I keep seeing cryptic armor from Heroic bosses. According to the gear preview on EQ2Wire (with quote from Xelgad): So these mobs should be dropping Arcane, not Cryptic.
Arcane and Potent armor pieces are granted exclusively via the mission rewards, excepting the rare drops (the ones you see floating about with no stamina). The lower tier Cryptic armor has a chance to drop from several bosses in the heroic zones, though never on the last boss of the zone.
Well that is completely NOT what Xelgad said in his interview quoted above. Doing the hardest tier of heroics - ToV - and getting same armor as the solo makes no sense. First 4 named in Hive today all dropped Cryptic. At least 3 of them also dropped the exact same slot - forearms.
agree completely. I've cleared all heroic zones and seeing this gear drop is ridiculous. Granted im in raid gear anyway so doesnt effect the class im playing, but isnt this going against progression? Solo gear drops in solo zones.... Heroic gear drops in heroics... Raid gear drops in raids. I thought this expansion was supposed to be set up around a strict progression line by reading posts from devs and GM's. Doesn't it make sense that you guys should follow it?
If anything have the heroics drop yellow shards from the sub bosses in addition to loot. It seems extremely counter productive to be taking 6 people into a zone and fight for an hour just to see a piece I could get in 10-15 min clearing the same solo zone. We were in pickclaw heroic and all we saw was solo loot in almost an hour before the group split prior to the last couple named. It's very discouraging to spend all the time forming a group and trying to explain things then refilling when someone drops only to see the same loot we'd see from running a solo if we don't complete the zone because someone bails. All it seems to do is discourage grouping.
It was the same in beta. I remember that Pickclaw even then was dropping three the same forearms from three different bosses in row. Only TV heroics were dropping better gear including fabled.
Ok I went and took a look at the Heroic missions and have updated my FAQ based on what I've seen. It looks like each Heroic zone has a daily mission which rewards an Ornate Crate of Goods (yes the reward crate from all the Heroic quests has the same name but there are cloth, leather, chain, and plate crates). Here's what I see today, which may change on different days: Hive: Arcane Boots or Arcane Gloves Nexus: Arcane Shoulders or Arcane Bracers High Keep: Arcane Helm or Arcane Legs Pickclaw: Arcane Helm or Arcane Legs Stratum: Arcane Chest Stasis: Arcane Chest or Cloak ToV Halls: Potent Boots or Potent Gloves or Belt ToV Labs: Potent Boots or Potent Gloves ToV Vulak'Aeer: Potent Chest or Potent Legs Each person who runs a heroic zone is guaranteed to get one of the items above.Now, the rewards are based on armortype (cloth, leather, chain, plate), so as a scout, you'll see mystic gear, and as a plate healer, you'll see plate tank gear. Personally, I'm glad that each run through a heroic zone has a guaranteed reward, but I still think it will take months for players to get a full set of Arcane or Potent gear of the correct item template (DPS, Autoattack, Casting Speed, Health, Tanking, etc.). And by that point, we'll be so stockpiled on gems and purple adornments sitting in our bags that we'll be able to upgrade the items immediately. If the moment we get a heroic item, we already have enough Etmya to fill it with 4 gems, then doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose of the gems? I think having the final reward for the Heroic zone, especially tough zones like Temple of Veeshan, be the same as the Advanced Solo zone is going to rub people the wrong way.
I am in agreement Feldon. I would rather run each zone knowing X boss drops a specific type of gear table for each class and have the Ornate Crate of Goods. Currently it is quite hard to get the proper Arcane item. If SOE wishes to keep this Random selection per-zone I highly recommend they implement four different Ornate Crates of Goods. Upon completing the zone you are awarded a Crate of Endless Bounty by which you select which Ornate Crate you wish to get a Random Loot from. Crate of Endless Bounty Robust Ornate Crate of Goods Deathly Ornate Crate of Goods Clairvoyant Ornate Crate of Goods Mystic Ornate Crate of Goods Robust Ornate Crate of Goods Max HP and Mitigation Set Max HP and Block Set Max HP and Attack Speed Deathly Ornate Crate of Goods DPS and AE-Auto Attack DPS and Attack Speed DPS and MA Clairvoyant Ornate Crate of Goods Potency, Critical Bonus and Ability Modifier Max HP and Attack Speed Ability Reuse and Ability Modifier Mystic Ornate Crate of Goods Contains the whole loot table, but with a slightly higher chance of getting the Fabled items. Any of these Cratescan drop one of the Amalgamated Items which have more DPS stats and no Stamina on them. The goal of the 4 Crates idea here is to give players the option to choose which loot table they are shooting at based on what they want from the zone. It keeps it random so players won't gear up super quick but it gives players some control. What do you think?
I think having Heroic zone named drop the same armor that comes from Advanced Solo is an insult. Where is the progression? I'm getting a group, i'm killing harder mobs, why am i getting the same EXACT loot i am getting in solo zones? There is already 2 tiers of Heroic armor, so it is easy enoguh to structure it so that the easier heroics drop the lower heroic tier (Arcane) while the hard ones drop the the upper heroic tier (Potent). The Cryptic should come from Advanced solo, not from heroic. Progression should be: Quest (no upgrade slots) Advanced Solo (Cryptic drops) Heroic (Arcane drops) Harder Heroic (Potent drops) Raid Harder Raid
The fact here is Advanced solos give you cryptic gear as the final boss/mission reward. The T1 heroic give you arcane gear as the final boss/mission reward. The T2 heroic zones give you T2 heroic gear as the final boss/mission reward. I have no problem with the T1 heroics dropping AS gear throughout, and kind of hope the T2 heroic zones drop T1 heroic gear from the names(I haven't gotten into a T2 Heroic yet). It's the same mechanic that was used in CoE AS/Heroics, minus the tiers. The pre-boss heroic nameds dropped advanced solo final boss drops. Heroics final bosses had better drops.
The first 4 named bosses in heroic hive zone drop gear that is worse than steward gear from CoE. Substantially worse. That's a problem. Add to that the whole "not applicable set" issue, so far, i've been running zones for 3 straight days and i have 8 pieces of useless scout gear that i got as mission rewards. Items that have no potency and that are of no use to healer in ANY circumstances. They're heirloom, so i can give them to my alts.. but my alts wear cloth and leather, which i DON'T ever get out of the stupid crates, so i can't gear my alts either. It's just useless crap for all my heroic zone efforts. At least if this gear dropped from mobs, i could pass on the scout gear and have it looted by the scouts. The Armor progression itself - from an item-by-item and tier-by-tier perspective - makes perfect sense. More sense than it's made in years. There are multiple sets, there are multiple tiers. Choice and progression. Awesome. However, the multiple armor acquisition mechanics do not play well - either with the idea of choice or with the idea of progression or with each other. IF we're going to be subjected to random drops of armor type (meaning melee armor dropping for healers), then this armor needs to drop from a named, so that healers can pass and melee can need. Or it can all be made tradable, so we can sell the stuff. Or can put in a merchant like the quest armor. OR you can simple set the system up so that healers do not get scout/tank armor. No healer - under ANY circumstances - will use armor without potency. Just like other classes, healers will mix Max HP with Ability, with melee armor - all those sets are valid, but we will never use armor without potency. Not ever. IF we're going to have clear armor progression, then heroic content needs to drop better armor than solo content. It's that simple. I'm running heroic zones non-stop. I have almost 200 etyma. I have 2 pieces of armor than i can actually use and 8 pieces that are scout and will be muted - i can't sell them, i couldn't have given them to a scout in the guild. The system in its current state is a sad joke.
I believe I follow the frustration. From your example, does that mean you've run many heroic zones, but only had a mission for them 10 times?
I've run quite a few PUGs where the group couldn't handle the last named and left without completing the mission. Especially in the HK zones.
So, regardless of whether they changed it so that the reward dropped from the last named vs. dropped from completing the mission, you'd still have 10 items?
None of the bosses in heroic zones should be dropping solo tier gear. First boss, second boss, last boss - none of them. And if they changed it, at least the items that dropped would go to classes that can actually use them instead of healers involuntarily getting scout armor.
I like the general idea behind all of the gear changes this expansion. However, I don't agree with solo gear dropping from the T2/ToV zone mini-bosses. They are harder zones and should be dropping the T1 heroic gear which is a step down from the loot that the zone boss drops.
Can you add this part to your FAQ? It's one of the most asked questions I have been seeing now that the expansion is underway.