward, but if not, you can buy it from the mats vendor. You can also purchase this shield off the AH if you want (depending on the price, it probably won't be cheaper than trying to craft yourself) as you just need one to turn in and it doesn't HAVE to be crafted by you.

This requires: Craft: Strengthened Adamantium Shield - Recipes - Aion.

3. Third, and I assume final, step is to create the
Craftsman's Shining Strengthened Orichalcum Shield which is an HQ proc off the green recipe. The biggest problem with this is obtaining the mats. You basically need to be level 40-45 to have a chance at obtaining the mats. Craft: Craftsman's Strengthened Orichalcum Shield - Recipes - Aion

This requires (not listed on AionArmory):

* 37 Large Orichalcum Plates (4 ingots = 4 ores * 37 = 148 ores; 2 agents each * 37 = 74 agents)
* 31 Medium Orichalcum Plates (3 ingots = 3 ores * 31 = 93 ores; 2 agents each * 31 = 62 agents)
* 56 Orichalcum Wires (2 ingots = 2 ores * 56 = 112 ores)

353 ores (Okay, someone please doublecheck that as I was thinking it was 706 before).

* 5 Craftsman's Premium Refining Stones (the hardest mat to acquire)
* 11 Aether of High Purity
* 17 Orichalcum Ore of High Purity

In all, it's 353 Orichalcum Ore and 136 dissolving agents (~20,000 kinah for agents) per attempt. On my server, the Ores go for 500-1,000 kinah each, the Refining Stones 5-10 million kinah each, the Aether are ~5,000 kinah each, and the High Purity Ores are 3,000-5,000 kinah each. Also, each ore requires you to use an Active Carbon to craft an ingot. At 1,188 kinah each, that's 419,364 kinah. Uh...seriously?

Even if you farm all of your mats, it will still require nearly 450,000 kinah spent on just vendor mats to actually attempt each shield.

All of the "Expert" recipes are 400+ skill. Having access to craft all of the new endgame recipes in 1.5 will require completing this shield quest. It really will take your legion farming mats like crazy to allow you enough attempts. I assume Weaponsmithing and Sewing and such will require equally challenging 399-400 point quests which will probably more than max your legion's resources.

At this point, I don't see any reason for me to move beyond this quest or even attempt it. Even if I were to purchase gold, you're looking at $15 for 10 million (bare minimum of 32 million per attempt); $135 or more for three attempts. Seriously not worth it.

I really don't see what the point is in making it so terribly difficult to complete this quest. It's not like you're even going to keep and use the reward.

Adding insult to injury, the Expert Armorsmith title is probably the worst of all of the trade titles and really not any better than run-of-the-mill titles you get through regular questing. Titles here: