EZ Server

I spent some time away from CT, and when I left it I loved it. Armor dropped in plentiful amounts, and if you worked the zone you could steadily get CT essences at a decent rate (not as good as it was in Tacvi, but close). I recently returned to help gear some new alts for guildies, and helped a few other people, and was kind of shocked at the essence drop rate. What happened?? I'd chalk it up to RNG but I've been told its the same for everyone. Bosses were, I thought, to be a 20% drop rate for essences. Now its 1 in 40 for me, some saying 1 in 50 for them....and none, zero, zip, nada from ANY trash in well over 100 clears (which is what....5000+ mobs?). Is this as was intended, or is something bugged?

I got 40 essences from that zone with some hard farming in about 2 weeks after the change from Tacvi to CT and got about 2 essences every 3 clears, then it changed and the last 6 essences took me 2 months...

I was going to post something similar, i geared up 4 toons over a weekend and only seen 2 drop :'(

^ Very much this.  CT essence is broke.  Please take a look at the drop rates.

There's no way that the drop rate is 1/5 on nameds. I have cleared at least 200 nameds consecutively, got maybe 5 essences and cleared the zone at least 10 times, got one off trash.

It was at one point. Named in CT are the mobs that drop the CTII patterns (the optional armor between CT and T1). Used to be not exactly easy to get essences, but steady and doable for a group geared for CT.

Problem is everything now is focused on UW as far as essences go. I think maybe H sometimes forgets that CT essences are the first step in weapon augs. The drop rate as it stands cockblocks new players from making augs, and I dont care what people say about augs not being necessary to progress....players know thats a load of fertilizer. Have had 2 guildies and at least one other person give up because making augs was damned near impossible for them. I thought they were being impatient, but after trying CT lately I know thats not the case.

I figured something was wrong, I spent about 8 hrs in there over several days gearing up a new character and I saw 1 essence drop out of numerous clears. Its tough enough with the drastic changes to the UW quest, now with this bottleneck new players will never be able to get one, let alone existing players who never started it.

This doesn't sound too far from Tacvi.  Tacvi at one point dropped essences like candy, but toward the end, Hunter DRASTICALLY nerfed drop rates of Tacvi Essences.  Thankfully I have had no need to farm essences in Cazic Thule but from what is being described here, it doesn't sound like it is much different.  PoAir named drop essences 1/40....that's why most people wait till a d/l weekend to farm t3-4 so the drop rate is more in the 1/20 range.  Abyss is close to that too with the added benefit of the trash having a chance to drop an essence as well.  CT is a low tier zone so it isn't like pulling teeth like breaking into T5. Anguish you only have one guaranteed essence off the end OMM, and have cleared T6 several times back to back and never seen an essence other than off OMM.  Heck T8 you have an even tougher time getting an essence as I have geared at 2 groups and not seen one yet off a named other than last mob.  Just think you should keep risk v. reward and look at how other zones play out too.

Ahhhh....no, Orth, you have that backwards. Or you missed a step. Tacvi WAS pretty rare, then Hunter fixed it so that essences were dropping steadily, on avg 1 a clear or 2.

If you know the boss locations, you can probably farm them quicker, esp if multiboxing.

I do. Pull them all the time. Thats not the issue....the issue is they arent dropping for shit poop from the bosses

Agreed, tried that method and it's still far below any other tier.

Because Hunter has no idea how to do shit in moderation.
Its intentional or knee jerk and its always in the extreme.
Only rarely does he actually listen to reason or reasonable suggestions.

I don't blame him, as much as it pisses me off that he does it, to many people take advantage of shit *cough* Fugitive *cough* then report it.

1 essence in 3 1/2 hours on double loot. If you don't want to increase rate, can we start by removing place holders and see how it works out?

Either way, I'm the dumb one farming these on double loot.

I increased the drop rates in CT just now, although I was tempted not too because of Felony's comments.

tofs essence ranks 5/7 drop rates!

i'd be happy with just removeing all the junk loot off the mobs......

whee, rank 7 dropped finally! took ~ 200 collective tserrina kills