After Mining some fourteen stacks of Iron Ingots from the Zeruhn Mines, I ended up with a ton of byproducts that went towards raising my mules' Goldsmithing skills. However, there were two items that I could not utilize immediately: Darksteel Ores and Snapping Moles. In fact, I decided to save these items in the event that I could someday, and it turns out that the ores would require intermediate-level Smithing to smelt. On the bright side, the moles are used in making Eft familiars, and with a skill requirement of level 58 Cooking, I knew just the person to call.
Of course, all good (BST) things come with a catch. In this case, only HQ jug pets are useful, and Snapping Moles are not stackable. In addition, the Eft recipe requires one Helmet Mole, Lugworm, Shell Bug, and Lump of Loam per two Snapping Moles, and neither the Helmet Moles nor Loam are stackable either! As a further deterrent, the excavation rates for both mole types are low; on average, I harvested 1.5 to 2.5 Snapping Moles per dozen pickaxes while Helmet Moles were as low as 1 to 1.5 moles per dozen.
But wait, it gets worse. For Snapping Moles, you can expect low-level competition since the Gusgen Mines is a popular Mining spot for beginners, but for Helmets Moles, nothing in the Korroloka Tunnel is worth more than 2k gil!
As a level 58 recipe, the maximum HQ rate requires level 109 cooking, and unfortunately for me, I did not know anyone on Diabolos with a Hocho. However, I knew Masani had high-level Cooking, and in total, she made some twenty stacks of NQ Efts and almost five stacks of HQ ones from eighty or so attempts. After spending two weeks collecting ingredients, I would be in utter agony if I was not farming for Iron Ingots primarily, so hurray for byproducts!
I also managed to spot the NM above while Mining ores in the Yughott Grotto. Most of the time, he drops a Hermit's Wand, but for some reason, I got the rarer drop, a Priest's Robe, this time around. Now if only Bloodsucker could be just as kind.
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