Dudis wrote: »

Do I have to level an alt to farm the proper tier materials or is there a better way?

Leveling an alt is one way to gather the low level mats you missed on the way up. Or as SirAndy said, you can gather in higher zones with a little help from friends.

The hardest push is between Provisioning 10 and 20. (Unless you happen to find one of the rare 10-15 recipes.) Once past 20 its a breeze to 50.

You can also find lots of lower level mats at the Guild Kiosks without spending a fortune.

Assuming you have been learning the recipes you have found as you played through with your veteran level character, provisioning is dead simple to level ... and even if you haven't you can purchase the recipes you need from a guild vendor anyway. I leveled my VR3 character from Provisioning rank 8 up to 50 in about 2 hours.

All you need to do is pick a recipe from each level, buy stacks of the ingredients from guild vendors and NPC grocers and crank out food or drinks until you hit the next recipe tier. Once you hit the next tier, put a skill point in recipe improvement and then rinse and repeat with a recipe from the next tier up. Rinse and repeat until you hit level 50, then you can start worrying about putting skill points into recipe quality, and the other passives from the provisioning line.

And yes, tomatoes and oats are that rare. Same with, to a lesser extent, piquant jazbay grapes and some of the other purple level recipe ingredients.

I leveled 6 alts over the weekend and sold a Level 1-50 Provisioning Kit for 10K using the math I got from my Alts. Luckily I have maintained several low-level crafting Alts.

Also my most lucrative harvest locations are the docks and ships. In some areas I could gather all required mats in about 3~4 runs of the dock and attached ships. There is also a very distinct line it seems between mat leveled zones. Sometimes the break for one level is the most northern area of a zone versus the first area of the next zone.

If anyone needs the math here it is:

KEY:
Recipe Level/Recipe Quality-Recipe Improvement/IP per food or drink/Number to make

Add one skill point in Recipe Improvement after each 10 skill levels gained.

PROVISIONING.....L2>L20..........427,785 IP Total

L1 Recipe..........1-1..........600 IP..........713
L5 Recipe..........1-1............3K IP..........143
L10 Recipe........1-1............6K IP............72
L15 Recipe........1-1............9K IP............48

PROVISIONING.....L21>L30.........575270 IP Total

L20 Recipe........1-2...........12K IP...........48
L25 Recipe........1-2...........15K IP...........39

PROVISIONING.....L31>L40..........959,080 IP Total

L30 Recipe........1-3...........18K IP...........54
L35 Recipe........1-3...........21K IP...........46

PROVISIONING.....L41>L48...........1,293,680 IP Total

L40 Recipe........1-4............24K IP...........54
L45 Recipe........1-4............27K IP...........48

PROVISIONING......L49>L50...........412,080 IP Total

L45 Recipe........1-4............27K IP...........16


Notice that you can't make a L50 recipe until you are already L50 in provisioning so don't waste time buying them until you reach L50. Also I didn't get any more IP from BLUE recipes of the same level. It appears only the base level counts for IP. And of course you only need points in Recipe Improvement to level, none are needed in Quality until you need to make Blue and Purple recipes for use or sale.

Yes the key is finding those L15 recipes.
And also with the Multicraft Addon that has a quantity slider it will only take 4 mouse clicks with the right recipes.

Hope any of this helps. I should probably post in the Player Guides as well.

Sorry I missed you. After doing mine I had enough leftovers to build a kit and sold it. I was trying for another kit but I couldn't find any of the L15 recipes anywhere.

And I just couldn't bear opening any more barrels or sacks Sunday night.