An easier way to get shards?

Ever since Heavensward, getting crystals and clusters were made incredibly easy thanks to aetherial reduction. I can send retainers to gather shards but at a really low rate per hour, when I could get the same amount of crystals by aetherial reducing 2 collectibles in 2 seconds.

Or am I missing something? Send retainer on a mission, and go gather myself while I wait. I could trade tokens from Diadem but now nobody does that place anymore.

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Originally Posted by Ashbury

Ever since Heavensward, getting crystals and clusters were made incredibly easy thanks to aetherial reduction. I can send retainers to gather shards but at a really low rate per hour, when I could get the same amount of crystals by aetherial reducing 2 collectibles in 2 seconds.

Or am I missing something? Send retainer on a mission, and go gather myself while I wait. I could trade tokens from Diadem but now nobody does that place anymore.

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Plant them in your garden or FC gardens, they grow 75 shards per plant with grade 2 shroud soil in 24 hours.

I have a medium house, so I plant shards with normal potting soil.. 19x50 in a day.

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Originally Posted by Ostwar

Plant them in your garden or FC gardens, they grow 75 shards per plant with grade 2 shroud soil in 24 hours.

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I use grade 1 shroud every day x 4 gardens - much easier to source than grade 2 or 3 shroud soil...you get 65 instead of 75 shards. Obviously if you only have a few apartment vases or whatever, you may want as many shards as possible so I would use grade 3 shroud for 100 per.

Considering how limited housing is, "use your house" isn't really a good solution, though it certainly helps, since unfortunately, there really isn't a better solution other than letting your retainers gather them for you.

Our FC has a lot of crafters so we solved the problem by planting shards in the FC gardens and storing them in the chest. We kept going until we had a good supply and then made sure to tell everyone they were available. It took a little time to set up but now it only takes a few minutes every to keep our supply of shards and seeds topped up.

If your FC doesn't have a house (or isn't the sort of FC that would do something like this) then I'd suggest using the 2 pots in your apartment and 2 more in your FC room, if you have one. If you use grade 3 Shroud you should get a fairly decent supply just from these but even potting soil will give you 50 per pot every day. Alternatively, try and find a friend who isn't using their garden.

Honestly I just mine them, it really doesn't take too long to gather them yourself, plus each crystal/shard you gather has a chance to give multiple on the next hit and your abilities can gather multiple at a time too. On a few occasions you can get easily u to 7 shards from 1 hit, so unless you need a few thousand shards at any time, just set yourself an half an hour a side to gather a few hundred. Use them, then repeat so it isn't too mind numbing.

Harvesting clusters suck though, they are on timed nodes :(

I didn't know about the gardening option, thank you.

While I have a personal house that I can use for myself, I feel bad for other people that don't have that option. Kinda wish they would allow easier gathering through DoL, they added a bunch of abilities spefically to make old content easier to do with a lvl 70 gatherer.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

Considering how limited housing is, "use your house" isn't really a good solution, though it certainly helps, since unfortunately, there really isn't a better solution other than letting your retainers gather them for you.

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No, but most players can get apartments or an FC room. You can put in 2 pots and get a good amount alongside a retainer. It can bring you up to a total of 4 pots if you have an apartment and FC room, so half a garden plot yield isn't too horrible.

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Originally Posted by Jelly_Baby

Harvesting clusters suck though, they are on timed nodes :(

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Two words, Ephemeral Nodes!

The housing options sounds great, i did not know about it either :/
I just have multiple gathering retainers and send them out, it does add up over time

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Originally Posted by Ostwar

Two words, Ephemeral Nodes!

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Yeah but the OP says he already knows about Ephemeral nodes lol, so I didn't suggest it. I was mentioning OTHER ways ;)

Besides, unless things have changed when I was not looking, Ephemeral Nodes are good for Crystals and Clusters, but NOT Shards.

The response Ostwar made was to somebody having a hard time farming clusters, so ephemerals are good for that. :p It wasn't in response to OP (I had to double check too)

you could always farm something of better value and sell it to buy shards

Can we not break crystals and clusters?

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Originally Posted by swamppride

Can we not break crystals and clusters?

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No, those can't be broken into shards. You're also going to need a fair number of those before you learn Aetherial Reduction so better to save them as you get them.

Additional sources of shards outside of retainer ventures, gathering and gardening are tradecraft/fieldcraft levequests and some of the Ixali beast tribe dailies. The numbers aren't huge per quest but they do add up.

Make certain to buy low level materials from vendors when you can. Frequently the price of the material is less than the value of the shards needed to craft them from raw materials (depending on your world's market prices). Even if it's slightly more expensive, it allows you to conserve your shards for crafting finished products or for making HQ materials when needed. Housing material suppliers and ARR beast tribe vendors are huge helps for most materials needed below level 35 (leathers, gems and culinarian supplies needed over level 15 being the notable exceptions).