Curse

Unreal Havoc · Sep 24, 2008, 03:13 PM // 15:13

I normally use this to farm FoW.

[build prof=A/E dag=11+3 sha=10+1+3 crit=10+3][Glyph of [email protected]][Deadly [email protected]][Shadow Form][Golden Fox Strike][Golden Fang Strike][Death Blossom][Asuran Scan][Critical Agility][/build]

I use Daggers of the Hierophant (equivalant is Zealous Daggers of Enchanting). I also wear max armour as you can encounter some damage from Hydras, Wurms, Monks, and traps (if you're not careful) that will go through Shadow Form which will obviously be minimalised with a higher armour level. I normally throw on a Superior Vigor rune just in case along with Shield and a Spear of Enchanting (this can be any weapon it doesnt matter as long as it has an enchant mod on it).

You can take on most Shadow Army mobs without a Monk present which means you can take a nice tour around FoW. Take out the first group to your right from the start, run to the beach, kill everything on the beach (make sure you leave the Shadow Army mobs to fight the Driftwoods), run through the cave killing whatever you can along your way, run to the Tower of Strength killing the Abyssal/Mesmer mobs and the first Wurm you encounter. Run past the Burning Forest and then proceed to kill Skeleton Army mobs taking care not to trigger any traps laid by Skeletal Impalers. Then run back to the area where you started and kill a few more Shadow Army mobs that are monkless.

You can achive this on HM aswell as NM with the benefits obviously being drops over time. Generally its quicker to do it in NM though I normally find a few chests along the way so make sure to bring some lockpicks/keys too.

Laylat · Sep 25, 2008, 05:47 AM // 05:47

I think your best bet is to farm the cash and buy it off the trader or people.

Rhamia Darigaz · Sep 27, 2008, 04:30 AM // 04:30

what's with the assumption that "the best way to get shards" means "the best way to farm shards"?
irl if you want bread for lunch do you start farming wheat and make a loaf or do you buy some bread at the store?
the real best way to get shards is the same as the best way to get anything in the game: buy them.
while person A is out farming shards you can be out power trading and making tons of money and using that money to buy more shards than the farmer will ever see.

Unreal Havoc · Sep 27, 2008, 11:45 AM // 11:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rhamia Darigaz

what's with the assumption that "the best way to get shards" means "the best way to farm shards"?
irl if you want bread for lunch do you start farming wheat and make a loaf or do you buy some bread at the store?
the real best way to get shards is the same as the best way to get anything in the game: buy them.
while person A is out farming shards you can be out power trading and making tons of money and using that money to buy more shards than the farmer will ever see.

Or you could keep that money, farm the shards, and be even richer.

007wood · Sep 28, 2008, 03:10 PM // 15:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unreal Havoc

Or you could keep that money, farm the shards, and be even richer.

Or even better farm something that gives more money then buy the shards.

Tripolityx · Sep 28, 2008, 03:33 PM // 15:33

A/E Perma Cave farm works best in my opinion

Ephemeral Dreamer · Oct 01, 2008, 07:49 PM // 19:49

Using the A/E Perma Cave farm usually take me about 20 mins to clear out the spider cave, averaging 2-4 shards per run. Extra 10 mins you can run over and kill 4 groups of abyssal

Daft Shifty · Oct 01, 2008, 10:23 PM // 22:23

I'm told A/Me works in the spider cave also, but CBA trying it...

FrAnt1c² · Oct 02, 2008, 12:05 AM // 00:05

600/smiting it with ogden yields me a couple of golds and an average of 3 shards/half an hour...

Ephemeral Dreamer · Oct 03, 2008, 10:33 AM // 10:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by chessyang

ya don't call HM spider clearing any faster =( but golds sure did drop more. only 3 shards in this run =(

Actually I find doing spider runs in HM a bit faster then NM just because its a lot easier to lure muplite groups of spiders at once and bunch then into a tight group. Doing this, the spider don't use their healing springs, just the one your attacking atm, though it not hard to interrupt.

Once I reach the cave I run to the end to spawn all the spider groups and pull them into 3 big groups. The 1st group is at the end of the cave, the end of the cave, 2nd about the middle point of the cave, and the last group is all the spider at the entrance. Doing this you can clear out the cave of the spider in about under 20 mins.

XkristoferX · Oct 03, 2008, 01:32 PM // 13:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrAnt1c²

600/smiting it with ogden yields me a couple of golds and an average of 3 shards/half an hour...

do you run to the cave or kill everything on the way?

X

KIDGOOCH · Oct 03, 2008, 02:20 PM // 14:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrAnt1c²

600/smiting it with ogden yields me a couple of golds and an average of 3 shards/half an hour...

Is this the same as the CoF build? I know that build ok, but not too many others.

vespertine · Oct 03, 2008, 02:30 PM // 14:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by KIDGOOCH

Is this the same as the CoF build? I know that build ok, but not too many others.

just make sure the tank brings Spirit Shackles for the shadow monks.. other than that it's the standard 600/smite build..

XkristoferX · Oct 03, 2008, 03:29 PM // 15:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by vespertine

just make sure the tank brings Spirit Shackles for the shadow monks.. other than that it's the standard 600/smite build..

Spirit Shackles? i run CoF with 600/smiter and i've never usd Spirit Shackles or ever found a new to use it.

X

furanshisuko · Oct 03, 2008, 04:12 PM // 16:12

uw sc is your best option, then you can always run a cry build and go farm Voltaic spear's takes like 10mins tops and might even be lucky enogh to get a voltaic spear /sell /buy shards ,i used to do a/e perma UW solo getting like 4 ectos per 40-50mins its too dam boring i would say VSfarming is your "good option" , just in case you find the UWsc a lil hard (speed clear takes more time finding the right people)

KIDGOOCH · Oct 03, 2008, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Can the 600/smite do a full FoW clear or is it only for certain areas (Beach/Spiders)?

vespertine · Oct 05, 2008, 11:52 AM // 11:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by XkristoferX

Spirit Shackles? i run CoF with 600/smiter and i've never usd Spirit Shackles or ever found a new to use it.

X

he was talking about a build for FOW not CoF!

XkristoferX · Oct 05, 2008, 01:51 PM // 13:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by vespertine

he was talking about a build for FOW not CoF!

boo! reading fail. i sees that now.

X

Karasuman · Oct 15, 2008, 06:19 AM // 06:19

Regardless the question that was asked was what is the best way to farm shards, not buy them. It goes without saying you can buy anything that can be farmed. However, some of us don't prefer to sit in trade chat all day (or even 5 minutes) spamming items for sale or buying items to re-sell them later.

In my opinion, the best way to solo farm shards (or ectos) is with an A/E Sliver Sin. I've gotten 40 shards (and 3 ectos tho I do way more FoW than UW hence only 3 ectos) in the last 2 days using this particular build. You will need:

Deadly Paradox, Glyph of Swiftness, Shadow Form, Lotus Strike, Golden Lotus Strike, Death Blossom, Dash, and Sliver Armor.

Shadow Arts - 14
Dagger Mastery - 9
Earth Magic - 12
Air Magic - 4

Set of daggers (preferably inscribable) with a +20% enchantment handle, zealous dagger tang, and "I Have the Power!" inscription. Since you're doing most of your dmg with Sliver Armor, req is not seriously important here though it will add to damage of your dag attacks and thus speed up the process a bit.

Want to do HM instead of NM in the Spider Cave but they "heal too fast"? Feel free. Once you get about 12 or 14 spiders and 3 or 4 dryders attacking you, they could have every spider in the world trying to heal the one spider you're slivering and they won't be able to out-heal the ass-whooping sliver is putting on that one spider (Until you get down to about 6-7 spiders, which by then they're easy to separate into two little groups and u can easily take them out anyways).

In fact, Hard Mode only makes the run easier (that goes for UW too as I've tested it), since Sliver's damage potential is directly proportionate to how often you're getting attacked, and enemies attack twice as fast in HM. The more, the better. It's shocking how fast Sliver will take the spiders out in HM no matter how fast they're trying to heal.

Best way is try to separate them (if they're clumping into one large mega-group) into groups of 3-4 by using dash and running away for a sec, as they will break rank and follow u single file to try to catch up. Then run directly back at them quickly and they will all stop and start attacking you again, but this time in convenient smaller groups (many will be sitting by themselves - easy prey).

Run right into the middle of a small group (or up to a single one), start attacking one and the other 2 (or 3) spiders in the smaller group will stop healing at that point. Do not kill any of the aggroed Dryders. They are helping you take the spiders out by adding to Sliver's damage. If Sliver starts to attack a Dryder instead of a spider, re-position yourself a bit to get it to attack the spider group you're focused on (this takes a little practice to do properly. Rekoff sliver farmers will know what I mean).

Clear the cave, take your shards (usually 3-5 per run), put them in the bank and do it again. I add this spider strategy because I saw a few posts saying that the spiders heal too fast on HM. With the above strategy, the whole cave is laughably easy and will take you 10-15 mins or so to complete.

The above strategy has netted me 30,000 in gold (after selling the countless weapon/shield drops), 40 shards, 3 ectos (from the few UW runs I did), two black dyes, one white dye, 3 red dyes, 2 silver dyes, a ruby, a sapphire, 40 steel ingots, three stacks of glittering dust, 2 necro tomes, 3 warrior tomes, 2Ranger tomes, and two stacks of wood planks in two days, which all equates to roughly 175-200k total. Not bad for 2-3 days' work and I am confident that clip keeps up with many of your "power traders" out there.

The word of the day here is persistence. Shards are a rare, expensive drop. You won't always get 5 or 6 on every single run, but stick with it. It doesn't take all that long and it's not like you're not getting paid in other ways for your time, with expensive weapons, tomes (in HM) and dyes being rather plentiful drops in FoW (as well as FoW passage scrolls which make many of your runs free anyways).

Besides, it's far cooler and more interesting being surrounded by a dozen or two giant spiders that all want to eat you for several hours rather than ripping other players off or spamming trade chat all day for your wealth. If I want to read I'll grab a book. If I want to kill I'll play GW. Hope this helps.

Huiboo · Oct 17, 2008, 04:38 PM // 16:38

600hp with a smiter hero works pretty good (not the spiders but the the shadow army and the skeletons).
Doing it with a human smiter btw is more fun and half entrance costs.

Or do it with a perma sliver sin+ buffs for sliver like EBSOH or by urals hammer, intensety and GolE for energy manegement.

This way u can clear the whole cave (and snarlings of course) in 20 mins in HM if ur good.
Just pull the spiders into 2 big groups and dont kill the dryders since they dont drop obsis and give a dmg boost for sliver.

HM in this case is faster than NM since u can pull the spides better and they attack faster plus u get more goldies (useally 1-2 per run), lockpicks and warrior and ranger tomes.

If u want u can skip like the last 4 spiders in each of the 2 groups since they take much longer then the rest (sliver armor again).
I guess its more profitabel this way but i dont do it because i allway think this 4 remaining spiders would have 4 obsis for me