Better way to get tradeskill items?

[Akiir]

Wow...beating everyone to a log or stones is starting to get annoying, and the Brokers have nothing. Is there a decent zone to gather/mine/forage?

Akiir

[Torval the Harvester]

The place just opened, so it's understandably nuts. Give it some time and things will normalize on their own.

I recommend picking one sort of area (wood, metal, the niggly jewelcraft stuff) and stick with that. Collect other stuff to keep your skills up as the opportunity permits, then trade what you get, if you can, with other artisans for more of what you are using. Or give it away rather than destroy it. Other thing you can do, if you can get to the woods (assuming Qeynos, don't know Freeport) is work pelts and hunt things that drop them. Not reliable, but you'll get xp and find things to kill while at least scoring a slow supply of pelts.

That's about all I can suggest for now. In any case, good luck with that.

'Val