Harvesting

For a categorical listing of all articles related to harvesting, see Category:Harvesting.

Why should you harvest?
Three reasons: getting cash, saving cash, and completing quests.

Crafters need raw materials in order to make their goods. Some crafters in some tiers need thousands of units of certain harvestable resources to level from one tier of goods to another. Many of those crafters aren't particularly interested in spending the time needed to gather such large amounts of raw ingredients so they can perfect their craft. Those who choose not to harvest, buy from other players.

The sale price of raw materials varies wildly depending on supply and demand, but it is often possible to make a great deal of money by supplying the right goods at the right time. Browse the broker, keep up with the market, and go out to harvest what's in demand. In addition, the rare materials needed for mastercrafted items can at times provide a nice chunk of change for each unit, so there are multiple ways to profit from what you gather.

If you're a crafter low on funds, or if you just prefer the feeling of being fully self-sufficient, harvesting your own materials is a good way to go. Maximize your skill level, seek out the less-traveled spots, get harvesting tools to make the task more efficient, and put on some good music. Before you know it, you'll have stacks of materials ready to use, and a lot of gold or platinum still in the bank that you can spend on something else.

And all that stuff you harvested but don't need? Sell it! Not only do you save money, you can get paid back for the time you spent digging in the dirt.

Finally, certain quests contain harvesting tasks. There aren't many when looking at all the quests that are available, but if you do a lot of quests, you'll bump into them eventually. If you harvest here and there, you'll keep your skills rising so when it's time to get resources in a quest, you won't have hours of make-up chopping and fishing to do.

How to Harvest
Resources are harvested from resource nodes using the skills of Mining, Gathering, Fishing, Trapping, and Foresting. Harvest a node using one of these actions:
 * Target the node and activate the appropriate skill - you can also drag the harvesting action keys from your Knowledge book to your hotbar and click them as you would a spell or combat art. This also allows you to queue your actions.
 * Right-click the node and select 'Harvest'
 * Place the cursor over the node and use the default action key
 * Double-click the node (or single click if you have your options set that way)

Nodes vary by tier, requiring a higher minimum skill to harvest in each successive tier. View the required minimum skill for a particular node by right-clicking the node and selecting 'Examine'. Or, just try to harvest the node; if you're below the minimum required skill, you'll get a helpful message that lists your skill and the minimum requirement. Checking your skill levels in the "Persona" window of your user interface is a quick way to get a complete overview of your skill progress.

Harvesting skills have a chance to improve with each harvest attempt. Harvesting skills are capped both by your level and by the zone you're harvesting in: Once your skill hits either cap, harvesting a node will always succeed.
 * Your character's cap is your highest level (either tradeskill or adventure) times five.
 * Each tier has a cap at which the node will become trivial. The cap varies in number, but is always higher than the value required for the next higher tier.

Each node can be successfully harvested three times. Each successful harvest results in one or more resources: A low harvesting skill will result in fewer successes and more cases where nothing is found. Failure to harvest a resource does not deplete the node.
 * 1, 3, or 5 common resources
 * 1 rare resource
 * 10 common resources and 1 rare resource

Where to Find Nodes
Nodes may be found throughout outdoor zones, including some instances.
 * Nodes appear randomly in the zones from the initial release. They tend to cluster in specific regions of the zone. After a node is harvested, a new node of any applicable type will spawn somewhere within that region.
 * For the zones introduced in and after the Desert of Flames expansion, nodes spawn in geographically appropriate locations; for example, ore and stone will be found near cliffs, mountains, and caves; shrubs, roots and wood will be found in grasslands or forested areas. After a node is harvested, a new node of a similar type will spawn. Fish, of course, are found only in water in all zones.

Zones (By Harvestable Tier)
&#42;with the launch of Echoes of Faydwer, some of the new zones contain resource nodes for more than one tier.

What Nodes Should You Harvest?
If you only have one kind of material to harvest in the original zones, there's a natural tendency to zoom all over the zone, harvesting the one kind of node you need and moving on. Whether done for good intentions ("I'll leave the other nodes for other players") or bad ("I don't care who else is harvesting in the area; I need this stuff"), the net result of this behavior over time is actually reduced availability of just the node you need. Here's why:


 * Harvesting nodes are distributed in a semi-random, semi-even fashion in an area. Let's say an area has 25 nodes: five roots and 20 others made up of different nodes.  When the five root nodes are harvested, they have to be replaced.  When the zone repopulates those harvest nodes, it does not put back five root nodes (not regularly, anyway); it will randomly allocate different kinds of harvest nodes into those five spots.  Maybe you'll get only one or two roots the next time around.  Harvest those one or two, and on the third repopulation you probably won't see any roots spawn.


 * Ever come into an area to find only food bushes and logs? That's not a server accident; that's a consequence of selective harvesting.  You're not going to find more rocks and roots in there until somebody goes in and clears out the deadwood.

Here's an alternate suggestion: Harvest everything in one area. Five great reasons to do this:


 * 1) Most important, your repopulation of nodes will be consistent. If you find five roots in an area with 25 nodes, and you clear all the nodes, you will get several of those roots again when the area repopulates.  You might get three, or five, or eight, depending on the random rolls, but the chances of getting more are greater the more free spots you provide.
 * 2) You're going to be out waiting for the repopulation anyway, so harvesting the non-needed nodes gives you something to do.
 * 3) You stay out of the way of other harvesters, letting them enjoy the game and be effective gatherers while you have that same experience.
 * 4) You have a better chance of competing against those zoom-around cherry pickers if you stay put. When you stake out and clear an area, you'll catch on pretty quickly to how the server is putting in the new nodes. If you're really hoping to find ore rocks, it won't take long before you can anticipate when the rocks are about to spawn. Jump over and grab them as they pop.  The guy on the carpet?  Once in a while he'll arrive in time to get a rock or two; often, he'll be on the other side of the zone and will completely miss the rock spawn; some of the time, he'll just cruise past your empty area because it doesn't even look like there's anything to harvest there.
 * 5) When you're all done, you'll have stacks of what you need, stacks of junk material that isn't worth anything, AND you'll probably have stacks of something you can sell at a good price on the broker. If you're moving frantically around, you won't get the chance to make anything extra to pay for your time.  Remember, rare materials can drop from any node; a few of those can buy a nice Master spell for one of your characters.  The more nodes you harvest (and the less time you spend running around), the better your chances of getting rare items to sell.

Oh, and if someone else is in the same area harvesting, try cooperative harvesting: if she needs roots and you need loam, agree to leave those for each other and to clear out everything else between you. No anxiety, more fun, and someone to talk to about that guy on the carpet.

Of course, all this is not an issue in the newer zones with non-random node spawns. No pattern of harvesting will affect the availability of nodes once they start respawning.

Harvesting Tools and Items
Many harvesting tools are available to reduce harvest time by a varying amount and/or provide a bonus to harvesting skills. These items improve the efficiency of harvesting, allowing more resources to be acquired in the same amount of time. They are made by woodworkers or tinkerers.

Woodworkers make 5 tool types, one for each harvesting skill, as follows:


 * Fishing = Fishing Rod
 * Foresting = Saw
 * Gathering = Shovel
 * Mining = Pick
 * Trapping = Trap

As you get higher level, the items get better, further reducing your harvesting times. The items relate to the levels as follows:


 * Level 20 = Ash
 * Level 30 = Briarwood
 * Level 40 = Teak
 * Level 50 = Sandalwood
 * Level 70 = Redwood

Ffor example, level 20 would include items such as ash saw, ash shovel etc.