The Ethereal Hunt - maybe not so bad

General Discussion
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Many here have expressed concern over the hunt for all 21 ethereal weapons and needing to level and gear up all 7 classes. One thing to remember however is that these weapons will drop below level 70, and from my PTR tests, drop as early as level 12. So at that level, the loot pool is still quite small, and even taking the large loot drop increases in the PTR, on both monk and dh test, I had all three weapons before level 20.

So it seems for those interested in doing the hunt for the transmogs, that it will be best to first gear up your main so you have paras to work with, then make and SLOWLY level each class to keep the loot pool small until the weapons have been found. Then as has been suggested, delete the char and make the next class and so on.

Sadly, this doesn’t help those without the necro pack, but seems a reasonable way to go about the ethereal hunt.

Happy hunting! :sunglasses:

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I was also testing this today. Because the loot pool that you can get at low levels is SO small you get the same few things over and over. That tiny pool includes the Ethereals. My Wizard I just made had her first two in her first rift. If people don’t power level, and just spend some time doing rifts they should be able to get them pretty fast.

That said, I still have some concerns.

  • I don’t have char slots to make more chars. I am causal and tend to get attached to my chars. I don’t want to delete them.
  • We only have 3 rebirths per Season so I can’t use rebirth to make all classes.
  • If I do opt to delete one, I would have to delete it again and again to make all the classes I need for weapon hunting. Doable, but not fun.

I would prefer if the Achievement transmogs were unlocked per class. Great if you get them all, but you won’t lose your class set if you get all three.

The Feat of Strength for getting them on ALL classes should be something more global, like a pennant that celebrates D2R and has a white/ethereal glow.

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I totally agree and understand your concerns. I like your idea of it being per class for the transmogs and something different for the Feat of Strength. There’s certainly still time for Blizzard to switch things, but I’m not holding my breath lol :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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Yeah, but the drop rate is still somewhere between .5% and 9.99%.

You might be able to get them on the PTR, but you have a massively increased drop rate there, don’t you?

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Yes, I noted the increased drop rate for the PTR in the original post, but the point remains that they will be easiest to get with a low level char.

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You do… BUT. Have you ever leveled in Normal alone slowly? You know how you get quite a few Leoric’s crowns and other low level Legs? But always the same ones? The loot pool is tiny there. ETHs are now part of that tiny loot pool. Once you get one, you can also change your difficulty to OMG more - and if it is a second Seasonal char you have access to Paragons and gems.

My testing this morning on PTR had me getting all 3 wizard drops by level 27 in Normal solo.

I am thinking that without the buff, had I just played alone in Rifts and kept opening every chest/breakable, I would have had all 3 by level 50 maybe?

I even think I would be better off leveling SLOWLY so that I can open more things/get more bosses while that loot pool is small and I have a better chance of ETHs.

Hmmmmmm

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Yes, that’s how I usually do it. On my first character, anyway, since I actually like the leveling process and constant replacement of items.

However. You don’t always get that lucky. When I leveled in Season 22 as a DH, I never saw a weapon drop. I think I only got 2 or 3 legendary items total. Granted, that was absurdly unlucky, but still.

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It’s a question of time and ethereals per hour.

Doing massacre bonuses, at a 1h 1-70, I average roughly 1 legendary per run. Just to get an ancient drop rate, that’s 7 hours for a 50% chance. Now, leveling slowly might be better, but what constitutes slow? I figure, if you can do 200 legendaries per hour, one should be ethereal, and that would be roughly 6 hours to collect all 3.

It really comes down to the algorithm of how loot is chosen.

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Right - which is why you have a LOT more chances to get one below 70 and on non-torment. It restricts the loot pool based on the levels that Legs can drop. Only a few drop at those low levels so your loot pool is like 10 or something instead of over 100.

If I was doing this, I would NOT level on purpose, and would just get as many drops as I could. I THINK that has the best chance.

When you get to 70 and start doing higher level content the loot pool expands and even in the PTR you don’t see any where near the number of ETH drops as you do pre-70.

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I understand that, but it comes down to how many legendaries do you see on 1-70?

You’re going to need roughly 7 legendaries for one ethereal pre 70 on average. That’s about 39 legendaries to get all 3 on average, and that’s just for one class.

You’re definitely going to see far more on the PTR regardless. Unless the drop rate doesn’t matter pre-70, I can’t figure out any math which would put pre-70 leveling to be superior to just grinding it out post 70.

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I believe the pool difference makes up for it. During leveling, I got around 7 ethereals. Once I hit 70, I did a dozen runs or so at t16, gr90 and only got 1 after much more time than I spent leveling. Once I leveled a goe, I reduced a weapon lvl to 1 (not in the socket since I didn’t want the added exp), started a new character on T6 and ran bovines. Each cow run netted several ethereals. Runing gr90s often would yield none. I probably won’t bother with a goe in season since I have multiple accounts. I’ll stick my lvl1 in the cow and clear with my other account. Just cycle through the classes until I have all of them.

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Umm even with the insane high drop rate I only got very few of them as drops. Since you can’t change them I doubt I will find the ones I need in s24

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This is where I think it depends on the algorithm, because if Blizzard is honest about the drop rate, the pool shouldn’t make one bit of difference.

What a pool should theoretically do is guarantee a higher percentage of a specific legendary of a category.

That is:

Item rolls.
Determine it’s quality (ethereal, primal, ancient, legendary, etc.)
Determine the item.

So, if a legendary dropped once every 10 drops, but there were only 3 legendaries, after 10 drops, you would have a 1 in 3 chance of the legendary you’re after. But at level 70, the legendary chance still is once every 10 drops, it’s just that now, you have a 1 in 20 chance of getting the item.

If it went after determining the item first, with a smaller pool, the drop rate would be far higher than between ancient and primal. At which point, you’d create a new character and have someone power level you on T6 until you’re level 34 (which is around when the big boost of item pool comes into play).

I put in roughly only 2.5 hours into the PTR. I managed to get all 3 leveling on normal, as well as leveling post 70. I’ll agree, they dropped higher when leveling. But that could easily be explained by the following algorithm:

Item drops.
Is it primal? Impossible pre-70. Post 70, this might be hit instead.
Is it ancient? Impossible pre-70. Post 70, this might be hit instead.
Is it ethereal? Yes.

So, prior seasons, it would have been a legendary, as it would have skipped down to just being a legendary.

What you’re going to see is variance. I had a teammate when leveling up in the PTR. We leveled two characters each. I had all 3 Necro ethereals by Level 14, and all 3 DH ethereals by level 28. I never got a single duplicate for the first 3. My partner never got a single ethereal on either character while leveling up. And when I asked in another post, another player said they got multiple duplicates before they managed to acquire all 3. That’s certainly to be expected.

And then, we have to take into consideration that perhaps how the PTR works is a bit different than what we’re told will be the end result. Or maybe how leveling 1-70 is a bit different. It could be that 1-70, they have a 50% drop rate when it comes to legendaries.
Those are both in the realm of possibilities. But we won’t know until the season start.

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This is basically the concept. Each item has a char level at which it can start dropping. There are only a very few that drop early in the game. Leoric’s Crown is usually the first. There are only a few others - which now includes Ethereals.

So you are leveling and a Leg drops - there are only say 3 items possible at level 15 so chances of one being an ETH are higher. By the time you get to level 40 the pool of items is much greater (although still does not include class sets, ancients, primals).

The game guide should have the level drop limits for the items if someone wanted to do the digging to figure out what drops at what levels. heh.

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That’s actually an excellent idea!

I did level to 70 solo on ptr. The first few eths dropped quite soon, granted there was a dropbonus, when I used them, I boosted to T2 and it seemed less eth drops. Still quite some, but that must have been that bonus.

I do agree, there should be 7 rebirths available. Despite I have a single slot available still due to an unfortunate HC death.

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So far today:

New Wizard. Normal Difficulty solo (with about 200 paragon). Had about 6 ETH by level 27. Among those I got all 3 for the class.

New Barb. Normal Difficulty solo (with about 200 paragon). Had 4 ETH drop by level 26. Got the last of the 3 I needed at 26.

I am going to level on Normal in Seasons for the Transmog drops I think.

ALSO, I even got one out of a pile of bones. They mean it when they say destructible, mobs, and containers (all of them, not just chests). I have gotten several that way. If you have an AOE that breaks things it is nice to have. Plus it makes you run faster. Always fun.

EDIT - in chat tonight someone confirmed and linked a lvl 11 ETH. So that means they start dropping at the lowest possible level when the lowest Legs first unlock.

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I noticed that some of the etherials have the same names as some currently existing legendaries (e.g. Windforce, Buriza, Gidbinn…). Will the regular legendaries that currently exist with these names still drop in Season 24 (along with the new etherial versions) or are the new etherials replacing these legendaries (with the same names)?

*I’ll also confess: I’m a bit surprised that none of the etherials include “armor” pieces.

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So, how about this idea…

  1. Level a Gem of Ease to rank 25 and put it in a non-class-restricted level 70 weapon
  2. Create new hero
  3. Level it on Normal
  4. When the hero reaches level 11, keep re-making the game until you get the Bounty for Zoltan Kulle
  5. Equip the hero with the Gem of Ease’d level 70 weapon and go to kill Zoltan Kulle and hope that an ethereal drops out of the loot chest
  6. Delete the hero and re-do the first four steps
  7. Repeat until all three ethereals have dropped
  8. Repeat on a new class
  9. Transmogs and profit!
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Yes, I have a similar strategy in mind. Perhaps level a gem of ease to 70 (and aug that for the season journey requirement), so you can one-shot something at lvl1 T6 and be level 15 instantly, then unequip the gem and go down to Normal. Then spam Kulle, Maghda or Azmodan, depending on the bounty. And at lvl22, offload the 70 weapon, delete the character and remake another.

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Except the live game doesn’t have the PTR’s drop rates.

BUT…one thing that can alleviate the pain of levelling/gearing all 7 classes for that is that it doesn’t take more than 2 weeks solo (3-4 hours per day) to fully complete the season journey. By then you’re p600+ without even trying.

The collected paragon (and cubed legs) will be a great boost for new seasonal toons, and you can start levelling them at at least T3.

This would of course be the case if the transmogs themselves were worth a damn. Most of them either don’t even look like their item icon, or are too bland and don’t compete with existing D3 transmogs. And Khalim’s Will is already in the live game (Que-Hegan’s Will).

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