Plunder Skull Farming Tips & Information: How to Maximize your Farming

Castielle · October 2016

I have discovered some valuable information from farming the Plunder Skulls during the Witches Festival and I thought I would share it with you guys so you can get more Skulls per hour. Here is what I have learned:

1) Defeating ANY Bosses (World, Delve, Dungeon, Trial, Dark Anchor, Daedra things the fall from the sky in specific locations, etc) to obtain skulls.
2) Skulls have a 5 minute cooldown so you CANNOT get more than one every 5 minutes.
3) World Bosses and Delve Bosses have 10 minute cooldowns on loot, so you will NOT get more than one every 10 minutes if you only farm World Bosses or only farm Delve Bosses. You must alternate between various types if you wish to maximize your farming.
4) If you farm in Group Dungeons, be sure to wait 5 mins between Boss kills to maximize your runs.

The only exceptions to this that I have not tested is if logging out and in resets either the World Boss/Delve Boss cooldowns or the Plunder Skull cooldowns.

Happy Farming!

Cas

Rohamad_Ali · October 2016

Happy farming to you too .

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Bam_Bam · October 2016

Is it possible to turn into the skellington more than once? Is it over once the timer runs out?

SaraRose · October 2016

#2 and #3 is baloney, I been farming skulls all day at 3-4 min loots on a Delve boss, it's 3-4 mins not 10.

leepalmer95 · October 2016

Baranthus wrote: »

Is it possible to turn into the skellington more than once? Is it over once the timer runs out?

Just re use the memento the drink from the cauldron

Taylor_MB · October 2016

"Farming Guide" is the worst combination of words you can hear about a game.... unless it is a literal farming game.

Bam_Bam · October 2016

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Baranthus wrote: »

Is it possible to turn into the skellington more than once? Is it over once the timer runs out?

Just re use the memento the drink from the cauldron

I got another "crow caller" from the store but it said I'd completed the quest.

The_Sadist · October 2016

Baranthus wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Baranthus wrote: »

Is it possible to turn into the skellington more than once? Is it over once the timer runs out?

Just re use the memento the drink from the cauldron

I got another "crow caller" from the store but it said I'd completed the quest.

Go to collections (U) -> momento and double click the witchmother's whistle to summon the cauldron.

OtarTheMad · October 2016

They drop from normal Maelstrom too btw. Just don't torch thru rounds and you'll be fine.

ryanborror · October 2016

It's less than 5 min for dungeon bosses

Agobi · October 2016

Taylor_MB wrote: »

"Farming Guide" is the worst combination of words you can hear about a game.... unless it is a literal farming game.

Agree

Some day I would like to see a "having fun" guide ...or "how to enjoy your time playing a game"-guide...

People take this *** way to seriousy...in my humble opinion

wenchmore420b14_ESO · October 2016

Awesome Tips! Thanks!
But to clarify, and I have tested this, Boss's, Dolmans, etc.. 5 minute respawn
Skulls, 3 minute cool down.
I use a Logitech G13 with built in timer. As long as followed that timing, got one every time..
Huzzah!

agegarton · October 2016

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

Awesome Tips! Thanks!
But to clarify, and I have tested this, Boss's, Dolmans, etc.. 5 minute respawn
Skulls, 3 minute cool down.
I use a Logitech G13 with built in timer. As long as followed that timing, got one every time..
Huzzah!

AGREE. It's 3 mins for a skull. For sure.

Shardaxx · October 2016

No way its 3 more like 5 mins at least.

waterfairy · October 2016

Baranthus wrote: »

Is it possible to turn into the skellington more than once? Is it over once the timer runs out?

anfmofo · October 2016

or just constantly run normal maelstorm arena and get 9 every 30 minutes

abigfishy · October 2016

I did a bunch of tests with a stop watch and no matter what I tried I couldn't get more than one skull on a character from the same boss in less than five minutes. What I did find was that you can log between characters and doing that I was basically getting about four skulls per 12 minutes.

However getting one per five minutes on a Dolmen was also very good, I was getting basically one CP per Dolmen spawn and pumped Fighters Guild to level 10 very fast.You need to pick your Dolmen, not too crowded so you miss the boss but not too sparse that it takes ages to clear. There was also one in Glenumbra that seemed to have a super slow respawn not sure why.

Prof_Bawbag · October 2016

I did all my farming in gold and silver, so I know for a fact I wasn't over leveled, however, there was just some world bosses that never ever dropped skulls for me and i farmed them more than once. Even if i was the only person there. Not sure if this was intended, but it did happen. One of the bosses that spring to mind were those 2 hunters and a mage boss in Malabal Tor who never dropped any skulls for me. I think I farmed them a few times due to their close proximity to the wayshrine and that coldharbour mini teleport thingy (that always gave me a skull). Another boss that never dropped a skull was that poacher boss in Grahtwood. I farmed him a lot due to his close proximity to the Dolmen. I never sat there and farmed any boss over and over, I always moved onto a new area, so it wasn't a timer issue either.

It was the same in some group/public dungeons. Even if I was the only person around, some of those bosses just never dropped skulls regardless. Every single boss in any given 1-boss delve dropped them. Had 100% record with those. Thank God i have all 100 skulls and every item, it was just becoming a chore.

Reorx_Holybeard · October 2016

Correcting a few misconceptions I see in this thread (this is all from PC-NA so it may be different on console):

Plunder skull timer is 3 minutes within a few seconds. PC users can installing the Plunder Skull Timer add-on to help time skull loots. The timer starts when you loot a Plunder Skull and not when you kill a boss.
Dolmen respawn timers now seem to depend on the number of people nearby. While soloing a Dolmen the respawn time was 12 minutes but with a lot of people around it is as often as 5-7 minutes.
Delve Boss respawn times are normally 5 minutes but the boss can respawn when a new player enters the dungeon/area as well.
World Boss respawn timer is 7 minutes.

If you seem to find contradicting times let us know what server you are on and how you are measuring things. Repeatable tests that verify the times would be helpful as well.

code65536 · October 2016

Reorx_Holybeard wrote: »

Plunder skull timer is 3 minutes within a few seconds. PC users can installing the Plunder Skull Timer add-on

Quoting for emphasis.

I've personally verified the 3-minute cooldown (with the help of the aforementioned timer addon). Killed boss 2:58 after the previous skull, didn't get any. Killed another boss 3:04 minutes after the previous skull, received a new skull.

As long as you kill the next boss after 3 minutes, you'll be fine. So if it typically takes you 30 seconds to kill a boss, you can pull 2:30 after the previous kill, and if it looks like the boss is about to die early, you could slow/hold DPS until the 3-minute mark passes.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · October 2016

Reorx_Holybeard wrote: »

Dolmen respawn timers now seem to depend on the number of people nearby. While soloing a Dolmen the respawn time was 12 minutes but with a lot of people around it is as often as 5-7 minutes.

I suspect the Dolmens are on a loop as well as two timers. What I mean is, I believe there's a maximum amount of time after the Dolmen clears at which point it will respawn as soon as there's at least one person nearby, regardless of the state of the other Dolmens. There also seems to be the minimum timer that keeps it from spawning before five minutes is up. However if the other two Dolmens in the region are both cleared after the min but before the max timer is up, it will respawn earlier, and the fast respawn times we're seeing is a result of all the Dolmens being camped and cleared as soon as they drop, therefore the other two are always cleared for a given Dolmen.

I have no idea how to test that though.

Elsonso · October 2016

SaraRose wrote: »

#2 and #3 is baloney, I been farming skulls all day at 3-4 min loots on a Delve boss, it's 3-4 mins not 10.

I was standing at the same delve boss and I will say that I was able to determine that it was 4 minutes. I use plunder skull timer and, with certain delve boss, it was easy to check "a few seconds earlier" to see if it dropped a skull or just gold.

4 minutes.

And, has been noted, it is when the boss dies that matters.

Diminish · October 2016

SaraRose wrote: »

#2 and #3 is baloney, I been farming skulls all day at 3-4 min loots on a Delve boss, it's 3-4 mins not 10.

Funny, the 250 or so plunder skulls I farmed from delves were all the same. Boss has a 5 minute respawn timer, and you get loot every other time. Simple math tells me the OP is correct, 5 x 2 = 10. DUNGEONS are 3 minute plunder skull timers.

Valethar · October 2016

Dolmens appear to be a bit buggy. I was at one yesterday that frequently refused to drop the skulls for me, even with 7-10 minutes between drops. I eventually went back to hitting the delves and dungeons instead, as they were far more consistent.

Elsonso · October 2016

Diminish wrote: »

SaraRose wrote: »

#2 and #3 is baloney, I been farming skulls all day at 3-4 min loots on a Delve boss, it's 3-4 mins not 10.

Funny, the 250 or so plunder skulls I farmed from delves were all the same. Boss has a 5 minute respawn timer, and you get loot every other time. Simple math tells me the OP is correct, 5 x 2 = 10. DUNGEONS are 3 minute plunder skull timers.

Ahh. That is the problem. If you find a delve boss that spawns more frequently, you will find that you can get a Plunder Skull every 4 minutes in delves.