Tipa and Silhouette, watching the Far Trader sail off into the distance. Yesterday brought about our second Nostalgia craft night, where Tipa, Kasul, and myself headed off to a tradeskill instance to kick some serious craft machine butt. We did pretty well too. Of course, I was the slacker. I figured out why though. Some times I’m so busy spamming buttons and I look away half an instant that I miss a counter during the process. If you miss a SINGLE counter in an archtype that is not your own, you have a very good chance at failing that complete combine. Key to winning these (and not being far behind) is to just pay attention. Or at least pay enough attention that you can counter everything. It was a great evening, Tipa won herself a bit of crafting gear, and I managed to get a void shard recipe book. The way the book works is quite simple. The Void Shard merchants sell you two types of gear. One is lesser, the other is greater. The greater pieces cost roughly 24 void shards (for the breast piece) – if you get it commissioned by me, it costs 21 void shards. Not too shabby.
I didn’t get any rares when we did the instance as a guild, but later that evening I decided to buckle down and get my alchemist some levels. I figured I would solo one of the group instances. I know it takes a LONG time (3h in fact) but what was the difference between me grinding writs for 3h or me grinding the instance.
It turns out, that those little tradeskill instances are *amazing* for leveling up 50+ and here’s why. Number one, you use no fuel, no materials that you have to harvest. So while I’ve been going through my horrible T6 (sinking sands) crafting, I no longer have to farm materials for it. Due to the fact that my alchemist is on my ‘main’ account with five other level 80 crafters, she receives a 50% bonus at all times. In three hours I managed to get 6 levels, and went from level 53 to level 59. I also got three T8 rares, a reflective shard (used for those aa mirrors) and a craft token, as well as the piece of legendary gear (which she can’t use because she’s too low, but it’s level 75 and fletching, again). There is one fairly significant downside to using this method to level and that is simply because the crafting instance does not reward any guild status. Those levels I’ve been grinding would typically be done via writs, and so Nostalgia has felt the pinch of not doing them. With five new Heritage Quests in the expansion, as well as the Signature quest, we’re still gaining status but not quite as fast as normal. I’m thinking of picking up the adventure writs at least once a day and completing those, not only for the status gain, but because the faction rewards from the city factions can be quite nice (ie: fighter, priest, mage, scout).
I didn’t just craft this weekend. I headed to my first TSO adventure instance, Befallen: Cavern of the Afflicted. I picked up quests along the way, and the whole instance was pretty much giant groups of mobs swarming us and me healing as fast as I could. The group was a shadowknight, wizard, necromancer, scout (forget what type, but they were dps), mystic, and myself on my warden. We died once when we had an add during a named fight, but it was a lot of fun. The gear was alright, nothing was an upgrade for anyone and I ended up transmuting the few bits I won. I did get a void shard out of it though, as well as a heritage quest located in the zone where you have to run around collecting pages (which reminds me, I ducked out early so everyone else could grab their pages at the end, I’ll have to go back and swipe them before the instance resets). I’m only up to three void shards now, and I expect that for me to actually get any gear will take a fairly long time. Especially because I’ll get a void shard here and there on multiple characters.
Still great fun though!