Vamp strength and other oddities...

I've been playing GW since day 1, for all intents and purposes, and I honestly thought I'd seen everything by now, as far as "off-the-wall" weapons go, like air staffs that enhance fire magic, shields with +1 healing prayers, double-sundering weapons, and bows that act more like shields... but I hadn't come across 15% with a -1 health degen penalty before, until I saw someone selling a sword with it the other day. I've also heard about max-dmg req 7 or 8 weapons as well.

My question is, is where do people get weapons like these, and what other oddities are floating around out there (and how long has Vampiric Strength been around?!)?

I think it has been around since the start.

You can get it wherever non-inscribable items drop.

I assume you mean something like this

Prophecies and Factions (non-inscribable drops) and since forever.

If by 'oddities' you mean mod combos that can't be replicated by the inscription/mod system, then there are quite a few, even if you ignore the weird collector items/quest rewards in Prophecies.

+15 / -1 health regen
+15% / -1 energy regen
+15% always with no malus!
Shields with dual - damage mods (ie -2/stance and -3/hexed)
Shields with +1 caster attribute
etc

Wiki list of greens with odd mod combos that can't be replicated by the mod/inscription system.

Yeah, that's exactly what I mean... I mean, I've known about (and at one point, was fortunate enough to have, back when all the bots farmed the desert griffons to death) a 15-always weapon, but never seen 15/-1 anything before.

I remember quite a while ago, Anet nerfed double-sundering drops (except for that one quest-reward hammer that can still be double-sundered), but does anything like that drop anymore? Like, could be double-Charrslaying, or something like The Kindlerock with two inherent mods?

And I realize this is the wrong place to ask, but still along this train of thought, what do things like 15/-1 or 15-always, with a common skin, go for nowadays?

(...and, offtopic, I'm feeling nostalgic... anyone have a actual HoD sword still? ^_^)

Geez thoose +15% always must be worth quite a bit, if they still drop.
I have one of thoose +25% vs. Charr bow grips from long time ago,
doubt they're worth much but it's fun to have around in EotN :-)

yeah you can still get wierd drops in proph, not sure if they all still drop.

I got a bow with +15% -1health regen, prolly never use it, but it's still a wierd mod.

These mods only appear on non inscribable (old school) weapons. The continents where they drop are basically unfarmed, thus why they're quite rare.

The +%%dmg / -regen weapons have been dropping since day1 and no change have happened to them so they still drop. You can get them anywhere you could get an oldschool weapon but they're far more rare than the common mods - you'll likely find even 15 or 20 perfect +15^50 before finding one of those.

Oh, and you say you had a 15% always weapon? Are you sure it didn't have a /-10 armor or -5 energy? Because the true +DMG with no negative were only dropping for the first ~2 weeks which is long before bots started farming those griffons.

Yup. It wasn't perfect, though... it was a mid-range sephis axe, with an insane req (not one of those you'd get from Beetletun, but one from Gates of Kryta). I don't remember if I had found it, bought it, or it was given to me... I had a *lot* of sephis axes... only managed to get one perfect old-school one though, and even then, that was last year (and foolishly customized it to a dedicated survivor char that hadn't quite made it to legendary yet... ...and wound up dying on the last leg, and getting deleted).

And lemme 'lone. I'm old. I have the right to forget how long it took before they nerfed this or that. ^_~ But if it means anything to you, I was one of the first air-spikers. I was 'round back then... it's just the details on "when this or that happened" escape me.

On topic, assuming I'd only solo-farm old-school areas (which, tbh, I prefer anyway), what's the likelihood of a -1 degen type weapon dropping, in comparison to the more common while-ench/hexed or over/under-50 type weapons? You think HM might be better for a drop like this, or merely endgame NM? (and as an aside, are the drops in early-areas HM any different in quality than endgame-areas HM?).

I don't know about solo farming, but in a full party of 8 (2 players, 6 heroes) I ended up with six or seven +15%/-1 health weapons while farming for Luxon faction (clearing Mount Qinkai) all in the space of a few months (1 hammer, 1 bow, the rest were one handed weapons). Low drop rate, but a dedicated solo farmer should still see them drop irregularly.