Need Forager - Can't Look Up "Game" Sites @ Work

[fesc_necrado]

Can't look up most EQ sites due to them being classified as "game sites" by the local babysitter software. My intention is to get a toon leveled as quickly as possible to have a good forager to feed tradeskills.

Soooooo, any suggestions on the quickest, most down and dirty way to get a forager?

I understand at level 39 you hit the cap of 200, Formula = 5 + (lvl x 5). I also understand a wood elf druid would start at foraging of 50.

I need to look at what useful imbues a wood elf druid would have available, since those are also a plus.

For items I'd like to forage, I need to look those up. Roots to make dyes to use in tailoring skill ups comes to mind. Dragon eggs and Branch of planar oak comes to mind, tho the planar oak might require a higher level toon to zone in. Plains pebbles (if i can imbue them) comes to mind .. lots of possibilities out there, just rambling off a few.

Looks like I might also have to wait til I can look up recommended stats on choice on a god (again for imbues).

Any help is appreciated!

[Kakg]

The choice is usually down to two main classes, druid or ranger. Both classes have distinct advatanges depending on what you need.

Rangers get forage immediately without having to skillup to higher levels to unlock it. Rangers also have a much better tracking ability than druids so they are great for farming spawning roaming animals in large open areas.

Druids get SoW much earlier than Rangers and also have the ability to gate and port about saving a lot of time travelling from zone to zone. Porting is especially usefull if you plan on foraging in very out of the way zones like the western wastes. In addition a Karanas druid can imbue their own plains pebbles while a ranger can't, even though a ranger needs them imbued by the bucketfull for thier diety specific fletching.

To be absolutely honest I couldn't decide myself so I made both, a pair of halfling brothers. Berras Peet is my Karana Druid and Threefingered Peet is my Karana Ranger however I find that I use my ranger more as he can farm silks and furs while foraging much more effectively than my druid can. And since my main is an enchanter I prefer to farm using my slicing dicing machine of a ranger than use another caster.

[Thorvari]

A wood elf druid of Tunare can imbue emeralds at level 29. Imbued Emeralds are used in many recipes, and are more useful than plains pebbles since you can get an unlimited quantity, the bottleneck being how fast you can imbue them.

Imbued emeralds are used in:
Golden Idol of Tunare (pottery - solstice earring, possible skillup path)
Ceremonial Solstice Robe (tailoring - solstice earring, major skillup path)
Mistletoe Cutting Sickle (smithing - solstice earring, possible skillup path)
Idol of Tunare (pottery - skillup path)

By having easy availability to a limiting item for skillups in 3 of the hardest tradeskills, you will have an easier time of it. Since most of these items are in high demand, the possibilities for re-couping skillup costs are higher unless your server market is flooded.

[Koru]

Tunarean wood elf druid would have imbue emerald, which is quite useful for solstice robes and certain other trades. If you want to imbue plain pebbles would have to have a Karana char.

It's pretty basic from there on out, go the wood elf route if you want your immediate 50 points, then load the little twink up with hp items and head for PC at around 5th lvl or so (you can start killing the beetle things at thicket side of PC that soon). Leave when just over 20th and if you have another char to PL you then I'd say do Sol A. That can get you to around 33th pretty easily, after that I did my forager in Kaesora on the undeads in library area but there's several areas that can serve as well as Sol A/Kaesora. The planar oak will require a 46th lvl char to enter PoG, and if you plan to do those eventually you might as well go with a druid as a class since it will make traveling to your foraging sites a lot easier.

[fesc_necrado]

Looks like it will have to be the Tunare wood elf druid because of the imbues (those Tunare imbues were just what I was lookin for).

Thanks for the input, it's definately useful.

[lonewylfe]

Don't forget to get a foraging machette to help with the lower levels

[Agosia]

Hate to be a pessimist, but here's my take on this...

It can take quite a bit of time to get significant amounts of specific forages. I have my druid on a 2nd account and sometimes take her to PoG or ToV to forage when I'm doing something else with my main. After hours of foraging in either of these zones with a maxed skill I often only come out with 6-7 of the items I need... and I have forage hotkeyed and set up to send me a tell when it cycles around again so I hit it every time it refreshes. I guess if I didn't have a 2nd account I could kill stuff in the zones I'm foraging in (but not PoG or ToV), but I don't solo much. I have similar rates with sylvan berries and planar fruit. Farming spiderling silks is more gratifying than this!

Anyway, I guess my point is that unless you have two accounts, you might want to see if you enjoy playing a druid or ranger (gate is also a nice feature for zones like pog or tov) because you will probably be playing them alot to get enough of the materials that you are interested in to skill up. I'd suggest leveling up in the zones that have the forages you need in them and moving on when you think you have enough.

Good luck!

[fesc_necrado]

Thanks for all the advice, I'll look into the machette and the second account is a pretty good idea.

Grass is always greener, right? It's easy to think you can forage and stuff just pours in. Thanks for the realistic view of foraging, it's helpful.

Before I do the second account, I'll need to understand how toons can forage unattended (I know it's done, just not how).

I also ran into a problem with the forage macro tied to my right turn arrow key. I used the following:

/do ability 6
/pause 25
/autoinventory

It forages and does not autoinventory..I ran into the same problem while fishing some time ago and that was solved by keeping a bag open.

Anyway, thanks again for the help, eqtraders is easily the best site for tradeskill help.

[Lothay]

Before I do the second account, I'll need to understand how toons can forage unattended (I know it's done, just not how).

If people are foraging while away from the keyboard, they're using external applications to do it for them. This is a violation the the EQ End User Liscence Agreement, and discussion of that in these foums is not allowed.

I also ran into a problem with the forage macro tied to my right turn arrow key. I used the following:

/do ability 6
/pause 25
/autoinventory

It forages and does not autoinventory..I ran into the same problem while fishing some time ago and that was solved by keeping a bag open.

To fix this use the following code;

/pause 25, /doability 6
/autoinventory

The pause should be on the same line with the /doability command. Should do the trick, since that's pretty much what my forage key-bind looked like.

[fesc_necrado]

Great, thanks for the advice Lothay

[Agosia]

I got my foraging macro from this thread. You have to play around with the pause times but it works great!

Basically, I park my druid in a safe spot, put her on /afk, have my toons join their own private channel and send a "forage" message to the channel when the macro has completed. All I have to do is click a button on the 2nd computer after I see the message and the macro starts all over again. So the druid is not really unattended, just not getting much attention.

It's also pretty handy having a druid on a 2nd account. You do have to pay for a new copy of the game (but EQ Platinum just came out) and pay an additional monthly fee for it. I started my 2nd account when my main characters were in their low 50s. My RL man and I both did it when we were having difficulties getting groups and we figured we'd try boxing. Don't regret it one bit, and the foraging is just one of the perks.