Miner/Gatherer Treatise - originally by LizardBreath

I played a miner/gatherer in beta and again in retail. Let me offer some thoughts as to the purpose for these classes that might help clear up some of the confusion with them.

Miners and gatherers are designed to process resources. That is all they do, that is all they will ever do. Harvest and process and harvest and process and harvest and ,¦. Well ,“ you get the idea.

Here are two basic truths anyone considering these classes needs to know.

1) You will ALWAYS level more slowly than any other crafting class. Always. There is no way around this. It is not a bug - it's the way the classes were designed.

2) You will NOT get rich as a miner/gatherer. If you want to get rich, pick a class that actually makes a product.

That being said, there are some ways to minimize the tedium and maximize the gain.

Minimizing the tedium: For the first few levels, trainer tasks offer the best bet. They give you more exp than you would get just processing the resources on your own, plus the trainer will pay you copper for each task. You will not get any lore tokens for these tasks, though. One of the few advantages these classes have is that all their formulas can be purchased outright from trainers, instead of trading lore tokens to the lore masters.

When you've gained a few levels, miners might want to go to a gem field, and gatherers will want to look towards wisps. Gems have the lowest bulk in both ore and processed form, so you can carry a lot of them. And more ore equals more exp ,“ you will receive 1 exp point for every raw resource processed. For gatherers, make sure you pick up the Tainted Essence formula. Tainted essence is harvested from dead wisps and gives you more exp per processed resource than normal essence does. Think of regular dim essence as Tier 1 and tainted dim essence as Tier 1.25. I do not recall the exact level you can scribe the tainted essence formula, but I think it is around level 5ish.

Once you hit level 10, you can scribe the blighted resource formulas. (With the possible exception of purify blighted bar ,“ that one may be bugged.) Blighted resources are found near blight areas and give much better exp than the un-blighted ones. How much more, I do not exactly know. (I just hit level 10 before the servers went down today.) I would consider blighted resource to be Tier 1.5.

So there you go , leveling in a nutshell. Just remember, for a miner/gatherer exp is based on the number of resources processed. Anything ,“ such as cargo armor, bigger backpacks, cargo disks, etc , that can help you bring more resources to the machines will increase your rate of exp.

Maximizing the gain: Next there is the subject of money. When I say you will never get rich as a miner/gatherer, I really mean it. Other classes sell individual items. These items go for various amounts, but each amount is substantial. 100 copper here, 2 silver there, it will all add up to line your pockets with cash. Not so the miner/gatherer. We deal in bulk, at 3 cp from the pawnbroker for each item we sell we have to deal in bulk. Now how you set your prices is up to you, but, if I may, I would offer a suggestion. Price low and make it up in volume. People might pay 20 cp each for a couple of essence orbs or they might not. In any case, you don't want someone to by a couple of pieces; you want someone to buy hundreds of them.

Our target customers are other crafters. We want them to find it easier to pay for our resources than to get their own. This isn't going to happen if we try to maximize profit off each individual bar of bronze. The only way we can get crafters used to the idea of buying pre-processed resources from us instead of processing their own is to make it easier and more convenient for them. If a jeweler can buy fifty bronze bars and a fifty garnets at 5 cp each, that could well be easier and more convenient than having to run to two different areas to process the ores. After all, 100 items at 5cp each is only 500 copper, a mere drop in the bucket for the enterprising young jeweler.

For higher tier items, charge more. How much more? I dunno, I'm still on tier 1. (Did I mention we level sloooooowly?) But as the rarity of occurrence and difficulty in harvesting go up, the price should go up too. If you work at it, you could find that being a miner or a gatherer is a nice compliment to your adventuring side, especially when you hit the tier 3 areas.

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