Evolving items and gear resets, a suggestion...

The problem with it is that those slots are removed from the itemization. It's already an overkill that we got 4 of them in TBL. That's 4 slots you don't need to obtain from raiding, 4 sets of items that automatically rot or go to alts.

Next expansion, these 4 slots stay BiS, and 4 more get removed from the itemization? I think that's a bad idea.

This is essentially the dilemma that those of us who are recently back to the game face with the TBL items. I wasn't playing during EoK or most of RoS. The effort required to go back to complete a ton of content that is no longer commonly done for progression, yet is still new enough that it requires a group, is simply not practical.

The evolving items would have held more interest for me if the /ach requirements applied in stages. Let me complete a subset of the overall requirements to evolve to level 2, for instance, then more objectives to evolve to level 3, etc. Instead all the requirements must be done upfront, and even if I put the time and effort in to finish them, the TBL XP I would have earned in the meantime was not applied to their evolution.


At least it saves me having to obsess about type 18/19 augs.

Well originally these were going to be augments like artisans prize. One for hunters, another for achievements, etc but many a folk cried foul about "grey" content and how they shouldn't have to go back and do that for best in slot items. These are exactly the same thing, you still have to go back in old content maybe not back as far but it opened problems in other areas. For all the work I would have much preferred augments considering they are more apt to stick around a lot longer but here we are.

And there's your answer. The items will ultimately become augments when expansion gear becomes better.

Well, you "don't have to obsess", but also it's a semi-permanent hole in your character's power to not have the four procs Wispering & Blazing Casting Fires & Assaulting (somethings).

Well my comment was tongue in cheek, but I don't disagree with you. I'm just being realistic about the playtime I have available and the best use of my limited time.

The boots are easily the easiest for casual players.

Long as they have at least 5 friends whom are Ros VP keyed.. it's cake.

I worry about these things because I <3 my alts, kinda, but a second-stringer like my berserker (poor fella shares acct behind cle, who gets to group with main warrior) is permanent-ish-ly behind by some amount of accuracy & procs.

The point of the evolving items requiring older content be done is to essentially create content for the expansion that would other wise require dev time. Most people don't have all (or much) of those older achs done, so by tying evolution to them it creates free content for the expansion. They did a similar thing with the tradeskill aug and 350 skill for example. In order to level it up you had to go and farm materials from all over Norath, and that required play time, which is the whole point. In order to make that extra play time worth while, the items that result from it have to be too good to otherwise ignore. That gives people the incentive to do it.

The ring is also (or should be) easy since most people like have all of the requirements done already, other than VP is not keyed (although most are at this point).

The ones which will be the biggest time sinks are the collection and hunter ones, since those achs have not been a super high priority for most people.

Yep, I totally agree and I think it makes sense to give players a reason to do older content. My only complaint is that the requirements for a given item must ALL be completed upfront, before even being able to evolve the item to level 2. Breaking the requirements down into subsets so that the items can be partially evolved would have provided incentive for those of us who essentially have none of the requirements done due to having been away from the game.

I have never done any progression for Arx Mentis or VP, but I had all collections for shoulders before TBL is launched. So easiest is shoulders by far, next is boots if there is a way to enter VP without flag.

Nope

"piggybacking" 85/15 style into the raid instance doesn't require Scaled Key. 5 raider friends required, though.

Yes, there is a way. I did it for my two alts. Get 5 flagged people in group with the person. Request the VP 12-person mission. Have the person zone in via the quest giver (In OT). They get the credit. (If you have more people, have them zone out and the next add to task and zone in.) I forget if I requested it in raid or group format. The 85% flagged works for this to piggy someone into VP.

Or don't be a slacker and do your ros/eok progression since you need it for the ring anyways!
/wink

That will not help you get the merc ach for VP, which you need for the ring though.