Guide Ingredient Grinding - How Long Does It Take?

Hey guys, so I was curious about how long it takes to grind certain ingredients for levelling crafting professions. So I decided to record how long it took me to get a stack (64) of common endgame ingredients.

Oh, I also decided to compare my 212% loot bonus set to the classic morph set (110%) to see if there was a significant difference. Also all grinding was done without totems. TLDR below.

So, onto the numbers...

Spoiler: SCRIBING

Silver Feathers
Location: South of Ahmsord (1249 -4578).

Loot set -> 9:30 mins

Morph -> 12:41 mins

Fiery Aura (Shattered Minds)
Location: Ok for this one you have to repeat the shattered minds quest and stop when you get to the jump/speed boost part. 'Burning Man' will spawn, which drop fiery aura. Entrance of cave (-1161 -5059), near Efilim.
*credits to @EnderJay456 and @Linnyflower for finding this spot.

Loot set -> 14:10 mins

Morph -> 20:52 mins

Earthy Aura (Cave)
Location: Canyon of the Lost, kinda in-between Bantisu Air Temple and the giant statue near Kandon-Beda. (639 -4718).

Loot set -> 18:00 mins

Morph -> 19:45 mins

Fiery Aura (Cave)
Location: Just outside Thanos (412 -5155).

Loot set -> 22:00 mins

Morph -> 23:10 mins

So what is best?
It can be seen that shattered minds is clearly the best spot to grind auras, however are they better than feathers? Lets do some math...
So I tested how much xp I got from 1 stack (using t1 mats, also prof xp and speed bombs), at lvl 100.

1 stack feathers (24%-55%) = 31%
= 9.5 mins of grinding

31/9.5 = 3.26%xp per min

1 stack Fiery (82%-124%) = 42%
= 14 mins of grinding

42/14.167 = 2.96%xp per min

Therefore, there is a slight advantage to feathers. The xp difference between 1star and 0 star will get smaller the higher crafting level. This is demonstrated by @K6 tests, at lvl 121 scribing. In the end, it just comes down to whatever is quickest to grind, which is silver feathers.

Void Essence
Location: In the void, outside void village (14097 -4191). To access the void use one of the elevators in Ahmsord. Credit to @Petrae for suggesting this spot.

Loot set -> 12:53 mins

Morph -> 10:04 mins

This spot definitely has potential to be the best grind spot. However, the main issue was my build. With my loot set I found it took 2 meteors to kill some of the mobs, and the burst mobs could 1 shot you. However, grinding here was a breeze with the morph set, 1 shotting mobs and at no risk of dying, posting a faster time here than silver feathers, by over 2 minutes.

So, if you are using morph set, definitely grind here, however this spot needs more testing, since with a better loot build this spot may prove better than silver feathers.

Spoiler: COOKING

Manis Carapace
Location: Corkus, near the slaying post for Astrochelys Manis (-1415 134 -3305).

Loot set -> 9:16 mins

Morph -> 11:30 mins
*Would recommend a thunder/air weapon grinding these, I used Cascade throughout all the testing and had no problems.
*Also they do hit like a small truck, however they are slow, so I didn’t find them to hard too grind.

Perkish Potato
Location: Corkus, near the slaying post for Pernix Monkeys (-1611 108 -2280).

Loot set -> 11:55 mins

Morph -> 12:50 mins

Throbbing Avos Heart
Location: (-1802 108 3279).
Ok so I grinded a stack of avos hearts at spot near sorghum mini quest lvl 98 (thanks @Crokee ). The spawn rate was pretty good but the dropped rate sucked, pretty similar to auras in the caves. This was also done with no totem. Maybe there are better spots, but idk.

Loot set -> 20:10 mins

Morph -> ~32 mins
*ok I only grinded half a stack with morph set and that took 16:03 mins, so I just stopped there.

Spoiler: JEWELLING

Ivory Tusks (Minotaurs)
Location: Outside Thanos (463 -5159).

Loot set -> 8:00 mins (64 tusks, 62 tough skin)

Morph -> 10:39 mins (64 tusks, 57 tough skin)

*charging minotaurs can do lots of damage pretty quick so you do have to be weary of them if your build isn’t too tanky.

Ivory Tusks (Elefolk)
Location: Canyon of Lost, in front of Bantisu Air Temple (351 -4604).

Loot set -> ~10:00 mins (64 tusks, 61 tough skin, 22 stone platings)
*
Morph -> 10:30 mins (64 tusks, 64 tough skin, 22 stone platings)
**

*Was very painful with my loot build to grind the Elefolk, as the survivability is not the greatest and the range mobs did lots of damage. So with a better build may be a bit quicker.

**Pretty much exact same time as the minotaurs, however you get stone platings from this spot.

Unmeltable Ice

Location: Freezing Heights (1503 -5429).

Loot set -> 8:58 mins

Morph -> 10:00 mins

What is best?
Each Ivory spot could be argued to be better, so it just depends on the situation. For example in my case, my loot build has low survivability so I think the minotaurs are easier to farm, whereas if u had no loot build just morph, I definitely would recommend the Elefolk.

Spoiler: WEAPONSMITHING

Gollier Iron
Location: Cave in Light Forest close to Aldorei (-760 -4545).

Loot set -> 4:45 mins

Morph -> 5:18 mins

After testing Gollier for quite a while the spawns seemed to slow around 3-4 mins in, so using /class to reload the chunks I got the time down to 4:16 mins.
After some more testing, I found around 100% loot bonus is required to get a drop every time (including royal bug blood).

Platinum Ingots
Location: Canyon of the Lost, near bandits toll (302 -5044).

Loot set -> 9:00 mins (64 plat, 13 blades, 13 stolen goods, 46 pouches) ~1 item every 3 seconds

Morph -> 17:20 mins (64 plat, 31 blades, 20 stolen goods, 53 pouches) ~1 item every 6 seconds

*Gollier iron is 1 item every 4 seconds, while wybel fluff is 1 item every 1.7 seconds (see below), so idk it may be more efficient to grind here if you are levelling both tailoring and weaponsmithing.

Spoiler: WOODWORKING

Royal Bug Blood
Location: Light Forest (-646 -4725).

Loot set -> 2:03 mins

Morph -> 1:58 mins

Unmeltable Ice
Location: Freezing Heights (1503 -5429).

Loot set -> 8:58 mins

Morph -> 10:00 mins

Spoiler: ALCHEMISM

Royal Bug Blood
Location: Light Forest (-646 -4725).

Loot set -> 2:03 mins

Morph -> 1:58 mins

Plucked Feather
Location: CotL kinda close to Thesead (637 -5374).

Loot set -> 6:20 mins

Morph -> 8:17 mins

Acid Magma
Location: In a cave kinda in the transition of CotL and Molten Heights (1157 -5590).

Loot set -> 8:50 mins

Morph -> 9:02 mins

*would recommend against grinding this, plucked feathers are better lol.

Spoiler: TAILORING

Wybel Fluff
Location: Wybel Island (1329 82 -4628).

Loot set -> 1:54 mins (quicker than bug blood :o)

Morph -> 4:12 mins

Plucked Feather
Location: CotL kinda close to Thesead (637 -5374).

Loot set -> 6:20 mins

Morph -> 8:17 mins

Tough Skin
*see Ivory Tusks/Jewelling (~8mins)

Spoiler: ARMOURING

Gollier Iron
Location: Cave in Light Forest close to Aldorei (-760 -4545).

Loot set -> 4:45 mins (4:16 with /class)*

Morph -> 5:18 mins

*see Gollier Iron under Weaponsmithing for more info.

Robot Antenna
Location: Outside Fallen Factory (-1760 -2612).

Loot set -> 6:18 mins

Morph -> 8:14 mins

Turtle Shell
Location: Corkus, near the slaying post for Astrochelys Manis (-1415 134 -3305).

Loot set -> 9:16 mins

Morph -> 12:17 mins

TLDR:
Summary of the best ingredients to grind for each profession and how long it took per stack, with 212% loot bonus.

ARMOURING/WEAPONSMITHING
Gollier Iron - 4:16 mins

WOODWORKING/ALCHEMISM
Royal Bug Blood - 2:03 mins

TAILORING
Wybel Fluff - 1:54 mins

JEWELLING
Ivory Tusks - 8:00 mins

COOKING
Manis Carapace - 9:16 mins

SCRIBING
Silver Feathers - 9:30 mins

Loot set vs Morph
If you are planning on grinding many stacks, (i.e. level over 100, and/or level multiple professions) I would definitely recommend getting a loot set. On average the loot set saved around 2 minutes of grinding per stack, although this varied. However, in most cases, Morph set will do you just fine, especially considering how hard it is to die using it.

Conclusion
So thats it, I hope you learnt something, or someone finds this useful. If you have any questions, spot anything that doesn’t look right or want me to test other ingredients (maybe 1-100?), let me know! Thanks for reading:)

Spoiler: LOOT BUILD USED

Pelier, Diamond Dust, Jera, Pirate Luck, Fehu, Fehu, Platinum, Pendant of Prosperity - with Cascade
(I’m sure there are better builds, but this is what I had)

Spoiler: CREDITS

@EnderJay456 and @Linnyflower finding shattered minds aura grind spot
@K6 silver feathers vs fiery aura information
@Crokee avos hearts location
Also I used the thread "compilation of ingredients for leveling crafting", go check it out
(pretty much all of the grind spots came from here).
@Petrae suggesting void essences grind spot.

Spoiler: EDITS

Edit#1 - Added void essences to scribing.

 

Morph is definitely a good option for loot grinding, however your stats make me think loot bonus doesn't work how we assume it does... (Seems more loot bonus becomes less effective?? Interesting)
(And the fact that 100% loot bonus makes gollier iron drop almost every time? I must further test this)

 

Yeah it does seem to lose effectiveness the higher loot bonus you have. This is also seen with @K6's tests where they grinded 3 stacks of fiery aura in ~35mins with 450% loot bonus (~12mins a stack). This means with over 200% more loot bonus only another 2-3 minutes were saved per stack. Compared to ~6 minutes saved between 110%-212%.

 

There's one major flaw in this experiment: how many mobs did you kill? For instance, comparing morph and loot bonus set, you could have say killed 100 burning mans on morph and 90 burning mans on loot. This variance simply relates to RNG.

In addition, 1 stack is a small sample size, so the times you get could wildly vary in addition to the one stated above by RNG drop rates. Hence, a RNG is factored TWICE here. However said, there's a clear indication on loot bonus giving more loot when you compare this across all ingredients you have gathered.

When you compared firey aura xp bonus vs silver feathers and relate that to time, again there's even more variance between the amount of xp earned from each one. You could have gotten the low end of xp gained for firey auras and the upper end of xp gained for silver feathers. RNG is now factored THRICE.

Anyway, it's a start of a long needed research topic.

100% lb on gollier iron and royal bugs blood guarantees their drop rates.

 

I do agree these tests are far from perfect, but at the end of the day the purpose was to get a general idea on what is best. For most craftings, theres a pretty clear winner. But yes plenty more research to do...

 

Edited the thread to add Void Essence (scribing ingredient), as suggested by @Petrae . Definitely has potential, was 2 minutes quicker than silver feathers with morph set, however slower with loot set. See thread for more info.