Returning player with a few questions

I recently got a new gaming laptop which is powerful enough that I can play SotA again for the first time in a few years. Mostly got back into the swing of things pretty easily, but I have a few specific questions:

1. black cutworm, hemlock borer, emerald ash borer - do these have a use yet or still just for selling to NPCs for a few extra coins?
2. have gold/silver scraps found their way into the game yet? I'm especially struggling for silver as I look to train masterworking.
3. Batching Materials (refinement skills) - is there any point to this beyond unlocking Efficient Refine, bearing in mind I rarely want to craft in batches of more than 20 which seems to be well below any limit which may exist? I've been locking off this skill and Swift Refine when they hit 80 as not seeing any great benefit, now I'm thinking I will drop them if/when my pooled XP runs out.
4. any suggestions for fetid water fishing locations? In the places I would think of as obvious candidates, like Solania and surrounding swamp zones, all the stagnant water seems to be non-fishable; could be bad luck with the spots I tried but I'd rather not waste time searching a bunch of invalid locations.

Thanks in advance!

 

these were all just recently added to cooking recipes.

technically yes, but not in amounts that are actually useful. if you get a silver goblet as loot you can scrap it and get one or two. however, if you take a silver goblet that's deco in the world, you won't get anything useful scrapping it, as is true for all world objects.

the refined materials skills in the refining trees only apply to the refined materials subsection of that part of the recipe book, so ingots only for smelting, timber only, spools only...

south fetid swamp, right by westend, has a long river of deep water through the whole scene.

 

@Alley Oop Thanks for the quick reply and useful info!

My question about Batching, for all of the different refinement skills, is basically: is there any point to raising it? Will I see any real benefit at level 80 compared to level 40, for instance? It seems like potentially wasted XP to keep raising it once I unlocked Efficient Refine Materials (for each of the different skills).

 

Also if you get a chance give this a quick read. I specifically did this for returning players: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ges-to-the-game-for-returning-players.164048/

 

Elgarion has something in the works for salvage, hopefully for next release. He claims gold and silver scrap will be a little more common then.

 

About batch refinement: I would suggest you keep your 80 in skill. Soon you won't be refining every resource the moment you get it, but rather start refining when you need something for a project. Unfortunately most projects take a lot of refining - so I like to be able to go and do some chores while my character refines No need to raise it further though, I'd say.
If you're short on crafting xp: In my opinion the best way to get crafting xp is to collect resources. It's really good now, especially with meticulous collection bonusses.
For silver: Elysium mine (level 5) is the best. Lots of silver and few mobs. And good xp too!

Refining materials takes a lot of xp, if you're getting higher and have the skills set to rise. So don't be afraid to lock those skills for the time being, or work just on one kind of refinement at the time, especially if your priority is working on Masterwork.

Good luck!
Ysold.

 

Long story short: Batching isn't useful if you don't plan to semi-afk while refining. Leveling it won't give you any further benefit.

 

Also, keep in mind that at level 80, you've only got about 180k xp in the skill. To get it from there to 100, you'll need a little over a million more xp. Point being, it may feel like you have a lot invested because it's all the way to level 80, but it's not really that much actual xp invested. If you set the skill to unlearn, you only get a percentage of that back into your pool so some xp is wasted. (90% goes back too your pool, I think, but I don't know for certain.) You can use an Book of Unlearning to get 100% back, but those cost Crowns to buy, and with only 180k on the table, you'd only be losing 18,000 xp. It's not really worth spending cash money to get back such a tiny amount.

[Edit- looked at the player guide to see if it said what the percentage returned to your pool was. It doesn't say what it is, but it does say that skills over 80 return 100% XP. Which makes me wonder why people even bother with the Books of Unlearning; it seems like the amount of XP you're actually losing is not very much, unless maybe you're unlearning a spec or one of the really xp hungry passives.]

 

It's 50% unless the devs have specifically set it for 100% unlearning.