OK, ***** Castle Oztroja! I've found my new hunting grounds at Fei'Yin... and it is good... Taking the advice of several of you (/praise)I gave it a shot last night, and wow.... This post is about why I think its so much better than Castle O.
I am only lvl 52 thf right now, so I still fail a fair amount when picking locks. This issue is compounded when hunting coffers in Castle O. for several reasons:
1) In my experience coffers can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to respawn.
2) Coffers in Castle O. are so overcamped (usually) by other thieves and AF-hunters that you're lucky to even get to a coffer first when they do spawn.
3) Coffers are more difficult to open than chests, meaning higher failure rate (more keys used.. more money wasted..)
4) I don't know about the rest of you, but at my level I only use skeleton keys when trying to pick coffers. Obviously these are quite pricey, costing twice as much as a stack of living keys and more than three times as much as a stack of thief's tools. Combine this with the high failure rate and... /goodbye gil
5) Ahhhh... and mimics... there's always the chance of getting a mimic when coffer-hunting, which effectively ends your hunting expedition at least until Perfect Dodge recharges. I've used many a warp scroll (ergo many a conquest point) because of this one factor alone.
So lets see here... coffers take longer to spawn and are so overcamped you're lucky to even get to one. They're more difficult to open so you're lucky if you can even get them opened without failing and going through all your keys or (worst case) getting a mimic which sends you home. Then assuming you overcome all those hurdles and open the coffer, you have a higher probability of getting some gil or a crappy stone (neither is usually worth the price in keys used to open it, as it takes me ~3 skeleton keys on average to open a coffer) rather than an astral ring you desire...
In Fei'Yin however, the item you seek is in treasure CHESTS, which are easier to pick and seem to have a shorter respawn time of 20-30 minutes (I was timing it). It also seems that you get the desired item more frequently. In Castle O., typically 1 in 4 coffers yields the astral ring over a long-run average (IF you successfully open it :P). In my experience thus far in Fei'Yin (albeit I just started doing this) roughly every other chest yields the life belt. Also, because they are chests, I use cheaper keys (thief's tools or living keys) rather than the skeleton keys I reserve for coffers. And I must say my failure rate is MUCH lower. Last might I popped 4 chests in a row, each on my first attempt with thief's tools (2/4 life belts). I was weakened once for about 40 minutes (took a break to do laundry lol), but then proceeded to obtain another life belt, for a grand total of 3 belts in about 3 hours of hunting, INCLUDING the 40 minutes I was weakened (you cannot open chests/coffers while weakened in case anyone didn't know). Even at the lowest selling price on my server, that's as much as an astral ring goes for with much less risk involved.
There is also much less competition in Fei'Yin. No AF hunters (obviously), and I only saw one other thief and a few randoms killing shadows for keys, but since I was timing the spawns I managed to get most of the chests. This was during prime time hours too, mind you. The only drawback I can see is that the life belt goes for 50-80k on my server while astrals can go for 150-180k, and also the chest spawn points in Fei'Yin are very spread out and someone my level requires both sneak and invisible in some places rather than just invisible to avoid aggro. Also there are creatures in Fei'Yin that aggro magic, so you have to sometimes find a safe spot to recast. Once you become familiar with the place, learn the mobs and where and when to recast, this becomes a non-issue however. Oh and (and this is sweet) I didn't use my 2-hour or warp scroll at all! Bye bye mimics! Don't have to worry about those evil things in Fei'Yin, so if all goes well you won't have to use your warp scroll until you, yes YOU, are ready to leave!
That being said, I feel that, at least for a thief of my level, this is soooo much more rewarding than coffer hunting in Castle O. I wish I'd been doing this since 50 and I encourage all my thief peers to give it a shot at least once. I work full-time and therefore want to maximize what game time I do have, especially when trying to earn gil. This to me is so much better than running around for hours in Castle O. to possibly not even find a coffer, then if I do take the great risk of getting a mimic and wasting hours of my time and a warp scroll ><. I have found 4 astral rings after many hours in Castle O. Last night I found 3 life belts in 3 hours in Fei'Yin (*cough* ~60k gil/hour). Maybe once I level more and picking coffers becomes easier I'll reconsider, but until then, Fei'Yin is where you'll find me.
P.S.: Do the quest for the Fei'Yin map. You'll be glad you did. It's a pain because it appears the map quest is #3 on a stack of quests for the optistry in Windurst, so even if your fame is jacked you'll have to do the other 2 first in order to get the Fei'Yin map quest. (Early Bird Catches the Bookworm > Chasing Tales > A Smudge on One's Record) You also have to zone in between each or you cannot activate the next.
Edited, Fri Aug 13 09:20:12 2004 by FraggleTrey
____________________________
Character: Trey
Main Job: 74 THF
Other Jobs: 42 RNG, 40 NIN, 38 WAR, 37 WHM, 30 COR, 18 BLM, 14 BST, 10 MNK
Bastok Rank 8, Zilart Mission 14, CoP Mission 5-2
Race: Hume Male
World: Ramuh
Linkshell:
http://fragglerock.sycodesigns.com Guild Crafts:
100 + 3 Alchemist
54 + 1 Goldsmithing