While I appreciate you trying to point out inconsistencies Vicah. Raid Gear being better than Heroic and Solo has been a long (since launch) fact. The ellipsis are unnecessary and are actually quite distracting to your point as are the bold capital letters. I see you are trying to call me a hypocrite here though. Raid Gear is harder to get like it or not, it is not easy to coordinate 24 peoples lives to run a zone for 2 hours and maybe have a shot at gear. It is far easier to coordinate 6 people randomly for a Heroic zone and far, far easier to decide to do it yourself. You have seen in many threads I advocate that Solo and Heroic have interchangeable pieces (not sets) it is also my hope that the Rare-Dropped items from Heroic are on par if not a bit better than EM-Raid; thus making Heroic and Raid interchangeable outside of HM-Raid. I however have issue with Solo Gear (the easiest to get grind-aside) being so close when there is a whole bracket of gear(Heroic) in between. I did not however see/remember Gaarysal's comment about being alright with Solo Gear being removed; I was responding to their immediate retorts towards Mathrim. I post longer responses because I think of it. Maybe I do check the forums often hence my reply rate. If you don't like what I post simply do not respond to me. I do however think of what I post before I do so, or try to. I also do not think we are in disagreement that Heroic needs to be greater than Solo and fail to see where I so stated Solo > Heroic is a good thing. As to why I felt they can't make Steward Gear that high, that would give a whole set to being on par with EM. Not select pieces. To me that would maybe interfere with the incentive to run EM-Raid. Progression is based both on mathematics and player conceptions. I actually was done with this thread until you decided to post an attack response that is not related to the topic. I have said my piece, and responded to those who have responded to me. I see nothing else to add except that apparently I must defend myself from an attack post, which has quoted some of my posts that I have since rethought and admitted were wrong or ill thought.
IMO nothing needs nerfed. But heroics and Raid should have same possible benfits as Solo... Making Heroics have chance to drop the EM Raid trash gear that solo does but at a slightly increased drop rate as well as heroics and raid dropping the ethereals solo does would go a long way for solving the problem. Drinal Steward gear has been said by many people to be soooooo easy to get so why make it great gear. Just use it to fill empty slots on gear till can get fabled. Honestly Solo should NEVER be the only place to get some of the near best gear the game has to offer (ethereals)
Having red slots on Drinal gear is dumb, Looking at Skyshrine Head gear, did it have red slots? No but it was still nice. Besides when are we getting a Red/Yellow Merchant for the COE adorns, or are we stuck with old DOV adorns for life? Oh and why is the Solo/ Group armor dropping in EM raids anyways?
From SS, there was Red slot Helms, Gloves, and Pants available from Dozekar Heads. Red slot Shoulders and Boots were available from the questline that led up to Dozekar. Since there isn't a quest line in CoE that gives red slot gear, like there was in SS, and since you could get some red slot pieces from the SS merchant... I'm unclear as to how carrying on this tradition of making red slot gear available via a questline or merchant would be "dumb". Was it fine in SS but gonna be OP in CoE?
In Skyshrine, the Doz head gear was not as good as raid-dropped gear, that's the difference between CoE and SS. It's fine to bump the gear up, but if they do they need to bump up raid gear as well. If a guild is just breaking into or starting to progress through easy mode content, what would be the better way to gear up members? Get 3-4 groups of people and raid content to hope the RNG likes you and drops gear people need, maybe 10 pieces a night for a beginning raiding guild, or split those same people into groups of 4-6 and run heroic instances over and over for spirits and essences, then farm Obols on the OP docks... Each spirit drops for the group, so that is 6 pieces of gear...if its the same quality as raid gear (after they bump it up), what is the incentive for people to start raiding. They can make merchant gear good, heck even give it a red slot, but there has to be some differentiation between faction gear and raid gear to incentivize people to raid. It's already hard to get new people raiding with the low server pops, and if they freely give out the same gear with very minimal group effort now it may be the dagger in the back to easy mode raiding. We'll still raid HM and PoW, but now people will be coming in with raid gear thinking they know how to play, and you just do not get the experience with strats in Heroic content that you need to succeed in Raid content. Having easy mode raid gear and incentivizing people to raid easy mode was a nice bridge into HM content, that is going to be gone if this is pushed live in this state. (Still love the rare drops tho, gives a nice incentive to run Heroic content)
i didn't read all the post so i'm sorry if someone all ready brought this up but the huge slap in the face is that the solo instance chest has almost 10% uncontested avoidance and the faction merchant has ZERO.. what mobs does this solo layer tank that he needs/earned that 10% uncontested avoidance? at least heroic tanks group and tank mobs that require and entire group and at least some sort of team work.
Woah, woah, how does it have 10% Uncontested Avoidance? The only Blue-Stat that directly converts % into UCA is "Extra Ripost %". While I agree that Solo loot is well... Raid-Trash loot when you look at it Primal/Gehnin Gear drops from Raid-Trash... shouldn't be in Solo Zones there should be separate Solo-Fabled gear. Most Raid-BP's don't have that much Avoidance on it to my memory. Mine does but it is an Avatar Breastplate, that is absurd if a Solo BP has the same avoidance as an HM-Endgame-BP the only one better than mine is Nightmare Drinal (4 Well) and maybe Commanders as I have yet to kill them though we are getting there.
not quite sure what your post is trying to say but the drinal faction gear should have the extra riposte as well. specially if the solo instance loot does. i really can't even begin to express how absolutely stupid it is to put superior gear in solo instances but not heroic in a MASSIVELY MULTI-PLAYER ONLINE GAME but with time i hope this moronic itemization is done away with. and it's not just the chest either it's ethereal and bows and all kinds of stuff. grats on making solo play more rewarding than grouping in an mmo lol
If the primal gets lowered due to people like you advocating it; I'm going to get pissed. I'm tired of gear nerfs. Regardless of the fact that it drops in the solo zones IT ALSO DROPS IN THE RAID ZONES and is a viable update to the EM Under-depths BP. I think the signature quest cloak needs a red slot and so does the drinal gear.
This thread is pretty lol. If you want the red slots just do the solo zones and hope for the rare drops or raid. Bought gear isnt going to get red slots and im really not sure why surprised by this. SS items from dozekar heads did not give you red slot, but you could gamble your head for a chance at a rare item w/ red slot if you like. That same principle carried over into CoE. What you're suggesting is for them to remove rare fable chances from the chest, which would mean they would also have to do it for SS item crates since they work the same. That isnt likely to happen, and by not likely its as in a possibility of 5%. Why would bought gear from a merchant come with red slots when you cant even buy red adorns to fit the gear w/o raiding or buying loot rights to the items with the adorns already in it(or solo instance rare drop fable)
Only issue from me is that Solo Zones get the WHOLE table. I am fine with Soloers getting 1/3 a set of Trash-Raid Gear and 2 Ethereal if they get lucky. That is almost a full half-set of gear they don't need to actually do their content. It just makes it easier for them and gives them a goal. I want reasons for Solo to run Heroic and Heroic to run Raid. I don't want to see Heroic or Solo get a full set of Raid-level Armor without setting foot in a raid. Jewelry fine, it helps you dps more and get into raids easier. Leave Raid-Armor in RAID zones even Trash-gear. If it weren't for trashloot dropping in solo the issue of heroics would not be so massive.
And my issue is I'm sick and tired of gear nerfs due to people complaining. I solo, I run instances and I raid. And I like being able to mix and match gear from all three to better my toon. And most importantly I don't give a diddly-squat about where other people are getting their gear or how they are playing their game. And like you said IF THEY GET LUCKY. Getting lucky is what it comes down to most of the time. We can and do clear most of EM CoE with no issues, yet due to being unlucky with drops most of my gear is still Skyshrine. Do I mind? Yeah a little bit, but knowing that my drops will come sooner or later keeps me going. As does the fact I've gotten a few upgrades from both solo and heroic that can tide me over till that raid drop finally comes.
Yet if you get a full set form 1 zone what reason is there to run new if you are content. With 3-5 Pieces + the Ethereal there is plenty reason to do Solo even as a Raider or Grouper. Solo has a full item-set that I believe was originally; - 3 Fabled Items with 180's on them. - The rest of the gear is Legendary with lower 170's - 2 Ethreals on super rare drops with 200+ I think... I haven't seen one in awhile. - Not Primal or Gehnin Raid-Trash gear. The Sahmian and other specialty named items. Seems to me that is a full set you an mix-n-match all you like. It was my opinion about Raid-Trashloot coming from Solo is not a good thing as getting that full armor set discourages grouping. I also am of the opinion if this hadn't happened they wouldn't have had to revamp Steward Gear as the 179 stat items that are better would have only been from Raid with a select few Solo being better. You disagree with me and we can go back and forth over that till the whatever animal you like comes home. I am of one belief and you another. I think we are done here frankly.
There is not a full set of raid trash drops in the solo zones. And we both raid, you HM and I EM so what drops in the solo or heroic zones shouldn't really concern us. And as much as I play, I should have seen an Ethereal by now. I haven't seen one, so I think that other than those few "RNG golden-children who get awesome drops all the time, they are still extremely rare. I also haven't seen a fabled solo drop in weeks, so I'm pretty sure they lowered the number on those drops as well.
Myself and guildies are still getting them at the same frequency as of today. I've had some pretty long dry streaks but eventually they break. It could have something to do with the "rate of entry" that was discussed in another thread not too long ago; being as so many people are running WE. See post #31 in this thread by me. It is the entire cleric set from my bank (hence the adorns) all of it looted from solo zones.
All seven slots drop, Wurm. My last two were both cleric forearms. I've got 5 pieces of the shaman set (6 total, but 2 shoulders... and no shaman to wear it... just missing the chest and legs and I'll have to level one up), and the other two slots for other classes (plate tank bp, leather tank legs, both of which I can use). I do wonder if Sony has the drop chances coded wrong again, as "equal chance of any item dropping" rather than proportional to the classes in the game... I've gotten tons and tons of priest gear, and precious little scout and mage gear, probably because there's 3 full sets of priest gear and only 1 set each for mages and scouts. Shaman gear should be at most 2/25ths of the drops, not 1/7 of them. (I'm giving the benefit of the doubt, mine are more like 1/2 shaman gear.) They patched those drop rates to be proportional later in the Skyshrine xpac, it seems they went back to the old/wrong way here? (And the problem with solo zones isn't bad itemization, it's NO itemization. It's completely obvious that solo zone drops are "common chance of any group-zone-trash non-armor item, rare chance of any raid-zone-trash armor item, hen's-teeth chance of an ethereal item." They don't have their own itemization, they just stole stuff from the other zones. So now it's unbalancable, since they can't nerf solo-gained stuff separately from others. Their only choice is to power up all non-solo-dropping raid gear and all non-solo-dropping group gear (including obol-bought) to try to get it over the solo stuff. And then rebalance all the content to match the new gear. The update got them 10% of the way there. Since it's now "off to work on the next expansion", it won't be fixed. Hopefully they get the next expansion fully itemized, but that seems to be a rare event in eq2's history. Despite the players' goals being about 95% "itemization-based improvements", it seems to get about 0.95% of the devs' time.)
Not that people don't like getting upgrades to the gear they already have, but by HOW MUCH does anyone think SOE can up the stats on Faction or Raid gear before the content becomes completely trivial? The faction gear is +175 now and has some of the best reforgable levels in the game. The Raid gear is 182-196 depending and adding even 5% to those stats will make the content way beyond easy. There are level 95's in COE Faction gear 1 or 2 grouping level SS 92 x4 raid bosses and COE 95 x4 raid trash now... How much more powerful do you all want to make them? Go a head, make my COE raid geared SK 5% - 15% more powerful ... I dare you.
