T6 master drop rate

[Agaxiq]

T6 Dungeons, non-epic: <u>Contested </u>Clefts of Rujark (very low drop rate, quested named, grey to level 70) Living Tombs (very low drop rate, quested named, grey to level 70) Silent City (low drop rate, grey to level 70) Klak'Anon (low drop rate, only a handful of mobs are T6, many are grey to a level 70) <u>Instanced </u>Hidden Cache (low drop rate, only one named green to level 70) Ancients Table (low drop rate, only one named thats not a guaranteed pop, zone not always open) Cazel's Mesa (low drop rate) Poets Palace (low drop rate) Court of Innovation (very low drop rate, grey to a level 70) Mines of Meldrath (low drop rate, grey to a level 70) Let me know if I'm missing any zones. Sanctum of the Scaleborn is a good example of a zone which is dangerous, even to a level 70, with good contested loot and a decent chance of a master spell drop - but you won't get anything below level 61.  Level 57-60 masters and the 3 T6 ancient teachings are the most expensive masters in the game, on average.  That really shouldn't be the case. <u>Ideas: </u> *  Add the 3 ancient teaching 52/55/58 spells to the T7 loot tables, since they haven't been replaced.   (Hey I've seen a level 23 rat in Edgewater Drains drop a level 38 Necro Master, so the loot tables aren't always absolute) *  Up the drop rate of masters in all of the zones above in general. *  Add a T6 contested dungeon with no named quest mobs. (pipe dream) For those of us who weren't there for T6 master spell day (the day where pretty much every solo named even in overland zones were dropping masters pretty much every kill) - its VERY difficult to get these last masters.  Doing T6 raids shouldnt have to be the answer, in my opinion. Most of the masters on the broker are either from people who farm Poets Palace every day, or bot groups killing massive amount of trash, eventually getting a master drop.  They are all level 60 and are probably level locked due to not having any newer expansions than DoF. If the T6 ancient teachings are getting upgrades in RoK, I guess its not as big of a deal, but nobody has confirmed this one way or the other. agressiv

[Krontak]

Agaxiq@Unrest wrote: <blockquote> Sanctum of the Scaleborn is a good example of a zone which is dangerous, even to a level 70, with good contested loot and a decent chance of a master spell drop - but you won't get anything below level 61.  Level 57-60 masters and the 3 T6 ancient teachings are the most expensive masters in the game, on average.  That really shouldn't be the case. </blockquote> LVL 60 masters drop in SoS.  I got Elude Lvl 60 off the ring even in the large room with like the pyramid in the middle and the Orate spawns on top with 6 groups of 4 droags encircling it.

[firza]

<cite>Krontak wrote:</cite><blockquote>Agaxiq@Unrest wrote: <blockquote> Sanctum of the Scaleborn is a good example of a zone which is dangerous, even to a level 70, with good contested loot and a decent chance of a master spell drop - but you won't get anything below level 61.  Level 57-60 masters and the 3 T6 ancient teachings are the most expensive masters in the game, on average.  That really shouldn't be the case. </blockquote> LVL 60 masters drop in SoS.  I got Elude Lvl 60 off the ring even in the large room with like the pyramid in the middle and the Orate spawns on top with 6 groups of 4 droags encircling it.</blockquote><p> True, SoS can drop the T7 lvl 60 spells. Not the T6 level 60 spells.</p><p>This however has nothing to do with the intention of the OP, namely driving prices of ancient teachings masters below 200 PP, and out of the hands of Plat Farmers who spam YOU every day.</p>

[Triste-Lune]

SoS is a solo zone... and the master rate drop in there need to be drasticaly lowered. T6 master drop also in courts, gate, pp:r, pedestal of sky and T6 contested but i guess you are too lazy to raid to get your stuff and want it handed to you...

[Rahatmattata]

<p>SoS is a group zone...</p><p>And masters should have a decent chance of dropping in group instances in T6 to be on par with every other freekin teir instance in the game. As much as some of you hate it, you don't have to raid to get masters and T6 should be no exception. And just because 1 person is willing to raid for T6 masters doens't mean it's very [Removed for Content] easy at all to find 11-23 other people of the right class willing to go dink around in gates.</p>

[Noaani]

<cite>firza wrote:</cite><blockquote>True, SoS can drop the T7 lvl 60 spells. Not the T6 level 60 spells.</blockquote><p> lol!</p><p>There is not a single difference between 1 level 60 master and another level 60 master. They are all T7. The reason these drop in T6 zones is because when those T6 zones were itemised (back in T6 funnily enough), they were the only place those spells could drop.</p>

[bunx]

<cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>SoS is a group zone...</p><p>And masters should have a decent chance of dropping in group instances in T6 to be on par with every other freekin teir instance in the game. As much as some of you hate it, you don't have to raid to get masters and T6 should be no exception. And just because 1 person is willing to raid for T6 masters doens't mean it's very [I cannot control my vocabulary] easy at all to find 11-23 other people of the right class willing to go dink around in gates.</p></blockquote>Actually i beg to differ - the master rate across all tiers should be drastically lowered. As it is, masters are dropping like candy when they should be much rarer - even only drop from epic content.

[Lanalia]

<p>I miss Master Day right after DoF came out. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> That ruled. I think our max was 7 Master chests out of Scornfeather Roost (a combination of gear + spells).</p><p>Anyway, I'm leveling a Brigand through T6 right now. Hubby and I have taken her to Living Tombs, Clefts of Rujark, etc. and all the group instances. We've had one master drop off trash in LT, and one master drop off trash in Hidden Cache. Granted, I've only seen Masters drop a handful of times in either of those zones, and we've been through them countless times on mains and alts while leveling up. So while they're ridiculously rare, they *are* possible.</p><p>We've also been lucky and gotten masters to drop (semi-frequently) in Poets Palace. The most notable was the level 58 Paladin Ancient Teachings which we gave to a guildmate. We farm it regularly - my selfish reason is so I can get Hibernation Master 1.</p>

[Rahatmattata]

Daray@Kithicor wrote: <blockquote>Actually i beg to differ - the master rate across all tiers should be drastically lowered. As it is, masters are dropping like candy when they should be much rarer - even only drop from epic content. </blockquote> Go ahead and beg to differ all you want. Too bad the game devs don't agree with you. I hope they do make masters rare as hell and have a 1 in a million chance to drop off only the most uber contested T8 epics so I get to see you all cry on the forums when your current masters get replaced by app2 (or w/e) when you ding 71. I wouldn't actually have a problem if they made masters very very rare, almost mythical, and adept3 was the vast norm. Only a few select players would have maybe 2 or 3 masters. But the problem is almost everyone in T7 is close to fully mastered already, so it's easy to say masters should be rare as hell when you're already fully mastered. But since that will most likely not happen, and most people I know of feel master drop rates are just fine except in T6, I stand by my opinion that T6 masters should be just as common as every other tier.

[Ramius613]

<cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote> But the problem is almost everyone in T7 is close to fully mastered already, so it's easy to say masters should be rare as hell when you're already fully mastered. But since that will most likely not happen, and most people I know of feel master drop rates are just fine except in T6, I stand by my opinion that T6 masters should be just as common as every other tier.</blockquote> The reason that almost everyone is mostly mastered, is because we've been stuck at 70 Since Feb/Mar of 06, and it will be a total of 19-20 months between lvl cap increases.  I fully welcome the cap increase, as it will allow me to make new spells, and other things for those lvls.

[Noaani]

<cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote>Daray@Kithicor wrote: <blockquote>Actually i beg to differ - the master rate across all tiers should be drastically lowered. As it is, masters are dropping like candy when they should be much rarer - even only drop from epic content. </blockquote> Go ahead and beg to differ all you want. Too bad the game devs don't agree with you. I hope they do make masters rare as hell and have a 1 in a million chance to drop off only the most uber contested T8 epics so I get to see you all cry on the forums when your current masters get replaced by app2 (or w/e) when you ding 71. I wouldn't actually have a problem if they made masters very very rare, almost mythical, and adept3 was the vast norm. Only a few select players would have maybe 2 or 3 masters. But the problem is almost everyone in T7 is close to fully mastered already, so it's easy to say masters should be rare as hell when you're already fully mastered. But since that will most likely not happen, and most people I know of feel master drop rates are just fine except in T6, I stand by my opinion that <b><i>T6 masters should be just as common as every other tier.</i></b></blockquote><p>Yeah, masters should be common enough to make adept 3s useless, thus the scholar class pointless. As it is now, I can sell T6 adept 3s for more than I can sell T7, because T7 masters are so common.</p><p>SoE screwed up the droprate on T7 masters. I think they are aware of this, and I hope they fix it in T8. And this is comming from soneone that is fully mastered off this broken droprate.</p><p>I do agree with the highlighted part though, only thing is you've got it the wrong way round. Every other tier should be as common as T6 masters. </p>

[Hardain]

T7 master spell drop rates are indeed too high. Remember time before DoF? That was when they were actually rare, maybe even too rare for non/raiders. I hope they decrease master drop rate with RoK, even tho it is nice to have many masters, i still prefer to have less masters if they are worth more. Adept3 ahould be high level of spells, masters uber, but now they both are just common. Talking about adept3's, they also need to reduce rare harvest rates.

[Agaxiq]

If T7 master drop rate is too high (which I dont think it is) - they should nerf: Stormhold Fallen Gate Ruins of Varsoon Runnyeye Obelisk of Lost Souls Temple of Cazic-Thule Solusek Eye All of these zones have much higher drop rates compared to even Sanctum of the Scaleborn and Palace of the Awakened, which are the best T7 contested heroic dungeons that people can really farm.  CMM and MMC don't drop masters that often and in general are not easily farmed at 70.  First level of MMC sure,  but I've never seen those named drop masters.  The T7 instances have a better drop rate than any T6 instance, but not by a large margin.  Really the only ones you can farm are Nest and Acadachism. For me its the simple fact that we have a level 52 ancient teaching that probably will never drop in any raid instance, and there are no good instances that we can hit at 70 that will drop this.  So some of my original points were: 1) Please add the T6 ancient teachings to T7 loot tables 2) Up the drop rate in the T6 instances, adding these (especially the 52 teachings) to the loot table 3) Comment if the 52/55/58 ancient teachings will be available as upgrades in T8 at 72/75/78. I'm not a hard core raider, but I do go on raids at least once a week.  We'll do Labs / DT / MMIS / FTH etc - and maybe i'll see one master drop.  But we'll get 4-5 pieces of fabled before we see a master - and half the time the master drops off trash. The reason why we see so many masters in T7 is because: 1) Many people are at 70 and can hit contested/instances over and over.  If they are already fully mastered (or at least have the master that dropped or dont need it), the master is going on the broker. 2) We've been at 70 for a long time.  There are a lot of dungeons out there that can drop masters.  There's a lot more active T7 content than any other tier. Yes, sages suffer for this, but every other crafter who makes gear has been suffering for a long time.  At least sages can make up to level 70 items, other classes make gear usable at 62 tops unless they get a rare recipe, and like someone said, T6 ad3's probably sell better, certainly the ancient teachings / 57-60 ones.  Other crafters cant sell squat.  There are so many cheap legendary drops that are better than anything crafted - just do an acadechism run, which is soloable at 70 - you'll probably get 6-7 legendary drops - many of them off trash - and with the desire to get set armor, well, crafting can't keep up with the times. agressiv

[daray]

Agaxiq@Unrest wrote: <blockquote>The reason why we see so many masters in T7 is because: 1) Many people are at 70 and can hit contested/instances over and over.  If they are already fully mastered (or at least have the master that dropped or dont need it), the master is going on the broker. 2) We've been at 70 for a long time.  There are a lot of dungeons out there that can drop masters.  There's a lot more active T7 content than any other tier. </blockquote> Actually the reason we see so many (cheap) T7 masters and that many players are fully mastered out now, is because of the high drop rate on them off heroic content - and then because of that, you also have the plat farmers/sellers monopolizing named spawns all day every day for those master drops, and flooding the market with them. Why bother having the various spell qualities if everyone is just going to have the same because of the ease of availability of the majority of masters. Cut the drop rate, or moving masters to epic content alone would no doubt solve both problems <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Agaxiq]

<cite>daray wrote:</cite><blockquote>Agaxiq@Unrest wrote: <blockquote>The reason why we see so many masters in T7 is because: 1) Many people are at 70 and can hit contested/instances over and over.  If they are already fully mastered (or at least have the master that dropped or dont need it), the master is going on the broker. 2) We've been at 70 for a long time.  There are a lot of dungeons out there that can drop masters.  There's a lot more active T7 content than any other tier. </blockquote> Actually the reason we see so many (cheap) T7 masters and that many players are fully mastered out now, is because of the high drop rate on them off heroic content - and then because of that, you also have the plat farmers/sellers monopolizing named spawns all day every day for those master drops, and flooding the market with them. Why bother having the various spell qualities if everyone is just going to have the same because of the ease of availability of the majority of masters. Cut the drop rate, or moving masters to epic content alone would no doubt solve both problems <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </blockquote> Farmers are all in Tier 6, 5 and 4, for the most part.  There aren't nearly as many farmers in T7, IMO.  A bot group won't be able to handle even SoS.  But thats just been my experience. Go into Pillars of Flame, Obelisk of Lost Souls etc, and you'll see em there all the time. If they could make epics drop masters all the time, I'd be for it, but they dont drop frequently enough in my opinion. agressiv

[Noaani]

Agaxiq@Unrest wrote: <blockquote>they should <strike>nerf</strike> fix: Stormhold Fallen Gate Ruins of Varsoon Runnyeye Obelisk of Lost Souls Temple of Cazic-Thule Solusek Eye </blockquote><p>I will never call for a nerf, however, the above, as edited, I totally agree with.</p><p>Masters should be rare, they should be something to be proud of, they should not be something that everyone thinks they ahve a god given right too just becuase they pay their monthly fees, as is currently the case. </p>

[Noaani]

<cite>daray wrote:</cite><blockquote>Cut the drop rate, or moving masters to epic content alone would no doubt solve both problems <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </blockquote><p>Cutting the droprate would be good, but making masters drop only off epic mobs would be a mistake IMO.</p><p>First though, the NEED to make masters only drop off named mobs, epic and heroic. Then they need to make them drop often(ish) on epic names, maybe 25% of the time. After that, give them a maximum of 5% droprate on heroic named.</p><p>With this, however, consider making a change so that they will only drop a master of a class that is present, similar to class armour now, and maybe even do a spellbook check to drop masters people do not have (if so, reduce the droprate to 10% for epic named, and < 1% for heroic named). </p>

[Siltha]

I would have no problem bringing the drop rates of T7 masters on par with T6 – If they actually make master spells substantial upgrades to adept 3 spells again, so their rarity will make sense. Right now with the resistability nerf and the minor upgrades master spells have become pretty much a joke anyway. 

[XAvengerX]

<cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote>But the problem is almost everyone in T7 is close to fully mastered already, so it's easy to say masters should be rare as hell when you're already fully mastered. But since that will most likely not happen, and most people I know of feel master drop rates are just fine except in T6, I stand by my opinion that T6 masters should be just as common as every other tier.</blockquote><p>NO, just .... NO. You have this completely wrong.</p><p>Masters should be rare. Some zones like Stormhold and Runnyeye drop masters like candy which is just plain wrong. Sure these masters deprecate quickly and have very little shelf life unless you lock level specifically to farm these zones over and over, but that doesnt mean that their drop rate shouldnt be a lot less.</p><p>The only people who are even close to "Fully mastered" at 70 are probably the people that have been exceptionally lucky with selling looted/crafted/transmuter items on the broker, or serial rare harvesters, or people that are dumb enough to buy plat with real money.</p><p>I know a lot of lvl 70s and many of them are no where near being "fully mastered".</p><p>Pipe dream. </p>

[kenm]

Daig@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote><cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote>But the problem is almost everyone in T7 is close to fully mastered already, so it's easy to say masters should be rare as hell when you're already fully mastered. But since that will most likely not happen, and most people I know of feel master drop rates are just fine except in T6, I stand by my opinion that T6 masters should be just as common as every other tier.</blockquote><p>NO, just .... NO. You have this completely wrong.</p><p>Masters should be rare. Some zones like Stormhold and Runnyeye drop masters like candy which is just plain wrong. Sure these masters deprecate quickly and have very little shelf life unless you lock level specifically to farm these zones over and over, but that doesnt mean that their drop rate shouldnt be a lot less.</p><p>The only people who are even close to "Fully mastered" at 70 are probably the people that have been exceptionally lucky with selling looted/crafted/transmuter items on the broker, or serial rare harvesters, or people that are dumb enough to buy plat with real money.</p><p>I know a lot of lvl 70s and many of them are no where near being "fully mastered".</p><p>Pipe dream. </p></blockquote>If by fully mastered you mean simply 57-70, ancient teachings, and any other non-upgradeable ones like rescue or intercede... then there's tons of people that are fully mastered.   For instance, go look at any raid guild worth anything.

[XAvengerX]

Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote>Daig@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote><cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote>But the problem is almost everyone in T7 is close to fully mastered already, so it's easy to say masters should be rare as hell when you're already fully mastered. But since that will most likely not happen, and most people I know of feel master drop rates are just fine except in T6, I stand by my opinion that T6 masters should be just as common as every other tier.</blockquote><p>NO, just .... NO. You have this completely wrong.</p><p>Masters should be rare. Some zones like Stormhold and Runnyeye drop masters like candy which is just plain wrong. Sure these masters deprecate quickly and have very little shelf life unless you lock level specifically to farm these zones over and over, but that doesnt mean that their drop rate shouldnt be a lot less.</p><p>The only people who are even close to "Fully mastered" at 70 are probably the people that have been exceptionally lucky with selling looted/crafted/transmuter items on the broker, or serial rare harvesters, or people that are dumb enough to buy plat with real money.</p><p>I know a lot of lvl 70s and many of them are no where near being "fully mastered".</p><p>Pipe dream. </p></blockquote>If by fully mastered you mean simply 57-70, ancient teachings, and any other non-upgradeable ones like rescue or intercede... then there's tons of people that are fully mastered.   For instance, go look at any raid guild worth anything. </blockquote>And what statistics do you have to back up your claim ?

[kenm]

Daig@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote>Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote>Daig@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote><cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote>But the problem is almost everyone in T7 is close to fully mastered already, so it's easy to say masters should be rare as hell when you're already fully mastered. But since that will most likely not happen, and most people I know of feel master drop rates are just fine except in T6, I stand by my opinion that T6 masters should be just as common as every other tier.</blockquote><p>NO, just .... NO. You have this completely wrong.</p><p>Masters should be rare. Some zones like Stormhold and Runnyeye drop masters like candy which is just plain wrong. Sure these masters deprecate quickly and have very little shelf life unless you lock level specifically to farm these zones over and over, but that doesnt mean that their drop rate shouldnt be a lot less.</p><p>The only people who are even close to "Fully mastered" at 70 are probably the people that have been exceptionally lucky with selling looted/crafted/transmuter items on the broker, or serial rare harvesters, or people that are dumb enough to buy plat with real money.</p><p>I know a lot of lvl 70s and many of them are no where near being "fully mastered".</p><p>Pipe dream. </p></blockquote>If by fully mastered you mean simply 57-70, ancient teachings, and any other non-upgradeable ones like rescue or intercede... then there's tons of people that are fully mastered.   For instance, go look at any raid guild worth anything. </blockquote>And what statistics do you have to back up your claim ? </blockquote>We've had over a freaking year since KoS launched to get these masters, I don't need statistics.  I was hearing of people getting fully mastered a month or two after KoS launched, and I've personally been fully mastered for quite awhile.  A large chunk of my guildies are fully mastered, quite a few of my non-guildie friends are as well. Heck, go look at any high-end raid guild public recruitment board and you'll probably see most of the people applying stating they're fully mastered. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Anybody that hit 70 back in KoS time is either: A.  Fully mastered.  B. Incredibly close to being fully mastered.  or C.  A slacker.

[XAvengerX]

<p>Statements made mean very little without actual figures to compare against the whole population of a server within a certain level range.</p><p>Saying that your friends are fully mastered, is of little consequence when you dont specify how many people you are talking about.</p><p>Also not all Lvl 70 are obsessed with obtaining masters, and most make do with adept III which in most cases is just as good and much more economical.</p><p>Anyway thats besides the point, master drop rates are high, they are too high in places like Stormhold and Runnyeye, and Varsoon as is also the legendary equipment drop rate. People farm these zones constantly because it is so easy to run around solo popping named for masters. Hell look on broker and you will see sometimes 10 of the same legendary item ... now whats "legendary" about that ?</p><p>Fix the drop rates.</p>

[kenm]

Daig@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote><p>Statements made mean very little without actual figures to compare against the whole population of a server within a certain level range.</p><p>Saying that your friends are fully mastered, is of little consequence when you dont specify how many people you are talking about.</p><p>Also not all Lvl 70 are obsessed with obtaining masters, and most make do with adept III which in most cases is just as good and much more economical.</p><p>Anyway thats besides the point, master drop rates are high, they are too high in places like Stormhold and Runnyeye, and Varsoon as is also the legendary equipment drop rate. People farm these zones constantly because it is so easy to run around solo popping named for masters. Hell look on broker and you will see sometimes 10 of the same legendary item ... now whats "legendary" about that ?</p><p>Fix the drop rates.</p></blockquote>Like your statements are any better?   You called being fully mastered a pipe dream based on you knowing "a lot of lvl 70s" that weren't fully mastered.  With KoS I believe I gained 20 new spells.  An entire year for a mere 20 masters seems incredibly plausible, especially since you yourself admit that master drop rates are high!

[XAvengerX]

<p>The other thing to consider about these T6 masters is they normally are not cheap. Take a look at master spells for necro which can cost an awful lot of plat, and other certain classes follow the same trend.</p><p>Plat is easy to get but you need time to get any sort of decent amount to be able to buy some more of the more "lucrative" masters. Its difficult to make any type of serious money from crafting nowadays even at T7, so that money has got to come from somewhere.</p><p>If you take the easy option and buy into the game with real life money, sure its going to be pretty easy to be "fully mastered", however if you didnt take that option then getting these masters is going to be somewhat more difficult unless your guild members transfer their looted masters to the appropriate member classes.</p><p>If you do nothing but raid then of course your chances of obtaining these will be much, much higher, however remember not all guilds are hardcore raiding guilds, and actually find other ways to enjoy the game when online together.</p>

[kenm]

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at.  You're suggesting that anybody fully mastered buys plat because masters aren't cheap, yet you say you want masters to be rare?  The rarity of masters is exactly why they cost so much... Anyway, it's true that you can't make good money from crafting, but why in the world do you keep falling back onto the buying plat comment?  That's an entirely baseless accusation, considering there's far easier ways to make money in the game if you can think a little. I personally have either bought or looted every master I have, none were given to me.  After that, I used leftover plat to help fund a friend of mine to be fully mastered as well.  If I can raise the plat legit to fully master two people, surely anybody can do the same just for themselves if they try a little. And then what, you bring hardcore raiding into a totally unrelated subject?  The vast majority of masters come from group instances, anybody that does nothing but raid is going to have a harder time getting fully mastered than somebody that only groups.  <img src="/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[XAvengerX]

<p>Hardcore raiding also includes grouping ... I thought you might have been able to work that one out for yourself <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>As for plat buyers and masters, its not baseless at all. I think you need to face facts and actually accept that there are people in this game that dont play by the rules, and fund their toons with real life money. Trust me, there are a lot of them, and not only on Exchange servers.</p><p>I remember a year or so back when I was questing in Nektulos Forest (on Butcherblock) , I just happened to meet a Bruiser who invited me to group. I got chatting to him and he happened to drop hints about his skills and equipment.</p><p>Eventually I asked him how he managed to get most of that at his level, to which he replied that he had got bored, went online, bought plat and completely mastered himself out. I was quite shocked about his shameless admittance about buying plat, and thought it was pretty pointless, and takes the challenge away from the game.</p><p>I am also glad that you can find enough time to play that you can fable out 2 toons, problem is, some of us have other things like real lives to attend to and cannot spend most of our waking lives playing EQ2 (although we would like to very much!!!).</p>

[Snorm]

<p>I know of no good way for players to get their hands on the actual stats.... There is no published list of what spells someone actually has scribed. From personal experience, it's not all that hard to get close enough to fully mastered as to make no difference. My main, my wife's main are both very close to mastered out. Her alt that she's been playing seriously for about a month has a very solid chunk of her masters... It's not all that hard to cherry pick the cheap and attainable ones. And no, we don't buy plat.</p><p>There are a ton of ways to make money. Farming raid zones does produce some plat, but most people don't do that. To be clear, I mean that most RAIDERS don't do that. Raiding a zone that you can't clear in your sleep, or that you still need gear from consumes money, it doesn't make much <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>I've always thought that the master drop rait in the very low teirs was so high simply so that people leveling up through there would have some kind of a shot at getting a master they need. If you don't level lock, you hit RoV how many times on a toon? 1? 2? 5 max? After that you move up a teir. How many times have you cleared OOB, or CoV?</p><p>My major gripe with the master system is a 14 level spell progression layered on top of a 10 level content system. That combined with mobs that won't drop spells outside of their teir makes for some very rare spells for no particularly good reason. I think they did relax the drop rules a bit a while back so that mobs have a wider range that they can drop, but it still seems to be restricted by actual teir (no 59 masters off of a 61 mob, for example). It would seem that any mob that a level 70 player would want to kill should be able to drop any master that is still current at level 70, which is the 57-70 + ancient teachings, not just 65-70 or so.</p><p>Snorm -- 70 Guard</p>

[thebunny]

Daig@Butcherblock wrote: <blockquote>As for plat buyers and masters, its not baseless at all. I think you need to face facts and actually accept that there are people in this game that dont play by the rules, and fund their toons with real life money. Trust me, there are a lot of them, and not only on Exchange servers. <p>I remember a year or so back when I was questing in Nektulos Forest (on Butcherblock) , I just happened to meet a Bruiser who invited me to group. I got chatting to him and he happened to drop hints about his skills and equipment.</p><p>Eventually I asked him how he managed to get most of that at his level, to which he replied that he had got bored, went online, bought plat and completely mastered himself out. I was quite shocked about his shameless admittance about buying plat, and thought it was pretty pointless, and takes the challenge away from the game. </p></blockquote><p>So based off of one data point, you're assuming that there are a lot of plat buyers out there?  And somehow making a correlation between that and people who are fully mastered?  I agree that there are probably a fair share of people out there who are sad enough to blur the lines between reality and a game by buying virtual currency, but I would bet that the majority of level 70s who are fully mastered did so legit.  Of course, like you yourself have said, without numbers it's pretty much all just speculation. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>I personally have every master from 60 to 70 save for one, which I've never seen drop or up on the broker.  I bought or looted every single one.  The only masters I still have left to get are a few of the T6 ones.  I've tried farming for them but had no luck.  And whenever they show up on the broker, they go for more than what I am willing to pay (i.e. I don't believe any master is worth 80p).  At this point I don't really see the point of trying to get the T6 masters anymore now that RoK is coming, because they'll all be useless in T8 save for maybe the ancient teachings.</p><p>Oh, and I have a life too.  It's not so much a matter of time as it is a matter of knowing how to make money.</p>

[steelblueangel]

<p>Many people post stating that sos, nest, etc are solo zones!!!! well maybe for raiders that are fabled and mastered out but definitely not for the average player such as myself and others like me. I can't solo SoS and I sure can't solo the nest in my mismash armor consisting of mastercrafted, treasured, legendary or my adept and adept 3 spells.  </p><p>The only chance I have at master drops are in groups and that depends if I am lucky enough to win it or if it is even for my class. On that note part of the balance problems in this game is that eq uses fabled and mastered out players as the norm without considering those that are not. This causes a great dificulty imbalance for the majority that are not fable/mastered out by removing opportunities for the average player to have a chance at getting a quality drop. Players like myself are the majority or the norm of the player base yet our game play is affected in greater difficulty by the minority of the fabled/ mastered out players. </p><p>A soloution I have would be to scale down the fabled and masterspells outside of the epic encounter instances rather than scale the entire game difficulty around the umber toons abilitys. Those that are not umber would like to have a chance at some master chest and master spell drops. </p>

[Snorm]

<p>What heroic zone is balanced around Fabled/Master gear?</p><p>Snorm -- 70 Guard</p>

[daray]

I don't think anyone can say that the amount of masters entering the game/market is too low. I was fully mastered 2-3 months into KoS without too much effort on my part, and no, i did not buy plat to achieve this. I guess we should just be thankful that we don't have top-end fabled gear entering the game at this speed.

[kingdeke]

<p>Depending on how tightly you define "top end" there already is a huge stream of it entering the game. Guaranteed metal off every named raid mob in the expantion.</p><p> Only reason we aren't seeing every random nub in quenos harbor geared out is 2/3 of it usually ends up transmuted....</p>

[Agaxiq]

<cite>Snorm wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>What heroic zone is balanced around Fabled/Master gear?</p><p>Snorm -- 70 Guard</p></blockquote> I think what he meant was that in order to solo SoS, Nest etc, effectively, you'll need Fabled gear and Master Spells, but that it is very possible. I suppose an excellent player could do it with less, but it would be tough. So, to an end-game raider, Nest, SoS, Acad, FC etc - are all solo zones now.  People farm them for master spells to sell on the broker or for alts etc. With a group of 6 level 65's without fabled, nest is a fun and challenging instance. agressiv

[thebunny]

<p>No, I don't think that's what he meant at all to be honest, based on his second paragraph:</p><blockquote><p>The only chance I have at master drops are in groups and that depends if I am lucky enough to win it or if it is even for my class. <b>On that note part of the balance problems in this game is that eq uses fabled and mastered out players as the norm without considering those that are not.</b> This causes a great dificulty imbalance for the majority that are not fable/mastered out by removing opportunities for the average player to have a chance at getting a quality drop. Players like myself are the majority or the norm of the player base yet our game play is affected in greater difficulty by the minority of the fabled/ mastered out players. </p></blockquote><p>Sounds to me like he feels entitled to master/fabled drops without grouping or raiding, and if he isn't fabled and mastered out, his game play is greatly affected.</p><p>Personally I don't know of a single solo mob that requires legendary gear, nor do I know of a single heroic zone that requires masters and fabled equipment.</p>

[MadLordOfMilk]

<cite>Snorm wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>What heroic zone is balanced around Fabled/Master gear?</p><p>Snorm -- 70 Guard</p></blockquote>Castle Mistmoore <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> But that's only one heroic zone in the entire game that I can think of... and I also hope RoK has a zone like that.

[thebunny]

Kraaj@Everfrost wrote: <blockquote><cite>Snorm wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>What heroic zone is balanced around Fabled/Master gear?</p><p>Snorm -- 70 Guard</p></blockquote>Castle Mistmoore <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> But that's only one heroic zone in the entire game that I can think of... and I also hope RoK has a zone like that. </blockquote>I thought Castle Mistmoore was technically considered a contested raid zone, similar to Temple of Scale.  Hence the ability for a raid to get loot from heroic nameds.

[MadLordOfMilk]

It's a really moreso a combination of grouping and raiding. Main floor is almost all heroics, go upstairs or downstairs and you'll find a bunch of epics. I think the idea was meant to give both a hardcore grouping area and a contested raid zone at the same time. Keep in mind that EoF blurs all kinds of zone-line restrictions (tiers, harvestables being only in certain sections, etc.) so this is really yet another way of doing that.

[Birn]

Kraaj@Everfrost wrote: <blockquote><cite>Snorm wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>What heroic zone is balanced around Fabled/Master gear?</p><p>Snorm -- 70 Guard</p></blockquote>Castle Mistmoore <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> But that's only one heroic zone in the entire game that I can think of... and I also hope RoK has a zone like that. </blockquote> Put up a MC tank in Unrest/Nizara and it wont take long until you realize you need a new tank <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Those zones maybe not are balanced towards fabled gear but it sure helps <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[daray]

Kraaj@Everfrost wrote: <blockquote><cite>Snorm wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>What heroic zone is balanced around Fabled/Master gear?</p><p>Snorm -- 70 Guard</p></blockquote>Castle Mistmoore <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> But that's only one heroic zone in the entire game that I can think of... and I also hope RoK has a zone like that. </blockquote> The heroic portion of castle mistmoore is <i>not</i> balanced around fabled/masters. It is perfectly doable in legendary/mastercrafted - the only thing that gets people killed in there is skill or a lack thereof, especially if they arent careful how they pull or avoid adds, or don't move fast enough. I 2 box the lower floor of castle mistmoore with a friend (who also 2 boxes) - and we have absolutely no problem in there. Granted our mains are fully fabled/mastered, but my point is that a full group of 6 people in legendary/adept3 should not be challenged to the point that they blame a lack of fabled/masters for their inability to make any headway in the zone. If they wanted a heroic zone geared towards a fully fabled/mastered group of 6, they would really need to increase the comparative difficulty to that of castle mistmoore.

[TuinalOfTheNexus]

<cite>Birn wrote:</cite><blockquote><p> Put up a MC tank in Unrest/Nizara and it wont take long until you realize you need a new tank <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Those zones maybe not are balanced towards fabled gear but it sure helps <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote><p>Nizara is actually quite hard but believe me the actual difference between Mastercrafted and Fabled is insignificant. It's more that a raid tank is gonna know how to play and be very experienced in holding aggro and targetting / working with debuffs. I know people find it very hard to accept that skill is more important than gear but this is true in EQ2 more than any other MMO since their last combat revamp. The realistic mitigation and avoidance % between fabled and treasured is amazingly small.</p><p>Unrest can be done with 3 people, and no tank. The fact most mobs move extremely slowly and are rootable trivialises this zone for anyone that knows how to play. In fact certain classes can solo it, the only reason they don't is the huge amount of time it would take. </p>

[rubels]

<p>Re : Castle MM -</p><p>I have tanked the zone in treasured because of someone saying it chouldnt be done. The result = 0 deaths. Alot of it is based on your group set up and if its a pick up group or not.</p><p>I have done the same thing with Niz ... a few deaths but they where the "luck" pulls where groups of mobs are above you and basicly you pop your head up for the pull.</p><p>I am fully mastered and I agree it does help but .... alot of its player ability , group set up and knowing game mechanics end of story.</p><p>On the same note I can 3 man Castle MM with my raid gear and normal nightly crew... nothing beats the sage camp for cash <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>- Krov</p>

[sah]

<cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Nizara is actually quite hard but believe me the actual difference between Mastercrafted and Fabled is insignificant.</p></blockquote> I did Nizara with a tank that was equipped with EoF fabled gear and with no crowd control of any kind and we killed 2 nameds simultaneously with maybe 2 dps dieing during the fight...If I go to Nizara with a tank entirely equipped in mastercrafted and treasured gear he'll usually die pulling a named before the chanter can even get a mez off...

[Talz]

Daray@Kithicor wrote: <blockquote><cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>SoS is a group zone...</p><p>And masters should have a decent chance of dropping in group instances in T6 to be on par with every other freekin teir instance in the game. As much as some of you hate it, you don't have to raid to get masters and T6 should be no exception. And just because 1 person is willing to raid for T6 masters doens't mean it's very [I cannot control my vocabulary] easy at all to find 11-23 other people of the right class willing to go dink around in gates.</p></blockquote>Actually i beg to differ - the master rate across all tiers should be drastically lowered. As it is, masters are dropping like candy when they should be much rarer - even only drop from epic content. </blockquote>I have a hard time believing that comes from someone doing epic content.  Drop rates are limited and suck.  Let's not have masters replace the limited amount of drops we already get.

[thebunny]

<cite>sahet wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Nizara is actually quite hard but believe me the actual difference between Mastercrafted and Fabled is insignificant.</p></blockquote> I did Nizara with a tank that was equipped with EoF fabled gear and with no crowd control of any kind and we killed 2 nameds simultaneously with maybe 2 dps dieing during the fight...If I go to Nizara with a tank entirely equipped in mastercrafted and treasured gear he'll usually die pulling a named before the chanter can even get a mez off...</blockquote><p>I agree with what others have said before - it's about the players much more than it is about the gear.  If the players in your group are good and know their classes, you can do Nizara with a tank in treasured/mastercrafted (from experience).  Of course being fabled and mastered out helps, but put that fabled and those masters on someone who doesn't know what they're doing and you'll still die.</p>