Lowering faction in Hate and Fear gives you access to T2 gear, the main benefits are Class specific armor which benefits various charms along with getting a focus and click on the BP. The upgrades are so tiny that the "creativity" in the stats means some items are HP downgrades. T1 Ranger BP: Preserving Dredger's Coat AC: 95 HP: 292 Mana/End: 281 , All Saves: 15 Sta: +1 Str: +1 Wis: +1 Int: +1 Dex: +1 Agi: +2 Add Frenzy DMG: 23 Aug slots: 5, 7, 9, 13, Req 70, Rec 75 Class: RNG, ROG, SHM, BER T2 Ranger BP: Thorny Vine Breastplate AC: 100 HP: 289 Mana/End: 304, All Saves: 18 Sta: +1 Str: +1 Wis: +1 Int: +1 Dex: +1 Agi: +2 Focus Effect: RNG Focused Rains of Arrows Damage 4 Click Effect: Natural Alignment (Must be RNG) Aug slots: 5, 7, 9, 13, Req 75 Class: RNG Upgrading the augmentations with T2 is inefficient if you have T1 without even getting into losing AC on the Slot 9s. It's 1000 Remnants for a Resplendent Spitegem (+31 to one Heroic and +10 to rest or +15 to every Heroic) you can sell it back for 452 Remnants, it costs 1250 to buy the Resplendent Sulstone (+32/+11 or +16). The obvious target audience is the raider who does group progression, they get the faction for "free" and have less use for Remnants as they don't have Slot 9, the gear itself is a trivial cost assuming someone was Level 100+ during TBM even if they don't use dropped gear. To max out HP during TBM it would be Resilient Amber (+40 hSta), Resilient Swirlstone (+40) and in every other Slot 5 Resplendent Sulstone of Resilience (+32) from T2. But if they filled up their Slot 5 with Resplendent Spitegem of Resilience (+31) from T1 they will have the temptation to use the Remnants to gear up an alt/friend or simply sell them in Bazaar. In terms of group content in Chelsith Reborn there is A Huge Mistake, a mob that drops normal group gear but quite possibly calls for the use of more than one group assuming the items are upgrades. This was apparently considered a huge mistake since giving out group gear for mobs that quite possible call for the use of more than one group has only appeared in Plane of Hate and Fear Revisited in the 5 expansions since the player base offered up feedback on A Huge Mistake. Hate and Fear revisited are raid zones, once again going back to Rain of Fear, you could zone in with 6 or fewer characters to a Heart of Fear raid instance, kill mobs and get group loot. Now with the flagging removed (I'm pretty sure it is), Heart of Fear is still not group content because you can zone in and loot a Candle of Hollow Souls and Plane of Fear Revisited isn't a group zone because you can zone in and loot a Mottled Gorgon Feather. That mercs could be used in the zone except for a few months doesn't make it a group zone, it just makes it a raid zone that allows mercs.
You must not have been here when TBM was current and for the beta. They are very much designed to be group content. They are not raid zones. They do have raid targets in them. Group itemization for TBM while creative, was a complete abomination. The best path 90% of the time was to gear up doing the HAs. Odds are you get more than a complete set while doing your Lesser Spirit achievement along with plenty of currency to add the augs. The augs are the stats (thanks to gear drops that had to work for the spread of level 75-105), the armor pieces all differed by ones of HME (perhaps significant for level 75s). The progression zone items (named drops/chest rewards) were slightly better than those you unlocked through Hate/Fear. For non-visibles, you needed the named/chest drops for the best stats, but had to get the random zone drops for the click buffs. Hate/Fear were broken by design. The team wanted to provide group content and also raid content using the zones. They admitted during beta they didn't have the time to do complete versions of both. What we got was a dysfunctional glob of group/raid. They knew it was wonky and pretty much apologized. Other than the raid targets, everything in those zones is group content. Locked behind some messed up lockouts based killing various populations within. The merc change seemed to have been made by a dev that was on a hiatus during TBM and not aware of the reasons. I'm guessing that's the same reason for the latest change to the mirror clickie (Decay Decreased is now a lot of fun if you accidentally trigger the location update and need to re-find the spot to click the mirror).
Even if everything else you mentioned is true, the fact that both zones are involved in the expansion-wide hunter meta-achievement further bolsters the idea that these are both raid and group zones. If the mobs therein were not part of the group-level hunter meta-achievement, I might be able to buy your argument.
Theory: Norrathian Slayer: Hunter of the Planes is indented so that's a raid zone. Mirror Slayer: Plane Hunter of the Broken Mirror is not so that's a group zone. For your consideration: Ruinslayer: ChardokB, Nurga and Veksar are indented. Ruinslayer: Veeshan's Peak is not indented.
The glue for Post-It notes was designed to form a permanent bond, it didn't and ended up being used in a very popular product. You could say that the glue on Post-It notes is a permanent adhesive that doesn't work or you could call it a temporary adhesive. You could say that the Revisited Planes is non-functional group zone or you could call it a raid zone. LDoN introduced augs and it had gear with multiple different aug slots. 12 years later they did the same thing without introducing the underlying mechanic and you think that's creative? The difference between all of someone's T2 or T1 Type 5 augs during TBM is basically Extruded Black Pearl. You certainly don't need the Pearl or the T2 augs but if you like having the best stats it's something to consider trying to acquire. For Silver players the Pearl is useless and the T2 augs remain the best possible augs to fill most of their Type 5 slots.
According to Ngerth one of the criteria for Hunter is a mob must have a ph, this is the reason/excuse given for iconic omissions like Fippy. Plane of Hate and Fear Revisted named have no ph. Good catch that an upcoming patch should change the name of the achievements whether or not they remain required for Mirror Slayer.
It was intended to be both a group and raid zone. I know we spent some time testing during beta so that a group could zone into hate (mostly) safely. I personally think it was a disaster as a group zone but it was originally intended to be both a group and a raid zone.
Did the mods split this from the other thread instead of answering the question? That's... new. Here's the problem: I can't get the tier 2 armor, but I can get the tier 3 armor. I 3-box a f2p auto-follow/melody Bard, a f2p Mage I just alt-tab to to hit a social every 10 seconds, and a silver SK that I barely even know how to play. In spite of that, I can get Raw Crypt-Hunter's armor because I'm able to use mercenaries in the zones where it drops. Even though I have no idea what I'm doing, the highest-tier group armor is significantly easier to get than the middle-tier armor because you can use mercenaries to get it. Even when you could use mercenaries to get the tier 2, it was still easier to obtain Raw Crypt-Hunter's armor. It doesn't make any sense.
I started the thread here, the mods either delete or do nothing. I'm not sure why you're using problem, I would have started that with "Here's my situation:", why does it matter than you can't do a specific tier of content from a 3 year old expansion? Even if Hate/Fear was T4, so what? With your admittedly sub-optimal group that relies heavily on apprentice mercs you have content that you presumably enjoy doing that advances your characters. Once you no longer have progress to make from TBM HAs hopefully you are able to complete other content you enjoy that further progresses your characters. Here's my situation: I clear Hate and Fear to get 32 slot bags (Sparkling Planeslayer) for every character and shared bank and as an added bonus have gotten some Caravan Satchels. Without mercs I rely on Level 75-81 characters with RoS runes, I cleared the zones once without RoS runes to get a 2nd Sparkling on the account with the only high level Enc and it was much more difficult and time consuming. I assume once mercs are allowed I will be able to clear the zones efficiently without RoS runes and get bags for the rest of the characters on the Enc account. T3 TBM is a better option for you so do that. If mercs aren't returning to Hate/Fear I will figure out a way to do it efficiently without mercs or just level up the Level 90 Enc that is on an account with the RoS expansion. If they allow mercs and you want Sparkling bags or anything else from the Planes I'd recommend asking in ;gen for someone to /taskadd you to a Fear break and have them not kill any named unless you are also in group/raid or if you get a group/raid invite to entire clear you don't even need a /taskadd or to zone in. Other than the Fear break you can systematically work through Hate and Fear by getting new instances as you kill trash while developing a hatred towards Dracoliche which you can vent in classic PoFear. Most likely you will never have enough motivation to bother with Hate and Fear, you can do CotF HAs to get some bags if you're not high enough level to get the larger bags from static content and most likely you'll eventually be high enough level to get bags from static content if you continue to play.
That would be so much better if it was T4! A more difficult zone giving higher tier armor than the easier zones would follow the logic of every other expansion. Requiring killing in a weird quasi-raid zone for the middle tier armor doesn't make sense when the highest tier can be gotten without ever leaving normal group zones. I don't actually care about doing anything in Hate Revisited. I'm just annoyed and confused that they made an already nonsensical armor progression even worse. Making the T3 armor both easier and less time consuming to get defeats the entire purpose of T2 armor. Why make this change to content from a 3 year old expansion?
