The trouble with shards

As someone trying to level up my crafting class, it is becoming increasingly frustrating to obtain the shards needed to craft. I can invest in all sorts of materials, only to begin crafting to see "Unable to craft. You do not have the required crystals."

Ok, no big deal. I'll pick some up from the markets.

But market prices for shards are constantly around 50g each. So if my craft requires 4 wind shards and 4 fire shards (goldsmith) I am investing 400 gil in shards alone for one item. combine that with the 150 gil for a mythril ingot and 250 gil for one siltstone whetstone - to make a simple pair of mythril earrings I am investing around 800 gil in materials.

Now if I was in it for the gil, I would just go mindlessly mine a bunch of wind shards for free, sell them for 50 gil each, and not worry about crafting or leveling up. But I also want to get to level 50 goldsmith sometime, which is impossible to do if I can't afford the crafting materials/shards. Even the crafting quests (which should be a free way to level up) now require me to find my own materials and don't provide them like 1.0 used to.

Unlike other low-level gathered items like copper ore that sell for 4-5 gil each, wind/fire shards have never come down in price. I am now forced to take extra time to invest in a gathering class to support my crafting class - except I am not gaining any exp by using the gathering class as shards are very low level items.

Seems like I am wasting a lot of time here.

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Originally Posted by Uriahnool

I am now forced to take extra time to invest in a gathering class to support my crafting class - except I am not gaining any exp by using the gathering class as shards are very low level items.

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IIRC, you can double your output with a trait/skill at later levels. And, as one node can grant you 4-5 shards (20-25 per cycle), it's not the worst grind. You could also craft at the mining node to take the edge off it.

I do agree though, there's a great deal of time wasted farming shards. You seem to get masses of the things from crafting quests so, if you haven't already, maybe pick up a few other crafting classes. I know one of the alchemy quests gives >250 lightning shards.

I have mined all my shards to this point. Doesn't seem to be too bad. 1/2 hour of mining usually gets me plenty of shard and about 15-18k worth of crystals to sell.

Honestly, shards/crystals should drop from monsters. I don't understand why they took away the drop from monsters.

I have mined all of mine since, because there's honestly no way in hell i'm paying 50g+ for a shard.

There are also leves that offer quite a few shards on delivery. I don't think all crafts have one, but seek them out.

Level a battle class to 50, bind il 46+ gear in dungeons like WP or CM. Convert to materia. You can make a million a day if you get good procs and get relic materia (for the relic quest), then pay your way to 50 in your craft.

i have miner for that purpose + money making class

if you get king yield II which its lv40 miner skill

you can get up to 3 shards for every mine + using 1 of the skills depends on what kind of shard you are farming

making you get 5 shards every mine ( 20 - 25 per node )

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Originally Posted by Zezlar

Honestly, shards/crystals should drop from monsters. I don't understand why they took away the drop from monsters.

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They do. Kill some sprites.

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Originally Posted by Zezlar

Honestly, shards/crystals should drop from monsters. I don't understand why they took away the drop from monsters.

I have mined all of mine since, because there's honestly no way in hell i'm paying 50g+ for a shard.

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I think the wind/earth/lightning/water elementals drop shards, but then again it's like 2 shards each which is just as time consuming and as negligible exp as mining them, if not more so because they don't re spawn right away.

Back in 1.0 when I ran out of shards I would just do a DOW/DOM class for a while and eventually i'd kill enough things to have more shards from all the mobs dropping. Now they don't do that so I can't rely on that method any longer. It is just frustrating that I have to invest time into getting these items while not getting any exp in return.

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Originally Posted by Toranja

They do. Kill some sprites.

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Don't tell the plebs something that could be useful they don't need that.

I personally think they should just increase the yield that you get from nodes. I mine up all the stuff I use on my GSM and when I make a batch of HQ rings to sell I use quite a bit of shards. It's like 5 for the ingot, 5 for the gem and 6 for the ring and when I'm making 20 rings or so that adds up pretty fast. The JAs that miner/botanist have are nice but GP generates ridiculously slow and potions that give GP have a stupidly long cool down.

...In the meantime, I found a nice way to make gil. :)

Shards/crystal/clusters were handled horribly in this game.

I can understand farming materials, even if you need 3-4 per synth its a pain but doable. But when you need 11-12 shards per synth plus the shards you need to turn ores into ingots, plants into fibers, etc etc it gets kindda ridiculous and is a huge road block for new players trying to lvl DoH.

Actually. I don't even see a reason to have shards, crystals and the like in the game. We already farm the mats, make the components, THEN finally make the product. why do we need crystals as well? Seems like just another mechanic to grind imo.

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Originally Posted by Crimson-Falcon

i have miner for that purpose + money making class

if you get king yield II which its lv40 miner skill

you can get up to 3 shards for every mine + using 1 of the skills depends on what kind of shard you are farming

making you get 5 shards every mine ( 20 - 25 per node )

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How on earth are you using King's Yield II (500GP) + Any Ward (400GP) together?

What I do to get shards (level 50 miner here) is go to any location that has a +1 Yield node (I think these are most frequent on the lvl 30 nodes) and mine there. As someone said you can get loads of shards to use plus a decent amount of crystals to sell.

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Originally Posted by ArcheustheWise

Actually. I don't even see a reason to have shards, crystals and the like in the game. We already farm the mats, make the components, THEN finally make the product. why do we need crystals as well? Seems like just another mechanic to grind imo.

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Suddenly an epiphany occurs.

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Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

Shards/crystal/clusters were handled horribly in this game.

I can understand farming materials, even if you need 3-4 per synth its a pain but doable. But when you need 11-12 shards per synth plus the shards you need to turn ores into ingots, plants into fibers, etc etc it gets kindda ridiculous and is a huge road block for new players trying to lvl DoH.

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Is it suppose to be easy?

well if you whine, sorry, allready about the need of havin to farm your crystals and shards. How far up are you with your synths? level 10?
You WILL find things that need you to have at LEAST one of the other crafts and gathering jobs.
You sure can buy almost everything from the markets. but when you whine, sorry, about 50gil per shard, what will you do when the base item for an ingredient is (lets start low) 100 a pop and you need 4 of this? You could also Farm it by gathering, takes time bit youl have a 99 stack within 30 minutes.
There are far worse things to farm than shards if you want to reduce the gil you have to take in your hands.

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Originally Posted by Crimson-Falcon

i have miner for that purpose + money making class

if you get king yield II which its lv40 miner skill

you can get up to 3 shards for every mine + using 1 of the skills depends on what kind of shard you are farming

making you get 5 shards every mine ( 20 - 25 per node )

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I'm pretty sure that you have never done this and that you don't know how the gathering abilities work.

King's Yield is only for a single attempt and the rank 2 costs 500 GP. The wards each cost 400 GP. You generally recover a little over 100 GP from a full round of 4 nodes (20+20+20+25 per round plus a bit of regen in between). So you can only use a ward about every 4 rounds of nodes; it only provides around a 15% increase in overall shard gain.

Why wouldn't they just make it so you can break down crystals and the such. Seems like that would fix all the issues.....or at least most of.

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Originally Posted by Exphryl

Why wouldn't they just make it so you can break down crystals and the such. Seems like that would fix all the issues.....or at least most of.

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Not really, Crystals would just become more of a commodity in that case.

Ya but it would reward getting gathering up, right now just for shard farming you need lvl 1 miner or botanist, and that's it. If you could more effectively get shards by mining higher level crystals, not only could you get some xp at the right level ranges (and its around the time you'll need some) you'd save tons of time. If a Crystal broke down into 8 or 10 shards, gathering classes could easily get enough shards to keep the crafts going for a much more reasonable effort. As it is you need to spend 30-45 minutes getting 500 - 1k shards every now and then (for some crafts, WVR is murder on shards while CRP is much more forgiving). If you could cut that down to 15 minutes for that many shards, it wouldn't feel so bad.

One thing I would hope they'd do is allow you to break the bigger crystals into smaller pieces like in FFXI. So Clusters -> Crystals -> Shards.

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Originally Posted by Earthen

Ya but it would reward getting gathering up, right now just for shard farming you need lvl 1 miner or botanist, and that's it. If you could more effectively get shards by mining higher level crystals, not only could you get some xp at the right level ranges (and its around the time you'll need some) you'd save tons of time. If a Crystal broke down into 8 or 10 shards, gathering classes could easily get enough shards to keep the crafts going for a much more reasonable effort. As it is you need to spend 30-45 minutes getting 500 - 1k shards every now and then (for some crafts, WVR is murder on shards while CRP is much more forgiving). If you could cut that down to 15 minutes for that many shards, it wouldn't feel so bad.

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Except that crystals aren't available at 100% of the nodes.

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Originally Posted by Uriahnool

Unlike other low-level gathered items like copper ore that sell for 4-5 gil each, wind/fire shards have never come down in price. I am now forced to take extra time to invest in a gathering class to support my crafting class - except I am not gaining any exp by using the gathering class as shards are very low level items.

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You are not forced, you may simply do as you wish. You may convert your goods crafted into gil, or materia, then use that income to fund buying more shards. You may also obtain them through a Free Company. I leveled Miner almost exactly in step with Goldsmith for this reason, and yes while it does take longer, it means you are less prey to spending resources to level a craft up. With the new changes to gathering classes, it will be faster to level up using gathering/leves to do so. I suggest taking this opportunity.

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Originally Posted by Roin

One thing I would hope they'd do is allow you to break the bigger crystals into smaller pieces like in FFXI. So Clusters -> Crystals -> Shards.

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They could maybe make it into a lvl 15/20 Miner ability. (Around/just after you get your sledgehammer)

'Crystal Bash' Grants the ability to break down Crystals in to shards. (10-15 shards/crystal depending on your perception)

And maybe have the ability to break down clusters -> crystals a goldsmithing ability for about the same lvl range. (again, maybe 5-10 crystals depending on your control)