Ecto / Shard nerf ??? o_O

I've noticed how people like to plant little rumours on the boards in order to spike prices. It worked with monsterous bits, before the release of fpe and I know a few people who made a few million off of eyes when they went from 800g to 5k practically over night.

All from a rumour that started on the boards, and as you can see... eyes are now 100g.. so, don't rush into things, buying all the ecto you can because someone here says "omg i power farm uw 40 straight time and not a single drop". It's simply a case of.. just that, power farming, or disinformation, in other cases.

Cleared the UW, Spent 2 hours in FoW 3 times and not one shard or ecto? Sounds like a nerf to me. But what do I know... :|

perhaps due to party size?

meaning, it you enter fow or uw w/ less that full party it nerfs the drops?

hell i donno...that seems logical....

but who really cares? anyone who farms uw or fow is basicly wealthy just by being there and actually having the 'grit' to solo/dual the area(55, R/mes, whatever)

Improvise, Overcome, Adapt

takes cash to make cash...

I believe there is some kind of nerf. I recently did about 6 full UW smite runs and no ecto dropped, although there were some nice golds and purples. Also on the last run, the monsters acted like I've never seen before, about five times in one run they aggroed on me (SS) while I was at casting distance. I've never seen that happen, unless I got really close to them (and even then I could BR the monk and run away). It's all weird....

More curious then paranoid, because obviously, something is happening here, with this many reports coming in.

Uh... what?

About 3 months ago shards were 5k at trader, ecto were 7-8k. Now shards are (before all this 'nerf' business) 3.2k and ecto were 5.5k... Ectos and shards have NOT been steady at 5-7k.

There is nothing 'random' about everyone bringing in these claims of no ecto/shard drops AT THE SAME TIME. There is obviously some some of bug or nerf here. Even if the nerf was from the system due to overfarming, you can't deny that there are a lot of people who are not getting drops.

I'll give you one word.

Nerfed.

And don't come tell me that the drops are random, cause I have done many runs, and I have an average of 4 per run.

Last night I did 2 runs (run = Beach + Cave solo) and I got nothing, today another run and guess what? Nothing.

Before this shit happened, I had only ONCE a run w/o shards. Don't tell me it's not nerfed after I got 3 runs and 0 shards.

Also a friend of mine said he did 5 Barrage runs, and got 0 shards.

And how do you wanna explain the sudden Ecto/Shard price rising so much?

I must agree.

I solo UW with my mesmer and usualy i had 1/3 Ecto's a run.
and now... i got 1 ecto in about 6 runs

sorry i dis-agree did 3 runs yesterday first run got 4ectos next Zero third 5 its all random and you will get a few bad runs.They didnt just make UW and FOW access in Cantha to stop new chars from getting FOW armor.Rumours to inflate im betting here.

One thing I've noticed here that I find interesting,no one has mentioned where they entered UW or FoW from. Did you guys enter it from Tyria or Cantha? There may be a difference in the drops due to a bug in Tyria,but if you enter through Cantha there isn't a bug.

Not really sure if that's possible,but heck it's better to guess on what's going on.

My SS/SV and I have completed about six runs (some last night and some today) and we haven't seen one ecto. In TotA, people have been saying the same thing (in vain) so there must be some sort of change to the drop system, whether intended or not. For those who are seeing conspiracy theories about people inflating prices, get a hold of yourself.

That or, uh, maybe you're lying? I find it hard to believe with all this crap coming in about no drops that in 3 runs you got 9 ecto.

I enter from ToA. And yes, no doubt it's random, that's why some people might get lucky drops and get 4 ectos on one run. That doesn't change the fact that the rest gets barely 1 ecto in 4 runs atm.

I think you mean 0 ecto in 4 days.

It might be just a way to get ecto & shard prices up again. FoW armor costs now about 1/2 - 1/3 of what it used to be when ecto&shards where in their highest prices.

i do one forge trip per night on avg
used to get 1-3 shards during the trips now the last 4 trips not one person in my team has got a shard not 1

"It might be just a way to get ecto & shard prices up again."

If that was true I wouldn't be complaining about the drops, cause at the moment I am running around in an old FoW Helm, and a new Chest. That means I still have 60 ectos and shards to go to complete my set, and I wouldn't want it to be more expensive then it WAS already, right?

Oh and can someone tell me WHERE you can enter FoW/UW in Cantha? I have finished Cantha with my main char but I don't know where this place is.

Drops are not 100% random, there must be a % of dropping each item. I´ve done lots of beach/cave runs and i´ve never ended any with 20 shards and 4 spider legs.

So, there is a chance that the % of shards drop have been reduced, and it seems that way.

Telling that 0 shards in 4-5 runs is bad luck when it used to be like 15-20 is just dumb.

Sometimes drops are better and sometimes and sometimes they are worst, but after a lot of runs its possible to see if there´s been a nerf or not.

I agree with a possible nerf, three full Forgemaster runs and not a single shard in sight. I've heard a rumor that to prevent botfarming, they've made it so you need to complete three quests before they start dropping, but I'm not sure - just a rumor.

Don't know about UW but our team got 6 ectos in first 2 levels of Tomb yesterday. Definitely not nerfed. Actually, never seen that many ectos drop in tombs before

Zin Ku Corridor.