This isn’t feedback, but I’m posting it here in case it’s of interest to anyone.
I noticed that certain bosses seemed to be dropping certain shards, so I set about testing that.
I did 5 full runs of all 17 bosses in Adventure More, plus one full run of Campaign. I uncovered a couple of patterns.
First, I didn’t have a single soul shard drop in Campaign, so I think it’s safe to say that (at least right now) they are only dropping in Adventure Mode.
Next, bosses from certain acts dropped specific shards consistently.
Act 1 bosses = Anguish
Act 2 bosses (excluding Vidian?) = Lies
Act 3 bosses = Sin, Destruction
Act 4 bosses = Terror, Pain
Act 5 bosses = Hatred
So it looks like you can target farm any shard you want by focusing on a specific act and farming bosses there.
| Act | Boss | Run 1 (T1) | Run 2 (T1) | Run 3 (T16) | Run 4 (T16) | Run 5 (Normal) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Skeleton King | Anguish | Anguish | Anguish | Anguish | Anguish |
| 1 | Queen Araneae | Anguish, Anguish | Anguish | Anguish | Anguish | Anguish, Sin |
| 1 | Butcher | Anguish | Anguish | Anguish | Anguish | Anguish |
| 2 | Maghda | Lies | Lies | Lies | Lies | Lies |
| 2 | Kulle | Lies | Lies | Lies, Sin | Lies | Lies |
| 2 | Belial | Lies | Lies | Lies | Lies | Lies |
| 2 | Vidian | (none) | (none) | (none) | (none) | (none) |
| 3 | Ghom | (none) | (none) | Sin, Destruction | (none) | Sin, Destruction |
| 3 | Siegebreaker | Sin, Destruction | Sin, Destruction | Sin, Destruction | Sin, Destruction | Sin, Destruction |
| 3 | Cydaea | (none) | Sin, Destruction | (none) | Sin, Destruction | (none) |
| 3 | Azmodan | Sin, Destruction | (none) | (none) | (none) | Sin, Destruction |
| 4 | Rakanoth | Terror, Pain | Terror, Pain | (none) | (none) | Terror, Pain |
| 4 | Izual | (none) | (none) | (none) | (none) | (none) |
| 4 | Diablo | Terror, Pain | (none) | Terror, Pain, Pain | (none) | (none) |
| 5 | Urzael | Hatred | Hatred | Hatred | Hatred | Hatred |
| 5 | Adria | Hatred | Hatred | Hatred | Hatred | Hatred |
| 5 | Malthael | Hatred | Hatred | Hatred | Hatred | Hatred |
Vidian and Izual didn’t drop any shards on those first 5 runs, so I also did 5 extra runs each for those bosses. Vidian still didn’t drop any shards over the extra runs, but Izual finally dropped a Terror + Pain combo (as expected for an Act 4 boss) on the 10th run.
There were 4 instances (out of 80) of bosses seemingly dropping an extra shard. Araneae run 1 with Anguish + Anguish, Araneae run 5 with Anguish + Sin, Kulle run 3 with Lies + Sin, and Diablo run 4 with Terror + Pain + Pain. My guess here is that bosses have a high chance to drop their act specific drops, then a lower chance to drop another random shard.
Something else interesting I noticed was that Acts 1, 2, and 5 bosses always dropped a shard (at least over my 5 runs). Acts 3 and 4 bosses seemed to only drop shards about half the time, but drop 2 when they do.
I also don’t see any obvious trend of higher drop rates on higher difficulties. The bosses still dropped plenty of shards on Normal. This would take more a bunch more runs to confirm though.
EDIT Sunday Nov 7
I did another 5 runs, this time on a low level character on Normal difficulty.
Conclusions: the same trends seem to hold regardless of level.
(level at time of kill in brackets)
| Act | Boss | Low Run 1 | Low Run 2 | Low Run 3 | Low Run 4 | Low Run 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Skeleton King | Anguish (1) | Anguish (11) | Anguish (35) | Anguish (44) | Anguish (50) |
| 1 | Queen Araneae | Anguish (3) | Anguish (13) | Anguish (36) | Anguish (44) | Anguish (50) |
| 1 | Butcher | Anguish (6) | Anguish (16) | Anguish, Anguish (37) | Anguish (44) | Anguish, Lies (50) |
| 2 | Maghda | Lies (7) | Lies (17) | Lies (37) | Lies (44) | Lies (50) |
| 2 | Kulle | Lies (6) | Lies (17) | Lies (37) | Lies (44) | Lies (51) |
| 2 | Belial | Lies (9) | Lies (18) | Lies (37) | Lies (45) | Lies (51) |
| 2 | Vidian | none (8) | none (22) | none (38) | none (45) | none (51) |
| 3 | Ghom | none (1) | Sin, Destruction (22) | none (38) | Sin, Destruction (46) | Sin, Destruction (51) |
| 3 | Siegebreaker | Sin, Destruction (1) | none (24) | none (39) | none (46) | none (52) |
| 3 | Cydaea | Sin, Destruction (4) | none (25) | Sin, Destruction, Anguish (39) | none (46) | none (52) |
| 3 | Azmodan | Sin, Destruction (3) | none (26) | none (39) | none (46) | none (52) |
| 4 | Rakanoth | Terror, Pain (1) | Anguish (27) | none (39) | Terror (46) | none (52) |
| 4 | Izual | Terror, Pain (5) | none (28) | Terror, Pain (40) | none (47) | Terror, Pain (53) |
| 4 | Diablo | none (6) | Pain (30) | Terror, Pain (40) | Terror, Pain (47) | Terror, Pain, Pain (53) |
| 5 | Urzael | Hatred (5) | Hatred, Lies (33) | Hatred (41) | Hatred (48) | Hatred (54) |
| 5 | Adria | Hatred (3) | Hatred (32) | Hatred (42) | Hatred (48) | Hatred (55) |
| 5 | Malthael | Hatred (8) | Hatred (34) | Hatred (43) | Hatred (49) | Hatred (55) |
I got a few singleton drops in Acts 3 and 4 this time, without the standard double drop.
At this point, I think there’s two separate drops: the first is the special act-specific drop, which a guaranteed specific shard in acts 1/2/5 or a chance for a pair of specific shards in acts 3/4.
Then there’s a separate lower chance for any random shard on top of the special drops. This is an independent drop roll, so in acts 3/4 you roll on a relatively high chance for the pair of shards then roll on a lower chance for the random shard. So you can either get 0 shards (both rolls fail), 1 random shard (special roll fails, random roll succeeds), 2 specific shards (special roll succeeds, random roll fails), or 2 specific shards + 1 random shard (both rolls succeed).
Omitting what I believe to be the separate lower drop chance of a random shard, the pooled overall “special” drop results:
| Boss | Act Special Drop |
|---|---|
| Skeleton King | 10/10 |
| Queen Araneae | 10/10 |
| Butcher | 10/10 |
| Maghda | 10/10 |
| Kulle | 10/10 |
| Belial | 10/10 |
| Vidian | 0/15 |
| Ghom | 5/10 |
| Siegebreaker | 6/10 |
| Cydaea | 4/10 |
| Azmodan | 3/10 |
| Rakanoth | 4/10 |
| Izual | 4/15 |
| Diablo | 5/10 |
| Urzael | 10/10 |
| Adria | 10/10 |
| Malthael | 10/10 |
And for the random drops, I counted 12 instances that I believe were the extra random drop instead of the act-specific special drop. Out of 180 total boss kills.