This article provides all the information you need to know about surveys and their locations.
What You Need to Know About Surveys
Survey maps are obtained by doing crafting dailies known as crafting writs. In the writ rewards, you will receive either a material box containing two small stacks of items from that crafting profession or a survey map. The map shows a location where you will find six high yield resource nodes of the profession type. The chance of a survey map drop is between 1 in 5 to 1 in 8 depending on the profession.
Differences between Regular and Survey Nodes
There are two main differences between regular and survey harvest nodes. The first is that the Survey nodes will provide more items per node. The other main difference is that Survey nodes do not provide any furniture material such as Alchemical Bast, Bast, Clean Pelts, Heartwood, Mundane Runes, Ocre, and Regulus.
Crafting Material Levels
The crafting level items you collect from surveys depend on two things. The first is your adventure level and the other is the applicable proficiency of the crafting profession. If your adventure level is not the same as the crafting proficiency level, the nodes will be split in half where some will match your adventure level and the other half your crafting proficiency.
For example, you have have a Champion Level Character but a blacksmithing metalworking level of 1, you would get a mix of Rubedite Ore and Iron Ore.
Farming Survey Maps
You can easily farm survey maps on any character level 6 (adventure level) or higher with almost no skill points invested.
You need a small starting supply of alchemy mats, blacksmith (iron ingots), clothing (jute cloth, rawhide hide), enchanting (jera, deni, makko, oko, ta) , jewelry (pewter ounces), provisioning (depends on faction), and woodworking (maple) mats.
Next, certify your character with the crafting certification masters (Danel Telleno and Millenith) usually found in the Mage or Fighters guild in the zone you start in. If you have access to Summerset DLC, you can travel to Alinor to certify with the master (Felarian) just outside the crafting area.
The advantage of farming surveys on lower characters without skill points invested is that when you turn in your crafting writs, in your rewards you always get a survey or a material box with the mats you need to do your surveys.
Making the Most Survey Maps
Champion Points
Craft Tree (Green)
Gilded Fingers (50 Points) – 10% Gold Increase from Writs
Fortune’s Favor (at least 10 Points) – Unlock path and increase gold from chests.
Inspiration Boost (at least 15 Points) – Unlock path and increase crafting inspiration.
Meticulous Disassembly (50 Points) – Improves the chances of extracting Woodworking, Blacksmithing, Clothing, and Jewelry Crafting ingredients and refining of more power improvement materials.
Master Gatherer (75 Points) – Reduces time it takes to harvest by 50%.
Plentiful Harvest (50 Points) – 50% chance to gain double the yield from normal resource nodes per stage (includes surveys).
Steed’s Blessing (50 Points) 20% out of combat movement Speed.
Fitness Tree (Red)
Hasty (16 Points) – Sprinting Speed boost +4%
Celerity (50 Points) – Movement Speed boost +10%
Crafting Passives
Alchemy – Solvent Proficiency 2+ (2 or more Skill Points) – affects the solvent/oil used and harvested however, you will avoid alchemy writs requiring 3 Corn Flower (a very expensive reagent).
Blacksmithing – Metal Extraction (3/3 Skill Points)
Clothing – Unraveling (3/3 Skill Points)
Enchanting – Runestone Extraction (3/3 Skill Points) – not required for surveys but useful for breaking down glyphs for crafting writ mats.
Jewelry Extraction (3/3 Skill Points)
Wood Extraction (3/3 Skill Points)
Notes:
If you do not have a character than can maximize the crafting passives and the Meticulous Disassembly Championship perk, you may want to save your maps or sell the unrefined materials for a significantly higher profit. A trusted crafter friend may refine the mats for you.
Respawning Survey Map Locations
There are three ways to respawn the survey map location (if you have a stack of survey maps for the same location).
- Run away and return
- Approximately 6 to 8 seconds depending on the speed of your character and/or mount
- Jewelry Survey locations were introduced with a shorter respawn area. Approximately 3 to 4 seconds.
- Alchemy Survey spawn on each visit. If you have time and patience, you can revisit location repeatedly until you get a favourable crop of reagents like corn flower or columbine.
- Logging out and Logging back in.
- House Preview Method
- This method may fall into a grey area of Terms of Service, but leverages the mechanic that returns you to your location you were at before previewing a home you do not known.
- This method is useful for survey locations where you are unable to the run and return method. For example, in Wrothgar, there’s a Jewelry survey mid-way down a cliff and it is difficult to drop down and return.
Using Your Pets and Companions to Clear Survey Areas
Mobs near survey locations is annoying, but not if you have a pet or companion. Use the pet command to have your pet/companion engage the mobs, then collect the nodes while the mobs are busy.
Gear
While no gear will improve your harvesting speed or yield, many players like equip their survey collectors with speed gear and “stealth” items. The most common speed gear are
- Coward’s Gear (Battlegrounds)
- Fiord’s Legacy (Overland Set – Eastmarch)
- Jailbreaker (Group Dungeon – The Banished Cells)
- Ring of the Wild Hunt (Antiquities)
Notes:
Once you collect one of the six nodes, a survey map will be consumed. As long as you are in the zone, the other nodes will remain.
Maps
The following maps were created using locations provided by Lost Treasure .
