How do you get more potency rune stones?

TicToc · February 2015

Today I decided to pickup enchanting again, and clean out some of the hundreds of rune stones that I have collected. However, it didn't take me long to figure out why I had abandoned it so many months ago. Yes, I have hundreds of runes stones, but the vast majority of them are Essence runes. While not nearly as plentiful, I still have a decent number of aspect runes. My HUGE problem is that of all the runes I had, only a small fraction were potency runes. Not enough to do any kind of meaningful leveling. How can the ratio of rune types be so lopsided. How does anyone level this profession when it is like this?

I am more than willing to accept that I must be doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what it is. none of the guides that I have read even mention this unbalance. What am I doing wrong? How can I get more potency runes so that I can actually level this profession?

Inco · February 2015

Couple ways to do this.

First ask folks in your Guild(s) if they have any to sell. Some are easier to find than others.
Second is check out the Guild Store and see if anyone has BULK to sell.
Third is to pop around the countryside to various Guild Stores and search each one (Sorry it's slow process, but works).

Finally, you can run around and collect more depending on what level of crafting you have. I suggest you do this at night when they light up the front/back of each runestone. You can usually tell from a distance the COLOR of that stone and focus on getting just the purple potency you need.

If you like these suggestions... heck please click "Insightful, Agree, Awesome" if this helps.

TicToc · February 2015

Running around collecting more is not an issue. I grab all that I find, which is why I have hundreds of runes. The problem is that very few of them are potency runes. I will continue collecting runes, but the ratio is so out of balance that I will still be adding far more of other runes than the potency ones.

One of my first thoughts was to check stores, but many only have a few high level ones, that were very expensive, and even the few lower ones that I found were pretty pricey. More than any glyph that I could make with them would be worth, and not practical for leveling. I assume that everyone is looking for them, so the price is high.

I was hoping that there was some trick to getting the potency runes, because it seems ridiculous to me that they would set up a system that requires one of each type of rune, yet have the ratios you find them in at something like 1:20:50.

I think that I will just Collect potency and aspect runes for now and ignore all the essence ones, for now. I have wasted a lot of time collecting those and I can't even use them. Maybe, eventually, I will have enough of the other runes to make an attempt to level enchanting, but I will forget about it for now.

Woolenthreads · February 2015

I semi-"gave up" because I ran into the issue of upgrading past what I could reasonably collect to do a writ every day (<L50 needing Vet potency runes). when I was doing writs, they came back with maps often enough to get half the potency runes I needed. That was enough that I wasn't forced to go potency hunting more than once or twice a week.

# Edit: I stopped the activity of running around for several hours hunting for a potency rune and switched to purchasing a relevant glyph and breaking them down to find the potency rune needed for the writ. Money was easier to get than potency runes.

PatchMax · February 2015

I've not seen this problem myself (I tend to farm in Craglorn), but here's a theory:

Many people ignore the essence nodes looking for potency and, particularly, aspect nodes (hoping to find Kuta). So the essence nodes stay as they are, while the others respawn as essence or potency or aspect.

Again, those that respawn as essence nodes get ignored. Over time, then, you get more and more essence nodes and less and less of the others.

A way round this is to find a quiet time or a less busy area and harvest all runestones, then go back and redo the same route a little later. Chances are some of those essence nodes now respawned as potency nodes.

Also, while the basic essence runes aren't that exciting, some of the rarer ones like Taderi/Kaderi/Makderi fetch quite good prices in guild stores.

Ourorboros · February 2015

PatchMax wrote: »

I've not seen this problem myself (I tend to farm in Craglorn), but here's a theory:

Many people ignore the essence nodes looking for potency and, particularly, aspect nodes (hoping to find Kuta). So the essence nodes stay as they are, while the others respawn as essence or potency or aspect.

Again, those that respawn as essence nodes get ignored. Over time, then, you get more and more essence nodes and less and less of the others.

A way round this is to find a quiet time or a less busy area and harvest all runestones, then go back and redo the same route a little later. Chances are some of those essence nodes now respawned as potency nodes.

Also, while the basic essence runes aren't that exciting, some of the rarer ones like Taderi/Kaderi/Makderi fetch quite good prices in guild stores.

Good advice here.^^^
Don't ignore the essence runes when you farm, or you limit your chance of spawning more potency runes. Oko Maoko and Deni are very common essence runes, along with Ta. Take advantage of this by making armor glyphs and selling them for cheap. I sell a lot of these. It will give you ISP and generate some gold that can be used to buy more potency runes. Also, be sure you are using HarvestMap add-on so you can farm runes more effectively.

ThePonzzz · February 2015

I gave up on enchanting in July. I picked it back up after the crafting writs were released. At the time I was around 13 in enchanting. Slowly doing this and decon anything I find... I should actually hit 50 today. I do my writs every day I can, which is close to 7 days a week. Slow, sure, but I'll be done finally.

Sharee · February 2015

TicToc wrote: »

How can the ratio of rune types be so lopsided.

Because there are so many types of essence runes. If there was only one type of essence rune, then it would make sense to spawn them at a 1:1 ratio.

But if there are, say, 10 types of essence runes, and essence runes are not more plentiful in the world, then it would be hell trying to farm 8 of the same essence rune when only 1 in 3 nodes in the world is an essence one, and there is only 1 in 10 chance to get what you want from that node.

The more types of essence runes, the higher their ratio in the world needs to be to keep things balanced.

Nazon_Katts · February 2015

I'd strongly suggest deconstructing glyphs, rather than gathering runes. The only really good spots to reliably gather runes and potency runes in particular are the starter islands and their VR incarnations, so this won't help that much if your looking for anything beyond level 10 or VR3.

Mobs that drop glyphs are more reliably found in any level bracket and can be farmed. Humanoids and magical creatures seem to be best. White glyphs drops usually are sold on guild stores, even crafted ones can be bought for not all too much gold.

Your best bet remains the crafting buddy, with whom you can trade glyphs and deconstruct them. But to get there, you'll need a couple of potency runes of course. Which you can get from the above mentioned bought or farmed glyphs.

While leveling Enchanting, don't be afraid to use all of your aspect runes, even Kutas, if you can trade them with your crafting buddy.

TicToc · February 2015

Sharee wrote: »

TicToc wrote: »

How can the ratio of rune types be so lopsided.

Because there are so many types of essence runes. If there was only one type of essence rune, then it would make sense to spawn them at a 1:1 ratio.

There are multiple types of potency runes too. And while there are more types of essence runes, they are completely useless without proper numbers of the other two runes, so the ratio definitely needs to be a lot closer than it has been for me.

Yesterday when I wrote this I had 1 potency rune (I found a few more last night), about 40-50 aspect runes (mostly Ta), and a few hundred essence runes. That is not even close to a proper balance.

PatchMax wrote: »

I've not seen this problem myself (I tend to farm in Craglorn), but here's a theory:

Many people ignore the essence nodes looking for potency and, particularly, aspect nodes (hoping to find Kuta). So the essence nodes stay as they are, while the others respawn as essence or potency or aspect.

Again, those that respawn as essence nodes get ignored. Over time, then, you get more and more essence nodes and less and less of the others.

A way round this is to find a quiet time or a less busy area and harvest all runestones, then go back and redo the same route a little later. Chances are some of those essence nodes now respawned as potency nodes.

Also, while the basic essence runes aren't that exciting, some of the rarer ones like Taderi/Kaderi/Makderi fetch quite good prices in guild stores.

OK That's a darn good theory. That could explain it. And if I start ignoring all the essence nodes I would just be contributing to the problem, so I'll keep collecting those too, and hopefully try to get a little balance back in the world.

Nazon_Katts wrote: »

I'd strongly suggest deconstructing glyphs, rather than gathering runes.....

....Your best bet remains the crafting buddy, with whom you can trade glyphs and deconstruct them.

Yeah. I deconstruct glyphs, so some of the runes that I have came from that. Unfortunately I have also destroyed quite a few to make room in my inventory. They don't give much experience, and I was collecting tons of runes so I figured that they weren't that important. At the time I didn't realize how few of them were potency runes. Now I am keeping them all to break down.

I would not mind finding a crafting buddy to trade with. Might be hard since a lot of the people that want to level enchanting have probably already done it. Maybe there will be an influx of new people next month, though. Hopefully, I will have a decent amount of all types of runes by then.

Well, I am beginning to feel a little better about this. i just need to find some good spots where there are a good amount of runes nodes and collect them all. Hopefully that will spawn a nice balanced batch for the next time around.

Thanks all.

Sharee · February 2015

TicToc wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

TicToc wrote: »

How can the ratio of rune types be so lopsided.

Because there are so many types of essence runes. If there was only one type of essence rune, then it would make sense to spawn them at a 1:1 ratio.

There are multiple types of potency runes too. And while there are more types of essence runes, they are completely useless without proper numbers of the other two runes, so the ratio definitely needs to be a lot closer than it has been for me.

You can create any type of glyph with just one type of potency rune. But to create any type of glyph, you need 17 different essence runes.

If potency, essence and aspect runes were in the world at 1:1:1 ratio, then trying to craft a stamina glyph, statistically you would need to find 3 nodes to find a potency rune, 6 to find the correct(positive) aspect rune, and 51(!) nodes to find the Deni essence rune. The reason why there are so many essence nodes is to make up for this fact.

TicToc · February 2015

Sharee wrote: »

You can create any type of glyph with just one type of potency rune. But to create any type of glyph, you need 17 different essence runes.

If potency, essence and aspect runes were in the world at 1:1:1 ratio, then trying to craft a stamina glyph, statistically you would need to find 3 nodes to find a potency rune, 6 to find the correct(positive) aspect rune, and 51(!) nodes to find the Deni essence rune. The reason why there are so many essence nodes is to make up for this fact.

I never said that the ratio should be 1:1:1, just not so lopsided as it is. As I pointed out, my ratio is more like 40:1:300, which is ridiculous.

I think that you have aspect and potency backwards. Potency is the one that gives the additive/subtractive options, so it should be the one in the middle in quantity. You only need one aspect rune.

Your example is not really relevant, though, other than to show an extreme example of someone that only wants to create one type of rune, ever. You don't need 17 to create a glyph, you only need one. If they spawned at a 1:2:17 ratio you would, on average, have to collect from 20 nodes to make a single glyph. That would be ridiculous. It would sure make leveling the profession a nightmare.

You don't need 17 essence for every 1 aspect. Someone may prefer frost damage, but they can make due with fire, poison, shock, or penetrating damage until they find the rune they want. However, if, however, they are missing one of the other two runes, they can't make any glyphs, at all.

I have hundreds of runes, but with only one potency rune I can only create a single glyph. I'm not even sure if it is additive or subtractive. That just isn't a proper balance, but from other comments I think i now understand why that is.

Nazon_Katts · February 2015

Try buying glyphs low, deconstruct, sell self-made glyphs slightly higher. Check trade guilds, those with many glyphs for sale probably have a few folks leveling enchanting in them.

Sharee · February 2015

TicToc wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

You can create any type of glyph with just one type of potency rune. But to create any type of glyph, you need 17 different essence runes.

If potency, essence and aspect runes were in the world at 1:1:1 ratio, then trying to craft a stamina glyph, statistically you would need to find 3 nodes to find a potency rune, 6 to find the correct(positive) aspect rune, and 51(!) nodes to find the Deni essence rune. The reason why there are so many essence nodes is to make up for this fact.

I never said that the ratio should be 1:1:1, just not so lopsided as it is. As I pointed out, my ratio is more like 40:1:300, which is ridiculous

I just checked my inventory. I contains all the runes i picked up since game release, minus those that i used in crafting, but they still give a rough idea what the actual ratio is that the runes appear in the world at.

I have 1013 blue runes, 1888 green runes, and 779 red runes. That comes out to a ratio of 1 red to 1.3 blue to 2.42 green. So nowhere near the 1:40:300 you are reporting.

(These numbers are slightly biased, because when i am not actively harvesting resources, i am more likely to get off my horse to pick up a red rune than a green one, but the actual ratio shoud not be more lopsided than 1 : 2-3 : 3-4 or so)

TicToc · February 2015

Sharee wrote: »

I just checked my inventory. I contains all the runes i picked up since game release, minus those that i used in crafting, but they still give a rough idea what the actual ratio is that the runes appear in the world at.

I have 1013 blue runes, 1888 green runes, and 779 red runes. That comes out to a ratio of 1 red to 1.3 blue to 2.42 green. So nowhere near the 1:40:300 you are reporting.

Yeah. Someone already came up with a theory of why I was seeing a worse ratio, and I think that it was probably accurate.

Many people do what I had intended to do, ignore the essence runes and only collect the other two. Eventually that leads to an imbalance because more and more essence runes are appearing in the nodes, because they are not getting harvested. Obviously this would be worse in the high traffic areas. And since I was just harvesting from one quest to another, with slight sidetracks, I was probably running through high traffic areas, where that kind of thing was a regular occurrence.

From now on I will spend more time in out of the way areas that have a good amount of nodes and farm them all to get a normal ratio back and then keep running the circuit.

Nazon_Katts wrote: »

Try buying glyphs low, deconstruct, sell self-made glyphs slightly higher. Check trade guilds, those with many glyphs for sale probably have a few folks leveling enchanting in them.

Yeah. i need to do something because creating glyphs gives very little XP. I have bought a few from stores, but most I find for sale are not player made, and some are highly over priced. It could be that other people have just been getting to the decently priced ones before me, so i will just keep checking for them on a regular basis.

Thanks again, all. I do feel much better about the future of my enchanting.

Nestor · February 2015

TicToc wrote: »

My HUGE problem is that of all the runes I had, only a small fraction were potency runes. Not enough to do any kind of meaningful leveling.

One would think that Aspect Stones would be the rare ones....

Yep, Potency Runes are what always trips me up. Farming the Nodes can only get you so far, and you have to farm the nodes in the zones that are at the level you want to make glyphs for to get the Potencies you need. However I have found a way to be swimming in them, farm public dungeons and delves that have Undead or Deadra, they drop the Glyphs. You get a nice Inspiration amount from deconning these things, and if you have the Extraction passives you get a good supply of potencies from the decon.

P3ZZL3 · February 2015

I have 1013 blue runes, 1888 green runes, and 779 red runes

I have 1013 blue runes, 1888 green runes, and 770 TA's and 9 red runes...

Fixed