Red Cups?

[Quichon]

Okay, I'm curious. Where is the best place to get red cups? I don't see how anything really drops them enough to farm them, so I figure I might as well try to forage. But the zones it is foraged in has a HUGE forage table on it.

My shammy finally hit 210 in Alchemy, and I'm looking at alternative methods of leveling up. I tried Hearty Goblin Blood, but in the three hours, I got exactly five of them, so I don't think that would be a very viable option. Then again, I might have been killing the wrong gobbies, I don't know.

Looks like I'm going to have to get my farming toon his OS key pretty soon, though...

[Catmandew]

My advice is to do farming in Siren's Grotto for deepwater inks to get to 302 skill. With the occasional crushed diamond, and Fellspine belt, I made plat farming there as I got skill up to 300. Potions made don't sell for much, being only IX level, but can still either give them away, or tribute them.

Red Cups are just not worth the time and effort to forrage/farm them for skilling up. Like you said, table is HUGE.

[Rinikku]

Nodding blue lilys are good to skill up with to. Although it seems as if the drop rate has decreased. They sell for a bit more than the level 9 potions, so it might be worth it to make those. Just my two cents

[Gorse]

I tried Hearty Goblin Blood, but in the three hours, I got exactly five of them, so I don't think that would be a very viable option. Then again, I might have been killing the wrong gobbies, I don't know.

You might be killing in the wrong spots. I was slumming in Nurga the week before last and the drop rate on the Hearty Goblin Blood was great from the mobs in the Joepala area and Thabius area. I was alos doing the two caves deeper from Thabius, but don't recall the draop rate being as high.

In the course of three cycles of mobs, Vet AA headshot run for a guild rogue, + an extra set, I collected 45 Hearty Goblin bloods.



Gorse

[Minta Rose]

Also the first few gobbies of Droga have hearty gobbie blood--can tell which is which 'cause the hearty gobbie blood gobbies haven't got as much plat as the rest.

[Quichon]

Is there nothing in the 250ish range that has a drop/forage even worth bothering with? I'd just as soon not try something with a triv > 300 just yet, at least not until I get into my 230s-260s if necessary, and start getting craptons of NBLs.

[Rinikku]

Not really. I went straight to Deepwater Inks and Nodding Blue Lilys. The red cups are more expensive and hard to find, so they are not worth bothering with, or at least that was my perspective when I was skilling up.

The pok potions are good to skill up with since most of the components are store bought and fairly inexpensive. So if you can farm the last part, you can skill up for almost nothing when you sell what you make. Now don't get me wrong, you will spend money on skilling up since you will fail a lot at first. But I know that I didn't start spending a lot until I got fed up with farming and just started buying from the bazaar.

The best thing that worked for me was to ask fellow guildies/friends to save components like the lilys and ink for me. Then I made potions and kept the guild bank stocked and my friends happy. Don't think I would have made it to 300 without help from my friends.

[Bigotes]

NBLs and Inks

Agreed 100%, Red Caps aren't worth your time (a) Rate of 1 or 2 per hour, (b) No $ return on them (c) If you're making for guildies or friends, it's easier and quicker to farm the plat and buy the pots for them.

NBLs drop well in more than one zone and so do inks. SG is the best place for the latter, or Kedge with a lesser drop rate but more available to the mid level player (off mermaids and seahorses).

So unfortunately there's no escaping those two. The market is somewhat flooded, but there's still a good chance of getting some return on them (10pp+).

A good point was made of making pots for guildies and friends. You provide everything for free, they just provide the inks and NBLs, it's only fair. Plus the guild bank is perhaps the best place for the potions already clattering your inventory since they'll be put to a good use, whereas cash can come from other sources.

At this point I'd like to add, in "/ooc complaining" about Alchemy, a level 70 player in PoK, claimed that he merely had a 5% Alchemy geerlock. When I directed this person to the PoR trophy, he claimed he wouldn't spend the fortune required to quest for it. Rather embarrassing really, when at that level a player can farm blue diamonds, GoD sellable gear, even spider silks or bonechips for that matter. If it's the GM Mod he's got to hand in for Expert/Master he was complaining about, he would get 2 x 10 giant slot, wt. reduction bags apart from the trophy for his trouble. But that's beside the point.

Oh and completely forget Exceptional Shade Essences for skilling up. They're not only rare as 'eck but the chances of skilling up with them are similar to doing so with Celestial Healing pots.

[Quichon]

There are actually MANY reasons why a level 70 person can be very strapped for cash (Heck, I am, and I'm 70 and Tacvi geared).

1) Goat Runs. If someone gets into GoD progression, they can get flagged for Qvic. In Qvic, there are three named M'shas who drop pieces for the armor quest. Each piece has 200-250ish hps, plus appropriate other stats and effects, and are tailored to suit each class. The only problem is that it costs 10.5k from a vendor to get the quest done. Do this a couple of times and you're flat broke. Heck, could even have a piece or two of muramite armor sitting around waiting for him to get the money to do the upgrades.

2) If he's already got a skill 250+, then he needs to make the old-school alchemy trophy to get the new one. Granted, this does enable him to obtain an additional 10 slot 100% wr bag, however this assumes one has the funds to make it at the time. This could be his major complaint, since this can cost upwards of 5k per combine, and an unknown but significantly high triv value. Fail this two or three times and see how your cash flow likes it.

3) Casual player. Not everyone has the time to spend hours farming platz, and not everyone can farm GoD sellable gear, either. Some of us have these things called 'jobs' or 'school' which takes up a very significant part of our time. So one can make it to level 70 eventually, but not be weighed down with tonz o platz. Heck, I only reccently hit 10k in my bank a few months after DoN came out by selling 100 crystals at 100pp/ea. Sure, it set me back in getting my +12 resist all augs, but it let me fund a piece of my own muramite armor.

Dragging myself back on topic, I have found a solution: Grieg's End. I can farm Robust Shadow Essences there, which are used for Skinspikes VIII which triv at 262. The ones I don't use for soloing can be put on the market to recoup my losses. Furthermore, I get decent gem drops and at least some xpage for AAxp and trying to work my cloak back up since it got knocked back from almost done to just begun.

Sure, it's slow, it's monotonous, it's boring... but hey, if I was worried about that, I wouldn't be playing EverCamp, now would I?

[Catmandew]

In GE you can also move to the Gate area and kill the mobs around there for the Exceptional Shadow essence. Not exactly a common drop, but not rare by any means also. My rule of thumb is if the mob has no eyes, should drop Robust, if he has beady red eyes, can drop the Exceptional.

[Quichon]

Yes, but Exceptional Shadow Essences aren't nearly as frequent as Robust is, and it really doesn't give me a viable boost to skillups. From Robust Shadow Essences, I'm probably going to go straight to Nodding Blue Lillies and Clarity X potions.

[Quenari]

Agreed 100%, Red Caps aren't worth your time (a) Rate of 1 or 2 per hour, (b) No $ return on them (c) If you're making for guildies or friends, it's easier and quicker to farm the plat and buy the pots for them.





Oh and completely forget Exceptional Shade Essences for skilling up. They're not only rare as 'eck but the chances of skilling up with them are similar to doing so with Celestial Healing pots.

Red cups: You get that many per hour?! Was lucky to get that many per week of farming/foraging.

Never had a problem myself getting the Exceptional Shade Essences...I just have no real use for them as a path or potions to make.

[uncleshmoozo]

You might be killing in the wrong spots. I was slumming in Nurga the week before last and the drop rate on the Hearty Goblin Blood was great from the mobs in the Joepala area and Thabius area. I was alos doing the two caves deeper from Thabius, but don't recall the draop rate being as high.

In the course of three cycles of mobs, Vet AA headshot run for a guild rogue, + an extra set, I collected 45 Hearty Goblin bloods.

Yeah, I just checked it out and the best drop rates in Nurga for the Hearty Goblin Blood are found in the portions of the zone that begin where the Joepala and Thabius areas are and continue to the west. In other words the higher level portions of the zone. Mobs in there are mid 40's to low 50's in level.

Lower level mobs in the eastern and southern areas apparently drop less of the blood.