Sea Dragon Steaks

[ReiyChanter]

So I finaly ran out of my 9millon Misty Thicket Picnic baskets I made when working my way to skill 300. Well not 9 millon but a good 1 1/2 banks full of them.

I was looking for something new to make, The Bristlebane Challenge seems like a great way to go. Only problem is the Sea Dragon Steaks - only 3 raid level mobs drop the meat in all of EQ!! This isn't so much as a bottle neck but a complete block.

Are there any new sources of the sea dragon meat? Any one know their spawn timers? (Days? week? Hours?) Maybe I might get lucky an see one up.

[Ozadar]

With the rarity of that meat, not a great source for skill-ups.

I've made it to 286 with no MTP attempts and still have a few things "lost" in my bank for another 20-30 more misc combines. My hope is to do 10 or less points on MTPs, but I suspect the RNG is going to get the last laugh.


Ozadar of the 70th Corpse
Erudite Tradeskiller of Zek
Member of 1450 Club

Baking - 286
Brewing - 292
Fletching - 268
Jewelry - 287
Pottery - 259
Smithing - 240
Tailoring - 252
Research - 201
Fishing - 200

(+5-8% to all skills) + Salvage 3

[Maevenniia]

The Bristlebane Challenge recipes are by no means meant to be a skill up path.

The rarity of Sea Dragon meat is absolutely intentional, given the stats available from the final sandwich, and given teh way food consumption works in EQ.

[ReiyChanter]

I'm max skill. The baskets got me there, I just ended up set for over a year with baked food.

I'm looking at the Bristlebane Challenge for my next food to make, to um eat. At the rate of 1 per combine why such a big bottle neck? In a game where high end players have over 500hp per slot (during PoR when this came out), does having what amounts to an aug for a food item real need to be this rare?

On the bright side I found a vendor with 20 sea dragon meats for 1k ea, still when I can make a charm with over 400hp and armor with over 300hp, why are other trade skills brewing, bakeing, fletching so far behind? (Disclamer I'm an Int caster not sure how good of a bow can be made these days

A well I'm happy for 20k I'm gona have a good dinner on my chanter for a while.

[Unapuma]

Heh.

I wouldn't call those 3 dragons raid only mob. They were originally raid but 2 of them are easily soloed nowday by many classes. I've personally killed Faydedar without any trouble (and made 2 pallies very happy with free epic 1.0 drop) I haven't had any chance to solo the slightly harder dragon in CS as it's always down. The one time I found it alive, a 75 ranger ate em.

The biggest bottleneck with BBC is not the sea dragon meat but the horse meat. Need 2 of them to complete BBC and they aren't exactly something you can solo.

[Queletan]

Also 1 sea dragon meat makes 5 sea dragon steaks, which makes it a little more palatable (pardon the pun). I would say that for your first one, the dragon meat is the bottleneck, for the next 4 it will be the horse meat, at least thats my experience.

As far as a "new food" I opted for Party Platters, although I am currently trying to collect enough stuff to make 4 or 5 more Challenges, then I'll start risking them by swapping out whenever my friends and I do harder stuff.

Q

[ReiyChanter]

Heh.

I wouldn't call those 3 dragons raid only mob. They were originally raid but 2 of them are easily soloed nowday by many classes. I've personally killed Faydedar without any trouble (and made 2 pallies very happy with free epic 1.0 drop) I haven't had any chance to solo the slightly harder dragon in CS as it's always down. The one time I found it alive, a 75 ranger ate em.

Theres more to being a raid level target then how many players you need to kill it. Like a 3 to 5 day spawn time.

I did notice last night horse meat was rare. Seening how I can log in an farm them at any time and they'll be up or up shortly, in my book their not to much of a bottle neck. I don't mind long hours of farming parts, thats the base of tradeskills. It's having 3 targets server wide to get one item every 3days+ that seems a bit broken to me.

[Aetemius]

Theres more to being a raid level target then how many players you need to kill it. Like a 3 to 5 day spawn time.

I did notice last night horse meat was rare. Seening how I can log in an farm them at any time and they'll be up or up shortly, in my book their not to much of a bottle neck. I don't mind long hours of farming parts, thats the base of tradeskills. It's having 3 targets server wide to get one item every 3days+ that seems a bit broken to me.

I found when I made my stack of Challenges that the horse meat was the hardest component to get my hands on. Soloing in Elddar is harsh, and boxing is hard has sin with the lag in that zone. In over 30 or so ToB plows / DK runs, I've seen horse meat drop a total of once. In Elddar I have cleared the pond 15+ in a row and not seen one drop. I had to camp Elddar for a month solid to get enough meat to make my stack. I dragged every one of my guildees alts to that zone to help me farm while they leeched exp.

On the other hand, I got like 5 or 6 sea dragon meats in a few weeks of server repops before the challenge recipe went live and many more after the puzzle was solved. Count your blessings people are actually selling the steaks now for a decent price. I sold a few extra meats when the recipe was solved for 500k pp each.

[Unapuma]

Faydedar is on 24 hours pop time give or take a few hours. Not sure about the other.

[ReiyChanter]

Faydedar is on 24 hours pop time give or take a few hours. Not sure about the other.

Thanks I'll keep an eye out for her.