I decided to jump on and start my season journey last night thinking I would have to grind a bit before finding my first ethereal.
Jumped into a rift with my rebirthed demon hunter and got an Ethereal doomslinger from an Elite pack at lvl 6.
Obviously it isn’t really a significant find for later on but I found it pretty interesting that I got one in my first few minutes of play considering how rare they are supposed to be. Gave me a nice power boost early on though as well.
Any one else have a similar experience?
P.S I didn’t play the PTR, just followed what was happening with regards to the new season etc.
Actually the best way to find Eth’s is via leveling and being <70 since the legendary pool is a lot smaller. However this is really mainly only good if your going for collecting all 21 of them as stated they will be low level.
I’ve only played a little bit of the season so far. If I’m not mistaken i was at level 5 or 6 as well and my first treasure goblin appeared in the cathedral at level 1. It took me a while to kill him as I didn’t even have all the parts of my equipment. Result: Dropped a crossbow from an ethereal hand (doomslinger)
I also thought it would take time to drop an ethereal item, but it fell on the first goblin with only 30~60 minutes playing.
Its been proven that very low level characters actually have a better chance at finding an ethereal due to the limited item pool. I wasn’t that lucky, but did finally find one for the barbarian much later.
This is a problem I consider in diablo 3. The game should have some ‘class’ of items that were really hard to find, but when found, it was really worth using.
The game causes the feeling of euphoria when you drop an ethereal, legendary or set item, but they are soon dispensed with as the drop rate is so high that they are now considered common items in the game.
I thought ethereal items would be considered ‘rare’ this season, but they just proved to be just another class of expendable items.
Finding them at a low lvl like this if they are abundant isn’t really an issue because as the pool of legendaries increase so does their rareness. Also the usefulness of low level Ethereals is really limited and just gives you a boost during the level up phase of the season.
They only are “common” at low levels because there is almost nothing else in the item pool there.
They are NOT common at level 70+.
This should satisfy your concerns - and it lets the people who want them for the Item Transmog achievement, get the low level ones that count for it. It would be pretty terrible to have to grind every class for weeks to get all the items for the transmogs. Thank goodness they do drop at low levels.
I forgot to mention that I also dropped an ethereal windforce, but replaced it by finding a better bow
I don’t play every day and I still play a bit of D3, I’m level 55 and I’ve already found 2 ethereal items. I think Blizzard shouldn’t ‘give items’ to players to level up (regardless of transmog achievements, etc…). It would be better to find a really good rare item to level up and drop an ethereal item later in the game, as dropping an ethereal within 30 minutes of gameplay does away with the ‘rarity’ feeling the type item should have. There is no really ‘rare’ item class in Diablo 3
I agree. It’s just that, at least in my opinion, it’s not logical for the game to calculate if you have an ethereal item, and if you don’t, it greatly increases the chance of dropping the item, just as with legends and sets.
The problem is that as Blizzard makes these season achievements available to players, they (the ethereal items) need to be mandatory to drop for everyone.
Just to point out that I’m not feeling bad about getting the ethereals, I just think they should be more ‘unique and rare’, and not as common as it seems.
Both my HC character got one around level 10-12. Barbarian 1H sword, and some monk claws.
On my SC Barb, I did not have anything up until level 70, and about 250 para. I now have 2 each of the barb weapons, and a necro item, at 477 para. I almost held off doing a GR 70 to keep the pool smaller.
I just don’t like playing some classes, so getting the drops for them is going to be annoying for sure.
I would agree with you if they were made permanent. As it stands currently they are a seasonal theme item only and won’t carry over to non season. So it is okay if it is easier to get them situationally because it would be kind of disappointing as a season theme if they were super hard to get.
As a permanent item in the game I would be fine with them being far more rare.
Yep, my first one dropped at lvl16 just a few minutes after I had alerted some community peeps to Bishibosh’s Remains. The game rewarded me for my good deed with my first ethereal.
2nd one dropped at lvl57.
3rd one dropped at ~p180, seconds after I heavily cussed out Araneae for running away from me at 5% health. When she dropped again, she died instantly. I cussed her out again only to notice a peculiar blue swirl coming from her blood & guts.
I understand, because there are a lot of people creating posts saying they can’t find ethereals at all.
But really, regardless of the game mechanics, it’s weird to drop an ethereal item at level 5 with 30 minutes of gameplay. It even looks like a game glitch
I’m almost done 5 classes now, 14/21. Mostly farming T16 and GR90. Just one ethereal left to finish Witch Doctor, then I have Crusader and Necromancer left after that.
It’s been taking me 3-4 hours per class to finish, pretty consistently.
The Witch Doctor might end up taking me a little longer though, it hasn’t been as efficient as the first 4 classes I did.
