Gear farming: where to spend energy — any change since the patch?

Hoping someone can sanity-check my reasoning before I commit to it. It seems to depend heavily on region, which nobody mentions anywhere.

I can post logs or screenshots if that would make this easier to diagnose.

Agreed on most of this, except ignore the loudest advice; the boring answer is usually the correct one here.

Not the answer you want, but ignore the loudest advice; the boring answer is usually the correct one here.

Only partly related, but that behaviour is intentional, even though it is poorly explained in-game.

Others may have a cleaner method.

Not the answer you want, but worth testing on a second account to rule out something profile-specific.

Agreed on most of this, except region and server load matter more than most guides acknowledge.

Good luck, it is a common snag.

This comes up a lot, so: ignore the loudest advice; the boring answer is usually the correct one here.

Depends on your setup, but broadly keep a note of what you changed, otherwise you cannot undo it cleanly later.

Slightly different take — this changed for me after the last patch, so older threads may steer you wrong.

Quick correction to the above: keep a note of what you changed, otherwise you cannot undo it cleanly later.

This comes up a lot, so: measure before and after, otherwise you are just guessing whether it helped.

Depends on your setup, but broadly this changed for me after the last patch, so older threads may steer you wrong.

From experience, that behaviour is intentional, even though it is poorly explained in-game.

Slightly different take — the community guide covers this better than I can, but the summary is to prioritise the basics first.

Had the exact same issue. the safe move is the reversible one — you can always undo it if it makes things worse.

I went through this last month. you get most of the benefit from the first adjustment; everything after that is marginal.

Short version: verify the files before anything else; it catches more problems than people expect.