Earth Staff & Shattered Emerald Drop Rate
 

In discussing the Plane of Hate Epic pieces with other players, specifically the Shatter Emerald and Earth Staff.

It is a common perception that these items were not as rare on live as they are on P99.

In reviewing the dicussion surrounding the mini bosses in plane of hate (see link below),

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...6&p=3#comments

It was mispercieved that the staff dropped everytime. Oftentimes mages would get the staff on their first run of going to Hate and Killing Magi.

A couple post do confirm that it does not drop everytime, with one unlucky Soul having to kill 6 Magi's to get it to drop. However the overwhelming portion of the dicussion and attitude was that it was pretty common to get the staff in 1 run to Hate.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...3&p=3#comments

When reading the discussion regarding the Orb of Mastery quest, it became apparent that the primary bottleneck of the Magician epic quest was actually the Pegasus Feather Cloak.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...0&p=4#comments

This reading is consistent with my firsthand experience of assisting my friend achieve his Magician Epic. We spent 2 or 3 days chasing Quillmane on live, in era before getting him his cloak. The next night his guild scheduled a Plane of Hate raid and he recieved his Earth Staff.

Additionally, in examination of the Shattered Emerald of Corruption, it is apparent that while the individual drop rate of the Emerald was somewhat rare, when you included the fact that all minibosses (including Maestro & Magi!) had the chance to drop it, it became much more common.

It is my belief that the P99 drop rate of the staff & emerald are artificially nerfed and non classic and should be increased to reflect the actual drop rate that was experienced on Live.

This is an emulator of the recollection of a game of a dude.

Not an emulator of a game.

Everything is rare here, ridiculously so. Nothing will change that.

Chill on the staff bashing dude. And save your salt for your french fries.

These were interesting reads thanks. I bet if we can find even more evidence you could convince Nilbog to make a change. He's pretty good about changing things if you can find legitimate evidence. I feel like some forum posts in era don't always get it done, but maybe if we find enough of them they would.

The biggest takeaway from the historical analysis was that the revamp and mini boss loot drops was implemented to make those bottlekneck items MORE accessible. With a 50% drop rate, mini bosses were dispensing epic quest items more frequently and more accessible than when they were tied to Innoruuk.

With is actually in direct contrast to what P99 has where before the revamp, Inny was dropping quest items far more frequesntly than what the mini bosses do.

Qft

It is broken on p99, all the loots from innoruuk was moved to mini nameds to make them more available to more people

Quote from era: (https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...98802407921501)
Its insanely rare in p99 green, its so rare that there is a small cartel of elite players that lock the entire server out from getting the staff for their mages, not really a classic experience.

Back on live the hardest part about mage epic was always considered to be the illusive flying pegasus quillmane and the levitate cloak.

Before people come poke at me, yes i am a mage, yes i want my earth staff

That dude got Earth staff at 59 - that suggests good chance any 60 mage toon present either already had theirs or didn't feel it was enough of a choke point to worry about one going to a lower level mage.

The 59 mage also reports he hears post Inny the Earth staff is far easier to acquire (which his experience also maps to).

My evidence is just anecdotal here, but this is what I have seen in the 2 years I have been on p99 green. I see many different toons brandishing epics, even pre lvl 50. Usually clerics and druids. Havent ever seen a mage showing off an epic ever on this server. Not once. Just saying.

As a mage is my main character, I can say that I dont expect to ever get my epic here on this server. And fuck quillmane cloak. I have hunted and killed a quillmane a few times on my own without any assistance, and it never dropped the cloak. That is the stupidest part of this epic. Make the damn thing tradable, and drop more often.

Anyway thats my 2 cents on mage epics.