Tribute Guide
Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 1:58 pmI ran out of trib points recently so I decided to spend an entire evening until 5 a.m. doing nothing but farming tribute in old world and PoP zones and the baz. I hit my usual targets and scored about 100k in trib which will last awhile but that seems like a pretty pathetic haul for 6 hours of farming. I wasted a LOT of time chasing down mobs that weren't up (such as a run to Kael to see if the statue of rallos/avatar of war cycle was up).
It occurred to me that most higher level paladins are dealing with this tribute nuisance the way I am, making periodic runs back to a handfull of reliable sources each month. It is very frustrating to sink this time especially because everything in all these zones is grey and thus no exp. It would be great if we could spend a solid evening of farming and get enough tribute to last a longer period of time - and I suspect that it is possible if you know where to look. Some of you may already know how to do it, but I haven't seen any guides anywhere so for most of us it is hit and miss. Most "guides" that have been posted are just long lists of items that have high tribute values -- those are marginally helpful, but most of us can only act on those lists by looking up the items on Alla to see what drops them, where the mob is, and spawn info, and then running to the zone to see if that mob is up. That is an unbelievably onerous task when you are talking about a list of literally hundreds of items.
Other solutions are tradeskilling or buying tribute items in the baz. Both of those involve large outlays of plat (and time if you have not yet mastered any trades) so those are only options for a small percentage of the population and, frankly, I would rather farm the stuff myself rather than pay someone else to do it.
I was wondering if as a class we could put together a step-by-step trib farming guide, identifying where to go and what to hit in order to maximize the tribute gained for the time spent. I will get the ball rolling and ask that others please add. One caveat: the point of this is to help high level, UF/HoT geared folks who will find all of the trib targets to and the trash around them to be trivial. For lower level/lesser geared toons it is unrealistic to expect huge tribute gains in a short time.
I think it makes sense to start in PoP because of its close proximity to PoK. I usually zone into Crypt of Decay first, head due west to the "undead" area and see if carprin is up. If he is, I run the "Carprin cycle" which involves killing Carprin, which will spawn a series of other undead names deeper in the undead area. They all drop nice trib items and I've scored almost 100k trib from this alone. Unfortunately Carprin is on a long respawn cycle and usually is down. I'm certain he is regularly farmed. But since it is just off of Plane of Tranquility it is worth a quick look.
After that I zone into Drunder (plane of tactics). Head due west, drop into pit, take the tunnel in the southwest of the pit due west until it ends, then go south into the pig pen area, at the end of the tunnel Glykus Helmir spawns. He often is up - if he is kill him and hopefully he drops the blood runed battle wand or split blade of destruction. Then head due north. The hallway jogs a few times to the left, but eventually you will get to a large room that is well populated with a firey canal in the middle going east and west. Cross over the canal, there is a small room on the north side where you will find Talgrin Maldric or ph - Talgrin often is up, and he can and usually does drop the black plated collar, which is good tribute.
From there I usually go to Torden, bastion of thunder (BoT). The mini-names in each of the wings are sometimes up and sometimes drop tribute items, although I have not had a lot of return from them. I have farmed all the names outside and none of their loot seems to be tributable.
I have read (but not tried) that plane of justice trials are another good spot. I have spent some time in other PoP zones trib farming (fire and earth) but haven't discovered any quick targets yet.
Outside of PoP, LDoN supposedly is another good source and that seems promising because they are instances, so it seems you could just quickly run to the end and see if the name is up, and quit the instance if it is not. But I haven't seen any guidance regarding particular missions or targets. I haven't put much effort into this because it seems like a huge potential time waster if you don't know specifically what you are after.
Another possibility is western wastes and the zones off of it. That would be attractive because, again, of the proximity to PoK. I have tried WW and Kael (which is a bit far to be considered "quick" tribute unless the return is high) but I haven't had any luck. Again, I think the key is to know what you are looking for.
Veksar is a long run, its a fun zone and you can run the whole thing in a circle, I spent a couple evenings there and got some tribute items but not enough imho to justify the time spent. I haven't messed around with other Kunark zones, Chardok is supposed to have a few good targets but again unless there is a high probability that they are up I don't know if it would be worth the run.
I'll continue adding to this in my "spare time". Thanks in advance to any tohers who offer suggestions.
It occurred to me that most higher level paladins are dealing with this tribute nuisance the way I am, making periodic runs back to a handfull of reliable sources each month. It is very frustrating to sink this time especially because everything in all these zones is grey and thus no exp. It would be great if we could spend a solid evening of farming and get enough tribute to last a longer period of time - and I suspect that it is possible if you know where to look. Some of you may already know how to do it, but I haven't seen any guides anywhere so for most of us it is hit and miss. Most "guides" that have been posted are just long lists of items that have high tribute values -- those are marginally helpful, but most of us can only act on those lists by looking up the items on Alla to see what drops them, where the mob is, and spawn info, and then running to the zone to see if that mob is up. That is an unbelievably onerous task when you are talking about a list of literally hundreds of items.
Other solutions are tradeskilling or buying tribute items in the baz. Both of those involve large outlays of plat (and time if you have not yet mastered any trades) so those are only options for a small percentage of the population and, frankly, I would rather farm the stuff myself rather than pay someone else to do it.
I was wondering if as a class we could put together a step-by-step trib farming guide, identifying where to go and what to hit in order to maximize the tribute gained for the time spent. I will get the ball rolling and ask that others please add. One caveat: the point of this is to help high level, UF/HoT geared folks who will find all of the trib targets to and the trash around them to be trivial. For lower level/lesser geared toons it is unrealistic to expect huge tribute gains in a short time.
I think it makes sense to start in PoP because of its close proximity to PoK. I usually zone into Crypt of Decay first, head due west to the "undead" area and see if carprin is up. If he is, I run the "Carprin cycle" which involves killing Carprin, which will spawn a series of other undead names deeper in the undead area. They all drop nice trib items and I've scored almost 100k trib from this alone. Unfortunately Carprin is on a long respawn cycle and usually is down. I'm certain he is regularly farmed. But since it is just off of Plane of Tranquility it is worth a quick look.
After that I zone into Drunder (plane of tactics). Head due west, drop into pit, take the tunnel in the southwest of the pit due west until it ends, then go south into the pig pen area, at the end of the tunnel Glykus Helmir spawns. He often is up - if he is kill him and hopefully he drops the blood runed battle wand or split blade of destruction. Then head due north. The hallway jogs a few times to the left, but eventually you will get to a large room that is well populated with a firey canal in the middle going east and west. Cross over the canal, there is a small room on the north side where you will find Talgrin Maldric or ph - Talgrin often is up, and he can and usually does drop the black plated collar, which is good tribute.
From there I usually go to Torden, bastion of thunder (BoT). The mini-names in each of the wings are sometimes up and sometimes drop tribute items, although I have not had a lot of return from them. I have farmed all the names outside and none of their loot seems to be tributable.
I have read (but not tried) that plane of justice trials are another good spot. I have spent some time in other PoP zones trib farming (fire and earth) but haven't discovered any quick targets yet.
Outside of PoP, LDoN supposedly is another good source and that seems promising because they are instances, so it seems you could just quickly run to the end and see if the name is up, and quit the instance if it is not. But I haven't seen any guidance regarding particular missions or targets. I haven't put much effort into this because it seems like a huge potential time waster if you don't know specifically what you are after.
Another possibility is western wastes and the zones off of it. That would be attractive because, again, of the proximity to PoK. I have tried WW and Kael (which is a bit far to be considered "quick" tribute unless the return is high) but I haven't had any luck. Again, I think the key is to know what you are looking for.
Veksar is a long run, its a fun zone and you can run the whole thing in a circle, I spent a couple evenings there and got some tribute items but not enough imho to justify the time spent. I haven't messed around with other Kunark zones, Chardok is supposed to have a few good targets but again unless there is a high probability that they are up I don't know if it would be worth the run.
I'll continue adding to this in my "spare time". Thanks in advance to any tohers who offer suggestions.
