Crafting Enchanting Gems Alchemy

I was grinding North Brightbane Woods last night for cotton, wood, beetles, ore and animals and I only appeared to accumulate about 300,000 producer XP in about 2 hours - am I "doing it wrong"?

I've recently discovered butchering and cooking - I do it because it's fun, but I'm curious as to if I'm gaining any producer XP through the acts of actually butchering animals/fish and/or actually cooking useable food.

I did miss your tip about the obsidian potion for meticulous - I'll give that one a try too next time I go resource hunting. I've used the one that moves your pooled XP into your skills more quickly, as well as the ones for strength and carrying capacity. Those are fun.

I think I figured out how to sell COTOs - there are two vendors in Owl's Head that buy them, I just click the Sell tab. 1 was 21,500 for 100 COTOs, the other 22,500 for 100 COTOs. I'll shop around Crafter Town too. Any other recommended places to shop around?

 

You gain experience, but not much. I havem't looked at butchery, but I know you get experience for cooking. Especially first time recipes. Butchery will probably be in line with salvaging, which is 0-10 XPs per, depending upon what you salvage. That is with the current double XP gain.

 

You should check the level of the crops, North Brightbane Woods is only L4, could be that the nodes dont give you max XP (higher tier nodes give higher XP).
If you have a success chance of 99% or higher then the node is most likely not worth it...
The 2 obsidian potions should almost double your XP gain per hour.
The potion of guidance is a must for leveling the skills wasting mats, not really worth to use for other skills (the limiting factor usually is the XP pool)

I would also check Novia Market.
Regarding XP from crafting: especially more difficult recipes give higher XP, but usually you need expensive mats (e.g. warlock chains or the new shrines)
I still think you get consistently most XP from high level mining (e.g. Elysium Mines) AND you gain the ore.

 

Quick update: I was able to sell some COTOs and now I have bronze helmet, chest armor, leggings, boots, gauntlets and spear, all at least +15, and the chest armor and spear are socketed. The whole lot cost me about 110,000GP. I paid $30 for 3000 COTOS. 110,000GP is about 500COTOs, so, all of that armor cost me about $5 in real money. To be honest, I didn't shop around at all, I just went straight to crafters town and bought from the first place I saw that sells them (near Gypsy Market) so I hope I didn't get hosed, but I think they were all crafted by Elrond and they all have at least 60 durability remaining. I liked the bonuses listed that I saw, especially the boosts in leg sweep, puncture and skewer damage on the spear.

The instant difference in my combat ability is tangible.

I still eventually want to craft my own gear - maybe I'll start with a cloak, 2 rings and a necklace to complement the armor and weapon I already have. Erst the while, I'm having fun building up Producer XP between now and when I do so. I plan to try the obsidian potions too.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

 

Except for a crafted bow or two early on, I've always used my own crafted gear. The way the game handles crafting currently, there really isn't a gigantic difference between what the super highest level crafters can make and what you can make yourself if you just GM your skills.

 

How close is this spear to an "Endgame" spear? What more could a spear potentially do that this one does NOT do?

 

That's a decent item for sure!
Overall it's WAY easier to just buy your stuff than try to craft it.
I can craft you some jewelry if you like, just PM me in game, Ulric Hildegard.

 

For whatever it contributes to this or any previous discussions, I just pillaged Etceter Crag Mines in less than 90 minutes, amassing about 100 gold ore, about 35 iron ore and about 400,000 producer XP. Killed Lord Hymen the Unseen or whatever his name is too. I actually DIED once when upon entering the 3rd level and breaking through the walls I was set upon by 3 Hardened Skeleton Footmen, 2 Forsaken Hewers and 3 ghosts - thanks for the ankhs, pun intended!

 

I accidentally found an even better place - the spectral mines. The iron nodes respawn almost instantly, as do the hardened skeletons.

 

And a lot of Nickel there too....

 

Am I onto something here, or am I just overthinking this?

Let's say you have 600 animal hides in your inventory.

Option 1: Sell them to an NPC for 4,800GP

Option 2 (if you happen to have 150 Suet accumulated, otherwise this doesn't work):
Buy 9 tanning knives (80 each) and 450 curing salts (8 each). That's 4,320 spent.
Craft the 600 animal hides into 600 pieces of leather - gains 30,000 - 40,000 producer XP depending on how many exceptional items you craft
Craft the 600 leather into 150 supple leathers - gains 75,000 - 100,000 producer XP depending on how many exceptional items you craft

If one were so inclined, one could then turn around and craft 50 supple leather bow strings, 150 supple leather straps or 75 yards of supple leather (each would require buying more salt and knives). Haven't gone as far as to see how many producer XP each of these items gains.

Or, one could turn around and sell the 150 supple leathers to an NPC for 9,600GP. That nets a "profit" of 480gp (woo frickin hoo).

It does take a long time to do all of that crafting, but it's time the player can spend going off and doing something else while the crafting is "going on" as opposed to being out grinding which requires constant attention.

Thoughts?

 

I honestly feel that beetle carapace is better for leather and suet is better for cloth.

 

It all depends on what you are wanting...in game cash or producer xp. Some activities you can semi afk for coffee or restroom or view youtube videos while you butcher, cook or potion brew. I'm a big fan of those activities that net a little of everything. That is why i like the resolute sewer spiders....you actively kill them for spider silk that sells all day for 5gp to players, pick up venom sacks that make potions (semi afk option) that you can sell for a good profit of roughly 15gp per sac. And you get spider legs and eyes that net 2 really good cooking recipes for great producer xp that you gain while also (semi-afk).

So you add all that up to the regular field dressing of those spiders and you get a good slug of producer xp while making a bit of cash as well.

At the end of the day though, elysium mining is going to give you the best cash and producer xp that isnt an adventuring activity..at least that i have seen so far in game...with silver ore at 100gp each its hard not to farm it to death unless you can kill high end mobs for cash and loot to sell.

 

I need to spam wood. My former favorite place to do so was North Brightbone Woods but with it being only a Tier 4 area I'm wondering if there's a T5 or T6 area that just as much wood to harvest.

 

Have to ask @Anpu, I know he has a favorite place, but I don't recall where. I think some people like Greymark in Hidden Vale. Personally, I'm a fan of Lamech's Bazaar in Mistrendur, but that might not be as efficient unless your toon is super speedy.

 

Is there an issue currently in North Brightbone Woods? I can't cut down any trees! The "Harvest Maple Wood" tooltip comes up but one swing of the axe and the tree "goes solid" and I can't harvest it. No enemies in sight, no "interrupted" message.

 

i just went there and harvested a pine and a maple with no problem. if there's a specific tree, please do a bug report.

 

I look forward to Anpu's response. FWIW Greymark is good, you just have to start searching in the middle of the map. You have to kill a lot of elves and kobolds while looting trees which isn't necessarily a bad thing because they give decent loot. And I like the XP boost from the reaper.

 

I can't actually give you a specific answer. I have only calculated for myself which scene in the game for my character, with my skills, my equipment and how fast I can kill things that prevent me from chopping a tree, and comparing the output of wood in a scene by specifically running from tree/cotton node to tree/cotton node and ignoring everything else in the scene per hour.

You will have to go to different scenes, with the resources you wish to gather, and find if a specific area provides you with enough amounts of resources you are wanting to gather. This will be different for every player playing the game.

 

That was a dodgy answer huh

I think Necropolis Barrens is great for wood and cotton.