Event Drops

So with the event starting in a few hours, just wanted to clarify a few questions i had since i haven't been around for an event in over a year.

1. Does playing in HM effect the drop rate of event items?

2. Does loot scaling affect drop rate?

3. Would killing foes 1 by 1 generate more drops then Massive AoE killing at once?

Thanks

from experience raptors and at the time vaettir(?) butchering were the most popular ways of getting event drops which is a load of kills simaltaniously...so 1v1 kills is more honourable but mass killing overall is more efficient for drop rates

alright, cause for mass killing i can do the Glacial farm, or raptors, or glints challenge. or for 1v1 i can solo all of the spider cave in 25min, which is about 75 kills?

25mins you get a hella lot of raptor kills...and thats also a solo farm - which I think works out better than spider cave (FoW yes? - so other than event items small chance of obby shards) but for drop rate probs best to go with raptors IMO as you get a lot more kills in 25mins than 75 in spider cave

1. No. The drop rate for event items is the same in NM and HM.

2. No. Event drops are not scaled, so solo farming will get you more of them.

3. Some say yes; some say no. The argument is eternal. My guess is that any difference in event-item drop rate from mass killing and killing one-by-one is so small that it isn't worth worrying about. Just go kill stuff.

Alright, thanks. Ill probably do raptor farm since its the easiest to do mindlessly then. And i only solo FoW cave when im super bored. More for fun then for 3 shards an hour, lol

depends if you want something fun to do...FoW cave perhaps...

or if you just want event items - gogo raptor annihalation

So....my first foray into raptor farming yielded about 5 event items...my every attempt after that has given nothing.

EDIT: Also, major lag even in foreign districts.

I agree with Brett on 1 and 2. On 3, what I have noticed is that it's not necessarily the timing of their deaths, but the manner. As an example, a friend and I did an experiment where I brought an SS necro with Edge of Extinction on his HM raptor farm. It seemed that applying SS didn't hurt the drop rates, but having EoE up caused a noticeable lack of drops. With EoE, they fall like dominoes once the first dies. However, it's almost like the programming is thinking the spirit is causing the extra deaths, not the players.

I know that logic is iffy, but nonetheless, with close to 30 raptors taking damage from EoE, the drop rate is similar to the deaths of only a few. We used this method for a couple hours just to get a sense over time, and there was an unmistakeable lack of drops.

Some have argued that death-by-radiation produces less drops than death-by-sliver. I haven't been able to quantify this myself, as I have farmed almost entirely with Sliver when it comes to raptors.

When you are talking about drop rate for items that are affected by loot scaling, killing one at a time produces higher drop rates, AoE/mass killing lowers your drop rate.

Since Event Items (as well as Gold items, Dyes, and Rare Crafting Mats) are not affected by drop rate, Raptor Nestling Genocide is the most efficient way to farm for them.

~33 Raptor Nestlings (add ~12 if you go after the Broodmother's Group) in less than 1 minute * 25 minutes = 825 kills, which is 11 times the amount you will kill (by your estimation) clearing the Spider Cave.

Raptor Nestling Slaughter FTW.