Last night I was doing HM Bloodstone Caves (EotN dungeon) with a friend. I got a blue r7 9-35 dmg Raven Staff drop from a "First Inscribed" in the groups at the very end of level 3.
9-35 is not the max damage we've found so far for r7 scythes, but it seems like in the context of this thread it's the req. alone which is significant.
I did take screenshots, but it doesn't seem like there's any doubt that r7 items can and do drop in HM.
I thought the understanding was that HM foes can drop items in req as low as 7, but any chest with a key value of 600g or higher will not produce items with req below 9. I could be mistaken about the no r<9 from "high end" chests thing, though.
If you haven't seen it already, you should check out the discussion they had about r7 and r8 last Summer at this thread ...
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/c...t10440385.html
Warning - maybe it's just me, but reading that thread it seems like some people say "r7" and mean "r7 and max" while others say "r7" and simply mean "the req. was 7." It gets a little confusing to me, and maybe it had some posters on that thread a little confused, too?
I have no idea if you've more, less, or the same chance of getting "max stats for min req" items in NM or HM. As far as I can tell, the stats (damage, armor, etc.) are generated independent of source. They're simply a random generation of the range allowed for the specific requirement level. I could very well be mistaken about this part.
Cheers & Happy Hunting!
