I don’t get why the drop rate was set so badly for ethereals. All, or for the most part, the previous seasons were added fun things like double goblins etc etc. RNG hurts the people who are playing the game properly, yes i know i can “cheat” the system by using puzzle rings and alts. But is that really what you want people to do?
Surely it would have been hard enough for people to get all 21 of them at level 70 with just an ancient drop rate. The time involved in leveling, gearing, grinding until all 3 of the ethereals you need drop on each class would have been enough of a slog?
Not asking for gifts, i know for some players in good active clans you can plevel your chars and gear fast, but to do that 7 times (and still have to get the right drops) would, in my opinion, have been enough of a challenge.
My experience of trying to get them properly, without gaming the system, sucks. Across 4 characters at 70 (all of them able to do grifts 80+ with the best geared doing grift 110 on my PS5 account) i have a grand total of 1 ethereal on my monk. Nothing on any of the other characters. So how are you supposed to enjoy the “fun” of using the ethereal during the season when the drop rate is so sucky. Fair enough if you could keep the weapons, but to have such a low drop rate for a season, after which they disappear, really is poor. I know some will not agree, but really what would it hurt, the final reward for getting them all is a transmog. I will wait until the last week of the season and just use the puzzle ring exploit like so many are forced to do if i have to. But would you rather not have people play the game at max level?
/rant
So you don’t like this method? There is no cheating involved in doing it this way. Once you’ve gotten them all you can concentrate on playing the classes you enjoy the most.
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It is kind of not the point to be honest.
The whole idea of seasons is having fun, starting new, trying new builds etc out. it makes no sense to have such a tiny drop chance at max level. That is where you want to try out all the weapons. The odds of you getting an ethereal is low, the odds of you getting an ethereal with the right skills on it is even lower.
I think it is not a good drop rate and i would be surprised if it wasn’t buffed. I want to eventually try all of the ethereals at max level, there is zero chance of doing that. I expect to grind, thats what this game is all about, grinding gear. But to set the drop rate so low that during a season you will be lucky to play with them on multiple classes seems not ideal.
I could understand if you were going to keep them, but after the season they all go. I can get the achieve for the transmogs easy enough but that has nothing to do with keeping the drop rate down.
Ethereals are approximately 1 in 100 legendaries.
If you’re doing GR90s (or higher) the Guardian drops 12 loots, of which at least 10 will be legendaries and up to all 12 of them. With a modicum of gear, all classes should be able to run these at under 5 minutes per GR. Let’s assume you take some breaks to get a drink, eat food, talk to humans, and so on, and you run 10 of these an hour. That’s 100-120 legendaries per hour. That’s one ethereal an hour. At those rates, you might get it done in 21 hours but, heck, you’re bound to get duplicates, have to level up alts and gear them, and so on, so let’s say you triple that to 63 hours. If you played for an hour a night, that’s nine weeks. 2 hours a night, 4.5 weeks. 3 hours a night, 3 weeks.
I am going to agree with the author of this thread and here is why. My char is at 600+ paragon, leveled mostly solo but did have help at the end from community members. Now here is how I agree, through all of that I have yet to receive my first ethereal. Not a single one has dropped as of this writing. Through Greaters, regular rifts or bounties, either solo or public. There have been some great community players that have done there best to help me acquire my 1st one to no avail. This is very frustrating to me and Blizzard is of no help.
So by doing a test I went over into the American server. Created the same char, same build and same journey with less than 400 paragon received 3 ethereal before level 70 and 12 since.
In my opinion the author of this post is correct. In the EU the drop rate is very low.
I play seasons for the challenge and to participate in whatever the seasons theme it. But the game has other ideas for me as participating is not an option.
Just my two sense, you don’t have to agree but I feel better knowing I’m not alone in this.
I’ve seen 200+ drops so far, EU, and that’s not counting the ones I got at low level for the ach.
Must be you are high paragon player (over 1500). But there are a lot of us lower paragon players that have responsibilities outside of the game and in my case over the age of 60 who just like to enjoy the game for what it is. I’m not trying to be any better than anyone else. However if I play seasons I should be able to enjoy the theme it presents. In my case, none existing and I’m sure there are a lot more players with the same issue.
So Kargon if you have seen that many drops in a short period of seasons, then enjoy your rewards. Not all players get the same or have the time to invest.
What I am saying the most is that the drops should be even across the board and they are not. I’ll finish this season but I may switch to the America’s where playing the season does have it’s stated benefits.
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I got my first at level 13. When I hit 70, I had a new one within a couple of GRs. I’ve definitely had well over a hundred since (not counting the ones I got using the Greed’s Vault method of getting them at level 6 for the Feat of Strength) around a dozen of which were for non-played classes. When doing some GR90s today for gem-ups, I got two drop from the same Guardian in one of the runs, and had collected 5 in an hour.
The problem might be due to fluctuation. I’ve been doing some statistics on drops. Of the latest 4 ethereals the first three were among 177 legendary drops. So that was a drop rate of 1 in 59. The next drop happened after 228 drops. So that was a “dry spell” of 1 in 228. But the average number for the four latest ethereals is 1 in 101.
That’s true, RNG is a thing, but one can totally expect in a game all about farming for loot that people that spend more time are more likely to get what they are after, it’s at the core of the game.
But you’re claiming US has better droprate than EU, and you base that on your own bad RNG. Clearly you can be unlucky, but making a statement that it’s by default easier in the states is I would bet entirely wrong, but that aside you make the argument with no statistical data backing it up.
Most of us have, I’ve averaged 3 hours a day this season, that’s maybe more than you, but it leaves plenty of hours out of the day for real life.
Sure, I had a dryspell for a couple of hours today, then got 3 from one riftguardian.
Thought i would update.
This is on PS5 btw. After making 4 chars, all of them now 70 and 3 of them geared enough to farm GR80’s. I have a grand total of 2 Ethereals both on the same Monk. Now some will say that is just RNG but in my opinion that misses the point.
This is a season journey, you are supposed to experience the new content and gear etc. Should you get it for free? Hell no, but the drop rate is too limited for a season journey . In order to get a decent one you need it to drop many, many times and while the drops are so low it makes the whole season pointless.
If i was grinding for an item i could keep permanently then i would say, fine, set the drop rate at whatever you like. But for a season? c’mon that makes no sense. It should be raining ethereals and people should be having fun trying out tons of weird builds with the superpowered weapons. I am playing the D2 resurrected beta atm and so i will probs just game the system, i have tons of puzzle rings, and then just leave it. That to me is a failure by the team to make me want to play more in the season.
Just my 2 cents anyway
Generally speaking, if you spread your playing time over several characters you’ll reduce the chance of good drops (because your total amount of drops will be lower).
In my own case, playing Demon Hunter, any ethereal would be an improvement over the standard weapon for a build (the Impale build is an exception). So focusing on a single hero, at least in the beginning of season, should be better.
One doesn’t need to play all classes to get all ethereals. Check this, wudijo has played monk only and has gathered 20 of 21 ethereals.
True… I’m 19 out of 21… but drops from other classes are very rare (I have 3 so far: 1 Necro, 1 WD and 1 DH)… so still missing 2 Necro items after using the Vault trick.
Yeah, that’s not really a great example, seeing as how he’s been playing 14-16 hours a day, every single day since the season started.
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drop rate for ethereals seems well random, got 40 hours in wizard, basically all grifts and im still 2/3, not like im not running a decent level either as i have a 118 cleared. weekend play would be around 8-10 hours and 0 found.
That is some incredible bad RNG. Longest I’ve ever gone between drops is like 2 and a half hours, and that bad streak ended with 3 drops from one grift.
Yeah, bad luck with your wizard etherial because you need Orb of Infinite Depth. The experts recommend that you in that case drop Aughuild’s and equip the Orb instead.
yeah im just getting to the level where survivability is becoming an issue. should be able to push a few more levels i hope but hopefully i will find something decent soon.
Sometimes I started to wonder if there is a global counter of drops also.
Because I awlays seen a lot more drops like the first week of season and the last 2 weeks of season.
Also if you play during hours where not many others do I seem to have easier time getting drops, but playing peek hours mostly see 0 drops which goes against ppl with work and casual play since they mostly only play on peek hours.
