Feldon There are two sets of Void Shard armor. Both are Legendary.
The lower end is an upgrade from Kunark legendary sets (instance dungeons like CoA, MC, Chel, Char, and VoES). It is much more specialized and tailors closer to the individual classes. There’s chain healer stuff, plate healer stuff, shadowknight armor, paladin armor, solo scout stuff with a bit of survivability added to it, solo fighter stuff with the same, and more specialized gear including full brawler set, full assassin/ranger set, etc.
The higher end Legendary set has stats that most will realize is essentially low Fabled. This is the gear you’ll wish you had when you started doing T2 raids in Kunark. It will take a lot of shards to get, but considering how much harder some of the instanced dungeons are in TSO, they will be a necessity for those as well as raiding.
The numbers are being fiddled with, but right now it looks like it will take about 12-14 shards to get each of your lower Legendary pieces, and then another 12-14 shards to upgrade to the upper Legendary pieces. The current theory is you have to buy the lower and trade it in to get the higher, so you aren’t really losing or wasting shards by buying one and then the other. If there was a way to buy the upper Legendary immediately, I’m sure they’ll require 24-28 shards per piece.
And did I mention there’s lots of jewelry and charms and more general purpose armor which costs a lot less shards if you are just really hurting for some good armor you can earn maybe as little as 8 shards and gear up on these items. There are a lot of choices.
There is also a lot of request on the Beta forums to allow us to earn more than one shard per run for the tougher dungeons. Some TSO dungeons are like VoES — 30 minutes with a solid group and you’re done. Others are 2 hour slogfests. It would be nice if there was a chance of getting more shards.
And keep in mind that the dungeon zones will be dropping all kinds of loot which we don’t even know about yet. Void Shards is just one option.
Suffice it to say, if you want to gear up, now is the time to pick your dance partners. Because I really intend to be grouping in 1-2 dungeons a night every night I can to gear up.
Sorry, as I’m not in TSO beta, you lost me.
In each dungeon you can earn 1 void shard which you can use to buy armor.
Is this better than the stuff you can get in Danak Shipyards?
There is only 1 drop per run? or per group member?
I take it then there is zero to do if you want to solo?
Thanks in advance
The armor in Danak Shipyards requires raiding to achieve. You must be cleared for Veeshan’s Peak (Tier 3 raiding) and then go into VP and kill various nameds to get the patterns and gems to trade in to get that armor. In short, you must be an end-game raider to get VP armor.
The Advanced Void Shard armor is supposed to prepare you for Tier 1 and Tier 2 raiding. In some cases it is better than the VP armor (which is supposed to be getting significant upgrades to catch up). The regular Void Shard armor is there to allow you to run all of the existing Kunark dungeons as well as MOST of the 18 new dungeons being added with The Shadow Odyssey. The hardest dungeons in TSO (Guk, etc) will require a mixture of Advanced and regular Void Shard armor. Most of the Void Shard armor is an upgrade over the current group Legendary setpieces dropped from Crypt of Agony, Vault of Eternal Sleep, Chelsith, and Maiden’s Chamber. Even if the stats are similar, the effects and beneficials are more tailored to specific character classes and maximize your effectiveness in your class.
Void Shards are acquired by running one of the 18 new dungeons being added in TSO. Each group member gets one shard per run.
If you are a diehard solo gamer, then TSO is not going to be a huge game for you. Sorry, but that’s what Kunark was. There has to be some balance, and that is what TSO is. There is a whole new solo 77-80 zone which is bigger than Fens of Nathsar and Kylong Plains. There are 5 heritage quests, 1 signature quest, and lots of new tradeskilling stuff.
But the vast majority of TSO is grouping, which I am very excited about.
One thing I’ll say is if you like a combination of grouping and soloing, then if you feel that your choices for solo armor have been rather limited, the Void Shard merchants have armor which is excellent for soloing, such as scout gear with some survivability and even some heals on it. You have a choice of various jewelry which is not so restrictive on classes which have some different effects. There are offensive and defensive tank sets, there are healer sets, etc. These have a reduced shard cost and are substantial upgrades over mastercrafted and most of the quested and faction armor.