Optimal Cape farming!

[Tarage]

When people say "three evals", do they mean "three evals and then the final eval isn't included" or "three evals including the final guaranteed eval"?

[Spira]

i dunno if anyone has ever mentioned this but if you're doing a lot (or not much) and not getting evaluations, dying usually does the trick in helping you get one. it's as though dying forces them to give you an evaluation even if you haven't stored enough points to warrant the typical 'first eval'.

works in all reives. very easy to notice in wildskeepers cos in that one you can't help but die sometimes.

edit: as for the 3 evals thing.. i don't think its a hard and fast rule. I've gotten items (1 slot) from 1 evaluation (+end reward) before.. but you need at least one. I'm guessing 3 is what gives you 2 slots.. but i've not seen that with much consistency. it could be due to having a cape drop that i already have. you'd have to test that in older zones.

[fantasticdan]

You'll always get at least 1 item with at least 1 eval (excluding final bonus), as long as said eval isn't miniscule. As far as I can tell, # of evals beyond the first is meaningless by itself, you can get 3 items with 1 eval, and 1 item with dozens.

Bayld/exp score seems to effect drop rate of the second slot to some degree (and possibly the third? it's % is so low regardless it's hard to tell), but beyond that, I don't think there's any trick to it.

[Sechs]

You'll always get at least 1 item with at least 1 eval (excluding final bonus), as long as said eval isn't miniscule.

Define "miniscule".
I'm pretty sure there has to be a threshold but sometimes I got an item with like 200 bayld or something and some other times I didn't get anything with 3000ish bayld.

[fantasticdan]

I don't know the exact threshold, but I've done an absurd amount of marjami reives on pup, and I've never once failed to get an item with a single evaluation as I've done really anything. If I had to guess, it's around 200-300 bayld (lower for lair), but it could be based on exp instead, who knows.

If you're getting 0 drops with 3k bayld worth of score thou, I imagine your drops were capes you already had (or had full inventory.)

EDIT: This is exclusively referring to marjami/yorica reives, idk about older zones.

[Sechs]

Yeah yeah, I was talking about Marjami/Yorcia as well.

Which setup do you use on PUP btw? /mage for spells/reraise and Valoredege/Sharpshoot? /DNC and Soulsoother?

[Raelia]

a) yes but how do you know what this threshold is? You said you got a cape doing simply a HolyII, I'm pretty confident I got more bayld than you in those very fast Colo reives.

Consider he also took about 1800 damage or so, and judging from PLD evaluation rates you get some per attack taken, mitigated or not, too.

[Idkmybffjill]

These are my numbers: (fast= 0~1 evals, slow= 2+) I did not dbox my capes until my 14th cape (which was sch :D) my main goes DD, my mule goes sch. I have haste/embrava basically every reive
Fast colo reive: 9/183(4.9%) slow colo reive: 1/21(4.7%)
faste lair reive: 3/48(6.25) slow lair reive: 1/17(5.8%)

mule was at every one of those reives, commonly qualified for pebbles, got 1 cape from a fast lair, and 1 from a slow colo.

following sch cape I dBoxed everything but geo and sch and went back out:

Fast colo reive: 3/55(5.4%) slow colo reive: 0/9
faste lair reive: 2/21(9.5%) slow lair reive: 0/4

0 capes on mule.

What I conclude from this: (*take with a grain of salt: small sample size and keeping the capes most likely skews drop rate results)
Capes are based on performance, not # of evals. There is a HUGE difference in the number of capes between my main and mule. I'm sure some of the reives my mule doesn't qualify for drops, but at least 80% of fights I have to alt tab and drop a pebble after. This means the main difference is that my main tends to get much higher evals (1k colo, 200-300 lair) vs my mule (300 colo 150 lair).

I feel this idea falls in line with the myth that killing the reive slow is important to get capes given that most players can not do the type of damage a capped haste DD can do in a 2 minute period of time. Thus a longer reive where they get 5+ minutes to get their contributions higher will have a higher drop rate for them, while a quick reive will appear to have a nonexistent drop rate.

Edit: also, although not very common I have gotten multiple drops(up to 3) from single eval reives.

[Raelia]

It might be as simple as dealing or taking or healing about 2k damage, which some certain kinds of derpy players who only melee/petfight the wall might not be breaking in the shortest reives. This pertains also to people talking about drawing agro, dying, but still getting a drop.

Corollary: People who only fight the wall might need about three evaluations to break that 2k value.

Note also that Marjami mobs don't do a lot of AoE damage to add to this.

It's the post-nerf fortifications stupidity again. Stop attacking just the wall if you aren't getting enough credit?

[Phraust]

Someone else eluded to it, but it seems that if you're dead the code forces an evaluation every 60 seconds. If you're alive you might have to do X amount to get an evaluation. It might be bugged in a way that the points you have 'stored' roll over as the score per evaluation.

So say you do 2000 damage and die. It stores that score, and every time it checks to see your progress, it sees 2000(maybe more, recursive check kind of thing).

I melee whm, and usually get three+ evaluations taking damage, curing myself, enfeebling, doing damage. But once and a while my protect wears, and i go from taking 250-300 damage to 600ish, raped, die, etc. One time, got to a fresh reive, pulled one of thoes phoenix things, pro wore, got raped, died, and stayed dead(went to pee). when i stood up had something like 1600to 1900 exp.(can't remember exact number). Reive ended shortly, got 700to exp and a mnk cape + two items.

Sorry if there's wierd words and such injected in any of that, my phone's being wierd...

[Neojin2]

i dunno if anyone has ever mentioned this but if you're doing a lot (or not much) and not getting evaluations, dying usually does the trick in helping you get one. it's as though dying forces them to give you an evaluation even if you haven't stored enough points to warrant the typical 'first eval'.

works in all reives. very easy to notice in wildskeepers cos in that one you can't help but die sometimes.

I can confirm this works lol. Only SE would leave a loophole mechanic like that!

[kenshyn]

I can confirm this works lol. Only SE would leave a loophole mechanic like that!

hmmm, Ninja 1 hr new use? lol

[Guym]

Does anyone know if there are prerequisites for getting capes to drop? i.e. missions or coalition ranks?

I have yet to see any cape drop for me, my mule or my wife's char. Probably have done 30+ reives (so 0/~90 chances).

[Damane]

Does anyone know if there are prerequisites for getting capes to drop? i.e. missions or coalition ranks?

I have yet to see any cape drop for me, my mule or my wife's char. Probably have done 30+ reives (so 0/~90 chances).

nope none, my mule that has barely anything in adoulin has gotten 7 capes. but I do reives almost daily

[Chamaan]

I got like six capes the first two days, and haven't seen a one since. It's the randomest shit to ever random.

[detlef]

I personally believe that the game keeps trying to give you capes you already have. The person who kept getting capes steadily is more likely to be a lucky outlier. For me, it's definitely slowed down as I've accumulated more capes that I can't use.

[EjinCaitsith]

It might be as simple as dealing or taking or healing about 2k damage

To compound on this, Souleater works for damage taken and full damage cured credit for evaluations. Usually 1 Hundred Fists + Souleater is enough for my mule(spam healing) and myself to cap Bayld on every Marj. col. reive.

[Ophannus]

^ Convert and Spirit Link as well. I spam those and heal myself up with Healing Breath and get a buttload of exp/bayld. If you're on BLU, come with Plenilune Embrace and full potency gear and use Final Sting then heal yourself to full. Additionally Final Sting does like 3-4k on mobs that near death so there's that too. Rinse/repeat for lots of exp/bayld.

[Teorem]

i dunno if anyone has ever mentioned this but if you're doing a lot (or not much) and not getting evaluations, dying usually does the trick in helping you get one. it's as though dying forces them to give you an evaluation even if you haven't stored enough points to warrant the typical 'first eval'.

works in all reives. very easy to notice in wildskeepers cos in that one you can't help but die sometimes.

If this works, it doesn't work consistently. I lost count of the number of times I was KO'd by Marine Mayhem and other specials while doing Tchakka on SMN, with varying amounts of time before I was able to get Raised. I still received no evaluations and received no items--other than the key item--at the end of the Reive despite being an active participant (when not KO'd). It was very easy to see that I wasn't getting anything, because I was multiboxing the event and could easily look simultaneously at the logs of the character on SCH who was getting evaluations and the two on SMN that were not, when the evaluation period occurred.

[Darkmagi]

It's not based on the death, it's based on the amount of damage taken. I tested this at Yumcax, would get significantly more bayld/exp when I stayed out of his melee attack range while being inside his TP range.