Guardian Ather  

confirmed today, ANY "a dutiful defender" can spawn them, even the 2 up in the puppet room, spent 8 hours there today, and spawned 7 total Ather's. one from each location and 2 from right side, 2 from middle... so don't leave any Ph's out :) ! hope this helps

I hunted this mob just yesterday from two camps and got three spawns. Here are my notes:

First we tried him from the base of the Omander ramp (zone in, up Ather's stairs, into puppet room, left door leads to a ramp where Omander spawns). This was a good camp because we could try for Omander, Puppeteer and Ather, however, the repops were pretty quick so we really didn't get many Ather-PH kills in. That location was better for The Puppeteer and Omander. We had no Ather spawns.

Later we tried from the UF-MC zoneline. Right as you zone in, there is a small hallway with two quest NPC's. That short hallway opens into Ather's Foyer with the ramps and stairs leading up to the puppet room. It isn't the best camp spot because we had to pull right to there and probably surprised some folks who were zoning in, but it really was the best spot.

If you are patient you can single pull all three Dutiful Guardians while they wander close to your spot. There are a couple beefeaters hidden in a cubby in the side walls so watch out for them if you pull from the side ramps.

Similarly, the Beefeaters at the top of the ramps will add so if you pull from the top you will need to split-pull. We got moving quickly and ended up just clearing they foyer and the puppet room.

We got one Pupetteer spawn but dragging him through and down required a good puller.

We got three Guardian Ather spawns in the course of about 30-45 minutes. I was after my EM8 earring so, honestly, didn't pay attention to other drops. I recall he dropped a couple spell fragments, a head essence and the aug.

He dropped the earring twice (from three spawns).

I thought he spawned from ANY of the three dutiful guardians in the Foyer but while writing this I started questioning my recollection. First the center spawned him at the pathing-point nearest to us so it was a simple pull. About 20-30 minutes later we had another spawn that I thought was right side but might have been another center. About 5 minutes later we had a left-side spawn.

They are on a classic 20 minute respawn timer.

We were there about 2 hours and killed about 5 rounds of guards, so figure we killed 15 guards to kill 3 Athers. That works out to about a 1-in-5 spawn rate (just a rough estimate so you know what to expect). If you exclude the right side then the spawn-rate is more like 1-in-4.

With the nearby zoneline as a quick exit, a safe no-roamer camp and two named mobs (three if you can include Omander) this is an excellent camp.

Edited, Feb 3rd 2011 2:18pm by realgrumpy

Spawned on the left hand side of the 3 entrance mobs today, so it can be any of the 3 for certain.

At the front, upon zoning in from HoT Upper Floors, there are stairs leading up with 3 "a dutiful defender" roaming around. The one that paths up and down in the middle seems to be the PH'er. There are 2 other smaller guards in red suits tucked up top in the corners, and 2 others tucked off to the side in the middle, so be careful on the pull. He also dropped an all/all aug with 185 hp/mana called Malleable Core of the Guardian, and Lucid Remnant of Knowledge(T4 Head).