Catalysts, drop rates and locations.

Just looking for some very subjective personal opinions here..

I have been collection the enhancement catalysts over various alts for two weeks now and have observed some patterns, in the randomness. Obviously this is just MY findings, but curious to see if anyone else has similar experiences.

I will log in the toon I am going for the EC on, and start doing trials. Call this a play session, from at least one trial, up to 10, back to back, until I get it..or get fed up and switch.

In this many, I have found two very common outcomes. Either the toon will get an EC in the first 1-3 trials I do (regardless of what they are..so it seems) OR it will take much much longer, often with me giving up for that session.

As for the 'locations' of the drop...that is..what trial was it, what were you doing when it dropped..I see the following very subjective patterns..

Baf - the first 40 WWs or prisoners (I still get FAR more purples on the escape phase than EC's though).
Lam - havent got a single one here.
Keyes - just fighting mobs at the terminals, seem to get most of them here.
TPN - pulling terminal mobs.
Mom - None here either.
UG - Just the general mobs as you run through, getting one per UG trial done so far.
DD - The ambush inside Mot, getting almost 1 here per run.

Oh and the last mission is Sister Sol's arc..all those Bosses..almost one per run in here too.

Obviously a lot of these are occuring at the greatest concentration of mobs and killing in those trials..but it really seems to be focussed in those areas.

Anyone else found some spots to be more generous than others?

They have a chance to drop off of any Incarnate level mob. That would mean anything in DA/DA Missions (or future Incarnate Missions) and in any iTrial. No one spot is better than any other.

Zwillinger puts the matter to rest, I guess!

Although I wonder if Catalysts drop the way shards/threads do, rather than the way recipes do. I run a lot of DA, and not very many trials, but I've still gotten more catalysts from trials, which doesn't make sense if the drops are being split 16+ ways on a trial.

...of course, as the ridiculous streak of 5 purples in one morning reminded me last weekend, my own drops are a woefully insufficient sample size to estimate drop rates, so...

Doesn't group size do odd things to drops?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Recipes and invention salvage are just split evenly among the group, so running at x8 solo means more drops than running at x8 with a full team. Shards and threads get a separate chance to drop for each person on the team, so running at x8 gets you the same chance no matter how many people are on the team, and a team can defeat more dudes in less time.

Thanks for the replies..and way to generally, totally MISS the point I was trying to make.

I know they can drop of anything in trials, I know its random. I know that, random being random, they should drop anywhere!

I also know that the perceived pattern in which I am getting catalysts...may be 'random' but does not seem very random. Nor do when they drop. Again..as Hopeling says..more killing in a certain part of the trial, more random chances. But since it is all random ANYWAY, it should still..be..random.

I am NOT looking for a magic spot or way to get these things, I was just curious to see if anyone else had noticed them coming more often in phases of the trials etc.

Talking of random still, I can 100% certainly say that over 75% of purple drops I get (without doing missions at 4/8) come from the prisoner phase in BAF. Is that because of how many die? Because I 'dont' run everything else on 8 players? Again..random being random..that phase is clearly more random to me than others.

I think the devs have gone to great care to make sure they are completely random whether you team or solo. I have done a mix of trials and DA and I have got catalysts pretty regularly from both and in different locations. Also I got a purple on a DA mission one day and another on a trial the next.

Like the OP, I have found Sister Solaris' arc to be quite good for cats. I tend to run at +0/x8 as I believe putting the level up only affects thread drop rate and will actually slow down other drop rates as it takes longer to defeat stuff.

I don't know what the drop rate is, but I hope we get something we can trade these things for at some point.

I've only been playing one incarnate since I22 and I've already accumulated 6 catalysts on her. I only had a vague use for two, and that was with some judicious jiggering of a long-finished build. I *really* don't see myself ever slotting more ATOs into this character.

If I'm going to keep playing my 50s, which is apparently the design thrust behind the whole incarnate deal, I'm going to end up stockpiling a crapton of useless hunks of salvage.

Can we get some sort of trade-in? Even one Catalyst for an Astral Merit would be more useful than the loot as implemented right now.