Ironclad Smiter should have 3 spawn ???'s.

Given the immense popularity of the empyrean shield and harp, also the favorite heavy DD jobs DRK and SAM, Ironclad Smiter has become an extremely popular NM to target for seal farming and iron plate farming. Last night I had the unfavorable experience of trying to farm Iron Plates for the empyrean harp while also trying to farm DRK and SAM body seals, when suddenly a party of 4 appeared and much to my dismay stole the next pop. Then after waiting for 30 minutes for them to defeat him because they weren't aware of how to damage him correctly. They sent me rude tells telling me things like "go to hell" when I took the next spawn. Then in the midst of that fight, another party of 4 showed up asking if it was my last fight. Thankfully it was.

I understand this is just bad luck and timing, but isn't this the very reason SE decided to increase the spawn points of the empyrean weapon item mobs from 1 to 3?

And furthermore the drop rate on iron plates is horrendous! TH8 or higher on each one and 1 plate each time on 8 fights!

1 plate each over 8 fights sucks, but that's the nature of the beast. I had to do this with a buddy not too long ago, it seemed easier to try and team up with other small groups to expedite the farming process but occasionally you'll encounter some miserable soul that wants to ruin everyone's evening. By the time they add more ???s to this NM you'll be finished with it for ages so just keep plugging away, good luck and don't forget that sometimes saying Hi really helps.

oh i was with my own party of 4 and was there before everyone else so not sure how I could have done it differently. Plus this post isn't about me in particular it's making sure no one in the future has to deal with this nonsense.

VNM Tier 2 and 3 say hello...

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Originally Posted by Dreamin

VNM Tier 2 and 3 say hello...

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errr VNM have always sucked, ive resolved not to complain about that system anymore

They need to make the Ochain/Harp trials suck less. VNMs are a pain, only 1 of each T2 and T3, Ironclads only have a single pop spot, that is very unlike the other trials. The only similar NMs are Azdaja and Apadem because they have 3 spots and follow normal KI conventions for the Emp trials, the other two are very different from the others, all other Emp NMs have 3 pops spots, most can be gotten via boxes, but the Shield and Harp are simply annoying.

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Originally Posted by Bureikun

errr VNM have always sucked, ive resolved not to complain about that system anymore

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yup...stopped my instrument a while back.

There are plenty of mobs that should have multiple spawns. It has made zero sense to me why there are three ???s for mobs like Sobek, but yet only one still for Minax Bugard, a mob which is absolutely required to fight Sobek because its KI will not drop in gold boxes. All it did was move the potential Sobek bottleneck to Minax Bugard instead. Good going, Squeenix.