The Incantation (Whispering Ice divination card) drop rate seems bugged

Hi,

I've been trying to farm a Whispering Ice in SSF for days now and unless the staff has been (without mention in patch notes) been made into a tier0 unique, the drop rate of its cards seems heavily bugged. I've only found one card from dozens and dozens of maps and hundreds of stacked decks, whereas any player who has ever farmed Burial Chamber maps for Doctors can attest that they used to be extremely common - often filling up a whole set (or several) per map.

Since the item (Whispering Ice) is neither overpowered, nor popular, I do not see a reason to have suddenly made is hundreds of times rarer without notice so I believe the drop rate is not working correctly. The maps where this card drops was just changed in the patch and may be causing the issue. Patch notes said:

"The Brawny Battle Mage, The Doctor, The Incantation, and The Witch can now be found in the The Putrid Cloister, Sepulchre, Waste Pool, and Phantasmagoria Maps."
- of which notably the Sepulchre map is not even in the current Atlas.

If the issue also affects the other cards listed (like Doctor) it may be very relevant.

reference number 3 712 763 772

Hello Boganist,

Thanks for the report. I was wondering if you've got any news regarding this issue?

I'm in the same case you were and I was wondering if I should save myself the trouble of trying to drop it out in ssf...

Thanks for any news :)

It still seems incredibly rare in comparison to before, but I've managed to complete a few sets after getting to run the maps tier 16, with gilded scarabs and sextants and full atlas etc. Notably they seem incredibly rare from stacked decks - think I've only gotten 2 from some few thousand stackeds (which had a Fiend, Unrequited Love and The Apothecary among others) and the usual common cards have obviously filled up a dozen sets.

It's a shame because I started Whispering Ice in SSF precisely because I remembered that the card has always been very farmable and it seemed a nice idea for the league mechanic, to apply trees and combine for plenty. As it is, while you can reasonably certainly farm a Whispering Ice in a day or two with a full atlas tree, chugging them out for crucible isn't really a thing.

edit: In addition, those you do get to Crucible tend to get incredibly shitty trees, as Vile Staff is a Warstaff base. So despite being clearly a caster unique, most of the nodes offered tend to melee ones...

What was your strategy? I'm still trying to get the card to drop.

Now that you mention it I havent seen that div card in forever. Used to be nicknamed the whispering alc because it was so common and sold for a whole alc from the vendor.

"

WinterHiko wrote:

What was your strategy? I'm still trying to get the card to drop.

Just favorite Phantasmagoria and run it t16 with gilded scarabs, sextants (usually run off any that add mob packs and compass good ones for specific league mechanics, run them several at a time with matching atlas + scarabs in a row). Have harvest and ambush specced so I drop tons of scarabs, upgrade them to gilded and harvest swap until they are ones I like. Was doing ambush/harbinger/divination and last swapping around elder/einhar/blight/etc.

That said you might be better off farming with general item rarity, the staff itself seems to be a common unique even if the card has randomly jumped up several tiers in rarity. Think I've dropped 4 or 5 Whispering Ices by now as random unique drops.

Wow, i just started SSF just to play whispering ice.

This is ridiculous.

radio silence from GGG on it i see.

Seems like this is still bugged. Found 9 sets of the Tower, not found 1 The Incantation.

For anyone still looking for tips for the staff, you're better off trying to get raw drops.

Use Increased Rarity support, the Helmet craft, Rogue Exiles, Tormented Spirits and whatever other IIR boosting method you can get and it will drop much, much faster than trying to farm the card.