Sunshard - blessing or curse?

[Gaell Stormracer]

EDIT: You know I think I realized what the crux of my argument is on this ore issue. Don't ask for ore to drop in more places. Ask for Sunshard Bricks to start dropping from 66 - 75 mobs and a new tier of armor introduced that the 75 crowd might find appealing.

That'd be fine with me too....

Abazagaroth - thanks for the tip, that's not too dreadful, and instanced = no one person hogging all the spawns in an area.

[Drawde]

How does the lowest level of vendor bought energeiac items compare to the sunshard ore made stuff? Those vendor bought items are technically the next level up, and you'd have a lot of screaming if they were suddenly player made as well, by adding "sunshard bricks" or some such.

[Abazagaroth]

Oh, lair of the trapped ones is the best sewers instance. Seems to have the highest drop rate and all the mobs are in the right level range as far as I can tell (all are light blue to 75).

[Tassrin]

How does the lowest level of vendor bought energeiac items compare to the sunshard ore made stuff? Those vendor bought items are technically the next level up, and you'd have a lot of screaming if they were suddenly player made as well, by adding "sunshard bricks" or some such.

Well, since I think we all agree that variety is the spice of life, even if it's sometimes bitter and sometimes sweet, a new set of armor should be available from the bricks. Maybe sets that can vary their focus effects up a bit from the norm.

Personally I think it'd be kinda neat to have a base template type combine like energaeic and be able to 'kick it up a notch' by adding different types of gems directly to the combine. Say a pearl to add spell haste or a peridot to add extended enhancement. I know this would require a substantial more recipe records to accomodate all possibilities for a very limited usefulness, but it'd be nice in my opinion to be able to offer that semi raid geared guy who just can't seem to find any mana pres on a decent item and could turn to his tradeskill buddy and say "Hey, my gloves are kinda dragging, what can ya make? Oh and can you put some MP on it for me? ooo got any fries with that?"

Sounds fun to me and adds a further outlet for tradeskilled items (not to mention a slightly increased money sink on high end items, after all I'm sure diamonds and blue diamonds will factor into some very nice foci :-D)

Rambling again, sorry... curse of the bards....


OOOOO SHINY!

[Cedor]

Chardok B is an excellent spot for sunshard ores. All the mobs in the building past the first named quest giver are level 57 to 61 (except the named mobs, which are 63, and the guard mobs in Korucrust's room). Stay away from that one room (or not if you're uber) and you have low hitpoint, low max hit, non-casting, and non-running-at-low-health mobs.

[Gaell Stormracer]

How does the lowest level of vendor bought energeiac items compare to the sunshard ore made stuff? Those vendor bought items are technically the next level up, and you'd have a lot of screaming if they were suddenly player made as well, by adding "sunshard bricks" or some such.

Comparing the lowest tier Vendor plate BP vs the Sunshard Ore plate BP:

Polished Energeiac Plate Breastplate
MAGIC ITEM ATTUNEABLE
Slot: CHEST
Purity: 40
AC: 55
STR: +5 DEX: +5 STA: +5 CHA: +5 WIS: +5 INT: +5 AGI: +5 HP: +80 MANA: +80 ENDUR: +80
SV FIRE: +4 SV DISEASE: +4 SV COLD: +4 SV MAGIC: +4 SV POISON: +4
Recommended level of 60. Required level of 55.
Focus: Mana Preservation IV
WT: 14.0 Size: LARGE
Class: WAR CLR PAL SHD BRD
Race: ALL
Slot 1, Type 7 (General: Group)

Smuggler's Energeiac Plate Breastplate
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO TRADE
Slot: CHEST
Purity: 40
AC: 92
STR: +6 DEX: +6 STA: +6 CHA: +6 WIS: +6 INT: +6 AGI: +6 HP: +145 MANA: +145 ENDUR: +145
SV FIRE: +4 SV DISEASE: +4 SV COLD: +4 SV MAGIC: +4 SV POISON: +4
Attack: +30 Regeneration: +3 Mana Regeneration: +3
Recommended level of 70. Required level of 65.
Effect: Ferocity I (Worn, Casting Time: Instant)
WT: 11.7 Size: LARGE
Class: WAR CLR PAL SHD BRD
Race: ALL
Slot 1, Type 7 (General: Group)

Same purity
67% more AC (+37 AC)
20% more stats (+1 stats)
81% more HP (+65 HP)
Same resists
+10 recommended/required levels.

Fero I vs Mana Preservation IV - debateable.

-- to me, it seems that there's room for 1 more set of armour between the two, with HP and AC intermediate (and rec 65/req 60 if essential - although there's plenty of gear from earlier expansions that is usable at 55+ and is superior).

[Uuggerr]

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?

Yes I get probly 4 or 5 a night off the carrions at the boneyard in direwinds. That not a high frequentcy but it is some, just thought I would share.

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.

For soloing that kill rate of a mob every 1.25 minutes is not bad, yes the 2 ores per hour is horrible.

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.

I agree I would like to see the ore drop more readily. I am currently working Tinkering and my Friend is working Jewlery, we are taking the conduits we make and giving to our alts to do smithing, and yes double or triple the drop rate would be nice.

I hope when they do the global drop rates for cultural it will be atleast this common of drops, as for... yes 1k an ore is costly, but right now I am focusing on Grandmaster gear, and if I only have to pay 1k for the primary component of my grandmaster gear I will be one happy ogre.. right now MDS go for 20k-25k each on Cazic.

Peace

[Aetemius]

You used to be able to find 20-40 ores for sale on my server on any given night, but it looks like the cat is out of the bag now. I haven't been able to purchase any the past few nights, and now there is one seller with 45+ ores, but the price has ballooned from 300-400 to 2.5k-3k per. I have a strong dislike for people that jack prices after buying all of one material.

[Tassrin]

Comparing the lowest tier Vendor plate BP vs the Sunshard Ore plate BP:

--snip--

Same purity
67% more AC (+37 AC)
20% more stats (+1 stats)
81% more HP (+65 HP)
Same resists
+10 recommended/required levels.

Fero I vs Mana Preservation IV - debateable.

-- to me, it seems that there's room for 1 more set of armour between the two, with HP and AC intermediate (and rec 65/req 60 if essential - although there's plenty of gear from earlier expansions that is usable at 55+ and is superior).

Psst there's also 30 atk, 3 mana regen and 3 hp regen.

[Gaell Stormracer]

Psst there's also 30 atk, 3 mana regen and 3 hp regen.

Yes, on the VENDOR version, which I missed. So there's PLENTY of room for another Player-crafted tier -- and shows just how inferior the current "top" Sunshard ore gear is.

This isn't Ngreth's fault at all -- the idea is fine -- but the Itemization guy (Merloc) has been incredibly "cautious" about all items in the Buried Sea expansion, but has at least fixed a significant number of the Vendor-bought and Dropped items.