Guild Wars 2

end of last week with my magic find increasing from 1250 to 128 I had fewer yellow magic item drops during world boss (not the exotics) ..

now for the past 2 days I have found that breaking EVERYTHING from Teq to covington in the world boss train with the same salvage kit (using the silver coin op one) I have been getting less than 20 ectoplasm for it all and a lot less essences (though the essences i would have to chart a bit as I also seem to be getting the higher end ones a little more often I am also often getting NO essences at all) …

I am not sure if it is the patching .. or an intentional change (sucks if it is as I am going to be forced to purchase ectoplasm for making ascended gear as it is now going) but it seems a little off

I should point out as far as the ectoplasm goes I WAS pulling in 25 to 27 a day and up to 30 to 40 SO this is a huge decrease

I think the salvage kit change was a stealth nerf, where the % on the kit went up, but the actual base from which the % is derived causes drops to be less, not more.

10% of 1 billion, instead of 10% of 1 thousand

party buddy.4956:

I think the salvage kit change was a stealth nerf, where the % on the kit went up, but the actual base from which the % is derived causes drops to be less, not more.

10% of 1 billion, instead of 10% of 1 thousand

Those changes only affected the lower quality salvage kits. There was no change made to the master/mystic kit, silver fed salvage o matic, or the black lion salvage kits. And I doubt the OP was using the masterwork or lesser quality kits for salvaging for ectos.

I’ve been getting more ecto/rare recently. Both our assertions mean little unless we state the number of rares and the resulting amount of ecto. Similarly, unless you state the number of foes you kill (and where), then it’s hard to say if you’re seeing something unusual or coincidental.

Not too long ago, I got a single upgrade from 30 forge attempts, which seems like a ‘nerf’ since 20% of 30 is 6. Then, I got 6 upgrades from the next 8 tries, which seems like a huge boost. The net turned out to be 7 from 38 tries, which is almost exactly the amount predicted.

Everyone goes through good streaks and bad — we tend to remember the bad a lot longer (and they are usually more noticeable, too).

tl;dr there’s too little detail posted by the OP to theorize that anything might have changed.

It is only that last week and the beginning of this week the same world boss events from Teq to Covington were NOT giving me ANY yellows at all..

the past 2 days I have noticed that my items are back up to 2 or so yellows from the bosses and the bonus chest so 2 to 3 on average for 12 world bosses and yet at the end of 2 days I had a total of 21 ectoplasm and the only thing i was crafting was the ascended materials (steel, damask and wood)

also the essence of luck seems to have decreased since I was getting almost 2/3 of the way through a magic find % and yet now I am only getting 1/4 to a 1/3 for this self same 12 world bosses..

RoseofGilead.8907:

party buddy.4956:

I think the salvage kit change was a stealth nerf, where the % on the kit went up, but the actual base from which the % is derived causes drops to be less, not more.

10% of 1 billion, instead of 10% of 1 thousand

Those changes only affected the lower quality salvage kits. There was no change made to the master/mystic kit, silver fed salvage o matic, or the black lion salvage kits. And I doubt the OP was using the masterwork or lesser quality kits for salvaging for ectos.

I didn’t know about the change at all and frankly GW2 wouldn’t be the first game with changes that had consequences that we accidental and unforeseen

TY all for your posts I will keep grinding out the WBs and see how it goes…

also I know i can get better amounts of drops in WvW (and especially the mists) but I am bored with it and it still wouldn’t HELP if the items you get were nerfed in someway as well..

again ty for the replies and post I will just have to keep and eye on it for a few more days and see if maybe I am just in a batter’s slump so to speak

I have noticed a drop in the ecto rate also with the silver fed salvagomatic. It is so abysmally low that I am having better drop rates using the copper fed.

hix.8374:

I have noticed a drop in the ecto rate also with the silver fed salvagomatic. It is so abysmally low that I am having better drop rates using the copper fed.

How much is “abysmally low”? That is, how many rares (or exo) did you salvage with each? And how many ecto are you getting? It is easy enough to have a good streak with copper-fed that beats a bad streak from the silver-fed. It would be very unusual to have an extended streak where that was true. Are you getting less than 80 ectos per 100 rares from the silver-fed?

been a bit since i posted here ..

ok the first issue i have found over the past 3 days is that the same bosses are NO longer dropping any yellows for me .. EVER ..

the destroyer, wyrm in caledon, Shatterer so here is one decrease in ectoplasm drops.

next is the rest of the breaks that I do get for yellows 2 out of 3 to 2 our of 5 give NO ectoplasm at this time. (It was much better with often recieving 2 to 3 out of many of them NOW getting 1 or 2 ectoplasm making leveling crafting skills past 400 VERY expensive).

lastly , salvaging ALL items is giving far less luck items with 130 magic find than when my magic find was only 125 (might not be magic find causing this BUT it seemed an odd correlation)

I also got a couple exotics this past 3 days and NEITHER of them gave ectoplasm NOT dark matter when broken (sure it is a low number of breaks BUT i don’t usually break exotics either and I bet a lot of us don’t BUT i was testing the response from breaking them with the silver coin salvager)

The numbers are just A LOT different since 2 weeks ago as if some random table has changed ..

I will also point out I am grouped with a full group of 80s against these world bosses so the numbers for drop iems somehow is wrong when before I was getting yellows WHILE solo

Thanks for adding to your original information. There are a couple of different mechanics involved in what’s going on and I’d like to separate them, since it confuses the issue (if there is one):

Amount of Rares
You are getting fewer ‘rare’ pieces of gear than before from following world bosses. Presumably, you mean from the ground chest (since the bonus chest is a guaranteed rare, if not two).

Are you not getting the ground chest? If so, that could be the result of Diminished Returns. If you are, then I think you’re just seeing normal ebb & flow of luck — I certainly don’t get as many rares as you have.

tl; dr I think that maybe you are seeing standard rates of rare drops for world bosses or perhaps some sort of Diminished Returns. I’d like to see more about which bosses on how many rares per event (and whether you use one toon for the entire set of bosses or leave one in place near each).

Salvaging Exotics
Exotics can drop 0-3 ecto and 0-3 dark matter. It’s not at all unusual to salvage 5-10 and not see either mat drop. “A couple of exotics” is not representative — you really want to collect data on a 100 or more before you can start to see a pattern (and folks that do that see a lot of variation even with that many results).

Salvaging with Rares
Again without specific numbers of rares, it’s hard to tell if you’re seeing a pattern or just typical variation. Are you getting far fewer than 80 ecto per 100 rares? Then something might have changed. 5-10 or even 20-40 rares are just not enough to tell.

I usually save up to salvage 10-20 rares at a time and I see anything from 3-4 ecto to 12-14. Any time I’ve tracked over 100+, it’s always been consistent with the rates on the wiki, regardless of my magic find.

tl;dr I don’t think you have enough results to support speculation that something changed in the ecto drop rates.

@opener: that is completly normal if you play alot. When I played 8h/day, then I made a full boss rotation and got none yellow items (beside the chest guaranteed ones). During the time I salvaged each day ~1000 rare it was the same, at first I got like 900 ectos out of them, some days later I was lucky to get more then 700…
Same for magic find, I had weeks where I salvaged 10.000 greens a day and sometimes it where over ~40.000 luck from them on other days it where ~10.000, just rng.

In conclusion it’s just very rng based and I think there is a dimishing return part in it.
Of course it would be nice if anet changed their rng system to something more countable, but that might never happen…

in answer to questions YES I mean the drop chests and IN those specific bosses there ARE NO yellows in 3 days..

I have had exotics not drop anything either ..

and I am talking NOT about something I have maybe not noticed before or a difference in play as I WAS playing the same all the way along and suddenly I was getting less and less of certian items dropping and fewer items from breaking items..

I THINK still that they unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) nerfed the silver coin salvage devices with out of their patches ..

I don’t know about the last fewer days though as I have completely given up on the game for the time being as even farming for materials has become too painful to be worth the effort for me .. a full week of farming WBs from 8pm est to aprox 11:30 om (3:30 hours for 7 days therefore) leaing me with less than 50 ectoplasms..

I will also mention again that EVEN breaking exotic items was ONLY often returning the base materials now to me (so the wood or metal) ..

NOT much point to trying to make ascended gear at these rates of drop/salvage as the expansion will be out before I have a chance to even get to my 2nd crafted armor piece FOR 1 character and then it will be a whole new wave of bugs and nerfs and the like so going to leave until MAYBE then ..

the recent crap though has kind of got me looking for a new game again as I have been back for 3 months and like when i played before it seems the over nerfs occur here every 3 months and then they want you to spend HUGE amounts of real money to make up for it (hell I spent $100 last month and my butt is sore from this months failure to get any answers from DEVs)

GL guys

I don’t see any evidence that the rates have changed.

• The amount of rares dropping from events seems to be the same and few people get exotics regularly.
• The amount of ectos dropping from salvaged rares remains consistent with data and reported rates from 2013-2014.

Again, if you are seeing fewer than 80 ecto per 100 rares salvaged with mystic/master/silver-fed, you should report that here. The number of ecto you get per hour or per day isn’t a good measure of either rate, since your rate of kills might vary considerably between sessions.

tl;dr I think you’re seeing typical variation and (like most of us) remembering/noticing the extreme results.

You luck you had been getting yellows from those world bosses, I have hardly get any yellows from them for months lol. Exotics? I haven’t got one from world bosses for ages :P. yay RNG gods :P Btw, my MF is 120ish atm.