Great Reptile Hide...

[Sarthor]

Please get them to drop off a different mob, something current. Putting drops that are needed in quantity on mobs in dead zones that require a raid to access just kills that method of skilling up for the vast majority of tradeskillers.

Players tend to migrate to where the best loot/xp is and with SoE's policy of abandoning expansions once the next one comes out, older expansion zones become deserted. Items that can be obtained from the bazaar when the expansion is active dissappear once the next expansion comes out and you are left with having to spend weeks if not months farming things by yourself, if you are even capable of soloing there.

I do see the odd reptile tooth in the bazaar because people still use the zones that they drop in. I have never seen a hide anywhere, ever. Just something to keep in mind when placing drops and considering drop rate. If the zone you put them in is likely to become obsolete once the next expansion comes out, then the rate that the drops will enter the economy will drop dramatically.

[Axemaster]

tradeskill drops should never come from flagged ZONES (exceptions would be if the items are meant for people of that gear level - PoP and GoD for example). This is especially true for racial tradeskill drops.

Tradeskill drops should never ever come only from instanced zones (unless there is some rule that after 2 more expansions, older instances are allowed to be started by 1 or more characters).

thats my opinion anyway. to me it makes sense!

[Mitsune Foxfire]

spent 5ish hours clearing the southeast region of nightmare with my wife and our bots. got 103 nightmare arachnid silk swatches for her master level DEF tailoring. got ZERO great reptile teeth for my iksar's smithing. such a lovely disparity. 51 combines for her compared to ZERO combines for moi.

have done /feedback for what its worth..

Great reptile tooth do drop from the crocodiles ("a tar`dak hunter") in PoN, I have been camping those over the last weeks. You can hunt those along the south side of the river east and west of the dock without getting other mobs aggro. They are static and have a respawn of something like 15 mins. The drop rate for the tooth is somewhere between 5-10%. (You will get about the equal number of Crocodile Toe, Enormous Croc Tooth, and Great Reptile Tooth and about twice as many Emerald Crocodile Scale if I remember correctly. Also Ethereal Parchment and Ivory Claw Necklace much rarer and a lot of empty crocodiles.)

[Eidolon Faer]

It's not just the Reptile Hides that are problematic with DON.

Coarse Spider Silks have always been insanely rare compared to Glossy Drake Hides or Metallic Drake Scales, leaving Silk Classes up a creek when it comes to wearing the DOD augs. Nice of them to put Spell Foci on so many of those augs.

Also, the higher-level missions which have yellow-to-70 spiders tend to be buggy or have obscure and poorly written instructions for how to beat them. This "Avoid X mission like the plague" factor further exacerbates the relative rarity of DON spiders, the absurd drop rates, and the fact that you need twice as many silk drops to make a given armor slot than MDS or Glossy Drakes (2 silks per swatch compared to 1 scale per sheet).

You'd think Coarse Spider Silk should be twice as abundant as Metallic Drake Scales, but a survey of the Bazaar dispenses with that notion quickly. And if you go hunting for the silks it's a nightmare.

[KyrosKrane]

My impression, from doing a few missions that drop coarse silk, is that the silk is approximately as common as scales or hides in that mission. The problem is that no one does missions that drop silk because they have lower risk/reward ratios than missions like Creator or Blackwing Drakes. I guarantee you, if one of the missions that dropped silk had its crystal reward raised to, say, 100 with no other changes to the mission, coarse silk would flood the bazaar.

[Anahka_slivermane]

1) The majority of people casually xping in DoN Missions do not do the instances with spiders of sufficient level to have a chance to drop Coarse Spider Silk.

2) Many people know MDS/GDH have a high retail value. They keep them! Silk is still relatively unknown as a valuable retail item because the wide majority of people have no idea what they are for if they ever see one. The places I find Coarse Spider Silk (Lava Merchants and Guild Lobby/Hall merchants) seems to confirms this.

3) Most instances with spiders, of sufficient level to have a chance of dropping Coarse Spider Silk, that people do are progressions tasks (ie. Rival Party) that require a certain level of progression to be able to request. Groups who have access to these tasks don't generally farm them. They kill what they need for the win and leave.

The reason you see so many MDS/GDH in the bazaar is because many people solo/kite an instance called "Lair of the Blackwing" for xp. This instance is full of 71+ Drakes right at zone in with a wide open kite area. This is a prime Scale/Hide drop location.

High level Spiders are found much deeper in the Nest instances that even have Spiders. "Rival Party" for example. These Spiders are much more of a challenge to farm than the Drakes. The rooms and halls (witch have roamers) in witch the spiders spawn are small and not as kite friendly as the zone in.

Drakes = Easy farming with 3 valuable drops (MDS/GDH/Purescale Ore) and better xp/hr
Spiders = Challenging farming with 1 Valuable drop (CSS) with less xp/hr
Where would you xp?

In my opinion the best, easiest, fix for the "seeming" imbalance of Silk drops would be to add spiders to the zone in area of the missions, "Lair of the Black Wing" and "Rival Party". Those who then choose to xp, or farm, in these instances would have better access to all 4 potential valuable drops in one area evening out the balance of MDS/GDH/CSS in the Bazaar and/or Guild Banks

[Anahka_slivermane]

...and the fact that you need twice as many silk drops to make a given armor slot than MDS or Glossy Drakes (2 silks per swatch compared to 1 scale per sheet).

This is something I hope will be re-evaluated soon.
1) The location of spiders inside the instances should be looked at and adjusted to make them as available as the Drakes are to the casual player.
2) Change the Spiders drop to Coarse Spider Silk Swatch, double thier drop rate, or have Silk + silk = 2 Swatches.

It is very much a class balance issue to make these drops not only twice as hard to aquire but also require twice as many drops for the same recipies with an additional sub combine that could (though unlikely) fail.

If I was a Silk wearing class I would be insane with rage! :-p

As it is I have 5 GM Leather pieces made for myself, 2 that I have made Bazu augs for and wear proudly, and 3 waiting for more Stones!

Plate/Chain GM pieces in guild? About 15
Leather GM Pieces in guild? About 15
Silk GM Pieces in guild? 0

[dudabaga]

Can anyone confirm a drop or better Drops in CT. I have been tring to farm them on and off now and I still have yet to see one. I see Great reptile hides once in a great while in teh bazaar, but I can not get a responce from teh player to find out where.

before PoR
100 raptor kills no hides
after PoR
25 kills no hides

Is it just bad luck or are they just that rare still

[filobeto]

That rare.

I have not farmed them since the release of PoR, but I can confirm that they do drop in CT as I have personally looted and used the hides on Master BPs. I sorta remember making legs to, but I can't 100% say for sure.

I put the drop rate right up there with the hides that are used on the Tae Ew sacks.....yup, THAT rare.

[Dyllwin]

That rare.

I have not farmed them since the release of PoR, but I can confirm that they do drop in CT as I have personally looted and used the hides on Master BPs. I sorta remember making legs to, but I can't 100% say for sure.

I put the drop rate right up there with the hides that are used on the Tae Ew sacks.....yup, THAT rare.

I agree, I spent a weekend farming CT at the 4C area a few weeks back, in that time got 2 Great Reptile Hides and 2 Flawless Tae Ew Hides...sorry I did a lousy job keeping track of which mobs dropped which, but all were in 4C pyramid area.

[Creowatha]

One other place to try...

Seen them drop in ToV off Racnars in Halls of Testing. Almost no one goes there, but if the drop rate is the same there as in Veeshan's Peak (at worst uncommon, see maybe 10-15 hides and bout half that in teeth clearing to and killing two dragons) then it's worth a look. My woodelves don't use em, so I haven't paid as much attention to their drop rates.

[Minta Rose]

I get DoN instances with both drakes an' spidies, but there's LOTS more drakes than there are spidies 'cause spidies are mixed with gobbies an' undead drakes, an' spidies come from the part that's harder to kite too. An' my spidies are white cons to me an' I use a kindly factioned to get the instance an' I don't usually care if I win or not.

[Buns]

6 hours in in CT hunting down Reptile hides and I only got 1. Not the easiest place for rogue to farm, 10 mins a mob with downtime included. But I really was hoping for more than 1 hide. Tried getting a group going there, but theres better xp elsewhere and even with a group I doubt I'd have seen more than 1 an hour. Still waiting to see any in Povar baz, have seen a couple of Reptile teeth 10k & 22k respectivley. I guess I need to change my tailoring route back to Othmir's and CrushedDiamondDust/Shissar. /OOC WTB Othmir Fur 300pp each.

[filobeto]

But I really was hoping for more than 1 hide. Tried getting a group going there, but theres better xp elsewhere and even with a group I doubt I'd have seen more than 1 an hour.

Even with a group you would be lucky to see more than 1 an hour. With the number of mobs that CAN drop it being so limited, and the drop rate at what it is, this is just not a viable skillup option. Better to just go crazy on Othmirs and Holgresh.

[Donbayne]

Small Brick of Yttrium Ore
Pile of Gravel
Great Reptile Tooth

Now which one would YOU like to farm?
Good golly, everyone is choosing Small Brick of Yttrium Ore!

/sarcasm on
Gosh, wonder why that is, huh?
/sarcasm off


Fix the dang drop rate already, make it fair.

/em wanders off mumbling and grumbling