Eveningstar Challenge Rewards

[SoSoh]

When I mouse over the rewards no description shows up.

1) What do the Cormyrian weapons do at level 20?
2) What do the Amaunator Ascetic Handwraps do at level 16?

[fco-karatekid]

When I mouse over the rewards no description shows up.

1) What do the Cormyrian weapons do at level 20?
2) What do the Amaunator Ascetic Handwraps do at level 16?

Inorite? I was wondering this myself. I guess Pelosi joined turbine? (gotta buy one to see what's on it)

[sirgog]

They are somewhat random. Basically they appear to be in the top 10% of random lootgen combinations but not up there with middle of the line or top-notch named items.

[IdyllShade]

Are there differences between the rewards based on which class they get built for? A "top 10% lootgen" weapon looks entirely different on a caster than on a melee.

[sirgog]

Are there differences between the rewards based on which class they get built for? A "top 10% lootgen" weapon looks entirely different on a caster than on a melee.

There's an option for melee-statted ¼staves and another for caster-statted ¼staves IIRC.

I don't think there's options for really unusual things like caster-statted bastard swords though.

[Anthios888]

Did anyone notice if there are other items you can get from challenge rewards, i.e. the old system of potions and experience elixirs and dungeon tokens?

[Puppetian]

Did anyone notice if there are other items you can get from challenge rewards, i.e. the old system of potions and experience elixirs and dungeon tokens?

Haven't seen anything of the sort at the vendors, just weapons and armor.

[CaoimhinF]

There are some issues with this loot, such as items spawning with properties that cannot be of any use at all. Take for example my +10 shatter longbow...the trouble being you cant use sunder while holding it.

I'm not all that impressed so far with these rewards, the cannith challenge loot so far has been vastly superior to what I've got and much more interesting.

[NXPlasmid]

hmmm.. I've been looking all over the forums and the wiki to find out what the new challenges loot looks like... So am I getting this right, it's just random loot, you choose the weapon or armor type and it spits out some random combination of effects on it? That doesn't seem very interesting...

[rdasca]

Yep, welcome to the great challenge lotto.

Ingredients that are BtC ... check
No idea what loot you are going to get ... check

Run the challenges one time each at each difficulty level for good XP ... check

Back to the drawing board for future ... check

It is really a shame; the two dryad ones (even though they are just Korthos extractor challenges all over again) are pretty fun.

And the two arena ones are by far my favorite challenges of them all; a mindless beat down is so much fun every now and then.

But frankly after farming them a bit for XP I see zero reason to run them after that.

[LelandHill]

Yep, welcome to the great challenge lotto.

Ingredients that are BtC ... check
No idea what loot you are going to get ... check

Run the challenges one time each at each difficulty level for good XP ... check

Back to the drawing board for future ... check

It is really a shame; the two dryad ones (even though they are just Korthos extractor challenges all over again) are pretty fun.

And the two arena ones are by far my favorite challenges of them all; a mindless beat down is so much fun every now and then.

But frankly after farming them a bit for XP I see zero reason to run them after that.

I agree...I farmed the 3 challenges needed to get the ingredients for a Corm LongBow and I got (min lvl 24 Force 1d6 dmg, Corrosive Salt, Weakness -1 str per hit and Good Luck +1 to skills & saves) Very useless bow compared to the cannith bow or even a Bow of Sinew for that matter. Then I farmed for some armor...I got (min lvl 24 +6 Cormyrian Chain Shirt, Heavy Fort and Heightened Awareness 5) both extremely useless compared to the lvl 20 epic gear I already had.

So I decided I'm not gonna even bother with these challenges ever again unless I'm running through them once for xp. It's such a shame they would give us such lame gear for these very fun challenges.

Btw...Just so you know, it took me about 7 or 8 hours to farm enough ingredients for both items, solo. 8 Hours I could have spent lvling one of my alts or doing something that I know would have at least a small chance of accomplishing something. I don't recommend anyone try for these challenge items unless you wanna spend weeks in a painful endless grind to get something decent.

[Crazyfruit]

They're not so bad at the mid levels, especially for a character who doesn't have good items already. Much cheaper on the mats too - three or five challenges with good scores for an item.

For example, I have a +4 Acid, Crushing Wave, Paralyzer ML16 from them.

... and quite a bit of junk too.

[Matuse]

But but but but but but but but...people will enjoy turning in for random rewards!

Turbine told us so!

[Goolan]

Here is the gem that I was given for my pure BARBARIAN:



As you can see, I cannot even equip this weapon. The AI should be intelligent enough to know that no Barbarian can ever be LAWFUL!!!! Turbine really screwed me on this one!

[danotmano1998]

Ah yes, the loot lotto.

Even Feather_of_Sun admitted that doing the work only to get some cruddy thing that COULD have been useful is a bad way to go, which is why he removed the randomness from the one piece of raid gear it was on.

Unfortunately, the rest of the team either didn't get that memo, doesn't care, or hasn't bothered to reply with a "Yes, we're changing them because we know everyone hates this."

And to add salt to an already open wound, they went and nerfed the challenges across the board lately. (While they put in a 20% boost to materials. Tinfoil hat, anyone?)

[redspecter23]

I think these rewards have the potential to be amazing, but you could be grinding out rewards until the end of time before you get a combination that is actually better than some of the new combination effects you could just find on the AH. A guildie of mine found some life stealing handwraps with a few other nice effects as a reward. I've "spun the wheel" about 7 times so far and each and every one of them has been vendored. There will come a time when anyone just gets frustrated and stops turning them in for the small chance of a great weapon. For some that time is way before 7 turn ins.

[Gara]

They are pretty junky. The warstaves might have potential but they are bind to character and playing that lottery is very time consuming. These items seem to drop out of challenge chests too. I saw quite a few when doing Defenseless runs until my eyes bled.

[Shade]

Most of them seem severely bugged to me.

Examples:
Ranged/Throwers: Often appear with shatter or stunning or other combat-tactic stuff that cannot be used while ranged.
Fullplate: Exactly the same AC as mountain fullplate, poor enchantments - only 2 real ones (the third always being a worthless greater resist) where weapons always give 4. For ml24, its WORSE then lootgen. Lootgen allows up to Planeforged (superior AC) and better enchantments.

Weapons:
All are BTC on acquired EXCEPT the handwraps, which are btc on equuip. Very weird.

Shields:
All are unbound EXCEPT tower shields, which are btc on acrquire.. AGain makes no sense.

Maul;
It equips as a onehanded weapn. (No no monkeygrip, it still prevents you from using an offhand, just swings weird and does poor damage).

Tons of bugs. Really seems rushed and unfinished.

How to fix:
Ingredients - BTA
ALL rewards: BTC on equip
Weapons:
1handers/wraps/bow - fine as is. 4 enchants is decent, esp with right combo. Except: like lootgen, the metal types should NOT be counting as enchants (they aren ow). They should always have a metal type, plus 4 enchants.

Throwers: fine as is. Though should also always have metal type.. The spellplague secret effect makes these at least fun to toy with unlike nearly everythign else.

2handers: Given traditionally and historical since the games laucnh (carnifex) named two handers have had stronger then 1hander stats, they deseve the same. All two handers should be +1 threat and +1 base dice - same idea as the "drow" weapons. Would still need to get lucky and get a fairly ideal combo to even have ac hance at matching the trival to get epic antique.

Armor:
Should be +1 AC over planeforged (the descript seems to indicate that .. its "incomparable"). Four enchants, not 3. Delete greater resist as possible enchants, no one cares for such easily acquired enchants, replac with guarenteed +AC type enchant (EG: Protect, natural armor or insight armor)

Shields:
Should be +1 AC and +2 DR over planeforged. (Currently varies randomly from shield type to type) Four enchants. not 3. Mithral should be a possible enchant. Delete greater resist as possible enchants, no one cares for such easily acquired enchants, replac with guarenteed +AC type enchant (EG: Protect, natural armor or insight armor)

Casterstick:
IIRC it was planejane lootgen tharumaturgy of mastery with a different name and lower spell power then it should have for ml24 (~108 iirc). At the very least have it give the proper +114 spell powers (1 off maximum, which is +120) and two superior lore types instead of the standard one.

[qoolboxer]

Lets face the blunt hard truth of the random loot - random lootgen is cheap/easy/fastest to make/balance. Make the random loot BTC and that confirms it all. Nice loot requires time to design, test, balance, etc. Random nice loot? You just create list of prefixes/suffixes, and let the lottery game runs. Even if you are lucky to get the prefix/suffix combo you want, good luck getting it on the character you want. Balance is not an issue with random loot because the chance of many characters getting the absolute super loot is just too slim.

Combined with the fact that the eveningstar challenges are kobold assault style of gameplay, and you got a solid time-saving award winning content.

Let's put it this way - is there any named loot you work towards to in the FR expansion? Named loot serves as a goal for many players, random loot? meh