hollowshade drops broken?

[stefmuzic]

I am new to this farming thing but it seems that wailing and shrieking are not dropping in hollowshade as of 9/13/03.
I killed about 50 Owlbears and 50 Sonicwolfs at various camps and had NO drops. Fur ears etc were plentiful but no smithing ingredients. Can anyone else confirm or deny this?

Astlin Loremaster
61 Enc "Drinal"

[Qedin]

What you need drops from mobs on the south islands only. So if the grimlings are up you will have to manipulate the war so the appropriate mob is up ie. shrieking subs. = owlbears, wailing subs = sonic wolves.

Hope this helps...

[Kaysha Soulsinger]

I had the same issues as well. I hunted both caves but zero drops, until someone told me those critters didn't drop anything.

Then I was pointed to the islands with the tents on the raised platforms in the southeast corner of the zone. I went there and hunted whatever was up there and gathered plenty of substances.

I never looked into manipulating the war there, I just check occasionally and if either wolves or owlbears are up I go farming for the time I have.

[Cavel]

I will toss my 2 pp in here. You CAN and WILL get drops from the other caves. You must remember that the substances are rare drops so yes, it will be streaky. The reason it seems better when owls or wolves control the south is that there are more of them to kill. I can tell you that there have been times when I have gone through 4 AOE groups of both bears and owls and not gotten a single substance (That would be around 50). There are also the times when it seems every one has some... But again I HAVE gotten substances from the other owls and Bears in the caves... Just not as often

[Qedin]

Well on the islands by myself (55 Pally) I can get 1 stack per hour. I have killed many of the other mobs to manipulate the war and never had a single substance drop. Either way the south islands are where you want to be 8).

good luck

[Liwsa]

I aoe the islands pulling 20-40 mobs at a time and get anywhere from 5-10 per pull off owlbears and get around 3-8 off wolves(wolves pulls being lower since they have more hp, are casters, and more of a pain).

Did one pull last night "think" I got every owlbear off south islands must have been 75 (i looted 62 since mobs with no items rot in 30 seconds) and got around 12 for my troubles. hehe

Takes me about 3-4 hours to get 100 of each.

I find the owlbears have a better drop rate about 1-5 where I see wolves droppings in 1-7.

[Malodium]

Yeah wolves drop less for some dumb reason. I always have tons of owlbear substance and am always needing wolf.
I AE as well, but cant pull more than 20 or so at a time since they really start to chew me up quick. Soon as my rune wears off (im a wiz) its much more difficult to get off the AE. With rune on you dont get pushed around when they hit you, so its easier to channel through it.
Only had to use my insta evac once though, in a massive train of wolves that I got, was feeling brave, ended up almost dead hehehe.

[Palarran]

Try wedging yourself into a corner inside one of the huts. It makes it much easier to channel an AE.

[Bennan]

wailing and shrieking substances

Before when the War didn't work I would get about 60ish Owlbear substances and about 40ish Wolf Substances per hour.

After the War was fixed, I was getting about 30 Owlbear substances, and about 20 Wolf Substances per hour.

This was a few months ago, so my memory might be out.

I am about to get stuck into Hollowshade again in the next week, so hopefully I can get lucky and get a good drop rate.

[GraemeFaelban]

There is a big difference in drop rate between the south camp and other camps. I cannot clear any one of the camps effectively, so just kill one mob at a time as fast as I can. Get almost zero drops in the east and west, get a lot of drops in the south.

[Angelsyn]

The Wolves in Tenebrous Mountains are higher level (light-blue to 49), but they drop Substances much more often.

Just an option, really.

[Bennan]

Tenebrous Mtns

I have hunted in T.M before, for the Dire Wolves. Drop rate while not that good, does seem better than HollowShade. I think I will head back to T.M. I two box so at least I will get some xp on another character while I get bored to death.

Plus, the annoying factor with HollowShade nowdays is that I am finding quite a few people want to do the War =/.

[catterly]

Like Qedin said, go to the south islands and kill em there. I am a monk so I cant ae, I just run around getting agro hitting them if neccesary then I turn around and lay the smackdown.

[Xorshaik]

I've gotten one or two drops fron the east caves. I think south camp drops is in the one per 7 ish range, whereas the other two are in the 1 in 100 range.

[Galain]

Hunting anywhere but the south camp is a huge waste of time in my opinion. Just get a puller and someone with a pointblank AE. Me and a ranger friend kill every mob in the south at once on each pull. Takes us as long to loot as respawn and we get about 20-30 substances a pull.