Halfling GM Task(s)

[hakeashar]

Ended up accidently posting this in the wrong area last time, to no avail:

I'm on the Grandmaster quest, just past the 80 fractured drake claws part, and I cannot find the right spot in Stillmoon to kill the '10 stone casters' and loot ... whatever it is.

I have killed in regular stillmoon and in an instanced stillmoon (which, btw, is *much* harder). If I hadn't been killing in the 'Lost Comrades' instance for the 80 claws, I would not have been ready for mobs that hit in the 800s on a 1/3 basis.

I gained 20 AAs in 2 days worth of experience grind to finish this part and now am rather frustrated that the next part is something beyond my feeble brainpower to comprehend.

Any suggestions?

~Tar'Kaiden

[Winenose]

Stone casters are higher level mobs, you need instances for these I think. I have definately seen them in a mission, just don't remember which one.

[Garoid]

Stonecaster vs stone caster

Note the space !! Monster difference. The normal non space ones are plenty and completely useless. The space(d) (nice pun !!) are rare as hell and generally you need to do an instanced (statues etc type mission) for them. Btw trying to explain to a group that a small detour for such an elusive mob would be nice generally goes down like a lead ballon.

For gods sake if there is an half minded decent SOE individual, please change this. I mean think about it ... your book wear out after TEN, omg ten whole uses. We have to do all this again !!! No way hosay.

Gar

[Phantron]

200 of each symbol is a lot of symbols. Of course if you use it like me which is make a batch of symbols, use 3 symbols, and destroy the rest due to lack of bank space, then it does wear out pretty fast.

[Verdandi]

I mean think about it ... your book wear out after TEN, omg ten whole uses. We have to do all this again !!! No way hosay.

Only the ancestral book wears out. That's the one that makes all the different tiers of armor - the "go get these four things and bring them back" quest. Repeating that one should be only the most minor of hassles. The books of culture, with the task-like quests, will last indefinitely.

And it's José.

[Phantron]

The symbol pattern book has the same 'it's getting worn out and won't last forever'.

Also you can do the symbol tasks again, and they're also listed on your history of tasks done too... go figure.

[Verdandi]

Really? I wonder where I got the impression it was only the ancestral books from. I'll have to update that in the writeups and such.

[Liwsa]

So let me get this straight. The symbol books wear out so you will have to do the freaking kill 120 loot 80 freaking things again when your gm book wears out???

[Phantron]

The emote says it wears out. I have yet to get one to worn out but I also haven't used a symbol book 10 times either. Like I said they're listed on your history so it seems like doing once is enough, but can't really tell without actually wearing one out. You can get another task for another symbol book even while you still have your last one.

I guess if they do wear out you better keep a lot of extra room for GM symbols.

[Xodar]

Just did the "Kill 95% of the zone" mission earlier this evening (sickness of spirit for tier 2 progression) and definitely saw a couple stonecasters, drake model. Since I was pulling fairly sure I got one out of the western garden area and another from the east near where the thieves spawn, not very common.

Mission was a pain to pull without paci of some sort though, used the "kiting 5, peel one off" pull method more then once (everything seemed to snare and not summon at least).

[Winenose]

So let me get this straight. The symbol books wear out so you will have to do the freaking kill 120 loot 80 freaking things again when your gm book wears out???

I read somewhere that you only have to do the latter part again - kill 10, loot 1, bring 1. I could try with journeymans book tonight if someone reminds me

;t antonius.winenose
and I'll try this unless someone answers before.

[Greymantle]

My thoughts...

I posted this on the EQlive boards as well,

When the expansion DoN was first announced i looked forward to it with some anticipation. I was pleased with the idea that Half-elf Tunare following rangers would have a set of cultural ' armour to make. I am not a rabid tradeskiller more of a dabbler. Fletching is my best skill at 251 ATM followed by smithing at 199. However the more i delve into these new armour sets the more i am frustrated and disappointed. First off lets jump ahead a bit. IF you actually complete the quest to get the books , these thing generate 2 full backpacks of patterns , one for the augment , one for the piece pattern. What character, who plays a lot, or trade skills a lot, has 2 empty backpack slots on them or in the bank? I know i sure don't. This is a bit of an unrealistic i think and just a tad annoying.Now on to the quests. At first i thought these things were designed to provide an alternate skill up path, given the large number of pattern generated. However as i attempted to get the books my frustration began to build. I have a level 69 ranger, non guilded , no elemental flags. I originally did the first basic book hunting the stuff in crush bone, no biggy the whole zone is green to me . Took me 4 hours to get all the drops i needed to get the book.Hmm. Good thing for me the zone was empty as i basically cleared the whole zone about ten times to kill the time waiting for the re pops of the various mobs i needed. Ok , now that i have done one i decided to skip to the 3rd level since the trivial's are around where my skill are. For me this involves going into inner acrylia caverns and killing 80 sanctum grimlings and loot 20 grimling toes. Cool i think , i always need acrylia anyway to work my tailoring and fletching up, so off i go. I can solo in there with a not too much trouble, slow but doable. But i got lucky and had some friends come help. to speed things up. As of today i have spent close to 20 real time hours in that **** place either solo or grouped. i have killed well over 200 of the sanctum grimlings so that part was not to bad. However i have only found 10 toes in all the mobs we have dropped. TEN. All the time i am doing this i am keeping a eye out for the basilisk tooth needed for the patterns. Well turns out it got changed to the great reptile tooth in order to actually get in the game . I have yet to see one of them or even hear of one on my server. To vary the grind i also started the grad master quest. This involve killing 120 drakes in thunder crest isle and looting 80 fractured drake claws.. Turns out the claws only drop in the instance zone not the 'real' one. Well again i start this quest, last night i got my 120th kill of drakes. Whoo-hoo , nice exp along the way and some good fun. Unfortunately there is a still a catch. At the end of the last DoN instance i had 127 drake kills....along the way i had managed to loot exactly 11 claws. At this rate i will need to do about 25 more instances , with an average of 3 drop per , and hope i am the only crazy one collecting them. I can understand that SOE wants to limit the number of item introduced into the game but this is totally nuts. By the time i finish this thing i will probably have access to the element planes and the armours from there. SO why bother? Flaming Bazu armour is easier to get then the pattens, and the stuff is of near stats. For now i am not actively pursuing these quests anymore. If i get the drops on instances fine but i am done with the tedium of devoting my time to these 2 zone almost exclusively. I am very disappointed in the way these were/are implemented.