Against the Demon Queen Seal and Shard drop raite - did it decrease since U21?

[slarden]

First off, I run the pre-raid alot. I have a dual box that I use as a on opener for the preraid, but don't bring him into the quest for completion so I can always red box it. So I've been running 16x pre-raids weekly (mostly EE) with my 2 main characters for quite sometime. I run the raid primarily with parties since I don't believe either character can solo the raid EE reliably. Groups usually want to run pre-raid most commonly on EN which is why I farm the pre-raid on my own.

The reason I've been farming the pre-raid on EE is that is where I've been getting all my wilderness shards and seals - it's rare I would get those anywhere else but the pre-raid.

I was usually 1-3 seals per 16 runs from the side chests and shard drops were more frequent. I only got skunked on side chests seals with 16 runs ONCE in the numerous weeks I've done this prior to U21. I got more than 3 once.

Since U21, I was skunked every week on seals from the side chests. I didn't get a single one in side chests. I received 1 seal and 1 shard from end chest in all my runs. I never really kept track of the ADQ end chest drops because they were so good and I got a shard so often. I would even re-roll there sometimes if I didn't get a shard because the drop rate was so good. I only tracked the side chests because drops weren't as common there.

This isn't a conspiracy post blaming this on the additional re-rolls that were added with U21. I believe it's not related, but I am convinced the drop rate is lower than it was before U21.

[Turbosilk]

After going nearly 186 EE chest loots between seal drops in the pre-raid on 3 accounts a few months ago I've stopped bothering. This is pre U21 and it is illogical for the drop rates to be so low.

[Portalcat]

I haven't noticed anything different. The droprates are just atrocious generally, bad enough that one could conceivably get very few shards/seals for awhile if you hit a bad pocket of variance.

[Eth]

Only ran it once since last patch. We had one shard.

Before patch 1-2 shards in a 6 man was nothing uncommon.

Seals are something I suspected to be at a lower drop rate then they used to since quite some time now, I rarely ever see one.
But I don't run the quest as frequently as I used to anymore, so my memory might be fooling me.

[axel15810]

Would love an epic ring of spell storing but I've never bothered trying to grind for it because according to everyone the drop rate is horrendeous. Same reason I stopped trying to get the eSoS shard from VoN 6

[painkiller3]

if the wiki is right, isn't it just a matter of getting to 20 now?? ;) can someone who has recently got 20 completions (I stopped running after I got my Torc) let confirm or deny this?

http://ddowiki.com/page/Zawabi's_Revenge


Chests: One normal and One raid loot warded chest Epic: The warded chest is replaced by an Epic Chest containing one epic raid token and a chance at the loot listed below. The regular loot chest doesn't scale.

NPC rewards: Standard, Choose from 10, Up to ML:10. 20th completion provides a random selection of 10 items from the below unique list. If you do your 20th completion on heroic tier, your end reward list will contain the base loot items. If you do your 20th completion on epic tier, the random selection of 10 items will also include the full list of epic ingredients. Therefore you should be very careful in choosing the tier of your 20th run to match the end rewards you are hoping to receive.

[slarden]

if the wiki is right, isn't it just a matter of getting to 20 now?? ;) can someone who has recently got 20 completions (I stopped running after I got my Torc) let confirm or deny this?

http://ddowiki.com/page/Zawabi's_Revenge

Yes, I've tested it both ways. If you run on heroic you get a choice of base items that drop in the raid chest.

If you run on epic you get a choice of shards for raid items only (not wilderness shards). Shards only and not seals. There are many items in the raid so you won't get a choice of all. The size of the list is decent, but one time I got a bunch of skill tomes in the list and less shards.

[FlameDiablo]

I confirm too: only raid shards in 20th.

SSR is a wilderness one. I'm farming since 3 years and drop rate gone just down, i got all shards and seals (some 5x) but no SSR, i'm pretty bored to farm the same quest for 3 years, they should really increase drop rate there, since i got ESOS on sorc coz is easy to get and no ESSR that i really need.

[moo_cow]

I haven't seen a single shard drop in months. I run it every 3 days on 3 different characters that all reroll the end chest 3 times. You would think 12 different chances on shards every 3 days and I would see at least one, but nope.

[Vanhooger]

Maybe they have removed the RSS shard/seal or dropped it to 0.00000000000000000000000000001%. They don't want people to have it...just buy pots from store!

[Ellihor]

Yes, I've tested it both ways. If you run on heroic you get a choice of base items that drop in the raid chest.

If you run on epic you get a choice of shards for raid items only (not wilderness shards). Shards only and not seals. There are many items in the raid so you won't get a choice of all. The size of the list is decent, but one time I got a bunch of skill tomes in the list and less shards.

If you run von 2oth on epic do you see shard in the list?

[darkly_dreaming]

It's always been terrible and it's still terrible. The low drop rate simply doesn't make sense anymore as the selection of high level and epic quests is far more extensive than it once was, and the epic items from the Sands are very far from superior. Most of them aren't even worth putting on at 20 for a couple of levels as they've been so much eclipsed by random-generated loot.

[slarden]

If you run von 2oth on epic do you see shard in the list?

No, only base items for VON on the 20th.

[Buffyanne]

It's hard to say because so much of this is personal experience and a small sample size. However, I have gotten zero drops from ADQ sinze u21, previously shard drops in end chest were fairly attainable. Seals do seem to drop frequently in Wiz king now. Seals are the big problem for me, I have all the 'big' shards but few of the seals. The only worthwhile epic item I ever made out of the sands was the epic marilith chain which is obsolete now and sits in the bank and the barbarian who wore it runs around in robes as a quasi mystical fighter monk. Ahhh sometimes you long for the old days.

[janave]

I think there must be a typo somewhere, maybe a few zeroes and a dot before the actual chance. I started farming recently altho im at the 24th run only.

I think I will go up to 30-40 and see if its worth bothering with. Difficulty does not seem to matter. I dont reroll chests, i dont believe that should be a requirement. They may as well add the loot directly into the store, if that is their intention for ppl to reroll chests for raid loot.