Q8 OS Long Sword

chest runs crystal desert. nm ofc. but yeah... gl on that

Desert better than maguuma, best is to farm prophecies, less skins on drop pool = more chances for longsword. So find a foe that drops as little different skins as possible (just core skins etc) and ur odds are higher assuming the level range is right

most certainly you can also get one in fac. it wouldn't be the best spot though. the reason I am thinking of is the additional available skins: katana, shinobi, jitte, dadao, dusk, ... you know what I mean. so you would only have half the chance per gold item for it to be a long sword compared to proph. (also remember that kaineng in the most part drops cele/cren swords as swords only, so only in the right spots you will get core skins like the long sword).

maguuma certainly can also generate them, but the chance for a max dmg q8 sword is way lower than on lvl20s. so I'd also not do that.

the only via le alternative I'd see is a farm of some lvl19/20 mobs in proph, but in my experience the gold items per time is lower on an nm farm like that compared to a chest run.

Is the chance for rare items during favor in normal mode also increased, or only in hard mode?

Favor affects normal mode too, and for that reason many q8 farms are only viable with favor really for more gold drops

chests are unaffected though - nm and hm. chest rate as well as retention rate as well as gold item rate