Your best bet is to skip the balsam because it is a huge pain to farm, and nearly impossible to buy. Instead do Silk, Leather, Studded Leather, Reinforced Leather, and finally Studded Reinforced Leather, which gets you high enough to start on the next stage of tailoring.
At 135 - 180 you will make:
Drake Hide armor with green ointment, for wiz casters
Hopper armor with green ointment, for int casters (cloak in particular is nice)
Cougar/panther armor with red ointment, for monks (both hides make armor with the same stats)
The drake/hopper may be the easiest because the batblood/direleaf is so easy to get.
The red ointment for cougar/panther is not too hard. Black blood drops like candy in shrouded and the nightshade is easy enough to get off rats in first ruins.
at 180 you have two options:
sharkskin shoulderpads with the balsam ointment and 3 sharkskins (try mistywoods or lake starfall). These are more difficult to make than the begining wyrm/wyvern hides, not sure what the trivial is yet, but I am guessing over 200, maybe around 220.
OR
Wrym/Wyvern hide armor with blue ointment
The blue ointment requires wolf blood and tangleweed from sirens grotto. The tangleweed is the most difficult of all componenents by far.
BE CAREFULE HERE - Do not attempt a combine of the blue ointment until your brewing is 130 to 150.
Blue ointment has a much higher trivial and you cannot afford to waste tangleweed in failed attempts. Everythign you need to get your skill leveled up can be purchased from the brewing vendor in S NP.
Also, always do combines with the patterns in the same order that the vendor displays them. The trivials work in this order. In many cases (after 135) two patterns will share the same trivial but I seemed to get the best skillups when I would do the easiest non-trivial combine.
At 135 - 180 you will make:
Drake Hide armor with green ointment, for wiz casters
Hopper armor with green ointment, for int casters (cloak in particular is nice)
Cougar/panther armor with red ointment, for monks (both hides make armor with the same stats)
The drake/hopper may be the easiest because the batblood/direleaf is so easy to get.
The red ointment for cougar/panther is not too hard. Black blood drops like candy in shrouded and the nightshade is easy enough to get off rats in first ruins.
at 180 you have two options:
sharkskin shoulderpads with the balsam ointment and 3 sharkskins (try mistywoods or lake starfall). These are more difficult to make than the begining wyrm/wyvern hides, not sure what the trivial is yet, but I am guessing over 200, maybe around 220.
OR
Wrym/Wyvern hide armor with blue ointment
The blue ointment requires wolf blood and tangleweed from sirens grotto. The tangleweed is the most difficult of all componenents by far.
BE CAREFULE HERE - Do not attempt a combine of the blue ointment until your brewing is 130 to 150.
Blue ointment has a much higher trivial and you cannot afford to waste tangleweed in failed attempts. Everythign you need to get your skill leveled up can be purchased from the brewing vendor in S NP.
Also, always do combines with the patterns in the same order that the vendor displays them. The trivials work in this order. In many cases (after 135) two patterns will share the same trivial but I seemed to get the best skillups when I would do the easiest non-trivial combine.