spending red scrip tokens

My botanist and Miner are both at 60, but are still using lucis and level 55 gear since my crafters are a bit behind.

I've almost got 27 tokens and I already have a couple of each of the counterfoils. I heard that crafted gear can outperform the token equipment if properly melded, is that true of the tools too?

The new miner main hand would give me a massive boost over the lucis, so it's looking pretty appealing at the moment!

That whole "properly melded crafted i170 is better than bought i180" cannot apply to Gathering gear. And yes, there is a reason it not only does not, but CANNOT apply.

There is no crafted i170 counterpart to the bought i180 Gathering gear.

Maybe its coming with 3.10 .. who knows. But for right now, and for the next couple months, you have a sick and twisted choice : use Red Gather Tokens for Favors to make Crafting gear or general Gathering gear, or to use them for the class-specific Gathering gear.

ah OK, so its just the crafters that get that option.

In that case then, I think the tool is going to be the winner. Once I've got them, I should be ble to mine the folklore nodes and maybe build up to the favour nodes after that. i assume they have a faily high stat requirement?

I have not been doing the Favor nodes, mainly because I wanted to get the Mining and Botany MH tools first, and those require dang near every RGT I can get my hands on (they have 1 spare RGT per tool, so 1 spare RGT every three weeks). Others, however, HAVE been doing the Favors already .. which means that no, you do not need the i180 gear to do them. Of course, that makes a lot of sense - you need the old BiS to get the stuff and craft the new BiS, you cannot need the new BiS to make the new BiS, or you'd be locked out of it.

Folklore nodes, however, do have a high stat requirement. I'm at 616 Gathering, 652 Perception, and it not only takes me two swings to reveal a Folklore node's stuff, I'm not at the point where I'm hitting the Collectabiltiy cap with that amount of Perception. That kind of puts Folklore nodes out of my reach for RGS without some i180 gear. Will have to try with the mining MH tool once I get that.

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Originally Posted by chrishanner

and maybe build up to the favour nodes after that. i assume they have a faily high stat requirement?

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Stats don't really figure in to favor nodes. The items themselves have similar difficulty to normal level 60 gathered items (the rare items, e.g. roundstones etc., are harder to collect but nothing you can't handle with the gather chance buff skills) and can be gathered in outdated gear. People even do these while wearing crafting gear in order to spiritbond it.

The main challenge is that the favor nodes operate on an RNG basis - every time you deplete a regular gathering node, there's a random chance that a concealed node will spawn. So the main thing is to know your route between nodes and work as quickly as you can in order to maximize the number of dice rolls you can get during the effect duration.

You could gather the favor nodes half naked, that's how little stats are needed for those. Thats what I do atleast.