The master air mage potion recipe is essentially impossible to get unless I can find a group of people that are willing to do the focus drain platform with me (not fun). I can clear the first wave by myself, but that's where it ends.
Ask me or others who can look at the api. I’m always happy to help with that, if I can. (We are not allowed to see artifacts drops in the public api).
I think the biggest part of the problem is that the devs have been stubborn about allowing all players in a party to loot mobs. Getting 8+ people together means doing the fight 8+ times, and that's just to get one for yourself. Getting that many people together to farm a boss all day long in order to get drops to sell, and only getting maybe one every 60-90 minutes? Ain't nobody got time for that. So there's none for sale. Making something really hard to get with the intention of letting high level players get them to sell ends up failing. Great idea, bad implementation.
Good loot is whatever they did earlier this year. Before that I think in two years of play I would get 1 artifact every 2 weeks. Then I started getting one or more a day. And while hunting for the new recipe's even if it was a couple hours the loot I was getting made up for it. vj
I'm a treasure hunter by heart... so I really love these rare drops. I can happily spend all my time looking for one and I'm not easily discouraged. I had the worst time so far in Outlaw's Run; I spent a total of 8 hours there before the recipe finally dropped. It was good for my xp pool, though I think I'll need more time than that in Despair, because those mobs are pretty hard for me, But I'll find that one sooner or later. My main point is: I love it that those recipes are rare. The sense of achievement when I finally find one is amazing. Keep up the good work, devs! Ysold.
The Despair one is pretty common for some reason. Got one every 10 minutes playing in a group of three. PS: or maybe our RNG was totally broken. It'll take a long while until you finally quench your air mastery thirst then.
Got the last one last night. Was a grind. Shaminia Hills was the worst for me. 5 elves only. Nothing to do but watch the shadow. On average, I spent maybe 1 1/2 hour per zone before they dropped (Think 6 hours for the above before getting it). That took me 3 hours. Remember having to renew my food buffs and feed my pet (and one death), but was good xp, so I didnt care.
BTW, those tier 10 lich archers are really difficult and I feel that they should drop lich skulls more often.
Air and Water. And to be clear, they are attainable. What makes them hard is you'll need to get a good sized group of high level players to get them. And everybody will want the drop, so you have to get a high level group together that's willing to spend a couple hours doing it over and over until everyone gets one. The hard part is less about the fight than it is getting the people together to do it when you are primarily a solo player. Which is all fine, I don't need to solo the whole game. My only complaint is, as stated previously, it's such a pain to get them, nobody is doing it repeatedly to get recipes to sell, either. I'd gladly buy them, but because of all that, even if one shows up for sale it'll be for some outrageously high price.
Yeah. I've tried to get people myself to go, to no avail. Admittedly, I don't play often, or during peak times, so that doesn't help. Plus I imagine most people who do go after those recipes do so with guildies or other friends, rather than using LFG.