Drops and mob difficulty - The Ascent (lower)

[Safiya]

First the augs.
You need 16 fragments for one Gem of Defense/Vitality/Endurance
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/items.php?id=121020
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/items.php?id=121030
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/items.php?id=121025
The Fragments have a drop rate of 6%, the nameds and the Guardians do not drop any fragments.

Now the Marks.
You need a Mark to spawn a Guardian for access to the upper part of the zone and for their loot. There are 4 marks, each of which only drops from certain mobs. Mark of the Wild spawns the (I forgot his name) Guardian and the marks for him only drop off of puma type mobs. There are not many. Ditto with spiders, little tiny dragon things, and goblins on steroids. the Marks each have a drop rate of 3% from their respective mob type only. It's not a terribly unfair rate if only trying to kill the Guardians for access to upper Ascent but if you want their loot (single item, 50% chance to drop) it becomes quite punishing.
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/items.php?id=120794
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/items.php?id=120796
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/items.php?id=120797
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/items.php?id=120795

Now, I believe the drop rates on all the items listed above are terribly low. I have been killing there every day for about a week. Usually, multiple clears a day, sometimes as many as 6 runs through lower Ascent. I still do not have a single completed aug. It took me a week to farm enough shards to get halfway there for each aug type and we're only talking about ONE character. All the fragments go to my tank.

This is not my idea of fun. The Ascent is a small zone but to get even a single completed aug will take an absurd about of time. The augs are not lore, I had hoped to farm a bunch for my tank and toss a few around to my boxes. Now I'd just be happy with finishing the three I started and never setting foot in there again...and it's a shame because otherwise I think it's a really great zone. It could be made a lot more fun and a lot less tedious.

I think a drop rate of 6-7% would be fairly reasonable for the Marks. Please remember, there are a very low number of mobs of each type in lower.

I'd also like to see the drop rate of the Fragments upped to 10% and also let the 4 mob type Guardians have a chance to drop a Fragment/Shard/Stone/Tear/Gem much in the same way World Bosses drop tokens. Have the Fragments drop as the common loot and increase the rarity as the quality improves with a Gem of XXX of course being quite rare, just like the whatever token that's worth 1000LDoN pts. This would encourage people to challenge all the Guardians repeatedly instead of only spawning the ones they want/need loot from. The Guardians are significantly more difficult than the trash/nameds in the lower part. I'd also like to see the Passage Guardian (after you spawn and kill all 4 of the mob type Guardians you can spawn this guy) drop no less than a Stone of XXXX. Currently he only drops the bracer (which is a fantastic bracer!) needed for access to the Upper part of the Ascent and he drops 6 of them so a group only needs to bother with him once as it currently stands. Maybe we can also add a fair chance for the mini nameds in lower to drop a frag as well. The mini nameds in lower are Bonebiter, Razorpaw, Venomfang, and Terrorwing.

I also think he (Passage Guardian) should be made more difficult. He seems noticeably easier than the 4 Guardians before him while he should be noticeably more difficult imo. Killing the Passage Guardian was anti climactic. At least toss some kind of AoE on him on par with top end World Bosses. In my current gear (mostly T3), top end world bosses are hit or miss for my group. if I make one mistake...LOADING....Please Wait... But the Passage Guardian was a snoozefest....though he had a really cool model.

EDIT: Look here for a better explanation about the Guardians and how to spawn them.
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/wiki/index.php/Access_to_Upper

[Ydiss]

I believe these augs fall into the "quite powerful, obtainable without a raid but take a large investment of time" category. You can trade them as well. So I am doubtful the drop rate would be increased.

The marks do seem to take a really long time to drop here but you can recycle the zone indefinitely, so it's not too bad.

I agree the final access boss is too easy compared to the four before him.

[Safiya]

I see your points but...

Consider how many you've seen for sale.
Yes, you can recycle the zone until you are blue in the face but...is that fun? The drop rates are so low they are not worth farming/selling even though they are tradeable as you mentioned. You'd have to charge such an obscene amount of money for one to reach the break even point that nobody on tier would ever be likely to buy one or be able to even afford one.

The loot (only talking about lower) can be had over several sessions of casual grouping there, the augs........forget it. They are on a whole 'nother level. It feels like we're being punished for the quality of loot there on two fronts...XP(which is terrible and was mentioned in another thread recently) and such a low drop rate on aug pieces. This game should be fun shouldn't it?

Yes, we all know the loot there is good...in some cases...extremely good. But that should not have to mean that the augs are near impossible for a person to obtain without sinking an inordinately extreme amount of time into it. There has to be a better balance, the current drop rates are not enjoyable at all. I don't mind working for what I have and the number of corpses I have in the Ascent (poor rogue) and the amount of time I have spent there can attest to that but....the drop rate as it currently stands is just too low. In the same time it would likely take to obtain even one of each aug....I could probably get through tiers 4 and 5 in their entirety. I do not feel I am exaggerating. Ok...maybe skip the birds in PoFire that f'n charm...

EDIT: I don't want the augs raining down from the sky, I just hope for a more reasonable drop rate.

[peterigz]

I've obtained all 3 augs on my tank, I don't really recall it being much of a grind, but then I did have a few characters to cycle through because I was trying for the access to the upper tier and to get the bracer (Rite of Passage). The final guardian used to only drop 1 bracer! So it was a lot of work getting it for all my characters. I guess the balance of the zone has shifted a bit because of that.

I don't know, the loot from this zone is similar to what you can get off of Cazic/Phara so I see the augs as a bit of a bonus if you want to spend the time there. I think if I were to change it without cheapening the zone, I would make the final chest you get at the end (the final boss from the second tier) maybe drop 6 random fragments and maybe a couple of tears (or whatever the first combine of the fragments is). That would encourage a full play through of the zone, rather then a constant recycling of the first tier. And a full play through would net you a few fragments along the way anyway.

[cbarrett]

I hardly bother anymore to run the full zone to the last boss. He's got an item or two that I'm interested in but not enough for me to run the whole zone. Plus the guys that I have keys for dont need it anymore, I'd have to re-key (re bracer?) for some of my newer toons that could use his goodies.

As far as the difficulty of the last boss, I always thought his difficulty level (or lack of) was sort of a reward for crawling the whole zone to get to him. Since the zone repops, you really get 1 shot at him if you fail, otherwise you probably have to reclear all the way to him again.

I've cleared the lower part dozens and dozens of times for those nice shoulders, belt, bracer, piercer, 2h, etc. I think I have made one or two augs, the drop rate is really low.

[Safiya]

I was only talking about lower. I do not know the difficulty of the final boss in the zone. The Passage Guardian or A Passage Guardian.

[Safiya]

I've obtained all 3 augs on my tank, I don't really recall it being much of a grind, but then I did have a few characters to cycle through because I was trying for the access to the upper tier and to get the bracer (Rite of Passage). The final guardian used to only drop 1 bracer! So it was a lot of work getting it for all my characters. I guess the balance of the zone has shifted a bit because of that.

I don't know, the loot from this zone is similar to what you can get off of Cazic/Phara so I see the augs as a bit of a bonus if you want to spend the time there. I think if I were to change it without cheapening the zone, I would make the final chest you get at the end (the final boss from the second tier) maybe drop 6 random fragments and maybe a couple of tears (or whatever the first combine of the fragments is). That would encourage a full play through of the zone, rather then a constant recycling of the first tier. And a full play through would net you a few fragments along the way anyway.

This seems like a reasonable compromise though I'd also like to see the Fragments(and possibly more) drop from the Guardians as well.....with a bit higher percentage than it currently is.

[Noren]

My personal take is that the Marks are far too rare to capture my interest in this zone, such that I have never completed the flag for the second stage - nor will I ever do so in its current state. To me, it is an epic level of grinding and I cannot bring myself to persevere for some very skippable loot!

I have the same stance on the droppable augs here. I tend to agree with Safiya on all counts.

If it is deemed that an update is needed for this zone, then here is what I would do:

*Keep the drop rate for Mark of the ____ the same.
*Reward the named killers by adding the necklace to the loot table of each of the named NPCs. Perhaps a chance to drop 2.
*Reward the trash grinders by making the NPC spawned by each statue (Guardians) drop 3 or 6 necklaces instead of 1.
*Do the same with the aug fragments.

This would still require several clears of the zone to flag an entire group, but would really cut down on the monotony. If you guys do a query of how many players actually have the webtools/items.php?id=120802 I'm going to guess it's pretty low.

An aside, I love the first part of The Ascent! It was at a really good difficulty level when I first entered there. An extra mob could mean a wipe, and name mobs ping-ponged the tank's health enough that the fights were thrilling. One flagged person could allow the whole group to enter the zone, and it is an instanced open zone so trans-guild groups can mingle. Great instance.

[Safiya]

You only need one character to get a necklace from each of the 4 Guardians to spawn the Passage Guardian. He drops 6 bracers for access to upper, I think it changed since you were there. No need now to ever have to kill him more than once for a single group, he drops nothing else, he...and other Guardians/nameds do not even drop an aug fragment.

[Ydiss]

Yeh, you can get 6 rites of passage in about 3-4 runs, luck willing. I've completed the first stage multiple times and it's not a grind any more. The sheer weight of reward is well worth the time invested. I have one completed aug so far and am happy with that but I think Rigz's idea to add fragments to the final boss is an.excellent one. I also agree the bosses could have a high chance (30% maybe) of dropping one fragment.

Ps I've always kept rotting marks on alts, which can help when running the zone at a later stage. Not that it always makes it faster. But I've never needed more than 10 runs to unlock the tier 1 final boss.