Crafting to Mordor, part 2: Words of Wisdom and Rest XP

DanaArodel is head high in fields of grain

I get questions periodically asking how the lildanas (lil-danas) are progressing in their craft-adventure toward Mordor?

All nine of them are full time crafters. Originally, five of them adventured to level 25 to get better tools. The four quadruplets were storage/AH-sales/greeter hobbits and were level 6. Well, to suggest that the first five “adventured” is overstating it… primarily, they just went to festival and got XP. Danaszar actually went to Yule Festival right out of the intro years ago and “ate” her way to level 18 by visiting the food quest many times. 

If they do nothing else, all nine crafters try to make crafted relics each week. The crafted relics net lots of shards and have an AH sale value higher than the materials it took to make them (rohan-shard-queen-master-of-relics).

Update 9 in December-2012 changed the crafter world when crafting started giving XP.

We last left the lildanas in January, 2013… crafting-toward-mordor-with-universal-toolkit

Update 10 release notes in March-2013 (notes-on-update-10-release-notes) said that "craft XP values were adjusted down" but we are happy to report that appears to be an error in the notes. I have found no difference in crafting XP per recipe versus pre-U10.

How have they progressed doing nothing but part-time crafting and occasional festivalling?

	Craft	Current Level, June-2013	Was, Yule-2012
Danadelion	Metalsmith/Prospector (Champion)	51	25
Danadalyn	Armorsmith/Prospector (Minstrel)	51	25
Danaish	Jeweller/Prospector (Burglar)	51	25
Danaszar	Woodworker/Forester (Hunter)	51	25
DanaClaus	Scholar/Farmer (Guardian)	51	25
DanaArodel	Cook/Farmer (Warden)	47	6
DanaBoffin	Cook/Farmer (Warden)	47	6
DanaHorn	Cook/Farmer (Warden)	47	6
DanaOnar	Cook/Farmer (Warden)	47	6

They had planned to go get Legendary Items around level 50… which is probably next on the list. It is mildly disconcerting since they carry flowers and pretzels instead of weapons and none of them have virtues, or skills, or gear. Of course, since they are a craft team, once they set themselves to do it, they can make their own gear. I am advising that they do try to get some class skills before trying to kick in the Door of Durin.

By the way, Danaish the Jeweller sees that cooking may be in her future, though we haven’t started that yet and she was able to level just fine with gems that were lying around.

Danaszar whittles wood while dexterously twirling a festival fire stick

Word of Wisdom from the Farm: We were told that the most crops that can be planted and harvested before they spoil is 5. That is not true; don’t be fooled. The amount of time it takes from “ready for harvest” to “spoiled” is 2 minutes. With a Universal Toolkit (crafting-toward-mordor-with-universal-toolkit), it takes 10 seconds to plant and 5 seconds to gather. In the 2 minutes allotted, a farmer could plant 12 crops at a time, then harvest all 12 with no spoiling. (In case they get distracted chatting, the lildana farmers tend to work with batches of 10.)

Ok, but Dana, I don’t want to buy a Universal Toolkit, or have tools crafted for me, or think I can win a Toolkit in the Hobbit Presents. How many can I plant? A basic farming tool should be able to handle 9 (same spoilage time of 2 minutes applies, but now you craft slower.)

Word of Wisdom from the Farm, #2: “DELETE, U” is your friend. After planting a batch of crops, hit DELETE to select the closest selectable thing to you (in this case, a crop). Then, hit the U key to pick it up. Of course, the Delete key is always helpful to remember if you are trying to find something like spring flowers, nails, mushrooms, doors, etc. It is a very, very useful key.

Word of Wisdom from the Farm #3: Those upper tier recipes come in a standard version as default and a “Hearty Crop” version if you look in the multi-output of the recipe. Always choose the Hearty Crop version. For nearly the same price for the seeds, the Hearty Crop version yields significantly more crops. For a long time the farmer team had been using the default crop recipe. Of course, most everyone else in the world might already know the difference. I was excited about my revelation and pointed it out to another Farmer who just shook his head and mumbled something about “silly noob farmer”. In case it was new to you, now you know there is a difference!

DanaClaus plants and harvests a dozen Apple trees at a time; move over Paul Bunyan

Word of Wisdom from the Smiths: Tier 9 crafter Processing is a great way to level. The four crafts that use Processing are the two Smiths, the Woodworker, and the Tailor. Processing involves turning 2 units (ingot, plank, leather) into 4 shavings which in turn can be turned back into 1 unit. Obviously, there is a decay function associated with this activity (easy to calculate, yay math… anyone want to take a shot at the formula? Bonus points for including the 25% crit in the formula going from shavings back to unit) and soon you will have no materials left. 

The short answer… a stack of ore, wood, or hides will net about 50k XP (using rest XP) so it is still the most efficient way to level a full-time crafter (well, one that isn’t a farmer/cook anyway).

Danadalyn processes ingots in Thorin's Hall

Towynia of Landroval: In crafting part 1, Towynia of Landroval made an appearance. She started at level 1 at the beginning of the year as a farmer and was working as a Cook in the Prancing Pony. She is now level 68 and counting. That is pretty good for a full-time cook who has other obligations. Towynia never did learn to ride a horse; we were suggesting she might want to learn to ride one as Warsteeds are all the rage these days. Give her a /cheer and /tell if you see her around.

Towynia’s Words of Cooking Experience: We asked Towynia what food gives good Experience and is profitable to make. Some food materials actually cost more than the finished product. According to her spreadsheet (we like spreadsheets), one of the best options is “Bowl of Water” under Supreme Cook. It is 1 Mint Leaf + 1 bottle of water = 1 bowl of water. It gives good experience and has a positive economic margin. Now that is a good win! Do you have other things that you prefer that are also a good XP and sale win?

Towynia of Landroval cooking in Bree

Rest XP and Crafting: With Update 11, Rest XP was changed for VIPs. It seemed benign. Before U11, characters got 20% rest XP per day, up to five days worth to make a full level of blue bar. Post U11, characters got what is claimed as 30% rest XP per day, resetting each day during the night.

Regardless of which version, the bigger change was what activities counted toward rest XP and how much those activities contributed.

Here is a crafter’s perspective on Rest XP:

• Before U11, rest XP reduced by 80% of the total XP given. If a craft recipe gave 100 XP, rest XP reduced by 80.
• After U11, rest XP reduced by 100% of the XP given.
• The short answer = for the same number of materials, unless you log in every day, you will run out of rest XP faster post U11, and a lot of the reason has to do with that consumption part (80% versus 100%).

For fun, here is a math proof (~for non-maths, skip the paragraph in pink):

• At level 49, XP needed to increase to next level = 188,088.
• Pre-U11 rest XP for 1 day, 20% = 37,617
• If using a recipe that rewards 100 XP per use (80% subtracted from rest XP), after 471 uses, rest XP is depleted… (471 x 100 x 0.8). You have used 100 uses of mats, you are +47,100 XP.

• Post-U11 rest XP for 1 day, 30% = 56,426
• Same exercise as before, 100 XP per use, +47,100 XP and rest XP is still visible though less than 10k.

• You can see that this balance changes at day 2 and beyond, where Pre-U11 rest XP at 40% and so on while post-U11 stays the same. BTW, if day 1 shows advantage post-U11, and day 2 through 5 shows advantage pre-U11, the breakpoint can be calculated at 24% for pre-U11, i.e. 1 day and 10 hours. (The difference is the consumption.) /math_off

Therefore, if you don’t log on EVERY day and are able to consume your blue bar when you are on (easier to do for an actual adventurer than a full-time crafter), then you will have less effective rest XP available to you.

I read the arguments for why Turbine sees this as a “benefit” to VIPs. However, since I don’t play every day, visiting alts mebbe once a week, this new rest XP plan is a detriment, not a benefit. This change isn't any sort of major game-changer, so I will survive. lol!

DanaArodel learns new recipes, good thing that stein has a lid

On the Bright side of Rest XP debate! 

• (1) At level 50, for a full-time crafter, 30% of a level is still a ton of materials. Yes, I can burn through the blue bar, whereas I rarely could before U11. (That would have a more profound impact at lower levels.)
• (2) With nine crafters, I can always move on to another crafter and burn through that blue bar and another and another… (Mebbe, this new plan will push more people into becomes altaholics.)
• (3) Destiny points still exist. We get 200 destiny points per level and a rest XP boost costs 250 destiny points. Between my alts and the DP that used to be awarded in the Moors, I have more DP that can ever be spent.

All that said… I understand why people are miffed about the change. Some of it has to do with quest XP receiving rest XP bonus, a silly argument since they are really just leveling faster than before. Others point out one of the things I mentioned: 20% daily but accruing over several days trumps 30% daily but capping at 30%. And, of course, my key observation above is that XP is simply consumed faster (the 80% versus 100% pink paragraph).

I feel badly for the Turbine employee that tried to help but botched his understand of how pre-U11 rest XP worked versus post-U11 rest XP... http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?512456-Rested-XP-Nerf/page3.

I personally could not argue with a straight face that the post U11 gain/spend rest XP system is more beneficial to much of anyone since you would literally have to log in every day and spend more than 20% of a level every day to come out ahead. As usual, the lildanas will optimize around the change. Heck, it wasn't that long ago that crafting gave no XP for leveling so we feel like we are playing with house money! 

Enjoy the ride and the lildanas will continue crafting toward Mordor!  

Rolliepollie the Cook and DanaBoffin the Cook in synchromized cooking

Yule festival’s end, 2012

It feels like I wrote more about Yule festival than most festivals this year! the previous post listed a few more Yule links.

The clincher was that there were a lot of horses and warsteeds to talk about, which got the Steed Gallery fired up (all-steeds).

The lildanas always show up for festival, though the hobbit quadruplets usually stay home. This Yule festival however saw two very important reasons for them to come out.

#1 - Sack of Presents: Everyone who showed up to Yule Festival and did one quest got a sack of presents. It didn’t take us long to figure out that the sack of presents was worth camping out in Frostsbluff to get daily. Gifts we got from the sacks included Festival tokens, a special hat and cloak, stat tomes, Danaish got a hobby horse, and level 25 Danadalyn even won a Tarnished Symbol that she gave me to build my level 85 2nd age LI.

#2 – Festival Quest leveling: The quests were all considered as “on-level” quests. That didn’t do so much for me since I was at level 85, although the LIs all advanced with iXP for each quest. The lildanas were all level 25 or level 6, and never really leave the craft-halls except to come to festival. So, going to festival, it was like they were getting free xp for doing what they planned to do anyway. What a win! That reminds me, craft-leveling, I’ll talk soon about the joy of how crafters get xp just for crafting. J

A few friends: As always, festival is a good time to see people who you might not see often. Here are a few friends who I saw at Yule.

Bluepop has a sparkling good time at Yule.

Mysterixox and I wait in line for the Frostbluff Theater. Myst is the talent behind the Lotro Academy podcast Lotro Academy and thinks I am Awesome. J http://lotroacademy.com/?p=962

Aeronwy and I sport matching Fleet-footed Goats to stroll around the town of Frostbluff.

Betzi and Danaszar brave the winter’s cold to run through the snow toward a snowball fight.

Lildanas: The lil-danas As mentioned, because of the Sack of Presents (and general good time of festivalling), the lildanas showed up for the party. Here are a few parting shots to close Yule 2012.

DanaClaus disappears just before Christmas, muttering something about checking lists and and working off cookie weight. Yule festival is one of his favorites.

Danaish rides her new Hobby Horse around Frostbluff like a hobbit on too much sugar and pipeweed.

DanaOnar, one of the hobbit quadruplets, grips a Spring fest giant flower in one hand and a new Yule mug in the other. She enjoyed the warmth of a Spiral Horned Cloak from one of the Sack of Presents.

Danadelion poses stoically with one of the snowmen who leans his head on her shoulder.

Yule Festival was a great time and we look forward to seeing you again next year!

Rohan: Shard Queen, Master of Relics

The high end relics cost quite a bit of shards to be able to meld them. However, with a solid plan, you will have more shards than you could use for melding.

Useful relics and their costs:

Let’s look at some of the relics and their costs. I included some utility service stuff in the table as well.

Requirements to make certain Relics:

Relic	Melds	Shard cost
Tier 9	1 tier 9 relic	512
Eastemnet	3 specific tier 9 relics	4,992
True Eastemnet	4 tier 9 relics (any of them)	9,984
Basic Mounted	3 tier 4 relics (any of them)	192
Unique Mounted	3 specific tier 8 relics	2,496
Singular Mounted	3 specific tier 9 relics	4,992
Stat Legacy	~	1,886
Riddermark Scroll of Delving	~	9,750
Riddermark Scroll of Empowerment	~	14,220

So, if the optimized solution for the best relics for you happens to be “True Eastemnet” relics for all three slots of Setting, Gem, and Rune, you will need nearly 30k shards for one LI. Hehe. That is a lot, but not nearly as much as it seems.

Dana, where did you get your shards?

Tomrica Relic Maneuver & Scrolls of Combination

I started with what was lying around. Tomrica wrote an article about how to turn your rusty dwarf tools, khuzdul tablets, and Bright Emblems of Nimrodel into relics.

tomricas-tricks-relics-of-rohan

So, I did that first. Each of those Fused Bronze relics from the rusty dwarf tools yielded around 10 tier 1 relics; and clearly I had a gob leftover from Moria. I will Combine them up to be something good. I had some additional relics hanging around because I often don’t bother to Combine them unless I have a goal and a plan.

Also, from a lottery, I had won several “Scroll of Combination”. I really like that item. It increases your Critical Success chance to 25% while combining relics at the relic forge. I shopped it on the lotro store and realized how much it cost. It is 795 TP for one scroll. Wowsers. I have also noted that it drops from some of the high end Raid loot, though I have not personally gotten one. It works really well, but you would have to really want it and be ready to use it for 15 minutes straight for increased relics and shards.

After doing the Tomrica Relic Maneuver along with the Scrolls of Combination, I had a worthy stockpile of relics and shards. Here is a table of how many relics of a certain tier are required to combine together to make relic(s) of the next level. I also included how many relics I had at each tier before and after Combine to show the effect of all these advancing toward T9 as well as the shard payout.

Unless I am specifically trying to keep a relic for some reason, I always use Auto Combine. Its critical chance is exactly the same as not-Auto Combine.

Note that even without a good critical Combine, it is still common to get more than one relic on a Combine. I won’t bother trying to do math on what my critical effect was… math is hard. ;)

Update: First feedback from a friend is that I need to point out that combining relics can get expensive. I think that one combine at T8 is mebbe 400s or so. Doing what I did in the table below could probably run in the tens of gold but I didn't track cost, sorry. 

Relics Required per Combine:

	# of relics required per Combine		Dana’s Combo Start	Dana’s Combo End
Tier 1	5		3,935	0
Tier 2	4		517	1
Tier 3	4		428	1
Tier 4	3		154	2
Tier 5	3		50	2
Tier 6	3		12	1
Tier 7	3		5	0
Tier 8	3		15	1
Tier 9			0	20
Shards			8,426	32,076

Crafted Relics

Where I really get most of my shards is from crafted relics! I have a whole team of Crafters on my payroll. Other than going to festival and hanging out around the house, crafting relics is primarily what the lildanas do! (meet the lil-danas) 

Five of them are crafters; they go from the vault where I deliver supplies, to the nearest crafting facility, and primarily just make crafted relics. When I rode to Rohan, they kept the wheels in motion by leveling up in their professions as I came across mats for them. rohan-begins-crafting-and-virtues-at-16

I cannot stress enough how low maintenance and high return the crafting team is. They are worth their big house on the river, draigoch-statue-lil-danas-moving-day, but don’t tell them that. I don’t want them to get too cocky and strike for better cosmetics or store horses or something.

What are these Crafted Relics worth?

I reviewed Crafted relics before Rohan. update-6-relics-and-virtues

It has changed slightly on the Device and there are two new crafted relics with the Eastemnet tier of Crafting. Here is an updated table of how many shards you can get per crafted relic.

Table of Crafted Relics:

		Cooldown to make	Shards obtained on Refine	Crafter only?
Minor symbol	+10 stat	18h	64
Symbol Compendium I	+20 stat	2d 18h	158
Device	+30 stat	2d 18h	258
Emblem	+40 stat	2d 18h	358
Symbol of (Tactics) Compendium II	+390 Critical, +390 Mastery	6d 18h	384	Bound
Device of (Tactics) Compendium III	+20 stat, +540 Critical, +540 Mastery	6d 18h	768	Bound
Emblem of (Tactics) Compendium IV	+30 stat, +640 Critical, +640 Mastery	6d 18h	1074	Bound

Even my highest level lildana cannot handle the Bound crafted relics (because she cannot talk to the Relic-master and get them Refined). However, given a few minutes each day, they are quite adept at taking the mats I find off dead orcs and turning them into crafted relics which I turn into shards.

Before long, you too will be cranking out more shards than you need for melding. I don’t necessarily see myself spending 15k shards for a Riddermark Scroll of Empowerment when I could get one for a decent mark price at the skirmish guy, but you never know… let the crafters roll long enough and shards will seem a low-cost commodity. Supergirl, the Shard Queen, signing off until next time. J