Chains of Eternity - Gear Feedback

I have played this game since beta, at various times as a soloer, grouper, and raider, so I can speak to most play styles.

"Raiders need better gear (rewards) due to the increased effort (risks)." The risk-vs-reward argument does not hold water. The only risk left in this game is the amount of time it takes to do an activity. Equal time sinks should reward equally.

"But raids take 24 people to be coordinated." Yes, but can a raid succeed if some of those people are slacking? Sure it can and frequently does (with obvious exceptions). We all have tales of loosing loot roles to a supposed dps class that we blew away in the parse (in fact, my personal conspiracy theory is that the RNG is in some way inversely proportional to your parse). However, when you do a solo zone, it is not possible to slack. If you screw up, you fail. In a raid if you screw up, you get a rez. So if anything, the amount of individual focus required to do a solo zone is greater than a raid. Don't believe me? Take a look at how many "I can click/kill the pillars" post there are on these forums complaining about the solo zones. So who should be better rewarded? The slacker hiding behind 23 other people, or the soloer who is solely responsible for success?

"But soloers/groupers don't need raid-quality gear." If/when raid gear is rendered ineffective in solo/group dungeons, this this argument will make sense. Why should a person who primarily raids get to effectively participate in all three facets of adventuring, while a person who primarily solos (or groups) only get to be effective in one (or two)? The only thing separating most raiders from most groupers/soloers is not skill, but simply an ability to log in at the same time every night.

Having said all this, raid gear IS better that the solo/group gear by about 10%. Are there exceptions? Yes, but every tier has had them (How many VoES runs did it take you to get PG?). This spread is about where it should be. It allows raid guilds to recruit from soloers/groupers in a game with a diminishing population. And it allows soloers/groupers to step into that raid guild and let their skill at their class close that 10% gap. What are raiders afraid of? That without a huge gear advantage, they will be out skilled and, hence, out parsed?

Well honestly I spent more time soloing wurmbone end with the final boss HM then my raid did killing the first 4 named in Temple. When the raid content is this easy nobody cares about that gear anyway because that's the stuff a PuR kills with ease even with a terrible set up. That's the meh, easy alt loot. The oh look the badly geared app can have that and he might not die to aoes as much loot. I certainly don't care that this fabled loot drops in solo zones.

If it was PoW gear, HM CoE x4 gear, Avatar gear etc I'd be mad, but it isn't so whatever. If you're mad about solo players having nearly as good gear as you, get better gear. Go into PoW and kill boar, berik and start pulling Tagrin. Kill Sentinel HM, kill Barrodas and the Rancor thing at the end of temple in HM. They aren't that hard either but that's what you should be aiming at getting, not the farm loot that is going to be gotten by single groups in a matter of months.

No. I'm too lazy to post screenshots but the scout solo ethereal belt/neck/bow are all currently best in slot. Better than pow gear, better than avatar gear, better than old avatar gear, best period. The earring is also best in slot for anyone who didn't get an arrowhead from last avatars.

What is the droprate on these items? Is every newbie in the world going to be wearing them or is this similar to what they did with past Ethereals and Mythicals where it is super random and super rare?

Because honestly, it's only 2-3 slots - so not like you can totally gear out your toon with it - and gives raiders a much-needed reason incentive to run heroic and/or solo content. I think having some ultra-rare items that not everyone will have but that are of the highest quality is great for the game. So long as the MAJORITY of best in slot gear still comes from the most difficult content, i don't think ALL of it needs to, some can just come from luck or time investment.

Most things in this game depends on pure luck even some raidencounters
As i said before, the loot in riads is compared to the dificulty to get, alright if there where any dificoltys at all. Most raidmobs you can run by and loot... hack, i do miss some real encounters ^^ (There are some in the game, but take time to get to them, cause of those other nameds in front ^^)

I believe raiders do deserve better gear than the person that only solos or groups BUT, what about marking that gear as raid only gear. I am a person that doesn't have the ability to raid and I have to admit, the raiders do have an advantage over the rest of us with the raid gear. Where it takes six of us to do an instance a raid geared group of three or four can typically handle that instance (sometimes without a healer).

This would be leveling the playing field in the whole game, raid gear is for raiding. Regular non-uber gear is for soloing and grouping.

It would be real simple too, any gear gotten in a raid instance is marked raid gear.

I do believe this would solve it for all, raiders can get uber gear and then when grouping with the rest of us there won't be any advantages.

I ran about 20 instances today, and no fabled's dropped.. in the past few days have looted 3-4 per same amount of runs. None dropped for anyone in guild today either... so I'm not sure if they took to heart what people have been complaining about and changed it server side.

Anyone noticed the shift?

An.

I do raid, i do pugs and i haven´t seen any of my peeps im with, that don´t welcome the extra spice from raidgear to speed up the instance
Btw. SoE did had the intention (somedays ago), to get the radgear a penalty while in heroic zones, but then again, why a penalty, only you spend a few hours more in game then others.
Why have to be everything equal? Nothing against equal, but when you put in some more work, why you´re gear should be the same. So to loop back to the starting sentence of mine.
No one has ever kicked me or treated me meaningfull, cause of i wear raidloot oO (well i also think it keeps the phocus on the fun in the game, when you run instances just to play and you know (way before) there will not drop anything that might be usefull)
Regards

I got a fabled drop about 30 mins ago (YEAH BRAWLER LOOT) so it sounds like RNG has caught up to you.

Haha.. the only hard thing about raiding is being the raid leader.. The rest is gear and mindnumbingly following orders.. I run 3 instances 3 times each day on 2 toons(so far) and I lost count of numbers. I have yet to see an ethereal, and I've found 3 fabled armor pieces I cant use or sell (only for dislodging some semi mediocre red adorns).. I've done 2 raids so far in the new expansion, and allready won a piece of armor I can use.. I'll be quicker geared raiding than running the solo zones..

Imho the solo zones are an alternate way of getting geared for raid progress(or if you dont raid, who gives a **** what kind of gear you have).. Most guilds havent even set foot in PoW and these drops will maybe increase the chance of many ppl to enter quicker and actually kill something before next expansion will make PoW obsolete.

Why do you feel threatened by what others wear gearwise? I couldnt care less if some guy purchased all his gear from ebay. If he is a nice guy, and do his job properly, he's all good in my book. It's only what I wear myself that matters for me..