Farm Drop Rates ~ Myths + Facts

While loot per unit time may well be what is actually of concern to the average person... what folks have been trying to get across regarding AoE killing versus individual killing is more measured "per mob" or "per run". The mobs will take longer to kill, thus the run will take longer..... but thus far the various members of the community as a fair majority have independantly concluded that more scaled loot will drop from any given mob when the killing is staggered out.

In case I haven't already mentioned it though... I don't advise people to stagger out their kills if they're hunting for golds... or if they're trying to get things over and done with faster.... Whatever the case, nuking the whole group faster will quicken the process of gaining loot irrespective of how you look at it..... BUT.... at least with me, there is a certain stress-factor that starts to play in if after a certain number of enemies (not units time) I haven't started getting reasonable amounts of loot... which is why I will tend to SV rather than SS much of the time.... (then some enemies NEED SVing). look up at my data again, the scaleible loot drops were indenticle over the same peroid of time. if you prefer SV because you get a warm and fuzzy fealing seeing one large pile of loot after a long and tedious trip - then say so - don't try to go around makeing up BS that one way gives more loot then the other, because the real word data shows that they are, in fact, equeal.

the only difference between the two styles is doing alot of fast runs that nets 3-4 drops a run, or doing few long drawn out runs that net larger piles - both are equeal ammounts of loot, even the scaleible; and any belief you have otherwise is a delusion.

Whatever buddy, i'm done trying to convince these ignorant people. They will find out for themselves. You do realize who I am. I'll gaurentee you havent farmed no where near as much as I have. 6000+ hours in 23 months. 19 characters 50 million combined exp. But yea keep on trying to convince yourself its not random.

Tone it down, kiddies. And watch the ego-tripping, manitoba. There was no ego tripping. I was mearly showing that I do know what im talking about. That the drops are all random and why I do know that.

Wildmouse, it does make a difference... Cant you see that doing three runs and getting three small piles of loot that are equal to doing one run slowly is not exactly the same thing? It may equal the same amount for your bank account, but it's not the same at all. What it means is that killing slowly gives you more loot per GROUP. Say you could do one run a day, new anet policy, which would you choose, the slow SV way that gave you eight drops, or the fast SS way that gave you three? One gives you more loot per mob, even you admit this. This is at the core of the issue we are discussing.

I know I can do the same run over and over until I get a gold or x amount of cash, but I don't really care to. I suppose I just want to know how the system works, so the time I do spend farming is used productively.

And Manitoba, in case you didnt hear, they changed the way the drop system works last month so most of your 6,000 hours are irrelevant to this dicussion. No they didnt change whether it drops from fast killing or slow killing or AoE killing or any type of that way. What they changed was what dropped period, not how it dropped so those 6000 hrs are still very relevent and that is what is the discussion. it doesnt matter if you kill a mob quick or slow its still random on how it drops.

You do realize who I am. lol, just lol. ur a random noname pve nub, thats who you are.
6000 hours, go outside, get a job.

anyway, back ontopic. i will also make some charts this weekend for the non-believers.

lol, just lol. ur a random noname pve nub, thats who you are.
6000 hours, go outside, get a job.

anyway, back ontopic. i will also make some charts this weekend for the non-believers.
Glad you think im some random noname PvE nub, and ill let you think just that. by the way yes I do have a job do you? Wait till your done with your tests and you will see im right. Do it like necro is atleast 300 runs each. But I'll clue you in first, Your drops will be random. Wouldnt want someone to half A$$ it. anyways heres a pix about 1.5 months after i came up with a build when i found new skills for it. By the way the date is august 11 2005

look up at my data again, the scaleible loot drops were indenticle over the same peroid of time. if you prefer SV because you get a warm and fuzzy fealing seeing one large pile of loot after a long and tedious trip - then say so - don't try to go around makeing up BS that one way gives more loot then the other, because the real word data shows that they are, in fact, equeal.

the only difference between the two styles is doing alot of fast runs that nets 3-4 drops a run, or doing few long drawn out runs that net larger piles - both are equeal ammounts of loot, even the scaleible; and any belief you have otherwise is a delusion. Firstly... calm yourself down. You're abusing the "delusion" word quite excessively for one thing... especially for someone who continues to take matters out of context.
Now.... back to the point.

I will repeat the key thing I was trying to explain in the last post nice and slowly for you:
This. Is. Not. Measured. In. Relation. To. Time.

It is measured in relation to any given group of enemies. Time can be put aside for the moment... totally put aside. Yes. Really.
The overwhelming consensus, which is testable by anyone who can be bothered to try it.... is that for any given group of enemies killed by a solo-farmer in one run.... more chalks, blues and grape items will be dropped if they are killed separately rather than nuked.
While it is genuinely impossible to prove this absolutely true... I have reason to believe it is a valid observation since my every farming session has shown results consistant with this.

Now... I have my suspicion that what we are seeing is in fact the loot-scaling effect itself in action (as I wasn't aware of any such thing before loot scaling was implemented)... and that it can be bypassed by staggering the kills (though that defeats the purpose of quick-farming in some cases). This is backed by the observation that indeed rare (non-scaled) items seem not to be influenced by the killing time at all (I have noticed a trend thus far that I get a higher ratio of golds to chalks if I kill quickly than otherwise).


So... if you wanted to bring time back into it at this stage.... I would agree that to some extent having a few small piles or one big pile effectively equates to the same thing... and time-wise it may well be about the same.... Less actual effort per unit time however is required to do a staggered farm... which sometimes is better. And on the flipside... as I already noted, I have no reason to believe non-scaled loot is influenced by this at all...
Then again... as also noted.... some enemies HAVE to be SVed... whether because of a lack of desire to cluster together ... or some bizarre immunity to SS (e.g. Kappas).

kinda off topic but who is manitoba? i'm relatively new to the game and the screen doesnt really tell me why i shld know him. just curious. any1? Haven't heard to much about him as well tbh, but he is showing a image of the protecive bond monk build the one before 55hp's were introduced.
It was a major farm build at that time, perhaps he invented it??

Ah well when i started farming protective bond was nerfed already so i wouldn't know

More on topic:
And i agree with soticoto and WildmouseX their points, drops seem to be better when you kill them one at a time, but this also slows a run down.
So it's most likely just up to personal preference taking your time or go for mass murder

Haven't heard to much about him as well tbh, but he is showing a image of the protecive bond monk build the one before 55hp's were introduced.
It was a major farm build at that time, perhaps he invented it??

Ah well when i started farming protective bond was nerfed already so i wouldn't know

More on topic:
And i agree with soticoto and WildmouseX their points, drops seem to be better when you kill them one at a time, but this also slows a run down.
So it's most likely just up to personal preference taking your time or go for mass murder I was one of the first few ppl who did come up with the 55 build.

Now for the drops again. Its not really about killing them slow or fast try this out, wait 1-2 mins when you enter a zone before starting to kill things.

he is the leetsauce dude, noone was 55farming in august 2005 wel i was, and with me hundreds of people.... tell us something impressive dude. I have screenshots from july 2005 doing uw solo, omg i am so leet and cool, why dont you know me? WHY?

dude, shut up and get back ontopic, people like you annoy the shit out of me. Overreaction+Self-promotion FTL

It affects. You have less white items with ss but same amount of ectos. Not really, I had some white/blue drops but in general the same amount of drops. I just tested it because of this thread.

I don't think that the loot scales because of AoE. There's no difference between my 55/SS und 55/SV UW runs in drops... I just tried it. nothing personal, but I prefer that nice spreadsheat on page 1 over you're sentence of 12 words

also, [skill]Spoil Victor[/skill] does almost triple dmg over [skill]Spiteful Spirit[/skill]
Although SS is AoE, clustering 3 mobs is sometimes a hard job (casters). So if SV does yield more loot, it can be both faster and profitable =)