Raptor Farming: Leechers?

Ok, you claim to know all of these facts through observation but it is just that, observation. Until you compile a large amount of statistics there is going to be doubt. Since when have greyed out heroes magically stolen loot? I honestly do not think leechers have any effect on drops(other than thieving coins), but again, that is just my opinion.


Making all these conclusions is just like the whole lockpick retention rate dilemna going on a few months ago. I could retain 20 lockpicks in a row with a 40% retention rate, but that doesnt mean my percentage is wrong because this is a fairly small sampling. The same goes for drop rate based on party size - you may observe that while in an eight man team you got double the regular drops than usual and jump to the conclusion that more people out of range=more drops.

If you can prove this with a large, detailed study maybe you can validate your points but otherwise all of your statements are merely assumptions.

Walk out the gate into Riven Earth. Walk back in to Rata Sum. Walk back out again. Now when you /resign, you end up right next to the gate to Riven Earth. I do that when I raptor farm.

Going by r4nd0m's posts and the way he talks, I think I can safely say that I'll wait for solid evidence before I start to consider taking leechers. As someone else said, by the time it takes to form them and explain the process to them, I can get a good 3 or 4 runs done.

At first, I thought that H/Hing the farm wouldn't work when I was reading through the post, but then I remembered some of my past farming experiences which I think should contribute.

In Sorrow's Furnace with my ritualist, I would use H/H (Hero/Henchmen) to clear all but the bosses and then flag them out of range (while I, too, ran out as to be away from angry boss) and then when grayed, I would run back, summon spirit army, etc. etc. and killed the boss. The drop was usually their green, but not always... However, they always did drop SOMETHING. My friend showed me this farm and I have done it periodically and it always works out the same way. Therefore, I believe that H/H farming would work just the same, however using real people may be more beneficial to all rather than just the farmer... for faction and whatnot.

I was interested in this, as I have always farmed alone, with my E/Me so I joined some HM farmers to see if they were getting more/better drops than myself.

I always went with E/X so that I could get a fairer comparison.

All examples were with full team of 7 leechers in HM
First farmer -
Run 1: ran to raptors, aggrod mobs, - died, foes killed - 0 drops:none
Run 2: ran to raptors, aggrod mobs, aggrod broodmother - died, foes killed 14 - drops - one white item
Decided it was time to find a better farmer!

Second Farmer:
Run 1: Ran to raptors, aggrod mobs, aggrod broodmother - and killed her! foes killed 31 - drops: couple of whites and bone
Run 2: As run 1
Run 3: Ran to raptos, aggrod mobs, got boxed in, killed raptors to free self, aggrod broodmother - died, foes killed 16 drops: saurian bone, brown dye.

After each run, some leechers would always leave, so time was then wasted collecting more.

Time taken: about 25 mins for 5 runs.

Conclusion - drops were no better in full party, and time between runs far to long compared to just going solo.

I spent alot of time leeching and soloing during the EOTN weekend. I saw nothing that convinced me either way. Soloing I got 4 golds on one run and leeching i saw one white collected. Is there a way we can post the answer to ANET or is this some big secret? What i have noticed is that since that weekend i have got what seems to be less bones...but even that could be random.

Ok, now this is purely *purely* based on my observations.... no facts, no hard evidence, nothing like that. Just have a read and see if you can match it up to your own experiences on the matter.

First thing to think about - and I know it seems somewhat off-topic, but run with me on this one - is HFFF. HFFF works because not everything spawns in a zone at the same time - you have to get close enough to 'trigger' the spawn, and Heroes don't count for that trigger, so they get a free ride. Spawn range - again, purely from observation, no way to truly test this - is a little more than radar range.

What I've found from H&H leeching the Snowman's Lair is that the first couple of mobs don't drop noticeably more loot with the H&H present but greyed-out than they do when I go there solo.... *but* later mobs drop considerably more loot (like the mobs by the second Beacon of Droknar). Why should this be? Here, then, is my theory...

When something spawns, it's loot drop (if any) is pre-assigned to a party member in radar range of the spawn-triggering character (depending on the loot-scaling party size vs max party size ratio thingy). Of course, if you're not in drop-range when the mob dies, you won't get the loot even if it was pre-assigned to you. So to get more drops with a leech-team, not only must they be greyed out when the kill takes place but they must also have been out of spawn range when the mob initially spawned. Again, I only have my own observations to support that, so it's not like I'm saying it's 100% true or anything. This isn't fact, this is supposition and should be treated as such.

So how does this relate to Raptor farming and leeching there? Well, when your horde of leechers come into Riven Earth they all seem to run straight to the shrine to the south. I'm pretty sure that, even though party members at the Shrine may appear greyed-out to someone in the Raptor cave, they've triggered the spawn of the Raptor nestlings and therefore triggered the loot-assignment. Of course, since they *are* greyed-out when the killing takes place, they won't actually get the drops - nevertheless, they've still prevented the 'active' player from acquiring more drops than they usually would have done.

Well, there you go - again, I'll say it's just speculation based on what I've seen. I'm not a prolific farmer and I've only ever used the permasin to farm, so my observations are inherently limited. Still, food for thought, maybe...

http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10225077

Take what you will from that thread as well.

The results of a solo raptor cave clear (all nestings and the broodmother) can net as low as about 300g worth of white drops and gold; or on the flipside give you multiple gold items (weapons and scrolls) and/or lockpicks and/or dyes (including whites and blacks).

Given such a large scope of variation you can't say whether or not having leachers present would be more profitable. Given that the solo farmer doesn't have to worry about anyone but themselves, I'd say solo works out the better, if only for the time lost in forming leacher parties which could be better spent splatting dinos

I have to agree with r4ndom in the sense that the loot and chance of gold drops is alot higher with a party of 8 even when the runner is alone in the area, and through my personal observation of leeching (100's of groups over last few months) the gold drops increase rapidly with party size and the loot is all given to the runner since everyone else is out of range.
This can't be a coincidence i believe that what r4ndom is saying has some basis, obviously his stats are another thing but the overall point behind it further backs what ive seen.

I don’t know if I believe in the leeching so...
R4nd0m said this:
If u go out ALONE, mobs will only drop 1/8 of the total loot.
If u go out with ONE party member, mobs will drop 2/8 of the total loot...

That I allrdy know and I agee.
So..
If I go farm I get 1/8 drops. That’s why some of the creeps I slay don’t give me a drop right?
Let’s say that an 8/8 party are going pve(Not farming just slaying mobs). The drop rate is 8/8 now.
That means that all creeps killed by the party will drop an item. Am I right? (I don’t know if that has chanced but if it has not..)

...Here comes my question:
If u go farming with an 8/8 party where 7 of them are leechers shouldn’t the farmer get an item for each creep he kills?
(Sry for bad English, and if u don’t understand what I want to know )

seeing as the leechers are nowhere near the battle all drops are given to the farmer, but in my opinion, the drops are not better/more frequent...

Wouldn't it be fastest just to hit "M" and click on Rata Sum?

you'd have to run all the way to the gate again after everytime, map travel spawns you in one of a couple random selected places in town.
Walk back into the portal to Rata Sum once and you'll spawn at the gate every time you /resign.

hope I made sense lol...

The Bard is correct about the zoning/resign. As long as you enter an area, then go back to town, then re enter your area, in almost all locations you will from then on after resigning show up at the doorway so all you need to do is hit X to turnaround and run directly out a short distance. Lutgardis is a notable exception to this rule

The best explanation I ever heard for a farmer taking leechers was "hey, I don't really know if it increases the drops. But there's a chance that it does. And people talking while waiting for me to kill raptors is more entertaining than silent henchmen."

I've leeched points a few times, and from what I could tell the drops didn't seem much better than when I would go out to farm solo. But as noted, the runs vary widely, so it's very difficult to tell without a whole lot of data gathering.

If this actually did work, I would suspect that ANET would silently nerf its effect into oblivion. I had tested it several times with a couple pcs at the house and saw no real growth in my drops over extended run amts, in the end, it is very difficult to determine the actual increase/decrease because of the varying nature of each run.

I think YOU're talking out of the wrong end. :P
It works, despite what the disbelievers say...of course this is all based on conjecture ANET hasn't confirmed anything really as far as I know.

If it works SOMETIMES then its probably just a particularly good run.
If it work always then thats fair enough. But I personally cannot see the servers as distinguishing between HH and Players... they assign the drops to a party number, and if it that player is henchmen it doesnt drop.

My personal opinion is that if it works, heroes would work just as well.

So no conclusions drawn from this thread?!

Heres a proposal ,if people can record there total drops for 20 runs and post here noting whether its with leechers or without we can compare the lists and try to draw a conclusion.

Yes it will vary a lot but I want to see not just what the total worth of the runs are but also the amount and the types of drops.

My runs were done in HM all the cave with boss 34 kills(according to the hm icon). Give or take. Only count full runs. doesnt include the outside raptors being pulled in as well.

Aim: to compare raptor farming with leecher and without and to compare the total drop list.

1st session : 20 runs Solo : no leechers : HM : 34 kills each run Sliver armor and degen build.

Gold items dropped 15, Gold coins 618g, sin tomes 3, Elite sin tome=1 , Purples 6, blues 10, whites 33, bones 39, gold scroll 1, dyes: 2 silver 2 white 1 red 1 orange 1 blue 1 brown 1yellow 1orange. 1 blue scroll, 3 green claws

Best one run of the lot. #5 : 5 golds, 1 tome, 1 purple, 2 blue 2 whites and one dino bone

pls post your 20 runs total list and lets have a look see....seeing that the halloween event is on there's sure to be a lot of farming going on..

This is a 2nd go of 20 runs done 2 days later with the halloween event on.

2nd session : 20 runs Solo : no leechers : HM : 34 kills each run Sliver armor and degen build.

Drops: Gold items 14, whites 39, blues 12, purples 4, bones 39, sin tome 2 : dyes red yellow blue brown. gold scrolls 2 blue scrolls 3 ,gold coinage 1233g.

trick or treat bags 78. Side note (lowest 0 highest 10) in a run. averaging about 4 a run.

Best one off run : 10 Tot bags, one gold item, 3 white item, one purple and 104gold coins.