Has anybody looted one of the TBL chase loot items in the Fight Fire instance? I tried for weeks and last year I was used to get drops at least after 5-10 runs. Or did they nerf it into oblivion? Makes no sense for an old expac...
Welcome to random numbers. I saw one in a group the first day of launch. I then did the mission 42 times myself before I saw another drop. We have guildees who do the mission for alts every week. I probably see a rot call for a piece not wanted about every other week. The pieces still drop. Rate hasn't changed. Randomness is a thing.
I think I got a mask from that, assuming it was a chase item since I haven't seen anything like that since. Have only run it a few times though.
This was my experience right after release. Took me over 50 runs to get my ring. I regret doing the chase items in TBL, sucked the fun out of the expansion.
Many thanks, so they still drop. So I was lucky when I did my runs. I had partly every 1-3 runs an item, rarely even 2 items per single run. 5-10 times was the harshest but not the standard. Thought that was the typcial "starter phase" of an xpac where the random numbers are more in favor of the players...
Any evolving item in EQ is where fun goes to die, so proclaims the God of Pointless and Tedious Things.
I evolved the first couple of chase items while doing progression without focus on evolving. Only getting the items seems meanwhile quite a time sink... For me as a non-raider it is a way to get into raid items while simpy playing through the content. So thumbs up with them for me. The same goes for the ToV-Earring. It is like Epic 3.0, 4.0, 5.0.... only while doing normal killing and progression...
We did the mission just a couple hours ago to get a new player his mask and we got the boots. They can be very rare, can go dozens of missions without one, or like one of my guildmates did, get 3 in one run. One thing is certain, that last of the four you need to complete the set is always the most rare!
Evolving items are mostly awful due to the huge kill requirement for them. I think they would be much more tolerable if they granted a flat 5% for every in era mission you complete. Sort of like Tears of Alaris give 5% for consuming a tablet. This way you could get your evolving done while you grind through your Type 5 augs since farming missions is the only way you've been able to get a set of Type 5 augs since they were introduced.
guildie of mine last year did over 100 runs without any drops to get his alts some chase gear.. fun fun
Starting last December while off work for the end of year I started doing Fight Fire three times a day, every day, for weeks. I don't have exact numbers to hand now but the most common chase item was the shoulders (probably 6-8) followed closely by gloves (6 tops). There were only a couple rings and zero boots. All told I did the mission nearly 100 times and had no boots at all, and it is thanks to guildmates who were running the mission before me to see if they could help with boots (and they did). I NEVER want to do that mission ever again. To keep from entirely losing my sanity, I spent a dozen or so runs trying to "speed run" the mission and my personal best as a solo necromancer with a Cleric merc is around 9 minutes. It's hard because you can't let the final four lieutenants die from dots while "stunned" or they never drop loot.
Each of the last 4 MOB's each can drop a specific one of the 4 items. Potentially, you could get all 4 in one mission (I have seen 2 drop in one mission). However, the chances are slim for any of them to drop one at all, since the items are "rare" chase loot items. It's just a random thing. If I recall, when TBL first came out, it was determined that, generally, you might get 1 item from every 10 Missions. The good news is that these days, it is so much easier to beat... but you still have to progress the items and have the Achievements to Level them up.
They drop, but the chances are all over the place as others have said. Over the past two years, I've ran about 250 of these. I was averaging a drop every 50 runs. I kind of gave up after getting 4 out of the 12 total items I wanted. A guild mate got me 3 more. Leveling them was the easy part, acquiring them is a monumental feat of insanity. 3 Rings, 2 Shoulders, 2 Boots, 0 Gloves.
Having extreme time sinks in old stuff which is even given for free only prevents people to do them anymore or hinder lowbies or alts to keep up with the crowd. These time sinks do not add to any game pleasure nor do they have any sense. If they would be in a current expac then it would have at least the "challenge" of doing boring stuff over and over again to proof to be more stubborn in doing brainless things than all others on a server despite they don't really add to a game play. Some old stuff do not need such game mechanics - else these specials will only be there to prevail the ashes instead of inspiring and firing a spark into a flame! At least they could be a kind of fun for some alts to prevent burn out or boredom when the current xpac has been done by the mains! But running that mission a hundred times negates even that notion. It is enough that they have extensive time sinks to level the items in doing extensive content in many previous xpacs. That would at least has some motivation to look into the old xpacs. I have tried that now for around a week and not a single drop.... boooooring.... my 2 cents...
