Shamanic Infusion

[Eachna]

@Eachna - I basically agree with your entire post. Picking on a couple things:

I don't think SI needs to be storage intensive. You can buy an infinite supply of basic white armor from Joeh for around 50 councils each. If you are trying to level augmentation, buying a 50 council item and putting a low-level shamanic infusion recipe on it is arguably more cost effective than using actual green gear drops you get, since those can likely be vendored for more than the cost of the white item plus the shamanic infusion mats. I've also bought some used underwear and infused that, which just feels ... morally wrong. But cheap, and easy to obtain.

I agree. It doesn't have to be storage intensive. It's fiddly though, because gear doesn't stack. Storage is at a premium. I pay the fiddly cost by instead *making* the stuff. If @alleryn is leveling by dropping stuff in Joeh storage and infusing it later, then he (she?) is losing out on storing more gear sets in there (or whatever else people do with Joeh storage). If you buy white gear instead of storing it or crafting it, then you're using the money you earn from other stuff to 'pay' to level SI.

LOL. I like the underwear solution. I hadn't thought of that.

I thought all the shamanic infusion mats were equally common, just some of them get used more than others, so the less-frequently used mats tend to pile up more. It doesn't help that antlers and dinosaur scales are used for things other than shamanic infusion. And I've never found a good spot for farming dinosaurs either. The bigger dinosaurs drop large dinosaur scales which I don't think are used in shamanic infusion at all (or at least are used beyond my paltry level 30 skill).

I don't think the mat drops are even. I always end up with more significantly more deer guts than antlers after a farming run (or more scales than claws, etc.). If the drops were even they should be even in my bags (before I made it to storage). If they are supposed to be even that could be signs of a different problem.

[alleryn]

If there are recipes made with cheap, easy to acquire materials that can be spammed, please mention them in the thread.

I already mentioned the bear parts from groupies that i collected a stack of in 2 days. Not really sure which one is meant to be the rare one, i found them in roughly equal numbers.

[Tsugumori]

The rare claws are the enchanted ones - the ones used to barter with Percy.

(If you found them in 'roughly equal' numbers then that's just your luck. They aren't hard to find that said, more of a semi-uncommon drop)

[alleryn]

The rare claws are the enchanted ones - the ones used to barter with Percy.

(If you found them in 'roughly equal' numbers then that's just your luck. They aren't hard to find that said, more of a semi-uncommon drop)

The shamanic infusion recipes use regular bear claws, not the enchanted ones.

[Tsugumori]

Smh - Not what I was saying but I guess not everyone reads /o/

[Tagamogi]

If you buy white gear instead of storing it or crafting it, then you're using the money you earn from other stuff to 'pay' to level SI.

Well, my thought process is this: I want to level augmentation, and I just found a piece of green gear worth 300 councils. I can:
1. Disenchant the piece of green gear. Total cost 300 councils.
2. Sell the green gear for 300 councils. Buy a piece of white gear, put a low level shamanic infusion on it for maybe 200 councils total cost. Total cost for doing one augmentation is than 300 - 200 councils = 100 councils profit plus bonus SI xp.

Of course, this calculation rather depends on the price of the piece of green gear, and whether the limited supply of shamanic infusion mats is going to drive me crazy before I get augmentation where I want it... I also tend to use the higher level SI recipes (3+4 mats) which I don't think are as cost/xp efficient as the starter 1+3 recipes. So, yeah, I'm probably not as cost-efficient as I like to pretend I am.

My primary source of shamanic infusion mats is Mushroom Jack, so that's why I always assumed the materials drop in equal proportion. I'll pick up things when I kill animals for other reasons, but I'm really not a huge fan of extensive farming, so I go shopping instead. Sorry if I'm buying up stuff you want - depending on how excited I feel about SI, I may check the used tabs a 1-3 times a day or not at all. ( I just hit the recipe with the trophy boar skin requirement yesterday, so I think I may start ignoring SI for a while now... )

Oh, and you are entirely right about the skillup rate. I had a nice buildup of SI mats yesterday, including more than 100 cat eyeballs, and got a few levels in SI. Augmentation leveled about twice as fast during that time, if not faster.

[Eachna]

My primary source of shamanic infusion mats is Mushroom Jack, so that's why I always assumed the materials drop in equal proportion. I'll pick up things when I kill animals for other reasons, but I'm really not a huge fan of extensive farming, so I go shopping instead. Sorry if I'm buying up stuff you want - depending on how excited I feel about SI, I may check the used tabs a 1-3 times a day or not at all. ( I just hit the recipe with the trophy boar skin requirement yesterday, so I think I may start ignoring SI for a while now... )

AHAHAHAHAHA . So we're at the same level and stopped at the same place. .

Good on you getting the mats at Jack. I'd decided it had to be a display issue as I knew *someone* had to be selling them. Other people buying them means the display works correctly and I'm just too slow/lazy.

As far as what I mean by "rare/common" (which may not be how they're "coded"). When I farm bears, I don't get equal numbers of regular bear paws and gall bladders. When I farm cats, I don't get equal numbers of tails and eyes. When I farm deer, I don't get equal numbers of antlers and intestines. I consistently get less of the one that's required in higher numbers in SI recipes (I get fewer antlers than intestines). In my own head, I think of that as the rare material. Maybe it's not "rare", but I need a word to describe it .

I'm not talking about mats like magical bear paws that aren't used in SI.

[alleryn]

As far as what I mean by "rare/common" (which may not be how they're "coded"). When I farm bears, I don't get equal numbers of regular bear paws and gall bladders. When I farm cats, I don't get equal numbers of tails and eyes. When I farm deer, I don't get equal numbers of antlers and intestines. I consistently get less of the one that's required in higher numbers in SI recipes (I get fewer antlers than intestines). In my own head, I think of that as the rare material. Maybe it's not "rare", but I need a word to describe it .

What kinds of ratios are you seeing? Looking through my storage (i can't say for sure what exactly i've used for quests or sold... other than antlers i haven't used much in recipes) i'm seeing more pig feet than boar tusks (~3:2) and more tails (panther+tiger) than eyeballs (~3:2), but roughly equal wolf teeth vs. wolf tails and bear paws vs gallbladders. Rat parts i have too few to make any kind of assessment, but the others i have 100+ of most (all but tusks, paws, and bladders, which are at 60+). I have significantly more deer guts than antlers, but i've used a decent amount of antlers in recipes.

Edit: Another thing occurred to me, which is skinning vs butchering. I'm not totally sure how this works, but i tend to skin most animals, but i do mostly butcher deer; pigs i have butchered at times as well. If butchering deer gives deer guts, which skinning gives antlers (seems sort of logical) this might account for some of the disparity in this case. This might logically apply to gallbladders vs paws as well, and perhaps teeth vs tails (for both wolves and rats), and maybe even eyeballs vs tails for cats or feet vs tusks for pigs/boars. This is just conjecture though, i'll try to keep an eye on it in the future if i think of it.

[Yaksnot]

I am leveling it, but find it fairly lackluster at the moment. time will tell. I like several of the ideas in this thread though.

[Eachna]

What kinds of ratios are you seeing? Looking through my storage (i can't say for sure what exactly i've used for quests or sold... other than antlers i haven't used much in recipes) i'm seeing more pig feet than boar tusks (~3:2) and more tails (panther+tiger) than eyeballs (~3:2), but roughly equal wolf teeth vs. wolf tails and bear paws vs gallbladders. Rat parts i have too few to make any kind of assessment, but the others i have 100+ of most (all but tusks, paws, and bladders, which are at 60+). I have significantly more deer guts than antlers, but i've used a decent amount of antlers in recipes.

Edit: Another thing occurred to me, which is skinning vs butchering. I'm not totally sure how this works, but i tend to skin most animals, but i do mostly butcher deer; pigs i have butchered at times as well. If butchering deer gives deer guts, which skinning gives antlers (seems sort of logical) this might account for some of the disparity in this case. This might logically apply to gallbladders vs paws as well, and perhaps teeth vs tails (for both wolves and rats), and maybe even eyeballs vs tails for cats or feet vs tusks for pigs/boars. This is just conjecture though, i'll try to keep an eye on it in the future if i think of it.

Back from a week off for RL stuff.

I hadn't thought of skinning and butchering both being a factor so that's a very good point.

I know some things that are both skinning (eyes and cat tails) fall in unequal numbers. I get more gut than antlers just from the basic drops at the top of the loot box (ie: the deer drops that come from neither skinning nor butchering). I didn't write down numbers based on days spent skinning and days spent butchering.

Still at the end of the day the resource sink going into the skill is not worth the 100 enchantment point effects that come out. Right now I don't think it's the enchantments that are the "problem". They seems reasonable-ish for a simple crafting system. It's that the skill levels too slowly to be useful and that happens because of the resources going in.

It's my opinion that if the grind was less difficult it would make it easier to judge the relative merit of using SI vs the relative merit of using A&T. It may then turn out that even with another boost to the xp table (or a reduction in resources/addition of a grinding recipe) the 100 point effects are too weak. That'll be hard to determine as long as it levels slower than the other trade skills. IOW - it takes so long to level it you might as well just get A&T (which level very very fast) and enjoy the benefits of the full enchanting system.

By making it slower to level than A&T as well as slower to level than at least most of the other trade skills, it doesn't meet what's being stated as the intended purpose: to be a faster, simpler, "basic" enchanting system to be used either instead of A&T or at least "before" you unlock A&T.