Several months have passed since I last posted.
Back in November, that was around the time the PTR for 2.1.2 went live. I wasn’t planning to even play on the PTR since I had no intention of providing any feedback (those days are over with any Blizzard game) but after seeing the info about the temporary community buff (especially the increased legendary drop chance which would accelerate the ability for players to test out some of the changes including the new Ancient Legendaries), also decided to see what would actually drop for me.
The following was from one full clear of a T6 rift. With the usual drop rate on live, I’m lucky to see even 2 legendaries out of a full clear.
I loved the lights and sounds of the slot machine going off. That alone, kept me playing for awhile. But the results weren’t surprising even for someone like myself who has been playing each subsequent patch less and less ( I had less than 36 hours total play time with patch 2.1-2.1.1).
Basically, the 2000% legendary drop rate was just an accelerated view of the kind of time sink that we all know is involved (subject to the luck factor) in getting real significant upgrades. Caveat: I play mostly solo and thus do not see the benefits of the multiplayer buffs.
Most of those drops were salvaged. Out of all that, 6 were Ancient legendaries. Just one item (Tal Rasha chest) was an upgrade (though not immediately since I’m running a Firebird set).
The side benefit for me though was a nice increase in Forgotten Souls. This allowed me to at least play the other slot machine more freely; Myriam the Mystic. Up to that point on live, I’ve had to be frugal in burning what souls I have when it came to re-rolling.
As I’ve written about before, prior to patch 2.1, my best character was stuck at T4. The change to the Firebird set allowed me to progress to T6 without any other gear changes. This along with the guaranteed legendary from a T6 bounty cache, has been the main saving grace for an easy supply of Forgotten Souls on the live servers with what little time I’ve played (finally got sockets on two jewelry pieces for my gems just the other day on my live character).
With this accelerated drop rate, my only “upgrade” (a VERY minor one) from Kadala was the bracers I got from trying to burn up some blood shards after getting the Blood Thief goblin (the temporarty buff also included double goblins and double blood shards – again accelerating the rates that one would normally acquire them at).
I do realize the temporary buff is for double goblins and double shards. But even without these buffs, the current 500 shard cap is just annoyingly low.
I do get the rationale for doing that cap (to prevent players from just endlessly farming rifts and hoarding shards to mass burn through and thus potentially getting every slot they need in one Kadala sitting). It’s one of the reasons for increasing the shard costs as they saw that players were farming Kadala for their items. But that to me was solving that gear farming issue the wrong way. Those items should be dropping from monster kills primarily anyway (but with RNG on top of RNG…. the results are what they are).
Kadala is of course that other slot machine to help mitigate some of this RNG (but with
this 500 shard limit + increased costs since 2.1 to limit the amount of items that can be
“gambled” per visit). But the shard cap isn’t the big issue though.
That 2000% temporary buff unsuprisingly showed the fundamental issue as to why I ended up playing each patch less and less; upgrades are far and few unless you are lucky with the RNG. With this buff in play, almost every destructible and chest, pops one or two legendaries at T6. Slaying a trash mob will yield one or two as well. Slaying an elite pack with this buff turns into a major loot pinata (which is what would prefer to see in the game).
Two set items from a chest 
Loot pinata from an elite pack 
Loot from another pack
Yet, most all were salvage for me (and it’s not like my items are close to best in slot when it comes to rolls). Remove the buff, and it’s back to that slow/unrewarding feeling the game provides after awhile. And that isn’t surprising since complaints with item quality has been up there for awhile now. It’s why some of us are now super casual.
The most telling moment though was the following:
On live, I’ve NEVER had a Serpent’s Sparker or Shard of Hate drop. When the above happened, it would represent approximately 150-200 hours of game play time that I would need on live for these to potentially drop. Serpent’s Sparker isn’t even rare; just uncommon compared to other wands (the one that drops for me all the time is Blackhand Key followed by Starfire). To add insult to injury, neither rolled well.
My best weapon drop to date on live is my Thunderfury. It’s not like it is even the best weapon anymore BUT if it weren’t for that drop, my main character would be even more lacking. Thunderfury itself isn’t also rare; but this is the only one that dropped for me on live. During this PTR though, I had two drop in what would essentially be 150+ hours of game play. Neither were an upgrade over what I currently have (also not the best rolled).
The overall unrewarding feel of the game is what makes it really difficult for me to play continuously though. After 2 hours, it feels like an eternity went by. My luck with RNG is not like some folks who get much of their drops off the bat. I’ve gotten drops that are rare (based on their drop rates) over a period of time (again, rare but often times, poorly rolled). I’ve accepted it awhile ago that my luck in this game is just bad.
Fast forward to when 2.1.2 finally went live; I played it for a short while (before Season 2 started) – got a few ancient items that were slight upgrades but to date, no major weapon upgrade.
With regards to Season 2, I casually leveled a softcore wizard to 70 (to unlock the transmog) and then moved on to a hardcore demon hunter. I haven’t played the class at level 70 for any length of time (the last time I played one at max level was prior to RoS during patch 1.0.7). I do enjoy the game play but from a hardcore perspective, my undoing with DH’s is I like vaulting around too much (even leveling on softcore, I would end up dying before level 40).
I cannot stomach the idea of the greater rift grind (I just personally find that aspect boring as hell) or trying to get those slightly better items for my main non-seasonal character. Which is why I’m playing seasonal hardcore with a demon hunter. I have no expectations for getting anything decent in a short period of time and given my prior high level hardcore deaths all came from disconnect deaths, I already figure my character will meet that outcome first before being able to progress to higher Torment difficulty before I get those decent items.
