Quote Originally Posted by Hasrat View Post
...Why does that list FATEs such as Formidable and Archaeotania in a list of best FATEs for farming gemstones? Those are fine if you're after their specific rewards. But hardly a good time/effort investment for gems. Especially since the lead-up FATEs for those special ones are often scaled a bit higher, with the expectation that the chain is often difficult to complete solo.
They're a good time investment for gemstones since so many other players show up for the same reason. Don't forget they reward 72, not 12. It's been quite a while since I've seen Formidable last more than 3 minutes (it's usually closer to 90 seconds) and Archaeotania rarely lasts more than 5.

Just remember to keep farming other FATEs in the zone while waiting for the big one to get pulled so the wait time doesn't go to waste. The level 80 power creep means that even the more difficult ones can be solo'd fairly easily - but why solo when other players are also farming gemstones? List a gemstone-farming party in PF. May take a few minutes before others see it to join but you'll usually get a few to make things that much faster.