Hungry-Mama's Guide for Hunter/Butcher

What follows is a copy/paste of the original guide that I wrote on the PC/Mac/Linux Dofus forum. It's become irrelevant there since the profession system has been completely overhauled, but for the version that Dofus-Touch is following, it's still accurate. Regarding how much money you can earn with this pair of professions, keep in mind that the numbers quoted are based on the PC/Mac/Linux Dofus version - the Dofus-Touch economy at the time that I'm publishing this guide is still having a lot of price fluctuation. This guide served me well as a hunter and a butcher, and know it'll work for you, too. For the sake of good feels, I've left the entire guide untouched in its original state. My old alt Hungry-Mama still exists on Rushu, but I'm not going to migrate the name to Touch. Happy hunting.

INTRODUCTION 

Meet the Author: Hello, dears; I'm Hungry Mama, and you can call me anything, but don't ever call me late for dinner. I've tried almost all of the professions (and several of them twice), and Hunter/Butcher is one of the pairs I enjoy most. I've prepared this guide because I've made a lot of kamas and now I want you to make a lot of kamas, too. Everything I've written here has been proven by my own experience - nothing in here is guesswork or prediction - and I know if you follow this guide it will also work for you.

First thing's first, be aware there are plenty of ways to level your skills as a Hunter and Butcher; however, for the purpose of this guide, I'm assuming that you are both a hunter and a butcher, and that you'll be leveling these professions on you own from zero experience. If you're reading this, well... all it proves is that you're curious to know more. But know this: if you want to become the greatest hunter and the most famous chef, you're in the right place. With my help, you'll know everything about everything when it comes to delicious cuts of meat, and you'll be on your way to crafting the greatest hit-point food in the World of 12. It's possible that Ankama might eventually revise the recipes of the Hunter and Butcher, so if that's the case – or if you just have some questions or comments – you can send me an Ankabox message or reply to this thread.

Why Hunt and Butcher? The benefit to hunting and butchering your own meat is that you will never pay anybody else one red cent for hit-point food. You'll pay to preserve and butcher your own meat, but in the long run you'll save millions of kamas, and to quote the sage, “A kama saved is a kama earned.” As a hunter, you can gather meats used to level your profession while leveling your character experience simultaneously; that means if you're one of the many players who logs on for less than 30 minutes several times a day you can get the best of both worlds. If your primary goal is to earn kamas and you don't care about how much time you spend doing it, then by all means learn to Farm and Bake – you'll have almost no production costs, but you'll also have to spend hours not advancing your character experience, produce vast quantities of bread so you can compete on quantity (as opposed to quality), and do battle with a literal army of Bakers willing to undercut your price by 1 kama as many times as it takes to get in front of your customers.

Even at higher levels, one of the best breads a Baker can produce is Intre Bread which heals a minimum of 500 hit-points, weighs two pods, and can't even be crafted without a Hunter to gather Crocodyl meat. Considering a Butcher at the same level, he or she can butcher Crocodyl meat into a 400 hit-point food item which weighs only one pod, meaning that on a pod-for-pod comparison Intre Bread only heals 250 hit-points. On a more personal level, meat is only butchered by player characters: there are no bots hunting, preserving, and butchering meat, so when you purchase meat you're giving money to real, actual players and shutting out Baker-bots who depress the prices of the Baker's market and indirectly also depress the prices of the Butcher's market.

THE FEW... THE PROUD... THE UNDERPAID!

Restaurant Wars: There are some really substantial ups and downs when it comes to working professionally as a hunter and butcher. The downs, unfortunately, are that Bakers indirectly govern the prices of edible meat on the Butcher's market. Each server is different and some servers have a greater preference for one hit-point food over another, but what I've found is that Butchers are required to price their edible meat at a ratio of not more than two kamas per hit-point restored in order to stay competitive with the Baker's market. This unfortunate reality is balanced by the fact that Butchers can cook higher quality hit-point food than Bakers, which – for customers – means that they can carry significantly fewer pods of meat to heal the same number of hit-points as they would have to carry with bread. 

For example, Bakers can't produce 100 hit-point food until profession level 40 (Field Bread, 3 pods, +100 HP), whereas Butchers can produce 150 hit-point food as early as profession level 10 (Cooked Ham***, 1 pod, +150 HP.) In this instance, it means for your customers that they can choose between carrying 300 pods of bread which will only heal 10,000 hit-points or 100 pods of meat which will heal 15,000 hit-points. If we scale up the edible meat cooked by the Butcher to match the Baker's bread pod-for-pod, that means you can carry 300 pods of meat which will heal a whopping 45,000 hit-points.

Dirty Jobs: The first criticism against Butchers is that they depend on Hunters to gather their meat, and hunting the meat in a timely manner depends upon your prowess as a fighter. In the infamous 2.11 update of April 2013 all monsters below level 100 received a large increase in health-points... or in other words, everything on the menu before Frigost just become more time consuming to kill. The remedy for this situation is to get on the recruiting channel and form a hunting party, so put on a smile and start making friends.

The second criticism against Hunters and Butchers is that they both have comparatively high fixed production costs. Both Hunter and Butcher are levelled through crafting, and to craft both preserved and cooked meat you'll be purchasing quite a few ingredients from the Grocery Store and Resource market. 

The third and perhaps greatest criticism that can be made against Hunters and Butchers is that at level 100 they require the services of a level 100 Farmer and a level 100 Alchemist. Fortunately, Farmer and Alchemist are both quite easy to level and neither one requires you to develop a character beyond level 10 for mastery (level 10 is only required to open your bank account.) You can buy the needed resources from a Farmer and Alchemist, but your profits will be much greater if you level these professions yourself. If you do not level these complementary professions, you'll find your level 100 crafts much more difficult, but don't lose heart: on a pod-for-pod basis, a level 10 Butcher can prepare Cooked Ham***, which is just as good at the level 100 Baker's Frosteez Bread, or the level 60 Butcher can cook prepare Kaniger Steak, which is twice as good as Frosteez Bread. The Butcher is still the only professional in the World of 12 capable of producing the highest quality hit-point food: when customers come looking for the very best, they'll come to you!

Auction Kings: There are the few souls who desire no other reward from their profession than the pride they receive from cooking a delicious Koalak Steak or preparing Imperial Pate, but then there are the choosier folks who judge their success by the kamas they earn for the time and effort invested. If you are the latter, then to truly succeed in a monetary sense you must use every part of the animal. For example, this means that when hunting Gobballs, you'll keep everything they drop (bones, leathers, wools, eyes, blood, rings, amulets, boots, belts, capes, hats, and hammers) and sell it on the market. If you're training a tailor, jeweler, or shoemaker, you can also use these materials yourself, but if you choose to play the market this means that - depending on market prices - you can become quite wealthy. Speaking for myself at my present level, I gather about 100,000 kamas worth of meat, resources and equipment for every hour I spend hunting. I place everything on the market - gear, resources, raw meat, and butchered meat - and I typically earn 100,000 kamas every day. If you use all your fingers and toes to do the accounting, you'll find that being a Hunter is - indirectly - a very lucrative profession.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

Recommended Classes: The first and most important thing to remember is that the only requirement to become a mighty hunter and a renowned butcher is the unrelenting desire to slaughter innocent animals. Having said that, there are a variety of attributes which you can cultivate in yourself to make your chosen profession a more wonderful experience. The first is that you should be a strong fighter with regards to player-versus-monster combat. Some heavier-hitting classes are stronger applicants than others, but in the end it only matters how you've built your character and that you have an undying passion to hunt and slaughter innocent animals.

Character Builds: The second is that you can greatly benefit from versatility in two or more elements. To become a truly magnificent hunter, you'll be hunting a wide variety of prey with a wide variety of elemental resistances and weaknesses. You can power through some of these monsters' resistances if you're strong enough, but the strategically-inclined hunter will succeed by exploiting the variety of elemental weaknesses of his or her prey. Apart from your versatility in two more elements, you'll both experience more success and gather your meat faster if you have a variety of spells and close-combat weapons. Your spell and weapon arsenal should include the ability to fight in both close-range and long-range as well as at least one spell which hits as an area-of-effect.

Mounts, Sets, and Weapons: The third is that you should select the best gear to give yourself the greatest advantage in the hunt. Depending on your strategy, there are endless combinations of mounts, sets, and weapons at your disposal; however, there are a few general rules which will help you on your path. First, if you are playing a weaker-hitting class, you should choose either a +damage pet, +element, or +power mount. If you are playing a stronger-hitting class and you are strong in only one element, you can choose a mount to accentuate that quality, or else a mount which boosts your initiative, range, and action- or movement-points. The same rules apply for your chosen set or combination of equipment: weaker-hitting players should focus on +damage, +element or +power equipment, and stronger-hitting players can choose to either accentuate their strongest-hitting element or select gear to buff other characteristics.

Choose your close-combat weapon wisely. The first NPC with whom you can speak to become a professional Hunter is Unterix Unter, who you'll find camped outside of the northern wall of Astrub at (2, -24). He'll sell you a Hunting Knife, Hunting Axe, and a Class Hammer, but for your one-stop-shopping convenience you should speak with Musa who's camped west of the Amakna Forest at (1,18) and sells all the Hunting weapons: Hunting Axe, Hunting Blade, Hunting Bow, Class Hammer, Hunting Knife, Hunting Shovel, Hunting Spear, and the Hunting Wand. The advantage to these NPC-offered profession-specific weapons is that they depend not on your character level to equip, but your profession level. These profession-specific weapons are also useful because each of them hit in different elements – neutral, air, fire, water, and earth – and also respectively offer ranged attacks and area-of-effect attacks. Depending on your prey, you may prefer to use one of these profession-specific weapons to exploit elemental weaknesses.

If you're curious why these weapons exist, it's because – just like other professionals – you must have a profession-specific tool equipped to gather meat from the monsters you kill. Read my lips: If you're not carrying a hunting weapon, you won't gather any meat. The bad news is that the profession-specific weapons sold by Unterix Unter and Musa are comparatively poor, but the good news is that you can shatter Hunting Knives for Hunter runes, and also hire a smithmagus to mage a hunting rune on your preferred close-combat weapon. Obviously, there's a wide variety of close-combat weapons from which to choose, and there really isn't any one-size-fits-all rule in this category, so weigh the ups and downs of your preferred weapon and make the choice best suited to your class, character build, equipment set, and the prey you're hunting.

COMPLIMENTARY PROFESSIONS

If, as this guide encourages you to do, you are both a Hunter and a Butcher, you'll see that you can still learn another profession. Hunter and Butcher naturally enjoy strong synergy since the Butcher cooks the meat which the Hunter preserves, but there are other complementary professions available.

Tailor, Shoemaker, or Jeweler: The Hunter will acquire a staggering amount of resources from the delicious monsters he or she slays for the benefit of the Butcher. The Tailor will benefit from the huge quantities of wool, fabric, and leather acquired, but not nearly as much as the Shoemaker who will enjoy a much greater benefit and be able to use more of the acquired resources sooner and for a longer duration. The Jeweler will also enjoy the resources acquired by the hunter, but the wools, fabrics, and leathers will not be as useful to him.

Farmer: When the Hunter reaches level 90, he will be able to preserve meats needed to prepare Imperial Pate; however, the preservation of this meat requires Frosteez Oil which is crafted from Frosteez Cereal which requires a level 100 Farmer to gather. The level 100 Hunter will also require the services of a Farmer to grind Palm Fruits into Palm Oil which is used to preserve Koalak Meat. Also, all Frigost meats require Fosteez Oil, and at 3 Forsteez Cereal per one Frosteez Oil, you'll be going through quite a few Frosteez. In addition to the oils, level 100 Hunters will require a Farmer to shell Frosteez Cereal to get the Frosteez Seeds necessary for the preservation of two Frigost meats. You can choose not to train your own level 100 Farmer, but doing so will put you at great expense later and consume the lion's share of your profits if you have to purchase Frosteez Oil, Palm Oil, and Frosteez Seeds on the market. Regardless, you can still earn a very respectable income on Kanigers, Crocodyls, and Koalaks, so don't let the absence of a level 100 Farmer discourage you.

Alchemist: When the Hunter reaches level 100 and is able to gather meat from the most ferocious monsters of Frigost, he will require the services of not just a level 100 Farmer to gather Frosteez Cereal and craft Frosteez Oil and Frosteez Seeds, but also the services of an Alchemist to gather Snowdrop Flowers. You will put yourself into the Poor House buying Snowdrop Flowers; if you intend to hunt and butcher Frigost meats, you must either have your own level 100 Alchemist or else know a friendly level 100 Alchemist willing to make very cheap sales or very generous trades. Alchemists compliment Hunters and Butchers not just because the Alchemist can gather Snowdrop flowers, but also because the Hunter will traverse much of the World of 12 and frequently encounter all the flowers which the Alchemist requires to craft his or her potions. The level 100 Alchemist also requires a variety of resources dropped by the same monsters hunted by the Hunter. Hunters may, on occasion, also require the use of energy recovery potions, so naturally it makes sense to craft these potions on your own than purchase them from anybody else. Apart from the Snowdrop Flowers and energy recovery potions mentioned, the Alchemist can also craft various Metaria spheres from resources dropped by monsters which also drop meat: Kwaks, Scaraleaves, and Dreggons.

Handyman: With the changes made in the 2.7 update, soul-hunters require eight fighters to capture a soul which will give eight loot-rolls; thus, Handymen have enjoyed a substantial increase in the demand for keys. Hunters and Butchers benefit from the Handyman because they can only gather and prepare rare +strength meat from select dungeon bosses, so that means if you want the rare meat you'll be needing many keys for many dungeons. The first 10 levels of Handyman will be challenging for a Hunter/Butcher, but once you achieve level 10 you'll be able to craft keys made from the resources of monsters you're already hunting; there are several keys which can be crafted entirely from resources dropped by monsters, so this is a great “do-nothing-extra” profession for the hunter who's already spending a great deal of time hunting mindless mobs of meddling monsters. 

Additionally, the Handyman requires the services of a Butcher to craft ingredients needed for the Dragon Pig dungeon and also the services of a Hunter to gather meat to craft the key to the Kwakwa's Nest. Depending on your prospection points and available time, you can easily make 400,000 kamas per week crafting Dragon Pig keys, and potentially more if you use those keys to gather rare +strength meat or Turquoise Dofuseseses. If you're like me and prefer to only log one account and focus on playing just one character, you don't necessarily have to choose Handyman as one of your three professions: you can always gather the resources for keys and ask a Handyman friend to craft them for you.

Lumberjack: This profession has no benefit to Butchers and is only useful to Hunters who require Aspen Wood to preserve the meat of both Bearbarians and the Celestial Bearbarian. The only reason to level a Lumberjack is to complement your income or if you have already invested a significant amount of time or kamas to level a Lumberjack. It is more time-effective to pay market-price for Aspen Wood.

A SHORT AND BLOODY ROAD... OR, A LONG AND BLOODY ROAD...
EITHER WAY, THERE WILL BE BLOOD!

What's on the menu? With respect to increasing your experience as both a hunter and a butcher, the good news is that you can level as quickly as you can gather the needed meat. The bad news with respect to increasing your experience as both a hunter and a butcher is that gathering your meat quickly largely depends on your character level and ability to quickly and efficiently slaughter delicious monsters. The path to becoming a master Hunter and renowned Butcher can be short and bloody if you have a very high character level, or it can be long and bloody if you start this pair of professions fresh out of Incarnum... either way it will be bloody, so don't forget to wash your hands frequently and carry moist towelettes.

This list displays all the meat in the World of 12 which the Hunter can gather and the Butcher can butcher according to the respective levels at which they become available. This list is written from the names of the raw, unpreserved meat, and I have included after the meat's name the quantity of hit-points it restores and how much you'll pay in fixed production costs to both preserve and cook the meat. I did not include the costs of preserving and cooking rare +strength meats because the profit margin on those is so high that the costs really don't matter. The production costs listed below already include the Hunter/Butcher Market 2% listing fee.

Primarily because I have my own level 100 Farmer and and Alchemist (and also because market prices fluctuate and are difficult to predict), I have not included the cost of any ingredients which cannot be purchased from an NPC at the Grocery Store. Gobball slobber, Salad, Hazelnuts, Frosteez Oil, Snowdrop flowers, and all other such ingredients are things which you will either purchase at the Resource Market or else gather yourself.

• Bird Meat* - 15 HP, 6k: is gathered and butchered from all varieties of Tofu from level 0.
• Insect Flesh* - 20 HP, 10k: is gathered from Moskitos at level 0 and butchered at level 10.
• Larva Flesh* - 10 HP, 3k: is gathered from Blue and Sapphire Larvae from level 0 and butchered at level 0.
• Gobball Leg* - 10 HP, 13k: is gathered from White and Black Gobblys at level 10 and butchered at level 10.
• Larva Flesh** - 25 HP, 5k: is gathered from Green and Emerald Larvae from level 10 and butchered at level 0.
• Gobball Leg** - 30 HP, 27k: is gathered from Gobballs at level 20 and butchered at level 20
• Larva Flesh*** - 35 HP, 6k: is gathered from Golden, Orange, and Ruby Larvae at level 20 and butchered at level 0.
• Wabbit Leg* - 40 HP, 56k: is gathered from Tiwabbits and Tiwabbit Wosungwees at level 20 and butchered at level 20.
• Bird Meat**** is gathered from Lord Crow at level 30 and butchered at level 0.
• Muzzle* - 100 HP, 33k: is gathered from Miliboowolves at level 30 and butchered at level 40.
• Pork Loin* - 50 HP, 36k: is gathered from Boars at level 30 and butchered at level 10.
• Bird Meat** - 70 HP, 19k: is gathered from Kwaks at level 40 and butchered at level 0.
• Dragomeat* - 75 HP, 77k: is gathered from Wild Almond Dragoturkeys at level 40 and butchered at level 20.
• Gobball Leg*** - 100 HP, 39k: is gathered from Gobball War Chief at level 40 and butchered at level 10.
• Wabbit Leg** - 75 HP, 71k: is gathered from Wabbits and Black Wabbits at level 40 and butchered at level 20.
• Gobball Leg**** is gathered from Royal Gobball at level 50 and butchered at level 10.
• Insect Flesh** - 80 HP, 15k: is gathered from Scaraleaves at level 50 and butchered at level 10.
• Muzzle** - 150 HP, 55k: is gathered from Boowolves at level 50 and butchered at level 40.
• Pork Loin** - 120 HP, 61k: is gathered from Plain Boars at level 50 and butchered at level 10.
• Kaniger Meat - 300 HP, 44k: is gathered from Kanigers at level 60 and butchered at level 60.
• Dragomeat** - 95 HP, 95k: is gathered from Wild Ginger Dragoturkeys at level 60 and butchered at level 20.
• Pork Loin*** - 150 HP, 91k: is gathered from Piglets and Pignolias at level 60 and butchered at level 10.
• Wabbit Leg*** - 110 HP, 95k: is gathered from Gwandpa Wabbits and Wo Wabbits at level 60 and butchered at level 20.
• Muzzle*** - 200 HP, 85k: is gathered from Kanigers and Moowolves at level 70 and butchered at level 40.
• Dragomeat*** 150 HP, 116k: is gathered from all Dreggons at level 70 and butchered at level 20.
• Crocodyl Meat - 400 HP, 49k: is gathered from Crocodyls and Crocodyl Chiefs at level 80 and butchered at level 80.
• Dragomeat**** is gathered from the Dragon Pig and Crocabulia at level 80 and butchered at level 20.
• Pork Loin**** is gathered from the Dragon Pig at level 80 and butchered at level 10.
• Wabbit Leg**** is gathered from the Wa Wabbit at level 80 and butchered at level 20.
• Koalak Meat - 500 HP, 67k: is gathered from all Koalaks at level 100 and butchered at level 100.
• Wooly Bow Meow Meat, Stunted Rat Meat, Crabeye Meat, and Gullipop Meat, for Imperial Pate - 600 HP, 50k: are all gathered from the respectively named monsters within the walls of Frigost Village at level 90 and butchered at level 80.
• All remaining varieties of meat are gathered from Frigost monsters and heal a minimum of 700 HP and all cost less than 100k to produce: All Mastogobs, Royal Mastogob, all Pingwins, Royal Pingwin, Sabredon, Bearbarian, Celestial Bearbarian, all Brockhards, Professor Xa, all Snowfoux, Tengu Snowfoux, Kanigloo, Frighog, and Cromagmunk, and are both gathered and butchered at level 100.
• Frigost III: With the release of Frigost III in April 2013, we saw the introduction of several new monster families and more than a few new bosses. Hunters and Butchers can take delight in knowing that there were also new level 100 Hunter/Butcher crafts released with this set. All the recipes restore at least 1,000 hit-points, and if you've gotten this far then you probably know enough to write your own guide.

General Strategies for Successful Growth: The first strategy available to you is to level your experience as a Hunter to 100, save all your meats, and then use them raise your skill as a Butcher. It doesn't quite get you to 100 Butcher, but it's an effective strategy since it overcomes the awkward recipe crafting obstacle mentioned earlier. The other obvious drawback is that you'll have to wait quite some time to butcher and consume your own edible meats. The second strategy is to hunt and butcher whatever's available according to what you can gather and how many slots are available. The third strategy, and the one which I recommend, is to level both Hunter and Butcher equally. Following this path will allow you to craft and consume your own edible meats immediately and it also means that you will reach level 100 with both professions at the same time. Although it isn't necessary, you will also experience greater success as a Hunter if you have high prospection points. The reason for this is that even though meats only drop for Hunters, they are still a resource and have their own varying drop rates which can be helped by having high prospection points.

It's also important to manage your time as a Hunter. The easiest way to do this is to hunt in a circuit. For example, I like to start my hunt in the Milicluster and gather 100 pieces of Muzzle*, Pork Loin*, and Hazelnut. I move south to Gobball Corner and gather 100 pieces each of Gobball Legs* and Gobball Legs** plus 300 Gobball Saliva. After Gobball Corner, I'll move to the Scaraleaf Plain and gather 100 Insect Flesh**. When I finish there, I'll move north to the Lousy Pig Plains and gather 100 Pork Loin*** plus supplies to craft at least 10 keys for the Dragon Pig's Maze. Following the piggies, I'll zaap to Koalak Mountain to hunt Crocodyls, Koalaks, and - if I feel like chasing them - Dragoturkeys. When I'm finished there, it's either Kanigers or Frigost - just depends on how I feel. Mind you, this is a circuit which I work over the course of a week - I certainly don't have the time to do it all in one evening.

There is the tendency among high-level professionals to focus on crafting only the best possible items. I can appreciate why this is, but it's especially important for us Butchers that we provide a variety of hit-point foods at different prices to satisfy the budgets of many players. Some of our customers will be the end-game veterans who only want to buy Crocodyl meat and better, but the majority of our customers will be players below level 100 whose desires and budgets principally require health point recovery items of 150 hit-points and less. Like I said in the introduction, when a player buys meat, they're giving money to other players and denying money to the Baker-bots. By offering a variety of edible meats suitable to many different needs and budgets we are not only satisfying the needs of our customers and denying the Baker-bots of easy kamas, we are promoting our profession, showing players that they don't have to waste both pods and kamas on bulky bread, and creating a livelier market-place.

General Strategies for Managing Your Costs: What's also important to consider in all this is that some meat is worth neither preserving nor cooking. The Hunter has the ability to gather many of his most expensive ingredients needed for preservation, but the amount of time you'll spend gathering these ingredients will slow your progress considerably. The good news is that you'll cover your costs (and then some) through the sale of resources and equipment dropped by the monsters you've hunted, but the downside is that when you purchase all the necessary ingredients from either the Grocery Store or the Resource market your minimum fixed production costs will be more than the quantity of hit-points restored by the meat in question.

As mentioned before, the unfortunate reality for most servers is that Bakers indirectly govern the Butcher's market, and if you want to compete with Bakers you'll probably have to price your edible meats at a ratio of not more than two kamas per hit-point. This means that with many meats which restore fewer than 100 hit-points your profit margin will be very slim or you will take a loss. In these cases of worthless meat, you can still sell them, only it won't be to make a profit but to recover some of your expenses. Refer to the above list to get an idea of which meats are more profitable than others.

A final note regarding the meat you'll preserve and butcher at each level is that you don't have to do just the meat listed. You can also hunt any other meat which can be crafted by both your Hunter and Butcher professions. The goal is to level both professions as the same pace so that you're never in a situation where you can hunt a meat but not butcher it, or butcher a meat but not hunt it. So remember my suggestions: as you progress, you can widen your hunting circuit, gather the meats you like, and enjoy a wider variety of delicious meals.

A final piece of advice for managing your costs is how you gather Salad (mostly used to cook Kaniger and Crocodyl steaks.) After the 2.14 update in August 2013, perceptors now gather resources from every successful fight concluded within the territory in which they were placed. That means if you place a perceptor in any of the regions of Cania where blops can be found, every time a player defeats a mob containing blops your perceptor will get a loot roll from that fight. In other words, you can set a perceptor and let other players gather your Salad for you! It also means that you can place a perceptor and hunt in the same territory, effectively doubling up on the time you spend hunting and earning more income on the resources you gather.

How to Price your Meat: If your meat's not selling, you may have to adjust the price until it becomes more attractive. For example, Cereal Bread (+100 HP, 1 pod) is probably the most sold health-point food on the Baker's market which consequently means that almost every other health-point consumable for sale in other markets is weighed against it. Because it's one-pod, this means you can stack it up for a pod-to-pod comparison against your cooked meat. To give you an idea what I mean by that, let's do a pod-to-pod price comparison. At this moment on the Zatoishwan server Cereal bread has an averaged market price of 146 kamas per loaf and the cheapest listing is 18,999 kamas for 100, meaning it's priced at 189 kamas per loaf. Because it's just one pod, we can multiply this price higher for every additional 100 health-points restored above the first. Try to follow me on this:

• 1 Cereal Bread: 100 HP (189 kamas per loaf x 1 pod, 18,999 per 100)
• 1 Muzzle***: 200 HP (189 kamas per loaf x 2 pods, 37,800 per 100)
• 1 Kaniger Steak: 300 HP (189 kamas per loaf x 3 pods, 56,700 per 100)
• 1 Crocodyl Steak: 400 HP (189 kamas per loaf x 4 pods, 75,600 per 100)
• 1 Koalak Steak: 500 HP (189 kamas per loaf x 5 pods, 94,500 per 100)
• 1 Imperial Pate: 600 HP (189 kamas per loaf x 6 pods, 113,400 per 100)
• 1 Cube of Meat: 750 HP (189 kamas per loaf of bread x 7.5 pods, 141,750 per 100)

For the higher quality cuts of meat I can occasionally price them higher, and for the cuts of meat used to craft other useful items I always price them much higher, but this is the rule of thumb. If you like, you can use Microsoft Excel or download the free and awesome OpenOffice and write your own spreadsheet to automatically calculate prices. 
Also - Like it or not, buying bread is a habit. Once customers become accustomed to buying one sort of health-point food, they'll stick with it unless you give them a reason to change. You may need to conduct a public awareness campaign. Every 10 to 15 minutes that you're online, get on the Trade channel and make a cheesy commercial for the Butchers' market. I used to advertise the Butchers' market on Zato with this one: "Don't waste your pods on bulky bread - buy some mighty meat instead! [Muzzle***] [Kaniger Steak] [Crocodyl Steak] [Koalak Steak] and more - don't delay, buy today!" If you have the space, you can include prices and point out that buying correctly-priced meat is equivalent to buying Cereal Bread, the only difference being that it'll take up less space in your inventory. 

Level Zero to 10: 192 Bird Meat*

Bird Meat* is dropped by any variety of Tofu, even the exotic varieties you'll find in the Tofu and Royal Tofu Dungeons. The easiest way to gather Bird Meat* is to run a circuit around Tofu Corner south of Astrub. To make this trip as fast as possible, you'll want to have either an area-of-effect spell to kill the Tofus on your first turn, or else a ranged attack so you don't have to chase them down one by one. If you're a Handyman, you can also craft keys for Tofu Dungeon and run it as many times as you like which will actually be faster than trolling Tofu Corner because you won't have to wait for mobs to respawn. Bird Meat* can be sold at a profit, so if you don't feel hungry you can always place them on the market. If you're having trouble dropping Bird Meat*, I suggest you hunt with a friend. If you have the kamas, you can also purchase the raw meat on the Hunter's Market. Alternatively, if Tofus in Tofu Corner are too tough, you can hunt the Tofus in Incarnum - they're much easier to kill and still drop meat.

Level 10 to 20: 248 Gobball Leg*

The next innocent yet delicious monster on your menu is the poor, humble Gobbly. You can find Black and White Gobblys at Tainela's Cradle and in Gobball Dungeon north of Astrub, but you can find significantly more of them in Gobball Corner south of Amakna Village. I have also heard that some young Hunters prefer to hunt in Incarnum. It may seem like slaughtering 248 Black or White Gobblys will take a long time, but if you're hunting in Gobball Corner, you must take into account all the Bird Meat* and Larva Flesh* you'll also gather which will speed your progress. I recommend that you hunt White and Black Gobblys from level 10 to level 20 because it's substantially more profitable than your other options – the resources and equipment you gather along the way will pay for the costs of your butchering and preservation, and if you're also leveling Alchemist you can stockpile a terrific quantity of Gobball Slobber to be used in a variety of other potions. I recommend you save your Gobball Legs* and eat them yourself because after your fixed costs and market fees, you cannot sell this recipe at a profit. If you have trouble dropping Gobbal Legs*/**, you should hunt with a friend, or if you have the kamas, you can try and purchase the raw meat on the Hunter's Market. Unfortunately, since the 2.10 update, no monsters from the Gobball family drop meat in Incarnum, so you can't cheat your meat like you can with Tofus.

Level 20 to 40: 1,126 Gobball Leg* or Gobball Leg**

Continue hunting White and Black Gobblys, but as a level 20 Hunter you can now also gather meat from Gobballs. As before, gathering 1,126 pieces of meat may seem like a lot, but I assure you they will come faster than you expected. An area-of-effect spell is your greatest friend when hunting White or Black Gobblys and Gobballs. Also, as before, I recommend that you continue crafting these recipes not only because it will level your Hunter and Butcher together at the same speed but also because the resources gathered will earn you significantly more kamas than you would with any other recipe you can craft. As with the Gobball Leg*, I recommend you keep your Gobball Legs** because after your fixed costs, market fees, and time invested, the profit margin is so slim that you'll be selling them below-cost. As before, if you have trouble dropping Gobbal Legs*/**, you should hunt with a friend, or if you have the kamas, you can try and purchase the raw meat on the Hunter's Market.

Level 40 to 60: 1,249 Wabbit Leg* and Wabbit Leg**

Congratulations! You're now a level 40 Hunter and Butcher, which means that you can leave the herds of stinking, slobbering Gobballs behind you, go to Madrestam Harbor, and set sail for Wabbit Island. If this is your first time visiting Wabbit Island, you'll have to get vaccinated against myxomawosis so you don't go stir crazy like the very Wabbits you're hunting. After the 2.14 update on 20 August 2013, your first task is to head to the Scaraleaf Plain where you need to gather 1 wing each from White, Red, Blue, and Green Scaraleafs. Your second task is to speak with Otomai's Assistant who you'll find standing next to a massive phial of red liquid at (-2,-4) just west of the Temple of Enutrof and north of the Amakna Village zaap. Your third task is to speak with Lily, a sailor docked at Madrestam Harbor, who'll charge you 500 kamas in exchange for a round-trip to Wabbit Island. Don't forget to save the zaap when you get off the boat! 

At your present level, you can gather meat from Tiwabbits, Tiwabbits Wosungwee, Wabbits, and Black Wabbits. Some guides recommend that you begin hunting Tiwabbits and Tiwabbits Wosungwee at level 20, but because you can't get meat from Wabbits and Black Wabbits until level 40 I think your time is better spent on Gobballs who'll also pay you nicely in resources and gear. It is here at Wabbit Island that Hunters will first begin to appreciate the importance of attacking in more than one element: the various Wabbits you'll encounter have various resistances and weaknesses. Stronger Hunters can power through these resistances, but strategically-minded Hunters will enjoy their ability to exploit these weaknesses. Gathering the 1,249 Wabbit Legs will be more time consuming than gathering Gobball Legs, but then the character experience you'll gain is also much greater. You can move much faster if you hunt with fellow Hunters or get help from your friends.

Wabbit Legs (all levels) principally exist as a means to gain experience as a Hunter and Butcher. All the ingredients needed to preserve and butcher them can be purchased from the Grocery Store, but don't take this as good news: Wabbit Legs* have fixed production costs so high that they cannot be sold at a profit. Wabbit Legs** have such a slim profit margin after fixed costs, market fees, and time invested that you're better off eating them yourself. There's no reason you can't put these items on the market, but that would only be to recover a portion of your expenses. You can also recover some of your costs by selling Wabbit resources on the market: Cawwots are popular sellers, but I've found that the demand for other Wabbit resources is so low that you'll be waiting a long time for them to move. If you don't have a strong area-effect spell, I suggest you hunt with a friend, or if you're both rich and impatient, you can purchase the raw meat on the Hunter's Market.

60 to 80: 562 Kaniger Meat, or 2,720 Wabbit Meat (any variety)

Now that you're a level 60 Hunter, you can gather meat from Kanigers. The very first thing I'll say about Kanigers is that I don't hunt them for pleasure. Their habit of running away slows the fight, their summons are annoying, and they don't drop any resources worth selling. Fortunately, they drop two pieces of meat - Kaniger meat, and Muzzle*** - both of which have a very high profit margin. You can butcher Kaniger meat into a 300 hit-point recipe, and you can butcher Muzzle*** into a 200 hit-point recipe, but for the time and effort involved I think you'll prefer to only butcher the Kaniger meat. Muzzle*** is used to prepare Brawn Salad***, a 200 hit-point recipe which can be sold for a wonderful profit... assuming you gather the Hazelnuts yourself. Brawn Salad*** requires four Hazelnuts which are only dropped by Boars, so assuming you have the prospection points to gather a Hazelnut every fight, you'll have to fight a minimum of 400 Boars. Don't get me wrong – Brawn Salad*** is delicious and nutritious – but I can't make a profit as a Butcher if I'm buying Hazelnuts on the market and I don't care to spend the time gathering all those Hazelnuts on my own.

A good strategy is to hunt Amakna Forest or the Milicluster first: you'll slaughter quite a few Boars in the process, so you can naturally move on to the Cania Plains afterward. You won't have enough Hazelnuts for all the Muzzles*** you drop from Kanigers, but you'll certainly have enough to cook at least 10 Brawn Salad***. I prefer to sell in batches of 100 because there's less competition at that level, but the advantage Butchers enjoy over Bakers is that they don't have to craft as many items to heal as many hit-points: 10 Brawn Salad*** still heals 2,000 hit-points, and that will be an attractive purchase for many players up to level 100 and even beyond.

The silver-lining to this Brawn Salad*** cloud is that it's remarkably easy to find friends on the recruiting channel to join you for a Kaniger hunt. What you'll have to be careful of is to not put yourself in a position where you have a group of level 20-somethings who expect you to do all the fighting. It's good and wonderful to help new players gain character experience, but with the minimum 562 Kanigers you need to slaughter to get your meat, you're going to want players your own level or higher who can help you get through these mobs quickly. Kanigers are weak against Air and Water, so remember to either carry a Hunting weapon suited to the job (Hunting Bow or Hunting Shovel), be able to attack in those elements, or have friends who can help you power through their resistances to Fire and Earth damage.

A final note I'll make regarding Kaniger meat is that it requires the use of Salad to butcher, and Salad as you might know is not sold at the Grocery Store. Salad is dropped by all Blops, and although they're annoying, they're not difficult to kill. This means that you'll also have to kill at least 562 Blops to gather all the salad you'll need, or else you'll have to buy it from the Resource market. Everything is different from server to server and day to day, but Salad is usually quite cheap – I can often purchase Salad on the Resource market for 500 to 600 Kamas per 100, which of course works out to 5 or 6 kamas each, and in my book that's quite a deal. When I see well-priced Salad on the market, I'll usually purchase 800 or 1,000 pieces of it and stockpile it in my bank for later use (incidentally, you'll need a lot of salad to cook the Pork Loins*** you gather from Piglets, but don't worry - that cut of meat has a very high profit margin.) If you can't find any Salad on the market, you can always recruit players for a Blop hunt or form a party to storm Blop Dungeon - most of them will give you the Salad they drop for free since for most players it's destined for the trash anyway. Blop resources are used for a variety of Alchemist potions but also by several other professions, so it's usually quite easy to get a hunting party formed and moving in a short period of time. Or, if you detest blops and Kanigers as much as I do, after the 2.14 update you can just put a perceptor inside a territory containing blops and allow other players to kill blops and drop your salad for you.

Depending on your character build - and especially so if you have a strong area-of-effect attack - you might make faster time against Wabbits. Yes, Wabbits are dull, and yes, you're probably bored of them by now, but with the boosted hit-points Kanigers received in the 2.11 update they became more time consuming for hunters to kill. At level 60, you can now gather meat from all Wabbits, so if you run a circuit around the over-ground rim of Wabbit Island you can make fast progress. The upside to this strategy is that you can make a lot of money selling certain Wabbit resources (Cawwots, Black Tiwabbit hairs, and Wo Wabbit resources come to mind), but the downside is that Wabbit meat is a relatively expensive cut of meat and therefore difficult to sell at a profit. Pick your poison and choose the one less bitter.

80 to 90: 262 Crocodyl Meat

Welcome to the big leagues, darling – Crocodyl meat is a wonderful thing. The upside to Crocodyl meat is that it's it's substantially better than anything the Baker can produce, and compared on a level-to-level basis is surpassed only slightly by the Bulbish Potion crafted by an Alchemist which requires resources gathered from Koalak Mountain, Otomai's Island, and the services of a Farmer to gather Rice from Akwadala Village for Rice Flour. I think you'll agree with me that the Hunter/Butcher – who can buy all the ingredients for this recipe either at the Grocery Store or the Resource market (Salad) – has a much easier time of his crafts than the Alchemist who must visit multiple locations and hire the services of another professional who requires access to a conquest territory which may or may not even be open to his or her alignment.

The wonderful thing about Crocodyls is that they don't have many hit-points. The terrible thing about Crocodyls is that they have very strong resistances to Neutral, Air, Water, and Earth damage, so to quote the sage, “Kill it with fire!” Stronger fighters can power through their resistances, but strategically-minded hunters will exploit their weaknesses. Also, Chance-built Hunters must beware: Crocodyls are practically immune to Water damage, so if you don't have a regular Hunting partner or can't get help from your guild-mates, you're straight out of luck. For the time a Chance-built Hunter will spend killing Crocodyls, he or she could have made better progress hunting Kanigers. Crocodyl Chiefs also drop Crocodyl meat, but they have much stronger resistances than the Crocodyl and the only element to which they're even a little bit weak is Neutral; for the time invested, assuming the only thing I desire is Crocodyl meat, I consider Crocodyl Chiefs a waste of time.

90 to 100: 420 Crocodyl Meat or 420 Frigost Village meats for Imperial Pate

To finish your last 10 levels and claim mastery as a level 100 Hunter and Butcher, you can continue to hunt and butcher Crocodyls. There's nothing wrong with Crocodyl meat – it's a popular seller and you'll make quite a profit, too – but if you want to move up to the 600 hit-point Imperial Pate then you can set your base camp in Frigost Village and hunt the crabs, rats, birds, and cats inside the city walls. The great thing about crafting Imperial Pate is that you'll be hunting Frigost monsters and gaining terrific character experience along the way. It's also very easy to find Hunting partners on the recruiting channel who are looking for character experience and want to join your party.

The terrible thing about Imperial Pate is that – even though each piece of Frigost Village meat you gather is a seven-slot craft for your Hunter profession – you require four pieces of preserved meat (one from each monster) to butcher one Imperial Pate. That means you'll preserve four times as much meat as you'll butcher, or in other words, you'll have to kill 420 of each Frigost Village monster for a total of 1,680 pieces of meat. You'll reach reach 100 Hunter much sooner than you reach 100 Butcher, but of course it also means you still won't be able to cook any of those level 100 meats until your Butcher profession catches up. This is a lot of work, but I suspect the reason it's so is because Imperial Pate - unlike all other Frigost meats - only needs Frosteez Oil and not Snowdrops meaning you can get by just purchasing or crafting Frosteez Oil and not worry about Snowdrops. Whichever you craft - Crocodyl steak or Imperial Pate - you're still cooking very profitable recipes and you'll still make it to 100 Hunter and Butcher.

Congratulations on reaching 100 Hunter and Butcher...
Now get out there and kick a baby Koalak in the face for all the hungry children of Amakna!