Today I ran an area that had mechanical monkeys: yeah! I got some mechanical parts! Now I finally would be able to craft a clock, something that has been long on my wish list. But: a clock needs a garnet. So I went on a quest to gather a garnet or plenty of garnet pieces. I spent 2 hours in Graf gem mines and found 2 nodes, but during all that time they didn't respawn once I harvested them(?!) I went to Blackblade pass and spent an hour there. However, I wasn't able to locate any garnet nodes. Last try was Spindrift passage, by way of the Serpent Spine's foothills. After an hour, I still wasn't able to find an entrance to the Spindrift passage. At that moment, my frustration tolerance was reached. I can't understand what the reasons is to make it so hard to reach a resource. Labyrinths without a map. Bridges that crumble after you pass the once. Nodes that don't respawn. I can understand that it should be hard to reach something really really wonderful. But for a common resource? Please no! *Disappointed* Ysold.
I agree with one detail here, the nodes that do not respawn. There was a change in the past to make it so nodes wouldn't respawn in the same area if other nodes elsewhere in the zone didn't get gathered first. My solution has been simple, I've made myself a route, and that route always ends with me leaving and re-entering the instance to make everything spawn again, which is stupid, but works. As for the labyrinths, I'm personally fine with no maps for them, helps me depend on my own navigational skills, or my personal Catography skill (I've started making maps of dungeons, labyrinths and stuff like that if I need them). As for broken bridges, only parts of these bridges break down (unless there is somewhere where the whole bridge falls, never been there if so). You can still jump over the gap, or even use blink to teleport over it. Take these as small traps more than actual obstacles preventing a second passage. These are good things in the game, annoying sometimes, especially when your guildmate falls down the last bridge of Ulfheim 3 times and everyone has to drop back down and help him back up, but its a trap, its not made to be fun. Not enough games use these things, and the one I do Remember that uses something like this is runescape, and it relies 100% on luck, not skill, so at least we have that going for us.
There should be an entrance to Spindrift Passage in Graff Gem Mine, where you already were. I don't think there is an entrance in SS Foothills, just the entrance to Serpent's Spine Mine. (There is an entrance to Spindrift in SS Mine, but the mine is a pretty tricky scene to find you way around.) This is the old map. It still sorta works, but hasn't been updated in a long time. It won't show you where you are or anything, though. FWIW, this week's announcement includes news of another 20 or so maps being added. Now that they have the tech for them, it looks like they're adding quite a few every week.
You might have missed the breakable walls but if you enter via the trap door from the Oracle Colossus you'll arrive at the rear of the map where the lava is for fishing and there are eight nodes there too. When fishing there you can reset the percentage chance by popping back up to the Oracle Colossus scene and down again and it'll reset the garnet nodes too, I also harvest the three onyx nodes from up top when doing so. I harvested a little over 2,000 fragments and about 20 garnets whilst fishing for the week 22 contest. Spoiler: Trap Door Spoiler: Node Map Excuse the crude copy and paste of the Colossus scene entrance and two small fishing holes but the current map is a little out of date, the green dots denote the garnet nodes.
Yes, check out https://sotawiki.net/sota/Spindrift_Passage All of the passages have the types of gems there listed that can be found in each one. As well as what is connected to each passage. I would be happy to give you a tour on how to find it, if you need.
Thanks for all your good tips and hints! But the fact that your tips are needed rather proofs my point: a rather common resource shouldn't be hidden this well.
I don't know, it's nice to have some things require some exploration to work out. It took me forever, but I really enjoyed figuring out all the underworld connections the hard way to do the alt route of the main quest.
Are you exploring and finding this? I discovered all this doing the Chapter 1 main quest while exploring all the various underground passages. I did this to completely avoid all of the PvP zones. However currently, there is NO reason at all to go gem mining in the passages. Because killing trolls are where all the gems in the entire game come from (they all drop random gems, just look at the API data, most ALL of the entire gems in the entire game come from trolls). However, the passage do provide areas where only specific gems can be found. But ultimately, it is more worth your time killing trolls.
Thank you very very much to @Lained , I am now the proud owner of a tambour mantle clock https://imgur.com/AMNLGX1
This really neads to be fixed. Fighting trolls should not be the best way to get gems. The majority of gems should come from gem nodes.
