Smithing using shadowsceam armor question

[pabon purecaster]

Way back in the day when i was working on tradeskills i got my smith up to 230 but now with the new cultural armor i would like to make some for my character however i want to get 300 in smithing before i do. When i did skills up before i did the war event for the substance. However this was before they fixed the war and i could keep certain types of mobs at the huts for the best drop rates. Now that the war is fixed what is best way to get these substances . Is it still the war? Is there a way to keep certain mobs at the huts without it resetting. I know after they fixed the way i couldn't stop the invaders before they woudl take over because i was so far from them or AoEing alot of the mobs i needed and didn't see the attacking message.

Thanks for advise.

Pabon purecaster

[Xulan]

Best way, IMO, is to let the grimlings die (which they do naturally) and then just let the southern camp switch back and forth between wolves and bears. That way you have a little variety (har har) and also it keeps the drop rate fairly equal. I did eventually have to stop the invading bears once so I could farm the wolves 2x's to make it all equal (seems shrieking drops a bit less).

Others would spend the time making one camp take over everything and then reset the war and making the other side win, but that's time I'd rather spend farming than messing with the war.

[Obina]

Agree. Kill the Grimlings then let nature take its course.

If you do get out of balance, you can either 1) Stop the invading army that will try to take over every so often, or 2) When your chosen side has 2 camps, help them get the third by killing the defenders. Then they capture all 3 plus the Vah Shir fort. War over. Sonic Wolves win!

To go back to beginning kill the named in the former cat fort outside shar Vahl.

[Ravenswood]

/agree

Unless you know you want nothing but shrieking or wailing, best method is to simply wait for the message that says xxx mob are mustering their defenses in the south....blah blah blah. That tells you that whoever youre fariming is about to be attacked, so you just start looking for the 5-6 attackers who will be making their way across the southern islands, and eventually to the village at the top of the hill.

[Boleslav]

My suggestion would be to set the color for zonewide messages (like the ones that happen when the war is switching up) to a different color to make it more noticeable.

Or set it to it's own chat box along with /say. That way you can note that the message has been announced, then /say something to put a line of text after it. That way, when the new announcement shows up under your say, you know it's fresh.

That should give you plenty of time to keep an eye out for invaders that you want to help or stop.

Just a couple ideas.

Boleslav Forgehammer
Paladin of Brell in his 67th Campaign
E'ci - Sacred Destiny

[zumavt]

The war

Regarding the war, while I found this writeup
useful, I found that the war didn't operate as written. I would like to see if anyone has evidence that the three following rules aren't in effect.

1) Camps are attacked in a counter-clockwise direction. The south is attacked from the north, east from the south and north from the east, always. I don't recall this ever being written up but I have never seen it occur otherwise in 100+ attacks.

2) When the zone has been reset with the killing of a named in the outpost, killing a named in any of the three camps will cause that camp to be attacked next. Killing the defenders ensures that the camp will be overrun and that the attacking race will occupy two of the three camps.

3) This last rule applies to getting one species to occupy the whole zone (and the outpost). When two of the three camps are occupied by one species , normally one of those camps will be attacked preceded by a zone wide message that explains this is due to 'their forces being spread thin'. However, this isn't always the case since it is possible for one species to occupy all camps. I have tried attacking both the third camp and the 'attacking camp' and I haven't seen a direct correlation for which action spawns the proper attackers. It appears that the RNG determines when the dominant species will finally attack the third camp.

For example, last night after a zone reset I killed the chieftain in the south and the owlbears took over. In 10-15 minutes, while I was killing bears for wailing substances, they attacked the third camp of wolves in the east. This isn't typical, it usually takes a few failed attempts for the wolf fiends to attack the owlbear defenders in the north before the owlbears in the south will attack the wolves in the east. I have seen up to 5-6 wolf attacks in a row that I caused to fail by killing the owlbear defenders in the north. This is a major pain when you want to get one species to occupy the zone so you don't have to defend the species you are farming in the south.

Because of this RNG effect and because I play a ranger, I normally don't try to get one species to own the whole zone. It is simple enough to track down the attackers from the north, who always follow the same route, before they get to the defenders in the south.

I also think this situation explains why some people think that shrieking substances drop less often than wailing substances. It takes quite awhile for the wolves to occupy the south camp having to first overrun the north whereas getting the owlbears to take over the south camp is trivial after a zone reset.

[Ravenswood]

It occurred to me while farming this weekend that it probably isn't a great idea to let either the wolves or the bears take over all three camps. Having a named that close to the Shar Val entrance is usually just too tempting for people to resist killing them, even though the loot is tricial to most these days. Once the zone resets after the named kill in the fort, you'll have to get rid of the Grims in the south all over again.

[Obina]

Agree with zumavt's first two points. Not agree with third point. In my experience there is no RNG effect. After the grims are gone, the wolves and bears take turns attacking in an anti-clockwise direction. The attackers win if they have one camp. They don't win if they already have two. The only way they take over the third camp is if a player intervenes and helps them.

For the last comment on "it seems like 6 attacks in a row" - this is true, but not RNG. Once the wolves have the North camp, they will attack the South every time it is their "turn". By the anti-clockwise rule, there is nowhere else to go when it is their turn. To keep the South camp under owlbears rule, you either need to help the owls wipe out the sonic wolves, or kill the attackers every 15 minutes or so.

[Berrew]

There is no RNG effect. The rule is simple - the side with 1 camp will win against the side with 2 camps. 2-camp creatures will not spawn defenders ("forces spread too thin"), so the single-camp guys will get through. Similarly, 1-camp defenders always spawn the 8 defenders, who are higher level than the attackers. I have never seen a natural 3-camp takeover; it always requires PC assistance.