sbs4lmp
Posts: 44 Joined: 11-05-17
Last post: 938 days
Last view: 538 days
(Ice/Enchanted) Pickaxes, Weeding Hoes and Sickles are the only gathering tools that occupy both hand slots and are a huge drain on time to get to a usable state. This was made much more obvious to me when I finally started doing Alchemy and had to mine those dreaded fine cuilin stones, where I have to hope for a huge lucky gather in order to gather a sizable amount for use in alchemy (Alchemy Mastery, Summon Golem and Transmutation training EXP), not to mention the other uses for pickaxes - Trench, Ice Mine...
As opposed to 1 handed gathering tools - namely the Gathering Axe and the Gathering Knife, where proficiency gain is made easy thanks to Flame burst while being Age 20+ on a Thursday. With this, I would like to suggest a change for the better and to make the aforementioned a 1-handed tool. Special mention to the fact that the 2-handed tools also miss out on a "free" +10 luck bonus (a shield enchanted with thief) and when doing life skills/gathering, you really need every bit of luck you can get.
So, for your consideration, here's a short comparison of proficiency rates, gather time and required proficiency for each tool until they are usable/maxed out, not counting gem upgrades and max durability/artisan upgrades which is an uncommon upgrade path to go for. (Regular/Thursday bonus non-FB method vs Regular/Thursday bonus FB method)
2-handed Gathering Tools Pickaxe - 110 proficiency, (14.4%/17.2%) @5.0 seconds, slightly less as upgrades are piled on vs N/A Ice Pickaxe - 180
or 190 Proficiency as it's the more sensible route with +10 extra durability as there's no real way to smith one compared to a pickaxe, so this one isn't an uncommon upgrade path.
(14.4%/17.2%) @5.0 seconds, slightly less as upgrades are piled on vs N/A Enchanted Pickaxe - 125 or 130 proficiency, (14.4%/17.2%) @5.0 seconds, slightly less as upgrades are piled on vs N/A Weeding Hoe - 124 Proficiency, (14.4%/17.2%) @5.0 seconds, slightly less as upgrades are piled on vs N/A Sickle - 111 Proficiency, (14.4%/17.2%) @5.0 seconds, slightly less as upgrades are piled on vs N/A
1-handed Gathering Tools Gathering Axe - 77 or 82 proficiency, (14.4%/17.2%) @ 5.0 seconds vs (36%/43%) @ <5 seconds not including load time. Gathering Knife - 98 or 103 proficiency, (14.4%/17.2%) @ 5.0 seconds vs (36%/43%) @ <5 seconds not including load time.