Vik's Collector Tips

This is a page with several random tricks and tips about playing the collector class. If you want to read the Spanish translation of this text, follow: Consejos de Vik para los Collectors. Thanks to User:TEG, User:Andytu, User:Dream, User:TagedHard for translating all this!

Disclaimer: this page contains my personal opinions. If you disagree with something or you have comments on it, please let me know!

General info

In my opinion, the most important thing for a collector is going to quests at exactly the right times and places instead of simply farming only swamp quests for more pelt or just randomly picking quests. A collector with great stamina management and useful quest time execution is an invaluable player in a guild. But don't worry, there are very comfortable tools to help with that. In general, you can check out Drop Time Overviews for an overview of tools that GeckoBot provides to help with that task.

About drop tables

I can imagine that remembering drop times for all tiers of gear quickly becomes too much. I can also imagine that some players simply have time to quest at one random point in their real life, but still want to get the most valuable drops for that timeframe. That's why GeckoBot offers overviews about "which items drop now". If you want to go questing now, you can check this reference to get the most out of your stamina. I advise you to check out Drop Time Overviews for detailed info about these tools and how to use them. The two relevant commands are /drops (/drops guide) and /current_drops (/current_drops guide). They are made to help figuring out where to quest if you have time to quest just right now.

Personal advice about questing preferences

In general, I'd advice you to study the drop time tables per tier to fill missing parts and recipes for your guild alongside that I have some tips for an optimal strategy per tier:

Player level range	Perception level	Explanation	Link to overview
L20-L21	n/a	no parts and recipes can drop, just go forest for more thread or swamp for pelt	n/a
L22-L31	Perception 1	📗T2 drops are here. Maybe focus on getting your own hunter gear. Night quests give more valuable parts and recipes. Go swamp and valley for parts and recipes, ignore forest quests	📗List of T2 drop times
L32-L39	Perception 2	Now you can find the 📘T3 cloak parts and recipes (Storm Cloak, Durable Cloak and Blessed Cloak) and as well the simple 📘T3 weapons (Thundersoul Sword, Guard's Spear, Composite Bow, Imperial Axe). The cloak items are more valuable, but drop at any time in swamp and valley. So no need to concentrate on anything. Just ignore forest questing again. Sadly 📗T2 items still drop and reduce the 📘T3 output.	📘List of T3 drop times
L40-L45	Perception 3	The cloak items stop dropping and no 📗T2 drops anymore, too. The most valuable items for you are the lion items. Lion helmet is a day drop, Lion boots, armor and gloves are an evening drop. I suggest you to focus on swamp and valley during day and evening. If you are pushing for one of the advanced 📘T3 weapons, check the drop times table to find out where and when you have to quest.	📘List of T3 drop times
L46-L59	Percpetion 4	All 📘T3 items stop dropping and instead you find 📙T4 items. The drop times are more random now, you can't rely on parts dropping in swamp and recipes in valley like all the previous tiers. For specific crafts you really need to check the drop times table and focus at the correct times. Personally, I consider questing in valley most useful most of the time, because the Assault Cape parts drop there and the parts for Nightfall Bow too.	📙List of T4 drop times
L60+	Perception 5	📙T4 items stop dropping, instead you only find 📒T5 items. My experience is, that Manticore Helmet and Manticore Armor stuff drops in generous amounts and you don't really have to farm for that. As of today (2021-06-01), the 📒T5 cloaks were released just recently and the parts are very valuable. Onslaught Cape parts drop at forest morning, which I consider the best time to quest right now. At other in-game times, I can suggest questing at forest evening for Windstalker Bow parts, which are also very valuable. At night time, again in forest, the very rare Manticore Gloves recipe drop. But in the end, you need to find out yourself what you need and where you have to quest for your needs.	📒List of T5 drop times

Info: Perception 6 has no use at the moment. All 📒T5 items can be found with Perception 5.

Short questing guide

Player level range	🌲Forest	🍄Swamp	🏔Valley
20-21	to gather thread	to gather pelt	* 🌌Night farm Rubies
22-31	don't go here	* 🌌Night Hunter parts	* 🌌Night Hunter recipes
32-39	don't go here	* all times for cloak parts	* all times for cloak recipes
40-45	don't go here unless you have a good reason	* Day: Lion Helmet parts * Evening: Lion gloves, armor, boots parts	* Day: Lion Helmet recipes * Evening: Lion gloves, armor, boots recipes
46-59	* Morning: Phoenix Sword parts * Night: Stoneskin Recipe	can probably ignore swamp	* Morning, Day, Evening: Assault Cape parts * Evening: Griffin Armor parts * Night: Maiming Bulawa parts
60+	* Morning: Onslaught Cape parts * Evening: Windstalker bow parts	* Morning: Indissoluble Cloak parts, Overseer Armor parts	* Day: Artificer Apron parts * Night: Brutalizer Flail parts

Which /mem class?

A very important thing in the game is the choice of the /mem or /mes class, in other words which class you want to combine with a collector. I'll discuss each class below. As of now (2021-06-01), I think the best choice is picking ranger, due to incredible synergies with the skills. I'll explain in detail below.

Esquire classes

All esquire classes add a lot of potential in terms of attack or defense values to the Collector, if combined. This makes the character more valuable in all battle types.

Ranger

Combining Ranger with Collector creates a very OP character, due to very useful skill synergies. Being a ranger provides the skill Power Napping, which reduces the time to regenerate stamina, when the character is at "🛌Rest". But a reduced stamina regeneration time means that the player can do more quests in the same time. And doing more quests for a collector means that "Gifted Pathfinder" can trigger more often. In other words: Power Napping increases the output of "Gifted Pathfinder", making it even stronger, giving the possibility to quest very often.

Note: On higher levels with a high GP and a high PN skill, this can start to be really challenging, to quest down all stamina and not let it overflow..

But if you're willing to be very active and take the challenge of managing an insane amount of stamina, then this class combination discloses its full potential. FYI: Power Napping on high levels means stamina regeneration every 45 minutes. This is 25% faster than normally. This means 25% more quests that can trigger Gifted Pathfinder. So in total, you will get even more than 25% more quests than other players. I estimate around 30% more. This also means 30% more loot, parts, recipes... everything.

Yes, it is challenging. But it's worth it. Another aspect of Ranger/Collector is the possibility to use a bow and aim. At higher levels, the full aim time is 40min. If you optimize for XP gain, you can try to aim just after your stamina regenerated, if you prefer helping with lots of stats in battles, you can go for the full aim time. Example: As a first /mem cycle player with class Ranger/Collector at only L64, I reached up to 1400⚔️. These numbers can be very relevant in castle or alliance battles, both.

Knight

The class combination Knight/Collector has different synergies with the Collector class. As Knight/Collector or Collector/Knight you can keep all the skills to find the relevant loot in the game: Perception, Collection and as bonus Smart Explorer for a bit more XP. The full collector potential can be used, the player can fulfill his support role in a guild without any constraints. But instead of a pure collector, a player with this class combination can deal very serious amounts of damage by using a sword like normal knights and as off-hand a dagger. Skilling dagger mastery and on top the advanced collector skill Off-Hand mastery provides a lot of attack stats just for equipping a dagger. Unlike combining Collector with ranger or alchemist, there is a synergy between actually using a real Off-Hand weapon and the skill "Off-Hand mastery". In other class combinations, this skill is ignored because useless, but not here! Furthermore, still using a dagger helps in arena fights: equipping daggers or shields there gives bonus attack, which helps increasing you rating significantly, because you'll win more fights and rank higher than a ranger-combination or an alchemist-combination. It's even possible to be #1 and hold that ranking for a few weeks (this really happened in [FTW]). But of course, even when Off-Hand mastery gives quite a nice amount of bonus attack, this class combination won't be able to compete for top attacks against Knight/Alchs or Knight/Rangers. But the attack stats from a critical hits are still very high and provide very valuable battle help with very decent attack stats, especially compared to a normal collector.

Sentinel

Being a Sentinel/Collector or Collector/Sentinel adds the "Trader" game mechanic to the game play, in other words the trader appears after a caught foray and offers to trade a decent amount of a resources for 2💰 per resource. This is a very nice way to deal with overflowing stock and inventory. Just trade your silver ore or sticks for some gold. The trader gives more gold per resource than selling it for 1💰 in exchange, so it's always worth it to take his offer to trade. Make sure you always have a few hundred of a single resource type ready. Of course this requires catching forays and needs some quick reactions of the players, when a notification of the game comes in. Just as it applies for Knight/Collector, using "Off-Hand mastery" works perfectly in addition to shield mastery and the effects stack up and it gives +3🛡Def per skill level in OHM. A real problem with this combination, is also the management of Skill Points (SP). Both base classes require skilling some important skills. But there is not enough SP to skill everything. You'll need to decide to skip on a few certainly normally relevant skills (Broker, Labeling, Tactics, Shield Mastery...) which would normally be part of the SP-build -- but the combination forces to focus on even more relevant skills.

Master classes

Combining another master class with Collector is a good idea in general, but I honestly think that combining Collector and Alchemist is a bad idea. See details below.

Blacksmith

Picking Blacksmith/Collector creates the most powerful support character. You'll certainly need robe armor, to make the Blacksmith part relevant with enough mana. In fact you can find all important items in quests and then you can even craft them yourself. The disadvantage is, that Blacksmith does not offer a very fast XP gain. Leveling up can be hard. And your true relevance as player only appears with L70+ and the skill Quality Craft at L5 or higher.You'll also need a guild that is active in alliances, to provide the forge buff regularly. For a high level Blacksmith, picking Collector as first /mem is an excellent idea, to self-enforce the amount of crafts that can be done and in general support a guild in every possible way with crafts or parts and recipes.

Alchemist

Combining Alchemist and Collector has a very big problem: Harvest skill and Collection skill interfere with each other. If you skill both to a high level, you'll only get herbs in quests and the high level Collection skill is completely ignored and overwritten by Harvest. It is not possible to get quest results with a high amount of herbs due to Harvest AND high amount of normal resources due to Collection. Harvest kills Collection. This also means, that all potential loot slots for parts and recipes will be overwritten by herb drops.

Okay, you could combine the classes to use the high Weapon Mastery Skill to get higher attack values as Collector. But the base mastery would still be Blunt Mastery, not the much stronger Bow or Sword Mastery. The overall stats gained will not be very OP.

Additionally, you could want to equip combat potions in your off-hand, due to them giving lots of stats. But that runs into the same problem mentioned above: you'll need herbs to brew the combat potions, but that would overwrite the loot gained from Collection.

Honestly: I don't really see any valuable synergy between those two classes. As long as the skills kill each other, the usage is very limited.

/mem classes overview and rating

The following table shows my personal rating of combining any other class with collector.

Class	Difficulty	Advantages	Difficulties	Suitability
Ranger	High	* around 30% more loot * super fast leveling * significantly higher attack or defense stats when using a bow	* very challenging to keep up with all the stamina on higher levels * "Aiming" interferes with "Power Napping" bonus. Always a choice between full battle stats or getting the stamina regeneration bonus	for very active players, preferably with a decent stamina cap (10+)
Knight	Medium	* Decent XP gain when holding pledges * being relevant in battles due to high attack stats * very good chances to get top rankings in arena (/top5) due to using a real off hand weapon which gives bonus attacks in arena fights * no need to keep track of ammo	*possibly frustrating battle reports when starting to compare with Knight/Alchs or Knight/Rangers * needing to keep pledges * not many skill points left over to skill QoL things like "Broker" or "Labeling" (helping with inventory management) * Synergy effects with "Off-Hand mastery" and "Dagger mastery" when using daggers	for semi-active players with a preference to attack
Sentinel	Low	* average level up times * decent defensive stats * synergy with "Off-Hand mastery" when using a shield (more defense) ** very good chances to get top rankings in arena (/top5) due to using a real off hand weapon which gives bonus attacks in arena fights * Will always have available resources to give to the trader. <+r> * Trader cleans inventory and gives good gold and XP	* not many synergy effects between thee two classes * will never reach defensive stats of Sentinel/Alchs or Sentinel/Rangers * not enough SP to skill all relevant skills * even such problems with SP management, that some other nice to have skills have to be unskilled (Broker, Labeling, Tactics, Shield Mastery...) * shield mastery very weak and almost useless after L50	for less active-players with a preference to defend
Blacksmith	Low to Medium	* Perfect guild supporter * all-round talent * can act very independently * e.g. can self-supply for crafts as guru on high levels	* Leveling is rather slow * Daily bonus of BS-class (Educated Technician 10 ) overwrites ET-daily craft bonus from collector (Educated Technician 2). These bonus XP are lost	for semi-active players who want to support a guild in various ways with crafting or parts/recipe supply
Alchemist	Low to Medium	* Weapon mastery can be used in combination with Blunt mastery to increase attack stats * Potion crafting gives independent extra XP very day	* Collection and Alchemy skill kill each other. Alchemy overwrites loot drop slots with herbs. * won't find part and recipes due to Perception being tied to Collection (which gets canceled by Harvest)	for an alchemist who wants to level up faster than his pure class and is not interested in resource/part/recipe drops

Advanced Skills

In this section I want to discuss the usage of the advanced Collector skills, eventually in combination with certain /mem classes.

Picky Eater

Picky Eater is typically considered to be a useless skill, but I disagree with this. Using Picky Eater lets you select resources to reject. Rejecting a resource means you will not get this resource in quests anymore and any potential drop could be rerolled instead for other loot drops. This means that instead of a rejected resource, you obtain a different resource. By selecting common resources on Picky Eater you get a lot of rerolls that can get you more valuable resources, or even parts and recipes.

Level	Number of rejectable resources	Player level unlock
1	2	50
2	2	55
3	3	60
4	3	65
5	4	70
6	4	75

Leveling up Picky Eater allows you to reject more types of resources and also increases the chance to reroll. Using Picky Eater to obtain more expensive loot pays itself back quickly!

Summary: I highly advise to use this skill. It not only helps with the permanently full inventory, it literally gives more parts and recipes. Pays off!

Collector's Sense

Collector's Sense allows you to steal items in castle battles, which are normally not being able to be looted (scrolls, potions, parts and recipes). But using /use_crl won't steal the items for yourself normally (rarely it happens for yourself), but mostly the stolen items will go to other attackers on the same target, like guild members or even complete strangers. Example battle report:

🐺🦎[FTW]GrumpyGecko ⚔️:576 🛡:421 Lvl: 69
Your result on the battlefield:
🔥Exp: 700
💰Gold: 40
📦Stock: 19
❤️Hp: -244
🏅Enraged collector
You helped Zakery Bloomwood to find Bottle of Peace hidden by Fenrir

I consider this skill not really useful. First of all, it's completely useless if you play alliance and secondly it is really not reliable. You can't control what's stolen, the loot doesn't even go to yourself etc.Yes, rarely there is a bit of luck involved and highly valuable parts get stolen or T5 scrolls. But most players hide their stuff in guilds by now, so that is really super rare. Waiting for it is pointless.

It's a trap (For Collector/Ranger players)

Trapping players with regular traps is not worth the gold investment to buy the traps. But skilling It's a Trap higher -- at least to L3 -- gives access to buy other items. And one of them is very interesting:

/use_trp_tow

Crafted: Observer ward x1

Equipping an Observer Ward in you Off Hand slot, works basically like regular traps. Going to quest with it can set up the Observer Ward. But instead of players from enemy castles triggering it, the Observer Ward will be triggered by a questing player of the same castle. If the Ward is triggered, the player who set it up gets a buff for 30min which increases the chance for encounters after quests. AKA: Go questing with the buff again, finish all encounters and enjoy all the bonus XP you get from it. Investing the gold to buy the Observer Ward in the first place pays off once you gain decently more XP in the following quests. Also: you don't need to equip an Observer Ward in every quest. Equip it once, wait for it to trigger, then go questing like you'd normally do. The buff will stay and there is no need to refrest the buff by setting up another ward directly after the first one.

Acknowledgements

Thank you for helping me write this article: @Lynnsane, @SwaSyx, @dagger_Mike, @GeniusStupid, @LCShotz, @crajk, @MMaireke, @SmtgheCk, @Orangenherz