Hello all!
I've been working on collectibles for a few months now, starting with the first xpac where the collectible system originated (RoF). I hope to provide you all some helpful tips for hunting down your own collectibles! Learn from my mistakes and maybe it won't take you months to do it. :-)
Again, I hope you've found this information to be valuable. If you have any questions about hunting down collectibles, just let me know!
I've been working on collectibles for a few months now, starting with the first xpac where the collectible system originated (RoF). I hope to provide you all some helpful tips for hunting down your own collectibles! Learn from my mistakes and maybe it won't take you months to do it. :-)
- If you're working on hunting down the ground spawn collectible sets, the number one most important thing to do is FOCUS! You can waste a lot of time killing mobs that aren't worth the effort and you get little to no experience (I'm speaking to the "older" sets here if your character is level 115). If your goal is just to work on collectibles, don't work on quests while you're there. It really can be a thief of time. Take it from me.
- In going with the above tip, bring lots of Invis and IVU pots if your character doesn't innately have the ability to invis (note: Named mobs will always see through both regular invis and IVU). Cloudy potion is for non-undead mobs and can be purchased in POK and elsewhere. Philter of Unlife Awareness is for undead mobs and is player-made, so you can either make it or buy it in /baz. I've never paid more than 25pp for each of the Philter of Unlife Awareness on FV. Worth every red cent. ;-)
- I found that the guide from Fanra's will at least help you keep track of which collectibles you have as you go through a zone without having to /ach every 5 minutes. Click here to go to the collectibles page on Fanra's and then click on "Google Docs spreadsheet of all collection items up to Torment of Velious" near the top of the article. Using that helpful document, what I like to do is: before I start looking for the collectibles in the next zone, I go on Zam and look up each set. If it's ground spawn set, I type that in the right column on the spreadsheet, and also type other information that I can glean, such as "in east part of zone" etc. If it's a set that drops off mobs, in that column I type what mobs it drops off of. This has made it much easier to work on these sets.
- I have found a levitating mount to be more helpful in finding the ground spawn collectibles than levitation buff so that I have more freedom. A levitating mount can be really helpful so you can do a flyover of the areas where ground spawns are located (and then you can dismount while in the air). Sometimes the ground spawn collectibles are inside of a bush or bramble of some sort and it's not easy to see it as you run past it on the ground for some reason, or it's in some sort of architectural nook/cranny.
- Other tips for spotting ground spawn collectibles: A common place for a ground spawn collectible is on a door frame, a ledge or sometimes a ceiling. Or, if you're running down a hallway for example, you will notice that there are a pillars in almost all of the hallways in zones that have collectibles. This is not an accident. If you're running north down a hallway, when you get to the end of the hallway, run south. A lot of the ground spawn set locations that are inside of a building, for example, are set that you cannot in any way see a collectible running the one direction down the hall. TURN DOWN YOUR GAMMA! Even just a little bit. It will help you to see the collectibles a lot easier.
- There are a few tips here: 1) Most zones' collectible sets are comprised of 3 sets of items that are ground spawns and 1 set that requires some bloodshed (mob-dropped). 2) Using this as an example, if sets 1, 2 and 3 are ground spawn sets and you do the research to see the areas that each set spawns in, I am confirming the following information after doing entire xpacs of collectibles: If set 1 spawns in area 1, set 2 spawns in area 2 and set 3 spawns in area 3, ALL GROUND SPAWN SETS are tied to each other in the following way: If you go to area 1 and pick up all the collectibles you can see from that set, stay in area 1 until respawns (GROUND SPAWN COLLECTIBLES HAVE A 30 TO 60 SECOND RESPAWN TIMER) and collect the respawned, rinse and repeat until you no longer are getting respawns in area 1, you HAVE to go to area 2 or 3. Area 1 will NOT repopulate again until you clear collectibles from other areas. So although they are different set items, they are on the same "random spawn chance" timer.
Again, I hope you've found this information to be valuable. If you have any questions about hunting down collectibles, just let me know!
Last edited:
Guess my guide has been rendered useless with MQ2. Obviously I'm a n00b who hasn't yet done the level 2 thing/used MQ2 yet. /sigh
