Sunshard - blessing or curse?

[Catweazel]

Although these comments might apply to dust and pebbles, I am mainly concerned with the Sunshard Ore.

I have been watching the market for Sunshard Ore for the last month or so. On the surface it is a great concept. Global drop tables by mob level means that it can potentially be farmed anywhere and everywhere. Dig a little deeper, and there are some problems:

1. Sunshard Ore drops off mobs between 55-65 (not formally confirmed, but consensus around these levels). Practical reality means that it really needs to be farmed, as it is unlikely that experience groups in this level range will hang onto the drops for the bazaar. Mobs that are killed extensively in higher level TSS zones and TBS missions and quests are all way above level 65. Can anyone confirm getting Ore from currently highly frequented zones and from mobs 72-76 level range?
2. I have tried "farming" ore from level 60 mobs. Personally I have trouble farming mobs at this level. Most are lblue and take significant effort to kill. With luck, I can kill 40 or 50 an hour. At that kill rate (in Plane of Hate Tier 2 for example) I can get 2 Sunshard Ore per hour on average.
3. Demand for the ore, which can be utilized in 5 tradeskills and from levels around 250+ to 300+, is far outstripping supply. Buy prices in the Bazaar are now past 1000plat per piece. With roughly 750 to 1000 pieces of ore required to get from 250 to 300, buying the ore in sufficient quantities seems impractical for most players. I have watched the Ore come in at a rate of around 100 pieces per day move from 200plat per piece to a high of 2400plat each.

I am sure it is still early days in the life of Sunshard Ore, however, these early indications seem to imply my choice to move Tailoring from 250 to 300 by farming Othmir's is perhaps a cheaper and more focused solution than trying to farm level 60 mobs or buying from the bazaar. To be honest, I have no intention of farming Othmir's. Kudos to those who did.

I don't know whether the drop rate is too low yet for Sunshard, but I am now of mixed emotions whether global drop tables by level is as good as I first thought, unless the level of the mobs dropping the ore is consistent with the ease of obtaining it. As an example, we killed around 150 pirates the other night as part of the progression Hand Aug quest. No sunshard ore dropped. We received 6 aa's each, and completed some progression quests, but it would have been nice to have seen 10 or 20 bricks in that time. Killing 50 mobs for 2 drops in POH is totally unrealistic as a farming method when conservatively I could require 1000's of ore to raise my tradeskills.

I am interested in other people's views.

[Maevenniia]

My view is that Sunshard Ore opens up another option for skill ups, and I will continue to gather/farm/buy other components rather than rely solely on Sunshard combines.

Having said this, I find Sunshard ore on merchants every day, 1 or 2 here and there, sometimes more, and have amost 2 full stacks so try vendormining

[Strokker]

I agree Sunshards are a good skill up but only so much and only in two skills Jewlcraft and tinkering ( at least the initial combine, and I may (read most likely) be wrong here). I think that there are better ways to make a skill up path though and like Mae I am not going to limit myself.

[Roanne]

I would like to see the ore drop of higher end mobs as well, but I can live with it the way it is.

The ore wouldnt cost 1000pp each if someone weren't willing to pay it (and generally the price of items you see in the bazaar is the price people arent willing to pay).

I agree with the popular sentiment. Its a nice extra skill up path (especially for jewelers and tinkers who also happen to be skilling up one of the other 5 tradeskills its used in and can get as many as 3 skillup chances out of one drop minus failed combines), but dont limit yourself to it. Youre no worse off with limited drop rate of Sunshard Ore than you were before it was added.

[Catweazel]

Part of my point was that with Yttrium or MDS's or Silks I knew *exactly* where to go, which mobs to camp, what the likely drop rate was. With global drop tables, I no longer know exactly where to go, and if I head to an area with generally available mobs at the right level, I am firstly uncertain whether they are the right level and secondly the drop rate is extremely poor.

I am sure SOE reports show that X Sunshard Ore dropped in a certain time period, but when compared to Yttrium for example, this is server wide across the whole player base, and not all of those drops make it to the people who need it.

From what I have read, global drops are likely to be something that we will see more of. Controlling their influx into the game *to the right people who need it* seems to be a potential design flaw.

Camping vendors for vendor diving to get the needed quantity is hardly my idea of pleasurable entertainment, nor is paying astronomical amounts in the bazaar just because rich people are driving up the prices. There is no longer a "camping" option.

[Gorse]

I find the fact that a single person or group of people can no longer perpetually hold camps and thus block others for their own gain or prophet refreshing. I don't mind being able to go see different places and still get the items I need.



Gorse

[Gaell Stormracer]

As my monk, I made a concerted effort to skill up tailoring on Master cultural using Great Reptile Hides from Veeshan's Peak -- in two weeks, I have killed 1003 raptors and a dozen or so other mobs, gained approx 30 AAs, collected 635 GRHs, and 39 sunshard ore.

(I went from 230 to 290 on the Master Shadowrise combines -- from 220 to 230 I did a number of copper conduit combines -- using Sunshard Pebbles).

Using that Ore, plus 6 more donated by a guildmate, I've gotten 2 skill-ups (291 and 292).

My conclusion is that, while the Sunshard Pebble combines are a reasonably "farmable" skill-up route for a high level tailor/smith, the Sunshard Ore is not.

Since the new cultural materials will work the same way, they'll have the same problem. (After all, the old combines are going away, so it's not a case of using the Sunshard to supplement a more reliable route, at least for smithing and tailoring -- and Tinkering, because of the Yttrium route).

While this may indeed be levelling the playing field between those races who had easy to obtain cultural materials (Shissar Scales for Tailoring or Yttrium Ore for Smithing) and those who did not, I don't think anyone but the GM (sorry, "elaborate") robe wearers will be much happier (since Coarse Silk was only slightly less rare than rocking horse manure) and everyone else wil be less than pleased.

[Catweazel]

I find the fact that a single person or group of people can no longer perpetually hold camps and thus block others for their own gain or prophet refreshing. I don't mind being able to go see different places and still get the items I need.



Gorse

Although your pont is a valid one for camp blockers and profit boxers it has little relevance to the tradeskillers issue of where to find supplies with global drop tables. MDS's are in instanced zones, Yttrium (in my experience) has never been so heavily camped that there was a "block" and specific silks drop off specific mobs and you always know where to go and get them.

As Gaell points out (and I happen to agree), Sunshard Ore is not the nirvana I thought it was being advertised as. That might be a problem in me misreading the advertisement - but at the moment I am a little disillusioned with the promise of global drops.

[Tassrin]

Although your pont is a valid one for camp blockers and profit boxers it has little relevance to the tradeskillers issue of where to find supplies with global drop tables. MDS's are in instanced zones, Yttrium (in my experience) has never been so heavily camped that there was a "block" and specific silks drop off specific mobs and you always know where to go and get them.

As Gaell points out (and I happen to agree), Sunshard Ore is not the nirvana I thought it was being advertised as. That might be a problem in me misreading the advertisement - but at the moment I am a little disillusioned with the promise of global drops.

But how can you NOT know where to go? Fight level 55-65ish mobs and you get ore. Simple as that. You can go anywhere that those mobs exist.

[Catweazel]

But how can you NOT know where to go? Fight level 55-65ish mobs and you get ore. Simple as that. You can go anywhere that those mobs exist.

Apart from the fact that mobs do not have levels over their names, and most mobs spawn with a range of levels, you cannot be entirely certain you are killing a specific mob of a specific level consistently in order to gauge whether it is a worthy mob to kill repeatedly for a drop.

As I mentioned originally, killing 50 or so mobs in Tier 2 POH which do have mobs that apparently fall within the required level range, I get on average 2 bricks of Sunshard Ore. At that rate, Sunshard Ore is not a viable camp when compared to other choices for a skill up path.

I am not denying Sunshard Ore is a great item for skilling up or that I can find it on mobs of the required level or that I can mortgage my house to buy some or that I can find some cheap on vendors. The whole point is about the viability of global drop tables for Tradeskillers finding materials to perform skill up runs.

[Liwsa]

in NC last night 4 hours at Drunt/Aggr camp 6 sunshard ores dropped.

[Eleena Transient]

One handy thing is that at 75 mobs that are 54 are gray and 55 are green. While there is no way to confirm the mobs are 65 and under (they all light blue), there is at least a way to check they are high enough.

[Wyvernwill]

The thing that bothers me is the cut off levels for the highest level stuff. While it's understandable, it seems that devs have made a conscious effort to steer the game away from "Kill fast dark blues for the best exp" to "Kill mobs within Five levels for the best exp gains". While this is a nice idea, the sunshard ores dropping off of mobs ten levels lower than max level makes it so that most people will not be killing mobs anywhere near that range.

So if that was an intended influx limiter... it's doing it's job perfectly.

[Gaell Stormracer]

At 75, mobs 55-59 are green, and 60-69 are light blue. At 70+, especially in the era where the likes of Direwind or Valdeholme are the experience/loot camps of choice of casuals, we would not see any of these.

If the top end of the level range was extended up to (say) 72, then we could continue to adventure with our companions AND have a decent chance of getting these drops to work on our skills.

[apprw]

As a player that cannot get on very often, I find global drops hard to get.
When certain mobs drop them I can use my game time to farm them, with global I cannot get many. I have gotten more off venders than I have been able to get by killing mobs. What a way to spend game time...sitting by venders.