These need to drop more frequently in heroic zones. I've done 8 days worth of zones (full 12 run, and then some) on 4 different toons, and not seen a single shard in these zones, and we have to compete with everyone else in the group for them when they do drop. There are some shards I've never even seen. They are entirely too rare to serve a general populace, especially for 10 of them? *shudders*
The reward is only really useful if you raid. If you raid, they drop like candy. If you don't raid, you don't need it.
I have to agree with Mercychalice regarding the rarity of these shards. I've seen maybe 5 - 6 in heroics/expert heroics since this event began and I run those frequently. Yes Tanto I know they show up more often in raid but I wouldn't say like candy! In raid, we are also rolling against 23 other people for the most part so until more and more raiders have the ones we see, they will continue to be hard to get. I also agree with the OP about not even seeing a fair number of the 10 different kinds yet. I've compared the few I have with other friends and raiders and come up with only five different ones. Where are the others hiding? Part of me can see the logic in Tanto's statement 'The reward is only really useful if you raid. If you raid, they drop like candy. If you don't raid, you don't need it.' But the other part of me asks 'Non-raiders pay to play the game the same as raiders, why shouldn't they have a decent chance too?' If people group regularly but do not raid either because they don't enjoy raiding or else it doesn't fit into their real life schedule at this time, I think they should still have a somewhat reasonable chance to get this reward before next xpac is here. That's my two cents worth at least.
i do raid, and also, 23 other people instead of 5...odds are even lower on that one. they should drop more frequently in heroics, period. i'm now up to two weeks going through heroics on even more toons, and still haven't seen any.
Here's a tip: You don't need 24 people to do normal mode raids. We do the normal modes in downtime, with small groups, or even just 1 group, and many of us are making decent progress as a result.
yes. I'm aware of this. However, it still takes 20 minutes for a t1 fight. Heroics are way faster and more easily accessible.
That's fine, except they are extremely rare in heroics. Spend 1.5-2 hours doing all 12 zones for no shards, or do 2 T1-T2 raid zones in maybe 2-3 hours and get probably 5 or 6 runes. I don't think your complaint is invalid, except that making this quest easy mode would really detract from the spirit of the Vex Thal access key quest. It always was hard, exclusive and time consuming. But this isn't EQ1, One of my guildies has finished it, and he worked really hard to do it. Like a few of us, he's able to solo/duo heroics no problem so just ground it out. Another 2 or 3 have 1 or 2 shards left. I've got 4 left and truth be told I haven't really been trying, except for doing a few easy raids in downtime. I got maybe 2 from heroics, the rest so far all from raids. I wish you luck anyway. Personally I don't think there's any reason to panic about finishing this quest super fast. With the new familiars, the rune isn't that great now as CB is much more important than pot, and the other stats don't really outweigh the CB on the Ire rune. The scepter? Well we finished last night's raid with the first 2 mobs in seru challenge. The guy with the scepter got 1bn dps from it on the first named, and that's about as good as it'll get as that's a straight burn. Zonewide it was 680m from the scepter, so pretty good. If you want it though, right now you've gotta put in some work to get it.
I have been. LOL. That's what the whole post is about. Doing the work with no reward at all. The only incentive I've had to even push for it has been that I raid. But seriously...Two weeks straight through heroics on multiple toons, multiple runs a day, should see at least a handful drop. I'm not the only person on the server interested in the thing. Even if I were to get 5 other people interested in running T1 raids, I'd still be fighting odds against the same amount of people in a heroic group for the pieces. That's what the whole post has been about, doing the work with little reward vs several people vying for the same pieces. It's terrible, and frustrating, and worse I imagine for people with much less time than I have.
Well it looks like they've given the easy mode button a little tickle. Not a full face-mashing but still, making it account wide is going to make the pain a one-time thing for most. As for me, I'm down to my last one. Dawn. Been grinding manor and sambata for it every 90 minutes but no luck so far. Even grabbed the wife and duo'd Rockhopper Pouncer. Not something I'd recommend, especially with just a monk and channeller. 71 minutes later, no shard.
If I may add another request regarding the drops. Please make the loot gray out if you have the shard already. Similar to L&L and Collection items. It can be a hassle every time a shard drops to open the journal to see if you have it. This may not be an issue to some, but if you are running lots of heroics these extra steps slow down the pace. I've also many times had to change loot to leader only then back to NBG because some people click greed too fast before they realize it was a shard they may need. But that has nothing to do with the item being gray (or not), it's just folks not paying attention
Says who? The Umbral Eye is a green adornment that any player doing normal to expert heroics would probably like to have. No restrictions on that.
