Guild Wars 2

Kichwas.7152:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There is no reliable way to get ascended gear, outside of crafting.
…
I also think it goes against the spirit of the “play how you like” aspect of the game.

You can play the game just fine without a single piece of Ascended gear.

What do you want, 10 gems per item in the gem store?
- Even then, somebody would say it "goes against the spirit of the “play how you like” aspect of the game" until it was free. And then it would go against the spirit for people who desire a challenge for their shiny (which BTW, would put us right back to where the game was before Ascended gear was added to offset how easy Exotic gear was to get)…

But its gear, not play.

You can do any content in this game with even leveling blue and green gear. Just not as easily (Dungeons), or to as high of a ranking (PvP/WvW and Fractals).

“Winning” and “give me all the shinies for free” are not play styles, but score-metrics.

You left out the part of my post where I mentioned my friend was interested in Fractals, which does depend on Ascended gear. The context of my point about “playing the game as you like” is that we currently do exactly that for skill acquisition: no specific content required. It’s the opposite for ascended armor & weapons.

(I myself left out mention of ascended trinkets, which, as correctly pointed out above, can only be acquired outside of crafting.)

You can create a support ticket (link at the top left of this page) or send email to exploits@arena.net.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Based on above, my guess would be 3-4 months after pre-orders go on sale.

Since this expansion is much smaller than the game in everything, number of professions, skills, maps, etc, than the game wouldn’t that indicate that it could come out sooner?

I would agree that the lead time that ANet needs between having a successful beta and announcing a release date could be a lot less. However, two important concepts probably make the size of the release moot:

• Good marketing (aka HoT hype) will dictate giving substantial time between announcement of pre-orders and the eventual release date.
• Despite the significantly smaller size, there’s still a ton of testing involved — at least, we hope there’s a lot of testing involved. Remember how many bugs got introduced with the preparatory update a month or so ago? I doubt very much that they can speed up QA all that much without risking the type of bug that will get people talking about bugs instead of the new features.

tl;dr I still expect 3-4 months after pre-sales begin before an actual release and I don’t expect pre-sales to begin until after a “successful” BETA event or three.

edit: fixed mistake from shortening the quoted material

There is no reliable way to get ascended gear, outside of crafting. This means that anyone wanting to do high-level fractals is forced to level several disciplines. I have a friend who hates crafting (never does it in any game he’s played), so he’s locked out of L30+ FotM. I also think it goes against the spirit of the “play how you like” aspect of the game.

I would like to see more ‘wrong’ skins, too: fan-like skins as daggers, torch-like skins as staffs or scepters, or tongue depressors for greatswords. (Oh wait, we already have about 20 of the last one.)

What did Customer Service say about it in response to your ticket?

Pastry.4915:

Can someone PLEASE explain to me why a handful of meta-events related to the treasure hunter items are STILL broken after MONTHS AND MONTHS. PLEASE?

I do not understand.

ie Ogre Wars.

We know why they are still broken: ANet’s been focused on the HoT expac and they aren’t easy bugs to resolve (e.g. Ogre Wars: they’d have to rewrite much of the chain or completely invent a new mechanic to prevent it from getting bugged).

I’m not happy to keep waiting either, but I don’t see that ANet has many choices outside of (a) delaying HOT progress, (b) hiring new staff (and risking team bloat, which risks their bottom line), or © waiting until later to finish fixing it (i.e. what they are doing now).

tl;dr yeah it’s annoying; not much we can do about it

The history of GW2’s launch went as follows:

• 23 January 2012: ArenaNet promises GW2 will launch before the year’s end
• March: First ‘public’ BETA testing.
• April 10: First day to pre-order GW2
• April to July: More BETA tests
• 28 August: Official release date.

Based on above, my guess would be 3-4 months after pre-orders go on sale.

You can get tapestry from any one else in the game or by creating an extra character just to run through the minimum amount of story to get the first one (which is arriving at the HoM and watching the First Vision).

Alive? Yes. However, it’s currently much closer to single-player with shared towns.

I know plenty of people who still play. Typically, they use heroes so it’s solo play. When they do play with others, it’s almost always with people they currently also group with for other games (e.g. GW2).

Besides being often on your own, you should also know that most story/combat instances are 8-players max (notable exceptions for 4, 6, and 12 players) and that the dev team is strictly in maintenance mode (i.e. there’s very little support, outside the player-run wiki). Most importantly to me: there’s no jumping in GW — [spacebar] does nothing!

Still, if you are willing to put up with it: a lot of the content is fun, the game is gorgeous (for the graphics of its age and a bit beyond), and it includes a lot of the ANet attention-to-detail players love for lore and “local color”, so it feels immersive in the same way as GW2 (some would say better than).

Population Metrics

• The default trading hub is down to two instances (from 7+ before GW2 was announced).
• Other standard hubs are barely populated (one instance each, with the only selling advert coming from a bot).
• The only time I’ve found high concentrations of people is Shing Jea, during a festival that offers the games of chance — people logon and go afk to work on lucky/unlucky titles.

Broom.2561:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

John Smith has a big thread asking people to discuss RNG and I haven’t seen anyone offer any suggestions that offer systems that would be enjoyed by the masses.

I have seen this claim several times now, and I have yet to find the thread you are talking about. Could you please provide a link?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/RNG-as-a-concept-Discuss

Mathematically, any system involving randomness generates streaks, good or bad. So that isn’t the issue. The issue is the perception of people unfamiliar with the mechanics. And the OP’s suggestion doesn’t address perception: if it actually fixed anything (after all the expense of implementing it), those who are complaining now would still believe that someone else was getting luckier.

John Smith has a big thread asking people to discuss RNG and I haven’t seen anyone offer any suggestions that offer systems that would be enjoyed by the masses.

• If it’s entirely skill-based, highly skilled players will enjoy it (until they get bored), but less-skilled players will decide it’s unfair (for example, this is exactly how the acquisition of the liadri mini is treated).
• If it’s entirely dedicated drops, people get bored or complain of ‘grind’ or repetition, as is the case with dungeons.
• If things are too easily acquired, people tend to devalue them (‘everyone has that’); people often covet those things that are less easily found.

The system that seems to offer the best compromise involves some measure of RNG. The problem remains that many people misunderstand what that means. People typically react to getting anything other than 50 heads out of 100 coin tosses as unusual, when it’s common to get something other than 50.

I don’t think there’s anything that ANet can do to help people learn to recognize the difference between predictable streaks and the truly unusual.

The original beta invites were random. These invites are random. There difference: you couldn’t do anything before to increase your chances and this time you can (or could) simply by playing more.

I far prefer this system — and I spent very little time in Dry Top or Silverwastes — because I like having some semblance of control over my chances.

Contact customer service by creating a ticket — they’ll help you get sorted out.

It actually doesn’t matter if the OP’s post is entirely accurate (I hope it’s not, because it’s terrible to deal with stalkers).

• You should know if people are following you.
• When you block someone, the game should treat it as if you don’t exist to them (in game). They shouldn’t see your location, your AP, your LFGs, your chat, etc.

Streaks.5076:

I think Anet’s next dye release should be Luminescent dyes that glow. I would spent all my gold on it for sure.

I like the idea of glowing dyes (even better if what we could buy is a glow effect and then choose a dye to color it as we like).

I don’t like the idea of spending all my gold.

edit: added quote from original email, to restore context after thread was merged

PyroKenny.1427:

I just don’t see it… They have big ears, but they flop down on the sides of their heads. The only rodent I’ve found that has 3 toes is the kangaroo rat, but Asura don’t hop around. Their anatomy looks more related to humans. Rodents also have pitch black eyes but the Asura have visible pupils with irises that vary in different colors. The shape of their heads don’t look rodent like either… They’re more round and spherical instead or long. I actually can’t help but get offended when people refer to them as rodents since I often play the Asura, and see it as a racial slur for them… If you have proof or any evidence that the Asura are rodents please share, but as of now I am just unable to see them as such.

Slurs don’t have to have 100% basis in ‘facts’ — if they did, they probably wouldn’t be slurs.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Heroic-Edition-Items-Delivered-to-Beta-Participants/5033783

• Chronomancer, one that manipulates time. Also, one of the names considered for Guild Wars Utopia, the expansion for GW1 that never came out (they made GW2 instead, and have been slowly re-using some of the ideas from Utopia).
• Paragon, “a person or thing viewed as a model of excellence.” Oft-used in the phrase “a paragon of virtue.” Another ‘nostalgia’ word (as Belzebu notes, it was a class name in GW1, with originally a supportish prof that used ‘virtues’, but otherwise, the name didn’t fit that well.)

UndeadCrisis.5103:

Is gw1 still worth buying? (thread title)

Sure. Steam, Amazon, as well as other retailers frequently sell copies for a deep discount. (Make sure you get ‘new’ not ‘refurbished’ or ‘used’ — some vendors sell discs with a used serial #, which prevents you from playing.)

UndeadCrisis.5103:

I heard that it was a lot better than gw2

Not in my strong opinion, but of course it depends on what’s important to the person offering their evaluation. For example, GW1 doesn’t allow jumping, isn’t a true MMO (only 8 person per explorable area, dungeon, or mission, with a few minor exceptions), and you mostly cannot move when you cast skills.

UndeadCrisis.5103:

and that it still has a large player base, is this correct?

Largely no.

Since it’s free-to-play, a lot of people return for various festivals to work on titles.

But outside of that, the population is down to probably 10% (or less) of what it was before GW2 launched. I base this on how many instances there are of the most popular towns, including the main trading center (down to barely 2 compared to 6-8 a year before GW2), the old Lion’s Arch (down to 1 from 2+), and so forth.

UndeadCrisis.5103:

People say that its better because of the way skills work?

In GW1, there are a lot more skills and you can choose a second profession as (in effect) a trait. This means there are a lot more potential builds in GW1 than GW2. However, I’m of the opinion that offers a false diversity: a lot of GW1 skills are useless or even detrimental to various builds, and so. There’s still good variety and you can save your build and instantly change specs (but not gear), but it’s not “better” in my opinion, not even close. Still, some people prefer it.

UndeadCrisis.5103:

Also are there any graphic enhancement mods for the game?

Not any official or even officially sanctioned ones.

Try clearing out your game cache — the technical forum has a sticky that explains how. (That fixed it for the last 4-5 people I know about who had the same symptoms.)

If that doesn’t work, create a support ticket so that Customer Service can work with you directly.

Good luck — and if you have time, please let us know what ended up working for you.

Gift of sprockets entitles you to farm about 10-15 sprockets per day plus an average of one blade shard. Assuming you convert an average of 15 blades/attempt, that means you can get ~37 blades/week.

In terms of efficiency:

• Gift of Sprockets costs 15g + 25 laurels, so it’s about 40g.
• At 37 blades/week, it takes ~25 weeks to get 925 shards (to build up a full ascended back piece).

Alternatively:

• Sprockets are trading at 2.5s each.
• 925 shards (at 15/attempt) would require ~3,100 sprockets
• Total cost 77g

Or in direct comparison for building up the 925 sprockets for a full set:

• Today: ~77g.
• Within Six Months: ~40g (including the gold-equivalent for 25 laurels).

tl;dr the gift of sprockets is a good investment if you play every day

There have been a number of threads on the topic. ANet has hinted that the wallet is getting a QoL change in the future that would probably be released even before the HoT expac.

I don’t think we should restrict the request to just bandit crests or geodes. I think ANet should change their assumptions about how they handle stuff like this:

• Something that can only be used at a vendor, it should be currency stored in the wallet. This includes crests, geodes, and pristine fractal relics.
• Something that can only be used to craft or forge should be called a crafting material and stored in the material collections tab. This includes the obvious like ectos, but should also include doubloons.
• They should limit the number of currencies that are crafting materials and vice-versa, but when something can be both, allow it to be stored in crafting materials.
• And finally, anything that accumulates by the stackfull should get additional storage space (candy corn, snowflakes, ascended mats, etc.)

Every culture uses shorthand for commonly repeated phrases or words, including acronyms (e.g. LA for Los Angeles or Lion’s Arch). Some cultures do it more, some do it less.

Some locals are more sensitive to some abbreviations: San Franciscans hate ‘Frisco’ for reasons lost to antiquity, some New Yawkers hate hearing ‘NYC’ (often because they think it’s a term used by DC politicians when denying the city a bailout), and I don’t know anyone from a certain first world nation in North America that accepts “USAian” to describe themselves.

In other words, I accept that the OP doesn’t like to hear NPCs refer to the human capital as ‘DR’. That’s their choice. I hope that the OP can accept that it isn’t the choice of many others (including many who live in Tyria).

It’s true that there are a number of mats that are worth barely more than vendor+18% (the minimum TP sale price) and I applaud you for attempting to find a way to make them worth more.

However, ectos are in plentiful supply. If you want a leather sink (for example), to increase the demand on something that is oversupplied, look for things that maybe ought to use leather.

At this point, crafting dyes is still far more expensive than buying them on the TP (especially if you make a custom offer rather than buying the lowest-priced one for sale). This is true especially for the uncommon (masterwork) and rare dyes, since the ‘kits’ can also drop dyes of lesser rarity.

In answer to how you keep track: there isn’t an easy way, even though it’s much easier today than it was at launch.

• You can group by rarity, in which case you can see which common dyes you have unlocked. But those are sorted by a type of brightness (lighter colors first), not hue.
• You can group by hue, in which case you can see which red dyes you have unlocked, but those are also sorted lighter first, not by rarity.

Some keep track on paper. Some on a spreadsheet. Unfortunately, there aren’t better methods currently.

I agree with Saturn: the tag isn’t “broken” so much as it could use another update. I recommend rewriting your post as a suggestion for the GW2 discussion folder.

It takes a new player a while to accumulate a gold, but that’s because they are doing stuff that doesn’t generate that much loot. It takes much less time to accumulate the second gold and by the time the new account has a level 80, it’s nearly as easy for the “new” player as it is for veterans (with easily-mitigated exceptions).

Title should be: “How High”

(As in, ’when you MrWuzby asks you to jump, you respond by asking, “how high?” ’)

Oraith.1732:

Sent a sup ticket, crossing fingers

I did that (about a week after warning my guildies not to do it) and sent a note to support. They moved me back the same day, refunded my gems …as a “one-time courtesy.” (It was during the week during a non-peak period; you might have to wait a bit longer.)

Good luck.

MF is either:

• Useful or
• Not useful.

If it’s the first, sure, extend it so that it applies to containers, too — no reason for us to be confused about when it applies versus when it doesn’t. On the other hand, if you think it’s “not useful,” then why bother extending it?

However, the OP missed what ANet will consider is the the two primary cons:

1. Changing MF to affect all loot will have a huge impact on the economy, in both major and subtle ways. It will sharply increase the amount of certain types of stuff (and decrease amounts for other things).
2. It would cause major upset around the super-rare drops, such as BL scraps/tickets, Mini Gwynefyrdd, poly-lumi jewels, and so on.

Thus, extending MF to apply to container loot would force ANet to rebalance the rewards for all those containers (which would be a nightmare) and it’s likely to create havoc among the masses of people who didn’t maximize their MF. (There are already several threads of complaints about the perception that some accounts are ‘too lucky’ while others are ‘too unlucky’.)

tl;dr I welcome MF applying consistently (to decrease confusion), but I doubt very much it’s going to happen.

You should try all the skills for 5-10 levels at least (or the equivalent amount of time). You’ll find that each has its own style, its own type of fun, it’s own efficiency. As you level up, you’ll also find that traits and combining skills (via rotations or combos or other variations of skilled play) will affect the fun and the efficiency.

Since you’ve tried turrets, try running 3 kits. After you do that for a while, try sticking to elixirs. Then try a mix. See what works for you.

Good luck and welcome to GW2.

Shadey Dancer.2907:

Conspiracy theories aside, code breaks, it happens often enough in this game, uttering the mindless mantra that RNG is RNG, doesn’t take this into account. I would be much more comfortable if someone said, ‘hey we will check it out’, or ‘we have checked it out and nothing is wrong’, rather than ’nothing is wrong (and we are cant be bothered to check if it).

There is nothing to check until/unless someone can provide evidence that there is a problem. It’s not that they “can’t be bothered” — it’s that there is nothing that anyone has posted here that even suggests that there is a potential problem.

We humans just have really terrible instincts about what constitutes “average” and especially “average luck.”

The original post in this thread states there’s an issue, without providing the least amount of data — the only thing that was posted was the MF numbers and an assertion that the quality of loot differs between the two accounts. There’s no explanation of where the two accounts play or for how long in each area, the number of foes killed, the number of bonus chests opened, the number of champ bags acquired, the level of the characters involved, or anything else that could allow another person to even begin to compare the two “results”, never mind try to replicate the experience.

And, as it turns out, when people do provide such evidence, ANet has been quick to double check and, when necessary, fix anything that broke. (Notably: changes to drop rates for unidentified dyes when those still dropped from plants and ecto-salvage rates.) Sometimes they notice before players (sometimes not).

In the case of this thread, people are perceiving an issue, but that’s not enough for ANet to decide to invest dozens (if not hundreds) of person-hours to investigate whether something is glitched.

tl;dr ANet already reviews data; asking them to delve more deeply requires something more than a few people posting their impressions about the quality of loot.

(If someone truly believes there is an issue, I’d be pleased to help them organize a data collection project sufficient to get ANet’s attention, if there really is something worth investigating. Message me here or in-game and we can discuss. )

The oldest people I know playing are over 70. The youngest I’ve met was 7. (Something to keep in mind the next time you see a complaint about ANet suspending people for poor word choices.)

So what I hear you saying isn’t that the amount of money is different, it’s that you like the frostgorge chain, but you’re bored by silverwastes.

While I think FG is stupefyingly dull myself, I can admit you’re not alone: others would prefer more FG and less SW (regardless of anyone’s perception of coin-gain efficiency). Since that’s true, I suspect you’d have some success taxiing people to Frostgorge using the LFG tool, especially if you convince 2-3 others in the map to do the same. Something like, “Frostgorge champ train, commander — no mordrem & no shovels required.”

good luck.

The other alternative is to get one of the many portals to Rhendak’s tomb and work your way backwards. It’s easier, since all the gates can be opened from the tomb-side (whereas you have to complete the various bits of the puzzle to open them from the ‘proper’ side).

Good luck.

Essence Snow.3194:

To address “Anet said there is nothing to do with our accounts and rng”:

We know magic find is supposed to increase our chances at better quality loot. There’s an account based variable that contradicts that statement.

There have also been multiple bugs (wvw bonus bug, fractal reward level bug. etc), that have also effected some accounts and not others.

How is it possible that our loot has nothing to do with our accounts when there have been multiple instances to show otherwise?

What?

Your claim, lo these many years and specifically as the original poster of this thread, has been that certain accounts are seeded with better chances in general, without regard for MF buffs, including that granted by use of the luck consumable.

ANet’s statement is in regard to that claim (specifically: it’s not true; all accounts are equal before RNG).

Separately, as an entirely different mechanic, ANet has give us ways to increase our chances of getting better quality loot on average.

I hope that you can see that the two claims aren’t contradictory in the least, unless you want to define the terms in such a fashion that it would make discussion about it impossible.

tl;dr There is zero evidence that any accounts have better chances to get better loot, except in the context of MF buffs.

This wouldn’t tell you a thing about “lucky” accounts, since it leaves out any context of how frequently people fight bosses.

Further, suppose it took absolutely no dev time to implement a perfect “luck meter” that measured an account’s “lucky drops.” Why would the devs implement it?

• Some would argue that the meter was wrong, that it didn’t match their perception of how lucky they were.
• Some would complain about the numbers, claiming they were unlucky and therefore unfairly penalized relative to others works less hard for their loot.

Thus, at best, it would generate further discord, especially by those who misunderstand how random numbers work.

The same thing you hate, I love. In other games, difficulty sometimes scales up too gradually for me. In this game, when you get to the “warzones” — it really is war. It’s harder to find safespots, foes chase you farther, and do more things that can be annoying.

But.

You’ll figure out how to handle it and fairly quickly, you won’t have the trouble you (think you) are having now. And imo, that’s a fun part of the game too, to be able to learn and grow as a player.

It depends entirely on how the buffs/debuffs are applied.

• If applied cumulatively, then -66% followed by +66% results in <0 % (and vice versa if applied in the opposite order).
• If applied to the base time, then it becomes mathematically additive and the buff entirely reverses the debuff (and vice versa).

The game is inconsistent about how it applies things like this. MF bonuses are additive, movement speed buffs are ‘best only’ (does not add nor does it accumulate).

Neural.1824:

I’ll add mine to the list here. I have two accounts. First one gets loot that is “meh”. Get an exotic once in a while. Have had ascended chests drop, etc. But overall I feel like I get nowhere. Especially with BLC’s and salvaging exotics for dark matter.

My 2nd account? Not been around very long, but it has gotten stellar drops from black lion chests, and better drops running around in world. Salvaging stuff goes well also.

One difference I’m seeing among the examples given is that the younger accounts seem to always get the better loot, and those younger accounts don’t have nearly as high a level of MF.

Wondering if the problem is MF.

• MF doesn’t affect drops from salvaging nor from the Black Lion login reward.
• Try keeping track of what you are killing on both accounts and exactly what is dropping. It’s not enough to say one account is getting ‘better’ drops; the context is critical.

Zackie.8923:

it’s true, this has been known for a long time, if you are destined for richness , your account will get all the goodies. if you ain’t, tough luck pal.

No, it’s not true. It’s been tin-foil-hatted for a long time. There’s absolutely no evidence that accounts are destined for richness or poverty.

On the contrary, all the evidence there is shows that some people get lucky sometimes, some people get lucky often, and some people hardly ever get lucky, but this changes over time. The evidence also shows that people are notoriously poor about keeping track of how lucky they are …or aren’t.

How is it you aren’t making money in Silverwastes?

• The SW chest train is similar to Frostgorge champ train, in that it generates a lot of champ bags with noticeable average value.
• The event train (culminating in breach/vinewrath) is comparable to Orr, in that it generates mostly mats, with the occasional high-value item.

Mileage will vary and most players think both the SW versions are more lucrative than Orr/Frostgorge.

So again, I’m not altogether sure why you aren’t earning just as much (if not more) than you were before your break.

I understand the need for restrictions like this, but I wish the game gave an NPE-ready message instead of something that makes it look like a bug.

Robert.8206:

My theory is when everyone else is accepting “Fractal Transit Query” to the next fractal, last member probably clicked to the “return to the mistlock observatory” button.

This was the cause the only time this happened to me. (People who do it by accident could be reluctant to admit it; people who do it on purpose are obviously unlikely to say so.)

This can happen if your screen is lagging compared to the servers: you see a living foe, the server thinks the foe is dead. So you’ll see your arrows flying, but there won’t be any actual damage. It’s hard to run controlled tests to confirm that is the cause, so you have to look for other signs of latency, such as delays when triggering skills or for pop-ups, etc (chat lag isn’t a good clue, because chat/guild run on a different server from combat).

You can also try asking Customer Service via a support ticket, so they can help track it down.

Sorry it’s happening — at best, it’s super annoying.

Hey Nurgle: sorry you weren’t the one to get the portal. I’m sure that must have been more than disappointing.

If you can, take a break from farming (and maybe from the game), and then come back, hopefully refreshed and excited for more. (I’m trying to take my own advice and playing less, since I feel a bit too much of the “been there; done that” syndrome after playing since headstart.)

That said, I have to admit I was really tempted to do a lot of farming to try out Chronomancer (although who knows if that’s possible). The preview makes it look like one of the most complicated and rewarding professions I’ve seen in a long time. The thing that stopped me from getting manic about it: I know I’ll be able to play it as much as I want when the expac goes live.

Anyhow, sorry your luck didn’t match your enthusiasm.

Essence Snow.3194:

Here’s my issue: My newer account gets drastically better loot. My main account hardly ever gets exotics while my new account gets them frequently. ….

I know others will say" RNG is RNG"….sorry I’m just not buying it.

You don’t have to “buy it” for it to be true. If you record all your drops for a few months and collect similar data for 1,000 other people, we can start to consider the possibility that there’s something going on besides ‘true’ randomness. But if you’re just talking about for a short period of time, then coincidence is sufficient to explain what’s going on. It’s not enough to say “way more exotics” — you have to specify the numbers and what you did for the ecto. If the high-MF account runs mostly dungeons, then it wouldn’t be a surprise, since there are so few chances; the low-MF might be running Orr or the Ulgoth chain and have many times the number of chances.

I compare ecto salvage rates with a few friends, for kicks (not science) and there is frequently a 3-4 week period where one of us has great rates (near 1e/rare on average from mystic kits) while the other has terrible rates (closer to 0.7e/rare). But eventually, it changes.

As human beings, we tend to see patterns even when there aren’t any.

I don’t mean to suggest that there’s no way for the OP to be correct about drop rates, only that they don’t have enough evidence to convince ANet that it’s even worth checking into.

tl;dr streaks are common, both lucky and unlucky ones; it’s not that surprising that the low-MF account is sometimes luckier than a high-MF one.

Zyhonas Thanatos.2039:

…it was more of a request to see if Anet could do something to remove the exploit, …

send an email to exploits@arena.net
and include details about what, in your opinion, makes it possible for them to use a particular spot to leech

It’s still a question of killing this as quickly as possible. Zerker offers three stats that help with that

• Power (which scales well with nearly all damage).
• Precision, which increases the chance to critically hit
• Ferocity, which increases the bonus damage for critical hits

Every other stat combination contributes less. So if you (and your group) are good enough to avoid damage without boosting other stats (vitality, toughness, etc), it’s “more efficient” to go with zerker. (Things like condition damage, boon duration, etc don’t scale as well.)