Treasure Hunting 101

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Lokosicek
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Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2014 1:41 pm
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Tue Feb 23, 2016 7:51 am

Greetings and salutations!

This thread is meant as an introductory manual to all fellow aspiring treasure hunters. And by Treasure Hunting I mean seaching the seas for Sunken Treasure Chests (STC). Without further ado, lets get started.

There are basically two way to scour the seas for treasure. First is to swim around without using a map and experience the thrill of finding every STC. Second is using a map of shipwrecks and plot a course from one to the other, which lacks the thrill of discovery, but yields more chests in the long run.

Those who chose the latter path can use http://www.archebox.info to create their own map of wrecks or use a map I made: http://i.imgur.com/FmhPmzj.jpg

The Essentials

Every treasure hunter needs the tools of the trade. The most important are means of travelling swiftly, breathe undewater, and the means of recovering chests.

Travel: There are several ways, but two stand out. Either you use swimfins or a submarine. There is also a posibility to use Mirage or Derpy Donkey, who dont have a penalty to swim speed (as normal mounts would do). And last but not least, you can use a Dolphin mount from Dahuta 25man or Rum Runner Rapids festival reward mount.

Basic swimfins to get are the Baktheran Swimfins, which are crafted or bought at the auction house, however the best swimfins availiable are Eternal Defiance. They can be found by opening ancient jars in Sea of Drowned Love, south of Freedich Isle. Their drop rate is VERY small so expect to spend quite a bit of time looking for them.

Once you have the swimfins of any type, enchant them with Flawless Wave Lunafrost, which increses the swim speed by aditional 12%. Same lunafrost can be used to enchant submarine tailfins for greater speed.

As per submarines, there are many out there, and they will do quite nicely. My favourite is Chrome Steamfish Submarine, obtainable by crafting. The blueprint for this sub is hard to get tho... you need 200 design scraps from the very STC you strive to find. Once you have submarine of any kind, upgrade them with best tailfin availiable, namely Reinforced Giant Tailfin, which increases mount speed by 10%. As stated above, the tailfin can be enchanted with Flawless Wave Lunafrost for even greater speed boost.

Breathing under water
: Thats a bit easier. Potion named Dahuta's Bubble will take care of all your needs. There is also the posibility of getting undewater breating aparatus or the special helmet and use the submarine skill to replenish your air supply, but honestly, the potions are faaaar more comfortable option.

Chest recovery: No problemo there, either craft or buy Recovery Pouch. Crafting costs less, just takes a lot of Labor Points. Mats are Leather and Recovery Pouch Kit bought from General Vendor. Each recovery pouch costs 25 Labor Points to make, and every STC costs 25 Labor Points to recover.

Hunting

In the introductory paragraph we stated, that there are two way to do so, planned and unplanned. No matter the way you choose, you always end up with a treasure chest in your sight.

But first thing first, you need to know the tips and tricks to maximise your chances of actually seeing the chests before you can recover them. Over the time Ive learned a few, and here they are:

1.) Increase your screen gamma. Seas are dark, and murky. Especially in Castaway Straight and north of Caernlord where Leviathan used to roam. The most clear seas are north of pirate isle.

2.) Swim about 5 meters above the sea floor and look to your left and right constantly. Loose chests with no affiliated shipwreck are everywhere.

3.) Few god-sent skills and passives include Quckstep from songraft, Freeruner and Stealth from shadowplay, and speed boost passive from Archery. Also, having a title Abyssal Archeologist from collecting all the pottery found in Vaultstones (see below) is cool, as it increases your swim speed by yet aditional 10%.

4.) Reds, pirates and sea bug threat is very low. What you need to look out for however are the Jellyfish. Have stealth ready at all times to loose aggro.

5.) Craft yourself a Sextant, it will allow you to pinpoint your precise location on the map.

I found a chest!

Now what? Well, use a recovery pouch to lift it to the surface! All sorts of delicious goodies expect you within! But beware, TRION implemented a bot-protection in form of a de-buff. You can only lift another chest after 2 minutes...

1.) Vaultstone shard: 1-3 pieces. 70% of all chests contain these buggers... You will need to amass 35 to re-construct a Vaultsone. Upon opening it you get a random piece of pottery, mask or a pillar. Collecting all grants you a ton of merit badges and a VERY useful title Abyssal Archeologist (+10% swim speed boost).

2.) "The Good Stuff": 30% of chests will usually have it. It inclues Enoan Shipwright Bag, one Chrome submarine design scrap, one travel journal and a random assortment of vendor-trash. The shipwright bags contain two ship equipment designs and most importantly 4-7 Ship Component Regrade Scrolls. Those will form a basis of your income from treasure hunting.

3.) Trade Pack: A very small number of chests will yield you a trade pack, but they are worth it... The Delphinad Pottery Pack is worth 100g and Perdita Statue Torso rewards you with delicious 1000g upon delivery. Both packs need to be delivered to Ocean traders. I know of two, one in Austera and the other in Diamond Shores, East faction dock. BEWARE though, finding the Perdita broadcast your spot to the entire server so stealth quickly and GTFO...



Thats all that comes to my mind right now. Ill keep updating the manual as I remember what I forgot to include..

Happy Hunting!

And good luck!
User avatar
Lokosicek
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2014 1:41 pm
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Sun Feb 28, 2016 10:56 am

Here is a map of Castaway Strait shipwrecks with coordinates: http://i.imgur.com/Rv1qzxR.jpg

Ill be posting more portions of map with coordinates as I amass enough patience to make them.

Stay tuned!

PS: Next-one will prolly be map of NW Arcadian sea, but that will take faaaaar longer to make....
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