Best Salvage Area For Alexandrite Farming?

I'm pretty sure it's Arrapago, although I haven't done a lot of research on this.

I know, personally, for NQ, Arrapago is the best, hands-down. If I ran NQ Arrapago on THF, I usually came away with 2-3 cotton purses and a linen about 25% of the time.

For HQ, I prefer Arrapago because Khim is a total push-over, and you can farm those gear-spawning ramparts on 5F if you have time. I usually get 1-2 cottons and the guaranteed linen off HQ Khim, as well as whatever gears I farm... usually two ramparts' worth unless I'm feeling lazy.

In my experience, it was Arrapago II as well especially if you get lucky with linen pouches.

The Acrloliths in there drop pouches about 10~12% of the time too and you can kill 4 of them. But timewise, it doesn't seem worth it to me because they only drop a little more than one alex on average if you factor in Cotton's average of 12.

I had a former ls leader who swore by AR75 for Alex. But those cottons are not garenteed. From my experience SSR75 is best. You can get 4 cottons 100% drop and numerous gears on floor 3 and 4 to get singles from. This could average around 100 not including the possible linen off the boss.

As for 99 salvage, it's undecided for me. So for ZR seems like my best run so far. Any zone with lots of gears and numerous NMs is your best bet. I blew through a SSR99 really fast my first time so I had to skip all of the 4th floor but I know there are ramparts that pop gears along the way.

AR2 is best by a pretty decent margin for alex/run

alex/time is ssr2 and just killing the megas and leaving

I average around 40-50 single alex drops killing all chariots and gears (but not gear).But the minimum is 39 (32 gears + 7chariots - all guarantee 1 alex per kill) + a linen pouch if you go AAR2 and got unlucky with cottons/2nd pouch/2nd alex off mobs.

Khimaira is easy if you stun his fulmination. I clear it in just over an hour db-ing thf and bard. Certainly like AAR2 the best out of the lot personally.

Arrapago II is the best provided you can handle killing the gears, as well as taking out Armored Chariot in time. If you can't get Khimaira to pop, you're almost certainly getting less (and perhaps taking more time to do it) than you would be farming another higher level zone where you can manage an HQ boss (to which it comes down to preference of the zone/boss).

Bhaflau II has a single rampart on floor 3 that functions like the 4 in Arrapago, but the gears are more spread out. With the easier condition to spawn the HQ boss, this might be preferable for some people who find Arrapago to be too demanding. Cerberus/Orthrus are a slow but safe fight.

Silver Seas II's 4th floor can be farmed for the many ramparts/gears/chariots after you've spawned and killed the Dvergr at the end. Ramparts use reinforcements immediately, so if your preferred farming method doesn't involve fighting at least 4 guys at once, then this probably won't suit you. Overall yield should be a little less than Arrapago; if you kill all chariots, triple gears, and their ramparts (disregarding single gears and their ramparts), you should be getting only like 5 less than a full Arrapago.

I sometimes notice people duoing/dual boxing Arrapago II for the large payout, though I'd say that if you have the ability/time/whatever, you'd be better off splitting up and going to zones you're more comfortable soloing.

If you happen to have say, a gimp mule or a friend who's not used to soloing and would rather try the 75 zones, its gotta be either SSR or Arrapago. Everyone knows SSR is an assured 4 cottons and a decent shot at a linen, with no need for Treasure Hunter. Arrapago has 2 guaranteed cottons and 6 more at what seems to me about 50% from Qiqirns, and then the linen. I wouldn't bother with Arrapago unless you have TH though, or else you'll be wasting a lot of time for cells. I've had Arrapago 75 runs where I've walked out with 8 high yielding cottons and a linen, which can be comparable to (but not as reproducible as) a full Arrapago II.

30-40 mins, dualboxing, skipping all normal NM's waste of time for little chance of cotton

Depending how much I *** around, I can do SSR2 in 17~20 minutes, which involves killing a few gears for unlocks, and both the bosses.

Way too tired of salvage to full farm it on a daily basis.

You don't even have to stun Fulmination if you have a dualbox healer. I was just eating them on THF/WAR with little danger.

Can a well geared smn with an eminent sachel take out the armed chariot for the under 3 minute mark in AR2 if they use Astral Conduit?

Any feedback would be great.

Judging from what the ability is, I would like to say yes but I cannot say for sure because I don't play SMN.

It might be better to ask within the Summoner part of forum for advise. Sorry if that wasn't the answer you were looking for D:

On the subject of jobs best suited for ARII... I know a lot of my shell goes MNK I prefer pup for curing and such. I was wondering how NIN does and if TH is a must or NIN/DNC be fine. I get bored easily and would like to switch up the jobs I take.

MNK is best suited. I've done it with SAM BLU and THF. The TH is too hit or miss. You're looking at a 4% increase on cotton purses from NM's going from TH0 to TH3+ according to ffxidb. Killspeed is pretty drastic. My main+dd mule on mnk can do 1f unlock, 2f skip (could do gear NM, but its not worth it), 3f acro and gear, 4f acros, 5f clear trips, 6f full and boss in 50 minutes, my mage mule (poorly auged otro, MP merits, etc) with oats does it in 55.

SAM took 60 min, BLU took about 55, and THF took about 55 as well (being able to 1shot gears with violent flourish > SA WS helps). The real timesink is on 5f. I just punch the ramparts down to 25%, where they do reinforcements, and then I kill it and pull 1-2 gears out then go to the next rampart. Then I load up the buffs and clear out the gears. I dont want to use buffs on ramparts since theres a chance I'll be sitting with it at 5% HP and not enough TP to summon reinforcements. NOT GOOD. On the other jobs, it will pop the gears at about 50%, changing my game plan, and possibly linking all the gears, which means I'm spending time waltzing a lot more instead of killing. More time lost. Monk just handles the full links better, between the higher HP to work with, the occasional counter, its less of an issue instead of on sam I find.

I'm gonna give my thf another go through, last time I did it was with my mule instead of main thf.

Are the gears worth farming? I've never bothered.

If you go alex/time, no. just rush to boss and get your linen. If you go alex/run, yes.

Skipping 3f NM's would shave maybe 3 minutes. Skipping 4f acros is about 4 minutes. full clear of 5f seems to be a 23 minute endeavor
[22:52:27]The Archaic Rampart is out of range.
[23:12:14]The Archaic Chariot is out of range.

so I think if I just did one rampart, one triple, one single, that could shave off about 20 minutes.

Same with the chariots on 6f. Skipping those (minus armored duh) would proabbly save another 5 min. Considering you just have to pop khim for HQ, you can pop it and port up, saving another 2 min there.

So I could get 1 linen + 5 singles in ~20 min, or I can get 1 linen, 40 singles, 5 10% chances at a cotton, and another 10% chance at a linen in 50 min. Considering you cant go more than once per day*, the alex/time is a slightly flawed mechanic.

75 alex over 20 minutes (3.75 alex/min)
or
120 alex over 50 minutes (2.4 alex/min)

*you can go 3x a day, but it also involves not going the day before or the day after, so its still once per day.

Been doing SSR II on RUN/SAM, with a minimum payout of 30 alexandrites + linen(s), takes a little over a half hour. It's slightly less per run than if I do Arrapago, but without any of the stress of worrying about killing Armored Chariot in time, and it's much faster for me.

First floor, I kill a couple qiqirns for head/legs/feet, then some imps and apkallus for stats (INT being very practical for the boss).
Second floor, I swing left and kill the RDMs and DRKs to finish off stats, including HP/MP and STR.
Third floor, kill some gear(s) for the rest of equipment.
Fourth flood, run straight to the door to pop the Dvergr and kill him. If I'm being careless and aggro something, I kill them after opening the door so I don't miss out on that Dvergr. I then go back, put up some buffs, and grab everything on the floor (without linking the last few or else you get Acroliths), toss up Battuta, and Fell Cleave like crazy.
And of course, Fifth floor is the Dvergr boss, who can't put a dent in me.

Note that Ramparts do not drop alexandrite in this zone, but have crazy low HP and movement speed, and will lose aggro very easily. Statistically, this averages a little over 100 alexandrite per run.

started doing Arrapago Remnants II recently. I go thief and work on getting all unlocks that i can on 1st. Then skip second floor and on 3rd i get what stat unlocks i can. Then kill Acrolith then norm head up to 4th kill the 2 Acroliths there and maybe the 3rd if i feel like it. on 5th i farm the 4 ramparts and the gears they pop then head up. 6th i kill the 3 small chariots b4 the armored on the 3rd small chariot i will norm pop out haste dagger to proc haste to help kill armored faster and then beat up NQ Khimeria and pray its not stingy on linen xD. If time is still good i will go and kill the other 4 chariots on the floor then head up and kill HQ Khimera. if 1 linen and no cottons i norm avg 135-140 about but if i get 2 linens and a few cottens i could come out over 200 but that's rare. :3

I've been keeping track of my drop rates in AR2 for my second mythic this time round and after 72 runs my drop rates so far are:

Cotton: 13%
Linen: 12%

Cotton yield average: 12.00
Linen yield average: 76.29
Drops from Gears/Chariots: 50.09

Lowest total: 103
Highest total: 245
Average per run: 147.26

This is with THF, setting TH 8 on first hit for all gears/chariots, but not THing any further than that, and a full clear of AR2.

Why would you kill two, then decide "meh why bother"?