Notice: Upcoming Changes to Strands of Draum/Arak

Notice: There are some changes that will be coming to RIFT in regards to Strands of Draum and Strands of Arak (“Strands”).

Strands – What Are They?

These Strands are used in various upgrades, Amender recipes and to craft the Congealed Dreams quest item required to complete the Crafting Weekly (which gives your choice of a variety of marks/notoriety, including 640 Fragments of Madness).

What Is Changing?

With RIFT 3.2 Hotfix #7 this week, Trion changed the Strands so that they are Bind on Pickup. This received a significant backlash from the players, and so Trion has proposed some changes.

Craftable Strands

• Apothecaries will be able to craft Strands of Arak.
• Dream Weavers will be able to craft Strands of Draum.
• Cost to craft the Strands will be at around 50p in total mats (includes an estimate of market value for non-store mats). [r]
• No cooldown on the recipes. [r]

Strands will remain on the store for credits-only and pre-hotfix #7 strands will continue to be able to be changed by right-clicking them. The morphed, crafted and store-bought versions of Strands will be tradeable.

The Recipes

Each recipe will cost:

• 50 Grandmaster Craftsman’s Marks
• 170 Master Craftsman’s Marks
• 350 Artisan Marks

[Source: Vladd]

What about ingredients? So far Vladd has stated that no Sarleaf will be required, but that it will require Cloth/Leather.

No sarleaf will be required. Cloth and leather though… =) [r]

We might be seeing a decent Cloth/Leather dump. Time to hold off on selling your Fabled Leather for less than vendor price on the AH perhaps? Will Rewoven Diaphanous Cloth actually get a use?

How Soon?

Vladd has stated that Morticus already has the changes done and if they manage to get a PTS update tomorrow, we can test it out and provide feedback over the weekend. [No exact ETA announced, but I’m guessing the changes will be out by next week’s hotfix barring any issues.]

What To Do

Complete your crafting weekly, but there’s no need to stock up on additional Strands unless you can get it for ~50p (assuming the changes come out next week, otherwise you could use a buffer). Instead, save up 50 Grand, 170 Master and 350 Artisan marks for the recipe (or double for both).