HQ ore drops

[sjsell]

I just got my smithing to where I need HQ ore. I'd prefer to farm it as much as possible. I went to Runnyeye where I read that it drops and started the slaughter. After 2 or 3 hours of MASS MURDER. (I love AoE) not a single piece dropped(was killing both in the gobby city area and above). Is it that rare or doesn't it drop there? Does it drop in any lower level dungeon? I also read it drops in HHK and Permafrost. Does it or do I just have to buy and convert FS weapons to it? Thanks

[Cavel]

Sol A has a decent drop rate for both FS weapons and HQ ore... HOWEVER you will see alot more firey ore and unrefined ore than HQ. your best bet would be to farm there, sell the firey ore, keep the unrefined, go to HHK and smelt down the FS weapons you have, do the combines you need from the HQ ore, then buy out the vendor and replenish him using the unrefined. Alot of work but heck smithing always has been.

[sir0die]

deleted due to double post

[sir0die]

I farmed all my HQ ore in 2 places, The HG's In Rathe (i was lvl appropriate at the time) and Guards in HHK. the disadvantage to the HHK guards are you get a bunch of negative human faction hits. Corrupt guards of freeport, qeynos guards, and of course HHK folks. I liked HHK better, less compitition, and there is a forge in HHP( high hold pass).

i'd stock up on a ton of water flasks, head to HHK, fill up my inventory with FS swords, head to tavern in HHP with forge, smith the swords into rings(stackable), then head back and kill more guards. I usually left for 1 of 3 reasons, A) out of water B) inventory full of stacks of rings (usually encumbered), C) had to log for RL

ya get some plat, ignore thos HH flasks, they sell for 1 plat and dont stack.

the advantage to hunting HG's in rathe, more plat, some weaps yeild more ore.

I've done the math, it's actually easier to just sell the weapons, then buy the HQ ore, the problem is the vendor has a limited supply of HQ ore and you have to do a quest to restock him. (easy, head to rivervale and hunt goblins near runnyeye, they drop the ore for the quest, pop made it alot easier with the transport stones)
If memerory servers me right, it takes 9 weapons to make 2 HQ rings, i'm assuming you're working on the ornate chain part. so what ya have is 9 combines to turn weapon into ore, then ya have to combine 3 block to get a bigger block, then combine 3 of those bigger blocks to get the final block to use to make your ring. all together thats 13 combines to get your chunk of ore that is needed to make your ring, so that 14 combines to make 2 rings, that's a good chance of failing along the way. so sell those 9 weapons and just buy that block of HQ ore, save your plat, nothing sucks like losing the cost of 9 weapons on a VERY trivial combine and not even have a chance at your skill up combine.
If ya sell the weaps AND buy the ore, you KNOW you'l get a skill up attempt

[Morani]

Not long ago, I went to Sol A (for the first time) to farm Fine Steel weapons. Before I was done, I managed to bottom out my faction with the goblins there (I estimate I've killed about 4000 of them). The zone is relatively unoccupied most of the time.

I 2-box a Ranger - Druid combo and had great success with that. I'd park the druid in a relatively safe corner and run around on a killing spree. When my encumbrance got to high, I'd load up the Druid with weight. Doing that with some careful item management, I kept everything but the fiery ore and no drop items and stayed till both inventories were full. I'd port us to the Druid Circle and sell off the stuff I didn't want to keep, load all the HQ ore, Fine Steel, and coin onto the Druid and Gate out leaving the Ranger (Druid was bound at a forge). Before I started farming, I made sure I had 5 stacks of water and a file on the Druid (Druid was usually at 10 or less Agi after being loaded up) so I'd start working down the stuff into rings (one "trip" would result in nearly 2 stacks). I'd then buy more water, change & deposit the coin, put the rings & unrefined ore in the bank, and port back to Lavastorm for a rinse and repeat. Eventually, I'd turn in the unrefined ore for faction and cash (about 11 plat for the small & 44 plat for the large bricks).

It took me about 4 hours for one "round trip" but I would expect it to take less for a caster that can AoE, you'll need to cycle through more ground than I did tough since I only did about 8 rooms around where the Captain spawns (about 20 spawn points for single mobs and 2-3 drifters total). I even scared myself when I dinged off of light blues and didn't see it coming.

[Morani]

(Missed this or I would have included it in the above)

I've done the math, it's actually easier to just sell the weapons, then buy the HQ ore, the problem is the vendor has a limited supply of HQ ore and you have to do a quest to restock him.

Was that before or after the cursor stacking fix? My experience recently has been the opposite. Even the staff (use to loose about 6.5 gold if you converted it) will now yield 10.9 plat worth of ore meaning it's 4.78 plat to your advantage to convert it (2 small bricks @ 5.486 plat each VS sell back of 6.19 plat).