Essence of shadows

[Ladnia]

Hi all -

I've been going through my normal routine of farming lately, and have been running into what I'm hoping is just a string of bad luck. I'm posting here to see if any other DE smiths have seen the same thing.

I have been hunting shadowed men for the essences. I have a bit of a system, and I start in WC, clear that camp, then head to Nektolous, then to Lavastorm. I then gate back to WC, and start the whole cycle again. Doing it this way helps me to negate the boredom of sitting there waiting for the spawn Anyway, I spent a good 4 hours doing my thing yesterday, and killed several cycles of shadowed men. To my dismay, not a single essence dropped.

Am I just having some bad luck, or could the drop table be broken? Has anyone else seen this happening?

Thanks!
Ladnia
53rd JinXed Vicar, Vazaelle
Smithing - 186
Baking - 160
Brewing - 136

[Silound]

Dunno much about that, but I know that Essence of Shadows drops off the Dark's in Umbral fairly often. Also drops in Akheva, not sure what mobs though. There is a groups of Shadowed men in SK, Feerrott....where else....not sure.

Silound

[kiztent]

Dunno much about that, but I know that Essence of Shadows drops off the Dark's in Umbral fairly often. Also drops in Akheva, not sure what mobs though.

That's essence of darkness for black acrylia temper.

Essence of shadow, for shadow (DE cultural) temper, drops from old world shadow men.

[Hibashira]

I've killed my share of shadawmen. 1 in 20/30 is the usual drop rate I think.

[lonewylfe]

Might want to check vendors in various areas as well, I see this on the vendors a lot now.

[Kcalehc]

I heard there is a Shadowed Man camp in one of the Faydarks, have never been there yet so have no idea of the exact location (and probably wont go either - not too keen on running into any 'lightie' traitor elven guards)

[Kieroth_whiteleaf]

I get crappy drop rates on them (1 in 20 or 30 sounds about right, but I don't actually count) - I notice that WC seems to drop more often but that's more undocumented observation than scientific process.

SFG

[lonewylfe]

There's a camp of shadowed men in lesser fay. There's also one in lavastorm.

[MayakaXev]

Without knowing how many you killed, I'd say it's bad luck. My most recent run with the shadowed men was two days ago, and I got 14 EoS from 103 kills.

I've noticed the drop rate on smallish runs can vary a lot. I've seen 0 / 60 and I've also seen 15 / 60. On a longer run of 200, my lowest has been 15 EoS, highest was 33 EoS.

[Monodon]

Shadow essence

I see these for sale on NPC vendors in the Bazaar as well as SH, PoK very often and they sell for a reasonable price.

So unless you are truly poverty stricken... or just enjoy tormenting the shadowed men, that is where I would get them.

[Aethia]

We got 5 essence of shadows while camping them for my necro Shadowbound armor quests. I put them on my trader at 25 pp (Stromm). They sold - but I wonder if they were 'worth' more. Obviously value is different to everyone, but later that night I saw a trader with 1 for 150 pp.

Do people actually pay that much for items that can be farmed? As you can tell, I don't have that kind of money to spend on things (still fishing and killing bats for my fish rolls), so I was very happy making 125 plat for 30 minutes of work, plus my quest items.

Just curious if someone got a REALLY good deal (I love it when I find them in the bazaar) hehe.

[Moraganth]

The camp in lesser fay is left of the Steamfont entrance.... a large totem with platform. It's decent for 4 group respawns, and out of the way of the brownie scout paths.. althugh occasionally you get Thistle Underbrush, and Equestrialle. If you can take the 410 ht from Eq and not be hurt too much, the camps easy.

Of all the camps, i've had best luck at the Lavastorm one. I'd say at least one 4 group respawn every other time.

Nektulos is generally dismal, and usually has fewer 4 group spawns.. so in turn, fewer sm's to kill.

The WC camp is nice also, usually 4 group respawns on par with Lavastorm, but a little more spread out and easier to pull sm's away.

The SK camp is just annoying.. to me at least. I can never get my bearings on where it is before i've run into it /sigh. I've hunted here the least,.so don't have a clue how the spawns stack up agaist the others.

Innothule was pretty decent, with 4 group respawns a lot.. possible more than WC and Lava... but i haven't been there since the whole frog fiasco, so i don't know if it's still there even.

Best 2 are now WC and Lava.. generally more Sm's respawning, which means more chance for drops. For actually drops, Lava has always been the best for me.

[Kcalehc]

The only trouble I find with the Lavastorm camp is that it is up on a hill. So as a warrior I cannot pull with a bow (why can't I shoot even slightly upwards?) which does make life difficult, and then theres the constant falling damage that gets on my nerves too.

[Linea]

shadowed men have camps in:

south karana
innothule
nektulos
lavastorm
west commons
lesser faydark

ive generally farmed the west commons camp for essences tho

[Grimsoul]

I have been farming these for awhile now using my Dark Elf armor to train with and it does seem to me I am getting drops less than I use to. I came here to post the same question as Ladnia did.

Spent 4 hours at the shadowman camp in WC yesterday and had 3 shadows to show for it. I know I use to get way better drops than that. Seems there getting almost as hard to get as windstones are. Looks like I might have to go back to shadow scream for my skill ups.

I just camp the ones in WC, they spawn fairly fast so there is no need to go and hit other zones while waiting for the spawn. I just kill the shadows then run over and kill the two druids at the druid rings for a little extra money. Time I get back to the shadow camp there back up.