Adornments

Returned to the game about 2 months ago now. Left just as we were starting to raid DoV zones. Am now getting the drinal armour and some raid drops, which is great, but my big problem ( and surely I am not alone here), is getting red and yellow adornments appropriate to my class on them.

I left before I was able to accumulate more than a handful of Primal shards from raid mobs and had only maybe 20 or so of the group level shards. This means I can't buy DoV adorns for my gear and I have little to no prospect of adorning my gear appropriately, never mind optimally. The random nature of the adorns that come with loot means that even leaving the adornment looted on the item, often has no advantage to my class and is sometimes a downright handicap (8% hate gain on a wizzy is no fun...)

As no-one seems to group or raid DoV content any more I stand little chance of being able to buy DoV adorns in the future... surely this needs sorted?

We need a tier of purchasable red and yellow adorns for CoE. I don't mind grinding faction till I go blue in the face for them, but I will never be able to make full use of my gear without adorning it appropriately, and at the moment I have no practical way of doing so.

Depending on a guild's performance and personal playstyle there are several options to get your gear properly adorned (red slots):

(1) Your guild raids PoW and CoE: PoW nameds drop shards. CoE content drops adornments (see next paragraph).
(2) Your guild raids CoE only: red adornments come in armor pieces from named and from trash. If your guild gives trash loot to alts or sells it instead of giving it to their raiders, well /facepalm. A useless +riposte damage adornment will still be better for a wizard than one with +hate gain, until you can get a potency or power adornment.
(3) Your guild raids SS and CoE content: SS nameds drop shards. CoE content drops adornments (see previous paragraph).
(4) One grouping DoV raid zones for shards: ToFSx2 yields 10 shards iirc and can be cleared with one group in less than an hour. Most other DoV raid zones can be (at least partially) cleared with one group. If you prefer to solo outside of raid times, or are rather passive when it comes to forming groups to get things done, this option is probably not the best.

I can think of a few more ways to get hold of raid shards, like raiding on a same account alt with a guild that clears SS content.

It basically comes down to each and every raider themselves: How much time and effort are you willing to invest to get the best of the best available for your character with your ressources? Wait till your guild supplies it, or take the initiative yourself?

You need 35 shards to adorn your armor, a few more if you want to use faction adornments instead of war runes in select slots. Four ToFSx2 runs (that's approximately 2 weeks, considering the lockout timer) and you have your armor adorned plus 5 extra shards.

With dislodgers introduced, you can reuse the DoV faction adornments once you get upgrades.

Another thing to consider is that alot of the CoE stuff, assuming you go that way, doesn't have red adornment slots. So you also need to look at what kind of base gear your going to be using before committing to things like red adorns.

Thanks for the answers. our guild is a casual raid guild currently doing EM HE/AoA/ST.
I don't know about other servers, but on mines the only pickup raids are the EM CoE ones. Not once seen an old DoV raid or SS raid in pickups. Our raids still need the drops for gearing.. we're not at the stage yet of picking up drops just to adorn. And frankly it seems silly that I have to ask anyone to help me raid content from 2 expacks ago in order to appropriately adorn my CoE raid /Drinal gear.
The current set up for CoE red/yellow adorns, without the backup of DoV adorns or highest end raiding adorns doesn't help me or many others like me, customise our gear effectively. It simply doesn't work. Not sure what the devs had intended in making these adorns random drops off looted armour, and IMO it really doesn't work.

I have no objection to working hard to get things like adorns, but see no reason why any work should not be within the expansion appropriate to the armour/adorns, rather than expecting your guild to raid content from 2 expacks back so you can adorn your gear! Even having DoV shards dropping from CoE raid/grp nameds would be an improvement to the current situation.

Started seeing this side of the system as well. I already didn't like it but now its exceedingly harder for people to play 'catch up' in terms of gear. Gear we would normally let players who aren't regular raiders in the guild get is now getting snatched up just for their adorns. Anyone who doesn't have the DoV adorns they want already are screwed unless like you say they can get people together to raid content whose age is now measured in years.

What the devs were thinking is using adorns to extend the life of current content. By needing them as drops instead of bought and by having to wait for the RNG to result in the players favor. You could get the adornments you want in a few days or not at all if the RNG screws you over until the next xpac, that is absolutely possible. How good your adornments are is measured in 'luck', not 'work.'

I explained to my brother this system, he used to raid not too long ago. The ones you want are only available as random drops off equipment. That when you remove and adornment it makes the equipment useless unless you pay/lucky enough to get an extremely expensive dislodger and they still don't become tradable. That people would be well within reason to roll 'need' on equipment just for adorns. He literally said "Glad I didn't start playing again, that system sounds really stupid." I am forced to agree.

This is easily the worst itemization system they have implemented to date.

Said it perfectly. I don't mind rolling need on a 4% CB adorn if its going to an alt (even tho that irks people), but the devs have set it up to where when a new app comes in they may or may not get the gear they need...because if a robe drops that a new Mage app needs and is not an upgrade for any mains, but it has a 4% potency adorn on it you better believe a main would bid for it. Really people would probably bid for the adorns for an alt before letting an app take the piece of gear they actually need. (Not that I would, but I see people bid for alts over apps)

DoV wasn't bad where the adorns dropped separately, and I have no idea what is causing them to keep this flawed system over to reverting to what worked much better.

I took and destroyed HM shoulders from Oligar last night that plenty of people wanted for their alts to get a 3% Flurry adornment. Everyone was thrilled with it . . . oh wait no no one was happy including me. I told them all to come and add to the many complaint threads filled with people that hate this adornment system and there was nothing else I could do.


What's causing this flawed system to stay is certain Dev's Egos that it's their baby and they know in their minds it's an excellent system that the dumb players don't understand.

That's pretty much it, that is why DoV system stayed like it was for so long and then was fixed in a perfect fashion when the adorns started droping from mobs and avatars at a higher rate, if the rate was the issue by all means tweak it down a bit.
Then they went and broke it, the intent was probably good, the delivery was awful. It can do nothing but cause angst amongst the playerbase whether it be heroic or raid content and an item is up for grabs that no one needs on mains but some need on alts, and others need the adorn on mains.
I'm all for the players policing these and other issues themselves wherever possible however, there is no need for the games designers and developers to unnecessarily introduce scenarios where it can even become an issue.
SOE why can you just not suck it up and say it was a bad idea, you had it right one step ago (2 if you count the dislodger band-aid) it really isn't that far to go back.

No merchant required, just make the things drop from mobs, if you want to retain them when ugrading then use a dislodger.
That would probably satisfy the greatest majority.

If anyone in a raiding guild cries over loot that goes to a main over an alt, they either got their priorities wrong. Or they raid to gear up their alts, and not to clear end game content.

Well many raiding guilds that raid and kill end game content and have been for years frequently swap toons, you have to balance to get them geared as well. He also happens to be the leader of one.

You are officially the man! and, in line with my previous statements, I hereby declare that Kander has won the internets!

Edit; also Grats on ding and unlocking the achievement "Lead Designer"

Yeah, congrats on climbing the ladder Kander ~

A small request tho: could we have mythical cloaks upped to lvl 92 so we can use new red adorns on them? I am in some heavy adorn dilemma atm ^^

very nice.

I hope the obol conversion isn't too great. But at the same time you don't want to make it too easy for solo players to bypass heroic content and just farm overland mobs for obols that convert to spirits to get steward gear. It's a toughie.

This needs to be given careful consideration.
There is already almost no seperation in the gear as it is, I'm not even sure where there is room to squeeze in gear for the x2.
You can not convert Pure Primal and Primal shards both ways and there is really no good reason to allow for the conversion of obols to spirits. Maybe the heroic zones could be changed to drop more, the heroic bosses drop _1_ guaranteed or if that is already happening 2, but as these can be reset every 90 minutes dropping for the entire group is too much.

I think it would be best for only allowing spirit to obol.

What kind of penalty? Not like those dislodgers you put in I hope.

A penalty in the conversion rate obviously. Hopefully 20 to 1 at a minimum. Honestly the spirits should only come from heroic/raid content.