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[quote="PROWLER"][b]Magma Beast Prophecy [/b] After slaughtering one thousand Magmas, I have managed to coerce them into giving up some of their secrets. I have also discovered a number of aspects that will come as a surprise to some people. Some aspects that I will make public will annoy some people and there are a few titbits that perhaps the GMs didn’t even know. I accept 1000 is not a hugely significant number but it was certainly sufficient to ascertain the various prophecies below. Of course, there is also a drop list further down … Firstly, since I have low INT and low STR, these blighters are incredibly difficult to deal with. Here are the comparisons (Kills using same weapon); 14mins 30secs 100kills x Leiver Beasts (0 HP Pots) 26mins 40secs 100kills x Elite Lizardmen (0 HP Pots) 16mins 40secs 100kills x Drazil (0 HP Pots) 13mins 50secs 100kills x Beast Lord Guardians (0 HP Pots) 16mins 30secs 100kills x Enraged Boars (0 HP Pots) 28mins 20secs 100kills x Hellish Trolls (0 HP Pots) [b]2hrs 10mins 100kills x Magma Beast (330 HP Pots)[/b] The apparent disparity with the non-Magma kills is due to having to locate the Conti mobs between kills so the time includes running around. [b]Empirical Data[/b] 1000 Magma Beast Kills (Roughly 500 VoD and 500 Conti) 100 Molten Whelps Killed (exactly) used Bow. 204 Magus Killed (used knuckle) 3315 HP Pots used (100HP) 19 Trips back to Town 2 Devil Appearances in Conti 97 Deaths to Molten Whelps (used Resi’s) 5 Deaths to Magmas (used Resis’s) 7007253 Barr (Seven Million) [b]Time Taken = 21hours 40mins[/b] [b]Profitability[/b] Cost of Resi’s is 22500barr x 102 = 2295000 Cost of HP Pots is 297Barr x 3315 = 984555 Total (direct) Costs = 3279555 Barr Barr Gained : 7007253 Less Costs : (3279555) Profit in Barr : [b]3727698[/b] [b]Prophecy #1[/b] It is possible to sometimes outrun a Whelp in VoD [b]Prophecy #2[/b] It is very easy to kill a Magma Beast with low STR (for a level 120 character) even if it has TWO x Magus healing it [b]Prophecy #3[/b] It is not difficult to kill a Magma Beast with low STR (for a level 120 character) if it is being healed by THREE Magus [b]Prophecy #4[/b] You can lure Magma Beasts without firing an arrow or casting [b]Prophecy #5[/b] With low INT, you will take around 170 damage (average) per blast [b]Prophecy #6[/b] Using melee (in this case a fast knuckle with relatively low STR) you will use just over THREE 100HP pots on average per Magma [b]Prophecy #7[/b] You can expect to die, roughly, ONE time in every TEN Magma kills especially if there is someone else there hunting [b]Prophecy #8[/b] There is no special technique to avoiding getting blasted. Only twice during the 1000 kills did I not get hit by at least one INT blast as I ran towards it. [b]Prophecy #9[/b] Killing Magmas in Conti is much easier than VoD if you are alone. Specifically, you can remove Whelps and Magus from Drazil island and then lure Magmas to empty spaces. They never re-spawn up your backside when you do this [b]Prophecy #10[/b] Killing Magmas in Conti is substantially harder if there is someone else there too. Most especially if the other player(s) is being a cock-end because the spawn area is much smaller than VoD which means that Magmas regularly re-spawn up your back side and Whelps often spawn next to you and explode. You will need rather an enormous amount of Resi’s for this scenario [b]Prophecy #11[/b] There were a number of characters who were “regulars” at the Magmas. They were all killing with a bow and they all had sufficient INT and were able to kill the Magma’s very fast. In every case, they were “unphased” by being blasted by several Magma’s at once (that is to say, they made no effort to lure at all). Since they did not have to switch weapons (knuckle to bow and vice-versa) they could also kill whelps that were nearby The kill rate of these people exceeded my kill rate by eight to one (8:1) due to their much higher STR and (almost unbelievably) bows which were faster than the +5 knuckle I was using. They did not die to whelps and did not require anything like the same HP pot usage [b]Prophecy #12[/b] The time taken for the players in #11 (above) to kill 100 Magmas appears to be faster than the time for Hellish trolls (based on the empirical data at the outset and based on watching/timing them killing 10 x Magmas). [b]Prophecy #13[/b] Some people (especially some of the #11 above) behave like utter bell-ends and will engage multiple Magma’s (arrows) at once and will include the one you are trying to lure. They also seem to deliberately kill whelps and magus (unnecessarily) so that they then re-spawn in a place to either blow your head off or make life miserable (presumably to encourage you to leave) [b]Prophecy #14[/b] Despite the habitual moaning on the forums (by some certain people) that the drops from the Magma’s are poor – they are NOT. In fact, the drops are hugely generous and entirely disproportionate to ALL other mobs. Top end drops appeared like diarrhoea (See Drop List below) [b]Prophecy #15[/b] Magma Beasts were originally introduced as something new for players of level 100 before the cap raise to 110. They also required parties to teamwork together. After the cap raise to 110, the INT players could solo them and complaints were made from the melee players shouting “unfair ref”. Consequently, the GMs reduced the STR of the Magma’s to enable melee chars to solo them too. Since the cap raise to 120, this has allowed certain melee character builds to machine gun down these mobs and gain access to a ridiculous amount of goodies (see drops below) this is something that “certain” players have failed to mention (you don’t complain when you are getting shed loads of stuff, right?) [b]Prophecy #16[/b] I am certain that “some” players are very aware of just how good they have it and not only keep quiet about it but actively discourage others from getting involved so they can “keep the secret” (you know what I mean) [b]Prophecy #17[/b] Some folk at the Magma’s remain “decent” people and “quietly” just get on with killing them for drops. Some don’t make a fuss on the forum, they don’t complain and one gave me my +7 stinger back after I dropped it on the floor by accident - Thank you Mr Braven 8) [b]Conclusion to Prophecies[/b] The mob is hugely imbalanced in this way; Highest Advantage players = High STR, fast melee, Med INT Next Best Advantage = High INT (or Mage class character) Utterly guttered = Low STR, Low INT, High DEX characters The disparity is absolutely alarming with a difference ratio of 8:1 between top and bottom (I wasn’t able to audit a mage but I suspect the ratio will be 7:1 or 6:1) Nothing more should be added to the Magma Beast drop file – frankly, it is just the people “in the know” being dam cheeky asking for more stuff. In fact, when someone demands more they should be banned from the forum – it’s that ridiculous Since there was “balance” for STR characters to benefit from the Magma’s, it would be reasonable to also allow DEX characters the same access to them. Removing the range 1 magic attack would not affect current melee characters using a bow, nor would it affect mages. However, it would allow DEX characters using a range 1 weapon an equal chance. 170 damage off one blast when you approach still requires (almost) 2xHP pots and, of course, whelps will continually detonate anyone stood at range 1 using a melee weapon. High DEX, low STR characters take (much) longer to kill a single mob. That would fairly level the playing field. As it stands, it took nearly 22 hours to kill 1000 Magmas (at level 120) and it would take 220 hours to kill 10000 to complete the various quests that have been added. Clearly, the quests were never intended to take such an enormous amount of time – it would be reasonable for the quests to take a similar amount of time to that of killing other mobs (10000 x hellish trolls for instance (which the STR and INT classes can do already)) Pretty please could the proposal (above) be given serious consideration. It won’t completely narrow the gap but it will help. [b]Drops[/b] 12 x Bone Helm (m) ( Untagged ) 6 x Bone Helm (m) ( Hardened ) 3 x Bone Helm (m) ( Rare ) Total = 21 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 48 ) or 0.21% 12 x Bone Top (m) ( Untagged ) 1 x Bone Top (m) ( Hardened ) 1 x Bone Top (m) ( Rare ) Total = 14 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 71 ) or 1.40% 2 x Bone Pads (m) ( Untagged ) 3 x Bone Pads (m) ( Hardened ) 4 x Bone Pads (m) ( Rare ) Total = 9 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 111 ) or 0.90% 6 x Bone Boots (m) ( Untagged ) 4 x Bone Boots (m) ( Hardened ) 2 x Bone Boots (m) ( Rare ) 1 x Bone Boots (m) ( Epic ) Total = 13 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 77 ) or 1.30% 10 x Bone Helm (f) ( Untagged ) 1 x Bone Helm (f) ( Hardened ) 2 x Bone Helm (f) ( Rare ) 2 x Bone Helm (f) ( Epic ) Total = 15 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 67 ) or 1.50% 15 x Bone Top (f) ( Untagged ) 6 x Bone Top (f) ( Hardened ) Total = 21 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 48 ) or 2.10% 7 x Bone Pads (f) ( Untagged ) 1 x Bone Pads (f) ( Hardened ) 3 x Bone Pads (f) ( Rare ) Total = 11 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 91 ) or 1.10% 12 x Bone Boots (f) ( Untagged ) 3 x Bone Boots (f) ( Hardened ) 3 x Bone Boots (f) ( Rare ) Total = 18 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 56 ) or 1.80% 2 x Bitter Bone Pads (m) ( Untagged ) 2 x Bitter Bone Pads (m) ( Hardened ) Total = 4 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 250 ) or 0.40% 2 x Bitter Bone Boots (m) ( Untagged ) 2 x Bitter Bone Boots (m) ( Rare ) Total = 4 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 250 ) or 0.40% 1 x Bitter Bone Helm (f) ( Untagged ) Total = 1 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 1000 ) or 0.10% 1 x Bitter Bone Top (f) ( Untagged ) 2 x Bitter Bone Top (f) ( Hardened ) Total = 3 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 333 ) or 0.30% 1 x Bitter Bone Pads (f) ( Untagged ) 1 x Bitter Bone Pads (f) ( Hardened ) Total = 2 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 500 ) or 0.20% 1 x Bitter Bone Boots (f) ( Untagged ) 1 x Bitter Bone Boots (f) ( Hardened ) Total = 2 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 500 ) or 0.20% 8 x Golden Thunder Rod ( Untagged ) 4 x Golden Thunder Rod ( Hardened ) 1 x Golden Thunder Rod ( Rare ) Total = 13 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 77 ) or 1.30% 7 x Hoarde Hands ( Untagged ) 4 x Hoarde Hands ( Hardened ) 3 x Hoarde Hands ( Rare ) Total = 14 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 71 ) or 1.40% 8 x Stinger ( Untagged ) 5 x Stinger ( Hardened ) 1 x Stinger ( Rare ) 1 x Stinger ( Epic ) Total = 15 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 67 ) or 1.50% 6 x Pike ( Untagged ) 7 x Pike ( Hardened ) 3 x Pike ( Rare ) 1 x Pike ( Legendary ) Total = 17 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 59 ) or 1.70% 4 x Blue Wave Axe ( Untagged ) 1 x Blue Wave Axe ( Hardened ) 3 x Blue Wave Axe ( Rare ) 1 x Blue Wave Axe ( Epic ) Total = 9 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 111 ) or 0.90% 7 x Snake Bite ( Untagged ) 2 x Snake Bite ( Rare ) 1 x Snake Bite ( Epic ) Total = 10 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 100 ) or 1.00% 1 x Azure Eye Staff ( Untagged ) Total = 1 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 1000 ) or 0.10% 1 x Physco Xbow ( Hardened ) Total = 1 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 1000 ) or 0.10% 1 x Mammoth Mauler ( Untagged ) Total = 1 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 1000 ) or 0.10% 2 x Agility Necklace ( Untagged ) 1 x Agility Necklace ( Rare ) Total = 3 Chance of Drop ( 1 in 333 ) or 0.30% 2 x Clean Tablet Chance of Drop ( 1 in 500 ) or 0.20% 1 x Delight Tablet Chance of Drop ( 1 in 1000 ) or 0.10% 8 x Drawing Tablet Chance of Drop ( 1 in 125 ) or 0.80% 28 x Dried Frog Chance of Drop ( 1 in 36 ) or 2.80% 24 x Egg Pile Chance of Drop ( 1 in 42 ) or 2.40% 19 x Herb Chance of Drop ( 1 in 53 ) or 1.90% 12 x Large Liver Chance of Drop ( 1 in 83 ) or 1.20% 2 x Magma Fragment Chance of Drop ( 1 in 500 ) or 0.20% [b]Drop Summary[/b] Untagged = 128 Hardened = 53 Rare = 34 Epic = 6 Intense = 0 Legendary = 1 Mythic = 0 Untaggable Items 96 Total Drops = 318 Enjoy .... 8) /Jac /Prowler [/quote]