Be aware that if you're crafting trash crates to get to M2 then you WILL be making a loss in silver. You cannot really make money with trash crates as you're better off selling the raw materials. You'll also need a lot of BSP, so look at grinding different crystals (find the best crystal to BSP ratio by grinding one at a time) or BlackStones; don't use rough stones! You'll also want to use workers from Epheria/Trent to maximise your silver gain and distance XP. If you don't have a lot of silver I would NOT recommend making trash crates to level up.
Silver isn't too much an issue, I was looking at the fastest way to reach M2 @ trading. As my time is limited to a few hours a day
What about those older, powerlevel methods? Rolling from Velia to Finto Farm and from Heidel to Alejandro Farm. Or using elephant to trade stuff? I heard about some 500m nerf. There is no powerlevel method anymore?
I personally use both methods every now and then. Actively trade until I reach a certain level -let's say Artisan 4-, while making "junk crates" in Epheria/Calpheon/Trent to eventually send over in Arehaza and sell with all buffs on, as described above. What I am curious about though and wanted to ask is if anyone has tried to keep track of the junk crates needed to promote your level from a certain point to Master 2 (e.g. Artisan 1 or Professional 1 to Master 2 would require about how many crates? 20.000? more?). If anyone kept a track regarding the levelling through junk crates, it would be a pleasure to share (even in case it's not 100% accurate, just give a vague idea).
Rolling was nerfed so that if you buy trade goods and sell them to a manager who is under 500m away then you only get 1/3 of the total EXP, this means rolling has essentially been killed off unless you're willing to travel more than 500m. A "new" method has opened up that involves using the storage crate placed in a "village" that is 500m or more away from the town and then just rolling to the trade manager. Some people advocate it's use and claim it is faster and more proficient, but I think it's just a waste of time. Active trading can take a little longer than a storage crate, but you can train horses up whilst you actively trade and it is pretty much a semi-AFK task as well. If you don't care about silver though, I'd say that trash crates are the best way to level up trade as it's completely AFK and needs you only to turn the crates in. Otherwise I'd suggest active trading or storage crate trading if you want to make a profit. You can of course use an elephant instead of a wagon, but as a horse trainer I prefer the wagon. There's no way to accurately tell you how many crates you'll need as it depends on your EXP bonus, when you're crafting the crates and where you're turning them in. Estimates range from 35k-60k crates. Alzy produced this tale to show the crates needed after M2 and my guildie has this table for his EXP gain over the past few weeks. If you craft crates in Calpheon, sell to Arehaza whilst having a basic 60% increase I'd say that Beg0 to M2 is probably around 45k crates? Take it with a pinch of salt as I really don't know and I'm just extrapolating backwards as I got to M2 by active trading.
Ah very well, thanks for the reply. Of course I 'm aware of the difficulties to keep such a track, but even the vague idea is very helpful. I am trying to estimate around how many I need for the last levels from Artisan 4 to M2, as I currently have made around 17K junk crates. So I will have 20K ready, then pop 'em over to Arehaza fully buffed and see whether I ll have to do more active trading to complete, or it will be sufficient.
How many stations do you guys run a day? And how many do you make. About trash crate, that's time consuming for all those BSP, isn't it?
I've currently got 27 workshops running in Calpheon for trash crates, 2 in Behr and 2 in Trent for money making crates. I had 24k BSP in storage yesterday and now have 17k so I think I'm making about 6-7k trash crates a day. I've given up on grinding crystals for BSP and now exclusively use blackstones, each one seems to give an average of 80 per grind and it takes about 20-30 minutes to grind through a couple of hundred. Gives a better ratio than some of the more expensive crystals.
Does distance affect the xp gain when trading in trash crates to become master 2? I was told that it doesn't, only that distance provides more money.
Distance is the most important factor when selling trade crates, selling 7,157 crates in Arehaza will get you A LOT more XP then selling in Calpheon for instance. You want to sell your trash crates as far away as possible.
I got to m2 trading with trash crates last month. I did 42k crates ( 7 full horses) from calph to arehaza aand it got me from prof5 to master 1 30 %. So I had to fill in another horse to get to M2. Probably 46k, 47k crates should be enough from prof 5 with all buffs without p2w costume.
I had 14 workshops in calpheon and only 2 artisan workers with +3 ore packing. I think I made 7k crates in like 4 5 days depending on how often I could feed my workers. So I think arround month and a half because eventually I ran out of BSP and there were downtimes.
I've only got 309 CP so I'm at the low end, I buy most of my raw materials off the market for trash crates so I'm not really into levelling for profit. My silver crates, horses and cooking are what keep me profitable. My node map is in the OP, I've got pretty much all the metal/cooking/timber nodes in Calpheon, Balenos and Serenedia. I've also bought all the worker slots and storage so that's freed up some CP as well.
Your guide is very helpful. Thanks! One question...do you always transport your crates across the map with an avi under level 50? Can you lose all your crates if you are PKd on your mount with an avi that's 50+?