So players got their staff, they're happy, they harvest, they find tons of shadow items and think "yay, I'm going to craft my spells!". Guess again. For starters, books are not available: only 4 alchemists, 6 sages and 4 jeweler books have been discovered so far. and worse, all those nice shadowy stuff you're gathering are worthless. You need Shadow RARES and not shadow COMMONS to make spells... And guess what? You only gather shadow commons (and skill doesn't go up, so if it's supposed to help, it doesn't). Out of 64 shadow items gathered yesterday, I found a single shadowed humming sapphire. 1 rare, 63 worthless commons. It's just not possible at all right now to craft experts and there's no way this system is even remotely viable. This should have been tested!
I had an idea. Could it be possible to get a refining option or a merchant that would take 10 commons and turn them into a rare? As far as I know, only shadow pelts have a use in common form. This harvest options is currently utterly useless.
In general, I agree, but there were a number of recipes on beta that took 'any shadowed common material'. So they're not totally worthless.. just mostly worthless.. and completely interchangeable. I'm working on a post for 'what shadow prospecting is right now', but I want to gather more data and I figure I'll probably wait to post it until the devs get back from holiday break.
Where even are the recepie books for Sages? I picked up the essential ones but the advanced books only look to have adepts in them? Are there other books or is this as I suspect their cash grab for this expansion with spell research?
There are shadowed/emphyral recipes with the experts.. that have the same recipes as the adepts.. except the primary components are shadowed rares. So, every toon, with 20-30 arts is going to need 40--60 shadowed rares just be meet basic effectiveness levels. Experts HAD been advanced books, but 1/2 way through beta the dev in charge of itemization changed it. With the current... lack of availablity... of shadow rares, experts are going to be rarer than masters. Lots of inexplicable changes to the fundamentals of what crafting has been to EQ2 have been made with this expac. And despite numerous and repeated questions in beta, zero information or explanation has been given.
Here are some stats. For the past 25h, I harvested several times with 6 chars across the 3 zones (2 per zone, splitting it in half) I gathered: 191 common shadowed material: 10 pelts 36 gems 34 ores 7 mushrooms 10 algaes 9 meats 52 roots 33 woods 2 shadowed rares: 1 shadowed jumping creeper 1 shadowed humming sapphire I then used up 180 jumping creepers to make pants to salvage them to get the sambata breeching and reins (+7 each). Then levelled to 120 adv to use them. Here are my harvesting stats: Rare harvest chance: 31.5% Bountiful: 108% Harvest skills: 868 shadow prospecting: 39 gathering goblin speed buff I then made a single run and gathered 32 common shadows materials (I was very unlucky on the 5 other chars I ran just before): 3 ore 10 roots 5 gems 3 meat 4 pelts 1 mushroom 1 algae 5 wood Not a single rare. so I'm at 223 commons vs 2 rares. Don't tell me something isn't off.
I've had more than one run now where I've seen ZERO shadowed nodes (NOT user error, NOT an issue with my particles being set too low, I DO know where/how to find them, I have had more normal runs, so yeah, really, you can skip all those questions ). Not just limited nodes, but ZERO ... on Test ... when I was (at the time) the only person with the staff, so it wasn't competition getting to them first, either. I finally got fed up this last time with over a minute on the timer and decided to zone hop ... and the buff gets stripped if you zone. I'm pretty disheartened at this point. The rarity of the actual rares is way out of line for the quality of the armor and weapons, much less for everyone's experts.
How do you even Get shadow prospecting over 25? i have not seen a Single shadowed rare yet. The staff should given Shadow prospecting Skill Not normal harvesting skill which is usless for them
It is worse in the fact that i am a Tailor who in thier right mine with the current rarity would use 2 Shadowed rares to make 155 resolve armor and jewlery which will be replaced the First heroic you do?, As for spells i guess they want use to pay Sc to get spells from Adept to expert now and since the Content was Tested useing experts well.
I got a recipe book to make Shadowed Breeching, Reins, Stirrups and Shoes of Prospecting. Each piece is supposed to give 8 Shadowed Prospecting and takes 3 Shadowed hardened zelniak pelts as the first component, 1 lustrous rockhopper hide, 1 Any Blood of Luclin Shadowed harvest, and 1 Any Blood of Luclin uncommon harvest. I have all of these components, however, I don't know where to get 50 Uncommon Lunar Material, which is the fuel you need to make it. So, I don't know if it will work or not. Anybody know where to find this fuel?
After just getting my staff yesterday, I tried it out and zero nodes, Granted I have no clue what I doing as there really weren't any instructions. I actually though I might need to be in a specific zone or area. Guess I'll just strive for barely mediocre this expac as I don't have the time to shadow prospect every 2 hours in hopes of maybe finding nodes and I certainly don't have the cash for cash shop upgrades. Sadly I'm guessing this will be another solo expac for me unless something changes.
This is without a doubt the worst tradeskill implementation in an expansion to date. The tradeskill sig line has not taken low level adv. toons into account AT ALL, and the books are seemingly impossible to find without a max level adventurer I'm guessing. What happened to getting Advanced books as rewards? I'm still shaking my head at getting some crappy appearance gear as rewards. Even house items would of been better. There was absolutely no thought given to most tradeskills. As it turns out it doesn't really matter than any mastercrafted armour or weapons, jewelry so on are garbage, by the time we can make them max level will be probably be raised again. If having a tradeskill didn't feel worthless before, it sure does now. Finding out now that we don't just need this new stupid shadowed mat, but a rare shadowed mat, has made me wish I'd never come back. Oh and good luck to anyone thinking they're going to get all their experts before next expansion. I wouldn't sell an expert for anything less than a dozen krono.
I have seen my timer run out most times I look for the shadowed nodes too. So even if I try I don't get anything at all.
I want to start out by saying I’m so very sorry you’re have a terrible time in the new expansion. Ok so now the formality is out of the way, this is literally day 5 of the expansion. Let me reiterate: day 5. Why are some people giving up already? They fear change. They do not like their normalcies changed for any reason. If all you’re shooting for are expert spells, then I would seriously log off forever. There is so much yet to be discovered about mechanics, unlocks, hidden items etc that for anyone to feel like they should have every spell and ca expterted out is egotistical. Give it a chance. Again, day 5. I mean, if you’re THAT unhappy you don’t have to log in for a few months. You want everything just handed to you with zero effort given? I hope this isn’t the attitude of future gamers. That would be such a sad existence.
I've had two runs with just a single pull and it was just a shadowed pull, not a "rare rare". Disheartening is correct. Not just on the harvesting part but also on the no book drop for me for anything requiring a shadowed rare. So there's 4h10m gone.
Raids and difficult heroics are BALANCED around experts. So having them effectively impossible to achieve all of them even in a single toon is a problem. It's not 'fear of change', it's understanding of the mechanics. Since the change to how experts were crafted happened more than 1/2 way through beta, there's no way raid and heroic balance was changed to match. Shadow prospecting was never tested during beta. The was not itemized for it and zero information about how it is 'supposed' to work has been shared. The gear made from the shadowed rares is distinctly inferior to even the worse heroic gear. All these point to something that is, in some form or another, broken.
My emphasis isn’t on expert spells. My emphasis is on trade skills which will not change at all. That being said the only crafters that are worth having this exp are scholars because the rest are useless. Zero effort given? Egotistical? Really? And telling people not to log in? .......
