Unrefined gems for 8th shawl, a tip

[Cronus]

I've just been running through the shawl quests for my bot chanter, and have used the information from EQTraders almost exclusively, so I wanted to give a little something back if I could.

I have no idea if this has been posted before or if it's even an actual trend, but here's my experience farming unrefined gems:

My chanter is 54. With a 65 druid bot and a 65 wizard bot, I decided to (at risk to life and limb, it turned out) PBAE clear the geonid caves to increase the chances of my getting a shimmering geonid. Well, this turned out to be a bit rough, but nonetheless, it worked, and we cleared the caves several times, averaging 2 pulls per complete clearing (30ish mobs I suppose).

Anyway, the important part is this: Of over a dozen shimmering geonids that spawned, over half of them spawned in Phenocrysts room, in one of about 6 spawn points. This is of course an entirely possible random fluke, but then again, it also seems like it might be likely that they spawn more often here, since pulling around Pheno is a problem. I used the druid to harmony then dragged out the room around him.

Anyway, if you happen to have harmony and are clearing for the gems, I'd recommend pulling Pheno's room. Cheers and good luck

Skewed Flux - Xev

[Marteeny]

A dozen shimmering in one clearing?

I always felt lucky to get more than 2.

I personally never noticed a greater chance of the shimmering's spawning in Pheno's room though.

[Jarak_akn]

A dozen shimmering in one clearing?

we cleared the caves several times, <SNIP> Of over a dozen shimmering geonids that spawned

Err no.

Jarak.

[Verdandi]

I wouldn't say it's impossible for a dozen shimmerings to have spawned in one clearing. After all, the same RNG controls spawns as tradeskills. The same RNG that let me succeed on my first try at my smithing trophy at 221 skill. Strange stuff happens sometimes.

That said, I would need more evidence that there's a better chance of shimmers near the Pheno. I spent quite a lot of time there as I didn't want to trash my faction and tended to follow around other groups that were hunting, to take the gems and/or shimmers that they didn't want. Some of them were long time geonid hunters but never mentioned shimmers being any more common near Pheno, not even those who were doing the shawls for the second, third, fourth, etc time.

[keats]

The way I did it was I'd port to WL, check track, kill any shimering, and port out. Come back a day later and repeat, had no trouble getting all the gems in 5 days or so.

[Faerel]

I would say it was completely random. I used to port in with my wizzy, kill any shimmering that were up, then just kill the cave entrance mobs for the others to spawn. It worked ok for me and I didn't notice any specific patterns regarding the types of gems that dropped, apart from the sapphires being a bit rarer.

[Kaaba]

There are certain spots that are conducive to spawning shimmering. I did a shawl for two characters and there is a spot I would camp and clear about a dozen geonids and there were certain spots where the shimmering would spawn. Of course it was easier when I wasn't kos, I could just run in and check tracking and kill one if they were up.

[Aalar]

Before PoP came out I used to live in the Geonid caves. Seriously, I spent almost all my time there. To give you an idea of how much time - I had stacks (yes stacks) of unrefined gems off the Shimmering. I ended up destroying stacks of them - I still have some left in the bank even. And in all that time I never noticed the shimmering to spawn in any particular place more so than any other. It seemed to be completely random.

Aalar

[vovinit]

The way I did it was I'd port to WL, check track, kill any shimering, and port out. Come back a day later and repeat, had no trouble getting all the gems in 5 days or so.

Yes same as me I also got most of mine this way. Also a really good time to check is when the servers come up there are 5 or 6 shimmering up then. So right before patch day camp out at the caves and log on as soon as the servers are up.

[Ymmi]

I play on Test, so I got mine the same way. Killed what was up. Rekilled any respawns that were Shimmering. Server reset 3 hours later. Returned and rekilled all Shimmering. Done.

For once, playing on Test worked out for me