Sunder's & Heralds: Clarifications on Drops

tadkarcz wrote: 3 days ago

By the way, since the launch of RotW I've only played TZ with Lvl 90+ characters, so *every* Elite/Unique monster I killed has dropped shards from the (now I know) infamous "Act 1 Shard Trease Class". This is how my shards look like currently:

Screenshot 2026-03-03 220642.png

Considering how many Act 1 Shards I've used (more than 10) and how few Act 5 shards I've used (only two or three, I'd say), one can clearly see the skewed probabilities lol (granted it's not a big sample).

Mine are far less but nearly the same distribution. Yesterday I found my first

Northern Worldstone Shard in

Chaos Sanctuary (non TZ). I still have to read Pavke´s academic paper (is it already in peer review? ) but from skimming through it, I think I understand the basic mechanics.

Bottom line: With only playing normal / rotating TZs (and not waiting nearly half an hour until the next one) you probably will never see a new Sunder Charm. As I already said: I have no problem with making them rarer than before. But I think there has to be a way to reliably target farm them with an event like the Colossal Ancients (e.g. terrorizing the whole game makes all act bosses "Heralds" from 1-5 - in the order you spawn/kill them - and the last one reliably drops a Sunder) since they are vital to many builds.

I did the 4200% MF easter egg last night after watching MacroBioBoi's new video. Terrorized most of the game (got tired after 4 acts). Got a

Latent Flame Rift on

Herald #4, then no more (probably 11 or 12 heralds total). I died 3 times to lvl 5 heralds one shotting me lol.

Made it to the fifth

Herald today on hardcore ladder. Did it on a budget Fury druid with a

Windhammer. The first

Herald I got in the River of flames. The next one on the first level of

Nihlathak's Temple, another one on the second level. The fourth I got in the

Arachnid Lair. The next two

Terror zones,

Glacial Trail and worldstone keep no

Herald spawned. The fifth I then got in

The Arcane Sanctuary. I basically cleared all areas. Unfortunately none of the heralds dropped a sunder charm...


7.3.2026, 01:00:00

Arcane Sanctuary, Harem, and Palace Cellar Now
7.3.2026, 00:30:00
Worldstone Keep,

Throne of Destruction, and

Worldstone Chamber
7.3.2026, 00:00:00

Glacial Trail and

Drifter Cavern
6.3.2026, 23:30:00

Spider Forest,

Arachnid Lair, and

Spider Cavern
6.3.2026, 23:00:00

Nihlathak's Temple and Temple Halls
6.3.2026, 22:30:00

River of Flame and

City of the Damned

a question guys.. is it safe to say that a "rational" way to farm sunders is to do multiple consecutive t5 heralds? i.e. when you occasionally trigger lvl 1, 2 or 3, it's not worth the time to even divert from your farming due to negligible drop chances?

Schnorki wrote: 22 hours ago

Turns out T5 conc + fana on the right mob type can damn near 1-shot 5k health.

10000% - T5 heralds are insanely scary. They nuked by friends 95 Hardcore Warlock who was fully kitted out.

1-shot and it was only /players4 game they were hunting them. He didn't even have a reaction chance to Full Juv. It was just completely game over.

Pavke had a similiar experience in his testing. His ES

Nova also built to near perfection got 1-shot by a Tier5. Just deleted him instantly.

ganseng wrote: 7 hours ago

a question guys.. is it safe to say that a "rational" way to farm sunders is to do multiple consecutive t5 heralds? i.e. when you occasionally trigger lvl 1, 2 or 3, it's not worth the time to even divert from your farming due to negligible drop chances?

No doubt the research knowing now what we know suggests that Tier4/Tier5's are the most optimal to acquire a Sunder but you also want higher /playerx games which further increases the difficulty of killing them.

I think the answer is very contingent on online/offline, hardcore vs. softcore...

But A2 is quite effective overall especially Tombs. But you still have a 50% chance to not even see a Tier5

Herald clearing the entire Act. So there is no harm/shame in simply sharding, clearing, seeing where you tier towards, and if you don't want to deal with a Tier5, just stop at Tier4 even, go to a new game and rinse/repeat.

Schnorki wrote: 22 hours ago

Sharded another 13 gloamed heralds..still nothing. :/

On the plus side, I did finally find one that posed an actual challenge! Was genuinely fun to face a mob you couldn't just faceroll.

Turns out T5 conc + fana on the right mob type can damn near 1-shot 5k health.

The heralds can indeed be dangerous. As a hardcore player, I can only recommend to be prepared to use several rejuvenation potions, and to be aware when to pull out and regroup if necessary...

It seems to me the elite has a lot to do with how difficult a

Herald is to put down. I ran into this one and my Warlock did a relatively swift take down, of course the Goatmen did all the work.