So!
This Altar of Rites is a very good thing! But the Staff of Herding farming could be removed from it, or at least the droprate of the Gibbering Gemstone should be higher because I find it disgusting that I have been farming for a total of 9 hours and it still hasn’t dropped… (s30 PTR) and I remember the same thing happened in Season 28 more I had to farm that damn item for like 12 hours to finally see it… I understand that after that you don’t have to do it again for about 3 months, but it’s still nonsense… it spoils the game experience that I can’t open a Seal because I can’t get that crap item … If anyone feels the same, please let me know if the developers do something about it.
Have a nice day/weekend! And Loot-rich farming to everyone 
I took some shots at it last evening in non season (not PTR). Already had the plan, the other stuff, apart from the gemstone, didn’t take long.
On the Bridge of Korsikk map I got the Caverns of Frost 16 times. I didn’t note the times where it was the Icefall Caves and instant leave but that could easily be around half of the times opening a game. Of the 16 Frost Caverns I got Chilltara 4 times and no Gemstone dropping. The runs started at T16 and later I went to T7, not that the difficulty should matter.
I did get the Gemstone in S28 but it took a good deal of opening and closing games.
Are you sure you are looking at the correct cave?
I’m not particularly bothered by the SoH requirement. In the last two weeks I farmed four of them without much issue.
Granted, bothered is relative. For me the effort to farm the four of them wasn’t bad. Put on some music, or the TV, etc and the time passed quickly.
I just think the way the items drop should be improved. The RNG is just bad. There are people who have claimed they get everything first try and some who claim they’ve tried many times for over a month and just give up.
RNG to the point where you’re trying for that long should simply be for a better version of something you have… like an ancient or primal version, not a gate for progression. Then again, gates like that are not unheard of in gaming but it is a new wrench in the gears for this game.
I’m ‘Dead’ sure 
Even watched Raxxanterax’ video about farming the items for the staff again just to make sure about all the steps (can be found on maxroll.gg).
I had the GG on the 7th try the last time.
Although it may take time to obtain the Gibbering Gemstone, it doesn’t block progression.
Every node should require staff of herding.
/ducks.
We are doing a PTR. So tell how doing something over a 100 times. Fits into the PTR??? WE are testing this right. So looking for the gem stone in a PTR to me is really a waste of time. You want feed back on a PTR and yet the #1 complain is here we go again wasting half the time doing a PTR looking for a gem stone.
I just did 10 runs had the right cave 3 times and only had Chiltara show up once. So if I do 100 runs and 70% of the time restarting the game. To find out no cave. OH will to bad for your LUCK!!!
One way they can fix this is that chiltara shows in all the caves and has a chance of dropping the gem stone in all of them. So why bother with feed back when you don’t even listen to them on the gem stone???
I rarely play PTRs, but I’ve heard that for S28’s PTR, all the altar mats were in the PTR bags. For whatever reason, they aren’t this time around. Either Bliz forgot or they decided to not include them.
I’m leaning toward the latter because Bliz enabled the PTR’s CR for the cache instead of providing the cache in the bags. That makes me think they also chose not to provide the SoH from some reason. In other words maybe they want people to have to farm it; perhaps they have a testing reason.
And, I could be wrong on all of that. Only Bliz knows what their testing goals are.
Firstly, I’m not Bliz.
As for listening, just because players don’t get what they want doesn’t immediately mean a developer doesn’t listen. Bliz can simply not agree, as it’s their property, not the players’. So, the reason we bother with feedback is for the chance that a developer does agree. If you never ask, you’ll never get.
That said, the SoH is the 2nd from the last unlock, meaning the vast bulk of the altar powers are unlocked (all potions can even be unlocked before getting the the SoH sacrifice) and therefore the altar is being tested.
In other hand that Staff blocked only the three utility nodes: Double DB, Pet DB and double primals i.e. there is some kind of chosing of nodes like someone wants on the forum.
Everything about the PTR notes, the launch of the PTR and the content of the PTR patch shows that the D3 team is overworked, understaffed and underprioritized.
Its on average 90 min hunting Gibbering Gemstone for me. Although was speed build like GoD or Inna Dash but still GG is not too hard to farm.
You’re correct, it’s not hard to farm. It’s the bad RNG it has. I’ve seen players claim they get it first try, some who have tried for hours and hours over the course of a month with no drops. Anecdotal or not, there have been enough claims of that 1 entity to at least raise concerns.
Right
It depends a lot on how they farm.
There is “farming” and “farming”.
Very true. To make it worse, it has 3 layers of RNG:
- Caverns of Frost must be present, that’s 50/50 chance.
- Chiltara must spawn, roughly 80% chance in Adventure Mode.
- The drop rate from Chiltara is really low, something like 1% maybe.
I preferred the old method (RNG), difficult to get Chiltara, but the gem dropped every time.
No you are not and it should have been “They” Sorry.
Let see here on the 1st go around on season 28. The Staff & Gemstone were the # 1 Topic here. Did they listen NO!!!
Really how can you really test something when they give you everything on a Silver Platter??? Plus by what I have seen what did they really change to be tested again. It looks like really nothing.
Yes that could be true but in the real world and not the PTR. The potions might not be unlock before the Staff. In season 28 I listen to like 80% of people crying that getting primals was really hard. In the real world the 1st two primals most people use them to upgrade their weapon.
You know the funny part about this the staff is really a useless item. Yes at one time many years ago that area was a big thing. But today it really useless area. The clouds half of them don’t drop anything, The gift boxes don’t give anything other then crap.
That is why most people don’t waste their time trying to get the staff. Because it takes to long to get the Gemstone. Just to open a area that really doesn’t give you anything other few items.
Staff of herding is needed for the unique cosmetic.