Cultural Armor Drops

[mac173]

I am trying to do the Master's level Cultural Armor on my Vah Shir BL. I need to collect Nightmare Arachnid Silks, and Crushed Diamond Dust. I have been in PoN for MONTHS and seen a total of 9 NAS. In WL, I have been farming Gems for the BCPS, and seen not a single CDD, with at least 50 Shimmering Geonid and Geonid Shaman kills.

Is this a bug, or are these drops impossibly rare?

[Phantron]

Crushed Diamond Dust is incredibly rare because it's on the same loot table as every other Velious gem (crushed, flawed, etc, etc).

Only big spiders (level 57ish) in PoN drop silks. The hatchlings will never have any silk. Move to the area near the Terror Matriarch and you'll find plenty of silk dropping spiders there.

[cattywumpus]

The geonids don't seem to be a good place to farm the CDDs. Try Siren's Grotto, That's where I found all the ones I've looted.

The drop rate isn't good anywhere but from everyone I've talked to SG seems about as good as it gets.

I've heard good things about Icewell Keep but I haven't tried it myself. I keep meaning to but there's always something else that needs doing more.

[Phantron]

Icewall mobs only drop crushed (whatever) which reduces the number of gems you've to go through by about half (this is of course assuming chance of getting CDD is 1/(number of Velious gems) as opposed to a fixed percentage). Siren's Grotto mobs are more plentiful compared to Icewall, though, so it probably evens out.

[Rissenn]

Nightmare Arachnid Silks are easily found from "A predatory creeper" and "a loathsome creeper".

Once in PoN, head to the lake area wher the slargilugs can be found, cross over and head for the "Hedge". From there move on and pass by the PoNb entrance. Keep moving until you see the "gargoyle city". On teh other side of it these spiders can found.

Drop is pretty common, I was there for 45 minutes today and picked up 7 NAS from about 10 spider kills.

[KB1]

Yeah, the little spiders ain't gonna drop the NAS very often, if at all, but the bigger guys like listed above drop two at a time a lot. Helps to have someone to pull them single, they aren't a cake walk, but I helped a friend the other day for about a hour and a half just killing a single spawn and two sets of diuble spawns and he had a stack when we left.