Fishing vs Treasure Hunting

[Pale_enchantress]

New player here. Find the game smusing and will be getting high seas and time of legends soon. I notice already a lot of people in my hiold will tag along on anything just for fun so I am really intetrsted in one of the two loot hunters that do their work outside dungeons. This is who i intend to be my main. Not a side character a pull out once and while to do a treasure map or two.

1 - Fiest question is just something I need clarified. I heard mining used to expand how many tiles you could successfully dig up a treasure but that was removed. Understood but foes that mean the mining benefit was removed a d now its all exsct time only, or that it was made baseline and now all figging works in a four tile range?

2 - So for my main question is how is the difficulty and profit difference between high end fishing and high end treasure hunting with cartography?

3 - The cartography method claims 3 of your skill slots, and fishing just needs fishing right? That gives a sea witch a significant build advantage. Are locked treasure chests from fishing based treasure hunting a frequent enough occurrence that id provides want lockpicking anyway?

4- Do either of these professions tend to lead to people fighting over "spawn points"? Do either of them require going to Felucia to get the big prizes? One of the biggest draws to chosing these professions for my is avoiding those problems.

5 - Ive seen guild do cartography style hunts. The t hunter gets the full chest and everyone else gets the spawn and rather likes that system. Does fishing have a place for friends to enjoy tagging along? Can they still go with me if they dont have the high seas expansion?

And finally any general advice that might help me chose which is appreciated. Thank you so much everyone.

 

[Chrille]

3 To be able to treasure hunt you only really need cartography, rest is optional. Remove trap can be 0 just a longer wait time and higher damage taken if you dont wait. Lockpicking can be 0 you will get a grubber stealing something and then also unlock the chest, or magery spell unlock works up to cache chest it doesnt work on hoard and trove.

 

[Basara]

New player here. Find the game smusing and will be getting high seas and time of legends soon. I notice already a lot of people in my hiold will tag along on anything just for fun so I am really intetrsted in one of the two loot hunters that do their work outside dungeons. This is who i intend to be my main. Not a side character a pull out once and while to do a treasure map or two.

1 - Fiest question is just something I need clarified. I heard mining used to expand how many tiles you could successfully dig up a treasure but that was removed. Understood but foes that mean the mining benefit was removed a d now its all exsct time only, or that it was made baseline and now all figging works in a four tile range?

The former mining bonus is now built into Cartography.

2 - So for my main question is how is the difficulty and profit difference between high end fishing and high end treasure hunting with cartography?

T-hunting is more difficult due to the spawn, but is also far more profitable, at least in terms of gold.

3 - The cartography method claims 3 of your skill slots, and fishing just needs fishing right? That gives a sea witch a significant build advantage. Are locked treasure chests from fishing based treasure hunting a frequent enough occurrence that id provides want lockpicking anyway?

You sound totally confused here.

SOS technically don't require fishing except to get the MIBs to open.
Treasure hunting is a little more complicated, BUT... Cartography is really the ONLY required skill, for 3 of the map types.

• Points in Remove Trap only serve to reduce the amount of spawn time during the "remove trap" phase. You can use it at 0 skill to remove the trap, but the "spawn timer" will run the maximum possible time with spawn. So, while it's USED, no points are actually required to use it. Theoretically, as the timer starts when the chest is dug up, you could wait out the timer prior to triggering the "remove trap" part of the sequence, and get no spawn, or maybe just one ancient spawn.
• If the Treasure Hunter has GM Magery, they need to only use Lockpicking on Hoard and Trove maps. The Unlock spell at 100 magery (even with most of the skill coming from items) will unlock Stash, Supply, and Cache maps.

So, if you only do the treasure maps equal to regular (not Ancient) SOS, you ONLY need the Cartography skill and GM magery.

4- Do either of these professions tend to lead to people fighting over "spawn points"? Do either of them require going to Felucia to get the big prizes? One of the biggest draws to chosing these professions for my is avoiding those problems.

The spawn points are totally random. As a result, there is actually nothing to fight over. As for Fel concerns...

• SOS can be done in either Trammel or Felucca, so you don't have to go to Fel unless you want, or get a rare map that is in the area that is still ocean in Fel, but was replaced by the Underworld entrance volcano on Fire Island. There might be a slight boost to the random loot in Fel.
• Treasure maps are facet-specific (and most map drops outside Ilshenar, with a few exceptions, will be for the facet they are gotten in). The only difference between them, is that you might get 105 & 110 PS from some Fel maps, and there is a minor luck boost for generating the loot. Unless you get a map with the dig spot near a Felucca PVP hot spot (Yew Gate, for example) or in a high-traffic area (residential areas like near Yew, around Britain, or the Compassion crossroads), you probably won't have any difficulty. In fact, you're probably more likely to die from a Tokuno map (and the huge amount of deadly local creatures), than a Fel map.

5 - Ive seen guild do cartography style hunts. The t hunter gets the full chest and everyone else gets the spawn and rather likes that system. Does fishing have a place for friends to enjoy tagging along? Can they still go with me if they dont have the high seas expansion?

There's not really much of an equivalent, as the SOS have NO spawn (except for occasionally fishing up a sea serpent while trying to bring up a chest). However, if the SOS is in a high-spawn area (the sea between Jhelom and Serpent's Hold, for example), you might want to take friends along to shoot at the occasional serpent, water ele or kraken. While you need High Seas to fight the pirates, beacons, etc. and to use the new ships, you could always have the non-High Seas people travel along on another old-style boat to fight the sea monsters (especially if they need to do the Zipactriotl quest, which has an SOS as part of the chain). Truthfully, High Seas is worth getting just for the home storage upgrade that comes with it.

And finally any general advice that might help me chose which is appreciated. Thank you so much everyone.
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[Pale_enchantress]

You have all cleared it up very nicely. Thank you

 

[Dizzy]

Lockpicking can be 0 you will get a grubber stealing something and then also unlock the chest

What? That's not right, is it?

 

[Maldar]

What? That's not right, is it?

Yup, that's right. The Grubber leaves the chest unlocked as it tries to run off with a random piece of treasure from the chest.

 

[Dizzy]

I knew that part, but I thought you needed a minimum amount of lockpicking to attempt the chest...

 

[Dizzy]

I just tried setting lockpicking to 0 and attempting a hoard map. After 100 attempts, no grubber. I set skill point up and gained like crazy which gives me a strategy for raising lockpicking though.

So I conclude at least some minimum skill is required to spawn the grubber.

Edit: My bad. I just realized you were talking about Cache and below.