NPC Spawn Issue: Magi P'Tasa Staff of Elementary Mastery Earth drop rate

[gwideon]

Gnomish Greetings!

I found another web page but there is no date on it that I see. But some things in the page indicate it should be in era.

Neh'Ashiir in City of Mist - raid needed.
Capt. Rottgrime in The Overthere - Small raid (2-3 groups) needed.
Does NOT mention it dropping off of forsaken revenants

http://jahya0.tripod.com/MageMobs.html

Magi P'tasa in Plane of Hate
Staff of Elemental Mastery: Earth
Magi is lvl 55, class unknown. He has 32,000 HP and hits for a max of 240. He is a rare spawn.

Here's some info from Matt Waggoner's site:
Magi, like all mini bosses, is a semi-rare spawn with a placeholder on a 72 hour timer +/- 12 hours (60-84 hour spawn). He spawns in 10 different spots:
2 in rev house
2 on top floor in maestro's house
2 with ashenbone drakes on first floor
2 in inny's old lair
2 on second floor of second floor church.
He is NOT always up after patches... but he has a very good chance of being up because he has about a 30% chance of spawning in 10 spots, but sometimes the spots could all be filled with phs (has happened before). He CAN be slowed, malosini'd and debuffed. He can be taken out with one full group if you are good and have a 60 shaman.

Drop rates are as follows:
30% chance of dropping the staff
30% chance of dropping apothic robe
40% chance of dropping apothic sleeves, pants, or crown
50% chance of dropping apothic bracer, gloves, or boots
(he is known to drop up to 3 armor pieces at a time)

Although a group can do this mob, a raid would probably be best.

He also mentions Matt Waggoner's size which I have seen in in-era posts on this. Here he mentions 30% which is not far from the 25% I was deriving from other posts. The spawn rate also matches the P99 rate which also indicates it should be in era.

[gwideon]

Here is another post of the Epic dated from 2004, however the post does not say the staff drops from revenants so it may be a copy of another post:

https://foroedn.mforos.com/437762/23...c-1-0-english/

Staff of Earth drops off Magi P'Tasa in Hate. He is on a rare pop out of several (12) places, so there can be multiples of him up, although I have never seen more than 2. The drop rate is about 1 in 4. One uber group can do him, although you probably need an all out raid. The Dirt of Underfoot is found on Slixin Klex. It is a common drop. He won't be very difficult finding for he spawns (-500, -1100) just north of the glowing meteor every 22 minutes. He is a level 50 warrior and has 11000 hitpoints. Both the Shovel of Ponz and the Broom of Triton are subquests. Both quests are given by Vira in the Temple of Solusek Ro. For the Shovel of Ponz you need a shovel dropped from level 25-32 alligators within Feerrott, the toes of a hill giant from a hill giant, a gargoyles eye from gargoyles in Ocean of Tear, and a ruby from gem selling vendors. For the Broom of Triton you need a broom from alligators in Feerrott, the toes of a cyclops, the feathers of a griffon, and a star ruby from gem selling vendors. For these quests you need to have good faction with the Temple of Solusek Ro which can be obtained by killing Shadow-Men. Hand the four items in to Tiblner Milnik and you will be rewarded with the Element of Earth.

[gwideon]

I mentioned in the post above that Matt Waggner's site is in era and that it is a copy and paste from his in era website here is evidence:

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...00677907676693

Maginess
Nov 26 2001 at 7:51 AM
Anonymous
Magi, like all mini bosses, is a semi-rare spawn with a placeholder on a 72 hour timer + or - 12 hours (60-84 hour spawn). He spawns in 10 different spots:

2 in rev house
2 on top floor in maestro's house
2 with ashenbone drakes on first floor
2 in inny's old lair
2 on second floor of second floor church.

This is direct paste from http://matt.waggoner.com/orbofmastery.html

The link in the post is no longer active after nearly 20 years but as you can see in the above post the text is identical the information copied above, same abbreviations and format placing this affirmatively within our era. I also believe this was used as evidence in a prior P99 adjustment to reduce the spawn rate to 72 hours from 8 hours.

Here is a Magician Epic walk through post from a Korean website that is dated 12/25/02 but again there is no mention of it dropping from revenants of the later Hate change. Also please keep in mind that information lagged on many sites as players slowly discovered content and found old sources for their own write ups. Reference uses google translate but you can see the original if it will help.

https://translate.google.com/transla...00&prev=search

Tiblner Milnik says' Combining the following items can bring the Element of Earth together. Obtain the Staff of Elemental Mastery: Earth, held by the minions of the Prince of Hate, The Dirt of Underfoot found on Slix something or the other, and of course, I shall need the Broom of Trilon and the Shovel of Ponz. Bring all these things, and I shall show you what a true Master of Earth can do, and gift you with the Element of Earth.

Now ... there is no free. You also need to get 4 more (Shovel of Ponz, Broom of Trilon, Staff of Elemental Mastery: Earth, Dirt of Underfoot)

1] Shovel of Ponz
; You have to get these.

In 1} najena you have to get Shovel from Wizards or Crocs of Khajittuul.
2} Hill Giant's Toe
3} Gargoyle's Eye (Mist Moore or OOT)
4} Ruby

With these you can go to Temple of Solusek Ro and get it through Vira.
When you go to Temple of Solusek Ro, it's good to go with Temple of Solusek Ro and people with good factions.
The best way to raise the faction of Temple of Solusek Ro is to kill shadowed men.

2] Broom of Trilon
; You have to get these.

In 1} najena, you have to get a broom from wizards or eggs from Kazictool.
2} Cyclops toes
3} Griffon feather (may be sold by vendors of North Karana)
4} Sell Star Ruby (not Star Ruby !!). -_-

3] Staff of Elemental Mastery: Earth
; Magi P'tasa (Level: 55, Energy: 32000)
You live in a place called Plane of Hate. 30% drop on a huge rare spawn (60-84 hour spawn) ..

4] Dirt of Underfoot
; Slixin Klex (Class: Warrior, Level: 50, Energy: 11000, Damage: 137, Antic Skel)
You say you live in Burning Wood in KUNARK (-500, -1100).

Now ~~ If you collected 4, give Tiblner Milnik living in Firiona Vie in KUNARK, and you will give Element of Earth, right?
Another squad ends. -_- It's shorter than the big one, but -_- It's a door that can be seen for a longer time. -_-

Here we see the 30% drop rate from the other post rather than 1 in 4 in other posts I found but again it is close to the estimate of other players from the same period. Google doesn’t do a great job with pronouns, but the essence of the post shows the drop rate.
----

The following post shows a copyright of 2002 at the bottom of the page, but again no mention of revenants dropping the staff. The date could be due to revisions in his walk through from the original rather the original write up date. The text again matches closely the text from the prior post.

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/eq...cian/epic.html

Staff of Earth drops off Magi P'Tasa in Hate. He is on a rare pop out of several (12) places, so there can be multiples of him up, although I have never seen more than 2. The drop rate is about 1 in 4. One uber group can do him, although you probably need an all out raid.

In my research I did not find anything that supports my guess at the current P99 drop rate of 5 – 10%. All of the sources close to the period seem to point to a 25% - 30% drop rate for the staff. This makes sense from a Sony perspective as they made adjustments to many of the class epics around the same time to give players an opportunity to complete them. They would not be likely to leave one class’s epic extremely difficult and endure the rants of Sony hates the Magician class. (However, they were already saying it because of the Pegasus Cloak) The magician’s epic is already fairly involved with several raid level encounters and more numerous steps than some of the other epics. It is arguably the most difficult on P99.

I know there will be some who will say that they had to go through the rarity of the drop, so others should too. I can understand that because it was also the argument used on EQLive and class boards at the time for all of the revised epic quests. However if the goal of the server is to recreate the game as it was in the peak of the game in period, the drop rate should reflect the rate at the time. To subject others to the same P99 rarity just because you had to may be a classic argument, but hopefully it is not the opinion of the P99 staff.

Some have pointed out that an epic magician was uncommon. Magicians as a class were uncommon. Mages did not like their role in the raid environment as modrod producers because people at the time often did not allow pets for boss mobs because of pathing and warping, etc. In my recollection on our server INT casters in general were less valued during the Velious era which was dominated by melee due to the higher HP boss mobs and mana regen limitations. Wizards were much more common due to the Lure line of spells on resistant bosses, and later the Bane set of spells. However, the rarity of the class does not prove that their epic was unusually rare.

Lastly, there is a group I have little sympathy for, the farmers. Not that I am against farming in general, most people do it to earn plat for other things. It is part of the game. But, because this item is so rare, there is a select few who are breaking the rules by camping out in zone so they can snatch it up before people get it for their own epics. They do it with 2 unguilded accounts (avoiding a raid ban) and have a head start on people who have to gather and port up and break into the entrance of the zone with a larger force. You can see an example of the problem this causes in this RNF post from last year:
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=322988
This is still happening. I thought with the launch of the green server the crew would move onto other projects. That they are not, leads me to wonder if there is not RMT motives involved. I cannot prove this is their intent, it may be just another mage desperate to obtain their epic and willing to break the rules to get it. I have had people tell me to get FRAPS which is easier said than done for reasons I won’t go into here as it may lead to them using that information. One other tracker claims to have gotten video and reported them, I hope they are banned considering they are unguilded and trying to skirt the raiding rules. As you can see from prior posts, some would encourage others to do the same. Not healthy (IMO)

I do not bring the last item up to invite RNF; please start your own thread there. I bring it up because there are some who will argue against the change so that they or their friends can continue to do this. Please take this into consideration.

Thank ye kindly!

[Kaellaven]

My mage has everything but the Earth staff. Such a shame. I agree - up the drop rate and/or eliminate the MQ-ability of the staff to give some of the other Mages a chance. It’s been a lot of time and work up to this point!

[Telin]

Just putting this here for reference.

9/29/01

quillmane's cloak is the most boring of all the mage epic camps. the plane
of air, provided you assemble a strong raid force that is willing to take
out a saturday/sunday just to be in sky and is committed to going to that
island.... is really not *that* hard. again, assuming that you have the
raid force and levels and gear and appropriate classes, you should be able
to get through bee island, which is arguably the hardest island in sky.
also, the crowns can be traded and sold, so it can always be purchased.

imho, the hardest part is the earth staff. random three day spawn, still a uncommon/rare drop off the magi p'tasa... on the server i am on, there are about nine magicians who just have earth staff left. i think that says
something as to the rarity and difficulty of obtaining one...

fortunately, i was able to remove myself from that list a few weeks ago [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
uubober is quite nice, yes...

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....8/Dwb0H4fEiVsJ

[Croco]

Originally Posted by Telin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

imho, the hardest part is the earth staff. random three day spawn, still a uncommon/rare drop off the magi p'tasa... on the server i am on, there are about nine magicians who just have earth staff left. i think that says
something as to the rarity and difficulty of obtaining one...

At least gwideon has posted from multiple sources with pretty compelling drop rates. Posting this quote is beyond meaningless. This is so circumstantial it's like 3 times removed from actual circumstantial evidence. Who's to say there wasn't another server where every mage that wanted one and 4 alts already had their earth staff. You know how %'s work right?

Keep up the good fight Gwideon. Though I'm fairly convinced at this point they wouldn't consider evidence good enough unless it was a youtube video of a dev showing his work badge and stating the actual drop rate in era with tv news in the background of 9/11 happening to corroborate the in era timestamp of the video.

[Jimjam]

There are a lot more than just 9 magicians on p99 that have just the Earth Staff left. Tellin, I think your quote is actually telling us the staff is too rare. If the typical number of mages who have done the whole epic, excepting the Earth staff should balance out to just nine it should be dropping more often.

Rare/uncommon typically means 25%, whereas very rare usually meant 5%. His opinion tells me the staff should be a 25% drop rate.

[Lammy]

I forget my exact count, but I've killed Magi close to 20 times with no staff.

I beat EQ never getting my epic for this poor gnome.

[gwideon]

Gnomish Greetings Telin!

And thank you for responding to the thread. It is my hope that you posted the information to include it with the other information gathered for reference and that this is not a final staff position on adjusting the drop rate. I would propose to you that “uncommon/rare” is a relative term that means different things to different players.

This poster rates the staff as rare, but notice he bases his declaration on an estimated 1 in 5 drop rate

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...01050875296393

Magi P`Tasa and demis
# Jan 08 2002 at 11:52 AM Rating: Default
Anonymous
I've gone to hate many times trying to get my epic. From what I've seen there are about 10 demi spawns throughout the zone. Each demi is random to spawn through those 10 and do not have PH. They appear to be on a 72 hour timer. I killed the Magi 6 times before getting a Staff of Elemental Mastery: Earth. From what I've been able to gather this staff is very rare. I'd estimate about 1 out of 5 spawns.

Magi loot:
Common drop: Two parts of apothic
Rare: Staff of Elemental Mastery: Earth (along with the apothic)

I think there is more evidential support for 25% - 30%, than there is for 20% but I have not found any evidential support for 5 – 10% drop rates. There are also posts which would imply that it is even more common that 1 out of 4.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...99462253964784

great raid )
# Jul 08 2001 at 3:02 PM
Anonymous
as a lvl 47 mag I did not expect to have a good first raid experience..

The puller said that next INC was the mage mini boss, I was excited but never thought that as the only mag on the raid anything would drop for me...

Needless to say, he droped the robe and the crown AND the Staff!!!

I am probly the only person to be that lucky!!

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...10028400002400

RE: great raid )
Oct 11 2001 at 5:40 PM Rating: Decent
Anonymous
I think on my third trip to Hate I walked away with the staff, the gloves, 2 bracers (4 droped total, but i had no need for 4), boots, and the arms. I was happy just to get the staff. The armor was just a bonus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Xinit Lifeforge
52nd Gnome Elementalist
Povar Server

Third trip to hate, not necessarily third kill of Magi.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...98802407921501

For Nisumbus
Apr 23 2001 at 6:07 AM Rating: Default

This is just fyi, Shovel of Ponz is the pre-50 earth focus, Mastery Staff is for 50+ pet spells. I looted it Friday night, my first (!) trip to Hate. It is MUCH easier to get now than it was, from all I have heard. Got 2 pieces Apothic also, off the mini-boss ). Good hunting all.

Forte Fortissimo
59 Conjurer
A`dileab de Paegen
Tunare

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...98675622869743

on Magi`P`Tasa now
# Apr 08 2001 at 1:57 PM Rating: Default
Anonymous
the staff noz drop from Magi , a mini boss level 55 . this guy always drops staff and some apothic armor.

So, I hope you see, rarity is in the eye of the beholder (so to speak). What I have not found is anyone in our timeline for classic who said I have killed Magi 10 or 20 times and not dropped a staff. I am not saying they don’t exist; only that I have not seen them yet.

I certainly do not wish to engage an argument with the gods of P99. It is only my intention to research the matter more fully and provide the information to you in hopes that you will evaluate.

If the matter is settled and the research is not needed please PM me (or post).

Again, Thank ye kindly for reading.

[Telin]

I’d like to capture every in-era conversation about it in one thread. I read all your posts yesterday and think it’s worth considering. The more evidence the better, so if you can find more sources that would be great.