Refiner’s Cache Mass Opening: Is It Worth Farming?

We continue our Call-to-Arms coverage this weekend with a look at the Refiner’s Cache, which is supposed to be the farm reward of the event format. Obviously the main incentive of these quick-fire skirmishes are the unique transmutes and dyes. But even if you don’t have interest in those, you can still farm Medallion of Battle and buy the caches. It’s appealing, because they have a chance to drop purple Marks of Potency. So a lot of players are probably asking themselves whether this could present an legitimate way of getting the marks.

Refiner’s Cache Mass Opening

I decided to gather some data on the topic and performed one of my “RNG tests” on the preview server. Those tests are aimed at figuring out the drop chances of certain boxes. The general idea is that the more boxes you open, the closer you get to the actual drop chances. Since it’s hard to accumulate large amounts of the same box on the live server, I’m using the preview. You can copy over characters multiple times and with that also multiply the items they hold. In this case I did 1,000 Refiner’s Caches. Here are the results, which I also added to our RNG Toolbox.

[su_table]

 

Item Amount %
Black Pearl 507 50.70
Amethyst 230 23.00
Peridot 100 10.00
Flawless Sapphire 59 5.90
Aquamarine 49 4.90
Brutal Enchantment, Rank 5 20 2.00
Cruel Enchantment, Rank 5 17 1.70
Savage Enchantment, Rank 5 13 1.30
Vicious Enchantment, Rank 5 5 0.50
Lesser Mark of Potency 399 39.90
Peridot 258 25.80
Flawless Sapphire 153 15.30
Aquamarine 100 10.00
Moderate Mark of Potency 68 6.80
Greater Mark of Potency 19 1.90
Superior Mark of Potency 3 0.30

[/su_table]

Unfortunately, purple marks hardly drop from the cache. The greater ones are already pretty rare and superiors even close to a legendary reward. In most cases you’ll end up with a Lesser Mark of Potency and a Black Pearl.

Is It Worth Farming?

So it it worth gunning for the Refiner’s Cache? Absolutely not! With the most recent nerf/fix to medallion drop rates you need five to six runs for one cache. Even in the current “Battle for the Bridge”, which can be completed within a minute by a competent team, it’s simply not worth the trouble. You need hundreds of boxes and hours of farming to see some purple marks. You’re much better off doing something else and just buy the marks from the Wondrous Bazaar. It might make sense to monitor the Auction House though. The caches are one of those weird rewards that tend to sell way over value.

It’s pretty hilarious because I was actually performing the RNG test to show that it’s still worth going for the caches thanks to the amount of medallions you were able to accumulate. I already had my conclusion wrapped up only to realize that the devs changed the drop rates. Bugged or not, it was actually something that made farming the Call-to-Arms format viable. Now it’s just an outdated and boring event that blocks a spot in the calendar.


Are you still farming the caches or like the Call-to-Arms format in general? Share your thoughts in the comments below and visit the corresponding thread on our message board!

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j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.

One thought on “Refiner’s Cache Mass Opening: Is It Worth Farming?

  • December 2, 2017 at 5:44 pm
    Permalink

    That’s appalling, especially as I have Lesser Marks coming out of my ears from Leadership and Invocation bags. SuMoP drop rate is 10x less than a Coal Ward from Celestial Coin coffers?

    And a 5.5% chance of a Rank 5 enchant?

    And the amount of RP you can get from green junk drops is so much higher than those stones, it’s just ridiculous.

    Back in Mod 2 and 3, it was worth doing those CTA events. Companion drop rates from the CTA chest were much higher as well (and we’d get 1000 AD every time during Skirmish Hour). As for the Marks, you’re better off running Multiple Dread Ring Lairs on the correct days, with a key purchased for DR currencies, after the given quest. At least that USED to appear to guarantee a Greater Mark.

    Actually, the first few CTAs I ever did (Orc Assault was the first, IIRC), I did not realise I was even getting those Medallions. So a few events later, I realised some characters had a few thousand, so I got those Refiner’s Caches, and they were worth having way back then (at lower character level). I was pleased with the results, and I had 7 companions from that event at the time. It was good for newer players with low level gear.

    They probably need to update the event to level 70 and update those boxes as well.

    First, remove Amethysts, Peridots and Black Pearls from the first drop.
    Then remove Peridots, Aquamarines and Flawless Sapphires from the second drop.

    40% Aquamarine
    20% Emerald
    15% Flawless Sapphire
    05% Black Opal
    05% Brutal Rank 6
    05% Cruel Rank 6
    05% Savage Rank 6
    05% Vicious Rank 6

    60% Moderate Mark of Potency
    35% Greater Mark of Potency
    05% Superior Mark of Potency

    So we are guaranteed a Mark and have a 20% chance of an enchant that might be worth upgrading.

    In fact, if they updated the CTA events to level 70, they should maybe have three guaranteed drop of RP, an Enchant and a Mark, and make the enchants Rank 5 to 7 and include a 1% chance of an Ultimate Mark.

    O|o

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