How profitable is THunting?

[Maehix]

And is the template shown on wiki the normal? Would thunting generate more then dungeons for a bard.

[riant]

It's a good question. If you didn't have to pay for the maps, the per hour rate would probably be similar to that of a dungeon bard. The plus side of T hunting is that you get more shots at a desirable weapon like a vanq hally, and more desirable items like reflect, invis, teleport. Also you don't have to worry about PK's (or hardly worry about them). If you sell all the crap to NPC vendors a level 4 map will net you about 11-15K and a level 5 map will net you 15-20K. Level 4 will take 15-25 mins with all your razor settings properly set up and a level 5 maybe 20-35 (counting all the selling to npcs to clear out the loot). An undisturbed bard with full spawn at cyclops or destard will net you about 30-40K an hour if you hustle. So the math for gold per hour is similar if you are getting the maps for free, but the shot of getting a great item is higher with t hunting.

The way I do it is I have a separate toon for t hunting that is just a mule to pop the chest and unlock it and he can die for all I care. My bard then cleans up the spawn and loots the chest. I like that set up because when my bard gets map drops from spawn, he can do the chests.

[platy]

I'd say if your looking for items: THunting is better than dungeons but if your looking for cash- dungeons are the way to go.
Both are good for both this is just what I've observed.

[Kabal]

My T-hunters temp is Mage/Med/Music/Provo/Carto/LPing/Wrestling so I can cycle through and clear out all the LvL 4 chests, bard until I get a map and dig that up and basically just cycle through dungeon chests, barding spots and T maps.

[Ragancy]

For me T-maps are for the magic weaps and for invis/tele/reflect. But you can go through a lvl5 and a few lvl4s and not get one really good weapon. You might get a single vanq hamer pick or some crap. Chances are very low, which they ought to be, for the high-end gear.

The gold you get from the T map spawn roughly equates to the selling price of T maps on the market.

[MatronDeWinter]

Maps on UOSA are overpriced due to a time when it took many t-maps to GM cartography (Now you can gm making worldmaps I believe). Maps were in high demand as players tried to make tmappers, and the prices are still frozen up there because people keep paying it.

The map loot on UOSA is underspawned.

That being said, you can make a profit. But the time involved sorting the items and clearing the spawns makes it almost not worth it unless you are specifically looking for items. For most players it is probably a better investment to just set up camp somewhere and kill the same monster over and over again.

[Mikel123]

Matron and riant are right. My rule of thumb was... if I have the maps already (like from hunting with my tamer, bard, dexer, etc.), it's very much worthwhile to do them. To pay for them though, at the prices here, removes most of your profit margin, and you're better off doing something else to earn cash, like straight-up barding and stuff.