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Preamble

Following several questions and discussions in Universe chat, I thought it's best to summarize what all the fuss is about during this time of the year :)

So, during Christmas events, one thing that happens is that Christmas Trees will pop in several regions of Atys. They are targetable, tauntable and killable; if killed, some gifts are dropped.

Technical details

Once you have found a tree, you need to assemble a team. The standard team will consist of at least 4 master nukers (level 250) plus a very high level healer (200+ ?). The minimum number of nukers is there to ensure you can beat the tree's high natural regen. If all nukers also use enchants, you can attempt with 3. One main healer is needed to bomb refill everyone, and probably a second backhealer (or one of the nukers using heal enchants).

As noted, trees are tauntable. This means you could taunt a tree and drag it slightly away, in order to optimize your chances (e.g. drag to an area with less aggros). However, it is frowned upon to drag the tree far away from its regular spawn spot, effectively "hiding" it from other players.

If you successfully manage to kill a tree, it will spawn 10 presents that may be freely killed by anyone, even by a non-teamed passer-by:

- experience catalyzers

- generic raw materials, usable in any craft plan (several combinations of grade, quality and amount of mats)

Also, equippable but purely decorative items that could be in a present:

- a ladle



- a stuffed yubo doll

It changes skin and looks like a gingerbread man during Christmas events.



- a candy cane

It changes skin and looks like a star during Christmas events.



- a pink buckler (that actually looks like a glove)



(I believe Talkirc will have more data about the drop rate of specific content.)

Once killed, a tree will re-pop in approximately 4 hours.

TREE LOCATIONS

This is why you're here, probably :)

There are 8 trees in total, each for one large continent or region. Maps to follow, red dot indicates the approximate sighting spot:

- Desert, Scorched Corridor region



- Lakes, Lagoons of Loria region



- Jungle, Grove of Umbra



- Forest, Nexus



- Lands of Umbra - Gate of Obscurity



- Underspring



- Wastelands, Sunken City



- Abyss of Ichor



Credits

Thanks to Freyr for map screenshots editing.

To Do

If anyone wants to take some screenshots at each actual location in the game world, that would be awesome :)

Figuring out the minimum DPS to beat the tree would also be awesome.

The first tree killed in the event also drops the special armour.

i'll add my data to this thread, but here's one thing:

not all trees can be found with a macro or /tar command, loria, SCo, and GoU can't be found with /tar xmas.

so to add to the data MJ's already posted (nicely done and saves me a portion of the work i was planning) i'll add the data i collected.

all trees EXCEPT Grove of Umbra (witherings), Scorched Corridor (burning desert), and Loria (liberty lakes) can be found with "/tar Xmas" commands if your within 80m to 100m of the tree.

the drops of cats AND generic mats come in the following amounts based on the level of the area it spawns in:
Q200 zones (like grove of umbra)
Q50 = 990
Q100 = 660
Q150 = 440
Q200 = 220

Q250 zones (like loria)
Q50 = 990
Q100 = 440
Q150 = 220
Q200 = 110
Q250 = 55

Drop rates: (these numbers are just rough averages and are by no means absolute, there is a margin of error)
cat's 79%
gen mats 18%
special loot 3%

these numbers reflect the average % of the rewards given from a successful tree kill (you could say these are the odds for what the presents per drop give). the data was collected by myself at first, and with the help of a few others towards the end of the events. (thanks helpers because your data improved my numbers by giving me a larger data pool to work with)

respawn times:
typically around 5 to 6 hours, the delta margin is 4 to 6 hours (never less then 4 hours and never longer then 6 hours, tested this personally for days to be as sure as possible)

factors to consider when attempting to kill a tree:
high regen rate of the trees HP (to promote teamwork, also requires a fairly skilled team, as mj has said.)
location of tree's spawn (some are in the middle of aggro, some in goo, others in locations difficult to get to)
time to spare (with smaller teams it will take some minutes to kill a tree, [a team of 5 can spend over 20 minutes on ONE tree kill)
time of day (or night) the tree has been found (sometimes it's very hard to build a team with the skills needed to kill it, given the number of people playing at a given time and the skill levels required)

in the end the trees are meant to be fun and exciting parts of the atysmas events, many people seek the generic mats these trees drop, but sadly they often only want the highest Q (which come in the smallest quantity, see above) because the gen mat's are not tradable items the lower level gen mats are often destroyed as they are of little use to players with high skill levels.

in closing, i hope that the work MJ, Freyr, myself, and others that did not want to be named has helped you better understand the atysmas event of Xmas trees and all factors related to them.

The 'pink buckler' is actually a pink version of the item received for pre-ordering Ryzom way back when it was released. I have one (it's not pink).

I found the low level mats perfect for teaming with young refugees and doing craft missions with them - as well as the craft missions for the generic weapons - save 'em!