Do gems of fortune actually work?

[Metaljaw]

I'm being serious here. Been running a small gem of fortune for the last like12 hours or so. Gained 2 levels 15 to 17), did orchard tap farm for 20 taps, the harbor chain on hard and elite, DQ1 and 2, VOL and Inferno several times each for sigils while the gem was active. I actually feel like I was getting less named loot and more coin rewards. Routinely only 3 items in a chest: plat, gold, and a random min level 10 or 12 item. Considering the loot gems, and doing the quests on hard/elite I should at least have gotten lvl 15 items right? (Harbor is 15 base + 1 hard diff + 1 gem).

Oh, in that entire time not a single named item except for chain end rewards. I did however get a +1 dagger of the magi with a medium guild slot. So there's that.

Guess I am asking if anyone has done a quantative analysis of a loot gem's effectiveness. I just have my subjective opinion. (probably not worth a ****, but the only 3 items in a majority of chest did strike me as odd. I mean normally I will at least pull an item and some arrows/gems/bolts/shard to go with it).

DDO named item farming is becoming my kobayashi maru. pffft.

[Metaljaw]

oh and ran 4 LOB's on another toon with a +2 loot gem active. No drops from there either, and once even got just a single group of the bound shards - first tier type, no refined.

[TEcarson]

I am pretty sure gems do not impact named loot drop rates.

Pretty sure it is just the loot level of the random stuff.

[Metaljaw]

http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/attachments/deserves-caption/23669d1224125660-capture-cat-pfft.jpg Pffft to that.

[AMDarkwolf]

yes loot gems are not meant to affect named loot drop rate(Including 'shroud' ingredients) and personally, I've never noticed any level of increase in the plat value (After npcing) of items I've looted, and never looted a single thing I've kept.

IMO they area waste and if they DO even work, should just be rare random loot(and removed from the DDO store since there's no definite way to show they are working)

[fuzzy1guy]

Redacted

[Arnhelm]

I get better deconstruction mats while using them, and a bit more gold in the chests. Level 8-11 so far, and they make a small difference from my limited scope of observations.

[Fejj]

A loot gem adds +1 to the level of the chest.

You need to know the loot tables to see where this is effective.

One place it is, is in the vale slayer. All chests out there are level 16. Before any recent changes to tomes, +2 tomes would first appear in level 17 chests.
No gem = no chance at +2 tomes
Gem +1 = Chance at +2 tomes

If the loot table is 14-16 then going from 14 to 15, or 15 to 16 is nothing. However going from 13-14, or 16 to 17 is a big deal..

The loot tables are vast and mysterious. Don't expect to find much information on them from Turbine. Look for old threads about it for more information.

[Kaytis]

Loot gems make the trash loot in a chest slightly less trashy. The most useful thing they did for me was in Shroud -it gives you more +8 items to charge high energy cells at the final altar. I stopped using them a while back. You could potentially use them in very high level content to get really nice trash loot, but as others have said, they do not affect named drop rates at all.

[aristarchus1000]

My understanding is, as mentioned by people above, it does not affect named items.

It is possible to bump a chest into another level that allows for certain classes of items to be dropped. The Vale explorer chests are a common example.

Anyone know how high they need to get the chest to get +3 tomes? Amrath on elite on a loot weekend and gem? So level 22? How does it affect epic chests (which are level 25?) or those from challenges?.

[Metaljaw]

A loot gem adds +1 to the level of the chest.

You need to know the loot tables to see where this is effective.

One place it is, is in the vale slayer. All chests out there are level 16. Before any recent changes to tomes, +2 tomes would first appear in level 17 chests.
No gem = no chance at +2 tomes
Gem +1 = Chance at +2 tomes

If the loot table is 14-16 then going from 14 to 15, or 15 to 16 is nothing. However going from 13-14, or 16 to 17 is a big deal..

The loot tables are vast and mysterious. Don't expect to find much information on them from Turbine. Look for old threads about it for more information.

From my above post: Harbor is 15 base + 1 hard diff + 1 gem = 17. Should increase the loot table every odd number if I remember correctly, however, nothing falling and rewards list are unusually brief. Additionally using a +2 gem in normal LOB should give me a chance at a tier 3 binding items, etc... However, nada. Or was that only dropping on epic? I forget.

Eff it tho. I'll save what semi-useless gems I have for shavarath and on during loot + weekends as suggested. Figure it should at least increase the chance of named in raids tho since the drop rate is supposed to scale with difficulty (and therefore chest level I would think).

[AMDarkwolf]

From my above post: Harbor is 15 base + 1 hard diff + 1 gem = 17. Should increase the loot table every odd number if I remember correctly, however, nothing falling and rewards list are unusually brief. Additionally using a +2 gem in normal LOB should give me a chance at a tier 3 binding items, etc... However, nada. Or was that only dropping on epic? I forget.

Eff it tho. I'll save what semi-useless gems I have for shavarath and on during loot + weekends as suggested. Figure it should at least increase the chance of named in raids tho since the drop rate is supposed to scale with difficulty (and therefore chest level I would think).

I'm not sure you get it. THe drop rate of named loot is NOT affected by the level of the chest, just the diff(if anything)

thats named loot and not affected by the gems.

Now by saying loot increases like that is also mistaken, hats, rings, etc yes, 15-17 is a jump, but for armor, weapons, 14-16 would be the change.

Also you might remember that even if running a lv 10 on elite(lv 12 quest effectively) you will still find lv 6-8 gear, not lv 12 stuff.

What he was saying was to use the gem when you run lv 20, 21, etc quests, because then the ML on the items (due to it being a lv 23-25 quest) and with both the loot gems and +loot weekend bonuses going, it would force the ML of the items up to(and beyond but would still 'cap' at 20) 20, making your loot worth MUCH more and possibly allowing you to pull a truly valuable peice of equips.

[countfitz]

From what I FEEL, whenever some idiot makes me wait for him to bless the chest, I ALWAYS get ****, mostly get plat and gold and gems, not items, and rarely see any difference.

On the other hand, when Turbine ran their +1 loot weekends, I did notice some +2 tomes drop in places that they never drop (random Vale Quests) and got 2 actually.

So it does work... but I think there's a bug that makes it work, but the tables end up sucking more. As in, we get a bonus to gold and plat (you'll notice more gold and plat, like 2000 plat instead of 200) but we don't want plat.

So a waste of TP, but if you get one randomly, use it at cap and you'll see a chance at some better tomes if you're REALLY lucky.