One last scheme which I will share with you is perhaps the most common money-making scheme employed in the game: Notorious Monster farming.

A Notorious Monster (or NM) is any monster in the game that is very rare for whatever reason (it has a low or random spawn rate, it only spawns after you trigger something, etc. and so forth). Often these NMs are higher level than the critters around them, sometimes they are aggro, other times they are timid. Many times they also drop rare and useful items which can be sold for decent money.

NM farming involves camping where a certain NM spawns, waiting for the spawn (or triggering it) and then killing it for its goods. Often the NM will drop other items not worth as much, so you will have to kill them several times before a drop you want.

Unfortunately, NM farming is one of the most closely guarded money making methods out there. Typically, when someone finds an NM that drops something useful that no one else is (or very few others are) farming, they will keep it to themselves. Why? Because the more people farming a particular mob the less likely they will get the drop themselves.

This means that, in my article here, I will not share with you my "golden" NM farms. I encourage you to search and find your own. Instead, I will give you some of the more common ones to get you started and explain generally how to make NM farming work for you.

Leaping Lizzy

Perhaps the most common NM farmed is Leaping Lizzy. Leaping Lizzy is a lizard NM found in Gustaberg South just outside of Bastok. It seems to have a spawn rate related to the number of lizards in the area you've killed. Lizzy occassionaly drops Leaping Boots, which, on some servers, can go for upwards of 100k or more. These boots are especially useful if you are a THF (and THF can help with NM farming, see bellow ;-)

Lizzy is a hard one to camp because so many people search for him. He's level 10-11, and can be killed by very low-level players easily, so the competition for him is very high. Plus, his spawn rate is quite low making him a real bugger to find.

Bigmouth Billy

Another common NM farmed is Bigmouth Billy, who can be found in Ronfaure East outside of San d'Oria. Billy drops a lot of different expensive ore and minerals, most of which can be synthesized into items that will net you a tidy profit if you can synth them (such as the Green Rock which can be made into Peridot, something everyone will need if they ever want to get a Gobby Bag). Billy's spawn rate is also quite spastic, but he tends to drop more worthwhile items than Lizzy (though, the items are worth less individually than the Leaping Boots). Billy is also a low level mob (9-11) so killing him is fairly simple.

Juu Duzu the Whirlwind

Juu Duzu the Whirlwind can be found in Giddeus. He is a fairly low level mob (around 13 or so) but is in an area where slightly higher level mobs can be found, so you may have to watch out. He drops Hunter's Longbows which can go for upwards of 10k. His spawn rate is fairly sporatic, however, there is an elemental that spawns just a bit north that can be camped for lightning clusters so it makes up for it.

Getting the drops you want

There are many more NMs out there that drop some great items. Some NMs are even surrounded by other mobs that drop worthwhile items as well making it even more worth your time to camp them. The big problems with NM farming are 1) competition and 2) drop rates. For both of these problems, there are some things that you can do.

• Be a Ranger or Beastmaster : Once you get the ability to gain advanced jobs, you really should get one or both of these jobs. You should then spend the time to level one of them up to 30 (at least). Even if you dont have the best combination for these jobs, or the best race. These jobs are important to have with NM hunting. Why? They both grant you the "wide scan" ability. Trust me, when you're hunting that one NM that looks just like all the other mobs in the area, the ability to wide scan and locate them quickly is a necessity.
• Be a Thief : I personally am not that impressed with THF as a job. I'll admit bias and that it can turn out to be pretty neat, it's just not a job I'd like as my main. However, for getting those rare NM drops thieves have a slight advantage with their steal ability. Sure, it may only be slight advantage, but when hunting NMs any advantage is a good thing.

If you couple these two skills together and are sufficiently high level, you can be one mondo NM hunter. Even if you do not wish to combine them, subbing either one with a higher level main will be advantagous (even if subbing RNG gimps the RNG abilities, you still get wide-scan which is all you really need for NM hunting... just don't do it if you're trying to level in parties ;-)