Beginner’s Guide to Scavenging
The next in my series of “Beginner’s Guides” for WAR: Scavenging.
This Gathering profession is currently very popular. One of the reasons for that is that it is very RvR-friendly since you can scavenge the corpses of your fallen foes. Always a good time.
Enjoy!
~Gaar
Quick Explanation of Crafting in WAR
WAR has a two-stage crafting system. The first stage is handled through a “gathering” profession and the second stage is the actual “crafting” profession.
Here’s the rundown:
Apothecary – Crafting Profession – Makes potions with various temporary effects.
- Butchering – Gathering Profession – Harvests monsters for items to use in making potions.
- Cultivation – Gathering Profession – Grows plants and fungi to use in making potions.
Talisman Making – Crafting Profession – Makes talismans that can be added to worn items to boost stats.
- Magical Salvaging – Gathering Profession – Deconstructs items for the parts to use in making talismans.
- Scavenging – Gathering Profession – Harvests players/NPCs for items to use in making talismans.
At the time this guide was created, all Gathering professions were viable for use in each of their respective Crafting professions. However, each Crafting profession has its own pros and cons, as does each gathering profession. It is best to understand those pros/cons before selecting your professions, however you are able to change both your Crafting and Gathering profession at any time (however at the loss of all progress).
Crafting Storage
Most of the items you will use in your crafting will be tradeable, thus can be stored not just in your own inventory, but also your Personal Bank Vault and your Guild Bank Vault. The exception to this rule currently are the Hybrid Seeds that are looted in Tier 4.
You have two options now for storing them in your personal inventory though. Crafting items will automatically (upon purchase/loot) go to your Crafting Item Inventory. This is the third tab of your Backpack as shown in the picture below.
This special inventory space starts with only one bag, but you gain more bags by leveling your crafting professions. You gain a new bag for each 100 points you earn in each profession, giving you a total of five bags when you’re done.
If you run out of space here, items will start to automatically go into your regular inventory. Items can be moved back and forth between the two types of personal storage areas by right-clicking on them.
Finally, no discussion of Crafting Storage would be complete without mentioning the Mail System. :p
All tradeable items can be sent back and forth between alts (alternate characters on your account) and friends, then left in your mailbox unopened for a good deal of time. Proper mailbox use can extend your personal storage space for tradeable items infinitely.
Selecting your Crafting and Gathering Professions
As a new player, your first exposure to Crafting trainers comes in Chapter 2 of the WAR Story. (The PvE towns in WAR are designated as Chapters and the PvE road moves you through these Chapters in sequential order.) If you are on a Trial Account, this is the only place you can learn these professions.
Those players with subscriptions to WAR can also train in their Capital City (Altdorf or the Inevitible City).
It costs no money to train or re-train a Crafting profession. You can change your profession at any time, however you will lose all progress you have made in that profession.
The Apothecary, Cultivator and Hedge Wizard (Talisman Making) trainers also are Merchants selling items for their respective craft.
Once you’ve made your choice, it’s time to level your profession(s). For the sake of this guide, let’s assume you’ve made Scavenging your Gathering profession and Talisman Making your Crafting profession.
Scavenging Overview
Scavenging is just what it sounds like: rummaging through a dead guy’s pocket’s for ingredients to make talismans with.
Scavenging is what I refer to as a “pure” Gathering profession in that there is just one real stage to it. Once an NPC/Player is dead, you scavenge it and loot the ingredients. No other work is required.
Scavenging is big because it’s very RvR-friendly. You can just go about your killing business and scavenge along the way. Granted, not ideal in the midst of a frenetic battle, but it can still be done.
That being said, it’s also a bit of a “farming” gathering profession in that you can easily farm Public Quests or other areas to get lots of ingredients.
One thing to keep in mind with Scavenging is that it only produces three of the four items required for making talismans. Of course, Magical Salvaging only produces three out of the four as well… Because of this, you can make decent money selling off your excess Curios from Scavenging on the Auction House.
Must-Have Addons for Scavenging
There really is only one Addon you need to have for Scavenging: Crafting Info Tooltip.
To be honest, it’s a must-have for all Crafting/Gathering professions. It’s just that good.
Why? Because it shows you the “hidden” crafting information for each item when you hover over them in your inventory. This is invaluable information for all crafters, especially when you want to make very specific things and at maximum potency. Understanding the information it provides is the key to being a great crafter.
Go to Curse.com and do a search for this Addon and download it. I prefer to manually install all my Addons. It’s not difficult. However, if you’d rather not, you can use the Curse Client instead. (I’m not a fan as it’s always had issues on Patch Day when the new versions of addons come out and the old ones don’t always work.)
Leveling Scavenging
Once you’ve trained the Scavenging profession and have your Addon downloaded and in the right folder, it’s time to go out and kill some people!
Really. It’s that easy.
Note: Make sure the NPC/Player’s level is close to your own. You can level off NPC/Player’s up to five levels below you, however keeping the level at or above your own will also get you more regular experience to help you level your Rank along with Scavenging. Killing things far weaker than you doesn’t help you level, but it will still provide you with ingredients, just ones appropriate to that level.
Once you’ve got your NPC/Player good and dead, loot it completely. Once done, you’ll see flies appear over the dead body (if it’s scavenge-able that is). The animation makes it really easy to see if what you’re killing is something you can scavenge.
Move your cursor over the dead body and it will turn into what look like tongs. Right-Click to scavenge it and be sure to loot it all.
Once you’ve scavenged the body, it disappears completely.
One thing to keep in mind is that leveling Scavenging will be a slow process if you’re truly picking it up as a new player in Tier 1. This is because your skill raises based on the level of NPC/Player you’re killing. You won’t reach 200 Scavenging without killing NPCs/Playersin Tier 4.
Advanced Scavenging
Once you’ve leveled your Scavenging skill to 200, you’re ready to learn more!
The best thing to do is to go to the following web sites and read up on the information they have to offer. They are also places you can ask for more information on things that you aren’t sure about.
Also, don’t forget to use your in-game Advice channel as well!
Gaarawarr Gabs 
For Destruction, the best place is the PQ called “Into the Light” in Eataine, chapter 22 (It’s the Easy difficulty one on the extreme right of the map). There are a lot of red Elf mobs to kill that will advance the PQ, but you don’t want to do that. Go find a spot where there are two orange mobs (Hopeless Citizen should be the name) close together in the little vineyard. There are a number of spots that match this description, but they all work for what you want to do. If you have a PBAoE attack (such as Disasterous Cascade or Surging Pain on a Sorcerer), stand between the two and use this attack, then scavenge the corpses. By the time you’re done with the second corpse, two new mobs will have spawned. Furthermore, since they’re all level 40 mobs you will only get 175 and 200 level fragments and such.
Also, if you do decide to advance the PQ, then stage 2 is equally rewarding. An endless supply of Hopeless Citizens funnel down the path to the boats, almost all of which die in one hit. Pit of Shades, Disasterous Cascade, and Surging Pain can be used to kill dozens at a time, which can then be scavenged quickly. Just be aware of the pathing mobs during this part, since fighting them will take valuable time that could be better spent killing more Hopeless Peasants.
For Order… Umm… I dunno. Good luck?