Is it ever better to use an extraction quality above...

[lyrah68]

Is it ever better to use an extraction quality above the maxium quality stated for a node?

For instance, if I use my Gentle quality 80 on a max Q50 node...is there ANY benefit or am I just wasting my precious focus??

[dpi209]

Is it ever better to use an extraction quality above the maxium quality stated for a node?

For instance, if I use my Gentle quality 80 on a max Q50 node...is there ANY benefit or am I just wasting my precious focus??

You reach the max quality much faster when "overqualitying" (geez, what a word...)

[lyrah68]

Thank you, I thought that might be the result, but since MOST foraging stuff, especially extraction takes SO much focus, I just don't have the focus to test such stuff out.

I recently maxed my focus and regen for my level, but I find that I am still running out of focus about mid way through most extractions. I am not sure what I am doing wrong, since I am not doing anything differently than I did before patch one, and I actually have a better pick and higher focus/regen than I had Pre patch one.

I will try the over qualling it to see if this stops the hemoraging of focus that I experience. (I also notice that I do not end up with ALL the focus back, due to the NOT regainning the focus for prospecting, bad thing is, if I use a prespawned node...I get NONE of the extraction focus back, which ends up taking ALL my focus and I end up sitting for 3 minutes to regen it all).

If ANYONE has any idea what I am doing wrong, please tell me. Either here or in game, or private message.

Stanzas I use regularly are:

Prospecting:

When locating the node:
(I am aware that this is a HUGE focus cost, but to find the node...it is a price I am willing to pay)
10 meter distance
40 degree angle
faster prospecting
choice only
With knoweldge 1

When I have found the node I want, I switch to one I named Cheepo, for obvious reasons:
NO distance bonus added
NO angle bonus added
Faster prospecting
Upto choice (cheeper than choice ONLY)
With knoweldge 1


My extraction stanzas routinuely used are:

In area with a TOP q of 50:
Aggressive rate 3
aggressive speed 3
Gentle Quality 50

With a touchie node in area with TOP q of 50, I might throw in a resource stab. or a ground stab.

In area with a top Q over 50:
Aggressive speed 3
Aggressive rate 3
Gentle Quality 90 (highest I have yet)

I find if I use ANYTHING but gentle quality, either the ground destablizes to the point of massive multiple, leathal explosions, I get heavy gas, or both. Or the source OR the area might deplete. If I use ONLY harmful stanzas, I find that I almost never get even ONE unit of the quality extraction I am using.

[usinuk]

Is it ever better to use an extraction quality above the maxium quality stated for a node?

For instance, if I use my Gentle quality 80 on a max Q50 node...is there ANY benefit or am I just wasting my precious focus??

I've said this elsewhere but it's worth repeating.

There is some weird bug/feature post-patch 1++ that makes the speed partially dependent on which ql level you use.

So...in harvesting a q50 node using all gentle, speed 3, rate 3. If I use q50 gentle as my source quality, I find that with full focus drain I still end up harvesting only 5-8 mats. If I upgrade to q100 gentle with the same stanzas, I pull 8-10 mats. How much focus you use makes no difference - I have focus jewelry and armor to help me up to 1900 focus so that I can do a full pull. And I've been doing not very much this last week besides using q50 nodes a lot for grinding mats, so this isn't just a one-time test.

One caveat. If you are low level in the skill - e.g. you're going to harvest in Tryker for the first time with forest at 100 and your lake skill is at 50 - you are still better off using q50. Otherwise you will have a lot of mat drops and mat quality screwups, even with mat specializations.

IMHO, this is yet another way patch 1++ screwed newbies, but hope the explanation helps.

[lyrah68]

thanks.

I was actually having more trouble on my main than my alts. I figured out what part of my problem was, and over qualling helped too. I hadn't gotten enough focus regen on my main. So I bit the bullet and put one or two levels of crafting sp into that regen. It made a HUGE difference.

I also noticed that agressive speed and rate aren't always the best strategy, sometimes I need to use gentle speed, aggressive rate and even aggressive quality.

Just when I think I have the WHOLE system sewn up tight in a nice neat package, I go and level, get another skill or another level of the same skill, and the whole game changes on me.

*grin* good thing too, this game makes me think. I can't imagine myself getting bored with it...not anytime soon.

thanks again.

[borg9]

....
One caveat. If you are low level in the skill - e.g. you're going to harvest in Tryker for the first time with forest at 100 and your lake skill is at 50 - you are still better off using q50. Otherwise you will have a lot of mat drops and mat quality screwups, even with mat specializations.

IMHO, this is yet another way patch 1++ screwed newbies, but hope the explanation helps.

However a 'newbie' wouldn't have lvl 100 forest and therefore wouldn't have ql110 extract .... so they would have or even know about this.

What the change in patch 1++ was stop high level harvesters getting high ql mats in land for which they had no knowleged, and of course the 3k XP that went with it.

From exprerience - with a carer + terrain spec + mat spec you can harvest +20 ql above your level, without it you are luck to get +10.

Patch 1++ was a great blancer and prevented a high lvl forager zoming up the other terrain type levels.

[marturin]

Is it ever better to use an extraction quality above the maxium quality stated for a node?

For instance, if I use my Gentle quality 80 on a max Q50 node...is there ANY benefit or am I just wasting my precious focus??

Yes, higher Q brick will increase the available extraction time in the sources. This also affect the health/risk bars in the same way.

[usinuk]

Patch 1++ was a great blancer and prevented a high lvl forager zoming up the other terrain type levels

*sigh*, why did borg9 have to chime in with an offtopic 'shout the praises of patch 1' post...there are more than enough threads on this on the main boards.

As to why I mentioned newbies, the issue came up solely given the topic was mat quantity per pull. And this highlights the point that post patch 1 newbies can't harvest nearly as much as high level extractors on the same ql source even before you throw in speed and rate stanzas. That's 200-500 exp a pull less than high level harvesters with stanzas doing the same harvesting, not to mention 2+ less mats per pull. And more importantly, since harvesting massive amounts of mats is about the only way to get to advance in crafting, this is hits newbies on a couple different levels even if they're lucky enough to have a ton of focus. Oh, and for true newbies you don't insta regen focus on exposed sites, so welcome to hugely less exp per hour for your first 20-30 levels given hugely increased focus costs. Net-net, while there needed to be something done to eliminate routine 3k exp pulls, the effect was to pander to higher level harvesters at the expense of junior ones.

From exprerience - with a carer + terrain spec + mat spec you can harvest +20 ql above your level, without it you are luck to get +10.

Huh? When you harvest more than +11 ql levels over your own terrain skill, regardless of what stanzas get thrown in you'll have significant failures (spoilage, dropped mats). At +10 and below and both are non-existent. Luck doesn't have anything to do with it, nor does someone using a care plan.

Terrain spec prospecting adds mat quantity; terrain spec extracting and mat spec extracting seem only to add to how quickly you end up maxxing out ql - both 1 tick faster than normal. Neither seem to help offset the +11 penalty except in the sense that returning to max quality 1-tick-quicker becomes much more helpful. I guess you can try harvesting +20 mats using specs with a care-type to make sure you don't get blown up, but your base failure rates will still be just as significant.

Oh, each ql10 increase in max extraction seems to add .5 or so mats to your pull potential. Thought you should know.