The three tradeskills of mining, relic hunter, and survivalist make it possible to collect the raw materials needed by the other crafting trades that result in Wildstar Gold. Most players will seek to pair a gathering trade with a crafting trade in order to be mostly self-sufficient, but players may also elect to have an alt do most of the gathering, same as housing, or to focus on the gathering trades as a way to make money by selling materials. Since many players may need extra materials or not feel like gathering them, focusing on the gathering trades can be a very good money maker, but they are the least interesting of all of the trades.
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Basic Gathering Mechanics
The basic mechanics of resource gathering works the same for all three tradeskills. You will go out into the game world and find resource nodes. Nearby nodes are indicated on your map, so they are easy to find. To harvest a node, you can either attack it with your weapons or you can use a gathering tool. Weapon attacks are slower, but they do have some advantages, like being able to harvest in the midst of combat. When you harvest a node, various bits of resource will fly off of the node for you to scoop up. A starter version of each harvester can be gained from the vending machine. More advanced and efficient harvesters can be crafted by players.
The majority of materials you find are immediately usable by a trade. The game does not currently have refining mechanics or any additional steps for the gatherer to make the materials useful, at least at the gatherer’s end.
Tradeskills
Like the other tradeskills, you can officially begin your gathering journey at level 10. You will receive a quest to visit a nearby NPC at a crafting hub. This will be your chance to select your starting tradeskills. You are limited to advancing two tradeskills at any one time. A gathering trade counts toward this limit, but hobbies, such as cooking and farming, do not.
If you choose to advance in a different trade, you can swap trades at any time. When you swap a trade, you stop progression in the former trade and begin or continue progression in the new trade. You still retain the advantages of the old trade, however, including level and ability to harvest the materials. You will no longer gain experience for harvesting until you make that trade active again. There is a high money cost and cool down for a swap, so you will need to plan carefully.
Who Harvests What?
Each gathering trade focuses on a different set of materials. Miners focus on gathering ore. Relic hunters focus on gathering relic parts and omniplasm. Survivalists focus on gathering wood, meat and animal hides. Various crafting trades require these materials, and all crafting trades need at least one thing from two of the gathering skills. You can check the sections of this guide detailing the crafting trades for information on which gathering skill is paired best with each of the other trades.
Harvesting with weapons creates an interesting dynamic at the beginning of the game. Early level nodes can actually be harvested by anyone, regardless of their gathering trade, by attacking the node with a weapon. After the first level of materials, however, a gatherer with the appropriate level of skill is needed to collect the resource. This can be very useful for beginning players that are just looking to see what crafting fits best for them. You can easily gather all of the materials to experiment with. If you harvest resources without the appropriate tradeskill selected, however, you will not gain any experience for the task.
Animal hides and meat are the only materials that deviate slightly from the standard format of finding static nodes on the map and harvesting them. These materials, collected by the survivalist, are gained by killing various monsters and beasts that would otherwise just be normal enemies. Many players may gain these materials as well through the course of play, but the survivalist is especially efficient at collecting these materials, causing them to drop more often and in greater amounts.
Making Gold through Trading
You can gain levels in the gathering trades just like you can with all of the tradeskills. You gain crafting experience simply by gathering materials. The gathering trades do not have any of the advanced features that the actual crafting trades have. There is no TechTree, no work orders, no talents, and no special crafting mini-game. Your goal is to run around the map and collect as many resources as possible.
The good news is that WildStar has put its own unique stamp on the gathering trades, and the gathering process in general, by giving resource gatherers some interesting surprises. Resource nodes tend to do strange things in Nexus.
Resources Harvesting Tips
Here are several of the most common scenarios you may encounter when trying to get resources. As the game develops, you may see more interesting occurrences and more variations on these three. In most cases, an encounter like these rewards you with more resources than usual. The encounters are completely random, and there is no magic way to predict them or cause them to occur.
- 1. The resource node turns into a monster and attacks you. These are usually fairly easy fights just designed to spice up the gathering process a little bit. The advantage is that you will gain more materials from that node after you defeat the monster.2. The resource node gets up and runs away. This hilarious mechanic forces you to chase down the fleeing resource and kill it before it gets away.
3. A portal may spawn and pull you into some sort of alternate realm where there are monsters and additional resource nodes to gather. This can take a few varying forms, including a battle with a small horde of enemies to a timed event where you must gather as much resource as possible before being thrown out of the portal again.
That’s all there is to it to being a gatherer in WildStar. These are the most relaxed and straightforward of the tradeskills, and they are a perfect fit for those who just want to make a little extra on the side while playing and don’t want to deal with the complexities of the crafting system. They are a vital part of the crafting process and the game’s economy. Go out there and chop, dig or hunt for the betterment of crafters everywhere.