Need shards? Gather? Market? Give up?

So, as of 2.3 Shards are skyrocking in prize. Bots/RMTs probably gaining a massive profit in gil to sell. Since the shard consume is huge with the goal of reaching 100 in desynth with one (or three) crafters and shard gathering is still tedious, how shall i (we) proceed?

The 40+ crafts need about 12 shards average. Those are gained with 3 normal gathering spots. For one craft...puh. And to get to 100% with a crafter, i'm sure i need about 500 crafts. Maybe even more. In comparison to the actual craft material, which reach from 2 to 6 materials, shards seem to be more important.

I think that its possible that shards will be the most expensive materials in the near future. Making them interesting for players to gather. But i still can only imagine, that bots will dominate.

Am i reading to much into it? Are the 1000 or 9999 shard seller players? Do invisible gather bots exist which gather all 4 shards with one swing and teleport to the next spot? (read it somewhere on reddit, i think)

Do the devs/SE have a solution but need some time to implement it? Enable shard drop on mob kill? Make shards craftable as in 1.0? Lessen the need of shards?

I think i'm gonna wait and consume as little shards as i can for my needs. Dungeons and so on seem to me to be more fun to do atm. (And i really like the crafting part)

Edit: I wouldnt really care about the prize of the shards, if it wouldn't end up in a RMT pool.

(sorry if bad grammar is present.)

The most time effective way of harvesting shards that I've found is spamming the lvl 50 single player Timeworn Maps (Boar, Goat, Toad). If prices are climbing like you say then the maps are probably very cost effective. Aside from shards you also get the gil and other materials. Extremely difficult to not make your money back on every chest.

I see. I Didn't consider maps. Will check it out.

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I see. I Didn't consider maps.

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Not a lot of people do, I only realised how many shards they pumped out by running them for other stuff.

Maps got expensive now too :D
I guess my retainer will gather some shards.
Does anybody know if Cul can desynth fish for shards?

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Originally Posted by Levi

Am i reading to much into it? Are the 1000 or 9999 shard seller players?

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I have sold 9999 shards to get my novus materia, so yes I am human :)
I gathered those all in 1.x

I should have leveled all to 50 before 2.0 - dont like the 2.0 ressource grinding but i like the 2.0 crafting mechanics

Use retainers, especially for crystals.

Use the respective gather skill for that type of shard and you can gather 12 - 15 per spot. Maps are good also. Shards already drop from mobs, the elemental types. Get the non-crafter members of your FC to drop shards in the FC chest for you.

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Originally Posted by Levi

Maps got expensive now too :D
I guess my retainer will gather some shards.
Does anybody know if Cul can desynth fish for shards?

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I didn't even know you could buy maps. Why not just farm one yourself? There's level 45 or 50 nodes for almost every shard (sans Lightning it seems) so you can kill two birds with one stone.

It's tempting to assume people selling that many shards are botting but maybe they find it an easy and steady income while they're getting their treasure maps? I honestly don't know. I actually was thinking of making a CP focused set of gear so I could stack Ward and King's Yield but I don't know if they stack.

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Originally Posted by Levi

Does anybody know if Cul can desynth fish for shards?

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Yes but mainly water shards. Dunefish and skyfish give more than water. I think it's earth and wind not sure. The return they give you plus the rate of catch makes this a not so viable source.

Materials and consumables always take a dive in supply on patch weeks because people who would normally be farming are instead doing other things. At the same time, the demand for those materials may be at an all time high because of the new uses for said materials. The prices will return to the status quo within a few weeks just as they always do.

Saw similar issues with gold ore and darksteel ore, yesterday gold ore was selling for 110k per stack while darksteel ore was selling for about 70k per stack. today the prices are almost back to normal. If prices increase too high players who don't ordinarily farm them will start farming them to jump on the "gil bandwagon" as supply increases the prices will return back to normal from people undercutting the hell out of each other.

If you have 2 gathering retainers you can send them each out to get different types of shards. Then, on a gatherer of your own, go to a mid-level node of another kind that you have a blessing for and can gather crystals. If your gathering is high enough, you'll get one node that will drop double then add in the blessing every once and a while. Wheel through only 3 of the nodes (the first one resets after you hit the third) making sure to hit the double-drop node on each turn and you'll get through several hundred shards in an hour.

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Originally Posted by Worm

There's level 45 or 50 nodes for almost every shard (sans Lightning it seems) so you can kill two birds with one stone.

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Check out the Botanist nodes just south of Forgotten Springs in Southern Thanalan. Can get lightning shards there.

Ok, guess i will wait and check out the prices in the next few days/weeks.

Another option is to create alts and advance them far enough to unlock crafts and visit other cities. Doing the unlock along with the level 1, 5, and 10 quests will net you a decent chunk of shards if you do it for every craft. You'd just need to utilize an FC chest or have a friend act as an intermediate to get the shards onto your main character.

Might not be enjoyable for everyone but it's an option nonetheless.

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Originally Posted by Levi

I see. I Didn't consider maps. Will check it out.

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Don't. Since patch, maps range from 20K to 50k per.

Why wouldn't you just get the map on your own? Does buying them skirt the 18 hour lockout?

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Originally Posted by Worm

Why wouldn't you just get the map on your own? Does buying them skirt the 18 hour lockout?

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18 hours is just for obtaining a map from a node. Not from using one.

The bots were fairly well dealt with a while back.. Which is why you no longer see 10-15k stacks of shards for sell (a sure sign of a bot) The shards up these days (on my server at least) are in such small quantities I'm 99% sure they are all player harvested.

Problem is the rate even 10 gatherers can harvest shards vs the rate a single crafter can use them up is insanity.


Also some people suggesting using your retainers.

Retainers (even if you have 4) don't bring enough shards back in a 12 hour day to last 30 minutes. Hell a stack of electrum ingots alone is 500 shards.


And the ward ability is near worthless. Not home now but its what 10 extra shards for 400 GP? Which takes 4 minutes to gain?

Wards are more useful for clusters, triples the rate you get them at, which is nice when you get all of 6 attempts in what 70 minutes? (1 Eorzea Day = ? RL minutes, and assuming you have both BTN/MIN leveled up).

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Originally Posted by Ruethryl

Wards are more useful for clusters, triples the rate you get them at, which is nice when you get all of 6 attempts in what 70 minutes? (1 Eorzea Day = ? RL minutes, and assuming you have both BTN/MIN leveled up).

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yea but sadly clusters are used in such small quantities it is largely unnecessary. If clusters broke down into significant quantities of shards however......

Also for what it's worth a day is 72 minutes (oddly the same time as in EQ... guess devs like the 3 RL seconds = 1minute conversion)