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THINGS I WISH I'D KNOWN EARLIER - Harvesting

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* If you can't harvest something, your skill is not high enough. Generally speaking, you need a 20 skill to harvest in Antonica, the Commonlands and some nodes in Greater Faydark. Thundering Steppes, Nek Forest and some nodes in Butcherblock require harvesting skills of 90. If you right-click and examine the harvest node, it will tell you the minimum skill level required to harvest it and your current skill level.

* Harvesting hotbuttons can be found in your Knowledge book. Press K and look under Utilities, you'll see icons for gathering, fishing, mining, foresting, and trapping. You can drag any of these to a hotbar and use them to harvest a node you have targetted. This allows you to queue harvest attempts, and leaves your mouse free to look around and make sure you aren't about to be attacked.

* Harvesting tools can be used starting at level 20 (either crafting or adventuring). These are made by Woodworkers of common woods, and take a little time off the harvesting time (0.5 seconds for ash, 1 second for briarwood, 1.5 seconds for teak, etc). While this may not seem like much, it can make the difference between getting the harvest before the approaching mob gets in range or getting chomped.

* If you find a ? or a ! on the ground, left click on it and pick it up. These items are generally for collection quests and can have some pretty nice rewards if you can collect an entire set. Look on the brokers for the pieces you are missing.

* Rare harvested items are REALLY rare. If you harvest something with a different name from an ore/rock/roots/wood that you haven't heard of, you can get special items crafted with them, or sell to other players for a good price. Note: Glowing, Glittering, Luminous, etc. items are considered rare, but for the most part can only be used to imbue crafted armor, weapons and jewelry with an additional power. Some of these items are required for heritage quests.

* Harvesting etiquette generally states that you a) do not harvest a node someone else is harvesting, and b) harvest all nodes in the area, not just the one type you need. The more nodes harvested, the more respawn, so this is actually the fastest way to repopulate the nodes you do need. Unwanted harvests can be sold on the broker or deleted, and there's no telling what will give you a rare item.

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