I’m up to about 2000 paragon and I’ve cleared numerous GRs and NRs and I’ve done all the bounties and all the ubers. One thing that has surprised me is the low drop rate of the soul shards.
On PTR, this obviously isn’t a problem, because we can get them for free from DJ-Ank. But I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to start anew, with no free Bags of Fun, and no 4x drop rate. It’s going to be painful.
Considering that you will need on average about 10 of the shard that you want, plus 20 to 30 embers to get one that has the stats and effects you want, that’s a crazy amount of farming to do just to get going.
If this weren’t a season theme, I’d say it’s fine, but with the limited time in a season, the drop rate needs to be considerably higher so that everyone has a chance to get the shards that they want and still have time to use them effectively for pushing or whatever.
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upping the drop rate for shards and embers seems to be a common request. Let’s hope they’re listening.
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You can target farm them from regular bosses (excluding Vidian). They have much higher drop rates for the soul shards.
Acts 1/2/5 bosses seem to have a guaranteed shard drop. Act 1 = Anguish, Act 2 = Lies, Act 5 = hatred.
Acts 3/4 bosses drop two different specific shards, but they didn’t drop them 100% of the time (maybe compensating for the fact that they drop more than the other bosses?). The drop chance was still high enough that you could target farm them off bosses if you want. Act 3 = Sin + Destruction, Act 4 = Terror + Pain.
It looked like each boss also had a small chance to drop a completely random shard independent of their guaranteed drop.
I posted my data (10 full runs of all bosses) here: Soul Shard boss drop mechanics - my findings
The embers definitely seem like they will be the limiting factor.
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thanks for sharing, very useful 
So only go for bosses, kinda like key warden farming?
According to something I read online, Key Wardens are considered bosses as are the Ubers they take you to.
I think this is true for certain game mechanics based on bosses (e.g. Stricken damage bonus), but the keywardens/ubers don’t have the special soul shard drop rate like the 16 regular bosses (Skeleton King, Queen Araneae, Butcher, Maghda, Kulle, Belial, Ghom, Siegebreaker, Cydaea, Azmodan, Rakanoth, Izual, Diablo, Urzael, Adria, Malthael) do.
I farmed some keywardens and ubers on PTR and they didn’t drop specific soul shards like the regular bosses did.
Well, that’s normal to have complete inconsistency in definition. If a pet cannot be a pet, why should a boss be a boss?
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Considering how the leaderboards look, I think the drop rate is perfect. No one wants to be doing sub 2 minute solo 150s