Noldor Item Drops

[BetrayTheWorld]

I'm just curious, but it seems like noldor don't drop any of their good stuff, ever. I'm on day 200+, and have killed 10+ noldor armies, have 9(+3) looting skill, and the four best items I've got from them are:

1 - A chipped noldor longsword
2 - A tattered noldor trimmed ranger garb
3 - A swaybacked spirit horse
4 - A noldor runesword

Most of the items I get end up being absolute junk, not even worthy of an item slot to go sell it. It seems to be this way even with the pure noldor armies(armies that have no troop types other than noldor). Anyone have tips on how to get some cool noldor loot without paying 500k and a qualis gem?

EDIT: Also, I did a search on the forums for information on this, and didn't find anything current. I wanted to add that before anyone flamed me for starting a new thread. I'm sort of curious to know if other people had different luck with noldor drops, or if there has been an alteration to the code to make the good drops more rare. I recall reading in another thread about people saying they used to "farm" the noldor for their drops.

 

[yehu]

Same thing here, and I have a looting skill of 10 (+4). I'm on day 500 nearing the end of the game and I've never gotten any loot that was worth keeping for my character in the long run. It seems that having a high looting skill is pretty useless in this version.

 

[Qnevven Zolond]

i usually save before the battle, fight noldor, and if the loot isn't satisfying i just reload from the saved game

loot is random

Sometimes i get some crappy gear not worth the trouble, and sometimes i get 2 or more masterwork/lordly/hardened items in the single loot making me happy like child eating icecream

 

[Crax]

the more soldiers in your army, the less good loots you'll get.

Use a small army of elite soldiers to get better loot.

 

[littlemikey]

What size Noldor parties are you fighting? If you're kust killing the 20ish strong scouting parties, you won't get much loot.

 

[rabican]

You got the best horse in the game there , thats certainly no junk.

 

[Qnevven Zolond]

i usually fight parties with 20-50 noldor soldiers count on auto calculate (with my companions and about 50-60 hero adventures)
I don't really care about the losses as it helps to keep my weekly army upkeep low...
i know that you guys would say that no number of hero adventurers is too high... well i disagree... i usually have no more than 60-80 hero adventurers and about 100 adventurers in total, but since i only use hero adventurers in my own army and don't garrison them as castle defence troops (save for when i want to temporarily lower my army size) that's quite enough.

There are people who like using army consisting of 250 hero adventurers and use them to every battle - regardless if it's a siege, fighting enemy lord or huge army from minor faction...
Well i like using versatile units from my culture's troop tree - otherwise every playthrough of PoP would look the same if i only rely on mercenaries.... so usually it's about 2/3 army size from my culture, and 1/3 hero adventurers (or other mercs) for support
exceptions being when i fight large Noldor or Jatu armies - it's the only time when i really need all the fire power i can get

 

[BetrayTheWorld]

What size Noldor parties are you fighting? If you're kust killing the 20ish strong scouting parties, you won't get much loot.

Nah, all of my fights were the 50-70 noldor parties. A couple of them were 100+.

I didn't know you got better loot for doing it with less troops. I'll have to try to take one out with just me and my companions or something.

 

[Fawzia dokhtar-i-Sanjar]

No matter how high your looting skills are, if you fight a smaller group with a large group, your loot will be minimal and not very good quality.  Loot drops are, however, random, so you won't get tons of great stuff every time, regardless of how many you field vs how many Noldor you fight.

Your swaybacked Noldor horse - if you take it into battle, and get it lamed, you can put it into inventory and if you have good medical skills in the party, it will heal up over time.  You can use it for a baggage horse while lamed so it does not take up extra space.  Swaybacked won't heal - lamed will, so you will have to lame it first.  If it is a "spirited" or "champion" designated horse, when it heals up it will not be that any more - just a regular Spirit Horse.  If you use the search button, there is info on laming/healing horses in the threads here. (Noosers jumps his off cliffs and things like that to lame them.)

 

[Qnevven Zolond]

yeah i used to lame my spirit noldor horse that way... usually go to the nearest village, equipp bow and arrows, dismount and shoot him in the head... it takes quite a lot of attemps to actually have the horse crippled but can be done....
Tried the same with netherworld charger but with their insane hp it was real pain so i only did it once and usually buy more of them from horse merchant if i need for my companions

 

[partyalias]

I dont list any below-normal quality drops here (now 500+ day, 41 lvl):
Few normal spirit horses, one heavy spirit horse. Lots of lesser horses.
Lots of normal longswords and runeswords. One tempered (longsword or runesword? er.. the one that is better of the two).
Few normal noldor bows.
Lots of normal noldor boots.
Three normal noldor kite shields, two noldor noble shieds.
One noldor ranger garb.
Lots of arrows.

I use the following tacktics: I take all companions and no more than 10 heroic adventurers (21 total party). I attack noldor parties with no more than 8-10 nobles (cavalry), no more than 35 total noldors.

Lots of shinies this way.

 

[Ichon]

I find most of the Noldor gear that is dropped to be unusable anyway. The boots, shields, swords, and horses are great but everything else has 30 strength or high powerdraw for the bows. Right now all my companions wear Noldor boots and many have spirit horses but while the shields and swords are nice they aren't the best and you can frequently buy better in stores or get it as loot off other enemies. I'd love to find some Noldor gloves if they ever drop them... the only real advantage to Noldor gear is the light weight anyway.

The total Noldor party size does not necessarily have to be larger than your company to get good loot but it helps. I've had a couple battles where a Noldor party caught me on a recruiting run where the majority of my company was low tier recruits and we outnumbered them but received fantastic loot after the battle. Not sure if there is a calculation based on the strength of the party or was just pure luck.

 

[Fawzia dokhtar-i-Sanjar]

Unfortunately, there are not any Noldor-specific gauntlets or gloves.

The calculation is not just troop numbers, but also overall troop strength - if you have fewer troops but they outclass whoever you're fighting, you'll notice the loot is lousy and also you don't get any or very much renown from the battle.

 

[faigulla]

On a previous game I played I looted 2 Spirit Noldor Horses.

*dances in joy listening to MC Hammer*

 

[noosers]

Check the thread "The Loot skill and you" to get tad better insight about the way how looting works and what determines which items are dropped.

Furthermore, you may want to apply a search at the Forge and the Apprentice guild for some key words like "looting skill works" or "item drop".