Ancient Cloak of Flames (raid item) off Death Beetle

Haha, it is hard for me to want to do anything other than kill trash mobs with the random zonewide going on. I may not be sure what to do after the HH is over!

Once you take into account the respawn rate isn't 30mins and the chance of dropping isn't 1 in 10000, the figure comes down to around 100 man hours per loot. Still higher than i expected.

Are these man hour rates including boxes, so if I 2 box for 3 hours I put in 6 man hours? 3 box for 4 I put in 12?

Anyways, the drop rate is definitely a poop for me, 3 boxed it for 8-9 hours for first ACoF, 25 more hours for second ACoF, on 4 hours and counting looking for a third. This was clearing about 15-23 mobs on a ~10 minute respawn timer. No one really responds when I announce LING about looting a cloak, like one might for AA/ping or level/ding. Guess that one isn't catching on, it should though, is worse than leveling ever was!

i would have really prefered it being no drop and more common , im at near 40 hours and still no cloak

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear in my post. This WASN'T about the cloak from nagafen's lair. I'd say the drop rate is much closer to 1 in 500, if not 1 in 200. This was about the hypothetical idea of having more items like this in group content that a person a couple posts prior had brought up. The 30 minute number was based on general respawns in regular zones, not nagafens, which is much much faster.

Again, the person presented the idea of including this, but with lower quality (t1/t2 raid level) and no drop instead of tradable. The person I quoted hated this idea, saying it would be easier and faster to gear up in a group than to raid and that no one would raid anymore. I was simply showing that that simply wouldn't be true from an effeciency standpoint.

And yes, I was counting "man hours" per toon...boxing would obviously cut down on that (as would boxers on raids, raiding with incomplete raids, etc.). It also came with the stipulation that a group could kill 100 mobs every 30 minutes...or over 1 mob every 20 seconds constantly for 100 hours. Is it doable? Theoretically...but having a zone that compact in current eq isn't likely...nor is maintaining that pace.

They could obviously adjust the drop rates however they saw fit to make sure the time:reward ratio is significantly better for raiders than groupers.

~MrGPAC

Wow, someone with less luck than me, I salute you sir! Keep at it though!

About an hour of keeping 5 giants down, got one...stayed for about another hour after to see if I was super ultra lucky, nope.

There are no rare drops in the game that are 1:10000 mobs killed. That would be reasonable imo but they have never made anything that rare in the past. Normal rare chase items were always around 1:100 or so depending on luck and the rng. And that would be faster to do stuff in group content than raid. I would not hate it if it was hard to get a full doing group stuff set as you want.

In order for people not bleeding edge to bother raiding, the gear would need to be extremely rare and not like the "rare" chase items like the cloak is which is probably about 1:200 kills.

Love that! MHpT is my new criteria for anything worthwhile in EQ .

The drop rate is within 1 in 300, ie 0.3%. Man hours matter not at all for the purpose of this discussion because HH isn't available for the rest of the year, and is therefore very different from your standard grouping and raiding zones.

This may have come up already discussing this cloak drop for the HH version of Nag. Lair, but I think they over did the rarity just a touch. I have been camping bugs and bats, with a steady kill rate between 1-2/min, for almost 20 hours of game time over the course of two days and haven't seen a single drop. Most of the other groups on Drinal who were answering ooc quires today reported similar dry spells. I know they probably don't want a flood of these in the game but this seems beyond reasonable.

I have heard of someone that has camped 8 of these already.

That was claimed in this thread.

I have gotten 2 cloaks in just under 4000 kills (counting all time in groups, trio, duo, molo, and boxing since it went live, of course). I got 0 for the first 3900ish kills, and 2 within 30 kills after the zone re-pop earlier today. Just pure luck. Still about 1 in 1960ish drop rate for me, overall, though.

Im at 5 already pretty much been living in solb tho

That is actually surprising. I would've definitely called BS if someone said they had 8 cloaks drop the first day, but the HH zones have been out nearly a week now and I could certainly see those kind of numbers.

"I've killed 2000 mobs and got none" and "I got two in my first hour" outliers aside, most people I've talked to have been able to pull a cloak (or ring) out of a 12-16 hours of play while moloing (50~ mobs/hr). If you've got a DPS-heavy box team and a large enough camp I could definitely see doing something like 100 mobs/hr and being able to semi-reliably pull in multiple cloaks every day.

Of course it is possible that such box groups *have* had 8+ cloaks drop, but since they weren't looted/kept by the same character, whatever method Elidroth is checking by won't show it.

Can we confirm that ANYTHING in zone can drop it? Been going for about 20 hours (1100 or 1200 mobs) and got none so far? What is the actual drop rate?

I've personally seen it drop off LDCs, kobolds, bats, and imps. I've anecdotally heard of it dropping off beetles and fire elementals. It should be a zone-level loot, I don't see any reason to doubt that any mob type can drop it. I've heard of a lot unluckier folks than you, I personally got mine around the 800~ mob mark.

Just be persistent.

Question.

Since it is a zone wide drop, could it be spawned on a mob that hasn't been killed and stop any chance of it spawning again? Sometimes it drops a couple of times a day and sometimes it drops very very rarely.

I both group and raid. Primarily a grouper these days, although I am raiding up to HoF Tier 3 occasionally. I had been a hard core raider for some years in the past though, so feel I am justified in having an opinion on this.
Your argument that raid gear is balanced around raid requirements, and therefore groupers should neither have access to, or the need of, raid level stats does not hold water.
For your position to be true, raid gear stats should drop to the appropriate tier group stats when doing group content. Otherwise, group content is trivialized.
Now I won't try and speak for others, but with only reference my personal experience. Many times I have personally experienced individuals in raid gear monopolize group content because their gear allows it. It was certainly not because of any greater skill of the player. Watching their technique, and sometimes even grouping or raiding with that same individual at times have convinced me on this.
What I HAVE seen, time and again, is exactly the kind of behavior that I would feel comfortable in attaching the 'Kool Kids Klub' label on.
If you truly want to play the 'raid gear for raids' vrs 'group gear for groups' card, play it straight.
Strip off some of that 'over-powered for group content' raid gear, and go tackle some of todays group missions and names. Of course it can be done in group gear. I and many of my friends are doing exactly that. But don't tell us we shouldn't get a 'frickin bone' tossed in our direction once in a blue moon, just because it is not how the game is designed and will wreck it.
Good design works for everyone. My ACOF won't prevent me from raiding with my friends from time to time. They are my friends and I enjoy spending game time with them. Most of them cheered me on when I got the cloak. Just as I cheer their latest new item.

Luithien