Loam Drop Rates

[Twistagain]

1. If you have a tradeskiller who can make this armor, you should be able to afford to make it. I have made about 5 million on sale of exalted symbols since this expansion came out.

*IF* you can get people to help you with the symbol quest, then I'll agree with you. I'm currently sitting on 8 darkroot shaman. My guild has no active tank at the moment. Therefore, I am having a hard time finishing the quest. Don't even get me started on going to Steam Factory for sublime augs.

Other than that, I am more than ready/willing/able to make the new augs. The Elegant armor sure isn't selling worth a crap.

[Bakkura]

I dunno...

I agree the armor is very,very good,however i disagree that it's way over powered and broken.I look at is as a reward.It has taken my husband and i close to a year of farming smithing and tailoring components to reach 300 in each skill so we could make our cultural armor and symbols.We've done all the quests,just finished our sublime symbol quest,goin yes!finally everything we've busted our behinds for will be worth it!
Neither of us will have access to a last blood aug,probably for a very long time,we were just looking forward to reaping the fruits of our toil,meaning elegant armor plus the sub symbols,and trying to throw decent slot appropriate augs on as we could get in them.
We have approx 70-80 hours so far in the Steam Factory and probably more in FM.1Porous Loam dropped,which i actually won the roll on,2 exquisite marrows,2 exquisite spineretes.
Keeping it the way it is is fine for the big boys in the bigger guilds who already have their armor/symbols made,with their lastbloods,bics etc,and most likely the ones screaming the loudest about any "nerf",or fix.
For us little guys,i dunno that even doing the cultural is even worth it any more.Can't get the drops,certainly can't make the armor/symbols,and all the time camping greys and greens for ts items,well..../shrug.
Not meaning to rant,just kinda fed up with camping for hours today

[Zopharr]

1. Money is easy to get playing the game.

Not sure I'd say "easy"...but yes, if you apply yourself to it (just like RL), there are ways to make money. Just may take awhile.

[greblhad]

This is only true if it is decided to make a change to cultural.

if we make no changes well, then there are no changes. If people insist that it is a requirement to keep the broken overpowered armor then there is no room in there to add the 75 without making changes. No changes = no changes.

I am looking over the dropped group armor and comparing it to the Elegant armors and I see the TS armors as being under the dropped armor. What specifically makes the TS armors overpowered? Because they are player made?

[melkorr]

Were you comparing elegant+sublime+last blood? That's where the major complaints were.

[Ngreth Thergn]

As indicated. The group armor by itself is fine. It is when you add the last Blood that things go wrong.

[Stewwy]

As indicated. The group armor by itself is fine. It is when you add the last Blood that things go wrong.

Ok Im confused. Im not a raider and the best type 12 augs Ill ever see are from DoN 5 expansions ago, but the rates of the armor coming into the world are being affected by augs Ill never see? Sounds like the lastblood augs need to be given their own slot or they need to be changed to 8 IMO. Raiders and groupers shouldn't be fighting for the same armor anyway.

This logic just baffles me. Slot 12's have been broken since DoDh because of Lastblood augs. Time to fix it SOE, not punish the groupers who are the target audience for TS made armor and augs.

[Aldier]

Ok Im confused. Im not a raider and the best type 12 augs Ill ever see are from DoN 5 expansions ago, but the rates of the armor coming into the world are being affected by augs Ill never see? Sounds like the lastblood augs need to be given their own slot or they need to be changed to 8 IMO. Raiders and groupers shouldn't be fighting for the same armor anyway.

This logic just baffles me. Slot 12's have been broken since DoDh because of Lastblood augs. Time to fix it SOE, not punish the groupers who are the target audience for TS made armor and augs.

First, this armor is designed to be group armor that is upgradeable to raid armor. The target audience is EVERYONE that wishes to use this as an alternative to standard group or raid armor. Slot 12s have not been broken. They have stated in hindsight that the stats were slightly higher than they should have been, but that it was not something they were going to correct at that time. There is also a group type 12 augment in the game. It is found in Crystallos. So group players do have access to some new better than DoN/OoW era augments that can fit in the slot 12.

Second, the rates the armor are coming into the world are based on the premise that this GROUP armor is comparable to Tier 3 GROUP armor. Therefore, it should require similar effort to obtain the tradeskill drops as it would to obtain Tier 3 GROUP armor. That means T3/T4 SoF zones are the only places that fit the difficulty for group play. Further, this is not supposed to be THE best choice, but simply a choice. So the rarity has to be low enough to parallel with group armor choices.

[dak47]

I have only one problem with the comparing to group/raid thingy. It's fine as long as the tradeskilled armor is slightly better than it's dropped sibling, but when you state that it should be equal, that's just plain wrong in the eyes of work vs reward. I would like to see more numbers comparing the Elegant/Sublime/Faycite armor to the dropped armors in the same level range (80).

There's TONS of work/plat to be spent to get your 80/80 armor, and then you need a raid drop to complete it (Faycite). This then gets compared to the SoF tier4 dropped armor, which is in fact not that bad (only ~150-200hp behind on the BP, no difference in AC). If you reduce this distance to say, 50hp per piece, I'm ok with that. If you reduce it so that on average it's +-0, that's bad.

Because lets be honest - if you had the choice of either buying 1 raiddrop and having the complete armor done, or buying 1 raiddrop and needing either lots of plat or lots of tier3/tier4 group camping to get a CHANCE at making the armor and symbol, the choice is simple. You'd get the 1 raiddrop to complete your armor.

That said, one could argue that you spend at least as much time camping the lower tiered dropped armor (and it's upgrades) as you do camping loams/spinnerets etc. One would be wrong, though. First of all, the dropped armor doesn't have a failrate. Secondly, the first step is retrieved from tier2 zones. Thirdly, you can camp a named and get a virtually guaranteed drop when they spawn (which can be, in worst case scenarios, be traded for your own drop).

Like I said earlier though, I'd like to see more numbers on how Elegant/Sublime with Faycite will compare post-change to SoF tier4 armors.

[Aldier]

I have only one problem with the comparing to group/raid thingy. It's fine as long as the tradeskilled armor is slightly better than it's dropped sibling, but when you state that it should be equal, that's just plain wrong in the eyes of work vs reward. I would like to see more numbers comparing the Elegant/Sublime/Faycite armor to the dropped armors in the same level range (80).

There's TONS of work/plat to be spent to get your 80/80 armor, and then you need a raid drop to complete it (Faycite). This then gets compared to the SoF tier4 dropped armor, which is in fact not that bad (only ~150-200hp behind on the BP, no difference in AC). If you reduce this distance to say, 50hp per piece, I'm ok with that. If you reduce it so that on average it's +-0, that's bad.

Because lets be honest - if you had the choice of either buying 1 raiddrop and having the complete armor done, or buying 1 raiddrop and needing either lots of plat or lots of tier3/tier4 group camping to get a CHANCE at making the armor and symbol, the choice is simple. You'd get the 1 raiddrop to complete your armor.

That said, one could argue that you spend at least as much time camping the lower tiered dropped armor (and it's upgrades) as you do camping loams/spinnerets etc. One would be wrong, though. First of all, the dropped armor doesn't have a failrate. Secondly, the first step is retrieved from tier2 zones. Thirdly, you can camp a named and get a virtually guaranteed drop when they spawn (which can be, in worst case scenarios, be traded for your own drop).

Like I said earlier though, I'd like to see more numbers on how Elegant/Sublime with Faycite will compare post-change to SoF tier4 armors.

Elegant/Sublime + Faycite is supposed to be comparable to Tier 3 raid armor. I do not know the exact stats and have not looked at the raid armor those mobs are dropping to say how it compares.

If you are trying to compare raid armor to group armor within the same expansion and seeing a 150 hp/mana increase (+ better mod2s + better foci) over the group armor, then I do not see where you are upset.

If your complaint is that you have to get tier 3 group drops to make tier 3 group comparable armor (that has the option to be upgraded to raid armor) and your trying to compare it to tier 2 group armor that requires a tier 3 group drop to upgrade it to tier 3 group armor? It would be on the order of 250+ hp/mana increase to go from group to raid. If you are trying to compare the Tier 3 raid armor to the Tier 4 group armor, then I think it is only a 150 hp/mana increase. Hiwever, I do not think anyone will feel that group and raid armor from the same expansion should be compared. Again, I do not know the ac numbers as I do not play a class that really cares too much about ac.

If you could show where Elegant/Sublime + Faycite was WORSE than Tier 4 group armor, then an argument could be made for an increase.