Rare alchemical ingredients

BXR_Lonestar · January 20

There needs to be a more efficient way to farm ingredients in ESO. Specifically, I'm looking at Chaurus eggs, but really, you could pick any number of rare ingredients - Dragon's blood, Dragon Rheum, Mother of Pearl, Clam Gall, Mudchrab chitlens (I know they're Chitins), etc. I know some of these are intentionally rare, but some are ridiculously rare. The dragon ingredients are easier to target than some of these other ones listed, especially the one I'm looking to farm - Chaurus eggs.

Theres only a few places in the game where Chaurus even spawn, and they have such a small chance to drop an egg that in a couple of hours trying to dedicate to farm these, I got a wopping 3 eggs. That is a really poor return on investment. I've resigned myself to playing in IC to collect fragments and telvar, but it is absolutely ridiculous how low the droprate is when you take into account how few chaurus there are in the games (the big ones seem to be the only ones that drop them).

It would be nice if we had a champion point perk or an armor set (or perhaps both) that increased your odds of getting rare alchemical ingredients off of monsters killed or out of alchemical satchels and heavy sacks so you can focus farm what you want/need.

Orbital78 · January 20

Chaurus do seem oddly rare, though my demand for them is lower. I think I got the majority of mine during events. I think a boosted drop rate would be good, or increased populations or spawn rates on them. I haven't paid too close attention to if the little hatchlings drop it much at all. There is a spot in Blackreach with ~4-5 of the bigger ones but the drop rate is pretty low.

Dragon rheum/blood/bile seems fine, as does mother of pearl and gall. High Isle helped a lot with those. Mudcrab Chitin is mostly fine, though I think they need to fix the drops in some DLC's that are broken/bugged. Some mudcrabs have the model of a coral crab, such as in Blackreach caverns. Some mudcrabs just have broken loot tables like in Eastern Solstice, though a majority are coral it seems they all have coral loot tables.

With the Imperial City key fragment changes, I do remember there being an alchemist merchant to trade them in with. That or the Infinite Archive might be the best locations to get some of these.

scrappy1342 · January 20

i seem to remember picking far more eggs up off the ground than the chaurus themselves >.>

as for mudcrabs, there's 2 spots in alik'r where they respawn almost instantly and are super easy to farm. also was super easy to level my ww skills here with the almost instant respawns. was able to stay in ww mode the whole time. go to sentinel and head in either direction on the beach. one is past the zombies. there's some docks and a few npc's, so if you are doing the ww thing, this is not optimal as there is a citizen and a guard. if you are -just- farming chitin/leather scraps though, there are more spawns here. the other is along the coast in the opposite direction. no npc's, so you don't have to worry about bounties or accidentally hitting anyone.

you didn't mention mushrooms or nightshade, but i used to have problems with those... if you have done the dark brotherhood questline and have access to the bequeather, go visit her every day and select the potion ingredients option. a lot of the time she will give you poison making materials

Orbital78 · January 20

scrappy1342 wrote: »

i seem to remember picking far more eggs up off the ground than the chaurus themselves >.>

as for mudcrabs, there's 2 spots in alik'r where they respawn almost instantly and are super easy to farm. also was super easy to level my ww skills here with the almost instant respawns. was able to stay in ww mode the whole time. go to sentinel and head in either direction on the beach. one is past the zombies. there's some docks and a few npc's, so if you are doing the ww thing, this is not optimal as there is a citizen and a guard. if you are -just- farming chitin/leather scraps though, there are more spawns here. the other is along the coast in the opposite direction. no npc's, so you don't have to worry about bounties or accidentally hitting anyone.

you didn't mention mushrooms or nightshade, but i used to have problems with those... if you have done the dark brotherhood questline and have access to the bequeather, go visit her every day and select the potion ingredients option. a lot of the time she will give you poison making materials

Sadly Alik'r's spawn rate was nerfed significantly last time I checked. Nightshade, Columbine, and the mushrooms tend to be less of an issue if you have an eye for them. Bequeather is nice though, it does need effort to unlock on multiple characters but it isn't like the Tideholm chest and once per account, all your alts with the perk can do it each day.

freespirit · January 20

I also get most of mine from event reward coffer's especially the Anniversary Event.

As well as excessive box farming during above mentioned event, every year at the tail end of the time I go shopping to restock on the more annoying to get mats, the market is always flooded and the prices are generally at their lowest for the year.

If I buy too many, at this time of year I sell them, before the event starts again, pretty much always at a good profit!!

scrappy1342 · 9:43AM

Orbital78 wrote: »

scrappy1342 wrote: »

i seem to remember picking far more eggs up off the ground than the chaurus themselves >.>

as for mudcrabs, there's 2 spots in alik'r where they respawn almost instantly and are super easy to farm. also was super easy to level my ww skills here with the almost instant respawns. was able to stay in ww mode the whole time. go to sentinel and head in either direction on the beach. one is past the zombies. there's some docks and a few npc's, so if you are doing the ww thing, this is not optimal as there is a citizen and a guard. if you are -just- farming chitin/leather scraps though, there are more spawns here. the other is along the coast in the opposite direction. no npc's, so you don't have to worry about bounties or accidentally hitting anyone.

you didn't mention mushrooms or nightshade, but i used to have problems with those... if you have done the dark brotherhood questline and have access to the bequeather, go visit her every day and select the potion ingredients option. a lot of the time she will give you poison making materials

Sadly Alik'r's spawn rate was nerfed significantly last time I checked. Nightshade, Columbine, and the mushrooms tend to be less of an issue if you have an eye for them. Bequeather is nice though, it does need effort to unlock on multiple characters but it isn't like the Tideholm chest and once per account, all your alts with the perk can do it each day.

it's always been my theory that the ridiculous spawn rates in alik'r are linked to the dolmen farm. so this may just be another sign of the declining populations. even if it's not an instant respawn, there are nice groupings of them there close together and should still respawn faster than other zones.

your mention of columbine and nightshade reminded me of resource radar, which i totally forgot about. columbine, violet coprinus and heartwood are the reason i installed it. basically it puts the nodes on your minimap like how they work in every other mmo. they show up on the compass also. not every possible node like the harvest addon. ONLY the nodes that are there. just like other games. i can swivel my view around where i am at and not only see "yes there IS a node there" but i can also see whether it is wormwood or columbine, platinum or rubedite, etc.

darkriketz · 1:33PM

I've seen the Mudcrab Chitin issue in another thread some months ago, it was about their role in daily writs compared to the scarce amount of it.

I have seven characters (I don't think it's much, especially since I mostly play them only for daily writs until I want to roam Tamriel with a specific class or style for a while), which means I get empty soul stones everyday, and with my main character, I go to Wayrest beaches to fill the stones on mudcrabs, a few dozens at once. Even then I get mudcrab chitin every two or three crabs, often a little less, it's not ideal, but unless you need industrial amounts, I don't think it's a major issue.

To be honest, I have no use for dragon parts, but I agree that mushrooms, especially since they're not supplied by alchemy survey maps but needed for daily writs (hello Violet Coprinus) can be excessively rare.

LootAllTheStuff · 1:43PM

Orbital78 wrote: »

Chaurus do seem oddly rare, though my demand for them is lower. I think I got the majority of mine during events. I think a boosted drop rate would be good, or increased populations or spawn rates on them. I haven't paid too close attention to if the little hatchlings drop it much at all. There is a spot in Blackreach with ~4-5 of the bigger ones but the drop rate is pretty low.

Dragon rheum/blood/bile seems fine, as does mother of pearl and gall. High Isle helped a lot with those. Mudcrab Chitin is mostly fine, though I think they need to fix the drops in some DLC's that are broken/bugged. Some mudcrabs have the model of a coral crab, such as in Blackreach caverns. Some mudcrabs just have broken loot tables like in Eastern Solstice, though a majority are coral it seems they all have coral loot tables.

With the Imperial City key fragment changes, I do remember there being an alchemist merchant to trade them in with. That or the Infinite Archive might be the best locations to get some of these.

I was farming Matron Chruchak for the Velothi lead last night, and even she did not drop a single egg. The really annoying thing though? There's chaurus eggs all over the place in the cave/room just before that area, but you can't pick up a single one! I can't remember the last time I got one from an actual chaurus, and I do hit areas where they spawn quite regularly.