Is there a way to optimize decaying drop rates?

[Miles (Tails) Prower]

Hello.

While I see that this is a thing when you farm something you desire, but how to be optimal on grinding? I just can't find any info about how can you optimize it. Only that I hear about this decreasing drop rate if you constantly killing same enemy as hoping for a drop from him.

Can someone properly explain this?

[Davena]

Bro, I'm Brazilian and my English isn't amazing, but some items can improve your drop hate, the best is the Gold Serpent Ring +2, but others can be found more easily in the beginning of the game, like the prisoner's tatters (dropped by the hollows prisoners in hunstman's copse), the watchdragon parma (dropped by the red drake in heide's ruin) and the traveling merchant hat (purchased from Melentia in forest of the fallen giants). Good game! I hope this helps!

[Call Sign: Raven]

There's no optimization.

In-game, you can wear item find gear, such as Covetous Ring +2, Watch Dragon Parma, Prisoner's Tatters and Jester's Mask. Each one gives a different amount of item find.

Here's the PROBLEM, though. It seems that the game nerfs drop rates from repeat farming. It's entirely random, and there's no way around it through optimization. You're literally just going against RNG. I love Dark Souls 2, but this is easily the worst part of the game.

Your best bet is to equip all the item find stuff, and optimize your character to be able to kill the enemy you are farming in a single hit. Find a spawn point where they are really close, join covenant of champions, and farm away. Put on some good music. Zone out. It's gonna take a while, sometimes.

These days, I'm older and lack patience for farming. I play offline exclusively, so anytime I need something that's insanely rare, I just use the Shopping mod from Nexus. Time is precious and should not be wasted on meaningless farming.

[Edgarek]

I dont know about "decreasing drop rate if you constantly killing same enemy".
But i can at least explain what is drop rate. Its called item discovery, which directly increase item drop chance from enemies. Simple.

Here is the list of items who increase that:
1.1) Traveling merchant blue hat. Starting class, selling early.
1.2) Jester hat, sells in Iron Keep.
1.3) Symbol of Avarice (hat), Eleum Loyce DLC.
2) Prisoner chest, drop from hollows
3) Watchdragon parma (white shield with dragons), Heide Tower dragon
4) Golden serpent rings, +2 drop from gargs on NG+/with bonfire ascetic.
5) Rusten coin (consumable)
So for optimal farm you need to combining all of these items.

[Call Sign: Raven]

Originally posted by Edgarek:

I dont know about "decreasing drop rate if you constantly killing same enemy".
But i can at least explain what is drop rate. Its called item discovery, which directly increase item drop chance from enemies. Simple.

Here is the list of items who increase that:
1.1) Traveling merchant blue hat. Starting class, selling early.
1.2) Jester hat, sells in Iron Keep.
1.3) Symbol of Avarice (hat), Eleum Loyce DLC.
2) Prisoner chest, drop from hollows
3) Watchdragon parma (white shield with dragons), Heide Tower dragon
4) Golden serpent rings, +2 drop from gargs on NG+/with bonfire ascetic.
5) Rusten coin (consumable)
So for optimal farm you need to combining all of these items.

Have you ever farmed Heide Knights? :D

[Edgarek]

Originally posted by Harrison Ford:

Have you ever farmed Heide Knights? :D

Yes, i have it full set and i killed only 2 of them 10-11 times.
I also farmed heide sword with merchants hat, prisoner tatters, shield and rusted coin on another character. Again, got it after 9-10 resets, killing the same 2 knights at first bonfire. They have a decent chance to drop with item discovery.
(I also seen a LOT of people trying to farm this set without any % of item discovery, while invading and its kinda triggered me for some reason)

Heck, i even got almost all equipment from red spirits in crypts except leggings last time.
At this point i farmed almost every set in the game on my SM 30k twink build, including consumables and some weapons.

Weirdest drop so far i seen - its from monkeys before Aldia keep. They dropped sometimes black knight weapons, sometimes shotels, even spell once.

[Call Sign: Raven]

Originally posted by Edgarek:

Originally posted by Harrison Ford:

Have you ever farmed Heide Knights? :D

Yes, i have it full set and i killed only 2 of them 10-11 times.
I also farmed heide sword with merchants hat, prisoner tatters, shield and rusted coin on another character. Again, got it after 9-10 resets, killing the same 2 knights at first bonfire. They have a decent chance to drop with item discovery.
(I also seen a LOT of people trying to farm this set without any % of item discovery, while invading and its kinda triggered me for some reason)

Heck, i even got almost all equipment from red spirits in crypts except leggings last time.
At this point i farmed almost every set in the game on my SM 30k twink build, including consumables and some weapons.

Weirdest drop so far i seen - its from monkeys before Aldia keep. They dropped sometimes black knight weapons, sometimes shotels, even spell once.

You’re the luckiest man alive! LOL

[ShiroiŌkami (白い狼)]

Originally posted by Buschguy:

Originally posted by Edgarek:

Weirdest drop so far i seen - its from monkeys before Aldia keep. They dropped sometimes black knight weapons, sometimes shotels, even spell once.

Yeah these guys really drop the weirdest stuff, feels like half the games weaponry can be farmed on them

Same with the spooders in brightsone cove

[King Robert Baratheon]

Originally posted by Edgarek:

Originally posted by Harrison Ford:

Have you ever farmed Heide Knights? :D

Yes, i have it full set and i killed only 2 of them 10-11 times.
I also farmed heide sword with merchants hat, prisoner tatters, shield and rusted coin on another character. Again, got it after 9-10 resets, killing the same 2 knights at first bonfire. They have a decent chance to drop with item discovery.
(I also seen a LOT of people trying to farm this set without any % of item discovery, while invading and its kinda triggered me for some reason)

Heck, i even got almost all equipment from red spirits in crypts except leggings last time.
At this point i farmed almost every set in the game on my SM 30k twink build, including consumables and some weapons.

Weirdest drop so far i seen - its from monkeys before Aldia keep. They dropped sometimes black knight weapons, sometimes shotels, even spell once.

Those "monkeys" can also drop the hex Affinity (aka Pursuers from Dark Souls 1), which is really cool and unique because I don't think any other enemies in the game drop spells. Actually before these monkey/goblin things the idea of enemies dropping spells didn't exist. Enemies in the Souls games usually only drop consumables, weapons, or pieces of armor. I haven't played Dark Souls 3 in a long time but I think there's only one enemy in DS3 that "drops" a spell when it dies (one of those lady trees in the Ariandel DLC and it drops the sorcery Snap Freeze).

[Enderspoons]

The Salamanders in this game also drop Fireball, Fire Orb, and Great Fireball.

[King Robert Baratheon]

Originally posted by Enderspoons:

The Salamanders in this game also drop Fireball, Fire Orb, and Great Fireball.

Oh yeah! That's awesome for a brave and determined pyromancer.

[Call Sign: Raven]

Originally posted by Enderspoons:

The Salamanders in this game also drop Fireball, Fire Orb, and Great Fireball.

Sounds hot.

[Miles (Tails) Prower]

Originally posted by King Robert Baratheon:

Originally posted by Edgarek:

Yes, i have it full set and i killed only 2 of them 10-11 times.
I also farmed heide sword with merchants hat, prisoner tatters, shield and rusted coin on another character. Again, got it after 9-10 resets, killing the same 2 knights at first bonfire. They have a decent chance to drop with item discovery.
(I also seen a LOT of people trying to farm this set without any % of item discovery, while invading and its kinda triggered me for some reason)

Heck, i even got almost all equipment from red spirits in crypts except leggings last time.
At this point i farmed almost every set in the game on my SM 30k twink build, including consumables and some weapons.

Weirdest drop so far i seen - its from monkeys before Aldia keep. They dropped sometimes black knight weapons, sometimes shotels, even spell once.

Those "monkeys" can also drop the hex Affinity (aka Pursuers from Dark Souls 1), which is really cool and unique because I don't think any other enemies in the game drop spells. Actually before these monkey/goblin things the idea of enemies dropping spells didn't exist. Enemies in the Souls games usually only drop consumables, weapons, or pieces of armor. I haven't played Dark Souls 3 in a long time but I think there's only one enemy in DS3 that "drops" a spell when it dies (one of those lady trees in the Ariandel DLC and it drops the sorcery Snap Freeze).

Rats at Grave of Saints also drop Warmth. When I was farming Rhoy, 2 Concecutive rats dropped 2 spells for me this playthrough.

Also worms in black gulch drops dead again hex.

[Miles (Tails) Prower]

Originally posted by Harrison Ford:

There's no optimization.

In-game, you can wear item find gear, such as Covetous Ring +2, Watch Dragon Parma, Prisoner's Tatters and Jester's Mask. Each one gives a different amount of item find.

Here's the PROBLEM, though. It seems that the game nerfs drop rates from repeat farming. It's entirely random, and there's no way around it through optimization. You're literally just going against RNG. I love Dark Souls 2, but this is easily the worst part of the game.

Your best bet is to equip all the item find stuff, and optimize your character to be able to kill the enemy you are farming in a single hit. Find a spawn point where they are really close, join covenant of champions, and farm away. Put on some good music. Zone out. It's gonna take a while, sometimes.

These days, I'm older and lack patience for farming. I play offline exclusively, so anytime I need something that's insanely rare, I just use the Shopping mod from Nexus. Time is precious and should not be wasted on meaningless farming.

Well, ♥♥♥♥. I thought by killing some other enemies you could shuffle it a bit, but it seems not even this help. I definitely agree, one of the worst additions, even though I like DS2 a lot.

[King Robert Baratheon]

Originally posted by Miles (Tails) Prower:

Originally posted by King Robert Baratheon:

Those "monkeys" can also drop the hex Affinity (aka Pursuers from Dark Souls 1), which is really cool and unique because I don't think any other enemies in the game drop spells. Actually before these monkey/goblin things the idea of enemies dropping spells didn't exist. Enemies in the Souls games usually only drop consumables, weapons, or pieces of armor. I haven't played Dark Souls 3 in a long time but I think there's only one enemy in DS3 that "drops" a spell when it dies (one of those lady trees in the Ariandel DLC and it drops the sorcery Snap Freeze).

Rats at Grave of Saints also drop Warmth. When I was farming Rhoy, 2 Concecutive rats dropped 2 spells for me this playthrough.

Also worms in black gulch drops dead again hex.

Oh yeah! I remember that now. Both of those are really useful spells (if you use them at the right time, because both are risky if you time them wrong).

[Miles (Tails) Prower]

So, while I was farming rats for 35 rat tails, I found out that restarting area via bonfire teleport somehow helps? Because I was doing not really a grind, but rather 2 runs in the Grave of Saints, 1 run in Iron keep (for Bell keepers farm preparation) and then completing 1 segment of where I didn't progressed. I still can't make sense of it how restarting helps with the drops. And I in fact used +2 gold ring, jester cap and shield for drop chance increase.

Not gonna lie, but I am a tually gonna miss farming rats, because their drops are relatively good.

But now that I have some questions:
1. When you equip the shieod, do you have to hold it in you hand or back to make that extrt chance from it to be active?
2. Would be techically 200 and 300 of item discovery be like double and triple chances? Just out of curiosity.
3. When farming sunlight medals offline, is it specifically tied to NG+ or bonfire intensity?