RANT - Cannith Crafting

[Hawkwier]

Crikey! Off to LoD epic casual i go!

Oops! Actually Heroic Casual. My bad! Apologies.

Good luck. I reckoned expected drop rates for them were about 1 in 9. In practice it was higher for me, but that's not very scientific.

You can probably do Church and Cult on HH quicker if you have dimension door, but I didn't. That also only gives one cabinet. LOD has two naturals on the way and a pack next to the cabinet too, so was more productive for me. Most frustrating part is waiting for Gnomon to open the door for you after the first fight. You can pick up the first natural while you are waiting.

[Assassination]

Yes, checked the wiki before I ran. I ran heroic casual about 15-20 times and did not pull one house sealed letter... Maybe my luck is just really bad. I did pull quite a few fragrant drowshods though...

I don't really think we should need to go to these lengths to pull collectables for crafting though.

[Hawkwier]

Yes, checked the wiki before I ran. I ran heroic casual about 15-20 times and did not pull one house sealed letter... Maybe my luck is just really bad. I did pull quite a few fragrant drowshods though...

I don't really think we should need to go to these lengths to pull collectables for crafting though.

Good. I'm glad my mistake didn't cost you.

That's bad luck, but not really bad. In 15-20 runs you migt expect to pull one or two. And that's only 30-40 minutes of trying. You only need do to the bookcase and recall each run. I'm sorry you didn't have good luck but it is grindy and repetitive and based on chance too, so you need to stick at it for more than 20 runs. Your next 20 might have yielded far better results. At one point I was sick to death of pulling romantic sonnets I didn't need, and was beginning to think there was something wrong with the drop rates. Then I pulled two letters on the same run and another 3 runs later. Probability can be a lumpy pain in the backside sometimes, but it does tend to even out over the long run. I only saw a few Drowshoods in my runs for example.

I really don't think the time sink on collectibles is that bad given what we can make. It's certainly not as bad as some of the other grinds in the game (yep I'm lookin at you Mr J. Jibbers!). I farmed for nine items last weekend, largely from scratch, and it took less than 12 hours (about 6 hours in quests based on the ship buff timers). That compares favorably with GS, LGS, Thumderforge, and Slavers items in my experience to name but a few. Yours of course may vary.

My advice is stick at it, and I hope your luck changes for the better. Good luck!

[Whitering]

Ghost Touch and Everbright are the biggest missteps, for sure. If those were properly set as level 1 recipes, the system as a whole would be far more new-player friendly.

Also invulnerable and a couple of other used to be low hangers than got bumped up with collectables I have ZERO of, I guess they are new or just so rare I never picked any up before.

[Enderoc]

Don't agree with the essences being hard to come by. That's nonsense. I will agree the recipes are costly. But that's perfectly fine. The equipment you make crafting is far superior. If I can make a skill item that gives you plus 24 to that skill at level 15... Yeah sorry, that's a gem and you need to work at getting that gem. It's a reward not a right.

[brian14]

Glass Phial...bane of my DDO existence. If anyone out there knows of a relatively reliable place to farm these please reply. I've been around all of the Wiki and forum guides to no avail, it's insane as to how rare this collectable is and it really has turned me off to the game for a bit.

Best place to farm Glass Phials is Heroic Casual Grim and Barrett. Altar next to the bear cage. Kill the orthon, and you get a chest for a bonus. Takes about 90 seconds on my Wiz 23, and I get about 1 Phial every 4 runs.

[Enderoc]

I will add one thing about collectibles on the AH. If you want to make plat off them, lower your prices... especially the single item sellers. And no one is going to buy your funery tokens or dark sixes, nobody...
I refuse to participate in an inflated market. Most crafters know where to farm what they need. Nothing but very rare ingredients are worth over 10k a piece.

Only new or casual players would pay those costs... And both haven't invested that much to feel inclined to do so.

Or those players that sell essences for a thousand a piece... Good luck with that. As long as people are selling items to Evening star vendors no essence is worth a thousand a piece.

[EllisDee37]

Best place to farm Glass Phials is Heroic Casual Grim and Barrett. Altar next to the bear cage. Kill the orthon, and you get a chest for a bonus. Takes about 90 seconds on my Wiz 23, and I get about 1 Phial every 4 runs.

Glass Phials are tier 3 arcane, which includes Singed, Charred and Lightning-Split Soarwood. None of which drop in Forgotten Realms, meaning a tier 3 arcane farm in eveningstar would be ideal. That way there's only 6 possible drops instead of 9.

That would move Mask of Deception and Through a Mirror Darkly up higher in the list of Glass Phial farms.

[Nuclear_Elvis]

Most of my guild has turned its back on Cannith Crafting, as if it is now a thing of the past. Sad but true, it simply is not a part of the game anymore for many of us. That's about 200+ regular players (500+ that play more infrequently) that no longer craft regularly.

[brian14]

Glass Phials are tier 3 arcane, which includes Singed, Charred and Lightning-Split Soarwood. None of which drop in Forgotten Realms, meaning a tier 3 arcane farm in eveningstar would be ideal. That way there's only 6 possible drops instead of 9.

That would move Mask of Deception and Through a Mirror Darkly up higher in the list of Glass Phial farms.

You are right. Also, Mask of Deception takes less than a minute to check both the cabinet and the rubble pile. OTOH, you don't get the chest (assuming you care).

[Whitering]

Is that what they wanted crafting to become? Grindy, repetitive, luck based? The things I HATE most about MMOs? As it stands I can no longer craft the things I used to craft and while I do like the scaling of the new system and am willing to trade the things I used to be able to craft that I no longer can, what I can't get over is that I now have to farm mats! Those used to just come from quests, you'd get them in chests or from item break down, now I have to go back and farm quests on heroic casual or normal or something stupid so I can craft something I used to be able to at level 100 of whatever school?

I don't get it.

[Cantor]

You are right. Also, Mask of Deception takes less than a minute to check both the cabinet and the rubble pile. OTOH, you don't get the chest (assuming you care).

Mirror is about 2 minutes for 5 arcane nodes by far the best.

[Franghasea]

If only this were true. Those damned Glass Phials are eluding me even with the farm. Maybe I need to try a Temple of Vol instead of Gianthold.

Greetings! Run the Enemy within on Level 11. There are over 20 nodes in there most of them drop Arcane. Happy Farming.

Franghasea of Argo

[slarden]

Don't agree with the essences being hard to come by. That's nonsense. I will agree the recipes are costly. But that's perfectly fine. The equipment you make crafting is far superior. If I can make a skill item that gives you plus 24 to that skill at level 15... Yeah sorry, that's a gem and you need to work at getting that gem. It's a reward not a right.

Yeah I am averaging over 1000 essences per play session (breaking down items). Essences are no problem.

[EllisDee37]

Yeah I am averaging over 1000 essences per play session (breaking down items). Essences are no problem.

Agreed. Even my super casual epic dailies (Tobias => VON3 => Spies, all one and done) generates something like 500-600 essences per day, and it's like 40 minutes from login to logout.

[GoMeansGreen]

that you can farm easily does not make crafting better

[Hawkwier]

that you can farm easily does not make crafting better

Maybe so, but the fact there is now stuff actually worth crafting for, does.

[TDarkchylde]

The rest of the system wouldn't be so bad for me if you could strip and change the ML on a crafted item after the fact. Instead, you have to disjunct it entirely and have to remake all three/four shards to re-enchant the thing, or make several different ML versions of the same item to get you through leveling a new character or TRing an old one. (And Goddess help you if you have something like The Master's Gift or a Ruby of the Vampire Slayer on one of them, you either have to blow through points on jeweler's kits, or disjunct/re-enchant the entire way back up.) Bring back Liquid Knife potions for that or something.

Collectible farming to make the effect shards wouldn't be so bad if the ML alone could be stripped from and a different one reapplied to the stuff you've already made.

[Whitering]

The rest of the system wouldn't be so bad for me if you could strip and change the ML on a crafted item after the fact. Instead, you have to disjunct it entirely and have to remake all three/four shards to re-enchant the thing, or make several different ML versions of the same item to get you through leveling a new character or TRing an old one. (And Goddess help you if you have something like The Master's Gift or a Ruby of the Vampire Slayer on one of them, you either have to blow through points on jeweler's kits, or disjunct/re-enchant the entire way back up.) Bring back Liquid Knife potions for that or something.

Collectible farming to make the effect shards wouldn't be so bad if the ML alone could be stripped from and a different one reapplied to the stuff you've already made.

At this point, I've made...6 master's gifts? 4 on items everyone can use, and 1 each for melee and caster so far. I might end up expanding that. Mostly I work on one character though, trying to focus on BTA item builds.

[ZhenBuYaoShi]

Yes, checked the wiki before I ran. I ran heroic casual about 15-20 times and did not pull one house sealed letter... Maybe my luck is just really bad. I did pull quite a few fragrant drowshods though...

I don't really think we should need to go to these lengths to pull collectables for crafting though.

People keep comparing Cannith Crafting to other crafting systems; that is illogical, as they have nothing to do with one another. All other crafting systems are special design weapons and armor that when at or near completion are as, or more, powerful than named items, and usually have just as many effects. Cannith items do not, they have a maximum of 3 effects, and to get the 3rd effect costs a premium price.

However, that is only a side point to the main problem, which is that we should not have to be farming. It's not cute, it's not fun, it's not entertaining, it has no game thematic; all it is is running in and out of the same dungeons over and over and over and over for hours trying to get collectables. And, why are we doing this? Why do we HAVE to run in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out, because turbine took the crafting recipes that used to use like 5 and 2 collectables to make an item, and they didn't even do the ridiculously unthinkable and quadruple it, NO, they HEXTUPLED it, making it 30 collectables and some other amount of collectables.

You can't reliably make stat items anymore, because of the rare collectables you need to farm, and stat items for leveling characters is like a staple. And, don't even get me started, again, about how slotting is limited to only certain effects on the body.

Cannith Crafting is supposed to be the equivalent of DnD's table top Craft Wonderous Items, Craft Magical Arms and Armor, Craft Ring, Craft Rod, and Craft Staff. It is not supposed to be this tremendously annoyingly difficult, not due to it being a TOUGH thing to do, but the sheer amount of stamina of patience you have to have to not go insane watching loading screens for hours. It's just DUMB. Farming collectables is dumb, plain and simple, it's dumb, and we shouldn't have to do it to make basic gear, which is exactly what Cannith gear is, BASIC gear, NOT THUNDER FORGED gear, or ToEE gear, like it's been compared to, it's BASIC fricken gear. Farming hours for basic gear is wrong, and I cannot say it enough times. It's wrong.

Did I just say that?

WRONG!

I haven't played this game since the new crafting came out, BECAUSE the new crafting came out, and I used to play everyday for hours. This farming **** completely ruined the game for me, as I am a crafter, and if I'm not leveling, then I shouldn't be farming for hours just to make one piece of gear.