Do status effects increase loot

[Broodje_aap]

Hi all, I think I saw this in one of the early game tips, but I can't find it anymore. Do status effects increase the loot you get from enemies? Is this just fire/ice or also kinetic? (stunned, white twirly things). Also, does it work if the enemy has a piece of ice on them or do have to be frozen?

[Broodje_aap]

Originally posted by Mark:

I don't think using Kinetic to kill enemies/destroy objects upgrades the materials that drop.

How about the 2 handed Kinetic blade, with that uppercut? I feel like you can apply stun with that in the moment of killing an enemy

Originally posted by Mark:

And I am not sure if you already looked at it, but the tutorials are available in the "System" tab of the menu. Handy for if you skipped one or forgot something.

Thanks, I saw this before, but I don't see the elemental damage tip in there

[Broodje_aap]

ooh, I got the tempering tooltip now again. You're right!

[spacewalker]

one thing i do know is that if you heat up the rocks that give steel with the fire bomb berries, you get a better type of steel. If you instead freeze them, they become easier to break

[Cahalith]

I've been farming a bunch of bosses to get 5 star materials and my working theory on how tempering works is the following. Feel free to correct me, this is all just from experience and I may be misinterpreting what I'm seeing. Also, I know there's a lot of things in there that're pretty clear or that have been mentioned before in this thread, I'm including them for the sake of completeness.

1. The menu tutorial says "Foes or objects that are defeated or destroyed using heat or cold are considered "tempered" and have a higher chance of dropping certain rare loot".
   The way that this is phrased suggests you either get an additional % chance for rare loot to be dropped when an enemy is tempered - or it could be that high-level materials from the drop table are upgraded to the next level, so the drop chance remains the same, but you get more high-level materials overall because lower-level drops are upgraded by one level. Or it could be both...
   
2. Using heat on enemies/objects gets you better carved/forged materials, while using cold gets you better woven/tanned resources. I'm pretty sure I read this when the tutorial first popped up, but the tutorial from the menu doesn't actually make this distinction. It only says enemies defeated by heat OR cold have a better chance at dropping rare loot, which would suggest either type of elemental damage have the same effect. But I've been fighting a bunch of Highland Iceclaws to get Iceclaw Full Grain (tanned resource) and my impression is they drop way more of that resource (and more resources in general) if I use ice powers to kill them.
   
3. The tutorial says that "cold will destroy low quality carved and forged, heat will destroy low quality woven and tanned resources". This seems to be true, as burning Highland Iceclaws to death appears to decrease the overall number of materials they drop considerably. Though I'm not sure what star rating constitutes "low level" for this purpose.
   
4. You can heat up items such as ore rocks and armour plates on boss arks so they drop rarer resources like Refined Serenite or Sovereign Etrium when you break them. In order for this to work, I think you have to heat them up until they glow, then bash them while they're still glowing. This also supports my 2nd point, because I'm pretty sure I've never gotten Sovereign Etrium from bashing the armour off an Ark of the Stricken Earth when that armour piece was frozen instead.
   
5. Conversely, I'm pretty sure you don't actually have to cause a status effect (frozen, burning) on boss enemies to temper them - I think you just have to deliver the final blow using ice/fire. For example, my strategy for farming Iceclaw Full Grain from Highland Iceclaws is to melt down their hit points with Molten Barrage, then switch to Frost Mines for the final blow. In my experience, that's enough for them to drop more Iceclaw Full Grain (and more resources in general) because they were killed with an ice effect, which increases tanned resource drops.

The way I think about the material drops in Eternal Strands right now is the following (and yes, I know that's probably not how the system actually works, it just helps to visualise the general principle):
Let's say you're fighting a boss enemy that's supposed to drop up to 10 materials:

• 50% chance 2x 5 star forged
  
• 35% chance 1x 4 star forged
  
• 25% chance 1x 4 star tanned
  
• 30% chance 1x 3 star forged
  
• 30% chance 1x 3 star woven
  
• 30% chance 2x 2 star woven
  
• 50% chance 1x 2 star tanned
  
• 30% chance 1x 2 star carved

If you kill that enemy with fire, it looks like this instead:

• 50%+10% chance 2x 5 star forged
  
• 35%+10% chance 1x 4 star forged -> 1x 5 star forged
  
• 25% chance 1x 4 star tanned
  
• 30%+10% chance 1x 3 star forged -> 1x 4 star forged
  
• 30% chance 1x 3 star woven -> destroyed
  
• 30% chance 2x 2 star woven -> destroyed
  
• 50% chance 1x 2 star tanned -> destroyed
  
• 30%+10% chance 1x 2 star carved -> 1x 3 star carved

Thoughts?

EDIT: I just hit the spot in the game where you get to upgrade the camp to max level, and once you've done that, you now get the ability to buy any materials you've previously found, using camp supplies. You essentially get to buy any high-level material you want with lower-level materials. So ignore this post and don't worry that much about farming high-level materials.

[Hades]

Originally posted by Cahalith:

You can heat up items such as ore rocks and armour plates on boss arks so they drop rarer resources like Refined Serenite or Sovereign Etrium when you break them. In order for this to work, I think you have to heat them up until they glow, then bash them while they're still glowing. This also supports my 2nd point, because I'm pretty sure I've never gotten Sovereign Etrium from bashing the armour off an Ark of the Stricken Earth when that armour piece was frozen instead.

ive gotten sovereign etrium from simply bashing the plates, tho it only happened twice for me so far. also difficulty might change drop rates? im at normal difficulty and the bosses have consistently dropped 5-6 5 star mats each time they die regardless if the way they died

[Cahalith]

Originally posted by Hades:

Originally posted by Cahalith:

You can heat up items such as ore rocks and armour plates on boss arks so they drop rarer resources like Refined Serenite or Sovereign Etrium when you break them. In order for this to work, I think you have to heat them up until they glow, then bash them while they're still glowing. This also supports my 2nd point, because I'm pretty sure I've never gotten Sovereign Etrium from bashing the armour off an Ark of the Stricken Earth when that armour piece was frozen instead.

ive gotten sovereign etrium from simply bashing the plates, tho it only happened twice for me so far. also difficulty might change drop rates? im at normal difficulty and the bosses have consistently dropped 5-6 5 star mats each time they die regardless if the way they died

I'm playing on normal as well and I'm pretty sure I've never gotten Sovereign Etrium from untempered armour plates. It's possible this is chance-based as well - like, the drop rate on untempered armour is 5% and I've just been unlucky.

Regarding the overall drop rates on bosses, all I can say is that that's not what I've experienced so far. It's not like drop rates on untempered bosses are terrible, but I do feel like I get slightly more 5 star materials on average on tempered bosses.

The difference is particularly stark when I take Iceclaws as an example again. I've had numerous runs where I've killed one of them with fire, only to receive a grand total of, like, 2x 5 star Iceclaw Full Grain and 2x materials of 4 star or below quality. When I kill them using ice, it's more like 4-5x Iceclaw Full Grain + 5x lower level materials. Though, again, this may have just been me being unlucky.