Lake of Ill Omen: a sarnak courier - Resolved

[Glitch]

It's been hard for me to test this particular spawn because I'm not sure how things are set up at the moment, but I just want to post this to double check for accuracy.
http://oi51.tinypic.com/1zfot48.jpg

The sarnak courier should spawn in the area circled in blue. North of the windmill to just passed the goblin ruins, but not up as far as the river to FV. He's not supposed to be particularly rare, but he is often unseen as he is in danger of being KS'd by the goblins in the area.

His spawn group is supposed to be comprised of uncharacteristically low level mobs for the area, and can have 3 or 4 PHs at any given time (so it's possible to have that many couriers up at once)

Here is the monklybusiness guide to popping him.


Get a tracker and go to the mill...have him track one of these mobs:

A Goblin Brawler
A Sabretooth Cat
A Greater Scalbone
A Sarnak Youth
A Goblin Skirmisher
A Greater Skeleton
a sarnak courier
an iksar marauder
A Sarnak Flunkie*
an iksar brigand**

There will only be one of these mobs, they are lower level than all surrounding mobs between the mill and the lake...and possibly [probably not]as far as the sarnak fort(though they spawn at the mill area).
When you kill one, another from that list will pop up on the druid's track after 1 minute. [other guides I've read have indicated it can be at low as 3 seconds] These are the PHs for the Courier. I can guarantee you will have your Courier in less than 30 minutes if you follow this procedure. It has been followed by many people and verified to work. Kunark has many of these type of rare cycles in most outdoor zones.

*Flunkies are a rarer PH but if you can't find the cycle, clearing the Flunkies might be the ticket.
**Brigands are the same as above, only rarer

Edit: added the flunkies and brigands to the guide as I've been doing this cycle lately to get my enchanter a Goblin Gazhugi Ring. These are just a couple more mobs I've noticed. At one point today I had 5 couriers rotting at the same time.
I've cleaned the area out completely a few times over and have seen none of these possible PHs from the spawngroup, except for the Sabretooth Cat who spawns in that area, but only seems to respawn as a cat, or kit.

So yea. double check these spawngroups for accuracy when you can, because this is an important spawn!

[h0tr0d (shaere)]

This is alla

http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=5327

Same as Glitch... it wasn't even really rare, uncommon at best. It was the rare drop off him that made anything here rare. He was fairly common, and so was his hand drop.

I would also note, there is more then one area he can spawn in, according to people posting on alla over the years, I think I counted 4 or 5.

[h0tr0d (shaere)]

This is what one person who camped the courier said:


here is the list of mobs with exact spelling that i found on the cycle:

a sabretooth cat
a sabretooth tigress (rarely, and lots of tigresses around that are not on the cycle)
a goblin brawler
a goblin skirmisher
greater scalebone
greater skeleton
an Iksar marauder
an Iksar brigand
a Sarnak youth
a Sarnak flukie
a Sarnak courier

hope it helps

you need to keep killing the newest (up on the list with "normal" sorting) spawns that match these and you will get a courier every 15 mins or so.

after 7 hours of camping (and about 30 or 40 courier kills) i finally got my Goblin Gazughi Ring)

He also dropped this ring earlier:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=1654

hint: stay between the ruins and the windmill, if a cat or marauder appears on track and is not in the near vicinity, it is not from your cycle.

on another note: after a while, i noticed a 2nd goblin skirmisher on track, and killed both, after that i had 2 cycles running (for much quicker killing), looks like there is more than 1 slot on that cycle there.


This now is me...As Glitch said, I have yet to see a goblin skirmisher or brawler in this area he describes. I also have not seen any sarnak except one sarnak conscript, and it always spawns as a conscript. No youth, or flunkie. I also have not seen an iksar brigand here, only marauders roaming through. There are also a few spawns that seem static not far from windmill toward those ruins, they should all be roaming. I Have seen plenty of skels, but no greater skeletons here. Then courier should be fairly common, they post about getting up to 40 kills of a sarnak courier, in 7 hours. The reply to this post the fellow mentions getting 2-3 couriers every 15 minutes killing these mobs.

[Glitch]

There are also a few spawns that seem static not far from windmill toward those ruins, they should all be roaming

Yes. I noticed this too. An unusual amount of mobs are just standing around doing nothing in this area.


Can anyone with access to the spawn DB post how the spawn is currently set up on the test server?

[Uthgaard]

It isn't, really. We'll get it in there.

[nilbog]

This should be working after the next update.

[Glitch]

Thank you. :D

[Glitch]

Is this confirmed to be working? I haven't been able to pop him yet.

[bordbard]

bump

i've been trying for over 2 days to get my ring from the courier. While i think the actual spawn cycle is working properly, the actual spawn rate for the courier seems very very low.

I would say with a total of 10 hours of camping over the passed few days I have seen/killed the courier 8-10 times (no rings). The posts i've read say I should be seeing 1 courier every 15 or so minutes..

Based on what I read the courier should be somewhat common, atleast more common that it is now.

**edit** just wanted to add a link to a forum link talking about this:
http://www.monkly-business.net/forums/showthread.php?t=8929
from what they describe there should only be one of these PH's up at any one time in this area. As it is right now I would say there are 10+ that are up at a time (this is between the windmill and the goblin ruins near the water to the NW of the mill). Not sure if there are just mutiple cycles spawning or something else is up.

thanks,

Bord Erline.

[Glitch]

Spawngroups look like they're working great, thanks!
The only problem is that the spawn rate is too low. Currently the courier is set to a 1% spawn chance, and according to alla and other sites about the spawn, farmers were getting him to pop in about 10 to 20 minutes chainkilling PHs as they popped.

Spawn rate needs to be boosted to around 10% chance or so.

He was never supposed to be a particularly rare spawn, it's just his ring that was rare.
That.... is dropping right? ;p

[bordbard]

I agree 100% with Glitch, seems to take way to long to actually get a courier to pop compared to what people have said from live. 10% sounds about right.

-Bord Erline

[Glitch]

Just to provide some backup data for the spawnrate of the courier from alla quotes, average spawn time while following a single spawngroup seems to be around 10-15 minutes.

I finally got this ring after 17 hours and roughly 50 couriers.
[approx. 1 courier every 20 minutes]

followed your spawn table with a ranger to help me, and the courier spawned within fifteen minutes.

you need to keep killing the newest (up on the list with "normal" sorting) spawns that match these and you will get a courier every 15 mins or so.

This is a GREAT post I followed it to a T, and I am getting 2 - 3 courier about every 15 minutes

I got a courior to spawn within 10 minutes and it dropped the hand I needed for the monk quest...

Within 20 minutes I kille dtwo couriers

After that we found another one 15 minutes later

I started getting 1 courier every 5-10 min with this method.



Either way. it's pretty clear that 1 courier every 15 minutes is the average rate that the mob would be popping if you were actively trying to get him to pop while following a single spawngoup.

So after doing the math, on the current 30second repop timers, if the spawn chance of courier was set to 3.333%, it would yield approximately one courier every 15 minutes.

[Fatch]

Just to provide some backup data for the spawnrate of the courier from alla quotes, average spawn time while following a single spawngroup seems to be around 10-15 minutes.


[approx. 1 courier every 20 minutes]

















Either way. it's pretty clear that 1 courier every 15 minutes is the average rate that the mob would be popping if you were actively trying to get him to pop while following a single spawngoup.

So after doing the math, on the current 30second repop timers, if the spawn chance of courier was set to 3.333%, it would yield approximately one courier every 15 minutes.


I agree with Glitch. I did a single spawn group the other day for 4 hours and was getting the courier to spawn once about every 45 minutes. So 3.333% spawn rate for a single spawn group makes perfect sense. Great work Glitch.

[nilbog]

Modified for next patch. Let me know how it works out.

[Isic]

Has this changed? I have been camping the courier for the past 5 days and killed about 10 in 20+ hours of camping. I keep the PH cleared out pretty regularly. It seems he has a very low spawn rate.

[Qualvin]

Yeah I know this is an old post, but I do have to agree with folks here.

Spawn rate for the courier seems to be extremely low.

I've been camping this guy on and off for several weeks now.

yesterday morning, I was finally able to identify one spawn point by the lake which I proceeded to camp for several hours (don't remember exactly). In that time I was averaging about 1 courier an hour or so.

This morning I was able to identify a second spawn point for the cycle which is also showing a similar spawn rate.

All I can say is... this is gonna be a very long camp LOL

Fonix the Tonedeaf bard

[Qualvin]

OK, 4 hours camping tonight covering 2 to 4 spawnpoints.

~600 PHs killed
6 couriers spawned (3 from spawnpoints I wasn't camping)

seems very very rare or extremely bad luck...

[adament1824]

hate to resurrect a dead thread but the spawn rate seems really low doing this camp I have seen 1 courier in like 3 days killing all the PH's between ruins and windmill. Also on the monkly business website it says they were getting pops every 10-20mins and that those PH mobs were only a few up at a time. It seems by the windmill ruins area theres like 50 of those spawns from the list wandering around.

[Something'Witty]

hate to resurrect a dead thread but the spawn rate seems really low doing this camp I have seen 1 courier in like 3 days killing all the PH's between ruins and windmill. Also on the monkly business website it says they were getting pops every 10-20mins and that those PH mobs were only a few up at a time. It seems by the windmill ruins area theres like 50 of those spawns from the list wandering around.

I have camped two of the animal invs rings on red. I just used my wife's druid and let the iksar guard just kill the trash while I spammed track. I tried using Upheaval to AoE the mobs and locating the PHers etc., but it really didn't seem worth it. I had about the same pop rate with each method, 1 - 2 per hour. The best was buffing newbie monks and letting them do the work for ya, provided they leave the courier alone.

Oh and I camped those two rings before the changes to druid track, now I wouldn't even bother trying.