Rizon pretty much nailed it. Grade2 has iron ore, but the droprate is smaller than mining Grade3 nodes. I leveled on g3 yesterday and got about 2 stacks of iron ore and no alumen.
Try mining bloodshore.
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Almost every spot has a junk item, alumen, brimstone, kukuru beans(bot)...
The only change I would suggest to you is the depth marker like someone else mentioned before. Don't change it accoording to the message, focus it on the ore you want.
And I'm suprised you didn't get any electrum ores!
No thanks as a leatherworker I need as much Alumen as I can get.
Grade 4 and 5 nodes don't produce much Alumen at all FWIW.
Try increasing your perception I think this has an effect on the rarity of items you procure.
It is used in 41 recipes in both LTW and ALC, ranging from level 4 to level 46 recipes.
And yes, if you want higher quality items, raise perception, its the point of the stat.
I went out mining earlier today in halatali
Level 50 Miner
Gathering 133
Output 122
Perception 93
Vitality 247
Mind 240
I went until I damaged 6 out of the 8 chops per node (Gathering fatigue)
I use the Electrum sweet Spot (+4) the entire time
I got:
82 Iron Ore
69 Zircon
59 Amber
417 Alumen
63 Alumen +1
302 Alectrum ore
74 Electrum ore +1
My Alumen to Electrum Ratio is 5/4
Not bad considering Alumen drops up to 4 and Electrum drops 1 at a time.
This shows that for me... with those stats... at the electrum sweet spot... I get more electrum chops than all other items combined
you bring up a point here alot of people dont consider
alumen drops more per swing then other stuff
this also means perception has a higher rate of effect on it giving more then other stuff
your perception may give you an average of lets say 1.5 iron per swing, but on the other hand it would be closer to 2.5-3 alumen per swing and so on
and of course electrum is 1 per swing period