Vanguard Harvesting 101

Name	Harvesting 101
Category	Crafting

If defeating monsters is starting to become repetitive while you in adventure in Qalia, or any continent for that matter, perhaps it's time to do something a little different on the side. As mentioned in previous posts, you can take a break from adventuring and try your hands on Crafting or enter into "word war" with NPCs through Diplomacy. If none of the two spheres appeal to you, there's still hope yet. You can go for Harvesting. Though not an official Vanguard sphere in itself, it goes hand in hand with both Adventuring and Crafting.

To the South of Ghelgad is Bayside Outpost. This is quite a walk from Karibasa. Once you reach the Bayside Outpost, you'd meet two NPCs: Kooshin Vahdaat and Wadj Peheb.

Kooshin has some work for you. The first quest on his list is "Foraging from the Sand". It will take you south of the Bayside Outpost to a place called Ksaravi Hollow. You are then tasked to kill 12 Ksaravi Foragers found outside the defenses around Ksaravi Hollow. They are level 6 and 2-dotted aggressive creatures. They are a little bit tougher than the Ksaravi Scorpiontamers but can still be easily thwarted. The only problem is that they don't spawn a lot, so along the way, you'd find Cackler Pups (level 4, 2 dots), Ksaravi Disposers (level 4, 2 dots), Ksaravi Raiders (level 6, 2 dots), Ksaravi Messenger (level 6, 2 dots). It makes you think they are there for a reason (perhaps other quests? you bet!).

It might take a while to kill a dozen Foragers, but if you had talked to the other NPC Wadj Peheb, you can take a break from Forager-hunting and head on to the outskirts of the City of Khal to look for Rahia Jadarri, who will then lead you to a Diplomacy Trainer, Crafting and Harvesting Trainer.

It's really up to you which task you'd want to do first, either way works. Upon completion of the quest, Kooshin will give you 60 cp as a reward for slaying 12 Foragers. If you you're for slaying 12 more, he'll give you 6 cp more. He also has two other quests that can be best completed if you are part of a group. It involves slaying Harami Dusthrowers, Bloodstealers and Thugs. Each quest gives 60 cp. If they're all worth the rewards to you, then you can accept the missions.

RAHIA JADARRI

If you travel southeast, you'd find NPC Rahia Jadarri. She'll lead you to three NPCs who'll start you on the basics of Harvesting, Crafting, and Diplomacy:

1) Vali Sabbah (Basics of Harvesting)
2) Asmirdas Metashan (Basics of Crafting)
3) Aspelta Kamidalta (Basics of Diplomacy)

If you're ready to specialize in any of the spheres above, open your map to see a marker where the appropriate trainer is located.

Rahia also has a quest for you. It's called "Finding Jabei". Apparently, Rahia sent one of her lieutenants to the village of Raia to help curb the eastern road scorpion problem. Unfortunately, the number of scorpions has not decreased. So you'll have to find Jabei and give her Rahia's note. It's recommended you complete this quest after you're done learning the basics of Harvesting because on your way to Jabei, you'd find resources that you'd need to for your Harvesting work. Also, be careful when you near the place where Jabei is. It's infested with aggressive Desert Chactids (level 6, 2 dots). They're known to attack simultaneously if you make a wrong move.

BASICS OF HARVESTING

The NPC to go to if you've decided to specialize in Harvesting is Vali Sabbah. He can be found in the outer defenses of the City of Khal.

Being a Harvester in Vanguard means you make sure supplies and raw materials are readily available to crafters. It sounds quite an easy task, but keep in mind that some materials can only be found in dangerous areas. As such, your adventuring skills would have to be used to get to those areas. You wouldn't be able to gather resources if your dead, so basically, Harvesters are skilled adventurers as well.


Harvesting Quests And Tools

As a starter, you'd be given a utility belt where you can place your tool of choice. For your first quest, Vali will give you a starter rusty axe for free. To equip the axe, open the character sheet and click on the harvesting tab. Right-click to open the belt and drag the axe inside. He'll also give you a Novice Harvester's Pants. It provides a small bonus to your damage range (+0.031 Min Units per Hit).

To get you started, Vali will ask you to harvest wood. He requires you give him one sapling. This is a very easy task, but quite enjoyable. All you have to do is head East where you'll find an abundance of palm trees. You just need to approach one tree and right click on it and you'd find yourself lumberjacking. Once the tree falls down, you can right click on it to get your sapling. Head back to Vali for your next quest.

The next quest would require you to harvest sapling timber. This requires an additional step. Remember that you'd only loot the basic wood sapling when the tree falls. To make timber, you'd have to combine them to create 20 wood logs. To do this, you have to right click on a stack of 20 or more to create one timber.

Beware of aggressive Deadly Strikers (level 4, 2 dots) roaming around the trees. They are called as such for a very good reason. Vali will give you a Novice Harvester's Tunic (+4 Harvesting).

Harvesting Skills

In the game, you are given an option to specialize in two types of resources. Here's a "who needs what" guide, to help you decide which harvesting skills to specialize in.

Artificers - Wood, Stone
Blacksmiths - Metal
Outfitters - Hides, Textiles

Note: Harvesting Nodes

-Wood are found in forests, wooded areas
-Textile Plants can be found in open fields in cluster
-Metal/Stone are found in rocky areas and hillsides
-Animal Hides - need to kill animal first to skin them

Vali will ask you to choose from the following sets of skills

1) Quarrying (rocks, gems), Mining (metal), or Lumberjacking (wood)

2) Skinning (hides) or Reaping (textile plants).

You need specialized tools to get started with the skills you choose. Say, you choose Quarrying (from the first set) and Skinning (from the second set). For Quarrying, you'd need a stonemason hammer in order to harvest Basalt and other similar resources. For Skinning, you'd need a skinning knife to harvest hides from dead animals. It's recommended you start with small creatures such as Infected Rats (level 6, 2 dots) and Cacklers. If you're confident to take on bigger animals, there's the Young Leaper (level 5, 2 dots) and the Slender Leaper (level 7, 2 dots).

Once you've trained for 2 chosen skills, Vali will give you a Novice Harvester's Boots (+0.031 Min Units Per Hit).

HARVESTING TIPS

1. Better tools would lead to better Harvesting performance. If you have enough money, you can get those really nice tools to replace your old and rusty ones. You'd have to invest on them because there are more difficult resources that would require better tools. There are merchants like Vali in other cities from other continents.

2. Tools aren't the only things that need upgrading. You should also get better Harvesting Clothing (tunic, boots, belt, pants, gloves, etc).

3. You can combine a stack of parts of a resource. Right-click on a stack of 20 or more to convert them into a complete resource (ex. 20 saplings = 1 timber).

4. Don't forget to equip the appropriate tools in belt. Ex. Skinning knives when hunting for animal hides; Stonemason Hammer if harvesting Basalt or similar resource.

5. Always be conscious of your surroundings. There will always be aggressive creatures that can strike anytime when you harvest resources.

6. You can increase the amount of resources you get from harvesting by grouping with others. This means more yield. What's more, you get a higher chance of finding rare and valuable materials.

7. Some resources can only be found in dangerous areas plagued by aggressive creatures. Your adventuring skills will be put into good use when you get to these areas.

8. If you feel that you've chosen the wrong skills specialization, you can change them by going to Harvesting Trainers. You'd have to pay a fee though.

This pretty much covers what you need to know to get started on Harvesting. It's quite an interesting field of specialization because it combines your Adventuring skills and your Harvesting skills. If you excel in both, you'd easily gain fame and fortune just by getting ultra rare materials that are sought after by Crafters throughout Telon.