Curse

Krazi Bastid · Jan 26, 2008, 12:00 AM // 00:00

my guildie always does 600/smite to farm his ectos and i always do earth ele solo smite runs. he takes different ppl in the guild as his smiter but i never go. then ppl ask me why not? and i guess the reason is just cus i dont want to be someones bitch for an hour, which is how he plays, bip me bip me bip me bip me bip me bip me bip me while spamming spiritbond on recharge. anyways, just wanted to know on everyones experience, what do they find more effective for farming ectos? and if anyone can do some accurate math on the technical stuff for the 600/smite or 55/ss. like say for my earth ele runs, all 40ish smites dead in about 12minutes, so thats like 40ish % chance at an ecto drop per run, or around 1ecto per half hour. thanks.

I Will Heal You Ally · Jan 26, 2008, 12:14 AM // 00:14

Terra Tank FTW... not a big far of duo nether... those days should be gone by now

kel77 · Jan 26, 2008, 12:28 AM // 00:28

Duo will always be faster, but ultimately solo wins out because you won't have to share ectos

Happy farming

eiri yuki · Jan 26, 2008, 12:55 AM // 00:55

Question, does the terratank build on PvXwiki still work? because now with lootscaling and all, i wonder if the AoE kills wont kill your drops

Hyprodimus Prime · Jan 26, 2008, 01:16 AM // 01:16

I dont beleive in loot scaling, but I do beleive in the "flag theory" I cant find the original thread but Ive done a few tests myself and it seems to work.

ejp · Jan 26, 2008, 01:26 AM // 01:26

flag theory? and what is best 2 man 600/smite? 55/ss?

eiri yuki · Jan 26, 2008, 01:27 AM // 01:27

you mean the thread with the whole timed entry thing in fahranur? yeah it seems logical enoug. thanks for the heads up

Krazi Bastid · Jan 26, 2008, 01:28 AM // 01:28

the terra tank does work still, i dont see a drop in my ecto rates. if there is its miniscule. but just in case, instead of pulling 20+ smites then killin in one shot and getting 100gold for my efforts, i just kill them each group. the skills recharge fast enough so i never have to wait for recharge. just kill a group and then walk on over kill next group at a safe spot. but if you prefer the 20+ smite pull, go for it, according to anet, lootscaling does not affect ectos so TECHNICALLY, ectos should drop same rate whether you kill in bulk or small packets.

[Morkai] · Jan 26, 2008, 01:46 AM // 01:46

Loot scaling full stop doesn't apply in Core Area's..apparantly...but the drop rates have decreased...Anet lied to us IMO..scaling does apply in Core Areas.

Songbringer · Jan 26, 2008, 01:55 AM // 01:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by ejp

flag theory? and what is best 2 man 600/smite? 55/ss?

600/smite is faster however 55/ss can do all the quests at the first grenth statue as well as the quest to get spider in the town and the spider quest in the icy vale area.

Sorry I don't know the names of the places. I stopped doing uw hardcore when i maxed account in gold

I however have done all the quests I talked about with a friend of mine who recently quit the game.

O and actually the reason I wanted to post was to say smite hero>person. I can get bip whenever I want and make them stand where I want and don't have to deal with someone screwing up aggro. If your leader plays like that maybe he should consider using a hero.

I don't mean to be rude but he doesn't sound like someone i would want "serving"(using that losely) under because if he tried to make me his bitch i would rage out. I can't stand people who are like ZOMG REDENGINEGOREDENGINEGOREDENGINEGORED.

I do the vwk solo and the duo 600/smite they both are bout the same money I've found and I like the 600/smite only because i am more comfortable with it.

Songbringer · Jan 26, 2008, 02:02 AM // 02:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by kel77

Duo will always be faster, but ultimately solo wins out because you won't have to share ectos

Happy farming

Can always do how they fall rather then 50/50. If your lucky they will all drop in your name. Thats how I always did 55/ss(back when only prophecies exsisted).

zmano11 · Jan 26, 2008, 02:02 AM // 02:02

I think 55/SS is faster since with 600/smite the Smites get hit only when they attack and when your 55/SS the smites get hurt whenever they attack or use a skill.

Spets_Naz · Jan 26, 2008, 03:50 PM // 15:50

and, with terratank, how do we get rid of the dying nightmares that spawn when we are making a run to the smites making the minotaurs kill?

VitisVinifera · Jan 26, 2008, 09:08 PM // 21:08

as kel77 states it: the more people, the faster (whether that is 2 or 8), but the fewer drops that are reserved for you.

Rather than think of it as how fast you can complete a smite run, you should be more concerned with your ectos per hour rate. So solo wins out.

boogerboy72 · Jan 27, 2008, 09:17 PM // 21:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by VitisVinifera

as kel77 states it: the more people, the faster (whether that is 2 or 8), but the fewer drops that are reserved for you.

Rather than think of it as how fast you can complete a smite run, you should be more concerned with your ectos per hour rate. So solo wins out.

true story, i can do "the run" with my sin way faster than with a 55/ss

dont feel no pain · Jan 27, 2008, 11:02 PM // 23:02

there are quite alot of good solo builds that can do a smite run <10mins

Wyat Hawke · Jan 27, 2008, 11:07 PM // 23:07

While we are at it, is it even profitable these days to do UW?

You pay a platinum to enter, and then you might get a ecto every 3-5 runs in my experience. With the ecto prices in an historically all-time low, is it even worth it, unless you're going for FoW armor?

Marverick · Jan 28, 2008, 12:16 AM // 00:16

It's not.

During the free UW/FoW weekend, I did 34 smite runs with my E/Me. I got 2 ectos.

Now if it were not free UW/FoW weekend, I would've spent 34k and maybe have made 10-15k.

Never went to UW again.

Smokin elementalist · Jan 28, 2008, 01:58 AM // 01:58

I used to be a relatively big fan of UW farming so i know quite a bit about it.
terra tank is the fastest platinum per hour. i can average about 1 ecto every run not sure if thats normal, but thats my average and the most ive ever gotten is 4 ecto in a run. i did 55/ss in my early days as a necro was my first lvl 20 but it is painfully slow. i did 600/smite which was quite fast for being a hard mode farm but not much wealth in is as the ecto nerf has steered most away from UW and even more so because you are splitting ectos. W/Rt works well. its not as fast as a terra tank but it is more reliable, and i seem to get the same droprate between it and the terra tank even thought the terra tank is killing 20 smites at once. and then there was trapping. i did 3 man trapping which was not nearly worth its time but its kinda fun to go with a couple of guildies and clear almost all of UW but trapping was nerfed when Anet nerfed energizing wind. there is supposedly another trapping build out there on wii but i haven't gotten around to trying it.

[riVen] · Jan 28, 2008, 04:26 PM // 16:26

W/Rt may be slower, but sure nets you more ectos per hour (my personal experience, but also that of many other people). You can fairly easily get the W/Rt run time down to 15 minutes, and -personally- I average around 5 ectos per hour. YMMV, but generally speaking, W/Rt seems more effective than E/Me and is also a lot safer (if you fail a run you're just bad :]).

W/Me and Rt/Mo (Hard Mode) are even more efficient. Pro: Like W/Rt, enemies don't die all at the same time so better for drop rate, Con: much less safe than W/Rt.