Well, to quote Wurm from earlier in the thread: But seriously, adorns are secondary to the gear they go on...you can level without the adorns, but it's much more difficult without the gear. Also, there are plenty of lvl95 adorns available for the gear [and relatively cheap ones, at that], so it's not stopping anyone from leveling. I agree, it's frustrating to get a better adorn and not be able to equip it yet, but that is *far* less annoying to me than the idea of being level 95 and getting level 96 *gear* that would help me in the new zones [especially now that getting that level can take a bit of time]. [Consider the frustration folks had at not being able to instantly equip the quest reward that added to your flying speed...it just sat there in your inventory for a full level, mocking you with its promise of faster travel.]
Thats not the issue though. We are talking about the zone made extra for ToV geared toons. And for the most part the fully gemmed gear (even the yellow gemmed) is better than all of the quest line / level 95 dropped gear in AoM. The gear being at level 95 screws transmuters and screws players truly looking for upgrades. Everyone wants upgrades, and most of us are willing to waiting one level (and getting to 96 is a breeze) to equip them.
That depends on whether you are willing to give up your current comfortable stats for the slightly different ones on the new gear. Like any expansion, the entry level stuff is going to be less than the higher level gear you earned through months of playing, but there will also be benefits: in this case, the stamina was increased over fully-gemmed yellow gear, and resists/mitigation also increased on quest rewards. So yeah, you lose a feeling of uberness by replacing things, but you start out with a better foundation to get back to being uber. [And don't forget that Gninja said that the BBC [heh] gear was better than quest gear, so you would actually be better off than folks who only did the sig line.] Heh, you missed all of the bug reports and grumbling on beta from people at level 95 who were getting level 96 quest rewards [for a while, pretty much all of the beta quest rewards were lvl96]. :^) I think being okay with waiting to upgrade is a personal thing...some folks are okay with it, some want to equip it now. Given the current push to level fast so toons can gear up fast [and the recent outcry over being stymied in doing that], I think SOE have made a calculated decision to err on the side of "equip now and use it find better gear". Besides, it's a zone advertised as starting at level 95, so it makes sense for it to drop level 95 gear. There are lots of other places for people to get 96+ gear to wear and to transmute, not so many for strictly 95. It's good to have a known place to go, especially if people don't want to feel "forced into" the signature line.
Some of the names seem hard for a "leveling up zone". That means you won't have a perfect group and a group of mixed 95s will have difficulty with the zone still.
No I didn't miss the grumbling on the beta forums, I ignored it because I didn't find it to be worthy of my time. I was doing just fine in overland with my current gear and knew it wouldn't take long to hit 96 to allow me to 1) equip my shiny new gear 2) try out the nifty new level 96 adorns.
Well, the Problem still remains: People will go in there for leveling and stop leveling as soon as they hit 96, because all loot in there is for Lvl 95 Characters. You could also go to Highkeep an level there, no change loot-wise. If there's no loot for Lvl 96+ Characters, this zone is dead the moment everyone has leveled to 96. Regards, theriatis.
SS Contested - got lots of use when it was current - even more when it wasn't. Kael Contested - never saw the amount of people as SS contested, but it was a lot of fun to take groups in there for a long crawl and the statue quests were worth doing for the plat. Sleeper's Tomb Contested - ETHEREAL AND MOUNT RUNS! 'nuff said Highkeep Contested - was added while I was taking a break from the game, friends say it was fun and worth doing. Broken Skull Bay Contested - DOA due to level 95 loot which is a real shame.
Tried this zone while leveling. Nameds are pointlessly hard, even with raid geared group and 2 healers. After spending 2 hours wiping we just went to DM and got lvl 100 there, never to look back on the zone. And why is al the loot lvl 95, really discouraging.
This wasn't recently. Anyone been in there in the last week or two? How are the named are they more reasonable?
I solo healed the zone for a bit but I don't recall if we pulled nameds or not, or when the fix was in and I was there. Was in there about 30 minutes before moving to HKC. I just did a question session on AB and a wizard friend says the nerf was appreciated, worked, and the zone isn't super easy but it's not difficult anymore. Which I assume means the dmg is much more manageable.
Went in with a guild group last weekend to check it out. The named were fine with one healer. The loot on the other hand is worthless. Loot needs to be upped in level so it can at least be transmuted or salvaged into top tier materials. Also, the item drop quests should give some Ferrin. Maybe 3-5 Ferrin like the solo quests or timed bonus quests in heroic zones. As it is now I'd only go back to level new adornments. The boost to XP in there is good and leveled my adornments faster then anywhere else. Heroic instances need to give more XP please
The loot is worse than what you can get in ToV.....Even in a zone designed to be a leveling zone, you should have the opportunity to get loot/gear that is an upgrade over a previous expansion. The gear from the zone is utterly worthless as anything but vendor trash. At least if it was level 96, it would be a valid zone to go in order to get transmuting fodder. The zone xp is okay, and it is worthwhile going in to kill trash, but the risk/reward for the names is still way out of whack. The names are tough and the drops are worthless. To really get any value out of the zone, you need to have better gear than what drops in the zone. By the way, what the heck happened to the previous tier cap becoming part of the new tier in an expansion? That has always been the case- level 60 was part of the 51-59 tier until level 70 came out, and then it became part of the next tier....and so on and so on. Why is AoM suddenly different? With all of the quested gear and loot drops being level 95, how exactly are we supposed to get new adorning raws? How are we supposed to get the new essences that serve as the rares for making purples? Loot across the board in this expansion is borked.
The Items in there need to be upped in level and quality. If you don't give us a reason to go in there, the zone will be dead. It should be like HK Contested: Several item drops off nameds + daily quests with item rewards + small chance of ethereal item that would make this zone worth to do.
Can you give us examples on how the loot from there is worse than you get from ToV? You should not be able to get better items from contested heroic ToV content. If that is the case we will change it.
The only thing I transmute at this stage are 96+ adept books. Any gear that would ordinarily be transmuted for adorning mats is being salvaged on the offchance that I might get the elusive Quintessence. My guild is giving the Daarspire vendors a lot of business since we can't make the AoM purple adorns other then the runes.
Change everything to 96 and we will be even happier. You guys raised the level cap so raise the level of the loot to go along with it. It is what most of the people in this thread are complaining about.
I have killed about ten named in Brokenskull, all ornate drops. Every piece that dropped was salvage or transmute material unless it was jewelry and had a nice proc. I guess what is the purpose of the zone other than to gear out alts who have absolutely no gear? The Brokenskull contested drops are not better than high level TOV gear other than perhaps some mitigation values. If you have high level TOV gear and are level 100, there isn't much reason to go in there. Especially on Nagafen where the named are actually contested. My experience with most of the recent contested zones including fabled clefts and sanctum of scaleborn has been disappointing because the drops are rather average.
