Drops quality on +0 / +1 / etc.

I think a while back someone here did some studies to try to quantify if recipe / salvage drops were meaningfully better the higher you raised difficulty rates on missions?

I am going to run some +8 mob mish on my Shield/Fire tanker and I'm wondering how much better drops would be at +1 lvl or +2 lvl vs. +0.

Can someone remind me of the findings?

Thx

Drop rates are the same, regardless of level of the mob. It's slower to kill a +1 than a +0. Therefore, the higher level enemies you fight, the worse your drops are.

Underlings drop nothing, except occasional inspirations.
Lieutenants drop more frequently than minions.
Bosses drop more frequently than Lts, and have a small chance to drop a merit roll recipe.
EBs have the same drops (I think) as Bosses.
AVs have the same drops as EBs, plus they drop a guaranteed same-origin SO enhancement.

I think the question is quality -- will I get different drops from level 32 mobs than from level 29?

In that case, yes, because one is drawing on the 25-29 pool, and the other on the 30-34 pool. However, a level 50 farming level 50s vs 54s is going to draw on the same pools with the same odds of getting the same things from each defeat, because in both cases, it will be the 45-50 pool.

I would add that if you are level 46 and you fight at +4 you will be fighting level 50 opponents and you will have a chance of a purple drop.

In my experience here's how it goes:

-1 x8 -- you'll kill stuff like a whirlwind.....but a good chunk of the recipes you get will be level 49 and thus much less desirable. Probably not worth the speed increase.

0 x8 -- you'll kill pretty fast but you'll have alot of groups with no bosses. You won't get any level 49 recipes though.

+1 x8 -- you'll kill a little slower than on 0 x8, but with all groups having at least 2 bosses you'll actually end up on most maps with a few more of the high-end pops.


Anything over +1 x8 -- dont do it for the drops.....only for faster PL'ing, prestige farming, or whatever. The only things which are better here are the inf drops and the exp.

So on my 50 tank (SD/Fire), it sounds like farming -1/+8 with bosses would be most efficient for drops.

Good to know about lvl 47's dropping possible purples. I was always under the impression that you had to kill lvl 50 critters.

I usually +1/+2 just for fun, but I admit it is a little stroke to the ego to bump up to +4/+4 and solo my blaster without dying more than once.

I know its all chance drops but it seems like i get a TON more drops at 0x8 than i do with the diff raised. I usually fill my recipes and salvage per run or close to it while getting half of the amount by pl'ing my alt at +4x8. And yes, thats combining both toons' drops.

And you dont have to have bosses for purp drops. I get plenty solo farming with 0 bosses.

Which works best varies from toon to toon honestly. If you can do +1 only 5-10% slower than 0 you'll do better in the end because of the extra good drops from the bosses. Lets be honest...is it useful to "fill-up" 10% faster but have 4 plasmatic tasers instead of 2 when you're done? +1 if your farmer can handle it is the best.

If you're going for pure purple drops then you should have gotten a farm map at 48th and run it on -1 once you're 50th. I still do that from time to time with my Inv/SS Tanker but honestly having much-less-valuable level 47 non-purples makes it not really worth it so I really mostly do it now to get the BP mask badge for friends or 2nd account toons.