I noticed the dunes is now a lizard fest, and thats fine, but is something up with the snippers and damsels that make them not worth it ?

Nope.

Lizards are just the path of least resistance. You can still do crabs and flies just fine.

_________________
Returning/Existing Player? Trouble logging in? Click here |~| New player Gil guide |~| More Troubleshooting

People are scared of flies, and crabs have a ton of HP. Truth be told, you can get good XP from flies. Around level 17 we had a party Northeast of the OP (standing near some trees and a wooden signpost up the hill) and was getting AMAZING xp off the flies in the area. Safe from gob aggro, too. All it takes is a leader deciding to go somewhere out of the ordinary, and most people will follow.

Crabs are god awful at low levels. High HP and defense, a defense buff, a magic defense buff, Metallic Body (aka Stoneskin) and a very strong STR debuff. What usually ends up happening when fighting a crab is that it puts up is defense buff and cuts down your melee damage by about 75% and then you spend 2-3 minutes having your 2h melee hitting for 5 dmg and your 1h or dual wield melee hitting it for 0 (without Metallic Body). If you have a BLM, it'll either run itself OOM from being the only one being able to do damage to the crab or it'll pull aggro off of the tank because a tank hitting for 0 doesn't generate a lot of hate.

Flies and sheeps are quite good though, especially if you have a PL to handle the AoE healing or have a group that won't feed the flies too much TP. There's a spot around I-7 with more mobs flies/sheeps than any group can handle that will last you to from 16 to 18-19.

I've had good parties vs crabs in the dunes, but usually only do them at lv11-13, where you can take the fly camp straight after.

There is also a good crab camp near the outpost, and past lv18 you want to take the secret beach where you fight crabs/pugils.

Flies are hard at lv13, but at 14+ they become really easy to chain. You kill flies and sub in sheep every so often to keep the chain and exp good. This lasts till around lv17-ish.

Aside from the fact that the better camps like Oasis and that crab alley slightly south of it have been nuked via mob removal (or OWNM placement)?



This. If melee are geared correctly they might* still be able to damage a crab. But there's not exactly a ton of options available at level 13 anyway. Bards aren't always going to be available, neither are 2 BLM to ensure you can kill them in an adequate amount of time. Flies and sheep almost necessitate either a PL or a whm, and at that level cure/curaga spam will leave a whm tapped in 1 or 2 fights unless they're rocking one hell of an MP+ setup.

_________________

I believe peeps avoid sheep because of sheep song and some of their other abilities might also be annoying to deal with without a PL.

Crabs are annoying to beat until you are high enough in level to surpass their resists but when you get to that point their exp value is mediocre. The only exception to this is maybe the secret beach.

Damselflies are not bad to exp off of, granted your group is high enough to deal with them. There's also limited camps for them compared to the abundant lizard camps from what I've seen.

I think I was in this party...