On Skirmish III mechanics. . .

[Monchat]

The visages are difficult to procure and the challenge is high, but the reward often feels like a waste of time and effort.

I think I've done about 10 of these now and gotten 1 wing and zero Key Items. Not exactly motivating.

Visages are very easy to come by: once you gather your party, do 1 or 2 reives in Ra'kaza and you'll get serveral visages. Tier iV visage seem somewhat common too.

The drop rate on the KI is relatively high (about 15% chance to get it). Instead of doing high-tier body runs (1hour), do several tier 1 runs (takes 5~10mn only). You also get wings and sometimes stones+2 doing these runs.

This week-end I did about 30 I/I/I run (5~10mn each), farmed all the visages on our own because they somehow cost 400k on the AH (its garranted from reives...) We ended up with ~30 KIs among 6 people, so 1 full +1 set per person. Almost every run someone had a KI, and im not counting the wings we got.

A quick walkthrough for the I/I/I run is:

go straight into the umbril room. 6 umbril +1 NM +1 coffer=15~20 points.

Go further west there is always another NM. At this point you are 7-8 mn into the run and have ~20~25 points.

Go back into the umbril room, mobs start repoping. Once you have 30 points you see what you'll get from completing the 2nd objective. If you get garbage, exit. You can still get the KI from clearing obective 1, and from what I saw its not much lower drop rate then secondary objective.

[Siviard]

Visages are very easy to come by: once you gather your party, do 1 or 2 reives in Ra'kaza and you'll get serveral visages. Tier iV visage seem somewhat common too.

The drop rate on the KI is relatively high (about 15% chance to get it). Instead of doing high-tier body runs (1hour), do several tier 1 runs (takes 5~10mn only). You also get wings and sometimes stones+2 doing these runs.

This week-end I did about 30 I/I/I run (5~10mn each), farmed all the visages on our own because they somehow cost 400k on the AH (its garranted from reives...) We ended up with ~30 KIs among 6 people, so 1 full +1 set per person. Almost every run someone had a KI, and im not counting the wings we got.

A quick walkthrough for the I/I/I run is:

go straight into the umbril room. 6 umbril +1 NM +1 coffer=15~20 points.

Go further west there is always another NM. At this point you are 7-8 mn into the run and have ~20~25 points.

Go back into the umbril room, mobs start repoping. Once you have 30 points you see what you'll get from completing the 2nd objective. If you get garbage, exit. You can still get the KI from clearing obective 1, and from what I saw its not much lower drop rate then secondary objective.

I call BS on this. My LS and I did about 15 1/1/1 runs. We fully cleared 10 times, and got 1/2 clear the other 5 times due to bad luck with respawns, or Beastruction wipe. Out of 6 people in the party, NO ONE got the Key Item. I repeat. NO ONE. That is a total of 0/90 for all 6 people. So yes, I call BS on your "claim" of 30 KI's among 6 people.

[FaeQueenCory]

With that said though, this new skirmish has been set to be slightly harder and have lower drop rates than the Yorica Weald skirmish. It was set like this based on the concept that anyone can become stronger right away by doing the Yorica Weald skirmish, and this time around the Outer Ra’Kaznar skirmish serves as content to be taken on by players who have cleared the previous skirmishes up to now.

Compared with other content where you can obtain item level 119 equipment, this content is geared towards casual play, and we hope you enjoy challenging it.

Not to... be that person... buuuuuuuut....
Doesn't these two statement conflict with each other 100%?
"We made S3 harder than S2... cause... it's the end skirmish?"
"S3 is 'for casual'... so it's hard!"
um... isn't casual stuff supposed to be... like Yorcia skirmish?
Where you don't grind out countless hours trying to get a single item?
Isn't grinding for hours a "hardcore" type of thing?
Cause... Yorcia is a casual event...
Delve, AA2, DM2, and now S3... aren't.
Wasn't S3 supposed to be the 119 "for casuals"?

EDIT: I should probably clarify my facetiousness.
Don't lower the difficulty.
Don't increase the droprate of wings.
Don't fake lower the difficulty by dropping the HP bloat by some fraction. (this never actually makes things easier... it just makes the same difficulty die faster... though obviously not when the HP drop is tied to the # of players... cause DPS lowers.)
JUST make the KI drop 100% like in Yorcia.
This won't actually kill the content... because the thing about Yorcia being "done in a week" isn't due to the KI (which has the limit of 1/run) but due to the fact that multiple armors can drop on a single run and then what isn't dropped is then buyable with the wings which ALSO dropped with all the armor.
Heck, the KI from Yorcia kept it alive longer than it probably would have without it... because most likely people had more than 1 106 weapon to upgrade to 113.... and with S3, that need is infinitely greater... due to needing not only a weapon upgraded... but also MANY armor pieces.

EDIT2: also.... Casuals only play sparingly... cause they're casual and don't have the TIME to grind for hours on end.
The people who were disgruntled that Skirmish can be completed too quickly aren't casual players... they're closer to the hardcore end of the spectrum... because they are willing and have the time to grind the content to completion.
For casual content, the hardcore will always finish and complete it within a week... you can't design content "for casuals" with the mind that you don't want the hardcore to complete it quickly.

[Leonardus]

Visages are very easy to come by: once you gather your party, do 1 or 2 reives in Ra'kaza and you'll get serveral visages. Tier iV visage seem somewhat common too.

I'm usually alone when I have to search for Visages, but I see where you're coming from. It's a pain in the butt alone/dualbox sometimes. So far I've gotten Visage I's from places like Foret where I can quickly mow down reives back and forth.

[proto]

I think this KI is a myth just completed my 93rd run of outer raz skirmish, and not a single KI has dropped for me, have done 1/1/1 - 5/5/5 secondary objective completed.

There has to be something seriously wrong with the drop rate on this, because there is no way someone should have to do 93+ runs to get a single KI for anything.

Heading in for run # 94 right now.

Wish me luck >.<

[Lithera]

Haven't done that many myself, but did one run and another in my group and myself got the KI.

[Olor]

With that said though, this new skirmish has been set to be slightly harder and have lower drop rates than the Yorica Weald skirmish. It was set like this based on the concept that anyone can become stronger right away by doing the Yorica Weald skirmish, and this time around the Outer Ra’Kaznar skirmish serves as content to be taken on by players who have cleared the previous skirmishes up to now.

Compared with other content where you can obtain item level 119 equipment, this content is geared towards casual play, and we hope you enjoy challenging it.

I hate this. This is the opposite of casual play. Casuals like content where you can make steady progress. It doesn't even have to be quick or immediate progress - but as a casual, content where its essentially random whether or not I make progress is THE WORST. At least up the drop rate for wings or lower the number needed to trade in (or lower the number of yorcia wings, its just ridiculous how many you need to turn in)