[Imbuing] imbuing advice and two questions

[dupapa]

Questions to the craft Guru's

Firstly as i know Basara you will read this, MANY thanks for all the VERY detailed information you have contributed to this particular section of the forums, altho the char im logged in very rarely speaks on the forums, and also is quite "new" (i lost access to an old stratics account) i have used and trusted your advise for years, so again many thanks,

to all gurus: i have a request for some advice detailed below. an few questions to follow as there is one bit of information i dont seem to be able to find an answer to. (there may be a couple of little questions posed in brackets,) then finally again a little template advice.

i will admit this will be a long post but i want to explain my situation fully...

im following the imbuing guide, making helms then imbuing with luck, (im only 85.6 imbuing). no problems there...

now onto the problem; im noticing already that the main ingrediant is citrine, and boy is it going fast.. currently to source gems im filling smith bods, getting pof's selling the pof's then buying citrine from npc jewlers, now this gets expensive fast.. example this morning i paid 104,000 for 1000 citrine, so ten pof's 150k ish doesnt pay for much..when getting 10 pofs are a chore, (im new to bods so its still "fun" to a degree....)

onto the bit i need advice,

ive got four options as i see it accuiring gems which ill list further down. Please look first at the numbered list below and bear them in mind, ill list what is most valuable to me in terms of commitment to uo. hopefully this will get me more acute answers.

my action by value when playing uo;

1)time spent, important, RL is busy, so.. the smaller the better
2)in game cost, usually less time spent = more money, so on this im happy to comprimise if the argument is sound*. I have 1 mill budjet to spend (ive played since 2002, and still have only amased about 20 mill total, with now my max sat idle at 6-7 mill, this is how ive come to 1 mill spare.
3)difficulty of suggested method, no issues here, i enjoy challenges if the reward pays off,

*at Max ill push to 1.5mill

so.. finally... onto the questions, which do you think is the best method to amas gems?

1) hunt monsters, shame level 1 for example, as earth eles give good gem loot
2) continue to buy from jewlers as i currently am
3) gypsey camps (never seen one, no idea how to find them, but see the guide suggest them)
4)use my smith and collect gems when mining (i currently mine in felucca for greater gain on ore, are gems doubled in felucca as well?)

what would you gurus pick out of those scenarios? you can add things i havent listed, infact i welcome that

onto the question...

now ive noticed that if i craft a normal iron execptional helm and imbue, at my current level i need (i think) 4 citrine, and 2 residue ? thats imbuing 49 luck if i remember correct,

now if i craft the same item but in gold ingots, i can inbue 26 luck for the same % success chance (around 50%) but now im only using 1 residue and 1 citrine!

does this in anyway negativly affect gains?

i reason i started doing this is i currently have about 5k gold ingots, but as i rarely craft its not such a loss to me im using them.

so to sum up, if im happy to loose the gold ingots, is this method just as good? my knowledge of the game i cant think of any downsides,

second question,

found that hunting for residue was getting tireing and boring to do, currently im crafting exec dull copper daggers, making 100 at a time, then unraveling (the whole container at once) this gives me about 260 residue back,

is this method the most efficent? its the best ive found?

i also heard a rumour that if i unravel them piece by piece i get more residue, 3 per dagger? is this true,

Again SORRY this was such a long post,

Many thanks in advance

Ben

[edit]
my char is human, uses a soul forge in his house as has no loyality to queen, (does queen forge really make any diff to training? i see not, so plan was to get loyality when i get 100+ imbuing

skills,
120 smith
100 mine
100 arms lore
65 focus <- cant remember why this is on this char?
70 magery !!97 with some rings i imbued!! <- first imbue's so yes im excited lol
85 imbueing (will be 120) <- still trying to work out what support skills if any are needed
73 tinker (going to use gems, as now imbuing on template its getting tight, i only use for smith hammers)

just stoned gm hiding off char, no idea why it was on there, question, is this template a viable one?

 

[Percivalgoh]

My thoughts are unless you want to spend a very long time learning imbuing buy the gems. Check the prices everywhere somewhere they will be cheaper especially the gypsies although I prefer not spending the time to look for them. You can get gems in chests from sos, treasure chests, dungeon or brigand/gypsy chests. There is a vet reward "the miners cart" which can also be set to a "gem cart". If you bought a slew of those it would help but may cost some real cash.

I think you will regret using dull copper ingots to make residue which is so easily available from other loot sources. I can get about fifty to a hundred or so residue from the loot in a low level treasure chest or sos. You can also get residue from doing green thorns (vorpal bunnies). I think also you will regret using gold ingots for training. You will regret using those ingots if you do BODs siince if you think getting gems is hard, getting ingots is going to drive you crazy. I had a bunch of oak wood and made bokutos or bows or something like that for residue and never regretted it.

Unraveling one by one doesn't increase gains.

 

[CorwinXX]

Have you any other chars?

It took me 550k for gems to get from 68 to 119.

 

[Barry Gibb]

If you are going to hunt monsters for gems, Gargoyles are a better source (1-4 each). They have more gems than earth elementals are a bit weaker, unless they changed it with the Shame update). Although much tougher, other good sources for gems (at least for me) are White Wyrms (qyt: 1, 3, or 5), Dragons (qty 8) or Greater Dragons (qty 16).

You are probably better off buying them though, since time is more of a factor. You can buy them from NPCs in higher quantity (500) with less effort.

For collecting Magic Residue, I found it easier to hunt monsters and dry loot them, than to burn up collected resources. You want to find monsters that have alot of junk, it's all about quantity. When I hunt, I bring along a container (one that is easy to see in my pack) and fill it with all the loot from my kills. Once it is full, recall to a public forge (or Queen's Forge, anyone can unravel, regardless of loyalty) to unravel the container. If you have a more combat capable character, he can recall to your home and drop off the box of junk and grab an empty box to continue hunting. I prefer hunting Toxic Sliths, but they can be tough since they are fast and very poisonous. However, they can be dropped relatively easily with just Bladespirits (and give loyalty to the queen). You can also buy residue from other players, but don't pay too much (it is easy to get). Treasure Maps and SOS Chest are also good sources for future magical residue.

EDIT: Which shard do you play on, if LS let me know.

Stayin Alive,

BG

 

[Percivalgoh]

One other way to get gems is doing gargoyles pickaxes and killing the spawned ore elementals. That is a particular weakness of your template as you won't be able to deal with some of the ore elementals with just magery or so I have heard. Shadows are quick to kill for a mele weapon weilding person but immune to pets and magic. This way of mining you get the gems and ore from mining and then more from the ore elementals and if you do it in Ter Mur then you get crystaline blackrock too.

 

[Gorbs]

I'd side with BG here.

1) Kill toxic sliths and loot their gold and magic items. Unravel the items.
2) Repeat #1 until you have the highest loyalty to gargoyle queen
3) Kill something more lucrative. You can farm boatloads of gold at miasma or in the painted caves. Alternately, you could farm white wyrms or dragons.
4) Use the gold accumulated in #1-3 to buy additional amber and citrines. Gypsy camps in Ilsh will be the cheapest way to obtain the gems. You have to decide how much running and hoping the gypsy camp spawned the gem vendor you can handle. Note that the permanent gypsy camp also has a vendor, but it behaves like the normal gem vendors in Fel/Trammel.
5) Use the training methods in the data chest forum to get 120 imbuing

 

[Basara]

Note also that the normal & toxic sliths also have quests for them that include some of the ingredients & gems as rewards (residue for normal slith, essence for the toxic slith).

Remember that 500 essence and a scroll binder is a lot cheaper for a 120 PS than 50 relic fragments, as well.