Harvesting: How It Works and How to Level It

Official forum stuff as well as a few responses I got from my last entry about harvesting had me decide to write this. Of course, as always, there's a lot of personal opinion involved, but you're getting those particular opinions from a level 110 harvester.



How Harvesting Works

Ignoring experience for a moment, there seems to be some that still don't understand how rec levels or harving speed works, so I'll try and explain it. Disclaimer: Much of this is based on experience, not any officially provided info, so there may be inaccuracies.

When mixing something (such as an essence), the rec level for that item is essentially when you have a 50/50 chance of success. As your level in the skill goes up, you have a higher chance of success. And of course, higher chance of failure if you're below the rec level. Very much below and it's sheer luck if you succeed. You wouldn't want to try and mix a level 80 potion if you only were a level 10 potioner, right?


Harvesting actually works similarly, as we're about to see in example.



Inorganic Nexus and Books: As you go up in harvesting, some items such as quartz and ores require knowledge, so you'll need to read a book before harvesting them. As well, some items require inorganic nexus to harvest, up to as many as 6 for things like dung. Check the encyclopedia in-game before deciding to start harvesting something to ensure you have what is needed.

Tools: Some items, particularly minerals and ores, require tools (gloves, pickaxe, saw) to harvest. Again check the encyclopedia to see what's needed. Always carry a couple spares with you as they can break as a major event (per events described below).


* Base times¨

Base time between mixes for mixing skills like alchemy is 1 second. That is, if you hit the mix all but and don't fail or run out of food, you'll mix one per second.

Harvestables also have base times. Whether it's 1 second for very low-level items, or 9 seconds for dung. This means the fastest you can harvest is that base time if you harvest without fail.

Base times aren't given in the encyclopia, and at this point it doesn't seem anyone's taken the time to place them on EL-wiki either. However, the EL-CEL site does have them on the info page for each specific harvestable.

* Example of How Harvesting Success/Fail Works

For this example, assume your harvest level is 34, the rec level of harvesting red currents.

According to the EL-CEL Red Current Page, the base time for currents is 3 seconds. That is, if you successfully harvest each time, you'll get 1 harvest every 3 seconds.

It's the success part that is determined by your harvest level.

First, completely ignore the events for this part, both major and mini. These are irrelevant for this portion.

For these currents, every 3 seconds you'll either succeed or fail at harvesting them. If you succeed, you'll get them. If not, you won't, and have to wait another 3 seconds for the next attempt.

Unlike mixing, you won't stop harvesting on these fails. You just don't get the item/exp, and have to wait until the next base time period to harv again. This generally goes unnoticed since there's no harv stop on failing.

If you're level 34, harving red currents then, just like mixing you have a 50/50 chance of success each base time period of harvesting.

This is how your harvest level determines the speed you harvest. Lower harvest level = more fails = more base time periods to go through to fill your inventory. As your harvest level increases, you "fail" less which means you harvest more quickly. A level 80 harvester will get a full load of red currents much faster than a rec level 34 harvester for this reason. The speed of the harvest never actually changes over levels, just changes in the amount of fails make it seem that way.

This also means that technically, yes, this same level 34 harvester could in fact harvest a piece of level 100 dung. However, the fail rate would be so high that, along with dung's 9 second(!) base time, it could take hours if not days just to get one full load. Thus not recommended. (In fact, touching dung before level 90 or so is a complete waste of time.)

This is how your harvesting level affects your harvesting ability, and why the recommended levels are there. Those tell you when, like mixing, you have about a 50/50 chance of success.

Level 0 items: Like level 0 for other skills (Potion of mana, bones powder), these are no-fail. There's 7 level 0 harvestables, all with 1 second base times, and due to no-fail as well as some giving 2 items per harv, these are all easy to store. Bad for leveling, of course, but easy to stock.


Since "fails" on harvest don't stop your harvesting like fails do when mixing, let's look at what does stop harvesting...

Events

Events were included to reduce the amount of afk-harvesting, and "add a little something" to the harvesting experience as well. They can be both good and bad, like most things in game.

Major Events

These are the "original" events. These are the ones you see messages for when harvesting near others and they happen to others. Break a pickaxe, finding a stone, hitting a teleport nexus, finding a bag of gold, and so on.

Astrology is a major determining factor in how often you get these. Using a "harvest/degrade indicator", the top "Harvest Events Increase" bar shows how likely you are to get a major event.

Astro of exactly 0 is considered the norm. In the above example, the astro is "in the red", meaning less major events will occur than normal. At an extreme red, you will likely see little to no major events. On the opposite end, you could be getting one as often as every few harvs with a "high green" positive astro.

(Important Note: The second "degrade" bar on the H/D indicator determines break chances of armor/weapons when fighting, and has no effect on harvesting. As such, ignore it for this tutorial. There are some who believe this affects how often your gloves/pickaxes break, but that's not true. Those breaks are determined by random major events, thus they're determined by the top bar and how often you get major events.)

There's not much you can do about major events. To avoid them, try to time your stock-harvesting to times you have red astro per an indicator. Indicators can be purchased from an NPC in Arius, and as well from many bots and players as they are makeable by engineers.

Of course, this also means you're avoiding the chance of getting a good event (like finding a rare stone) as well as bad, so you have to weigh your options and decide what's best for yourself.

Reducing harm from major events: You should be prepared to "not die" from harvesting events. Be able to heal yourself at all times through magic or potions. Armor can help reduce the amount of damage taken from things like cavern walls collapsing and radon pouches, but weigh in that armor also takes some of your emu so you'll not be able to harvest as much in one load.

Mini Events

Minor events, called "mini events", were added later to the game. These are small events that cause harvesting to stop. Only you see the message for these, noone around you sees them. These are the ones like:

- You hurt yourself, and lost 1 HP.
- You gained 10 extra harvesting exp.
- You found 6 coins.  (Not a bag of coins, which is a major event)

Unlike major events, mini events are not affected by astro. You have a steady chance of getting one of these regardless of if your astro is red or green. You stop harvesting on each of these.

With a Harvester Medallion, you can avoid stopping when you get these, and as well you'll get more coins and experience on each. More on this below.



Special Days

There are three special days that can randomly occur (or someone who has a stone can start) that affect harvesting.

Green Day - This is the bad one. Absolutely no harvesting can be done during this day. It doesn't happen often, but does happen. Always be prepared to do something else in case it comes up.

Non-Stop Day - The text that shows in-game with this one isn't precise. What actually happens on this day is that there are no mini events at all, so less stops while harvest. Major events do not change. (You are recommended to not use a harvester medallion on this day, since its primary benefit is not stopping with mini events.)

Day of Aleksei Stakhanov - On this day, you get three times the harvest experience that you would normally get. This is a day you should particularly sit at something where you'll get the best experience possible. All harv exp, including dailies and other quests, as well as mini events and queen blessings, is tripled as well.


Harvester Medallion

This medallion is used during harvesting to get some benefits. Due to its cost, normally around 7.4-7.5kgc, it's up to you to determine if it's worth it. Some never use one. Others like myself rarely harvest without one.

Medallion Benefits:
- You don't stop harvesting on mini events. This means a lot less harvest stops in general. If you have red astro, you can likely get repeated full loads without any stop. (This does not affect major events. Only astro affects how often you get those, and you will still stop on a major event.)
- You get double the experience and coins from mini events.
- Bags of coins major events are increased, 15 times what would normally be received.
- Queen of Nature blessings are 12 times what they would normally be.
- Chance of a major event breaking your tool is halved.
- (who cares...) You won't pull a rat out of the dung while harvesting that.

Drawback: Medallions are fragile. On a major event (which by the way, also includes one where nothing happens, you just "stopped harvesting"), there is a chance mother nature will break your medallion.

On red astro with few major events, if you only harvest during those times, a medallion could last you months. On heavy major events, you can break several in one day.

So as said, it's up to you to decide if it's worth the gc to use them, and how you will use them.

Personal opinion: Very beneficial to use during red astro when you need to get a lot of stock of something. You can go for hours with no major events, the medallion prevents you from stopping on mini events, so harvesting is essentially non-stop until you get a full load.

Global Quest Rewards

When global (community) quests are completed, a long period ensues where a special benefit is given. There are two benefits that can come up that will aid in harvesting or leveling harvesting.

1- Fewer harvesting mini events - Less stops while harvesting.
2- Daily quests can be done every 3 game days instead of 4 (every 18 real-life hours instead of 24) - This will allow you to do both of the harvesting dailies more often, helping with leveling.

Harvesting Perks and Capes

There are three perks that affect harvesting in some way.

Harvester of Sorrow - This is a negative perk. The usual teleport nexus major events will send you to Nordcarn PK Arena where you can be PKed, away from whatever map you are harvesting on (even on the second continent). It is highly recommended that you not take this perk if you plan to be a heavy harvester or mixer. It's only the "pure fighters" that take this perk for the pickpoints it gives.

Excavator Perk - This perk allows you to harvest two of an item instead of one with each harvest. It has no effect on high-level ores and such that require you to have swords or matter conglomerates, but works on everything else.

The general consensus on this perk is to not waste your pickpoints on it, as they are too valuable. Instead, wear the Excavator Cape (brown cape) while harvesting as it gives you the same benefit.

Note: The number of items you harvest is twice the number of harvests when using this perk/cape. So for things like Xaquelina dailies that tell you to, say, harvest 100 of an item, you'll actually have to collect 200 of them to finish the daily. You're getting 200, but only doing 100 successful harvests in doing so. Quests generally count the number of harvests you do, not the number of the item you collect.

Dedicated Harvester Perk - A newer perk, considered "neutral" as whether it is beneficial or detrimental is determined more by your playing style. As well, it requires no pickpoints, just some gc to get it.

With this perk, you'll get experience for the first 140 harvests every hour instead of the usual 120. Thus more experience per hour, every hour, for the rest of your game days.

However, it also comes with increased mini events. As well, the global quest bonus of "fewer mini events" will not work for you.

(Personal opinion: Don't get Dedicated Harvester unless you regularly use harvester medallions, as it could get annoying with more stops during harvesting, and there's as of this writing no way to remove the perk. With medallion, this means more experience/coins as well from the increased mini events.)

How to Level Harvesting Skill

Harvesting is an odd skill to level compared to normal mix and fight skills.

Only the first 120 harvests of a game hour give experience

This being the big oddity. Unlike other skills, this limit is in place for harvesting. (Note: 140 harvests instead of 120 with the Dedicated Harvester perk mentioned above.)

Because of it, if you're wanting to level harvesting as quickly as possible, you need to learn ways to get the biggest experience for your allotted harvests.

Here are some tips:
1- You must be online when the game hour changes for your harvest exp to reset. If you're not, you have to wait for the next game hour to get experience.

2- Find the highest level harvestable you can for experience harvests. You can use things that have a rec level above your actual level for this.

3- Don't go too high above your rec level. Remember that the lower you are below the rec level, the longer it will take to harvest. If you go for something too far above your level, you may not even get the full 120/140 harvests done in an hour. That means you'd be better off doing something lower level and getting the full number of harvests. Trial and error will help you determine this for your level. Also keep in mind how much time you want to waste just getting harv experience.

Personal opinion: Try something maybe 10 rec levels above your current level, see how long it takes you to get a full 120/140 harvs, and move up/down based on that.

4- Are you harving something useful? While you may harv something that's nice experience, is it something you think you'll be able to use later? Or if not, is it something that is easily sellable? You'll level harvesting a lot faster than you expect, so there's no point in wasting that time on something that's useless just for a few extra points.

5- Always do the harvest dailies - Both Xaquelina (who the newbie tutorial shows you) and the dung daily. Even if you can't harvest dung, you can still buy it from others or bots and get experience, and it's not that expensive.

6- Take advantage of the triple harvest special day - This is like three days worth of harvest experience in one day. This would be the time to put serious focus on harv experience, getting the absolute best exp possible regardless of what you have to harv to do it. Queen of Nature blessings, bonus experience from mini events while wearing a harv medallion, and so on are all triple as well. Definitely do your harvest dailies on this special day.

7- Once you get to higher levels and can afford the regular breakages, the harv medallion can heavily add to your daily experience intake. Especially combined with Dedicated Harvester perk. DO NOT, however, take this perk or use medallions until you're certain you can live with the breakages and the extra mini events.


Leveling harvesting may feel incredibly slow, but if done right you'll be at a point where extra levels don't mean much to your game play in no time. You don't need to be a "top harvester" unless you want to be. 20 or so levels above the highest item you regularly harvest, and you're pretty much set for the rest of your game life. Any further levels from that, which you'll still get, will help slightly with harv speed, but not enough to be concerned about. Just like mixing, there's no special level you can get to that's no-fail, but at a certain point the fails just don't mean much.

Basically put, don't stress harvesting, unless your plan is to be a full-time harvester. You'll get to a good point sooner than you think!

How to Find a Pear

[UPDATED: April 5, 2014]

Every 6 hours (every new "game day") a new pear appears in the game. It's hidden somewhere in any one of the many, many harvestables found throughout the game.

Simple enough, right? Not exactly. If you plan to start pear hunting, you need to be prepared, and it can take weeks of attempts before you start getting the hang of it.

Everything you should know to get started in pear hunting is here. It's so based on luck that I have no qualms in providing this info.

Pear hunting can be a fun change of pace from the normal game grind, as you never know what map it's going to lead you to or where you'll be surprised to find it. It's essentially a treasure hunt that occurs every 6 hours.


Requirements for Pear Hunting

1) Ability to harvest every harvestable item in-game - The pear can be found in literally anything that can be harvested. Make sure you've read every harvesting book, have inorganic 6, and a stock of swords/gloms. Yes, the pear can be and has been found even in things like dvarium, wolfram, copper, and hydro.

Right, even in amber, which means your action points could limit you.

Now, the overwhelming majority of the time it will be in an inorganic 4 or less item, so you can still hunt at that level. You'll just miss out if it's in a 5 or 6 item.

2) Pear Finders - And lots of them. There's up to 100 maps that have harvestable items. As luck is involved, it could be the first or even the very last map you can possibly check. You should have a minimum of 100 pear finders available before starting a hunt.

How pear finders work: You use 1 for each map you go to. Click it, and it will tell you if the pear is on that map or not. It will not give you any idea *where* on the map, just if it's on that map.

Once a pear is found, the rest of that game day the pear finders are set so that if you click one, it'll tell you there's no pear available. You don't lose the finder if this occurs, so you lose nothing trying. This is a way you can tell if a pear has been found that day already or not.

3) Tools - While you won't carry gloms/swords with you, have the basic pickaxes/gloves/saw in inventory. You should have gloms and swords well-stocked though for each possible harvestable item in your storage.

4) Potion of Speed Hax - Those people (like me) that you see regularly finding pears are using this. It drastically cuts down the amount of time spent finding the right map, and on maps where harvestables are spread out, it can drastically cut time there as well.

How valuable is this? Consider that, when haxed and fully knowledged in maps so you have a pattern for checking them, it can still take up to 40 minutes to check every possible map. Speed hax doubles your moving speed, so that means it could take up to 80 minutes to check every possible map (fully knowledged and with a pattern) without it.

That's a huge difference.

5) Map Knowledge - Do you know every secret spot? (Yes, there's harvables in some secret areas and yes, the pear can show up there) Do you have a good idea of where harvestables are on maps, not just "closest to storage" that many learn?

Sites like EL-wiki cannot be relied on for this, as those pages don't cover even a small part of the actual harvables on most maps. For example, look at the Arius page on EL-wiki, then take a walk around Arius seeing all the harvs spread out there. Huge difference.

You also need to know which maps actually have harvestables. A map such as SKF insides (with the 4 houses) or even Hulda have nothing harvestable, therefore the pear obviously won't be there. Eliminate maps such as those.

6) Patience - You get to Idaloran. The pear is in that map. Where do you start? Do you even try? No try, no get. But as well, considering how incredibly long it would take to find it, is it worth spending the time chancing you'll find it early on? Despite its "rarity", it still has a limited value, and time is valuable. (More on cost below.)

7) Ability to accept the inevitable - Not every harvestable item can be reached. Most every map has a few or sometimes a lot of items that you cannot possibly check. Example: Outside of the Portland potion school cave there's quite a few blue quartz for design, intentionally not reachable for harvest.

The random pear location generator has no ability to take into account where players can actually walk or reach, thus it can be in one of those. The only way to know is to check every single item on the map you possibly can check, which in the end means both wasted time and pear finders.

You have to be able to accept that this is a fact of pear hunting life and it will happen sometimes. "Shit Happens." 

8) No Bad Perks - Harvester of Sorrow perk is obviously going to be a serious detriment to pear hunting as hunting is a constant harv-fest. As well, Hellspawn can seriously slow down your ability to find the map, as a huge amount of the maps to check are internal. If you have either of these perks, you've essentially taken yourself out of the competition (though with hellspawn, you may luck out and it'll be on a map you don't have to "change maps" to get to).


Cost

(Note: Prices are accurate as of the "UPDATE" date at the top of this article. Do not use this as a price check, but as an example. Price on my bot IWannaRock tends to be accurate.)

Pear Finders as of this writing are about 170gc each. Having 100 available and normally using most of them, that's up to 17,000gc per hunt. (Or 170gc, if you luck out and it's on the first map you check.)

A pear runs about 27kgc market value. Now, is that right when only a possible up to 17kgc in finders is involved? Yes, as there's other determining factors.

1) Only a maximum of 4 pears can get into the game each (real-life) day, making it a rare item. If a pear isn't found on a game day, it's gone. Which can mean less than 4 per real-life day. This can happen when nobody hunts it, or it ends up in an unreachable/unharvable item, or even if it ends up on a map like White Stone which "pro hunters" won't bother with because of the incredible amount of time that could be involved.

2) Pear hunting includes risks, like PK maps, the NRM red dragon cave, and so on. A true hunter has to take those risks.

3) Time is gc. A hunter has to expect and plan to possibly be searching for a couple hours if necessary, even if it is regularly found within an hour. Whether it's found in 5 minutes or 3 hours, every hunter has to be prepared to expect the longer time.

Which means putting aside anything else being worked on.

How much gc can you make in an hour doing something else? Say, harving iron and selling it? Is the pear value, minus the combined time and finder/food/essies/SRs cost making it worthwhile to hunt, or would you be better off spending that time harv/selling?

4) Important factor: Add to that all the pear finders and time wasted on those game days where the pear is determined to be unattainable. And those wasted on days where someone else finds it first. That time and those finders are wasted gc as well.

5) As well, cost of gloms and various swords used to check every individual piece of ore where those are needed. Including hunting on days where the pear ends up being in some random unreachable flower and those gloms/swords as well as pear finders are wasted. That "one area of seridium" could actually have 30 individual pieces to check, only to find it's not there.

6) And right... It's a rare item! So it should be worth something on top of all that.




Okay, Time to Hunt

I am not going to give away exactly how I go about this. I will, however, provide tips on ways you can improve your ability to hunt. These are the exact same "tips" I learned myself to get to my current hunting abilities.These tips can be used to create your own patterns and such. None of the current hunters use the same patterns.

1) Determine the Fastest Way to Check Maps - This takes some time, but eventually you can develop a pattern that gets you through maps quickly. Tele room, boats, walk to the next map... in every case, decide how you could streamline the way around to all maps, both external and internal. Is there more than one place to check an internal, and where would be the fastest way to check it? Those are the kind of questions to think of. Do you need an item to "use with" to get to a map?

And I can't stress enough for this part of the hunt in particular... speed hax.

In the end though, it's still luck who gets to the map first. With so many possible maps, the pattern you choose to use in finding the right map isn't the same as others, and those others may happen upon the map quickly whereas your pattern has it being one of the last you check.

2) Section off maps - Once you've found the actual map, in most cases harvs can be very randomly spread out. Mentally learn to section off each map, working one section at a time. Use things like trees or even your own map marks to keep track of where you've checked. Having walked through and studied/marked the map before you actually hunt on it can very much improve the time spent finding the pear.

Particularly in larger maps, luck continues to determine who gets it first. In North Redmoon for example, one hunter starts up north working down the west side of the map. Another starts at the South Redmoon exit and works on the southern area first. Who's gonna get it? There's no way to know where to start. Have I mentioned the word "luck"?

3) Check everything - Every single individual harvestable. And this is where map knowledge comes in to play very well. There's all kinds of things not normally noticed. Thelinor has some wood logs half-hidden under tents. Some maps have branches everywhere, some of which can be almost completely hidden in the ground. Palon Vertas has almost 400 individual branches alone throughout the map, particularly in the north desert area.

Ore/mineral areas are rampant with pieces that are "hidden" in the cave walls, only visible if you adjust the camera so you can see through the walls.

As well, when you see a large group of an item, keep in mind that there could be several blue star flowers there, not just one, for example. Know the size and shape of harvestable bushes/flowers. Every individual piece of ore or quartz or mineral is a separate harvestable, you have to check every single one. And in the end, it could very easily be in the lone wood branch in the corner of the map as it could be in a large garden of wheat or veggies.

4) Study maps - Study, study, study. Choose a map, learn where the harvs are. Mark them, especially ones that are "kinda hidden" and you might forget during a hunt. This is time spent outside of the actual hunt time.



FAQ

Not really frequent, but some of the things people have asked that don't fit in above.

* What is a pear used for?

(Note: Answer as of the date of this post, subject to change, check other sources if you're reading this late.)  Current use is for Potion of Action Points. One is also required for one of the Redeemer NPC achievement perks.

* Do they sell?

Yes, if you know who to sell to. Who can actually make use of them? It's not a "fast seller", but then they don't come in the game fast, either.

* With certain people always finding the pears, should I even bother trying?

Don't expect to start finding them immediately on your first attempts, though the possibility is always there as luck is a huge factor. As you try more, you improve your speed/skill in getting around to finding the right map and harvestable, and your chances improve greatly.

My first two weeks, I wasted many a pear finder and only found it once in all that time. And that time likely only because I was the only one hunting it. I didn't start regularly finding it until after I improved my speed in finding the correct map, and spent some time studying maps I didn't have as much knowledge of. I can't stress enough how knowledge of where harvestables are is an important factor. Right, and spending days constantly speed haxed so I could get used to traveling and food-eating while it was in use.

Those "certain people" who "always" find it, like myself for example, have no special abilities over you. Just practice. Like a fighter can't kick an arctic chim until they've trained enough to get to that point, a pear hunter cannot expect to find a pear before others until they've "trained" by learning a good map checking pattern, and studied the maps to have a good idea of all available harvestables on it. The only difference between the two is that the skill required for a pear hunt doesn't give experience.

* Do you get upset when someone else finds it while you're looking?

No. It's part of what is expected. If you're a sore loser, hunting's not for you. You'll never see me bragging when I get it, or complaining/whining if someone else does before me. It's just a game, and I'm not that childish.

Once the pear is found, by me or someone else, I'm done with it, and already moving to go back to whatever I was doing pre-hunt.

* What if everything on a map is checked and the pear still isn't found?

There's several possibilities here:

1- You missed something. Some harvs are kinda hidden. Once you feel you've checked an entire map, walk through it again, looking closer and in more detail everywhere. Even I have found something I missed by doing this. Did you really check everything? Is that group of lilacs one bush or multiple and you only checked one? That stack of wood logs, did you check every individual log? And such.

2- If you did check "everything", then you should also know if you've found certain harvables that you couldn't reach. There's a very good chance it's in those.

3- Some maps also have "you can't harvest here!" type harvestables. Though the pear doesn't seem to hit maps where nothing is harvestable (like maps full of just rooms), it can end up in these harvables if they're on a normally harvestable map. An example of these is in Palon Vertas... the center house that storage is behind. If you go around to the side of the house that has the entrance, the flowers around the door can't be harved, shut off because they're too close to storage.

4- Something's hidden. Due to map construction, pieces of ores and minerals can be so far in a cave wall (for example) that they can only be seen if you angle/rotate the view just right so you're looking from inside the wall. A spot with 15 visible pieces of coal for example could actually have 20 with 5 hidden from normal view. The maps weren't exactly designed with pear hunts in mind.

Assuming it's not in a missed item, you just have to accept that it can't be gotten that day. A bad prospect, but it happens, regularly.

* Does knowing where the pear has been found before help in finding it?

No. The pear is truly random in its location. There's nothing to say "it'll be on c1 next time since it was on c2 the previous time", or that it won't even be on the same map. Remember programming code doesn't see "maps", it only sees a list of available harvestables and what maps have harvestable items on them, and one is randomly chosen from those.

There is absolutely nothing of this kind of nature that will help predict where the pear will be next time.

* Is hunting for it in groups a good idea?

I've never done this, but I've known it to be done before. Obviously this could help speed up the process. Splitting up and checking certain groups of maps to find the map faster. Splitting a map into sections with each person checking a section. I can, however, think of a few negatives to this. I can't give you a proper yes/no to this question. Whether these negatives are worth it is up to you.

- When the pear is found, you split the value of it among the group. The more people, the less you get. Long-term, this may be found to not be worth it.
- You're reliant on other players knowing the maps well, not just yourself. Someone claims to have finished their section, but missed a bunch of harvs. How are you to know?

I personally prefer doing this solo, mostly because I enjoy the hunt and finally having a good use for my map knowledge. But I can't speak for others in the case of this question. It's up to you.

The Method to My Alching Madness

As of this post, I'm about 80% of the way to Alch 128. Alch mixing stats thus far:




My Alch Guide: Many moons ago, I wrote a personal-experience guide to alchemy items and leveling. I have just updated it, though not so much has changed since I originally wrote it.

You'll find it here: Burn's Alch Guide


About Power Leveling

There's a tendency to think that if something gives higher experience, it must be the thing to level on. Thus, many use bars and magic essence to level.

Not so here. I do make bars, but only for actual use... I have done S2E projects in the past, I need them for ring crafting, and so on. I did use magic essence at one point to level, but as can be seen by the mere 236k of them mixed, I didn't stick to that.

I generally make what I need. The only thing I've been known for when it comes to sales is the thing that I use to level... health essence.

And those are the #1 mixed item by a huge margin. Why? Harv mums myself, and use a combo of buying and harving silver (mostly buying). Mix, easy sales, repeat.

Experience isn't the only factor in deciding what to use to level. Power leveling a mix skill means you need to find something to mix where the ingredients are easily obtainable. Silver is a heavily harved (for sale) item.

Compare to magic essence... emeralds and lilacs are not generally seen on market. The only real way to level using those is to self-harv. While cheaper, and the magic shop will buy all your excess magic essies for an okay price, this is incredibly slow. Leveling? Yes. Power leveling? Not even close.

Am I saying Health Essence is the only way to go? Absolutely not. Perhaps you're in a guild with a lot of harvers that sell other ings to guild members. What I'm saying is take everything into consideration:

1- Experience - LEs can be as easily made as HEs, but HEs are better experience.
2- Ing Access - Can you quickly and easily get access to the ings that are necessary?
3- Cost/Sellability - Having easy access to buying gold isn't going to do you a world of good when gold bars are rarely bought. You need to ensure you can both be rid of the finished product, and as well in a way where you're not losing gc in the process.
4- Your Skill Level - Don't expect to make something for profit without self-harving for at least 30-40 levels above the recommended level for the item. There's a comparability to combat training here... You may be the same a/d as a mountain chim, but for easy training without depleting your HE stash and less armor breakage, you're more likely to train on a desert chim.

In my personal case, I found means to efficiently get the ings, make, and sell what is one of the most popular and used alch items available. And well, at my alch level, I didn't have to worry about step 4, heh.


My Alching

As a Jack of All Trades, I try to level everything. Alch being the base for many other skills (crafting needs essies and bars, manu needs bars, tailoring needs essies, magic needs... you get it), I mix what I need when I'm not looking to mix just for power-leveling.

Thus my alch list looks like it does above. A quick overview of how the top 10 items got there. There's of course other reasons to make each, but these are the primary ones:

1- Health Essence - Power leveling, plus of course my own training.

2- Fire Essence - Not done much anymore, this will drop in the list some day. But of course, for bars. And Ashes for engineering. I'm more likely to buy these nowadays though.

3- Energy Essence - I teleport a LOT. I also have sold these on occasion.

4- Magic Essence - Early attempts at power leveling. These days I normally only make them when I plan to magic train using radiation shields.

5- Life Essence - Normally only made when I do my occasional attempts to level summoning. That being done by mixing summon stones which require tons of these.

6- Air Essence - For my rare attempts at magic leveling. (I don't pk/pvp, so I mana drain bears, then radiation shield to use up the drained mana). I would never make these to sell, too much wasted time on the diamonds.

7- Steel Bar - Mostly thanks to my occasional S2E projects, working on buying a nexus. Though most of my S2Es these days come from phantom warriors so mixing these is a rarity of late.

8- Water Essence - A combination of my days of crafting (polishing gems), but these days more likely being made for dyes for leveling tailoring. (Actually, I hate making these, so there are times I'll mix other things for profit, and use that profit to buy WEs instead from the magic shop.)

9- Matter Essence - For some reason in my more newb days I thought these would be good to level on and sell. I got over that quick enough. These days I'll every other month or so set aside some time to bag mix 850 or so of these in the feros cave at once, primarily to have a stock for teleporting magic. Otherwise I generally don't touch these.

10- Earth Essence - A dying one on the list, at one time I used to make batches of matter conglomerates (which also explains the matter essence count). I can't remember the last time I did those though. These just don't get made anymore.

The Art of Mix Leveling - Some Points to Consider

(By now if you've gotten anywhere in a mixing skill, you should already understand most if not all of this article. This is geared more towards newer players who may think that "doing the highest recommended item" in a skill is the best way to level that skill.)


Leveling a skill in Eternal Lands is not as straight-forward as most new players may think. The thing looked at the most is the "recommended level". There are, however, several other factors involved that need to be considered when looking for "the best item to level a skill with".

Consideration 1: Fail Rate

(rec level, astro)

The "recommended level" for an item is approximately 50% chance that you will successfully create the item. The lower your level is below that, the more your chance is to fail. And of course, the higher your level, the less likely you will fail.

This may not seem to change much as your levels increase, but it is, albeit slowly. I as a 100+ alcher and potioner have very few fails on essences and potions, even on very bad astro, so getting those levels does eventually help immensely in reducing failures.

But the point: If you're losing a lot of ings just to stick to the "rec level", you're not helping yourself.

Instead, doing something that gives less experience (a lower rec level) but causes less fails and ing loss can very well get you more experience at less cost.

If your alchemy level is 20 for example, you can very well do much better and level faster mixing level 14 life essences (or even level 1 fire essences) than you will level 20 magic essences, even though they provide more experience each.




Consideration 2: Getting the Ingredients

What kind of ingredients are you looking at? Are they easily bought or will you have to harvest them all yourself? How fast does each ing harv?

The speed of leveling a mixing skill isn't so much determined by the experience per item or its level as it is how fast you can get the ingredients to mix.

Do some calculations, see how much time it takes you to harvest ingredients for item X. Compare to how long it takes to getting ings to item Y, which may give less exp for mixing.

You just may find a drastic difference where the item that gives a bit less exp in the end will help you level faster.

Life essence, for example, gives less experience than Magic essence. However, it takes a lot less time to harvest the 1 silver and 2 sunflowers than 1 emerald, 1 lilac, and 1 impatiens.

Fire essence even, the lowest exp of any essences, can still turn out to be faster to use to level than Matter essence since matter has 4 different slower-harving ingredients. Even mixing Matter essence in a bag at the ingredients won't change that.

You must definitely take the time it takes to acquire the ingredients in your decision as to what to use to level.


3. Cost/Profit, sellability

Besides just mixing the items, you need to be able to sell them if you're not using them yourself.

And not all things sell easily. There are certain items that are constantly needed, while others you'll be lucky to find a buyer.

Take some time to get to know the market channel. Study what players (not bots) are buying and selling. You'll soon learn what items are more readily sellable.

Those Earth essences may give you more experience, but they are a hard sell compared to Fire essences.

It does you no good to be making a bunch of something that you'll have a hard time offloading later. You could have been making a profit with something giving slightly less experience instead.



4. Food hindrances

Also determining the speed you mix is food, more specifically the cooldown on food.

If you're a bone eater (perk) or learn to safely use toadies (newbies, wait a bit before trying) this isn't as big an issue.

But if you're relying on cooldown-hit foods, how much food it takes to mix an item can determine the rate you make them.

You'll suffer a cooldown wait time on food with bread, veggies, and fruit no matter what you're mixing. (exception of bone powder which doesn't require food at all.)


Fire essence and other 1-food-point items can very easily be mixed on Cooked Meat with the cooldown not taking away from time.

Anything that takes 2-6 food points per mix can be mixed with Feasting Potions with no cooldown wait. (Essies up to Energy Essence, for example.)

Anything requiring 7 food points or more will have some wait for food cooldown even on Feasting Potions.

This wait time should be included in your calculations on mixing speed vs. experience if it is relevant to you.

The Road to 100

Had a lot of harvesting to do the other day. Out of sheer boredom, I decided to do something while harving... see what it would take to get my non-100+ skills to 100.

Particularly, cost-wise.

Att, Def, Alch, Pot and Harv are all over 100. That leaves 7 that aren't.

Ranging - Intentionally left out as it's not easily calculable. Way too many varying factors. And well, it would obviously be blatantly expensive anyway. There's a reason noone has reached Ranging 100 yet.


So with ranging left out, I still had 6 skills to check.


COST NOTE: Costs below are "ideal". That is, if there are no lost ings during the mixing. Of course there's always lost ings, so the actual cost is more than what is shown.

TOTAL ITEMS NOTE: Again, "ideal" using only one item. I of course mix things other than helms in manu (for the daily, for example). And I teleport and heal a lot which would reduce the number of spells needed for the leveling examples below.




Listed as determined to be easiest to hardest, based on cost, ings required, and time it would take to do it.



1 - Manufacturing - Current level 72

WITH MANU GOD!

Cheapest method to get to 100 was of course mixing helms and selling them to Trik. The cost of leather, thread, and food is more than Trik pays, so it's still a loss, but not bad compared to schools.

That leather, thread, and FPs are all NPC-purchasable made this the easiest of the skills left to level as well, as there's no concern on finding or self-harving ings.

Selling to Trik, I determined I'd need to make 526,178 helms. The cost of getting to level 100 would be 1,846,885gc. Oh, and it would take 4349 trips from storage to Trik to mix helms at the NPC.

School would be faster of course, with "only" 263,089 helms to make. However, the cost of poofing the ings for those is 6,185,222gc. More than triple the cost of doing them at Trik.

With a tight budget like mine, the cheaper though longer route is better.


2- Crafting - Current Level 69

WITHOUT GOD! (Determined that my god plans for the future had no way to include crafting god in any reasonable amount of time.)

Fastest route to 100 here is moon medallions, selling them to the NPC.

This would entail mixing 168,502 moon medallions, incuding experience from polishing the sapphires and making the silver medallions.

Purchasing all ingredients and food for the process would be an 18gc per medallion loss. That's a total of 3,033,636gc. Almost double the helms at Trik.

Of course, I do a lot of self-harving so that gc amount would be drastically lower.


Glacmor rings were considered but rejected as my craft level is about the rec level of making them, which means a motherload of lost ings. Maybe in the 90's...

Just polishing saps and selling them to the NPC was also considered but dropped as being too costly unless WEs were self-harved and made. And as a 121 alcher I don't want to waste all that time harving and mixing low-level WEs.


3- Summoning - Current Level 51

WITH GOD!

This one surprised me. I was expecting much worse than I determined.

Yeah, it's bad, but not as bad as I thought.

White Tiger Stones are the obvious choice here. It would take 105,034 stones ideally to get to level 100.

If gypsum was bought at storage, it would cost 2,730,884gc with selling the stones to the NPC.

That's less than the crafting! However, this is ideal. In reality, that much gypsum doesn't get sold at storage so there'd actually be a lot of self-harving.

Buying all ings except for the gypsum, there'd actually be a 74gc profit per stone, though it would also mean 5,252 trips from storage to gypsum to mix at the gypsum.

That's a total profit of 7,772,516gc.

Still, I ranked this one lower than crafting due to all the gypsum runs, which are a nuisance.


4- Engineering - Current Level 61

WITH GOD! (Because I already have this god)

The cheapest method here is surely the slowest one. That is, Harvest/Degrade Indicators where turqoise is self-harved. Turq however is extremely slow to harvest, and you can plan almost an hour doing a full-emu trip to harvest and mix at the turquoise.

It would require mixing 235,992 H/D indicators.

If all ings (and food) except turqoise were purchased, there'd be a profit in that.

However, harving over 1.1 million turqoise doesn't sound like a good time to say the least. If you could "ideally" buy it on market instead at the common 4.5gc price (which, face it, you'll never find that much on market) it would be a loss of 4,129,860gc.


I decided a second option to be better, though a bit more costly... Point Defense mixed in the Eng school.

269,923 point defenses in the Eng school would have an ing cost (at current market prices) of 4,723,653gc.

I chose this as the better option because, being a 121 alcher, I'd harv/buy ings and mix the EnEs required myself. Even buying the ings and food for those, I'd save 1,349,615gc bringing the point defense cost down to "just" 3,374,038gc.


Still, ranking it below some of the other skills at that would still take a lot of time. (Of course, School Days getting 3x exp would be nice, but I don't rely on such days actually happening when I'm online.)


5- Magic - Current Level 73

WITH GOD!

Mana draining by itself is of course the well-known cheapest option. However, that's a PvP solution, and as most know I do not do any form of PK or PvP.

There's always MD-ing desert chims while training on them, but that's still incredibly slow and I just don't train that much these days anyway.


So I came up with an alternate option, one which I have already used before to get at least 30 magic levels.

That is: Grizzly Spawn - MD 30 mana from the bear, kill the bear, Radiation Shield which takes 30 mana. Repeat.

This works great as the bear gives the exact amount of mana needed, and bear respawn time is incredibly fast.

At my level, it would take doing 60,732 grizzlies. That's 60,732 mana drains and 60,732 radiation shields.

Total cost of the essies: 9,170,532gc

However, that's a lot of bear furs to sell too ;) The essies used provide enough space to pick up the full bear drop.

Of course, as a high-level alcher I'd wanna mix all the essies myself, which would make the cost much less. That would mean 240k+ magic essies mixed, a sweet alching thought for experience as well as EME chances.



BTW, if I did MD-ing like most PvPers, it would be 138,678 mana drains at a cost of 8,320,068gc for the essies. Less than 1 million difference.



6 - Tailoring - Current Level 39

(No god exists at this time.)

Wow. Yeah, ranging is probably more expensive. But Tailoring was more expensive than all 5 of the above skills combined!

It would take 1,073,053 blue dyes, or 1,430,737 orange dyes to get to 100 ideally.

Orange Dyes are considered as they're the only ones that don't require saltpeter, making them easier to mix.

Blue Dyes were considered because their flower ingredient is the easiest to harv. Doing these would mean a lot of engineering as well due to the saltpeter.

In the end, I decided to kill thoughts of blue dyes as I determined I'd be better off cost-wise doing orange dyes, and doing the aforementioned point defenses in the eng school to get my eng level up.

With all bought ingredients, and selling the orange dyes to the NPC, the total cost would be: 44,352,847gc

Holy crap...

It would also mean 20,030,718 each of red roses and sunflowers.

The cost of course could be brought down by self-harving, but hell, look at the number of flowers to harv!

And yes, that's sadly the cheapest way to level tailoring. :P

The blue dyes, btw, buying ings and mixing own saltpeter, would cost over 63 million gc.





Well, that's it for that fun. Not really a necessary entry, just something trivial I did for giggles.

Burn's Alch Guide

Updated: January 5, 2014

(Note: This is a "personal experience" guide, based on my own mixing throughout my time working my way up to level 140 alchemy. Your experiences may vary, and as well things change over time. Nothing here is set in stone, so use it, but use it with thoughts of your own actual play and experience in mind.)

What's useful to make? What not? In what quantities? And why?

In order, from lowest rec level to highest:


Bone Powder - Never do these just to level. At 1xp each regardless of rationality or god status, not worth it.

Mix only if you absolutely need them yourself. There are a few people who need them in large amounts, mixing Point Defense in engineering school on engineering days, but they'll likely have their own. You'll be better off just selling the bones themselves.


Fire Essence - One of the two most popular and needed essences. An absolute necessity in huge quantities, particularly for bar making. These will sell quickly and in huge amounts. As well, you'll likely need huge amounts yourself, at some point if not already there.

You'll need these in the hundreds of thousands if you're planning to get anywhere in the alchemy skill. Eventually you'll get to the point where you can afford to just buy these.


Water Essence - Not as heavily in demand as FEs, as most who need these make them themselves to save cost. But still, they do sell pretty regularly and in large amounts, though you may have to spend longer advertising them than FEs or HEs. As well, get a nice stock up for yourself if you plan to do any crafting or tailoring, as they are heavily needed to level in either skill.

Of late there has been a bit higher demand, as high level crafters have begun mixing Blank Paper in school on school day, each of which takes 5 WEs. 


Earth Essence - Though there's been a slight increase in demand for seridium bars, there's still not enough demand for these to sell. Only very rarely will you find people asking to buy these. Best only to make for yourself, as needed.

The slight need for them on market comes primarily from very high level engineers who can afford to toss out Treasure Finders in school on engineering days.


Air Essence - Huge demand thanks to people who use mana draining to advance their magic level. A pain to make though, mostly due to ings (diamond and silver). For that reason, a lot of people buy them rather than make them themselves. You can get a decent price for them, and they'll sell pretty quick (though not as fast as HEs and FEs). Just expect a lot of work in the process harving the ings. Buy silver when you can find it, but expect to harvest the flowers and diamonds yourself as they're rarely if ever seen on market.


Spirit Essence - Don't make these. At all. If you have some spare mercury, make a few for yourself maybe if absolutely necessary. The reason being that the magic shop NPCs sell these for 9gc each, which is below the ing cost of self-making them. That combined with the very low (in comparison to other essies) need for them makes them pretty useless to make. Best to buy them from the magic shop as needed.


Matter Essence - They'll sell, but the price is limited by the NPC price of 12gc. If you buy all the ings, you'll break even only if you don't critical fail, which is impossible even at my level.

Harving the ings makes it one of the slowest essences to get ings for. Personally I'd recommend only making them for yourself, but if you're willing to put in the harv time, they will sell.


Energy Essence - Once you get to the point that you're using magic for portal room visits, or using point defense to level engineering, you'll be needing a LOT of these for yourself. Having a nice stock for either of those cases is a very good thing.

As for selling, they tend to do so, and at a fairly good price, so there's a pretty decent market for them. Again, they won't sell as fast as FEs or HEs so you may need to advertise longer, but a sale will eventually come. These are worth a try.


Life Essence - Summoners, especially those who are making summoning stones which require a lot of these, will buy huge amounts of these like candy if the price is fair.

As well, they're not hard to make, which makes them good for alch leveling.


Death Essence - Very rare sales, and the cost of mercury makes them pricey. Best only made for yourself as needed. Almost never seen being asked for on market.

If you do manage to sell these, you can make a small profit if you buy the mercury from Harvy in DP, and harvest the other ings yourself. However, sales are very slow on this item.


Health Essence - Always sell well, always needed, and extremely huge amounts aren't uncommon. Heavy making of these is never a bad thing as long as you don't try attempts to overprice them. There's plenty of people who can make them, and if you make attempts to overprice them on market you may find there's people who will end up never buying anything from you on principle.

Also keep in mind when pricing that they can be easily bought from NPC at 9gc each.


Magic Essence - The most-made essence that has the least usage. These almost never sell on market, due to the little demand and huge amount of people who make them for leveling. (I call these the "tree shrooms of alch", done more for experience than actual usage.)

Unlike tree shrooms though, you can sell them to magic shop NPCs and and possibly still profit (if only marginally) even if you buy all the ings. chances of buying the ings are slim to none though, as none of the ings tend to be found on market. Expect to end up harvesting all the ings yourself.

Good for leveling alchemy only, and even then you may be better off even with an essence that gives less experience if you have better access to ings.


I personally also used these in the alch school for power leveling on school days. These days they are the best option for school usage. Yes, you lose the possibility of getting an EME that way, but power leveling is always a tradeoff.


Iron Bar - Commonly made, and will sell, though steel bars will sell much better. Primary audience is people making S2Es for hydrogenium ore runs, and they are more likely looking for steel bars to buy. Despite that, you should be able to get some sales of these.


Matter Conglomerate - A ton of essies, for something that has little demand. Selling them may prove futile since those who actually need them tend to make them themselves. Best made only for yourself, and only when you absolutely need them. Market is almost non-existent.


Steel Bar - Very commonly made, sell quite well thanks mostly to S2E makers. Best made in the thousands, which is quite a lot of time spent on harvesting and making FEs.


Mercury - These days is not worth making at all. Ing cost is way too high, and on top of that the regular breaking of expensive alembics.

Harvy in DP sells them for 10gc each. This really is the best option when you need it in any amounts.

There is no cinnabar on market these days, so if you plan to make it you can expect to harvest that yourself. Very slow, and long trips to storage.

This was, once upon a time, something people used in school on school days for power leveling. However, costs have risen since then, and market has changed. (Add to that, there's regular school days now thanks to day stones, and you're better off keeping a stock of magic essence ings for when school days appear instead.)


Silver Bars - Not as common as iron/steel bars. There is a niche market for these, that being Crafters making medallions and rings. How well they sell tends to fluctuate, so if making these to sell, don't expect a quick sale. Though it may happen.

Generally though, you're better off making them for your own use only as needed.  Those who need them also tend to be high enough alchers to mix their own bars.


Gold Bar - Not a big seller. Much lower chance of selling than silver bars, in fact.

Another best only made when you have a personal need for them, that being mainly if you're planning to do a lot of crafting.


Titanium Bar - Extremely low need for these as the items they are needed for are not made in large quantities. Best only made on a self-need basis. Worst case they can be sold to an NPC for 40gc, hardly worth the time involved harvesting the titanium though.

If you have a ton of gc to waste, you can buy these and poof them in alchemy school on school days. (I never did this as my gc was reserved for other skills, but you can technically do this. Much faster than magic essences which I preferred, but a more extreme cost.)


Tin Bar - You will not sell these. At all. Best save them to make bronze bars, which is their only use. Even then, only make on an as-needed basis.


Copper Bar - (I hate to repeat myself, but...) You will not sell these. At all. Best save them to make bronze bars, which is their only use. Even then, only make on an as-needed basis.


Bronze Bar - A combo of tin and copper bars, this is a nightmare to make. Only do so on an as-needed basis. There is almost no market for them, as most who need them can make them themselves.

NPC sales of these (and tin, and copper) also makes them not really worth mixing. 


Hydrogenium Bar - Quite regular need for them, particularly due to the ability to buy a Nexus with 50 of them. Most who are buying nexus though do so by harving and making these bars themselves to save gc. Sale-wise you're much better off selling iron/steel bars. High recommendation to make these yourself for nexus-buying though, to save money. Keep in mind the hydrogenium ore itself is quite an annoyance to harvest, and not something everyone can easily do.

(For those who fear doing the Hydro ore runs, there are people who regularly trade your S2Es for their hydro ore, normally at a rate of 11 S2Es to 10 hydro ore, the extra S2E "paying" for their taking the hydro run risk. Consider this as an alternative if you wish to make these bars.)


Seridium Bar - A rise in usage since the addition of the gatherer medallion, and much more as well when harvester medallion was made more useful.

However, as the NPC sells these for 7kgc, and ing cost to self-harv and mix has drastically risen, the majority of these are directly bought from the NPC now.

So... not a good seller.


Wolfram Bar - Don't make. The cost involved is more than the 15kgc the bar costs from the NPC. Save the rare stone used for something else.


Enriched Essences (made with enrichment stone) - Due to the cost of the enrichment stone, the only enriched essence that might be worth making is the EME. Otherwise if you get an enrichment stone, you're better off selling it and buying other enriched essies on market.


Dvarium Bar - Extremely limited need, and the very few people who can actually put these to use likely make them themselves. Don't bother at all unless you're one of those people. Or you are providing ings for a manuer to make something with this bar.




That about covers it. Your mileage may vary, but the above is based on my own experience. Hopefully this provided some insight on what sells and doesn't, or what is just good to make in general even for non-sales.

Comments and opinions welcome. We all experience different things in the course of the game so others may have different experiences with items than I've had.

IQ Check on Market Ads

There's a few things that are quite regularly seen on market ads, that seriously need an IQ Check.

Things that are tacked on to ads that, if the person thought about it for even one second, they'd slap their forehead (and hopefully knock themselves unconscious *evil grin*) at how wrong, and even downright dumb it makes them look.

Let's run an IQ Check on the most common ones...


1) PM Me

As opposed to what? Exactly what other way would a person respond to an ad? By PMing themself? By logging off? By dropping their pants and doing the Twist to polka music?

Even the bots have to be PMed, so they're not an excuse to use this phrase either.

Worse is the people who post their ad without it, realise they made the ad without it, and make a second message just to say "PM me".

End it, please. For the sake of common sense.


2) Not a Bot

Not as bad as the first, as this is a remnant of a time when people saw more bot ads than actual humans posting on market.

But that's what it is, a remnant. Anyone who's been on market more than 15 minutes knows or asked and found out about #ignore_bots .

The overwhelming majority of people have used this command, since market isn't even usable without it. So every ad they see is from "not a bot".

Kill the redundancy, don't use this anymore.

3) PM me fast

"PM me" was covered in (1) above, this is about that final word... fast, quick, or any other word with similar meaning.

IQ check here: Do you honestly think this is going to make any difference whatsoever in "how fast" people respond to you? Or if they choose to respond at all?

One of the seriously troubled advertisers I watched use this was doing it every 5 minutes for over 3 hours. Obviously it wasn't working... though he should have known that before he even typed the words.

All it does when I see "PM me fast" is make me want to PM the word "fast" to the person. It's honestly the best and only response they deserve. ;)

4) Selling (item) PM me for price (and location)

Yo, bonehead, you had the space to type that, so you had the space to just type the price (and location). Instead of wasting your own and other people's time making them PM you to get that info, post it. People will see you overprice things, and not respond, saving both you and them time.

Is the price negotiable? Just say so. The above just says you're hiding your attempt at greed.

Number of ads I respond to where the price isn't stated in the ad: none. And I'm not the only one. By not giving the price, or at least a ballpark negotiable figure, you've lost quite a few potential buyers. IQ Check: Losing potential customers is a BAD thing. Repeat that as a mantra.

Selling Harvables for the GC

I got to wondering, what's really the best harvestable when it comes to making the most gc per hour?

There's a lot of factors involved... price the harv sells for, how long it takes to harvest, the time it takes to walk from storage/NPC and back, harvest events slowing the process...

So with my 760 EMU, I decided to run some tests on some popular items that are harvested to sell. Worst case, I'd have some extra stock of the items. ;)

Items normally sold to NPC (Lupies, lilacs, titanium) used the NPC price, others used a sell-to-user price based on what harvest shops on the EL forums normally charge, which is close to if not the normal selling price anyway.

I did a minimum of 3 full loads for each item, counted how many of the item I got and how much time it took including full walk back/forth to storage/NPC. These were "perfect" conditions, meaning the harving was monitored to restart the harv as soon as an event stopped it, started the walk back to the harv/sto/NPC as quickly as possible, etc.

Note that your experiences may differ! How much EMU you have could easily affect which item is better. Less emu = more trips, therefore if the trip is a considerable part of the time involved, you might end up making more money with a harv that has a shorter walk. These calculations are based on an EMU of 760, with excavator cape. (My harv level is 86 as well.) Other factors, such as your AFK time, amount of events, broke all your tools and had to return early, etc., should also be kept in mind. And of course, the price you actually sell the item for. (Personally, I'd be stubborn as a mule and refuse to sell for less than the given prices below.)


So when it came to best gc per hour, here were the results (NPC/Player sales separated because NPC you get gc directly, sales to players do not include the time it takes to actually make the sale, just the time to collect it in storage):

Sell to NPC (instant gc gratification)
Blue Lupine (PL fast bush @ 0.42ea) - 5745gc/hr (Mar. 29, 2009 - server update killed all fast lupine bushes)
Titanium ore (WV @ 2.5ea) - 3420gc/hr
29Lilacs (VotD @ 0.5ea) - 2916gc/hr

Sell to Players (delayed gratification, wait for large amount sale)
gypsum (Arius @ 10ea) - 8640gc/hr
iron ore (EVTR @ 3.5ea) - 6552gc/hr
sapphires (PL @ 3.2ea) - 4838gc/hr
sulfur (EVTR @ 2ea) - 4680gc/hr
emeralds (EVTR @ 3ea) - 4536gc/hr
blue quartz (NC @ 2ea) - 4464gc/hr (rose/regular quartz in NC about the same)
diamonds (Irin @ 3.2ea) - 4032gc/hr
coal (c1 hazmat @ 2ea) - 3960gc/hr (Mar. 5, 2009 - hazmat storage moved)
silver (MM @ 2ea) - 3672gc/hr
henbane (SRM @ 2ea) - 3096gc/hr
turquoise (glac-2-AAsto @ 5ea) - 3060gc/hr
wormwood (SRM @ 2ea) - 2880gc/hr
toadies (VotD @ 1.5ea) - 2646gc/hr*

(* Toadies note: Problem is slow harving combined with low sale price, not the trip to storage, so using SRM won't really improve this by much. This is an item that should have been moved up to the 2gc price range with other higher-level flowers, but due to its use as food, people will refuse to buy it at higher than 1.5.)



The results: If not in a rush, iron is the true champion. However, there's some boneheads out there who regularly try to buy it for less. Don't sell to them, ever. If you sell for 3gc each instead of 3.5, you'll be better off selling Lupies to the NPC. Seriously.

Why not gypsum? There are some out there willing to buy it. Mostly potioners making extracts. It will likely only sell in lower-thousand amounts though due to price and potioner need, and the number of people who'd need it is very limited. As well, the big problem with it is the walk from it to storage and back, being a lot of time and clicking spent on that, with very little time on actual mining. It's a pain in the ass, and is the primary cause of the high cost. Being the heaviest harvable is really a secondary reason to the trouble of harving it.

Iron on the other hand has pretty much guaranteed buyers, in huge amounts, at any given time.

If you need the money as quickly as possible, and don't want to have to deal with finding a buyer, Lupies are the way to go for NPC sales.

Notes: Give the item weight consideration. Heavier (like iron) will mean more trips. If you prefer to afk-harv, a lighter item might be better for you in the long run. Don't forget the harv experience you get for each item, weigh that in your considerations if you are looking to advance your harv level at the same time. Lupies are obviously a poor choice for that, heh.

The Alchemy What-to-Make List

There are currently 28 items you can make with the Alchemy skill. Every one of them has their use, but how used are they, and are they worth making in bulk (or at all)?

There's also the issue of value, whether the cost of the ingredients makes the item better to make on your own, or just buy outright.

I've put together below a list of the items, as well as my personal thoughts on each. Keep in mind that these are the opinions of a single player, others may have differing opinions and may have different experiences with each. Don't base your Alchemy work on the opinion of one person. ;)


ESSENCES

Fire Essence - The backbone of Alchemy. This is where you make many of your first Alchemy levels. They sell well, as so many of them are needed for bar-making and more. Value of ingredients is about 3gc, sell for 3.5gc, so you make a little more and get experience off making them rather than selling ings. Overall this is something you'll make a lot of, both for yourself and to sell. Eventually though, the experience you get making them just isn't worth it and you may end up becoming a buyer of these for your bar work.

Water Essence - One of the primary means of leveling the Crafting skill is polishing emeralds. Polishing requires 2 water essies per gem, so a lot of them are needed. As well, these are needed by a smaller number of players who are advancing their Tailoring, as they are needed to make dyes.

If you plan to do either of those skills, make yourself a lot of these. Sell-wise, they sell for at or only slightly above the value of the ingredients, so making money off them is only an option with self-harvesting. The market for them tends to fluctuate, and many choose to just make them themselves as they aren't going to make much (or any) profit off their gems/dyes if they are bought.

Earth Essence - On an incredibly rare occasion, someone may actually buy these. However, rare means rare. These have only one use, to make matter conglomerates (see comments on those below). Those who make "gloms" are most likely going to make the essences themselves as well. Do not rely on these for income, and don't bother making them unless you actually need them yourself.

Air Essence - Mana draining is used and abused to increase magic levels. That's their primary usage, with a few other uses that are minor in comparison. The sale of them goes in waves, sometimes lots being bought and other times less so. They sell for a decent profit though. You won't sell as many of these as other essences, but they are sellable eventually. Use them to level after water essies, see how well they sell, decide from there if you want to continue making them.

Spirit Essence - The first of the two essences that require mercury as an ingredient. These are regularly needed in the game for teleporting, however the ingredients make them a loss to make on your own. For leveling the Alchemy skill, most if not all skip these and go to matter essences directly after air essences. This is the only essences that I'd recommend buying from the magic shop NPC rather than making. The NPC sells for 9gc each, and it's the only essence that sells from the NPC for less than the ingredients cost. Mercury alone sells currently for 6-7gc each from players, if you can find anyone selling it at all. In all, these are the 1 essence I never make. (Or rather, rarely make, as I do sometimes make a handful of them when they are really needed and I don't have time to go to the shop to buy them.)

Matter Essence - Another regularly-needed item, but they are incredibly hard if not impossible to sell for more than what you could get for the individual ingredients. You will make these, but mostly for your own use. The price issue is because of this... the individual ingredient going rates:
- iron - 3.5gc
- each type of quartz - 2gc
With 3 types of quartz and 1 iron, total of the ingredients is 9.5gc, not including food cost. Most people try to buy them at 8gc, and will refuse to at 10gc. Why sell them when you could sell the ingredients instead?
Of the essences, this is the most confusing one when it comes to pricing, and as such makes them not worth selling. You'll need to make these for yourself at the least though, and they are regularly used. And if anyone tries to buy them from you for less than 10gc, laugh at them.

Energy Essence - Heavily, heavily used. Whether by mercury extractors, or people teleporting (5 per trip to the portal room), or any of several other uses, these babies have their market. Well worth making for both yourself and to sell, which they will at a slight profit.

Life Essence - Easy to make with only two ingredients, easy to sell to those working on their summoning levels, and will sell at a profit. Higher-level summoners can and will buy these in extreme amounts for making summoning stones.

Death Essence - Make for yourself only. Limited use, and due to the mercury needed won't sell at any profit. These are normally skipped when leveling as well as spirit essences due to the mercury needed.

Health Essence - These are the most-needed of all essences. Heavily used, heavily bought. You'll get an overwhelming amount of your alch leveling done on these alone. Make them, make them a lot. Use them. Savor them. Sell them.

Magic Essence - The market for these, despite having some uses, is close to zero. This is because they are the highest experience of the essences, and saturate the market because of people using them to level. Keep some for your personal use, make them when you need them.
They do, however, have that leveling use, and making them solely for that reason is not a bad thing. If you have the gc to burn, make them in an alchemy school for double experience. If not, make them anyway. Ingredients cost a total of about 4gc, so even if you buy all the ingredients, they can be sold for 6.67gc to the magic shop NPC, a profitable option if you don't mind hauling them there from storage.

ENRICHED ESSENCES

There are 5 available. 2 can only be made "by accident" while making their non-enriched counterparts. Those are Enriched Water Essence and Enriched Death Essence. Neither of those are very regularly used so no matter.

The other 3 can be made but require an enrichment stone, a rare item.

An Enriched Life Essence would be a waste. They sell for much less than the enrichment stone itself. Their limited use makes it better to just hope for one while making Life Essences, and they tend to be made that way relatively regularly.

Your best bet is to save the enrichment stones, using them only to make an Enriched Fire Essence or Enriched Magic Essence when you absolutely need one of those. Otherwise you won't make these often at all.


BARS

Bars in general are pain in the... to make due to heavy ingredients. Selling prices are generally at or slightly below the cost of ingredients, so they're generally only profitable if you harvest things yourself. As well, you'll need a good stock of fire essences if you plan to make these.

If you are alching solely to increase your alchemy level, you're better off sticking to the essences due to their being easier to gather ings and make.

Iron Bars - Used by manufacturers, you should have no problem selling these off, though less so than steel bars. A necessity, made in large quantities. Primarily bought by people making S2Es to harvest hydrogenium.

Steel Bars - Like iron, but sold in even larger quantities. The reason being their primary use is to make S2Es, which require 16 bars each, with only 2 iron bars. Iron and steel bars of course have other uses, but primary buyers are those making S2Es.

Silver Bars - primary use being for rings in crafting. A fluctuating market, you might end up selling some, but don't rely on them for income. Better to make these for yourself for your own crafting.

Gold Bars - primary use being for rings in crafting. (I'm repeating myself!) These have an even less chance of selling, as the most-used rings are all made with silver rings, not gold. Make for yourself as needed, don't expect to sell them.

Titanium Bars - Used almost exclusively in higher-level manufacturing that also requires rare inredients, so their usage is extremely limited. Those that would actually need them wouldn't need huge amounts, and will likely make them on their own. At best they sell to NPC for 40gc each, but the ings could be sold for more.

Tin/Copper/Bronze Bars - Putting these together as the only purpose for tin and copper bars is to make bronze bars. There is almost no market for these at all. Chance of sale is slim to none, and there is an incredible amount of work involved to make them. Only make if you actually have a use for them yourself.

Hydro Bar - The holy grail, you could say, as 50 are needed to buy a nexus. However, when you make these, chances are you'll be in a guild doing group projects to make them. Hydro ore is the hardest ore to get. But these definitely have their game usage.

Seridium Bars - Take a lot of work to make (making matter conglomerates to harv the seridium), and have little to no market. Don't make unless you need yourself, or have someone willing to buy in advance.

Wolframite Bars - Require a rare serpent stone to make. You won't be making these in any large amounts. They have uses, but better to only make if absolutely needed.

MISCELLANEA

Bone Powder - The lowest point-wise. As a starting potioner, you'll need to make these. Make them for your own personal use only though, as they don't sell well, and with 3 bones needed, you'll make more selling just the bones than the powder.

Matter Conglomerate - You'll feel a sense of accomplishment in making these, but that's where it ends. They have limited usage, don't sell well if at all... don't make unless you have a guaranteed buyer or want to use them yourself. They're a lot of work for no good reason otherwise.

Mercury - The oddball of alchemy. Requires an expensive tool (alembic) to make, a high-level harvesting item to extract it from (cinnabar), and an energy essence. Very nice experience, but expensive as the alembic will break eventually at some point where it won't be worth the value of the mercury it produces. By the time you get to where you can make this, you'll need to decide for yourself whether it's worth it.

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Okay, that's it for alchemy. Hopefully it helps you decide if you should/shouldn't make each item if you're working your way up the alchemy ladder. And remember, these are just my opinions and thoughts on each item. Your mileage may vary.

So How Well Are You Really Doing...

Being a "Jack of all Trades"-wannabe, for the longest time I thought I should be hiking all my skills up as equally as possible, else I don't "earn" that title.

Truth of the matter is, that's pretty much impossible. Skills like alchemy, potion, and att/def are so much easier to level than, say, ranging or tailoring.

So is there a better way to determine how well you are (comparatively) doing in a skill?

The best way I could find was comparing to other players. There were two schools of thought on this... compare to the top player for each skill, or compare to the lowest of the top 50 as that might be a better insight into the difficulty of leveling that skill. (The top player may just spend an excessive amount of time on that one skill.)

I ignored "who" had the top level (or low top 50 level) and focused solely on the numbers, as this was just an idea to compare skill leveling difficulty, not attempts to beat some other player.

This proved to be a bit problematic, due to the one thing I feel should never have been allowed: people hiding their stats. Cowards.

This was primarily problematic in the fighter skills... attack, defense, magic... as they seem to be the biggest of the cowards. Yes, I know, they do it because of PK, but I don't care. Of the top 50 attackers, for example, I believe I found maybe 3 of the 50 who hadn't hidden their stats.

At any rate, this led to my idea being troublesome to try. I eventually had to just use the lowest top 50er's skill level that could actually be viewed rather than the actual person in the #50 spot.

These are the ranks I figured out, keeping in mind they aren't necessarily the highest and lowest in the top 50 of that skill due to privacy crap.

Skill - (lowest top 50/highest top 50) level
Attack - 134/146
Defense - 139/145
Harvest - 100/127
Alchemy - 100/129
Magic - 74/101
Potion - 82/115
Summoning - 50/107
Manufacturing - 67/100
Crafting - 70/112
Engineering - 42/66
Tailoring - 31/66
Ranging - 28/36


As can be seen, there's a huge gap between the highest levels for some skills over others. They were taken a while ago and have possibly changed by now, but the point was to find a reference, not be precise.

If you're looking to be a Jack of All Trades, to see how well you're doing in a skill comparatively, try comparing to these numbers rather than attempts to keep them all equal.

Alchemy Goddess - To follow or not

Of the "mixing" skills, Alchemy is without a doubt the most useful. Not only that, it's also the easiest to level.

So is there really a point to following the Alchemy goddess?

Chances are that of the mixing skills, unless you're heavily focused on some other mix skill, you'll end up spending a lot of time alching, and leveling the skill whether intentional or out of necessity. Alchemy product is needed for most of the other skills, so it becomes something you do regularly, like harvesting.

This necessity leads to leveling the skill just out of necessity alching, which has led to the question of whether or not the alchemy goddess is really needed to assist leveling?

The answer is that unless you are hell-bent on being a top-level alchemist, probably not.

However, that's not the only thing to consider. Think about this: how's your overall doing? Need some more pickpoints?

If you alch a lot, whether you're wanting to increase your alchemy skill level or not, those alching points are going to your overall as well, leading to more pickpoints.

Most of the other mixing skills are minimally used in comparison to alchemy, which leads to more experience. An additional 20% experience on such a heavily-used skill can go a long way towards getting those pickpoints faster.


Of the mixing gods, the Alchemy goddess is really the only one to offer that additional bonus. (Well, Potion goddess comes in a good second, though only if you're heavily into potting in the first place.)


So, should you take the Alchemy goddess or not? A quick checklist...

Pro (yes is good):
- Do you alch a lot compared to other mixing skills?
- Does your OA matter to you? (getting more pickpoints as quickly as possible)
- Did you recently reset? (alching a lot to regain that OA, with goddess makes it go much faster)
- Are you wanting a high alchemy skill level?

Con (yes is bad):
- Are you hurting for gold coin? (The Alchemy goddess quests are among the most expensive in the game, if you take her on you'll need to keep her quite a while to make it cost-worthy)
- Are you absolutely needing to follow Mortos (attack) or Zarin (crafting)? (They are her enemies, unable to be followed if you follow Elandria)


As everything in the game, the choice to follow her is up to your needs. Hopefully this will better help you decide. Personally, I followed her, and became a top 50 alchemist with her additional experience as well as got my overall up quickly after a reset, and found it very much worth the cost.