Solo shard farming

If you want maximum shards, +0/x8 is what you want (come i20, -1/x8), that should get you the highest shard rate- at the sacrifice of some amount of inf (at -1, your recipes will also sell for a fair amount less on average).

Depending on your kill speed, you may or may not increase your rate with bosses enabled... we don't know their exact drop rate, unfortunately.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Originally Posted by ShadowNate ;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!

Kitsune is right. As has always been the case, all farming for drops is always most efficient at the lowest practical difficulty (usually +0 due to the undesirability of lvl 49 drops). The people who fight at +2, +4 or whatever are either PLing or banking prestige (I suppose they could be farming influence/infamy, but not efficiently -- they'll be losing out due to the slower drop rate and the very high inf value of drops) or just taking on a challenge for the fun of it. Nothing wrong with that, but it's demonstrably not the best rate of drop production.

THIS
Shard drops on a different mechanic than every other drop in the game. Every mob has a chance of passing a shard to everyone on the team. If the team member rolls for a shard, but he can't receive it because the alpha isn't unlocked, someone else gets it. Every other drop, a mob kill leads to a possible drop that goes to a single member on a team.

A team can almost always run through a map faster than solo (I can't think of a case where this isn't the case unless people are intentionally screwing up). If the only goal is shards. The most efficient would be setting to have all level 50 mobs, a team of others without the alpha slot unlocked so you get their shards.

As far as which mobs...depends on who you and your team plow through the fastest. Personally I like Rikti because they also drop vanguard merits, which can also be applied to getting components which can be used for incarnate stuff or broken-down for shards, and at least with most of my characters, they are VERY easy. Just keep running Borea missions, plow, go on.

You do know that Shard drops are checked for everyone on the team, and someone else getting one can't impede your chances, right?

Wasn't sure whether you realized that or not from your comment -- if so, then never mind.

Mmm...

Interesting note, but it makes me feel even worse when I do a kill all "ITF" and walk out with out a single shard drop... Maybe the game should institute some kind of streak breaker.

Stormy

For w/e your settings are, there are spawns of mobe who are a little above or below what you have it set on. That's why I use +1 x8. that way I get 0 lvl49 mobs. Whereas with +0 I get some 49 mobs.
Also, now with the level shift, +0 mobs now bounce away from my KB like -1 mobs. So, +1 is helpful in that there's less walking for me since I don't have to chase stunned mobs who have been thrown across the room.

Random numbers are random. You'll also have ITFs where you get a crap ton of shard drops, with it balancing out over time.

That depends on the pacing set in the mission. Take the standard BM farm map (the ones sans BM): In that, it's an even pacing, so all enemies are the same level. It's akin to the option you have in AE.

That, also, depends on your character. I don't give a crap about KB/KD on my Fire/Kin since: 1.) I don't have any (unless I respec and pick up Bonfire, which I'm tempted to do) and 2.) Fire Cages would block it all anyways, and that's one of my main AoE attacks (fast animating, fast cycling, good damage, large radius, and immobilizes!).

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Originally Posted by ShadowNate ;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!

This part I know is accurate (except that there is one other drop I know of that works this way; Essence of the Earth)

This part I have my doubts about and would like to see some evidence. Because it seems like this would mean that if I am the only Alpha-unlocked character on a full team, I would earn shards at 8 times the rate of running on a full team of Incarnates.

So, where does this information come from?

Yes, BUT... There are similarities but the two drop system do not appear to be identical. I have never seen nor heard of anyone getting 2 or more Essence off a single enemy. That definitely happens with shards.

Given that the assertion from a poster above, that shard award is different from the norm, in where each mob could potentially award 8 shards, (1 to a player) as opposed to the normal loot practice that a creature checks to see if it has a drop at all, then decides which one player get it.

So in the case of shards on solo versus teams, there is no 1 on 8 chance that given a drop, you may get it for teams. Thus teams tend to be better for shard drops, solely because you kill faster the bunches of mobs that you would be able to do alone. That is technically, in my own experience, it tends to be true. I can solo and decimate entire maps for hours and maybe get 1 or 2 shard drops ( I average a shard an hour, I know my luck suxors), which is often my norm. But I can go to level 50 TF with lots of people, kill in 30 min as many mobs I would have killed in two hours and walk out with an average of 2 shards. Which is by far better, timewise, for acquiring shards.

I still have an issue with the randomness of shard drops, I feel its inherently wrong that luck plays such a large component in the acquisition of a critical component in the incarnate system. I feel aweful when hard working players go into a kill all ITF for example, and because of the "range" they walk out empty handed, and contrasted in the very same ITF another player walks out with 8 or more shards. Again I understand that is luck and the range, but does luck need to be so over-bearing? I mean zip versus 8? Is this really reasonable? Is this pragmatically fair?

I use pragmatically as a means to emphasize in the final analysis. At a low level of fairness, it is understood that we all have the same chance to get a drop, so at an entry level, it is fair. But after an hour of grinding, and when the loot split is remarkly skewed, is that in truth fair?

Lets look at the random number generator, is it working right? Is it possibly getting stuck at a certain range for a player?

Let me delve into my concern, say there is a an average 1% per mob (averaged between minions, LTs, and bosses) chance to get a shard. That means that statisticaly 1 in 100 mobs is supposed to get you 1 drop, this is very basic statistics. The greater the sampling, the more likely the proportion will be experienced. That is if you take a sample of only ten rolls, you are very unlikely to get a drop, it was only a sample of ten and you had a 1 chance on 100. If you take a sample of 50 rolls, you really have a 50/50 chance to get that drop given also some form of standard deviation. If you were to do 100 rolls, and had a 1 in 100 chance, given a 1 sigma statistical variation, you should have an 87% chance to get it; that means there is a 13% chance a statistical aberration may occur and you get shafted. If you do 200 rolls, thus double the statistical pool, you still have the same 1 sigma deviation, but the 13% drops to 7% chance, at 300 rolls the aberration chance is only 4%, at 400 rolls would yield a 3% chance of you getting cheated.

Now lets look an ITF, how many mobs we polish away in each mission? I would estimate about 300 of them. At 3 hundred and at an average 1% chance, under a properly working random number generator you should receive 3 shards give or take one standard deviation or +/- 0.51 shards. Now if you wind up with no drops, yeah sure bad luck, but how bad was it? 3/0.51 is roughly 6, my goodness a standard deviation of 6 is essentially unheard of in real life, really! that statistical catastrophe is like your being bitten by a blind dog, while a lightning strikes your head, as you stood by a leaking fire hydrant, as your cell phone shorted and zapped your ear while talking, and your state is decimated by a giant asteroid: All at the same time! While these events could possibly happen, in or out of the game, they should really, really , really be extremely rare. Judging by the frequency they do occur, I would think something is not right with the so called "range" or random number generator. Please note, these numbers are only after completing a single mission, not an entire ITF! Think how truly broken the range is if you walk out empty handed after an entire ITF!

Perhaps after 100 rolls for a shard, a streak breaker should kick in, and give you 1!

hugs

Sue

They aren't empty handed. First off they get an Ancient Nictus Fragment which is worth 4 shards, and is 100% guaranteed, all you have to do is select it upon completion of the ITF. Additional sources of Guaranteed shards are the weekly strike force. The notice of the well can be broken down into 6-8 shards. Run Manticore this week, and walk out with minimum of 6 shards, guaranteed, nothing random involved (except for those who might get 7 or 8 instead of six).

And if that wasn't enough you can also buy G'rai matter for vanguard merits.

Now, what if you don't need G'rai Matter or Ancient Nictus Fragments? Well, there are other task forces that give other common components, and additionally all of them can be broken down into shards.

It's not all random. There are guaranteed ways to get them. Just not necessarily as efficiently. But still available.

Vanguard merits can be broken down for shards???? This is true?