Lumberjack has been quoted as the most tedious, time consuming profession to level. I beg to differ but do agree that is a profession that can be boring and time consuming.
With a lumberjack you have 16 species of trees to cut. Of course the most profitable of these trees comes much much later in the lumberjack leveling. On the upside your products are purchased by a high number of professionals. So, even at a low level you will make kama.
Another positive aspect of being a lumberjack is that there are 14 different axes that you can use. Not all axes can be used to cut wood so double check that is a wood cutter as well.
You might be wondering why this is a positive....have you ever tried killing with a needle and thread?
Needle and thread
Damage 1 neutral
Lumberjack Axe
Damage 1-2 neutral
Boulgourde of the Glades (axe that can also cut wood)
Damage 31-45 neutral
See what I mean, positive...your tool is also a weapon.
It is very advantageous if your tool can does some good damage. It happens more time then you can imagine, you enter a fight and forget you have a tool on rather than your weapon. Fights can get so much longer when you are using a needle and thread or a basic axe. Never mind the echoes of laughter coming f Aion your team mates when you give a love tap to an enemy rather than a heavy hit.
The downside to Lumberjack, Lumbering ... moving with heavy clumsiness.
A lumberjack required you to have a high level of pods for carrying your wood. So a strength based character is a great start for this profession. However there are alternatives to help you get past your low pod level.
First let's take a look at what pods are. Pods are your total amount of carrying space in your backpack. To find out what you have take a look in your backpack.
In your pack you will see an orange bar with the title pods, point at it and it will tell you your total amount of pods available and the amount of pods you have used.
Your pod level is important to watch. When you are out of pods and continue cutting you lose the wood and the experience points (XP) f Aion cutting the wood. Now you still have to drop your wood at the bank, market or house as well as wait longer for wood to regenerate.
The reason we are focusing on pods with the lumberjack is that each piece of wood takes up 5 pods of space. A character starts with a base of 1000 pods which gets used faster than you can imagine.
Here is an example, a tree protector aggresses you: you fight and win the reward is a bag of resources containing 50 pieces of wood. This one fight will use a quarter of your available pods 50x5=250.
Now you might be thinking so what, I still have 750 pods left. Not necessarily, remember your backpack holds everything you drop in fights and all your extra equipment. Plus you may have been collecting wood for the last hour and had been close to full already. Now you are overloaded. This is when I suggest using potions to get you back to a safe location to drop some supplies (home or guild house) or have a trusted friend come bail you out by holding some wood. The other option is to drop the extras and keep cutting.
So with that said, keep an eye on your fries....I mean pods
Good news about pods,
You can increase your pods by either adding a Bworky (pet), a crimson mount (Dragoturkey) or by adding gear that contains strength.
With a Bworky you will want to have one that is already fully trained to add 1000 pods to your standard 1000 for a grand total of a minimum 2000 pods. Any mount will be able to hold items for you but crimson will increase your strength depending on its level. As for gear it is self explanatory, look for gear with high level of strength or extra pods. However if you are not strength based, I would suggest a Bworky.
Okay so let's get to the goods.
Learning
Lumberjack is one of the professions you can learn while you are in Incarnam by talking to the Foreman at the Inn. There are two other places that you can acquire your tool and learn the profession, Astrub and Amakna. The tool you can purchase f Aion these any of the previous 3 locations is a basic Lumberjack axe. To upgrade your tool you will need to check out the smith seller's room in either Bonta or Brak.
Leveling
This is the one profession that you will need to be a high level to access some areas in which trees grow. Some of the areas are full of monsters that have high aggression ranges. For example, the area east of Bonta contains a good supply of trees including maple and walnut, but this area is full of Trolls.
Another area is Kaliptus forest; here you can cut Kaliptus wood at level 75 lumberjack. However, the area is full of Koalak Foresters and they make look cute and cuddly until they turn you into a tree. Both sets of monsters can be very challenging to win against so be very careful cutting wood in their domain.
Once you get past the aggressive monsters and your profession level increases, every 5-10 levels you will be able to cut a new variety of wood. The higher level wood is very scares and in hard to reach places such as Dark Vlads map or the last room of Crackler dungeon. Not only are the areas remote and hard to reach but regeneration rate is extensive which lends to the rumours of lumberjack being tedious to level.
Recipes
You will also have new slots for recipes open every 10 levels with 2 slots available at level one. Recipes include making planks and potions.
Planks are easy 20 wood pieces per plank regardless of wood type. Planks tend to sell faster and at higher kama rates then raw wood, of course this will vary for server to server and day to day.
Potions there are only 3 recipes that can be made, wood shaving, strong wood shaving and rare wood shaving potions. These potions are used by craftsmen to repair weapons.
There are a few philosophies out there for faster leveling such as chop and drop. Now sure you can drop the wood so you can keep cutting but now you have lost the profit f Aion your profession. So you will need to weigh the pros and cons of dropping your wood.
I prefer to make a profit and keep potions on me for fast return to a city or my guild house. Then use a recall potion to get back to the zaap closest to where you are harvesting. Of course that process requires you to save at the zaap closest to where you are harvesting.
Happy Harvesting
