I've never seen this happen before... went for my friend's PLD AF3 coffer, the very first mob we fought, the very first Ahriman we saw, dropped the key.
I had some help getting this from some of my friends. 2 70+ and 1 65 and got drop after 5 or 6 fights. we found the chest in about 10 minutes. guess i got lucky
I went for my Girlfriend for Christmas Gift. she had been trying for about a moth wth no success. So I logged into her Character while she was Away on vacation and went to the Castle With my LS leader a BLU75. we got the coffer key in 2 kills. but were unable to find the coffer after 6 hours of looking.
we all went back next week and got coffer after about 2 hours of looking. what seemed to work best was subbing Whm (for snk and inv of course) and just have one player search the top of map constantly and have another player search bottom room constantly. we adopted this technique after and hour and a half of looking. this seemed to solve our problem rather quickly we found the coffer in the next 20 mins.
LOL, I remember going for this damn key. It took me 7 months just to get a group to go and just to have it disband once we got there.When I finally got the key I was 59, I got into a group with some cool JPN players. They were nice enough to help and let me have the key. The worst part was looking for that damn coffer. Watched tons of ppl run trains when they got agro and having no place to hide was just sick.After completing this coffer it was best feeling anyone could have. Now getting a group to go to Davio was a test in its self, and that’s another story.
I officially hate this and all coffer keys. The drop rate on such a necessary item for paladins' AF quests should be at least a bit higher than the low rate it currently is. Members of my LS and I just spent 4 hours in here and killed about 100+ mobs. Naturally we got no key drops. I'm so glad that as far as Paladin is concerned this will be my last coffer key hunt. They take way too long, and I feel bad having to ask high-levels on my LS to help me out (59PLD is highest job atm).
Yea just spent 3 hours there earlier. No drops. Well it took me 8 hours for every other key I needed. So only 5 more hours and Ill get it :( Lol just was there for another 4 hours and nothing. I dont know how everyone else gets lucky with these.
let me say something to SE about this key. SE, you suck! i went THREE TIMES to try to get this key. each time was more than three hours. does SE think that looking for a stupid item this long is considered fun for a gamer?? SE your a bunch of idiots. these games where ment to be entertainment (thats what we pay for) not tourture. keep this kinda of crap up and your eventually gonna lose alot of customers to some other mmorpg. and another thing, as a customer i expect you guys to get off your lazy buts and get rid of these damn gilsellers. im pretty sure you guys arent working as hard as you SHOULD be to get rid of them. it really really screws up this game and makes it even more unenjoyable.
Square-Enix won't ever erase all GilSellers' accounts: GS pay the month fee like anyone else... SE don't want to lose money by erasing accounts...........
key dropped on 1st mob lmao. thief knows where all the coffer spawn so me and the nin sat back while the thief looking for the coffer and 3min later he finds it and i got my paintbrush ^.^ so i came out as a happy paladin
In a party camping this coffer now. Need it fer meh BRD AF Cuffs. Currently 57 and the cuffs are 60, but I like to get a head start on my AF ^^ (plus My friend had to get his SAM test, and offered for me to come along) We got a test. (he lost lot) and a key in under 30 mins of reaching camp. ^^ I lost lot on key, which sucked cause the coffer was in the same room as us. ; ; (drop off in gob area)
Anyway, good luck to all who have this coffer! Hard, but will be worth it. ^^
First of all it took me about 4 and a half hours just to get the stupid key. I thought getting the key would be the tough part, oh how i was wrong.. I've spent more time looking for the coffer than i did getting the key. I've died once and had to warp out of there twice. Some punk thief jacked a coffer right out from under me to, I hope he enjoys his mages ballad II. lol the point is, this coffer is NOT easy to find.
Zinnuri, Lvl 60 PLD Lakshmi server http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/profile.xml?36959
I was farming these demons looking for horns, a coffer key dropped, there was nobody else in Zvahl so I figure I minus well open the chset since I heard Mages ballad II was in it, and sold for 100K+. Got to the coffer, waited for Ahriman's to turn around, I opened coffer, all I got was 11.8k, no item, just some gil. Really, not even that much, 11.8 is neat, I rather would have had mages balled II to sell. Lame
but one of the eyes figure it was a good time to turn around and aggroed me and linked the other 3 eyes close by. They all preceded to whoop the crap out of me, being a lvl 75rdm/37thf for farming, I did not have escape, I chainspelled sleep II on all of them since I was in a pretty bad area to fight, and really didn't feel like fighting all those Ahrimans, which I consider one of the most annoying mobs in the game with how they spam ancient magic, cannot be silenced even when I elemental seal silence. Do mind break and drops my mp down to 1/3 of what it was. I rather not fight them at all. Flee'd from the area with my invis and sneak up. I panicked, and ran teh wrong way, which is rather stupid of me since I know castle vhalz so well. >.< so I had to use my scroll of warp as I saw about 20+ eyes come around the corner after I ran into the dead end..... :p
But anyway, yeah, I got 11.8k gil out of it, no items. Not even worth it to me next time, too risky for me to open if I'm there farming. maybe if I have blm sub, I'll open it and escape if I have to, but if I"m there farming, I'm just gonna toss the key. unless there is some special event I need to trigger to get the mages ballad II item to drop. 11.8 hardly seems worth the trouble for me ; ;
Ok, I went here with a few other people, cause I needed the key. 75 PLD (JP) among. We all died twice, and over the course of 4+ hours, not 1 key dropped. 2 people both needed keys (me being one), and not a single key. I give up!
Getting to the camp was most difficult part of the experience. There were multiple escapes and Tele-Vahzls. We started around 4:00 PM, I left the party for bed at 1:00 AM. Sneak/Invis an entire party and keeping it on for two ppl is a challenge. As with most coffer key parties, I suggest anyone who can, sub Whm or Rdm for these spells. Potions and Prims are really too expensive (don't know the cost of the Nin invis spell ingredients).
This was my second trip to Castle Zvahl (first was Dark Spark and we didn't go that far in). The first map is pretty straight forward. Continue through the map until you get to the crossroads. If you go straight, you go to the torches where Dark Spark is. You want to take either the left or the right. We started out taking rights, but since we ended up camping in the Orc section of the second map, we began taking lefts. Takes rights if you want to get to the Goblin or Quadav regions of the second map. Take lefts for the Orc or Yagudo regions. If you're going to the Keep, I don't think it really matters left or right.
The second map is broken down a couple of ways. First, you have the upper tier sections where most of the mobs are. You also have hallway sections used to get to the stairways to the upper tier. Some of the hallways have gates blocking them; so, to get anywhere you need to travel both in the hallways and on the upper tier. The other break down of the second map is by region. Each region is populated by a group of beastmen. The NE corner is Goblin, NW corner is Quadav, the SW corner is Yagudos, and the SE corner is Orc. There are also some demons in the areas between the beastmen regions (like between the goblins and the orcs, but not the goblins and the Quadavs). Each region has a hole you can fall down, with two ledges. This gets you to other parts of the Castle. To get to the keep, I had to go through the Goblin region to the Quadav region, then take the hallway in the Quadav region to the center part of the map.
I was lvl 55 and most of the mobs on the second map conned EP. I was actually able to take some down provided none others added.
Whine Key
To get to the Whine Key mobs you can either drop down one of the four holes on the second map, or take the stairs at either H-6 or H-9/10. Be very careful when dropping down the holes. You will need sneak and invis. There are 4-5 demons at the bottom who will aggro and link. It's best to clear the demon that is pacing the hallway to the hole room, then pull demons from the room into the hallway. If possible, bring a Sum or /Sum with you. These mobs were DC to a lvl 55. Our party was able to take two at once, but I don't advise it.
Coffer Key
For our Coffer Key camp, we fell down the hole (I believe it was the SE part of the hole) in the Orc region to drop down on the ledge. This gave us a hallway camp with an Ahirman, plus a single room full of coffer key demons. The Ahirman spawns every 15+ mins, so be careful. We were able to take all but one of the Ahirman pops. Our Pld died ;.; the time we couldn't. We got one key drop before I went to bed. I also got 5000+ XP, which for a coffer key party is pretty good. The drops are also some of the best I've seen in a coffer party. We also got two Sam testimonies (no Sams in the party though, I need some Rdm coffer key dropping mobs^^).
Elementals & Key Dropping
I've noticed on sites that Elementals (whether weather spawned or pets) are supposed to drop coffer keys. I've only seen regular treasure chest keys drop from them; however, I've talked to people who have had coffers keys drop. My guess is that since all the coffer key mobs are lvl 60-70, it would take an elemental lvl 60-70 to drop a coffer key. I didn't see any weather elementals once we entered the second or third map and the pet elementals we fought were all DC to a lvl 55. My guess is, if we fought an elemental that was either VT or IT to a lvl 55, we probly could get a coffer key drop.