Up until yesterday I had been doing both MMC and Rujarkian and had found them to be fairly easy (Everyone level 65, me druid main healer). We would normally finish an collection adventure in 30 to 45 minutes without breaking a sweat at Normal difficulty. The kill x mobs adventures are even faster.

We then decided to try out Deepest Guk and while we succeeded, it was much harder to do so. It took us to within 9 minutes of the deadline to finish a collection quest. The drop rate on the items to collect seemd much lower then the Rujarkian we had just done. The mobs seemed a little tougher as well. We will probably go back and do more Deepest Guk because it was more exciting to wonder if we would win, at one point we were half way through our time limit and had only a third of our collection done.

I have not tried Miraguls or Tak Hesh

For folks who have some significant experince with the different themes is there really a difficulty difference, or did we just have bad luck on drop rates in our one Deepest Guk adventure?

I've only done Deepest Guk so far and I thought it was a snooze fest. There was no challenge for us at all on normal (had cleric, enc, 2 wizards a druid and a sk). It was a boring as any pop camp pulling singles. We did get a lot of drops though. Everyone in the group walked away with a augment.

Done Guk and MMC so far... One didn't seem harder than the other...

As far as bordom goes, we don't usually pull... We kinda move as a mob, charging into each room and fighting whatever we find there.

I've found Guk hardest so far because it's darker, most of the rooms are smaller (except the ones with bridges over water), and the hallways narrower with more twists and turns. Other themes like Takish or Rujark have much more space. It's nice that there are no whirlwind mobs but I just personally don't like the cramped quarters so Guk is an area I plan to avoid from now on.

As far as collection missions... drop rate is sometimes good sometimes bad. There doesn't seem to be anything you can do about it. I've had some really great groups fail because the drop rate was just way too low even though our kill rate was good. Most people I know are avoiding collection because drop rate is an additional risk that we have no control over... it feels unfair to lose because of it.

I'd had great luck with collection quests until last night, we barely, barely won. All my collection quests had been done in Mistmoore, but last night's was in Miragul's. It was just the drop rate was horrible. I won't do another collection quest outside of Mistmoore.

Towards the end I asked our beastlord to go pull as we were finishing up mobs just so we could have a steady stream of inc and hopefully find the last thing we needed.

As far as theme coolness, I've only done Miragul's and MM so far and I really love them both, but I enjoyed the mobs in Miragul's. I truly dislike the cavern theme in MM though, the mobs get pushed up the walls and it's hard to fight.

Collection quests are just total BS in general. :) Discussing this with one of my fellow guildies last night, we came to a possible conclusion for the relative ease of some versus the almost impossible nature of others.

Collection quests seem to generate a random number between 20-30 for you to collect. Based on that, there are probably also a "set" number of the collectible item generated and placed on the mobs of the dungeon. For grins, lets call that number 40.

So, on a smaller map, like about 70% of the Rujarkian dungeons, there are less mobs for those 40 to be on, so therefore, the drop rate will be that much better. If however, you get unlucky and get one of the REALLY large maps, those 40 are spread out very thinly across a huge number of mobs.

I haven't done enough dungeons outside of the Rujarkian theme yet to judge whether or not some themes are more prone to large dungeons, and thus harder missions, then others.

Anyway, this is just a theory, take it with a huge grain of salt.

I think your point is good. Someone was saying the "collect 20" item quests are harder than the "collect 30" item quests. Why? Well, it could be they simply put a lot more of the items on mobs with the collect 30.

I've done Guk, Takish, Rujorkian, and Mistmoore. Guk was unspeakably hard, I was scarred :P Seriously, my group didn't have the DPS or the crowd control to handle it. Never got fewer then 3, and 3 warriors and a bard just can't beat them down fast enough, especially with the number of healers we had. It was painful.

Takish and Rujorkian were similar difficulty to each other, Mistmoore was easiest. That's for my groups of course, all 51/52 and only a couple with a chanter. We found we did best with the kill fest, next best with assasination (one wrong turn and you're in OT to finish). Collections were awful, the drop rate was way too slow. Haven't tried rescue yet, no one really wants to.

We're still having a blast though :) Tomorrow we try Miragul's with a 30s group, should be a trip.

Aye I would have to agree on the get 20 item ones being harder than the get 30 item ones. In all the collection quests the fewer number of items we needed to collect the lower the drops rate was.

Borblefoot Furtoe
storm warden
Firiona Vie Server

I'm still on the fence there. Some people seem to hate the collection ones but my fastest run so far was indeed a collection.

Of course the collection quest often comes down to the RNG and a somewhat attentive looter (I generally encourage the group to move at just short of reckless speed) but none of the quests so far have been precisely hard. I do avoid Rescues though on general principals and would take Slaughters as first choice.

Did a collection in Everfrost tonight. Needed 26, got 27 then played around with the crates. Both crates had +6 Cha. What a waste :(

I did notice that the total number augument drops in the one Deepest Guk adventure I did was the best of the admittedly small (10) adventures I've done so far. I will certainly go back and do Deepest Guk again as it is a plan of mine to get 2 of each theme for all my guildies so we can try raids in the various themes.

I've seen some real nice loot linked from LDoN Raids that was on par with Elemental drops. So on a night where we can't find anything worth raiding in the Elementals we could always throw an LDoN raid together.