Thistle underbrush - should be super common?

[Jimjam]

I used to play a ranger on test server and I remember there being an underbrush brownie up basically all the time in Lesser Faydark.

I recently rolled a ranger and I've been looking for this guy but no luck.

I understand the spawn for this mob has recently been changed?

I read the following zam thread http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=1021

It seems to me the Underbrush don't have PHs and they spawn more or less five minutes after being killed (perhaps even instantly?).

I've been killing wasps, fairies and brownie scouts and none of these seem to be making thistle spawn. He is far more rare than that thread implies.

[Tasslehofp99]

Spent better part of an 8 hour work shift farming Lfay for these guys too with no luck.

I killed every roaming pixie, fairie, wasp, orc, fae, pretty much everything I saw that was roaming. No underbrush guys but a ton of mina glimmerwings and the guy who drops the treeform illusion clicky a few times too. Maybe there is something about spawning him we don't know, though?

[brecon]

I followed the directions on the wiki (Highsunned faerie maidens on my bard til i found the correct one) and got him very quickly.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Thistle_Underbrush

[Erati]

I used to kill the brownie that would path to the pixie powder and a named brownie would pop

he paths by the fairies at some point to, might have been Bracken's PH tho

[Jimjam]

I followed the directions on the wiki (Highsunned faerie maidens on my bard til i found the correct one) and got him very quickly.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Thistle_Underbrush

When did you do this? A December patch message says thistle's spawn mechanics changed.

[brecon]

About a week ago, can't precisely remember if it was before or after the patch though tbh. I did see him up again yesterday, though I did not spawn him.

[Crom]

He used to be:

[Tue Jan 29 16:45:47 2013] You have slain Thistle Underbrush!
[Tue Jan 29 17:19:02 2013] You have slain Thistle Underbrush!

This was tracking from steam zoneline and killing him a few times when he got in range
while waiting for a mob..(a mob that I later found out wasn't in game yet , a week of tracking wasted!)
so he shouldn't be that rare

[wycca]

I can confirm easy Thistle spawns using Wiki - farmed a few sets of ivy etched np.

[Jimjam]

Did you do this recently Wycca? The December patch message says his spawn has changed and he now spawns in more than one place.

[wycca]

Not since Dec 2014 no, yes since Dec 2013. Did you check his old spawn mechanic?

[Jimjam]

You mean the fairy maiden one? We did that for quite some time but with no luck. Whats his spawn % meant to be?

Later I hooked up with someone else and just killed loads and loads of scouts (based on a zam post) but only had more scouts spawn.

Might have to try just repeat AoEing all the newbie stuff and seeing what happens.

[Erati]

Did you try killing that one brownie which paths to the pixie tower a couple times and see if anything pops from that cycle?

[wycca]

In my experience his spawn rate seemed to be above 5% but under 20% with his old info.

[Jimjam]

Did you try killing that one brownie which paths to the pixie tower a couple times and see if anything pops from that cycle?

I'll check next opportunity I get :).

I remember thistle and ivy being up ALOT of the time on live, not sure about the time frame I am remembering this from, but the thread I linked it sounded like he was practically guaranteed to be up in 2001.

[Erati]

well part of the problem with Thistle etc is no one is ever really in LesserFay killing random shit that causes him to spawn and then be subsequently left up when he posed to much of a challenge

he was literally a terror and a beast to see in the area for any character 35 and below ( I think hes what lvl 34? lvl 37? )

thats why people from live servers recall seeing him so much, there was over 2K people in each server and players killed lame random shit for fun even tho it yielded no phat lewtz

on here tho, Thistle used to be way more common 2-3 years ago when I was trying to complete my broken druid quests in the zone, I farmed quite a handful of the shoulder pads ( used some myself ) and even saw Bracken a few times

Have not seen either Brownie in a long long long time.

[Jimjam]

Fair enough.

One that thread there seemed to be people saying they spawned him five times in a row before they got their braided ivy chord, so it might be more than the newbs newbing around before being newbed by a named brownie.

[Masen]

I've killed him three times in two days.

[Jimjam]

I managed to find him in the end, got my ranger his ivy etched tunic (and the guy that helped me got some braided ivy chords!) still no idea how to spawn him, though.

[jadefoot]

I spent many hours trying to spawn Thistle yesterday to no avail. Tried the wiki method of killing the roaming faerie maiden a zillion times over, that didn't work. I started killing everything that roamed covering the entirety of the forest running around and still nothing. Does anyone know precisely what the PH's are?

As the OP has stated, Thistle/Bracken used to be up constantly on live and not just due to more people playing on the server, he used to spawn back to back to back. The December patch mentions he can spawn in multiple places now but it seems to have compromised the spawn percentage. It shouldn't be this difficult for rangers to acquire the Ivy Etched Tunic.

[WarlordAstro]

Reviving this thread.

as of 5/3/2015 this is still screwed. I've been tracking and killing faerie maidens for hours and I haven't seen thistle a single time.

[eisley]

Use search function, there are threads related to this current spawn method. It is not bugged.