Shabby Runic Vellum Gone Missing

[Bluemor]

No shabby runic vellums for 69 spells have been offered for sale in the Fennin Ro bazaar for over two weeks. There are plenty of fine runic vellums in need of cleaning for level 70 spells.

While there is not much of a market for Level 69 spells, certain 69 spells, like Desolate Deeds, the enchanter slow, does not have any upgrades. Are other people finding the same situation. Did SOE mess up the drop rate or are the shabby runic vellum just in empty zones?

Bluemor of Fennin Ro

300 Researcher with fully evolved research trophy

[Tobynn]

On Bristlebane, SRV 69s are in much lesser supply than SFRV 70s.

I have a buyermule up daily over the past couple months, and I have taken in perhaps 200 of 70s; the supply is good, bazaar traders are somewhat plentiful although obviously pricey.

Now, 69s? In the same time frame I've take in a total of 36 I believe. Its not at all uncommon to find zero for sale in bazaar at any price. My own buyer as well as my competitors, we all offer considerably more for 69s than we do for 70s and still its not creating any marked influx.

I've considered the notion of a droprate imbalance, maybe, could be, duuno!

[Danedori]

I've seen the same thing on The Rathe. I don't think it's necessarily a droprate issue. I think it's just that the mobs that drop the 69's aren't killed as frequently as the mobs that drop the 70's.

Danedori

[baldorrex]

The 70 vellums drop in TBS content, but I don't think I have ever seen a 69 vellum drop there. With more people focusing on the TBS content there are less 69 vellums entering the market. Or, at least, that's my guess, because the market in Saryrn is similar.

[greblhad]

I have a constant backlog of 69 spell requests. I've had a problem with obtaining runic vellum on The Nameless since they were introduced. I have a similar, but less intensive, problem with fine vellum parchment (64 spells).

It appears, for whatever reason (I have a theory), the drop rates for these were deliberately reduced.

[Tiroon]

Too many unique spells for an uncommon to rare drop that comes off underhunted mobs.

If you want to hunt those drops the best bet seems to be the Doomfount/Dranadune camp in Sunderock. About one in 40 to one in 50 of the caster mobs seem to drop it. Of course there are more melee mobs than caster types.

To compound the problem those mobs share their area with the red sky undead who drop nothing of the sort but are better XP.

I'd love to see these parchments showing up in bazaar but Stromm is just as barren as other servers' bazaar.

[greblhad]

Spill it, we like to hear theories.

Disclaimer: Theory only.

The 70 spell runes (glowing) are the most rare, in months of camping RSS I estimate only 1 in 15 or so runes that dropped were glowing, many many greater runes rotted. To compensate for this the vellum drop rates are reversed allowing for 70 spells to be commonly made and distributed and 69 spells to be easily obtained from rune turn ins.

[BeltiraBelkira]

i do know that t hose parchments as well as various other lvl of parchments drop inside vergalid mines....the drop rate is depending on the RNG but ive gotten to the point that i have few needed 69 spells on a few chars from doing that.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Despite any "theories" there has not been a reduction in the drop rate in the data side.

What of course may be happening is that less people are hunting the apropriate content, but there was no change made in the data.

[Frontallobe]

If you believe the data collected by Magelo, Shabby Runic Vellums drop in TSS and TBS, http://eq.magelo.com/item/97881 (hope the link works), with Sunderock, Verigalid Mines, and the zone Buried Sea being the most common.

[greblhad]

Despite any "theories" there has not been a reduction in the drop rate in the data side.

What of course may be happening is that less people are hunting the apropriate content, but there was no change made in the data.

Don't take the following paragraph as argument, it is merely explaination, and it gives insight into how my twisted paranoid mind works (I'm left handed so I think left handed).

My theory didn't say the drop rate was nerfed. It has always been low. I have always had trouble keeping them in stock and I find it unlikely it is related to how many people are hunting in a particular zone since I have 40-60 of all the other 66-70 drops in stock but I have 0 shabby runic vellum. This would mean since the introduction of TSS those zones have been mostly deserted. I was merely proffering a theory regarding why this is so.

If its not valid then the question becomes why is the drop rate so low vs. all the others.

[Bobaten]

Looking at the magelo listings, it seems the runic vellum seems to drop from 65-70 mobs, while the fine runic drops from 70+ mobs. So pretty much, if it is dk blue/white/yellow to a 75 it can drop fine runic, but to drop runic it needs to be light blue. Pretty much anything that drops the runic, will also drop the other vellum, but there is less demand for those since the runes for those levels are droppable.
The cut off does seem odd. Fine runics can drop from mobs that are 5+ levels higher than the level of spell made but not from mobs that are lower than the spell level, while runics don't drop off anything that is more than 1 level higher than the spell level but do drop from mobs that are 2-3 levels below the spell level.

[greblhad]

Ok, I did some checking on my supplies and buys and its very odd. The supply of the 2nd from the last of each group for parchment, vellum and paper (i.e., 64, 69 and 74) are substantially lower than all others.

The availability of grimy fine vellum parchment, while never critically low, leaves me with a much lower supply.

The availablility of shabby runic vellum is criticaly low and I'm constantly out of them in contrast to my always having 40+ sooty fine runic vellum on hand (unless I just made a stack of 20 lvl 70 spells to stock my trader which I NEVER do with shabby runic vellum).

Ok, those 2 above can be misleading because I could be making more spells with them (which I'm not btw) or some other factors unique to me could be working (btw I am always either paying the highest price of any buyer or matching that price).

Well apparently I was wrong, Smudged runic paper is right in there, I didn't realize I had another stack of 200 in the bank.
smudged rough paper 478
smudged runic paper 318
sooty fine paper 377
sooty paper 415
stained fine runic paper 377