Miscellaneous: a giant wooly spider silk drop rate (Everfrost)

[Jimjam]

Currently the giant wooly spiders seem to drop rarely a spider silk, and I don't recall seeing a double drop. This doesn't match my memory of live in the run up to Luclin, where I hunted frequently.

A quick preliminary investigation on live I was able to kill 3 spiders, two of which double dropped silk, one of which didn't drop. Incidently all three spiders dropped a spider legs.

This roughly equates to one silk per spider.

This evidence corroberates with what scant evidence contemporary to classic that I could find:

"I was in Everfrost 3 days ago with the explicit intention of killing Woolys
for silk and was averaging a little below 1 / Wooly, I believe." https://dbsanfte.github.io/eq-archiv...-msg-31001.txt Thu, 09 Aug 2001

Interestingly this comment is made in a thread claiming drop rates of spider silks across the game had been lowered (and the rest of the post seemed to be largely in agreement with the OP).

Incidently, I found on live the icy orcs (not snow orcs) of the same zone were dropping ice goblin necklaces. Curiouser and curiouser.

Anyway, short story long I feel the giant wooly spider needs to have their silk drop rate looked at, clearly there should be a substantial chance for silk to double drop, and indeed their general chance of dropping silk should be higher.

Although further research is desirable, further evidence of drop rates are not forthcoming. As it stands I suggest they be changed to have a 50 50 chance to drop 2 silks, otherwise they drop no silk?

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[loramin]

My 20+-year old memories support this report, so I went looking for evidence ... but could not find much.

I found a follow-up post to the one Jimjam posted, which makes it sound like Verant nerfed silk drops pretty significantly:

I went back to Nektulos Forest to check there. The Large Spiders are
dropping a fourth to half what they were a few weeks ago, but that is
still 2 to 3 times the rate I found in EK.

I also found this post where someone specifically recommends those spiders for farming silk.

> 4. Where can I get a constant supply of spider silk near Qeynos area? I
> am only level 11 so I cannot go to E.Karana.

I can only really answer number 4, as I'm not a tailor at all. A good place
to hunt for silk at level 11 is everfrost peaks (on the plains area), be
looking for Giant and Large wooly spiders. They should all be blue and even
fights to you, so unless you bring a healer, expect some downtime between
battles. They also poison, but it's not that bad of poison. Or you could
hunt in West Karanas. The giant spiders are far between (as is everything
in that gigantic zone), but it's fairly good hunting. Oh, and for hunting
spiders now a days, I recommend doing it off prime time hours, as every is
looking for spider silks now, and we monks can't out pull the thousands of
spellcasters out there that see a spider and burn it from a mile off.

I also found this post claiming:

The snow bound cousin of the giant spider, these are comparitively rarer. They are abundant in Everfrost where they are found, and are just a gigantic version of the wooly spiderling. They give pretty decent experience, and the loot is usually not too bad either. They do poison, so be careful of this.

I also found this report that (incorrectly) states they are the best source of spider silk, although it doesn't mention double drops:

I can't believe no-one has mentioned htis yet - the best source of silk is LARGE SPIDERS. I am fairly new to the game so I only know of two places where there are lots - Everfrost (wooly) and Butcherblock (regular).
They are easy to kill (7 up) and drop silk 70% of the time. Plus they do not poison. Btw if you are a mage and fighting stuff that *does* poison, use water pet - it is very resistant.

Finally, I found this guy who says that they should drop the same amount as the WK spiders (do they double-drop?):

For lower levels on the westen side of Antonica, Everfrost is great! I spent a lot of time in WK, killing one spider and medding (repeat ad nauseum); in Everfrost, just out onto the tundra, you can find large wooly spiders all over. They don't drop silk any more often than their giant cousins in WK, but at 10th season, they're just a slash and a kick away! I can go through 5-10 in the same amount of time it used to take me for 1 giant. Depending on how far they run, of course! I can't wait to load up and get back to Qeynos; I'm all the time turning down calls for silk for lack of materials; no problem now!