Saw this on the uoguide

[Rhiannon]

I remember "back in the day", you could earn a good bit of gold and pick up some parrots at the Twisted Weld. I couldn't remember where it was so I went to the uoguide and saw this:

"Swoop, a purple eagle, was a popular gold farming spot until quite recently."

Has something changed about the weld I need to know about? Getting dead isn't my cup of tea...

 

[Tjalle]

I´d guess the "recently" part refers to the upgrade of Swoop.

 

[Rhiannon]

"Upgrade"? That can't be good...

 

[LordDrago]

"Upgrade"? That can't be good...

I do not believe the upgrade was "recently" recently

 

[Tjalle]

Was a couple of years ago. They upped his HP from a couple of 100s to 1400ish and made him stronger.

It´s still a nice, quiet spot to farm for fame, gold and items/imbue resources.

 

[Anon McDougle]

Swoop still easy enough to kill i disco and provo unto a CU toss in the bard mastery disco spell and its over fast

 

[silent]

The biggest annoyance is him flying up on the ledge and not coming down. I've tried the in and out of the gate thing and that doesn't always work.

 

[Rhiannon]

Yeah. Back in the day, darn things would get up on that ledge as well. If the HPs are the only difference , it sounds like an area I can handle myself like I used to. Cast a couple of EVs, hide, repeat.

 

[Raptor85]

On ML launch he died in 2-3 hits (with slayer), had a respectibly high arty drop rate, instant respawn, and didn't really hit all that hard. That line is in reference to the bump they did to him just after that. Before you used to go there and it would be crammed full of 2-3 tamers w/ cu's and generally a few archers all trying to get in that last killing blow, and the ground would be carpeted in purple bird corpses.

 

[Flutter]

It's still easy to kill it just takes longer.

 

[Triberius]

The biggest annoyance is him flying up on the ledge and not coming down. I've tried the in and out of the gate thing and that doesn't always work.

Good for training spell casting pets though.

 

[Lady Storm]

That change went in a long time ago. Thanks to a farming guild that used its Dexers to control the swoops spawn and force out any other for the sole pourpose of gold farming on the mega range. It was not a single shard that was hit but many by this group. It's not known if it was regular players or a foriegn company out to work the system for gold. To quell this uprising of complaints by others for this the Dev took fast action and shortly raised the Swoop's dammage and rate to well beyond the WW and dexer alike to kill solo.
The Greater Dragon can do the dammage needed to kill this creature, however this has effected the game play on most servers as the time factor and lack of fellow players to join in...
Well I for one wish they would now roll back the power..etc. so I can have somewhere my WW or reg dragon could go back to play with. I do miss my babys hunting with me. No disrespect to my GD but I have had my ww's and reg. dragons way longer and they have my heart in this matter. (hint hint dev)

 

[G.v.P]

Yeah. Back in the day, darn things would get up on that ledge as well. If the HPs are the only difference , it sounds like an area I can handle myself like I used to. Cast a couple of EVs, hide, repeat.

Raptor85 pretty much covered all the bases. The upgrade to Swoop increased its stats (wrestling as well), resistances, and hit points, which, coupled with the loot nerf, killed its viability as a loot source. A greater dragon can do well especially since a greater dragon can have more than 100 wrestling, but no one really bothers because the main reason people killed Swoop was to get the Totem of the Void. Once the arty-drop rate was reduced people began to farm the spider mini bosses and/or the Gnaw, but nowadays there are a few other talisman options and the Void isn't the high-commodity item it used to be.

If you want parrots you can get them from the ninjas at the Citadel, but it's very random. You get the rare color parrots off of peerless bosses. For gold, one of the easiest spots is the end of the Tomb of Kings, where a couple Silver Serpents and Undead Guardians spawn. If you can EV the area it's a piece of cake.