Harvesting Tricks and Tips

[korin77]

Since doubletap's harvest guide only covered the basics, I thought to put in some detail tricks and tips that I have found worked for me while harvesting.

First, always max your will and dexterity every level. With a max focus and regen, you reduce the downtime between each forage attempt.

You generally start by finding a good source. This can be near the capital or any of the other towns. For this you will need a tracking stanza, starting from the 50m tracking to the higher ones at higher levels. You can combine other stanzas with tracking, but the thing to remember here is that it usually finds the biggest common denominator in the stanzas... For example : A 50m track combined with Choice Mat, and Cloth specialization will only bring you to the first available cloth(armor) resource from basic up to choice quality. This is because those stanzas allow you a chance to find a higher quality mat but don't garantee it. I usually just use a general track + specialization to find the approximate location of the resource I am looking for.

Once I am in the general area, I have a more specific stanza made from Quality, angle, increase source time, multiple source and distance stanzas. I rotate around and use this stanza to check. This allows me to find the nearest resource of any kind at my point. I then check the different sources for the type I am searching for. Once you reach level 50 harvest, you can also add the skill "resource knowledge" to see the type of each resource you find.

I usually use just choice in all my prospecting stanzas, this is because it seems that near the cities, the best quality you can find is choice. Maybe the quality increases as you get out into the border lands and prime roots, but I have never foraged there.

Now that we've found the source we want, we will proceed onto the harvesting. The best way I have found is to try to keep a area you found as long as you can. There are several ways to do this. First is to only harvest from source modes of 0 and 1. These modes indicate how likely the source is to blow up, die prematurely, or other characteristics. 0 and 1 seems to be the most stable. What alot of people don't realize is that these are randomly generated. If you keep clicking on the source, the numbers change! So just keep clicking on your source til its mode 0 or 1 and if you see the life about to run out, sit down. This will abandon your harvesting imediately and allow you to keep that area from depleting too fast. Forget about ground stability and source preservation. With this method you save yourself time and energy as well as extra skill points you would have wasted on those.

Like doubletap mentioned, use harmful extraction at all times, and upgrade the rate, speed and quality as much as you can. This will alow you to harvest as fast as you can for the best quality as early as you can. When you reach level 50+ you will get specializations to reduce the risk and increase the quality of specific materials or specific areas where you harvest. Put them into your harvest stanza to futher increase your harvest productivity.

I hope this helps some of you struggling to figure out the right way to harvest. I was told some of this by another player and figured out the rest.
Thank you Javance for the tips.

[korin77]

I would like to add a couple of extra tips and clarifications. When sitting down to cancel a prospecting action, you will still be able to keep all the currently harvested mats. So a good strategy is to sit down as soon as you reach your target quality and quantity, so you can avoid a mishap 2 secs before the source runs dry. It is sometimes more efficient to put together simpler stanzas for prospecting when you know you're right on top of the source. For example. A simple one that doesn't have angle or range would work for cheaper faster harvesting when you are already in front of a source you are extracting over and over.

[seawe]

I have to disagree with the 'always use harmful extract' approach, you increase the chances of loss of quality and explosions. Atleast at lower foraging levels it pays to use the Gentle extracting of high quality.


it worked for me.

[korin77]

The reason you always use harmful is because it allows for the highest quality at the fastest speed and rate for your level. So while you may destroy a couple of sources, overall you level much faster due to more materials of higher ql pulled out of the ground. As I mentioned above, if you are careful you will never lose your source prematurely. Gentle extraction would not pull the same ql materials out at the same levels. This would just be a waste of sp til you get high enough level where the resource is maxed to a quality level anyway. IE. if the highest ql of area is ql50 and you have both stanzas then its worth it to just use gentle extraction quality. However you still may want to use aggressive rate and speed as you can pull alot out of one spot fast. As long as you don't wear medium/heavy armor or have a death penalty you will not see alot of the harvest is ruined message.

[docsardo]

I keep my heavy armor on now when I'm harvesting because I have found that there is absolutely no difference compared to harvesting naked. Try it. And it sure helps a lot when those 4 goaris jump you.

In addition, I have found that death penalty has no effect on harvesting. In fact, harvesting is the best way to get rid of death penalty.

Edit: OK I found out that wearing heavy armor increases focus cost and degrades the armor over time. However it still may be a good idea to wear it in particularly dangerous harvest spots. It doesn't affect your success at extracting.

Kraak - Fyros Crafter of Fine Weapons

[korin77]

You can accomplish the same thing wearing light armor. Light armor will protect you long enough to run away. Penalty does affect how often you get those failed and ruined quality messages. You may not notice it if you are using gentle extraction but they are very noticable using harmful.

Also a bad idea to craft when you have DP. I was unable to make ql 50 armor with ql 50 mats last night because of the DP. It kept making ql 49 armor.

[lyrah68]

My tips differ slightly from yours. If you know the clues in your area...you do NOT need the tracking...of ANY kind...until you get to mainland. Then I would max it out as fast as you could (the mainland is two to three TIMES your noobland, maybe bigger).

WHY? do so many say JUST use harmful?? That leads to MANY more explosions, requiring MUCH more of your time leveling up fighter...to gain MORE HP to survive those explosions.

I have gotten gentle Quality and found that THAT works to make it possible to harvest PESTY nodes, like BIG shells (yes that wonder blade that makes the highest damage that EVERYONE wants so VERY much) and AMBER (yep time to make some magic Amps, and amber nodes are so VERY touchy).

I use Agressive rate AND speed (and up both of these ASAP) and BOTH gentle and harmful Quality. I find that extracting SOME nodes takes ALOT more finese than others. SO....Harmful just does NOT cut it.

I know of some nodes in Fyros noobie land that other foragers avoided as "not worth the time" that I could have an all day picnic at. NO one around for competion and they weren't THAT touchy with Fast speed, agressive rate and gentle Quality.

BUT for those danged and DETERMINED to use harmful ONLY...hint...if you don't like the mode you got to start with...hit the extraction button again and again until you get one you can deal with.

I find that one is heaven, FEW if any explosions or gas, 0 can HURT on mainland I get at LEAST one explosion with 0's. On the mainland I have moved into MORE than one unit per extraction. I find it faster, and since nodes are so blooming FAR apart on mainland..and that means having to run FOREVER to make a suit of armor or two. I am trying to get as much as I can.

PLUS Excellent nodes seem to move, or have a timer of some sort...so you HAVE to pull FAST and that means LONG resource timers and pulling two or three units (most I have gotten so far is THREE units in ONE pull or level 60 forager.)

Plus the idea that gentle Quality gains you less and is slower only is true if you do NOT mix the aggressive speed and rate with the gentle Quality.

PLUS...trust me...when you destroy a TEN METER area that had ALL the materials you needed to make whatever it was you were making...you will decide that running all over to gather all that just is NOT worth your being RIGHT all the time.

[ishal]

I agree with the gentle extraction and the conservation of resource and the stable ground. You MUST learn these marvellous qualifications.

You can remain for AGES has to harvest in only one resource (up to one hour), collecting TONS of materials with these qualifications, without being disturbed by the explosions or exhaustion of the resource. This is what we all seek, isn't it ?

When the ressource drops, then move away and go harvesting for another hour ^^

[asyne]

I don't see why it is that people say to use harmful harvest actions. Although it works well for getting mats when you have little care for the level of your harvest, it is not a good way for a primary harvester to level.

As you may or may not have noticed, when a forage source blows up or is prematurely destroyed, the experience you get from that source drops by 20% if it is prematurely destroyed and 13% per explosion. So if I harvest a source that would normally give me 1800 EXP and I blow it up three times followed by destroying it, I get only : :p ulls out calculator:: 1800-(1800*0.2)-(1800*(3*0.13))=738 EXP (yes, the reductions stack).

The EXP that you get from more mats is not very much, as the overall quality of the mats plays the greatest part of determining harvest EXP. I don't have an equation for the EXP from extra mats, but looking at the diffrence that extra mats make to my harvesting, 1 mat gives ~100-200 more EXP.

So for harvesters that aren't planning on doing anything in the fight trees for a while, stick to a mix between gentle and harmful, with some care plans thrown in to keep the source from being blow up or destroyed. Play around with the speeds and rates to try and find what allows you to get the most mats within the harvest time, but try and keep the quality at gentle. Time spent keeping a source from blowing up is time not spent getting mats, but if the source does blow up, you loose more EXP than you would have got from those mats.