Death of Shadowscream?

[Flix_Flax]

I would pay up to 50pp eacch

IMO its eaiser for me to farm PP and exp at same time than farm the stupid shades. I can make 2-3k pp an hour + 1 AA so why not pay it.. but I do tend to over pay people for stuff.. /shrug

Flix
65 mage on MT
almost a 1750 TS'er

[Emelyn]

The difference between shadowscream versus sickles is supposed to be time versus money. I'm right there with the money point, but the time point just doesn't cut it. For this to be a valid argument, sickles should take like 1/10th the time of shadowscream or something like that given that its store bought.

Sickles take a ton of subcombines, and are very time consuming to make.

I recently prepared a batch of 200 shadowscream combines and 200 sickle combines for a skill run. I didn't time it, but in the end I wound up feeling like the sickles were just too time consuming to be worth the cost.

200 shadowscream combines is
farm 10 stacks of sonic wolf stuff (200 total)
farm 10 stacks of owlbear stuff (200 total)
farm 20 stacks of swirling shadows (400 total)
combine 10 stacks of metal rings (200 total)
combine 200 total humming orbs (would be 10 stacks if they stacked)
combine 200 shadowscream

Total: Farmed 800 items and did 600 combines.

200 sickle combines is
combine 90 stacks of celestial essence + a few extra stacks for later failures (1800 total)
imbue 30 stacks of emeralds + extra (600 total)
combine 30 stacks of mistletoe temper (600 total)
combine 30 stacks of blessed dust of tunare (600 total)
combine 200 blessed pommels
combine 200 blessed hilt
combine 200 blessed sickles blades
combine 200 sickles

Total: Farmed 0 items and did 4400 combines

4400 combines (and remember I had extras for failures of which there were a bunch) was so time consuming, I don't see the trade off. Not as time consuming as farming but pretty darn close.

Now, buying the celestial essence and other stuff might help a good deal but ups the cost even more.

Incidentally, I got more skill raises off the shadowscream than the sickles, but it it too small a sample size to be conclusive.

[Nizanko]

I think some moron went through and bought most of the ones up on Sol Ro, because almost all of them are gone, and one person selling 82 of them for 70pp each is now selling 15 for 75pp each.

Way to hose the last, best hope for smithing for the rest of us, whoever you are. :P

[Naelia]

where are you farming these shadows?

I was in SWT for almost 2 hours today. Net swirling shadows: 1 Where are you getting a stack an hour?

I'm a level 50 Shadowknight - haven't even started Shadowscream, since I can't seem to finish the intro quest ;P Anyone willing to direct me?

[Okotona]

Heh...

it varies really, but usually a stack an hour in SWT.

I'm a 61 Shaman, I have a button for clearing all corpses, and killing anything that starts with 'a'... for instance...

'a lesser shade'

I click the button, pet looks for it and kills it... instantly.

when too many corpses cluttering things up...

/hidecorpse allbutgroup

It would suck to have to target, go up to, and melee the bastages... /hug pet.

[Naelia]

found the good spot

ok, well I found the hill, and have 12 beeeaooootiful shadows after an hour of melee madness. *blush* never mind!

[Kradlum]

Re: Heh...

It would suck to have to target, go up to, and melee the bastages...

Don't you have to target and go up to them anyway to loot them? And meleeing them takes about 2 hits.

[Reflan]

50pp today in bazaar on the swirling shadows; guy had a stack of them.

[bearcaller]

Re: Heh...

it varies really, but usually a stack an hour in SWT.

I'm a 61 Shaman, I have a button for clearing all corpses, and killing anything that starts with 'a'... for instance...

How do you do this??? one of my biggest gripes is not having a "loot all" button or something like that?

[Kradlum]

Re: Heh...

How do you do this??? one of my biggest gripes is not having a "loot all" button or something like that?

I think he means he clears the corpses off the screen, he still has to loot them before he hides them though.

[Kradlum]

I am having more difficulties farming all components since the change of swirling shadows to not no-drop. There seems to be 2 reasons for this:
The change seems to have spurred many 188 smiths to keep going on shadowscream, and maybe other smiths who were not using the SS route are now trying it, so there are more actual smiths farming;
Smiths are paying newbies to farm the shadows (500pp per stack is the highest I have seen). While I don't have a problem with that, it does slow up the farming a bit, since the lower level players can take an age to kill a skeletal hunter or lesser shade, which is slowing the spawn rate, as I could have killed (and and thus respawned) 4 or 5 in the time it takes a lower level to kill one.

While I don't pay for my swirling shadows, I do barter for them, normally with pieces of Shadowscream or whatever armour I have on me. One lucky warrior got an acrylia breastplate in return for 1 swirling shadow this week, since it had been in my trader bags for a while and I always try to help fellow warriors and ogres (it's a tough life being either).

[B_Delacroix]

I am from the Karana server. In my opinion, probably the greediest lot of all the servers. That may be because I'm exposed to it more than other servers, though.

I am a half elf. I have few choices to skill on.

My experiences thus far:

Twilight Sea is camped most all the time. Once it was by a quading druid. Other times, I wait patiently for the current camper to get their fill and, once the leave, I move up. At this point, I usually have free reign for about 5 kills before someone else moves in and the island is now dual camped or worse. The worst its been was a druid/necro combo, a warrior and me. Needless to say, no shadows stayed up long enough for me to even see one. I've only been asked once if I was camping the shadows. The rest just move in. One even claim jumped me (you know, "It's camped. I've been here for hours. bla bla bla", but I didn't care to argue.

The bazaar has them for sale for 100p each. Entirely too much and I hope they aren't selling. I fear they are.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

I rarely see them for sale on Tunare, but when I have, its been 1-10 for 100pp each.

I've always farmed them myself in Shadeweavers, and paid 1-2pp per swirling shadow to newbies (who were very happy at the richs I paid them, heh)

[EchtelionFV]

In my server no-drop was removed, so substances can be bought in bazaar as well and newbies camp them. Usual price is 50, but that's way too much for me.

[Zeralenn]

I have STILL seen no appreciable change to shadowscream on my server (Innoruuk). I still usually have no competition for the Paludal-entrance shade camp. The most swirling shadows I have ever seen being sold in the bazaar is 8. One person had 3 swirling shadows for sale (yes, 3) for 50pp each for more than a week.

I have a full-time trader toon so I check the bazaar very often for new additions, and "shadow" is one of the words I search for often (since I look for essence of shadow, shadow temper, swirling shadows and am in the market for a pre-nerf Circlet of Shadow). So if they are going up and selling immediately, they do it at NO time that I check.

...Zera
who lost all her Shadowscream tools and is considering whether she wants to bother doing the quests to get them back.