[Rant] Shards, Crystals, and Clusters...

[Ksenia]

High end? Sure. In the extreme sense of the effort involved.
Realistically, how many people do you think make such an effort on a server? You would basically be spending 100% of the time either talking to a retainer bell or farming seals for the huge costs of ventures you'd be burning through. There would barely be any time for you to do anything else.

I really doubt that the shard market is composed of players that take that much effort. Especially those with retainer names that are just a face-roll combination of letters.

But back on track with the OP's concern;

The OP is talking about the difficulty of retaining shards as an reasonably active crafter, and I remember it being tough at one point as well. But as you level up crafting and gathering (mostly gathering), SE opens up very efficient methods of getting shards and crystals. Be it through beastman dailies, retainers, or Aetherial Reduction, it's not really a problem unless you completely loath all three of those methods. And at that point you're just being picky.

I used to think so too and like the OP I loathed the shard and crystal farming

- Ignored -

It's completely unreasonable to to use me as the base standard for obtaining crystals and shards but don't point to me for that, point to the company that made the game.

- Ignored -

You seem to have a need to create an optic around what I offered to the topic so I will give up trying to elaborate any further.

The point being we can obtain far more shards and crystals (clusters as well with 50+ retainers) and contrary to what you think the 'extreme effort' is not that great. It's easier than you think though it is a long term objective, mostly passive and not a youtube guide worthy solution though. More of a play every day and build your account solution.