Echoing Stone Tear - 5% isn't 5%.

If i were a tank (i can tank any mob in the game for at least part of a round), I would want an extra 10 on my defense, but, as i am squishy, i would not concern myslef with that item.

It's a great item, however the restrictions for it gaining xp really should be removed, not only does it take quite a lot of mobs to level, it takes quite a lot of certain mob types, which is even worse.

Doesn't seem like the Tear was anything more than a little perk for doing what you would be doing anyway. If taken in that context, than the Tear is truly awesome. If you tune your play style around lvling this item, than yah, its a let down. The number crunching gurus would have to chime in on how much of a benefit it really is when maxed, but it probably might mitigate 5 damage points out of 5000?

I'll grant you that.

I guess I am just used to seeing items or rewards have an impact on my play. (ie I get a new aug, I see my hp/mana go up, I get a new focus, my nukes go up etc)

I like Dzarn, I really do, and I told him that many times in beta when he was asking for feedback for SL.
But if the other Devs were handcuffing him on this item, then /shrug. It is what it is. Tanks like it I suppose, so there is at least some % of the community happy.

Besides the Missions in Pillars , Is there anything else to level this up ?
Which of the Missions is Least hard or Quickest ?

It is not that the Word of ____ tasks diminish the more that you do them; it is that they are a set amount of exp for the stone tear, and that as you gain levels with it, the amount of exp needed to evolve the thing goes up.

Remember, last summer they cut the exp required to max it by over a million alaran mobs, but it is still almost 200,000 alaran deaths. As best I can tell, the stone tear is giving about 400 alaran kills to the stone tear per click. This is based upon the stone tear's observed exp rate headshotting alarans in Argath, grouped with my bot (so his stone tear got exp as well), with a stone tear at level 13. At around that same time I compared notes with someone who had a stone tear at the same level, who had been killing alarans in Pillars, and we found that the mob level did not matter, only the number of kills (IE - it was recieving the bare minimum item exp per kill anyway).

I did not collect X clickies in an attempt to see how many it took to power through lower levels, but for level 15 the stone tear gets approx 1.9% per click, for a total of 52.6 clicks (21k alarans, roughly). For level 16, 1.4% per click, for a total of 71.4 clicks (a little under 29k alarans). For level 17, I am getting approximately 0.95% per clicky, for a total of 105.3 clicks to power through, or a little over 42k alarans. I was told (but will have a better idea next week) that someone who got 4 clickies got 3% on his level 18 stone tear; implying 0.75% per click or about 134 clicks, or a hair under 54k mobs.

But, as people have said, you can get clickies for doing FIVE tasks : Crisis of Faith, Word of Anriella, Word of Erion, Word of Melretia, and Word of Fal'kaa. Complete the optional step in each of these, and you get a clicky upon task completion. 6 hour lockouts on all five, so it will take a while, but you cannot find any place where you get 2000 alaran kills in 6 hours, there just aren't enough mobs anywhere for that. The clickies are THE fastest way to evolve the stone tear.

The item is intended to be a 'major' grind. Its original intent was to give the players that finish their AAs in the first week of an expansion something to work on after they're done maxing out achievements, quests, etc.

The reason that I chose to grant a defense skill bonus is because only one % skill mod can be included on an item so I had to try and pick an effect that would benefit the most people at once and at the same time not be a skill that was used anywhere else in the game. The idea is that, while the power gain from this item is 'low', it's unique and isn't something that can be gained anywhere else. I can't make any promises, but I'll look into adding some bonus to casters to the item so it's not entirely melee centric.

As to the fact that the item grants 5%, I just picked some random number with the intent that the capped gains would only be 10 skill points. 5% seemed like a safe bet due to the variance in actual defense skill based on your class.

As to the process of leveling evolving items:
Each evolving item has a defined number of exp points you need to obtain in order to level the item from one rank to the next. The tear has some of the highest exp requirements and is also very restrictive based on mob races (only Alarans and Alaran Ghosts work.)

Here are the raw numbers for you math inclined people. Keep in mind that these are the 'lowered' values, the intense grind is intended.
Level - Exp Needed
01 - 0
02 - 4500
03 - 6783
04 - 10224
05 - 15410
06 - 23226
07 - 35007
08 - 52763
09 - 79525
10 - 119861
11 - 180655
12 - 272284
13 - 410387
14 - 618536
15 - 932258
16 - 1405100
17 - 2117767
18 - 3191899
19 - 4810831
20 - 7250885

To make some sense of those numbers here is a chart that defines how much 'item exp' you gain per kill. (Basically, the amount of 'item exp' you gain per kill is based on your group size and the mob's level compared to yours.)

Grey cons at all group sizes yield 0 points of item exp.

Solo
Green: 20
Light Blue: 30
Dark Blue: 71
White: 111
Yellow: 120
Red: 131

Duo
Green: 12
Light Blue: 18
Dark Blue: 42
White: 66
Yellow: 72
Red: 84

Trio
Green: 9
Light Blue: 14
Dark Blue: 33
White: 53
Yellow: 57
Red: 66

Four People
Green: 8
Light Blue: 12
Dark Blue: 29
White: 45
Yellow: 48
Red: 57

Five or Six People
Green: 8
Light Blue: 11
Dark Blue: 26
White: 41
Yellow: 44
Red: 51

The reward for doing the optional step in the Pillars tasks grants a defined number of exp points to the item based on the item's level. It works as follows:
Level 01: 450 points.
Level 02: 710 points.
Level 03: 1120 points.
Level 04: 1767 points.
Level 05: 2788 points.
Level 06: 4397 points.
Level 07: 6937 points.
Levels 08-13: 7000 points.
Levels 14-20: 10000 points.

That's scary.

Most of the alarans are darkblue to lv 100.
102125 mobs to kill solo to max this. Or 172640 mobs duo/molo. Or 278880 mobs with a full group.

I assume, as a dev, you have access to the data and can make this query: Tell us how many people have attained this reward by now, 15 months after it's been released?

Fairly certain it's just 1, however we had at least 5 people at level 19 before RoF launched, the rest of us got caught up with RoF and haven't gone back to finish it off. I will say though that it took an amount of grinding that most players won't consider anywhere near normal.

If I remember correctly, when Dzarn chopped off an estimated 85% of the exp required to max it, he did so by choosing a point that someone had already reached.

That would be the 1 person Qwestwic refers to.

For me, this is one case where the timesink is nowhere near worth the reward -- even as a tank. I just do not find Pillars tasks even remotely fun nor do I want to spend the rest of my natural life slaying alarans.

Will I ever evolve the item to max? Nope
Should the xp be changed to work on -all- mob types? Probably
Will I complain if it is not? Nope

I will agree that it is/was a pretty neat idea barring the monstrous amount of mindless tasks/xping involved.

Thanks for the info on item exp Dzarn.

Yes, thank you for the information Dzarn, although I may need to go somewhere and cry myself a few stone tears now. Definitely looks like it is in my favor to start doing that optional quest since my tear is at level 7 right now (only heard about it a couple weeks ago).

It would be pretty sweet if the mob restriction were removed for those of us who completely missed VoA, as besides an aug camp or two, I seriously doubt I'll have a reason to be in VoA much. This leaves me SL and the tree alarans in Evantil I think.

I totally understand the idea of wanting to force people to do more current content, but alarans only is severely limiting. Would something like Alaran OR mob is level 91 or greater be a possibility?

Lets see here .. from what I can tell then, it takes 663 clickies to take it from 14 to 20. Well, almost - 2349 item exp is unaccounted for in that circumstance.
Taking it from 8 to 14 takes 80 clickies, with another 5773 exp unaccounted for. 81 clickies would account for that, but not quite eat up that 2349; you would have1122 left over. 744 clickies so far.

Not going to get into that level of detail for levels 2 through to 8, but its clear that level 1 requires 10 clickies. 754 total so far .. and 3-4 per level for the remaining levels. So, you're only looking at a maximum of 780 clickies to power through the thing from nothing to done.

At 5 every 6 hours, assuming no job and no life, you get 20 per day. 39 days later, you emerge stinky, undernourished, unrested, with a ratty beard and a level 20 stone tear.

If you only do them all once a day, getting 5 every day, you're looking at 156 days, or a little over five months to finish it from the start. With most of that time spent on the last couple of levels.

The xp curve on this item is exponential, with the base of about 1.5. For each new level you need about 50% more xp than the total sum of xp that you've earned before. If you feel optimistic at 7, just wait till you get to lv 17... And all the killing you will have done to get to lv 17 will be less than 1/3 of you need to get to lv 20.

Yea, I noticed that too, about 1.5072. Reminds me a lot of a math question where the teacher asks if I ask you to do only 1 minute of homework, then double that each day for the remainder of the quarter, would this be a good deal? Be a horrible deal even if you started at 1 picosecond of homework! From the looks of it I might stop giving a crap about my tear around level 12ish, could do something far easier in much less time from there, like get all my caster/priest boxes a convo shawl.

Really not sure what to make of this item. It seems borderline insidious the way Dzarn officially describes it, born out of pure cynicism. Almost like he said to another dev:

"Betcha I can make people kill 1/4 million of the same mob in less than a year......"

Dzarn, all I can say is I hope you won the bet and the reward was decent.

This thread almost seemed spurious but anyone who actually DID this evolution intentionally...yah if it were me I would want it working EXACTLY as stated. Anyway, grats to whomever has it complete but it still leaves me walking away shaking my head.

Hrrrmmm, so did a little number crunching here, in my usual Alaran murdering group, I'd have to kill 828,380 alarans to get a tear from 1-20. Swarming light blue Alarans, which I can't actually see myself continuously doing yet by the way in half RoF raid gear, would have me needing 717,930 Alarans.

Due to the fact that I enjoy life and would like to continue doing so, I believe stopping at about level 12 or 14 would be in my best interest. I shall laugh rather hard if an easier better replacement mysteriously pops up somewhere in the future

LOL you are not supposed to level it past 5 or 6 through kills; you are supposed to use the Pillars tasks.