Advice on Pyrite shortage

[Vasvary5050]

Hi folks.

In my current POTD run I'm level 18, working my way through the DLCs, but I've experiencing a real shortage of pyrite. I don't remember having this severe a shortage previously and its making it difficult to upgrade some of my key items to Superb. I've gone back to the vendors at Dunnage, Fort Deadlight and around Neketaka, but none of them have any. Not sure if I already bought all their pyrite (I think its down to RNG whether they have any). Is there a good way to find pyrite other than hoping vendors have it in stock? I've been rushing through this run a bit and haven't been doing ship battles/bounties much, and I'm wondering if that was a decent source of pyrite and why I'm so low on it this time. Any suggestions. Ideally want 6 pyrite to upgrade 2 of my 2-handers and 2x 1-handers, and could easily eat even more than that!

Best, Vas.

 

 

[Vasvary5050]

Okay, I just realised that I can wait for 26 hours next to a vendor (Dimesa in this case), then check them again and their stock of enchanting mats is refreshed. Total RNG. Think the vendor had 1 pyrite about 33% of the time, and occasionally 2 pyrite. Well stocked up on enchanting mats now. 

[Okkes]

I always kill the sea dragon under watershaper guild, you can use the scales to upgrade items to superb.

[Shai Hulud]

6 hours ago, Okkes said:

I always kill the sea dragon under watershaper guild, you can use the scales to upgrade items to superb.

Yep, should get 4 scales IIRC? 1 scale per upgrade so they help a lot. 

Also kraken's eyes can be used in this manner though it requires 2 eyes per upgrade. I usually don't find enough eyes to get more than one upgrade out of it but there should be four in the game. So 6 possible exceptional -> superb upgrades without money or gems. 

And for superb -> legendary there's the magma dragon gizzard stone, plus up to four (five?) culmination stones from SSS

[thelee]

if you don't want to rest-spam by vendors (i frequently use magran challenges that make this annoying), rathun (fire giants) are good sources for pyrite - you can go sailing and blast them and gather some this way as well. (though they have very annoying sailing fights - they charge at you and you have a massive penalty to your own attacks)

[dgray62]

You can get all of the gems including pyrite through pickpocketing. If you have one character invest in max stealth and moderate sleight of hands you can get more pyrite than you'll ever need. The loaded pockets blessing increases the chance of getting better loot, but I think you can get gems without it.

[Vasvary5050]

I confess that I've never pickpocketed in any of my playthroughs of Deadfire. Just never occurred to me to level pickpocketing as a skill.

[dgray62]

I never did either, until I realized it could solve the resource shortage problem. It's somewhat tedious to do this, and makes the game more grindy, but it's indispensable when you're playing with a full party. It's completely unnecessary for solo runs, however. As for the sleight of hand skill, you only need a few levels. What you do need is max stealth, so you can get close to victims without being seen.

[Shai Hulud]

3 hours ago, dgray62 said:

I never did either, until I realized it could solve the resource shortage problem. It's somewhat tedious to do this, and makes the game more grindy, but it's indispensable when you're playing with a full party. It's completely unnecessary for solo runs, however. As for the sleight of hand skill, you only need a few levels. What you do need is max stealth, so you can get close to victims without being seen.

Using slippers of the assassin and strand of favor can remove most of the tedium, as I'm sure you're aware. I don't really advocate strand of favor use in general but in places where it reduces tedium without affecting overall gameplay much I'm all for it.

If you have Loaded Pockets on you can get especially good stuff from pickpocketing. The highest sleight of hand check I've seen is around 8, so you mostly need stealth (or the slippers). It makes no sense how items are marked with sleight of hand. Gems are usually easy to steal at least. I usually don't invest anything in sleight of hand. If you have hylea's bounty + luminous adra potion + carlo's training + rokowa's fingers that's 6. If you have a chanter/x cipher/x or rogue/x you get +1 (or +2) for 7 to 8. I might put ONE point in sleight of hand if I don't have any class bonus to get to 7, but the gems and money are always easy to steal. The hard stuff tends to be food and weapons but sometimes it's loaded pockets items. 

Very strange that unlike every other active skill you really don't benefit from maxing sleight of hand, except very rare interactive checks. I think the pickpocketing would have made more sense if you had to roll to steal, and your chances of success depend on item value and weight and your sleight of hand skill. I don't like games where if you fail a pickpocket everyone tries to murder you, though, so a better solution would be to just make it so you can only pickpocket a character once regardless of success. Money seems too easy to come by in Deadfire IMO. 

Also you sometimes find peasants carrying around emeralds and the like.

[dgray62]

24 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

Also you sometimes find peasants carrying around emeralds and the like.

Yes. Strangely, the Gullet is one of the places where you have a chance at getting the top tier gems. Maybe it's all the smugglers there.....

[omgFIREBALLS]

On 6/1/2023 at 5:54 PM, thelee said:

if you don't want to rest-spam by vendors 

...you should play with Waukeen's Berth! It's made to remove useless travel/waiting for restockable items. Just confirmed that Pyrite is on the menu too.

[mjo2138]

The Una' s Rarities mod on Nexus or Steam also allows Una to these rare of one-time ingredients, such as Adra bans. 

Edited June 20, 2023 by mjo2138
link