Okri's Cultivation Guide
By: Corones
Introduction
Some call cultivation boring, frustrating,or even infuriating, but if your an apothecary you best learn to love this gathering profession. It is the key to success in apothecary (See my guide on Apothecary for more info) and once you follow my tips and tricks below you'll see it isn't as bad as you thought.
First off if you crafted before patch 1.2 forget everything you know about cultivation. After a complete revamp of the system cultivation is a viable gathering profession which requires very little inputs on your part. Without further ado lets get to...
The Basics
Cultivation is all about growing seeds. You thought it was about growing plants? Well your absolutely wrong. When cultivation finishes you are left with (a) mature plant(s) but your primary concern should be to transform these plants into seeds by control+ right clicking them; thereby creating seeds from the end product. Using this method (which creates an endless loop of seeds and plants) to cultivate the highest level seeds your skill allows is the fastest way of leveling this skill I have found using no money what-so-ever (besides the few copper it takes to buy the level 1 seeds).
Speaking of crafting levels they are Levels: 1, 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, and finally 200. At levels 50, 100, and 150 you get a bonus crafting plot allowing you to plant more seeds. The levels correspond to 5x the player level that seeds products are used for (ie" +Str seed at level 200 is used to make +Str pots for level 40s).
What do you do will all these seeds? You are trying to do one of three things while cultivating:
First and most important, you are trying to grow the next level of seed (ie: using a level 1 seed to grow a level 25 seed etc.) This is how you level cultivating, grow the hardest seeds that your skill level will allow. Often you will have more than enough higher level seeds to use once you break the threshold. These "level ups" happen about 10%-5% of the time without soil (more on amendments later). This "level up" also gives you pigments which are used to make dyes. You can craft all levels of seeds/plants from those level 1 seeds you get from the vendor!
Second most important objective in cultivation is increasing your "seed bank", in other words the number of seeds you have of each type. The low level seeds rarely fail by but the high level seeds have some nasty failure rates of about 20%. Failure in this case means the creation of a (near) worthless weed which you can sell to the vendor. I like having about 20 or so seeds of whatever I happen to be crafting to insure against crop failure as it were.
Third and only after the first two objectives have been exhausted is to create plants for the purpose of apothecary. By which time you will have plenty of excess seeds to prevent crop failures and all levels of seed to make any level potions you like.
Okri all this planting is giving me arthritis can't you give me some...
Tips and Tricks
Tip #1 - The Mod you must have!
Before you ever plant a seed in the virtual ground I suggest you install Miracle Grow w/ Autogrow addon found here: http://war.curse.com/downloads/war-addons/details/mgag.aspx .
This among other things puts a small window in which has a button called "Plant all" one of my favorite buttons in any mod. Next to this button is the "Auto" button which allows you to automatically put soil, water, nutrients without your micro-management. Harvesting is done by clicking on each Icon in turn. A total of 5 clicks and an entire cultivation cycle is done!
Tip #2 - Forget the Soil, Water, Nutrients!
I never used soil, water, nutrients while growing my seeds leveling up. First they are expensive at higher levels.
Second the appreciable difference is nearly zilch.
Third it takes away from the best way to do cultivation! I push the "Plant all" Button: when I am waiting for action in Orvr, when I'm dead, walking around town etc. If I had to worry about what water, soil, nutrients and how many I had with me it would totally remove the fire and forget method of cultivation that makes this gathering skill as easy if not easier than scavenging.
Tip #3 - Drop your finished plants onto an action bar.
Whatever the objective plant you are cultivating at the moment is find it in your bags and drop it onto a action bar. Clicking the icon will automatically transform 1 plant into 1 seed. This saves an ungodly amount of time.
Hey Okri what about those awesome...
Blue Seeds
Blue seeds are BOP drops off high level pve and rvr content. Only cultivators can make the truly awesome potions made from these. See my apothecary guide for more info.
Conclusion
Well that's it for now. Let me know via comment on the web on a tell in game what you think or if I forgot anything. If anyone cant seem to get a mid level 75-175 seed from a "level up" as described, I'd be glad to send you one in the mail. Get some virtual dirt under your fingers and try cultivating today!