Talk:Guide to Item of the Week Farming

About Formatting
I really like the way formatting was going awhile back. So I am going to post what I think would make a good template for the page. It isn't like a regular template at all, just something that if I disappear or TEF does then the template will be around for others to keep posting items. This isn't set in stone, like all things I hope we can discuss what changes to make, or if things need to be moved. One point to remember, and this has been important from the beginning is that this article isn't written for the uber player. It is written more for casual players to have an idea of what to expect, and give them ideas on what to try. For that reason it should be more concentrated on getting the general farming information in before solo builds etc.

Summary

 * Item: item neededs
 * Found In: locations item or mod that drops item are located
 * Dropped by: what drops the items

Getting to Nick
Nicholas the Traveler is located at [location] [brief directions] (see the map for more details).

Farming for item neededs

 * Suggested Farm #1: suggested farm here, including locations, special things like statues, or blessings.

Threats & Recommended Skills

 * Tactics:important tactics, for example pulling, choke points etc


 * Threats: general threats like hex, condition, environmental effects etc.


 * Recommended Skills: skills like anti-kd, hex removal etc

Solo Farming

 * information for solo builds goes here, not in the above section which is for general farming or balanced groups

Nicholas the Traveler link formatting
I've reverted the emboldened link to Nicholas the Traveler for a couple of reasons: If a consensus of other contributors believe that this is a good time to deviate from the relevant style guides, I'm happy to reemphasize the link. Thanks. &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 04:18, September 30, 2009 (UTC)
 * Rules of style (here and generally) prefer a single stylistic emphasis, i.e. there's usually no need to use more than one of these: italics, "quotes," offsets, color, bold-face, different font , underlining , and so on. The link already stands out because of its color.
 * Nick bears no special importance in the context of the page: it's most likely that people have the page bookmarked or have jumped here from the Gift of the Traveler or Nick Traveler articles. Those readers do not need special attention called to nick over any of the other referenced articles.
 * No, the revert is correct, bolding links should be avoided where possible for exactly the reasons outlined. --Wolfie [[Image:Wolfie_sig.jpg|19px]] (talk|contribs) 05:01, September 30, 2009 (UTC)
 * Gotta tell you, awesome job keeping this up to date man. I am so busy I don't have time to do much online anymore. Great to see you keeping it up to date and everything. Maybe during the small break coming up I can actually play again, instead of just reading about others playing. [[Image:Spikeicon.png]]Tenetke 08:34, October 1, 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry to hear that you have slowed down on GW; glad to hear you have a RL :-) Looking forward to seeing you take over again.  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 09:14, October 1, 2009 (UTC)

Week of November 9, 2009: Guardian Mosses
There a few statements on there that I disagree with based on my experience. I used a spirit spammer and farmed the 3 outside Boreas. &mdash;Dr Ishmael 16:13, November 11, 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) "Either way, take advantage of the terrain: place rangers and spirits on the tops of hills. If you set up carefully, your team will be out of aggro range of the guardians; this makes it easier to take out the guardians without worrying about their allies."
 * For the 3 by Boreas, that doesn't really help. The first guardian is on top of a hill itself, the second is out of longbow range from said hill, and the third isn't near any hill of significance.
 * 1) "run from the wallows (they won't follow far)"
 * Oh yes they do. I've had wallows follow me all the way from the third guardian back to the res shrine, and that was after I had all the spirits up to distract them.
 * 1) "Rot Wallows tend to spam their skills on minions or spirits, ignoring the players."
 * If the wallows aggroed while I was setting up spirits, they would focus on me. Even if I had a good pull and then stayed out of aggro range of the spirits/wallows, a wallow would occasionally break off and target me.  I had to run nearly a full aggro bubble away to keep them from coming after me.
 * 1) "If you choose to take down the guardian, target it with your wand or staff so that you reach optimal range; if you stay at that distance, you often won't suffer any damage at all."
 * Wand/staff range is the same as spell/signet range (unless you are at a higher elevation, which doesn't apply to the 3 at Boreas). If I aggroed one with my staff, it always responded with SoJ on me.
 * For me, the key was taking a healing skill to fight the degen. (My choice is Mend Body and Soul). I target the wallows first, which is a far easier combat. In many cases, depending on where you farm, you will find two groups of wallows that can be targeted separately, further limiting damage. Generally I can hex them with Painful Bond, move away, and they usually engage the spirits. Even if they focus on me, my healing kept me up. There was almost no danger. The pain was just with the low drop rate. My personal farm spot was Silent Surf, taking on Scourgewind,_Elder_Guardian. As a boss I thought the higher drop rate (more than one drop for a boss) might help. It was still a very low drop rate. But, I found the area easy to farm as the wallows do a predictable patrol. And, all my smite heroes have a green... --Alphastream 17:23, November 11, 2009 (UTC)


 * @Ish: Our experiences differ. (See below.) I have tried to make some adjustments that compromise between the views. My only serious change from your edit is that I don't think the primary frustration is the low density of Guardians; the 3 outside of Boreas are quicker kills/hour than for many previous farms. The problem is that they only rarely drop anything of value, let alone the desired moss.


 * Standing atop the first hill near Boreas matters a lot; with spirits, I can consistently kill Guardian #2 without retaliation and w/o it running. The second hill (eh, more of a gentle slope) is helpful, but not consistently; if you walk-then-attack, you can step back in order to be outside Guardian #3's perception range. For Guardian #1, I usually have to clean out 4-5 Wallows (not 7-8). For #2: I usually don't have to clean out any; for a valued drop, I can get away with clearing 5-6. For #3: one third of the time, I don't need to touch the Wallows; most of the remaining occasions, I'll need to clear out 3-6.


 * I've never had a wallow follow me as far as you describe; they are always bogged down by spirits, minions, or go back to their group. (Eh, to be fair, it happened once, but then I let all the spirits die first.) In any case, the point is to move on if the Guardians failed to drop something valuable; I think it's worthwhile to encourage people to avoid spending the extra time killing Wallows.


 * "If the wallows aggroed while ...setting up spirits." Maybe I'm misunderstanding how to run a spirit spammer. I setup the spirits beyond aggro range, then either pull the enemy and/or shadow step the spirits, and then run/hide; I've never had the problem you describe (in this particular farm).


 * "If you choose to take down the guardian, target it with your wand or staff..." Bad plan; agreed. That was a left-over copy/paste from Rot Wallow week. For the 3 at Boreas, it turns out I have been able to target them with a bow; the spirits are still able to attack (especially #2, but even #1).


 * Re: SoJ. I find if I start to fire, then shadow step the spirits, fire, then step back...the SoJ misses me entirely. Using a bow, it's usually not an issue even in HM.  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 17:27, November 11, 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not altogether convinced that I did a good-enough job of amending the text based on Doc Ish's experiences. It's also possible that my experiences are relatively unusual and that the reader is better served by more conservative play than I originally suggested.


 * @Alphastream: I've added a stub for your suggested farm; maybe you could expand it (and/or add a map). Thanks!  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 17:46, November 11, 2009 (UTC)


 * The "low drop rate" is only perception. The drop rate for trophies on nearly all monsters is ~10-15%, in my experience, and that's what I saw on the guardians - 35 runs of 3 guardians for 105 kills, 10 mosses.  My wife had similar numbers.  Of course it's going to seem like a higher rate on more populous monsters, like wallows - you'd get an average of 1 tusk per group of 8.  3 tusks per 1 run vs. 1 moss per 3 runs would make it seem like a much lower drop rate.
 * Bah, I never realized that spirits' attack range equaled longbow range, which is why I didn't even try hitting #2 from the hill and why I aggroed the guardians with my staff instead. I'm guessing most people will be like me, so I'm adding that to the article.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 18:04, November 11, 2009 (UTC)


 * I am sure that you are right that, regardless of the true rates, moss gets the worst reputation because of the few trophies per hour; it's no doubt exacerbated by the fact that often they drop nothing at all. I'm not convinced that trophies drop consistently 10% of the time, though. I think some beasts drop them more often (and a few less often). My recall is better for pre stats (since there are not so many monsters/trophies to consider): I get 3-5 skale fins from 30 skale (10-15%) whereas I get 4-9 spider legs from 25 spiders (~25%, not to mention, I also get 4-9 Webs).


 * BTW: I've noticed that if the toon c-spaces with long/flatbows, they still end up too close. I c-space, then step back 2-3 paces, then shadow step spirits, then fire bow; that seems to keep characters and spirits out of perception range even on flatter surfaces.  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 19:55, November 11, 2009 (UTC)