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Black Ice farming tips
randomdigits
Member Posts: 700 Arc User
Since (as I've mentioned in a different thread) Black Ice gear is a good one to have and the Icewind Dale seems to be the place to be once you finished EE quest line and reached level 70, here are some tips.
The main one: If you are going to farm Black Ice in the PVP zones (which you should) join the Ten Town (Blue) faction. Otherwise - for questing and PvE encounters - go with the Arcane Brotherhood (Red one).
That would probably affect the balance of the PvP experience some people would like to enjoy too, but it's only fair, imho, that for now while the players are trying to gear up (with all that new hard-hitting monsters) the players team up and help each other to mine the Black Ice in PvP zones. Some day, when there is a lot of affordable blue gear in AH it may no longer be necessary. Or perhaps when they add the kit needed for the Hammerstone Pick to Zen Market, which would make BI mining more efficient.
Other tips:
1) during quiet hours you can mine a lot of BI off the Motherlode Encounter without drawing agro from the mobs (or killing just one or two minions).
2) encounters and weekly quests give a lot of BI (I saw 800 from an encounter and 1000 from a weekly quest)
3) when mining in a duo in PvP zone it's more efficient from the CD and logistics perspective to choose "each of us mines different nearby node at the same time" versus "we mine each node together and move to the next" strategy.
4) invest early in training new Black Ice profession workers. Unlike the other professions you need to use one worker to make another one, so spending 3 days to turn 1 worker into 8 is totally worth it.
The main one: If you are going to farm Black Ice in the PVP zones (which you should) join the Ten Town (Blue) faction. Otherwise - for questing and PvE encounters - go with the Arcane Brotherhood (Red one).
That would probably affect the balance of the PvP experience some people would like to enjoy too, but it's only fair, imho, that for now while the players are trying to gear up (with all that new hard-hitting monsters) the players team up and help each other to mine the Black Ice in PvP zones. Some day, when there is a lot of affordable blue gear in AH it may no longer be necessary. Or perhaps when they add the kit needed for the Hammerstone Pick to Zen Market, which would make BI mining more efficient.
Other tips:
1) during quiet hours you can mine a lot of BI off the Motherlode Encounter without drawing agro from the mobs (or killing just one or two minions).
2) encounters and weekly quests give a lot of BI (I saw 800 from an encounter and 1000 from a weekly quest)
3) when mining in a duo in PvP zone it's more efficient from the CD and logistics perspective to choose "each of us mines different nearby node at the same time" versus "we mine each node together and move to the next" strategy.
Ana Taletreader (CW) / Friend of Casual Gamers
Post edited by randomdigits#2166 on
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Comments
They've made Worn Gauntlets bound to character (similar to festival assets and such).
So no matter how many Chillwrights you have, only one can process the raw ice.
And it's better to buy a Cryomancer off the AH for 2K AD anyway.
So until some day month(s) when a Black Ice profession pack arrives to Zen Market it'll take a bit quite a bit of patience to produce the Black Ice.
Sounds like the best advice would be to farm with friends so you aren't singled out in combat (which you inevitably would be.) Not by joining a specific faction.
I'm just learning the game, so my goal is to share the knowledge as I go.
My observations from the PvP zone in Icewind pass so far:
1) PvP encounters are quite profitable, do participate.
2) killing other faction player while mining has certain fun aspect for some people, but nonetheless is lame. there is more than enough BI in PvP zone for all.
3) doing quests in PvP zone is useless - no campaign rewards are given, just some minor exp.
Retrospectively I no longer think that mining Black Ice is going to be difficult or important with the time-gating of BI processing. Doing the dailies, some encounters and a bit of mining in PvP zone or elsewhere would bring a few thousands of BI a day easily.