[-LFG-] Beginner's Guide to Gathering

[Altybear 237]

A blast from the past, this guide is here to stay!

This guide becomes mostly relevant after you've completed the new player experience which will take you through all three temple zones. 

>Quick Tips
- Numlock is the Auto Run Key
- You can change factions inside the temple by selecting one of the banners shown below, They're inside that tent/booth type thing to the right. This area is the opposite doorway on the Sentinels plaza from where all the vendors and crafting benches are.
- The Level Boost Scroll and Respec Scroll are located in the tent on the left here, the book vendor sells single use Respec and Boost items for 40k and 75k gold respectivly.


Alrighty! Lets talk about how to get you started on Gathering!

First up, there are five different types of Gathering

Mining = Ore
Quarrying = Stone
Skinning = Hide
Logging = Wood
Gravedigging = Bodyparts

Each of these gatherings requires the use of one of your exploration discipline slots. You can purchase the common gathering discipline from a vendor inside your faction's temple. You should have met him during the tutorial. He's over here.

He's more towards the back, as you get closer too the bank you'll see the icons for the Minor Discipline Vendors. See em back there in the image below? They're up in the back and too the Left.

Here He is! The vendor you want to talk to is the one with the blue diamond over his head on the right hand side since there is 2 of em now! The elf on the left is the crafting exploration disc vendor and the elken on the right is the harvesting exploration disc vendor

If you're talking to the right fellow, you'll be seeing a shopping interface like this!


I know it looks a little complicated and intimidating, but don't worry we'll break it down step by step. Each of those items along the top are Common Gathering Disciplines. Gravedigging, Logging, Mining, Quarrying, and Skinning. The items that are bags down along the bottom left hand corner are Belts, these can be equipped once you get your hands on a Uncommon (Green) Quality Gathering discipline. In the right hand corner you've got specialty additive coins and Domination dust, those coins aren't used until you're making a Legendary Belt so don't worry about them and domination dusts use is explained further down below.

So now you know where to get a common gathering discipline from, everyone just calls these discs by the way. But what do you do with it? The tutorial covers this, but for the sake of explanation in case your skipping the tutorial. For this part, lets open up your Inventory screen! As you can see below, most of the screen looks familiar, but you'll see in the upper right hand area that I've got the 'Discipline Tab' open rather then the 'Equipment Tab' which is open by default.



As you can see on this character, I've already got both my Exploration discipline slots filled, (Id have shown a blank but I've run out of characters, I apologize). To equip a discipline its a simple matter of dragging and dropping into the slot. Disciplines can now be unequipped as well by dragging them into your inventory. When you first aquire a disc it will state 'Binds When Equipped' on it, and once you've equipped it the item will Soulbind to you displaying the text as shown on the example below on the right.

Alrighty! You've got your common gathering disc equipped, I'd advise Wood, Ore, Stone, or Leather as your first, gravedigging is really only used for necromancy which is gated behind group content so its a little tricky just starting off. Lets talk about tools! So far you've probably been using the common tools that you can make using the crafting menu J. Equipping your common discipline has now granted you a 'trait' that allows you to equip intermediate tools of that gathering type. See how below it says Traits Granted, Miner and Intermediate Runestone Picks? Traits are what allow you to equip better tools and gear.



Inside the vendor area (opposite the side with all the vendors) you'll see a plethora of crafting benches, starting off we only need to focus on 2 of them. Starting with the wholly unimpressive but very important general crafting bench.


You're going to need a couple of resources for this part, so if you haven't yet wander outside the temple and gather up a handful of non basic ore, wood, and ethereal dust if you don't have it. You only need afew to start off. Opening up the General crafting bench will show you this screen!


As you can tell this has a lot of different drop downs, the ones we are going to be using is 'Runecrafting' and 'Basic Crafting'. From the basic crafting menu we'll be making a few tools same as we did before. If you use wood you gathered from a tree that is not Knotwood you'll get a 'Sturdy Tool' rather then a 'Tool', the only difference here is durability, but when crafting all durability is cumulatively added together, so small efforts help in the long run.





After you've gotten your basic tool, sturdy or otherwise, lets pop open the Runecrafting tab on that list.

Like I said we'll be crafting an intermediate Harvesting Tool, so select the one you want and now we'll be using those resources you gathered earlier. For this recipe, you can't use slag, so make sure you've gathered from the glowy ore nodes out and around the map. I know the drop rate is pitiful, I promise we'll be getting to how to fix that.



Up till now, you've probably never had to deal with Assembly chance. I'm using my Runecrafter for this explanation which is why my Assembly stats (Shown down there in the bottom right just above difficulty and below the reset button) are a fair bit higher then most of yours will be. That success chance percentage down there is the thing stating how likely it is that your crafting will succeed. Now, when you press assemble on this and succeed you'll be shown this screen. For most this will be your first time actually touching the real crafting system.



This is the 'experimentation screen' for crafting. Most of you will have one maybe two points of experimentation to work with. You can 'roll' them on any of the stats listed here, for a intermediate runestone pick you'll have Durability and Mining. Lets click on those little diamonds below those two stats on the left hand side to slot our experimentation points.



I went ahead and threw all mine into Mining for this example. Now, you've got your points in place, but what does that mean? For every experimentation point the crafting system is going to do a roll, this roll will determine a value from Critical Failure to Amazing (I think, I stopped paying attention to the names a long time ago, shiny golden dot good) for each individual roll. How likely you get a success or better is determined by your risk, which is described in that fancy box just below where we put in our experimentation points. See here how the drop down under 'Add Risk' says 'No Additional Risk' right now? That means I'm getting no bonuses to the stats beyond the result that i just explained (Shiny golden dot good, makes big stat bonuses).

I'm going to change that stat for demonstration purposes, for general crafting, I'd suggest trying to keep that 'Your experimentation stats' value and the 'Final experimentation difficult' within about 10 of each other, but that's just advice, feel free to deviate and go crazy.



So! I ran this on the 'ARE YOU INSANE' Level of risk difficulty from the risk drop down, Initially I had six failures out of nine. Each failure gave me around 4% bonus for rolling on the 'Are You Insane' difficulty but 0%, Critical Failures will give you negative percentages that will take away from your total. As you can see in the image above, only 3 of the little dots are dark 'failure' indicators rather then the six that I just stated.

This is because I used the 'Polish' option that you see just above the 'Take' button, polish re-rolls 3 of your lowest rolls on a crafting experimentation and will always give you at least 1 level better of results, for instance turning three failures into three success and reducing my overall number of failures.

Sorry if its not super clear here. 
In summary:

The number of experimentation points are the number of times the system rolls. Higher rarity crafted items will give you more chances to roll, but you need more points to spend.
Each roll gives you Flat percentage bonus to the stat based on result, Critical Failure is negative, Failure is 0, Success grant bonuses.
Increasing Risk gives you a flat bonus to the percentage bonus granted by each roll regardless of result.

On a quick note, with the recent changes to Assembly when you get a 'Flawed Assembly' you'll be shown a screen like the one below. When you 'Flawed Assembly' now the item stays at the same level of rarity, however you do not get to experiment on said item meaning you don't get any additional stat bonuses to it. When making components this is not 'too' terrible, but for the finished item this can be atrocious.

I think thats about as straightforward as I can make it, my apologies if its still unclear. Either way, hit that take button and lets get to some gathering!

Now that youve got yourself the Common Gathering Disc and its equipped you can equip your intermediate gathering tool.


As you can see here, there's some green text there that says 'Equip: Harvesting Wood in PvP Areas can now yield the 'Logger' Discipline. This chance is increased in Wildlands Zones and Dreg's Adventure Zones.' and this is super important, because this is how you progress as a gatherer. You'll need to gather 'Uncommon Gathering Disciplines' that will drop from resource nodes (so Trees, Rocks, Graves, Etc) while you are gathering using these tools.

When equipping the common discipline the game should also give you an explanation of the harvesting wheel which is super important to stamina management in gathering. Keeping your stamina up is how you keep a 'retaliate' in your pocket to help you not get killed if you get attacked. There is an explanation on the gathering wheel further down.

On the Tool it states in PvP Areas, well isn't this whole game a pvp area outside the temple? Close, but not quite. Using the Arborium map as an example you can see where the player is expected to come in from the temple (assuming you are earth faction of course). Just to the left of that location is the line of 3 earth faction indicators that divide the map. The areas to the left of this line (apparently) do not drop disciplines when harvested in and the areas to the right do as they are proper Pvp zones. Dregs is the Guild Versus Guild worlds incase you were curious about that.



Lets get to explaining some parts about the gathering now! Namely explaining Ranks, Plentiful Harvesting, and Motherloads.

First things first, all gathering resources have ranks. They rank between rank 1 and rank 10. The Starting Worlds campaign only goes up to Rank 6. The higher the rank the better chance you have of getting uncommon+ drops from said resource node. However the trade off is that the resource node will have more armor, health, and generally take a lot longer to get through.

In the temple area you'll find rank 1 nodes like this.


You can tell this node is Rank 1 because when you hover over it you'll see the box that will tell you the rank. When you hover over a node you will also see the Plentiful Harvest Stat. The Plentiful Harvest Stat goes between 1 and 5 and dictates the drop rates for nodes. You can boost your plentiful harvesting stat by getting better gathering disciplines, using potions, and getting the dined condition from kebabs.

See how below on the discs it lists the Plentiful Resources: Ore, that stat is Plentiful Harvesting as listed when you hover over a resource.
Critical Harvest Chance is the chance for a large amount of bonus resources to be harvested when you finish a node
Plethora of Dust just increases dust drop rate.



Kebabs look like this, you've gotten some from the tutorial quest, different types of kebabs buff different gathering Plentiful Harvest Stats. These can be made at the cooking station located almost directly behind you if you're looking at the general crafting station in the temple. Aside from the meat or mushrooms you can buy all the supplies from the vendor with an apple on their head located just across the way inside the vendor area of the temple.


And lastly to boost plentiful harvesting you can use Potions! These are crafted by anyone using an Alchemy crafting discipline at an Alchemy bench and will require a bit of stone (16 per potion), a water flask, and 6 of the resource you are making the potion for, so six non slag ore for mining potion for example.


Fair warning! You can only have one potion, one wined, and one dined buff each at a time. So if you eat multiple kebabs or drink multiple potions, only the last potion or kebab will have an effect.

Alrighty, now that that's covered, lets talk motherlodes! Motherlodes are the large resource nodes you see in the world that take multiple people to take down. The tutorial told you this, so that's all there is too it right? Noope!

Motherlodes look like this to start.



So i'm sure you've seen them whilst running around. These motherlodes need both multiple people hitting them and one person using the active ability 'Take it down' from the Foreman Discipline. The Foremen discipline can't currently be found in the starting world and can only be purchased from Eternal Kingdoms on vendors if you're lucky. If you're adamant about pursuing Jewelcrafting or Necromancy, reach out to Altybear (the person who posted this) and lets talk. Why would I say something like that? Well its because these motherlodes are the only locations that drop Minerals (used in ambrosia and philosopher solutions which are base components in necromancy) and Gems (which are the raw materials needed for Jewelcrafting)

Anyway, if you're looking for a Foreman Disc, they look like this for reference and one person will need to use an exploration discipline slot to equip it. There's a secret method to obtaining exotic exploration discs like Foremen, maybe you can find some clues as to how to do so over in the Beginners Guide to Crafting.


Alrighty! So by this point, hopefully you've farmed up a bit of your chosen resource, maybe gotten lucky and picked up a few greens if you're harvesting rank 4-6, maybe rank 3 if you're really lucky. If RNGaia has smiled upon you, you've also gotten an uncommon gathering discipline drop by this point. 

As seen below you've gained the active use power Energetic Harvesting and the passive Harvesting Power. Well what do these do? Ive got the explanation for the skill spelled out below.



By using the ability Energetic Harvesting, which will need to be put onto your hotbar from the K menu, you'll spend a certain number of pips that are generated every time you hit a node in the circular display shown below. The central icon will change based on the number of pips present in the in your harvesting wheel.



Here I've got the wheel displaying 0 pips, meaning Energetic Harvesting cant be used and displaying 2 pips which means if I use the energetic harvesting ability I will gain the 'Perceptive Harvest' Buff as listed in the tool tip a little further up.

For lower level harvesting these aren't super important, but once you really get going the stamina you'll save by optimizing your buff rotation is really nice. I'm a fan of 4-1-2 since you can do it fast enough to get the upgraded buffs for both 1 and 2 before 4 runs out. Try experimenting around with the effects and see what you like.

Gathering Wheel now badly explained, lets move onto the new trait that you received for equipping an uncommon discipline. If you look up at the uncommon Skinner Disc that I've got a little bit up from here, you can see that it now says 'Slots Granted' Harvesting Toolkit.

A harvesting toolkit is a gathering item which gives you a drop chance for each gathering professions unique drop. These are specialty items that are used in crafting, remember minerals and gems that I mentioned up in the motherloding section? Those are drops that you need one of these belts to have a drop chance for. The belts are sold on the vendor where you bought the common exploration discipline from and each of the gathering belts cost 2,500 gold pieces.



So, a quick rundown on what all the specialty items are used for, after all, if you're gathering them you should at least have an idea where to sell/use them.

Mining: Gems, Harvested from ore motherlodes, used as a base component in Jewelcrafting.

Quarrying: Minerals, Harvested from stone motherlodes, used as a base component in Alchemy recipe Ambrosia and Philosopher solutions, both essential for Necromancy.
                 Cutting Grit, Harvested from small single nodes, used to make diamond cutting discs in Stonemasonry, essential for Jewelcrafting.

Logging: Heartwood, Used in woodworking recipes, primarily specialty quivers for bow users.
               Beeswax, I think this one is used in cooking (Artisan Cheese), honestly I cant tell you since I've barely touched the stuff.

Skinning: Bone, Ground and used in Alchemy for the Gem and Mineral Harvesting potion which increases gem and mineral drop rates by 20% Super good, requires 6 of the same rarity per potion.    Blood, Used in jewelcrafting for combat based bonuses.

Gravedigging: Grave Goods, I know they sell for a lot, but aside from that I don't know a current use, necromancy additives are looted off enemies and skinning mobs.

(Feel free to comment below any additional uses for these bad boys!)

So Congratulations! You've got your feet firmly planted as a gatherer now, but how do you advance from here?

Lets open up your crafting menu, J, and look down at the bottom at the 'Upgrade Items' tab, particularly the 'Upgrade Exploration Discipline' for this example.


This menu is how you upgrade your disciplines. You'll need 3 uncommon disciplines to make into a rare and 12k gold to fund the purchase of the 3 domination dust that you'll need, you can buy those domination dusts from the exploration discipline vendor all the way in the lower right hand corner. The Soul essence drops from Thralls that will spawn randomly around the maps at night, you've likely seen them around.

Anyway! Thank you for sticking with me to the end, and I hope this shottily put together guide will at least give you a bit of assistance. I'll likely be doing revisions and edits as things come to me down the line, so consider this a WIP of sorts. At this time I'm obligated as a guild leader to shill my guild. So please, check us out, Lion Forge Guild over on the guild recruitment forums.
 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Altybear

[seventhbeacon 4,290]

An invaluable starter guide, thank you! I'll be bookmarking this and the crafting page.

[Lodestone 5]

Just started today, wanted to say thank you for this walkthrough.  I'm huge into gathering/crafting and since the servers are down this was a fantastic read for me.

Warm Regards,
Lodestone

[kherny 1]

Very helpful to nail down some of the concepts.

thx.

[Exiled 124]

You deserve a lot more credit than this thread shows tbh, invaluable data

[Nolph 1]

Wish I could upvote this! So helpful, coming in with zero knowledge I was able to make some sense of the mechanics. 

[Retsopmi 16]

Does race play any part in this now? Is the idea still to go max Dex/Int on gathering? Seems like we lost a lot of the guide info that used to be around.

[Cyve 1]

How do you activate the harvesting pip thing?

[Wintercloak 0]

Hey Cyve!

30 minutes ago, Cyve said:

How do you activate the harvesting pip thing?

When you have added the appropiate explorer Disc, and all that: Press K, and drag the skill to your hotbar. 

[Leftnut 29]

On 7/8/2021 at 12:12 PM, Nolph said:

Wish I could upvote this! So helpful, coming in with zero knowledge I was able to make some sense of the mechanics. 

you can just give him a Thanks in the bottom right of his post

[Leftnut 29]

9 hours ago, Cyve said:

How do you activate the harvesting pip thing?

This is taught to you in the New Player Experience(NPE), you drag the skill on the taskbar and click it when you have the required amount of Harvest Pips.

[Typhons 0]

Hello, thanks a lot for the guide. I got a question still, how do you get the blue harvesting toolkit ?

Regards,

[MazerBlazer 0]

Awesome starter guide! Thank you very much!

[Extintor 249]

13 hours ago, Typhons said:

Hello, thanks a lot for the guide. I got a question still, how do you get the blue harvesting toolkit ?

Regards,

Press j to open the crafting menu, section upgrade items (or something like that), toolkits. You'll need 3 green toolkits, some green runes and some domination dust.

[Rathagor 1]

Is there a way to get Domination Dust other than via the Vendor?

[Extintor 249]

9 hours ago, rathagor said:

Is there a way to get Domination Dust other than via the Vendor?

Nop. Domination Dust is designed as a gold sink.

[RuinsGamez42 0]

Great guide little lengthy but with all the content needed. A suggestion to maybe make it easier to find exactly what a person is looking for maybe make tabs???

 

[Varaben 58]

The guide mentions that gems can only be gotten from motherloads, but I'm pretty sure I've gotten at least uncommon quality gems from normal small mining nodes. Did that change? Or are you talking about higher quality gems?

[Extintor 249]

8 minutes ago, Varaben said:

The guide mentions that gems can only be gotten from motherloads, but I'm pretty sure I've gotten at least uncommon quality gems from normal small mining nodes. Did that change? Or are you talking about higher quality gems?

I think the gems you're talking about are soulgems, those are not jewelcrafting gems. Soulgems are used in advanced tools crafting to make them capable of droping exotic harvesting disciplines (foreman, hoarder ...).

[Holster 0]

great tips thanks