Lucid Shard CampsFollow

ME hands down Friggin HARD AS HELL!!!!! stupid see inis, love to spawn near camp, friggin love to be in groups, love beings shades for add mobs....GRRR I ****IN HATED ME!!!!!
SSRA shard wasn't very fun either!!!!!!!! why hello thar PBAE GROUPS for NO EXP!!!!!!!!
only thing worse than this were the com keys =/ hell anguish shards were easier than this =/(lord that was the first thing I thought of........VT again =/)

Well I havent finished them yet..

ME was mind-numbingly long and boring and took me MANY different times camping it. Stupid named mobs would never pop for me. ME was the first shard I started on and the last one I got. I would rather have to get 2 of each of the other ones than one ME.

Of course after I had mine I would see the frigging nameds up almost every single frigging time I would cross the zone on my way to the VT raids. GAHHH! I would get so mad lol.

Ssra would be second just because the stupid thing took a long time to drop.

SSRA shard is really easy... when keying up a guild, take a small raid force a bit into the caves, (there is a spot where you can pull from about 4 directions) and pull tons of them and ae them to death... we got 12 shards in an hour while trying to get SGM. Only got 2 SGM tho, =/

Ssra remains the hardest for me.



Be sure that no commanders are on track. Only 1 can be up at a time, and sometimes it spawns behind the locked door on the way to assassin. If none are on track, then you should have a decent chance at spawning a comm; this reflects my own experience. I have spent multiple 10+ hour days camping comm 2, but without a tracker. For all I know, a comm was spawned somewhere preventing the comm 2 to spawn.

In regards to ME,

I'm 4 for 4 on named kills and shards obtained, but only at 1st and 2nd camps from DSP. I've camped the two spots nearest Akheva Ruins and Umbral Plains. Never saw a named at the camp near Umbral, and killed a dozen or so named nearest AR without a shard drop.

If you do go after the 1st and 2nd camps (my recommendation), before pulling 2nd camp, be sure to trigger all the traps along the way first and get those mobs killed. Kill a few roamers that could possibly add as well.

I used a mage for all my pulling. Inivised, sow'd, that way when I trigger a trap, the mob probably won't see me (some do), and use pet to pull. Will still get a few adds from mobs assisting, but you'll get fewer adds by being invis.

When it comes time to pull the 2nd camp, my (68) mage had no problems getting 2 instead of all three, by sending pet on the mob spawned closest in the direction of Umbral Plains. The 3rd mob (that didn't agro) is the named/ph spawn.

Edit 1: spelling
Edit 2: I duo'd and trio'd the ME camps with Mage/Mage and Mage/Mage/Chanter, respectively. Mage levels were 68 and 63. Chanter was 60 at the time. The 68 Mage used lvl 65 earth pet, while 63 used lvl 61 air pet. I multi-boxed them all. Mentioning this just to show alternative group possibilities (no holy trio).

Edited, Sat Aug 27 13:08:37 2005 by tchzarmok

Edited, Sat Aug 27 13:21:03 2005 by tchzarmok

I would have to say the Grey. This is usually considered the easiest camp, next to DSP. In fact, I was told that I would have it in half an hour tops. 6 hours later a shard dropped. A shard. I must have cleared the camp a few dozen times. Meanwhile about 12 epic 1.5 pieces dropped, and a shaman came by and completed a task involving the slaying of revenants. To add insult to injury, this was my second time camping this shard, last time it dropped in 5 min but I lost the roll. A guild raid started and I had to go.



Edited, Mon Aug 29 18:25:09 2005 by Hoppie

Edited, Mon Aug 29 18:21:31 2005 by Hoppie

As a bard, challenged myself to do them solo. most where pretty easy. Lots of tricks with lull and charm. The Grey, AR and ME was easy cause i could swarm all the mobs. Scarlet desert, Sanctus Seru=chant kite. The Deep took awhile, but past the invis bridge they are more common, camping the shrink wand you see so many rot. SSRA was hard just do to the mobs huge agro range. But lull helped, and using charm to have a few adds killed then run around a corner and fade off agro to break the camp works. Toughest i guess was FG. Couldnt charm level 62 mobs, couldnt meelee them effectively either. Well, not back then. Near the big bug thing in the very center, pulled a mob into the tunnel. Charmed a pathing bug in the tunnel which was charmable. Took 2 pets to kill a bug. That is the most memorable/toughest shard I experienced

SSRA. And as a forenote, this is from the perspective of a 65 cleric, this was before i had Ward proc, I had about 5000hp/1250AC/5k pool virted, zealoot, kei. And 75(?)ish aa's. My thoughts on some trouble spots:

ME: It really isn't -that- bad if you play your cards right. At least, some of the suffering can be averted. I camped the old fashioned way for a while. Got tired of it, and tried something simple. I just parked my level 42 ranger on the hill (invis of course) near one of the camps, near the middle of the zone. Log in every day, see if a named is up. It took time--it didnt take any trouble. Saved a lot of tedious camping.
Also, ME can be easily navigated with invis potions, heck even IVU. You just have to know what you're doing and be attentive. Con everything, and avoid accordingly. I think a lot of people wouldn't believe how easily you could bend the absolutes of this game; the two examples of absolute death running through me, and absolute pita camp being two good ones.

The Deep: 1 groupable. This one is really not hard at all, if you can kill the mobs, you're golden. Much harder solo of course, due to see invis and mob proximity, but you won't be going into vt alone--so bring the others who need shards.

FG: When i camped these it took a while to drop for us, but the mobs themselves were like any other mob. After kos, invis to the camp. True, even with good pulls you could get wandering adds, but you could note repop time, or just do whatever you do with adds. The fortunate thing is that the adds are not certain here.

I did seru for the seru/katta one. Before you're kos, its just another camp. Just walk away from Optios. After you're kos, just manage your space wisely. You'll get adds for sure, but again, that's to be expected in a group.

Etc: A lot of the others were just simple camp-jobs. Kill stuff, and keep at it. Some longer than others of course, but they were all doable.

Now, ssra... yes you could take precautions. But there were a lot of factors here and you couldnt necessarily knock them all out alone--even grouped, it could be annoying. Of course, with a group that could take the other shards, this one could be done too, just with a bit more difficulty here and there. Alone it's pandora's box waiting to happen. Only 1 real camp spot besides the hall entrance, and there are 2 you had to keep cleared there. Plus, the agro range ensured if you didnt have snare or a quick stun, you'd have more really fast. That made it hard to paci too--you have to paci a lot of them to get them solo, if you are doing the camp inside the cave where the two are, you could paci 4 or 5 and still get an add. Not to mention paci's cast time and short duration. And that's assuming you could IVU a few feet out to target the ones around walls. Not to mention they summon (a lot do anyway). And they aren't junky mobs either--for a cleric with my stats, a challenge, and for lower levels, a real fight. I'd hate to be level 55 and pull 6 of them.
Even after that, it still is a matter of the shard dropping.



In my experience, some of them were long, some were dangerous, but SSRA had the most potential to defeat your planning. Not to say some weren't bad--but I thought ssra was worse. I finally got it there, with a group of me and 3 ubers (rogue, pal, nec) hunting a pally epic drop. They pulled the entire cave and pally tanked with group heals. I guess if you can do that, the camp isnt so bad, but then, if you can do that you probably arent going to VT ;)

Think that covers about all i can think to say.


Edited, Sat Aug 27 18:28:04 2005 by Airport

OMG Seru I killed so many it is not funny, then on way out like 2 more dropped cruel i say cruel

This is untrue...Have many times had Comm1 and Comm2 up at same time.

I will stand corrected then. It was mentioned to me that only 1 can be up at a time, and in all the countless hours camping/tracking, I've never seen more than 1 up at a time. So, it was a natural progression to go from 3rd hand information to solid 1st hand information. But, it seems it was all coincidence.

Boy all these votes for ME, I must have gotten really lucky, zoned in, saw named on track. Ran to mob and got to see mob die to a camping druid just as I crested the hill. A bit of chatting and discovered the druid was after drops not shards and let me loot it!!! :)

Seru on the other hand took me several days camping several spawns for a few hours a day. When it finally dropped got a second one for someone who was in zone looking for shards also in a matter of minutes.

Fungus grove was a P.I.T.A also, 8 hours to get 3 shards. I guess I dont even recall Ssra at all, must not have been to bad then. Scarlet took some time also. Took friend there warning him of how long mine took only to have his drop almost immediately!!! Grrr!!!!! :)

Most of these camps took a few hours time. I also assisted many others in finding and killing shard dropping mobs so they can aquire a key. I made some observations doing this that I think helps explain the best way to hunt shards.

Observation 1 - Team up with at least 2 others hunting shards if possible. Why? Because when they begin dropping, there WILL be multiple drops (typically 3) inside a 30 minute time frame, then they 'run dry' for hours again. This proved true in Ssra Temple, Ahkeva Ruins, The Grey, Dawnshroud Peaks, Scarlet Desert, Fungus Grove, and Acrylia Caverns. The other 3 zones (Sanctus Seru, Maiden's Eye, and The Deep) do not follow this drop pattern.

Observation 2 - Some mobs are much better than others for the drop rate. In Sanctus Seru, for example, a Legionare of the Hand seems to have a very high chance of dropping a shard. I tend to camp the guards at the Marus Seru side for shards. In Maidens Eye, just camp the Seer. He tends to pop more often then any other name in the zone. I spent 50+ hours here for myself, and I never saw the Prophet or Battlemaster. I HAVE seen the Seer pop back to back once (EVER).

For me, Ssra was the most difficult camp, (adds aren't just possible - they're manditory on all pulls, even using pacify), and ME the most annoying camp by miles and miles (getting a name to pop is like finding moonrocks lying about on earth - you can, but good luck).

As a 70 enchanter, I was able to solo most of the shards, save Ahkeva and Ssra, with FG being VERY hard to solo, but possible. The Deep is actually quite easy if you hunt by the illusionary bridge, but you will only have access to about 5 possible shard droppers there.