Hornetneedle  

I want to start by clearing something up that is WAY too common of a misconception about TP gain. The amount of TP you gain is based on the delay of the weapon, And no weapon, other than ones that may attack more than once per round, will gain tp any quicker than others. For example, a 300 delay weapon will gain twice as much TP per hit as a 150 delay weapon. Dont believe me? Go try it out! Make sure NOT to be dual-wielding though, because that reduces tp per hit, and can easily confuse people with the amount gained (since it's also 2 diff weapons).
With that said, I'd like to say I worked my a$$ off to get this dagger, and have had it for about a year+. I play RDM and THF, and honestly, I have to say that this dagger is mediocre at best. It is "ok" for RDM soloing with En-spells, but honestly, there are still often better alternatives, but thats all matter of opinion when it comes down to RDM - all I know is that when I was around this level as RDM, and I used swords + enspells, I killed mobs MUCH faster, and at 75, this thing is a joke for RDM, especially if you have Joyeuse, Mensur Epee, or Blau dolch... Hell, I even noticed I was killing quicker with the cheap wise wiz anelace!
As for thf, around this same level, you could be using a weapon that gives +5 acc and +5 atk instead of this, and has close to the same DPS (bone +1), and if you think that acc+5 isnt so great, then why does everyone pay so much for snipers rings? Anyway, you could also be using the dmg 21 corsair's knife, which has Attack +10... And if you mainhand that, you will have MUCH higher WS dmg. SO, if attack +10, or acc+5 atk +5 better than agl+1 and dex+1? I'd say DEFINITELY, by a pretty large margin from the tests I"ve done in parties... But people will keep using this, no matter what I say... so enjoy!

I am Odin's #1 Black Mage noob.

Hahahaha funny thing about this NM, i AOE'd at start. then my smn friend just solo'd it. This is after he told me "Seshi just sit back and i'll solo it. I have to be somewhere." Yea.. i was sitting their dead yelling and crying by butt of on vent... ugh i was so mad that he was soloing the mob i wanted to help fight FOR MY DAGGER! lol i still got it but blah! i wanted to cast on it :(

I just got the Hornetneedle and tried it to skill up my dagger skill. It was very good.
since we duo'd the crabs in boyhada (man, it took looong) i didnt went /nin. Wasnt necessary, with Haste Hornetneedle attacks VERY fast, and you maybe dont do a lot dmg at once, but huge dmg over time.
Not to mention the skill ups can be as good as dualwielding daggers. its very nice.

The dmg on the dagger is 17... not 16.. and i had a Rdm/nin kill this thing for me... easy drop on the pop item also took like 6 bees to get the drop. Good luck for those who want to pop the nm dont go and try and fight it under 68... it has a 2hr like Hundred Fist's.




Job BLM62 Thf45 Whm 37 Nin 32 Remora, Server

The dmg on the dagger is 17... not 16.. and i had a Rdm/nin kill this thing for me... easy drop on the pop item also took like 6 bees to get the drop. Good luck for those who want to pop the nm dont go and try and fight it under 68... it has a 2hr like Hundred Fist's.




Job BLM62 Thf45 Whm 37 Nin 32 Remora, Server

I was so happy when it droped i heard terrible stories from friends went as drk/thf to farm a larve.
1/14 on it as DRK/THF i dont think its to bad i duo'd him with a WHM friend and me as drk/nin

Edited, Fri Jan 6 17:59:44 2006

Well I got around to picking this dagger up for my RDM the other day. Went in as a 71 BST, did'nt get aggro from the doll so one less thing to kill. I called carrie and let the timer cool down cause I hear this thing attacks crazy fast.

It hit me like 5 times before I could sic carrie on it haha. Carrie was hitting for 170+ and I for 100+. I was lucky that it only used pollen once the whole fight. Only had to use one carrie and one Zeta the whole fight, when it died carries hp was at 2%.

Also I think it took me about 20 something kills to get the bee larva as well. Now to find the next item I can use to pimp out my RDM ^^

this or triple dagger which is better tp build?

1/105ish on the stupid wespes. Over a course of about 8 hours. 4 trips to the crappy Temple of Uggelapih.

I haven't used it yet...we go over to kill Sozu's PHes after we kill DFA and he pops...and it kills us (my friend runs out of shihei...and wasn't using bloody bolts ><). Then 2 high levels claim it and STARTS off with a CONVERT (yes, he died instantly) and then it goes after mr cool optical hat friend of his (DRK i think) and it rapes him in like 10 seconds. Then it sits there...oh wait I should post this on Sozu Rogberry's page. Anyway, after 105 kills we spawn the DFA and get my hornetneedle...too bad Corsair's Knife is at 1 mil so F that...so I really don't know what to dual weild this thing with >.>

Edited, Tue Oct 18 18:46:14 2005

got 2 bee larve in about an hour with TH 2,

me(74drk/thf) and a 60thf/nin duo'd this with ease.

it has about 4k hp, we got 300 tp, i did 2k even spiral hell and took out half its life, thf did DE took out another quarter, then i got tp for guillotine to finish it off.

It hits almost non stop and has added poison effect, but crappy accuracy.

Does anyone know, or can estimate a drop rate on this if so pleace post thanks.

I can't wait to get this dagger

right now I have

Kidney Dagger
Triple Dagger

that works great for soloing

In pt's I use Triple Dagger and Lust Dagger
I will rpobably use my Lust Dagger only with Dancing edge after I obtain the hornet needle

Personally since I am a thief and money isn't a big deal I like to keep my daggers that are useful, and it's nice to get one for free.

178.

It took 178 kills to get the rare/ex item to drop to spawn this NM and get this dagger. I parsered the trip so I know it was 178 >.>

Plenty of beehive chips and honey if your lvling a craft though ^^

I <3 this dagger, will only be replaced (sometimes) with Garuda's dagger for the added mods.

Just got the knife last week and I wanted to thank Andypan on Seraph for the help. He solo'd the bee with his 75pld/nin with easy. You rock man. And thanks again with the paintbrush item for the Zilart mission. See ya on the other side of the track.
Romy @Seraph

A paltry 16 DMG and only +1 boost to two stats aren't exactly enticing me to stick my neck out fighting NMs for this thing. I play RDM and someone on my LS claimed this dagger was the be-all, end-all of RDM daggers. While I can happily imagine the damage En-spells would add to this as they hit faster, a weapon which did more than just scratch them to begin with would probably even out if not better this weapon. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

It seems to me if you're only hitting for 10 damage a strike with +21 additional damage thats a total of 31 damage. A dagger with higher attack may land for twice as much per blow 20+ and still deal the same En-spell damage of +21 for a total of 41 damage. I can see the benefit of this for skill up purposes, but does it lend itself to use beyond that?

I got this dagger just in time to equip it. I'm a THF/WAR in exp party, and it has been really excellent for me. It's starting to lose value by 55 though, as i've started hitting for 0 a bit more against the robber crabs in boyahda tree.

I'll still use it for farming because of the excellent chance to interrupt casting against magical enemies, but at what point is this dagger not useful anymore in exp party for THF?

I'm sure it's useful for RDM longer than for THF.

double >.<

Edited, Mon May 9 14:43:21 2005

-so i'm on the gilgamesh server and i figured i'd try to get some help killin DfA... Genjistar in all his graciousness, a lvl 74thf/37nin mind you, decided to take pity on me and help out... i also offered 50k for the help...
-i already had the larvae sac drop so i just needed the kill... we foung the ??? easily... i snuck and invis accordinly as i'm only 56thf... there were some rumble cralwers and that huge Doll there but nothing more and they didn't aggro when i droppedmy stealths...
-pop DfA and everything went to sh*t from there... for me at least... i hit f8 to select DfA as i though he was closest to me... wrong XD... Quixote hit's Huge Doll Thing for xx damage...
-after cussingmyself out profusely Genji takes both of them on... and i, feeling guilty as hell, decide to take DfA on... big, retarded, mistake on my half... DfA takes me out in about 6 salvo's of triple attack... genji has to zone cause it's virtually impossible to get utsu up... so he zones, reclaimes when he comes back in and bloody bolts himself back to 90%health... kills DfA and we get the drop (100% as it is)...
-now i'm wondering if it's possible for me to get the item while dead XD... Genji passed on it just incase... and after a few minutes BAM... Quixote obtains Hornetneedle...
-this has got to be the most pathetic Hornetneedle run i've heard of... i payed Genji an extra 50k for his troubles and appoligized profusely for my screw-ups... i almost didn't want the damn dagger after my crappy performance...
-much respect to Genji for sticking it out...
-hope you find my little account humorous and feel free to joke the shizznight out of me for it XD

http://maps.all-manga.net/maps_normal/0172_uggalepih-temple_1.png
Map to DfA.

Death from Above is a major pushover despite what you may here.

The best thing to do is bring a level 70+ (blm works) have him go into the room with DfA (it has a TON of mobs) pull all the bees out and have you kill them one by one. When one finally drops, have the level 70 pull DfA outside of the room into the hallway with no monsters. We had a Samurai 67, Thief 58 (me), and a Black Mage 70.
The samurais 2 hour took the bee down to 5% and my SATA finished it off as the black mage hit it. The bee died faster then the normal bees do.

The only thing that we really noticed was that he used Pollen about every 5 seconds, he died too quickly to tell how often he triple attacks. With a 67 Samurai tanking it he barely lost any HP.

Easy as Pie ...

http://www.combatjacks.com/DFA_lowres.wmv


Edited, Fri Feb 11 03:10:37 2005

I'm rdm 50, I highly recommend getting this if you are rdm. If you don't think you can get this, go for a Beestinger instead. Both get the job done. Remember: Rdm have B in both sword and dagger. Dagger will get you MP draining WSs too.

In all it's typoed glory ;D and a more consolodated form from the bits and peices I got from here and my own experiance.

Temple of Uggalepth
First Map area F-8
Same POS as Dragoon AF3
Items needed is Bee Larvae to Spawn Death from Above trade to ???.

To accuire Bee Larvae you must first kill Wespe's in a approx 1 in 20 drop. in my estimation.

Wespe's level is:
.55-57
.argo
.link
.detect by sight
.weak vs ice

Skill chain distortion and a ice themed mb best approach to killing these feinds.

Look out fo their Final Strike

Death from Above the main reason why we're here for the HORNETNEEDLE dagger! ;D

Death from Above
.argo
.Weak vs Ice
.Level low to mid 60's
.Est HP 3k-4k

He's a punk, but can be defeated easy.

Use many of the same tactics as you did on the Wespe's. The Skill Chains will be the same.

Other useful tips:

.Mages get StoneSkin also if you have a SMN in pt do it for EVERYONE ;D
.Everyone Get Blink or Utsumi up again useful if you have a SMN
.Aaaannnd again if you have a SMN Haste. Death from Above hits fast, so you want to hit him back fast!
.Also the standard debuffs (para, slow, blind)
.Use Bio2 and Poison2 on him this will be very helpful during the fight.
.Use Stun if avail on his ubarmoves, which isn't many. He's got no final sting move.
.Dispell when you can, when you see damage being sucky.
.Have Antidotes at the ready and Poisona
.2-Hours will be useful in this fight! Buff up all you can for damage before hand and then use them as finishing blows if he starts to use his pollen to heal
.Bring food

How do I get to him if you have no map?

/follow someone who does ;D lol or take this easy route, but you'll need sneak and inviz the whole way because our favorite mobs.. TONEBERRYS! ;D They like to argo and link so look out. Level 70's should have no problem with argo here, but anybody below that will have trouble.

He's in the same room as the Dragoon Af3 was at F-10 first map.

From the zone follow the path until you come to a "T" section and make a left down that path and follow until you see a boxed shaped room with a door on the right hand side.

In this room you will see:

Door ;D
3 Toneberrys
4 Crawlers (They don't chain or link so no worries)
3-4 Wespes
1 Doll (Don't argo accept for magic)

Clear the room and all because you don't want anything to spawn here during the fight. After you clear the room have the person who's trading the Bee Larvae goand trade it to the ??? over the small bridge on the left and then head back quickly.

Oh yeah Buff and heal before you trade, because DEATH FROM ABOVE is comming.

The Hornetneedle is a 100% drop so just kill him and get the lot and teleport outta there! ;D

Now show your flashy new dagger off to everyone ;D

http://www.bacchusrestaurant.biz/steefun/nm_hornet.zip

You'll need Divx to view this movie.
It shows the defeat of the nm that
drops the hornetneedle dagger called
Death From Above. File size is 20megs.

Party includes:
Thf/war lvl 60
Nin/war lvl 60
Red/whm lvl 55
Drk/nin lvl 75

With a Corsair's Knife in main this will give you 2 extra hits every 60 seconds over Cavelvey's.

I ran a test with the following macro:

/a
/wait 60
/a

This attacks for 60 seconds (well not exactly 60 seconds, but the time period is consistant and the results never varied over multiple runs) I used an Onion Knife (has 205 Delay, Corsair's is 206) Brass Dagger (same delay as Cavelvey's) and Beestinger (same delay as Hornetneedle) on crabs in Qufim and got the following results.

205 / nothing = 88 TP (5.5 TP per hit)

205 / 186 = 120 TP (5 TP per hit)

205 / 150 = 130 TP (5 TP per hit)

I did multiple runs with each configuration and the results never varied at all. Corsair's Knife is actually 206 delay however I don't believe that this makes a measurable difference.

Edited, Sat Nov 27 07:31:16 2004

These little maggots, I just sat there with 3, count it, 3 thiefs in the party, all with Treasure Hunter 2, for 6 hours and killed every bee in sight. Not a single one dropped this $#@$#@ larva. I'm going back every night for the rest of my life until this PoS drops the larva.

Edited, Tue Nov 16 04:40:06 2004

Hornetneedle + Beestinger + Dual Wield I/II + sarashi belt(when active) + Haste. How fast would you be? Understandably, it be horrible damage, but funny to see how fast you can attack.