Ethereal runes too rare for how overpowered they are.

yes, that may be true, but take into account how long ancients have been out compared to how long ethereal runes have been out. I've been living in contested and have seen now 5 runes drop. I've seen the hammer get looted once, and ethereals themselves were only out for the summer. That means that ethereal proc related items are waay more common than ancients. of which I have seen 2 drop in the history of ever.

Does anyone know what the drop rate in the new update zones will be compared to contested?

They didn't say. Heck, they barely even hinted at the fact that they'd be there in the first place.

Coming to market place near you. I'd buy a few.

Just wanted to ad my 2 cents. The top parser in our raid is at least 2x sometimes 3x my parse and 5 or 6x the rest of the dps in the raid, he has the fervor bow. Its just ridiculous. I definitely dont mind, its awesome to see and there is plenty of skill there. The problem for me is, i was on those ethereals every damn day when that was running over the summer, never saw the bow. now, im in contested EVERYDAY, all day..still. no adorn. There is literally no way to compete with those that are lucky enough to have them. and thats what this is about, competition. I play a t1 dps toon because the fun for me, is getting gear upgrades and winning the parse. its no fun for me if its a blowout. i like it to be close, like that little thing i do, SKILL, makes a difference. If someone comes along and loots and item that instantly puts them in AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT REALM OF DPS, honestly it just sucks the fun out of it lol. then it becomes all about getting that one thing. which is fine, if its doable. this ISNT.
i HAVE BEEN ON THIS FOR MONTHS NOW! and ill keep going, until i get that adorn..so not fun tho guys.
PLEASE make these effects a little more common or remove them.

Since you don't have one lets remove everyone else's? I don't have a sports car and I like to drive fast... Can we ban ban those too?

that isnt what i said. Can attain a car thru work, this is pure luck and silly in a game that has based progressing on gear and the stats and effects from gear. i dont begrudge anyone that has these things. just be nice if was actually accessible to everyone in some other way. at the very least let them drop in all the heroic zones. nuff said. im not defending myself or my opinion. read the text any way you like.

My god kluxor, how old are you? Don't you want to understand or do you just don't have the brains ? Imagine you learn to drive a racing car for 10 years and due to your training and skills you are are now the best Driver, Nr.1. Than some noob at place nr 25 is lucky to get a new racing car for his birthday from his rich daddy and that car ist three times faster than yours. So now he is double as fast as you and there is nothing you can do about it, because you don't have his luck. Would you think that is fair? would you still we encouraged to train more to get better. you understand?

Or maybe not, probably your the lucky guy with the birthday and happy not to be NR 25 anymore.

After 10 years of playing EQ2 extensively and trying to be a good player (like Black Dog I was allways parsin TOP 1 or 2 ) I now see that good playing is not needed anymore. Just the money ( yes you can buy these weapons for about $ 300 per piece on the open Market) or the luck to get these two ethereals.

I have cancelled my memebership yesterday after a further frustrating raid and it will expire at the 26.05. Obviously nobody is interrested in rebalancing the game, as I read no single reply from any dev on this issue.

It's very sad to see people actually leaving over this bs. I'm lucky enough that there is just one eth in my raid so i can still compete and even top the parse without one. But i get what you mean Carthago.

I still have hope that the new way to get eth war runes from GU 100 will not be a RNG thing too but who knows .... it might just be another zone with a tiny chance to see them drop .....

Are the rare ethereal adorns still avail? I would be willing to buy or trade ;-)

Shall I call a waaahbulance for you? Nice try at insulting my age or hinting that I bought my parses. I topped my parses before I got ethereals, ran zones non stop until I got them, didn't spend dkp until I got my hammer. I earned mine and still top the parses. Sorry for you that since you're not on top anymore you have the assumption that they are scrubs who have no skill....but guess what, they're beating your parses obviously regardless how they're doing it so I'm doubting they're gonna miss you much. I surely wont miss your whine on these forums. Deuces

Stole this quote from another thread, but I believe it sums up ethereal weapons/adorns and the myth hammer in general:
The two types of people who disagree with the fact that these game-breaking effects need to be either removed or made readily accessible are:

1) Casuals who don't understand how balance-shattering they are.
2) Elitists who have theirs and know they only look as good as they do because they have them.

Right, cause everything is either A or B...

The Vast majority

Basically yes. The weapons are broken and stratifying players.

It is OK to have broken and stratifying items provided there is a path to them that isn't luck based but could be grind based. So lets look at the mythics cause people kept bringing them up. They were powerful. They were gamebreaking. But there was a clear path to earning them that didn't involve luck. You did your epic and then you killed some raid mobs and got your mythic. There wasn't any double stacked RNG in getting the items for your mythic to drop and then having to roll against everyone else of the same class in your group. You earned it and you were awesome.

With these, the best players in the world could go in and not get them to drop, while Mr Newbie Assassin could come in and if the fervor trigger on his chain, out DPS them all.

No matter what way you stack it these items also have the potential to destabilize balance for everyone else, as new hard content would need to be balanced around players having these, or content would be trivialized by them.

I stand by my earlier thoughts.

1) You make them easier to get or take the RNG aspect out of them some how. For example making 1 rune drop from defeating a mob in challenge mode. This way only the best or wealthiest players could get them, but at the same time you have that carrot to keep you going. Saving up for them, trying to beat this difficult mob, etc.

2) You remove them from the game and turn the items into buffs for players. Much easier to control and lets you scale content around these abilities more.

Possibly, yes. But what is Mr. Skilled Assassin doing that is so unusual and powerful that makes him/her "skilled"? This game hasn't required skill for a very long time.

Everyone has the same chance to get these items, that sounds fair to me. It sucks when you are one of the have not's but I don't see how people feel they have a certain skill set that others do not, and for that reason they should top the parse.

As I've always thought about bis items, I would like them all to have a path to grinding out. Something the "newbies" will never grind enough to earn but that the unlucky "skilled" players can work long and hard for. The ultra rare chance for them to drop for casuals is a nice perk and way to avoid the grind, but I don't think it should be the only way.

Nkito - I'd assume (my guess as good as yours) ppl here understand ability use 3rd party programs that not violate EULA like - like ACT for triggers and MS Excel (for having efficiency ladder) ... also just a guess using macro and custom UI

So I guess, you would fall into category 1 in my previuous post

Yes and no. I am a casual bad but I do realize how powerful they are. I've always thought ethereals should have a grind option, even if it takes most of the xpac. A way to end the frustrations of people truly putting in an extraordinary amount of time and effort. But I also like there being some very strong and rare items in the game. Everything is so cookie cutter nowadays, aa specs, gear, reforging, etc.

My suggestion is to have the contested named from Ethereal Fragments, which are a currency that you can use to buy the runes. You can even make it a huge amount but at least those of us who have been grinding contested for months like many others, will at least have a sense of progression in that regard.

Even if it takes a month of farming to get enough Fragments, it would still be better than what we have now.