Test Server Findings

[Slycer]

20% drop rate on cotton? wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut

Nooooo lol. Cotton is 100% off every NM that drops cotton EXCEPT QQA (~50%) and QQTH (~25%) in Arrapago. I've posted what I've found to be the drop rates from those two NMs in particular in that post with the data. Everything else that drops cotton drops it 100% of the time. That's why you can get really high overall Alex numbers by far in Arrapago (with luck) but also a lot of variance between your best/worst runs.

As everyone has said above, I'm pretty confident that SSR is the best/most consistent farming area for Alexandrite, but AR is a close second, even with the randomness of the pouches from the Qiqirns. Bhaflau and Zhayolm both suck for Alex farming, though the single best possible Alex runs are from Bhaflau because of the NM randomness in the ramparts (I remember getting a ~250 Alex run a way back in Bhaflau when we had two ramparts popping NMs and a linen off the boss... if only all the runs were like that).

[NynJa]

Sorry, I misread that part then about the QQ's.

has anyone whos done ZR notice the gears are really stingy on alex?

[Koyangi]

When we do Arra, we Kill 90%+ of all gears in the zone, all QQ's aren't a problem to kill, then of course chariot and flayer and mega boss. The numbers I posted werent bogus, and I put the numbers in a range.

[Foldypaws]

If Linen drops we get 180-200 a run, 70-90 if linen doesnt drop. I'd say that's damn good.

So what you're saying is a linen pouch, which contains 50-99 alexandrite, increases your alex per run by 110?

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/up...n-template.png

[Colenzo]

So what you're saying is a linen pouch, which contains 50-99 alexandrite, increases your alex per run by 110?

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/up...n-template.png

game. oven.

[Koyangi]

Nope, what that means is my runs with linens also had good luck on the QQ's.

[Foldypaws]

Nope, what that means is my runs with linens also had good luck on the QQ's.

[Helel]

Nope, what that means is my runs with linens also had good luck on the QQ's.

Then that would be over 90... 70-101 with a perfect linen pouch. Not doubting you but your numbers were messed up.

AR is definitely a close second to SSR, but I am 100% positive that SSR is more consistent. I've been doing salvage for a long time farming alexandrite, tried all the zones many times, and SSR almost always beats AR. Pouches are way too random, and the gears are more consistent. We always get around 45 from the gears, and the rest is from the 4 pouches. AR allows you to get more pouches but there's maybe 1/2 or even 1/3 the number of gears (counting ramparts too)?

If we're looking @ something like 25/50 (# of gears+ramparts), you would need to get at least 6 pouches to average around the same alex as AR (assuming 12.5 from each pouch). Because you are not guaranteed 6 pouches, it seems that SSR is clearly the winner.

This is assuming 1 gear = 1 alex, which seems about right from my experience.

[Draylo]

I agree, SSR is definitely better.

[Aragon of Odin]

When you're doing gears, are you cleaving them or killing em 1 by one? Generally only getting around 30 or so cleaving everything, and the odd thing is when we cleave the South and East rooms on the GG floor, we're lucky to get 2 Alex/room, where as the GG room and the following floor put out much more nicely. Just an odd observation.

[NynJa]

my ll passed alexandrite cuz too much shit was dropping too fast when I cleaved >.>

[Aragon of Odin]

I dont use ll to pass cells, generally have enough inventory space between me and the thf mule to not worry about losing it with cells dropping, just find it odd that drop rates are horrid in those 2 rooms compared to every other room, granted I only just started doing those 2, used to just skip them, but twice now I've cleaved one of those 2 rooms and not gotten a single Alex drop from anything. I guess the better question would be then, is TH applied to everything Aolean Edge hits? I always just operated under the assumption it did.

[Byrthnoth]

My drop rate doesn't seem to be as bad as you're describing off them. I got six off the east room and two off the south room tonight. South room only has 8 mobs.

[NynJa]

I guess the better question would be then, is TH applied to everything Aolean Edge hits? I always just operated under the assumption it did.

Its supposed to...though I dont know if it was ever fully tested with aoe ws's. I think it was tested with aoe spells.

[Kaliya]

I remember finding this post for hidden proc on Mandau:

Results:

RDM/DNC
No DW
No DA gear
No TA gear
No Temper (lol)

322/2430 - 13.25%

Just curious if anyone confirmed Insaniac's testing done on 95 mandau for 3x damage proc? I only ask this because I came across another, larger sample, that suggest there may have been an error:

And from an earlier test I did

Triple damage proc rate:
proc = 534
no proc = 5002
total hits = 5536
percent proc = 0.096459

for Mandau 95. Single wield, no af3+2 gear.

The only possible problem I can see from this is they seem to be suggesting they are thf main while testing this which makes me wonder if they were counting attack rounds or attach strikes, where as Insaniac clearly states they did this on a control job with no DA/TA to show that the results were of a control per attack round.

Additionally, I was wondering if anyone has been able to parse (not even sure if parse is still working for test server) the 99 versions to find out how much the increase in hidden proc rate is. From some messing around I've done it appears to be higher, but I don't have a parse to keep track of the information while doing a large sample test. I would also like to insure that human error doesn't cause incorrect information gathering during a large sample either (hence the request of parse data compared to my capability to do pen and paper tracking).

[Helel]

The drop rate for us was horrible when our THF only did aeolian edge. She used to do that, and then I would kill them with whirl of rage all at once, but we stopped doing that recently. She kills them one by one now and it seems to make a big difference. AoE WS does apply TH to all the mobs (tested with bounty shot), but dealing the killing blow with an AoE WS (or whirl of rage) seems to yield less alex for us.

[NynJa]

Can you really get there in 30 minutes though?

me 3boxing:
1f shouldnt take long, clear out first room puks and ziz, should 4/4 my 3 characters, probably spend more time sorting the cells out. 4 min
2f clear out 1 room, kill mamool and poroggo. Pull 2 item droppers per room (or 1 if necessary cuz of starting chest), pop and kill Jakko 12 min
3f clear out first 3 rooms of mamools, should get the necessary hp/mp/stats, flee to north exit and port up, 10 min. Can opt to dat swap which cell drops from which to maybe save time, but they generally all wind up linking anyways.

It would be pretty close, but seems doable. I'm gonna try it out for lulz after these Qilins.

Missed it by less than a fucking minute -.- and cuz I didnt kill 3f frog rushing for portal, yay no 6f frog. Zhayolms so fucking stupid. and if 2f didnt do stupid chorus, which costed me that minute, I would have made it. 1f took about 5 min, theres a lot more running than anticipated. 2f wound up taking like 15-16.

so, its possible, but it involves a LOT of luck, and its just not worth it. and discoid is lame as well, though thats kinda my fault (forgot to adjust whm idle set, oops owleyes)
just avoid zhayolm unless you're trying to finish pieces in anticipation for salvage revamp.

[Vyvian]

Missed it by less than a fucking minute -.- and cuz I didnt kill 3f frog rushing for portal, yay no 6f frog. Zhayolms so fucking stupid. and if 2f didnt do stupid chorus, which costed me that minute, I would have made it

so, its possible, but it involves a LOT of luck, and its just not worth it.

With 3 real people, who are very good, at 95, I could do this path consistently, and the way you did it is exactly the way you have to do it to make it in time.

3 or 4 people basically takes the same amount of time, because of the paired drop system of cells, you'll get 2 sets and then 4 sets.

You do 2 rooms on first floor and port, kill 2 droppers in every room on second (except that first room you have to clear out). Dupe for ranged or rings if you got hosed, or dupe a back/waist cell if you didn't for 2F frog. Pop Jakko and kill before leaving.

3F, you send your thf south, and your DD north, take the healer with the thf just in case. You need TH to get MP cells off of the south mamools fast enough, and your DD ports as soon as he gets there. If you fail to get 3 MP cells you will not full unlock. Sometimes I had to hold the port for another kill or 2. Usually with TH on the mamools you get them really fast. You don't get the frog on this floor.

Usually I make it with like 4 minutes to spare, haven't tried again since 99. At this point, you make your plan to pull 4F frog out of the room to the north, it links, you run someone pulls off you, etc. When you kill it, its 100% on all 3 15s and a coinpurse.

Now you have like 65 minutes remaining on 4th floor. You get your cells by clearing mamools (which drop 1 of every stat cell EXCEPT mp), and intentionally choosing the wrong rampart to repeat the floor. Then when you've unlocked everyone, you proceed normally and floor up.

I actually usually average higher on a non-linen run here than SSR doing it that way, but we kill everything after that, of which every floor is a massive quantity of machines. So while its only 3 purses, it seems to be made up by the large number of gears.

[Churchill]

Yeah Zhayolm is very easy but it's not very easy to 3box lol. Waste a lot of time lotting cells and tabbing screens.

[NynJa]

With 3 real people, who are very good, at 95, I could do this path consistently, and the way you did it is exactly the way you have to do it to make it in time.

As Churchill said, its a lot different 2/3boxing...and dont think anyones farming salvage now with 2 other friends. Its too much micromanagement to watch cells on 3 characters, between the tabbing and lotting. If salvage cells were rare/ex temps, I could see this going really easy (no one can get 2 of the same cell, wouldnt even need to lot anything, just plow through the area).


I just cleaved all the 3f mamools, they pretty much got 1 shot. I wound up with 5 HP cells and 5 MP cells, though I had thf aeolian as well. Next time, not that there will be a next time, because fuck zhayolm, I'd just round up all 12 mobs on thief, and then have war cleave them down right away lol.

But this, I dont agree with:

I actually usually average higher on a non-linen run here than SSR doing it that way, but we kill everything after that, of which every floor is a massive quantity of machines. So while its only 3 purses, it seems to be made up by the large number of gears.

I cleared all the gears and ramparts on 5f (except the chariot, who I dont think drop alex, atleast I'm 0/3 on getting alex from them in zhayolm), as well as all the gears and one of the ramparts on 6f, and I wound up with 34 singles.

Area Gears
Bhaf 40
SS 33
Zhay 37
Arra 11
Bhaf 32
SS 26 (I got cocky and lost a lot of time being stupid..."hey lets cleave these fomor and imps down", forgetting that fomor share TP with imps)
Zhay 34

The singles from gears isnt any higher than SS or Bhaf. Arra doesnt have that many gears.