Best places to farm shards is in the areas where you have a Quarry/Harvesting point that gives extra yield(not a extra hit). In those particular areas, youll always have one point that will give you double the shards. And if your in the lv 30s, you can even add to that by using a ward, and getting +2 on top of that. You could easily hit 1k shards with that. Anytime I'm going out to harvest shards, if I have to determine the area Im going to farm them, I'll go to each location on my log, and if they don't have a increased yield, then I move on to the next area. I believe these types of points start appearing in the 20s. I'm currently in the 40s so Im not 100%. I like to farm the shards that are going to give me the best money. Even if I'm looking for shards to craft, because if i can sell shards for more then what I'd buy my own, i make a profit, and get what I need to craft. It's more efficient to farm the shards that are worth more then the ones you craft with, then it is to farm the shards you actually use.