an ancient croc  

I was camping the AC tonight with a friend of mine. I wanted sleeves, and he needed Leggings. We came in just after someone who had camped it for 7 hours with no luck. after 5 spawns, we got the AC with the sleeves. I got them. The next spawn was another AC, with more sleeves. my friend took them to sell for some Leggings, if they didn't drop. the 3rd one in a row was an AC!!! and another pair or sleeves!!!!! After that we stayed 1 more spawn, which wasn't the AC, and gave up the camp... my friend traded for his leggings, and we were all happy. not a bad Hour.

Recil, 20th lvl enchanter,
povar

First off, I would like to start by saying that the spawn time for either the ancient croc or his 1-5 saltwater crocs is 18min 20sec (recorded with 8people in zone, 36:00 to 54:20).

The saltwater crocs have a VERY small aggro radius, you'd have to walk up like right next to them and maybe they'll aggro you if you have bad faction. As a 35 wizard I had no problems just casting root on 'em right in their line and killing 'em one by one. Magic doesn't seem to aggro.

One little issue on the camping/farming of this. I for one don't mind that people camp it to get sleeves and leggings for themselves and friends, but what I saw the past 2 days was unbelievable. On Sol Ro Server from early morning friday (3/23) to late night saturday (3/24) there was ONE 34 paladin camping the croc the entire time. For camping timewise this is excessive in itself. However he already happened to be super twinked with cleric quest armor and wurmslayer. Found that to be very annoying and a prime example of true farming. Name of the gent would be Musclor and plz spam him bad ;)

Anyways, it appears the croc doesn't like certain people or classes, and tends to pop just as camps are switched (happened to me twice so far). Had him back to back a few times, and killing anything else doesn't seem to have any effect on making him spawn. If you any class (even a wizzie if you know what you doing) up till 35-36 this gives good exp and good items. Have fun with it, and don't overcamp it. Ciao

What about the AC in lava? Doesn't he drop the goods too?

Ditto the others....in our case, he spawned twice in 15 hours, dropped the arms once and legs next time.
Good luck and don't die from boredom!

-Jericha <Unbroken>

This morning I went in and solo-camped the Ancient Croc again (with the minor assistance on a few spawns of Zachmaan and Tunge -- thanks dudes :) ). Here is some additional data that might give an insight into the AC room.

At the time, I was level 35, and still a High Elf Magician. I summoned an Earth pet and two Runeswords upon entering, sat on the lowest step, and waited. Someone else had just left, so it was ten minutes until the first mobs spawned.

In 7 hours, the AC only spawned once, midway through the camp. The rest of the time, the spawn was 1, 2, 3, or 5 Saltwater Crocodiles. One and two SW Crocs were trivial to dispatch; I could do it on a single charge of mana. Three SW Crocs were harder, because after killing two, I had to rest enough for my mana to come back some. Killing five was the same as three, it just took longer because after numbers 2, 3, and 4, I had to sit and med awhile. (Let it be known that a 35 High Elf Magician with an int of 168 and a maxed Meditate skill of 180 took exactly seven minutes and thirty seconds (7:30) to meditate from zero mana to full mana.)

Here was the order of the spawns:

2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 3, 5, 1, 3, 3, 3, Ancient Crocodile, 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3. By the numbers:

AC: 1 time
1 spawn: 7 times
2 spawns: 5 times
3 spawns: 7 times
4 spawns: 0 times
5 spawns: 1 time.

This is obviously not a statistically significant enough sample to draw final conclusions, but it seems reasonably obvious that 4- and 5-croc spawns are rarer than 1-, 2-, and 3-croc spawns, which seem about equally probable.

In 21 spawns, the Ancient Croc only spawned once. (Compare this to my last foray, when he spawned three times, each pair of spawns separated by only one placeholder spawn.) This is most definitely not a significant enough sample to draw any conclusions about the AC's spawn frequency, although out of a total 26 spawns, the AC has spawned 4 times in my personal experience (a ratio of 15.39%).

It would be nice if anyone else who camps the AC for a stretch, would be so kind as to strictly record the order and number of each spawn, and post the data here.

After that I left. The Ancient Croc dropped Gatorscale Sleeves and Gator Meat. The SW Crocs dropped about half a dozen miscellaneous Words and Pages, four or five Runes of Scale, and one miscellaneous Rune. All the crocs dropped, about 2/3 of the time, Gator Meat or Chunks of Meat. (I had 9 Gator Meats and 20 Chunks of Meat when I left.)

A note about killing SW Crocs: They have approximately 1000 hp, give or take a hundred. Two castings of Blaze (34 Mag) for 280 damage would do enough for my Earth pet to handle the rest, with the pet taking an average damage of around 35% of his total hit points (around 900 as far as I know). Some crocs were magic resistant enough to reduce the DD spells to around 100-200 damage, even when I had successfully cast Malise on them (-20 to MR, CR, FR).

A note about fleeing crocs: The Saltwater Crocs, when low on health, will usually flee by attempting to swim back toward the main part of Upper Guk. Root and Snare are immensely useful for preventing them from training you all the way to the Frogloks which stand on the ledge outside.

- Teramenor Earthgate
35 Magician of The Nameless

This room is in the far northwest corner of Upper Guk. Easy enough to get to if you have a map and invisibility to sneak past all those frogloks. :)

The Ancient Croc room (his name is NOT, repeat NOT "An Ancient Crocodile"; it is "An Ancient Croc") is roughly oval, almost circular. At the west end of the room is a pool that leads to the rest of the dungeon. It is the only way out of the room. This pool takes up maybe the left 15% of the room. The rest of the room is a series of seven wide, shallow steps, each only a few inches deep. The top step (on the east side of the room) is more of a platform, and this is where the spawns occur.

There are two types of mobs that spawn in this room.

Saltwater crocodiles: These are your typical bad loot, good exp crocs. They spawn in groups of 1 to 4 (the most I ever saw spawn at once was 4). They are non-social, but highly aggressive, with a small aggro radius. If you stay on the bottom 3 steps, you should be completely safe. Ideally, stay on the bottom step nearest the water, or maybe 1 step up. Pull one SW croc at a time with a ranged attack (spells, thrown/archery weapons, etc.). The croc will come down to you. Kill it, and then you can pull another one when you're ready. The crocs are more or less aggressive, more powerful versions of the crocodiles in the Oasis of Marr, but not much beyond that. They don't have a lot of hit points, and they hit for a good amount. Once you kill all of the ones that spawned, there is a 16 minute delay until the next spawn (which could be more crocs, or...)

An Ancient Croc: This is the important guy. His spawn is random. In two hours there, I saw him spawn 3 times. (1 Gatorscale Leggings, 2 Gatorscale Sleeves). He has spawned after a single SW croc spawned, after 2 SW crocs spawned, and other numbers as well. There is no rhyme nor reason; it is a simple random spawn. The AC is a tiny bit harder to kill than the SW crocs, because he is a couple of levels higher, but like them, he has few hit points and does a lot of damage (max hit: 72 damage). However, as a level 31 magician, I soloed him easily with plenty of mana and pet health to spare. (Pulled him with Malise, while my earth pet tanked and rooted him, I burned him down with Shock of Spikes in about 4-5 casts. Easy kill.) The AC is also surprisingly small; he looks no bigger than a caiman from the Oasis, maybe even a little smaller.

If you sit on the bottom step near the water, you will be completely safe. There are Swampwater Crocodiles that spawn and swim back and forth out in the waterway that leads to the room, but they are NONAGGRESSIVE (and they're also level 8-15, so if you're camping the AC, they won't give exp, so just ignore them). Sometimes the Swampwater Crocs will jump out of the water and walk up the steps into the room, but they then pop or walk back to the water, so don't be frightened.

The spawn is almost exactly 16 minutes, so keep a stopwatch handy, and you will own this room.

- Teramenor Earthgate
32 Magician of The Nameless

Damn, i camped this mob yesterday with my girlfriend so she can have a pair of leggings for about 6h+ and we NEVER saw him! "?/?&$"&**% , furthermore, the girl who as here before us camped 5h+ and she saw him only once, Anyonce know if our verant friends changed the spawn rate ? Any reply would be appreciated

Perry

33 Shaman. Camped with a 34 mage for 7 hours and 29 Wizard for 5 hours. Dropped 2 Arms and 1 Legs. He hits for 72 max and took less than 100% from my DD. (Oh and he killed me in a close battle when I tried to solo).

The time between spawns, be they 2,3,4,5 crocs (never saw more than 5) is 16 minutes or so.

If you get a SINGLE croc that is the AC's PH.

You can pull singles all day long - stand on the lowest level nearest the water and DD or snare. (I wouldn't recommend an AOE spell).

I believe I will be able to solo him at 34 as that is my next group of spells to include pet. (That's why 35 Shaman could take him easy and he killed me - although in retrospect I probably relied too much on Spirit Strike).

I am on Tarew Marr look me up if you have further questions.

Well I must say my exp in camping this stupid creature has not been as much fun as I thought it would be. When we arrived at the spawn site He was up. I was grouped with a lvl 29 ench and a 48 shadowknight (he helped me get the tonta knight so I could get my boots) We took him down VERY quickly and he dropped arms. Then my friendlt shadowknight left and the ench and I with just my air pet took out crocs as they spawned for 7 hrs... That is right 7hrs we sat and waited before we finally had to camp due to the fact it was 1am and we had work the next day. What is the spawn time on this creature or is there anything that triggers him??
Would love to know as I would love a pair of legs or arms for myself as I gave the arms to the ench I was with..

I (35 cleric) was going to camp the ancient crocodile with my 35 enc buddy the other day. When we got to the spot, we saw a red anon druid camping the place. We kindly ask if he has seen the AC yet and how long has he been staying there. He told us that he was there for awhile and saw AC poped 4 times. and said he won't be leaving anytime soon. After we heard that, we are kinda upset, that guy got 4 pieces of gatorscale stuff in a day and he still want to stay there to farm more of the same items. and me and my enc friend is just trying to go there to get a piece for our character. I am wearing a bronze legging and my enc friend is wearing a gossimer arm, jsut to tell everyone that we really need the item. Whats worst is i ask the guy if he is selling the item, he said he will sell me a piece for 1000pp. Now it even make me more upset, because if he is farming the stuff and trying to give it to his lower level friends or guildmate, i could understand, but i truly believe farming a lower level mob for profit is really wrong. What really infuriated me the most is the druid asked me if we can hold the spot for him for about 10 mins while he logg off to do something else. Tell me what do you guys think about farming.=(