Secrets of the Ancient Cyclops?

[shelobe]

No, I do not have any secrets. I'm asking if anyone has any inside info about how to get the Ancient Cyclops to pop in southern Desert of Ro. Shelobe is parked there killing stuff and so far I haven't seen squat in the desert. No AC around. Boots would be a nice thing to get made soon.

Considering I can smake some small pp from the spider silks (seel in bazaar for 2 pp each), I'll probably hang around a bit hoping to get lucky but I really wanna level to 39 and head into ToFS.

39 is about as high of level as I got my necro on the PC 5 years ago and I have never been in ToFS so I thought it would be a cool place to level to 44 or maybe even 49.

[winchester20]

No clue. I always went to that island, Ocean of Tears I think. Been forever since i did this quest so don't roast me if I named the wrong zone. But it was that island with the one mob spawnpoint that you just kill and kill again till you get the AC.

[shelobe]

Well, I got AC to pop last night. Unfortunately, he spawned WITHIN aggro range of the DEF merchants and he is KoS to them. I tried to pull him away but 3 level 40 merchants do a lotta dps and killed him and poof goes the corpse!

I think there is a pattern to his spawn cycle. Actually, it's a pattern for the sand giant cycle really and I suspect the AC is just a low probability spawn in that cycle.

There seem to be 2-3 mobs that are PHers for Sand giants/named sand giants/AC. These mobs have "short names" that are not typical of the rest of the mobs of their "type". For instance, "a desert madman" is the typical name of the madmen who wander the desert. Every now and then you see "a madman". I saw 3 of those last night, killed them, and within about 8 minutes either a sand giant or a named sand giant or the AC popped. I also killed "a skeleton" which is an unusal name for skeletons in the zone since ALL the rest I ever saw were called drybone skeletons. After killing this one about 8 min later a sand giant popped.

Obviously, this is too small of a sample on which to base this conclusion. Especially since I was literally killing everything else I could in the zone. Really what it would take to figure this out is to have a tracker in the zone, find one of the short name mobs, kill it, and wait 8 minutes or so and see if another short name mob pops or a sand giant pops. As with all PHers I'm sure you must get PHer repops some of the time and just occassional sand giant cycle pop.

If I had to guess, I would think that killing regular named mobs causes the "short name" mobs to rarely spawn. Killing the "short name" mobs then hadsa high probability of causing a pop in the sand giant cycle.

[Sammel]

I have done this quest many times in the last 7 years and have a pretty good system going at the moment. Having just done it for 2 twinks on the same account as my necro I will give a brief summary of it.

1. Park twink at OOT cyclops island, (one with the druid ring). Take necro to that island and kill until AC pops. This has never taken my an hour. Necro is lvl 75 with 1360 AA's though, not sure if that relevant. Once AC pops and is killed I camp the necro and log the twink to loot the ring. The last 2 I did this for were casters so I was able to gate back to PoK where I was bound.

2. After getting back to PoK I take the Oggok portal to Feerott and run to Rathe Mnts. As soon as you zone in continue to the first intersection and bind. I then reverse course and use PoK books to get to Neriak shadowed men camp and camp there. I know there is a PoK book in R.M.'s but I hate running through that zone with lowbies, Feerott is safer and it takes me right where I need to be in R.M.

3. Log necro and run him to Neriak where I camped the twink, while there I check to see if the rapier is up. If not, I immediately kill them until one is up. This never takes more that 15 min. I do NOT kill it yet though. Camp Necro.

4. Log lvl 50 Ranger I have camped where my twink is bound in R.M. This first intersection seems to be the Hasten and P.H. route. Check tracking and see if Hasten is up. He never has been so far. It's usually "A Drake" p.h. Kill ph's until Hasten pops. PH's include above drake, somebody "The Unkempt." and "Brother Zyphel" The brother is the one that is hard to kill. If he pops I usually camp and check again in a few hours.

5. After popping Hasten I camp the Ranger and log necro to kill the shadowed man with the rapier. Camp necro and log twink to loot the rapier. This a no rent item so don't camp with it. After looting I gate to R.M. and just wait at that intersection for Hasten to run by. Make sure you have 325pp on you. Hail Hasten , give him 325pp, (yes, plat works), the ring and the rapier and you get the boots.

I have done the South Ro AC a bunch of times but not since the revamp. If you have a melee twink it can done the same way but with more running.
Also, if you have no ranger to track and kill PH's you can just wait at intersection as all the ph's path through that intersection.

I think thats about everything. Back in the day I did this and sold the multiquest for 5K. I had people complain but T boots are more than that with the best faction and not as good as J boots. I had no trouble selling them.
I hope this helps for anybody wanting to do the quest. It's a great item for twinks and well worth the time and effort.

Good luck and happy hunting,
Sammel 75 Necro E. Marr

P.S. Sorry about the format of this post. Looks better when typing it with paragraphs but doesn't come out like that after posting.

[shelobe]

Well, I ran around for 2 hours again last night killing in SoRo Desert and didn't see AC. SoW potions are not that expensive, so I give up. they are faster too.

Time to ding 39 and get my butt into ToFs. Never been there and I can't wait!

[Vivamort]

Yeah Jboots are nice, but...
1)if you are going to ToFS they won't work there. So no need to wait on Jboots before heading there.
2)As you point out SoW potions are faster
3) You will get at least Run 3 eventually (which is equal to Jboots in speed but works all the time and indoors) so they will be obsolete quickly
4) When the Fabled come back, you can get Fabled Jboots which are Run 5 speed arguably easier than Jboots (although like point 3 you will probably get Run 5 eventually as well).
5) or get 5kpp and buy traveller's boots (is that the correct name?) which have the same speed as JBoots but are not instant click.

[shelobe]

Mac server has no Fabled mobs.

I tried ToFS solo and it's just too hard. I was able to clear the first and second levels, but the third level has "an armored shadow" which are not undead and I cannot slow them. And they wander and aggro on zoneup. Also on the Mac server, your pets do not zone with you. when I zoned up I was visible, aggroed a mob without my pet and I can't tap tank mobs with 2.5 K HPs. I ended up dieing 2X and had to gate out and give up after looting corpse and eating 2 rezzes.

It was very hard even finding help since the Mac server remains broken with greater than 90% of all toons unable to log in since the service update on Tuesday. I am able to log in my 2 accounts but I am the exception. Most Mac accounts get Error 0016 when they try and log in. No one has any idea when this will be fixed.