Cataloged Shalewing
Family: Shalewing
Type: Rare Drop
Zone: Zaralek Cavern
Drop Chance: 4%
Faction: Both
Recommended Level: Level 70
Skill Level: 2/10
The Cataloged Shalewing mount has a 4% chance to drop from Researcher’s Gift received at the end of the Researchers Under Fire event. This drop can be infinitely farmed as you will get a Gift every single time you complete the event, even when on the same character.
First, let’s start how to unlock the Zaralek Cavern as this is where the event is held.
How to unlock Zaralek Cavern
In order to start the patch 10.1 campaign to open the Zaralek Cavern, you first need to complete the Forbidden Reach campaign up to the A Creche Divided quest.
Finishing the Scar of Earth and Fire quest on one character will unlock tunnels to the Zaralek Cavern for all your characters but the Forbidden Reach campaign still needs to be completed or skipped on each character separately to get access to the 10.1 campaign.
The beginning quest that will lead you into the Zaralek Cavern is called The Land Beneath, which is picked up from Hadexian on the left side at the top of the Seat of the Aspects.
This questline is the first chapter of the 10.1 campaign and completing it will grant you access to all main features of the Cavern.
Note that you most likely have to complete the first chapter of the 10.1 campaign, up to the part where you unlock world quests. This should also unlock your ability to participate in Researchers Under Fire.
What is Researchers Under Fire?
Researchers Under Fire is an event that happens in the middle of the Zaralek Cavern zone. It is available every hour on the half hour. For example: 1:30, 2:30, etc.
Essentially, you protect some researchers and do various tasks like killing mobs for them. Two different versions of this event exist. One is “Titan Lockdown” and the other is “Zaqali Ruin Investigation”. There is no difference between the two besides possible achievements you can get. There are up to 12 objectives in total per event. These tasks include things such as killing mobs, defeating bosses or bringing back items.
You have roughly 24 minutes to complete all the objectives. Several of the phases are timed as shown below.
If you do not finish the objective in time, it will move on to something else and you will not be able to progress much further. I didn’t complete two timed objectives on purpose for this article and was only able to get up to four total objectives done. The last objective is always the boss Captain Reykal before having to speak to one of the Researchers to end the event.
The more objectives you complete, the better bag you receive. You’re only able to receive the green, blue and purple bags once per week per character. They generally contain better rewards such as more Unearthed Fragrant Coins, Dragon Isles Supplies and Loamm Niffen reputation. Unearthed Fragrant Coins can be used to buy the Igneous Shalewing and Subterranean Magmammoth mounts.
How to farm
If you’re interested in the better rewards, I would recommend bringing a different alt every hour to get the highest box possible. Getting the best rewards is challenging, if not impossible, solo at the time of writing. For that reason, I would recommend joining a group if you can. This should change as Dragonflight becomes older content.
If you don’t care about the extra rewards, park one toon at the Researchers Under Fire event and log in every half hour. If you’ve already gotten the best bags that week, you will receive a white bag every time you complete the event from then on. It does not matter how many objectives you complete because you’ll still get the same bag. I think you only need to kill Captain Reykal for the event to end. You can probably AFK the rest of the time.