I am a serious NM hunter and have gotten almost a mil from them(a lot to me). Total of 2 leaping boots, 1 hairpin, 1 rabbit charm, and 5 night capes, just about a million gil right there. I am going to list things I have heard or experienced through my many hours of NM hunting and hope people say 'yay or 'nay' to them. Maybe one day when I am bored I will make a detailed guide about the NMs i really know about. One Thing i could ask for is a ratio for drops/times killed and tell weither or not u use TH. Maybe if i get enough i can make an average drop rate for NMs. And with all averages, the more i get the better the ratio will be to what it actually is.
NMs in general:
1.1 Treasure Hunter helps. (yes)
1.1 Treasure Hunter 2 helps. (yes)
1.3 New or Full moons effect drop rates. (yes)
1.4 NMs fall into 5 catogories, "replacement NMs" (a.k.a Placeholder), "Time based NMs", "Poppable NMs", "Event NMs" and the 5th catogory is going to be "miscellaneous."
Replacement NMs replace a mob after killing a similar mob a lot. For instance Damselfly > Valkurm Emperor.
Then there are Time based NMs which spawn for a certain amount of time but drops are usually extremely rare. For instance...ugh i forget the name but the NM that drops Archer Rings that spawns every 5 minutes.
Poppable NMs spawn when you trade an item to a ???. For instance trade a quus to the ??? behind the light house to make Bubbling Burnie spawn. Most of these NMs don't drop uber items, since you don't have to wait 2 hours to fight them.
Event NMs are spawned during a quest, mission 2-3 for example where u fight the dragon and the little flying guy.
Miscellaneous NMs is the 5th catogory and the reasons the NM spawns are unknown. Could be moon, day, weather, etc.. (yes)
1.5 Level effects drop rates. (yes)
1.6 Allakhazam Spawn areas are accurate. However, NMs can move from there spawn points and could possibly get pretty far away.(I didn't say this myself :D I think they are very accurate.) (yes)
1.7 You can have 2 rare items in your inventory. Such as Emperor Hairpin. (no)
1.8 You can have 2 rare items, 1 in your safe, 1 in your inventory. (no)
1.9 You can have 2 rare items, 1 in your AH, 1 in your inventory. (Debate)
1.10 Night/Day time, weather, moon, etc. effect drop rates/spawning. (Debate)
1.11 You can have multiple rare items in your delivery box. (yes)
Valkurm Emperor
2.1 Replacement NM (yes)
2.2 Spawn Areas are accurate (yes)
2.3 Takes on average 1 to 2 hours to spawn on average. (Debate)
2.4 I am 1/3, I have not fought it enough to get a good ratio on drop rate. Using TH (Debate)
Golden Bat
3.1 Replacement NM (yes)
3.2 Two spawn points (3 different bats can spawn into a Golden Bat.) One spawn area right before Gustav and another in the cave heading to the secret beach. (yes)
3.3 I am 5/7 on capes so the drop rate is pretty good with TH. (Debate)
4.4 Spawn time takes on average 25 min to 1 hour on average. (Don't forget it can spawn at another location. I was camping it for 2 hours and 30 minutes and no spawn. Must have spawned in the Secret beach cave.) (Debate)
Leaping Lizzy
5.1 Replacement NM (yes)
5.2 Spawn time is 1 hour to 2 hours on average. (Debate)
5.3 Spawn Areas are accurate. (yes)
5.4 I am 2/12 on Boots with TH so the drop rate is pretty ugly. (Debate)
Jagedy Earred Jack
6.1 Replacement NM (yes)
6.2 Spawn time is 1 hour to 2 hours on average. (Debate)
6.3 I am 1/1 (lol) I can't really tell with one try, might have been luck. I've heard cases of people being 0/25, 040, etc. So this drop rate is pretty ugly percentage. I used TH. (Debate)
6.4 Spawn Areas are correct. (yes)
Key:
(yes) = So far with the evidence it is going to stay unless you have proof it is wrong.
(no) = Proved wrong but if you have evidence for yes, it can be changed.
(Debate) = Still up for grabs, still not sure.
Edit: Wow turned out pretty long. Sorry about the casual typing i whipped this up pretty quick.
Edit: I like to edit a lot.
Edit: Added Yes, No, Debate. Changed 1.4, 1.6, 1.10, intro, and some typos. Added 1.11
Edited, Tue Apr 27 16:42:58 2004 by Stanks
Edited, Tue Apr 27 16:54:51 2004 by Stanks
Edited, Wed Apr 28 18:49:53 2004 by Stanks