Feldon Three of us got together today and did one of the Tradeskill Group Instances, specifically the Shipyard Cove.
The quest starts in Isle of Mara (Village of Shin) and all members must be a level 50-80 tradeskiller and have first completed the quest Ship Out in the Moors of Ykesha. There are a couple of other quests in Isle of Mara you’ll definitely want to check out too, including Rush Orders and a soloable quest that rewards a Far Seas token. Click on everything you can in the upstairs area of the Isle of Mara dock alehouse so you don’t miss anything!
The Mission
Each phase of the construction requires 3 items crafted by 9 tradeskills. There are 4 phases to the mission, so that’s a total of 108 total combines. The entire quest can be done solo, but it will take over 3 hours to complete, especially since out of those recipes, you are doing almost all of them with foreign reaction arts. It’s really best if you can get a group, as a Jeweler will have a tough time with the Forge, just like a Woodworker will stumble a bit on the Sewing Mannequin. 🙂
Once you zone into the tradeskill group instance, it takes a bit of looking around to find the materials (you don’t need to bring any materials with you), the recipe book (A smaller book), the progress book (a large book), and talk to the NPC who gives each of you the “complete 3 items” quests. It just means that one person can’t make different items at the same time — you must make 3 pulleys, turn them in, then make 3 of something else, turn them in.
It will take a bit of coordination to figure out which items each member of your party will craft. Even with a full group of 6, three of your members will be making recipes for a foreign tradeskill, so it will take a bit more effort to make the items with full durability. The reaction arts here though are completely different than you are used to! If you pull off each reaction art, they give a BIG bonus, but if you fail on a reaction art, well let’s just say you can be killed by the forge again!
I strongly advise that you have your tradeskillers do the recipes with which they are most familiar first. For instance, have a jeweler do the work bench recipe. Have a sage do the engraved desk recipe. They will be able to complete them in just a few steps with almost no chance for failure. Then focus on the tough ones — the tradeskill recipes for which you have no present members.
After four phases of crafting you get to see the fruits of your labor. In the shipyard cove, you’ll get to see the boat you created sail away. In the firemyst gully, you’ll get to see the dwarves kick some serious skeleton butt. And in the Clockwork area, you’ll get watch a bit of Battlebots. 😉
So what’s the result of all this work (and it does take a while, even with 6)?
- A tradeskill class-specific piece of jewelry granting a bonus to critical success chance (See the Far Seas Supply Division faction vendor in Isle of Mara to see all the possible jewelry.
- One of three earrings with overall harvesting skill boosts (tradesman’s/artisan’s/crafter’s)
- One of two wieldable tradeskill weapons
- Level 70-79 rare material
- an extra Far Seas Trading Company Token
- One of four recipe books (non-charged) that allows any level 70+ Artisan to craft Void Shard Armor at a slightly lower Void Shard cost.
Yes it takes over three hours to do these solo, but you get to keep all the goodies. I’ve done this twice now and once there was just the one item rewarded. Imagine 6 crafters doing this for one reward between them. The first time I ran it solo I got 4 rewards including the jewellry recipe book – I’m a jeweller :).
If the three hours bothers you, you can break at any time – even leave the zone or log off – and still resume where you left off. The only thing I’m not sure of is the deadline to finish. As it’s a once a day quest you probably have to complete in a day.
I have done these instances solo on my carpenter and tailor, both equipped with epic earring and cloak, as well as Mara charms, it took them just about 2 hours and I did them 8 times.
However, yesterday I duoed it with a jeweler with similar gear and I actually did 5 x 12 + 3 items while he was striving with 3 x 12 +9 and it took us about 1h20m. We were chatting a lot on the way though.
My crafting style is very aggressive but I do not fail on more then 1-2 combines per mission and almost never cancel the combines. Using aggressive crafting techniques you can do those missions reasonable fast.
And another comment…
You don’t really want more than three players in crafting instances (Scholar, Craftsman and Outfitter). If you are more people, you will most likely spend the earned time by coordinating the work. It’s much easier to just split archetype recipes and get to work without wasting time. Such setup will take 30-45 minutes depending on crafting style, level and experience (pre-stocking components, countering events, how you return the combines, etc.)