Anyone else feels that Explore is nothing but a rip off and a complete waste of time. Just wasted over two hours doing explore in Drifting Sands and didn’t even get 1 Arcane stone.
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The drop rate is about 1 in 16 or 1 in 17 battles (or 6 to 6.2%), according to my data collected from over 1000 battles. Streaks happen in both directions, but it evens out over time. Luckily, the rate for explore is just high enough where, if you are fast in your clears, you very rarely would go a couple hours without getting a stone. I still think pity drops would be an improvement here, though, because these off days are a lot more memorable. A guaranteed pity drop at the 50 battle mark if you got none up until then seems reasonable. Since I only a bad streak that long once in my 1111 battle test run, it wouldn’t change overall drops much, but would curb a bit of the negative feelings that come from bad streaks.
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Nope.
I’ve gotten the last needed stones for a few troops using explore. Sometimes, I got an arcane in the second battle. Sometimes, I got it an hour later. You are a slave to RNG when using explore just like every other mode of the game.
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It’s a matter of luck, you can go and get one Arcane/Celestial on the very first battles and have the impression that the feature is amazing, on the other hand you can have bad luck and think it’s not worth your time.
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It’s already been stated, but RNG can be brutal. Just today, I received 3 Arcane Swamps in 8 battles. I spent 3 hours yesterday, and received nothing. On a related note, i received Keeper of Souls at lvl 850+. RNG can be brutal. Hang in there!
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Explore is most certainly NOT a rip off.
Trait stones aside, it’s a good place to farm souls.
As far as trait stones, I’ve done a few hundred explores over the last few days. I’ve fully-traited 3 legendaries. That would not have been possible before Explore, plain and simple.
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It just so happens I’ve been doing my own 20 minute runs lately to see how efficient I can make my trait/soul teams. I can say that streaks happen, good and bad, but overall it’s not a rip-off.
I changed your subject to ‘I think explore is a rip off’ as it is a very subjective opinion. At ‘explore is a rip off’ it feels like you are talking for everyone.
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I play only Explore. Yesterday I’ve got 4 Arcanes in 6 matches.
On other days I’m glad when I see Runics.
RNG at its finest 
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@KrudlerTheHorse Hey, I appreciated your demo video trial, farming Arcane Darks in Ghulvania. Your result if I recall was 2 ADs and 4 Runics in 15 fights. And @htismaqe three weeks ago went from doing 225 explores without a single Arcane or Celestial to getting 8 Arcanes in 35 fights, right? No rhyme nor reason, just crazy randomness.
Well what can I say… I’ve been plugging away attempting Explore on Broken Spire and on Maugrim Woods since August 8th, and in all that time I’ve had exactly ONE Swamp stone drop from Explore, and exactly ZERO of the blue-brown Arcane Shields. 
That crazy RNGesus is driving me nuts, even more so since my not-fully-traited PvP teams are now consistently leaving targeted enemy units alive with 1 hp left, all the time. Then that 1 hitpoint wonder proceeds to power up and pound my troops. Didn’t have this issue in PvP previously so I’m guessing the code is acting as if my troops are fully functional (which they aren’t). I could really really use some unlocked stun/ stoneskin/ suppression traits but only if I could find those dagnabit stones ARGGGHHHHH :/(
Idk, maybe so many people are attempting to farm Broken Spire that the server is telling me, Go Away No Arcanes for You? Ah well…
Well I get what most of you are saying here.It just seems that I mostly
have very bad luck then. I can only recall one instance where I got 2
Arcanes and 1 Celestial from 30 matches. But mostly its just plain
frustration.
It would be nice if some sort of a “pity timer” was added to traitstone drops, especially in Explore Mode. After X number of battles if an Arcane hasn’t dropped, the next battle will give up an arcane. Not sure what that number should be but that should help those who get demoralized by horrible RNG streaks.
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working as intended + RNG = good or bad, you cant tell.
The best suggestion i can give you is to take the time spent exploring to try out different teams. I mean unless you boost the difficulty up (which wont change the droprates on the stones) these matches are so very easy. IF you like treasure hunting, use Tyri in different teams. IF you want to use that one epic/legendary/mythic in pvp, but you dont since you havent gotten it traited yet, play around with it in explore mode. IF you just want to get it over with as soon as possible, you need a fast explore team (shadowhunter-behemoth-valk-druid or bultauros-dustdevil-dustdevil-dustdevil) of which you cant find various information on this forum.
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I’ve been using the following for Explore speed runs, can usually get a win by turn 3 or 4 at the most:
Archer*** w Crescendo
2x Soothsayer***
Bul’ Taros
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I agree explore is frustrating, but at least I can target the stone that I want. It took me 2 1/2 weeks to farm up 8 arcanes (based on my play time, not yours). What I would appreciate is a crafting method for traitstones where you can turn a ton of low level ones into a better one.
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All things considered, Explore is probably one of the least random things in this game, given the relative rarity of the most targeted things you get from it (Arcanes, Runics), and the relative time it takes for you to reach a large enough sample size for everything to “even out”. It just sucks to be on the receiving end of a bad streak especially as your introduction to the mode. I’ve been there, believe me, MUCH worse when attempting to farm challenges for the arcanes, and the drops never evened out to the accepted “average” for me because I never got my sample size high enough, despite doing hundreds of battles - it was simply too irritating to go hours, and occasionally days playing a couple hours a day, between drops.
Still, a pity timer could potentially do a lot to cover how demoralizing it is to be in one of these bad streaks, while doing very little to raise the overall drop rate - short term potential benefit to insulate those that can’t really super-speed clear yet against potentially game-ending “bad days” (for example, just grabbing three arcanes for treant, or a couple for Valk) without significantly speeding up long term drops for those of us that can speed clear (for example, those that need all or part of the 42 stones necessary for their new mythic, which is still probably going to take 700+ clears if starting with none).
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I think I’ll try this out. I’ve been iterating between two set-ups, one I can’t remember right now, and Tacet’s: Bul’taros,3x Dirt Devil. It can be quick, but very annoying if things don’t go correctly. Which banner do you use?
I still pretty much run Templar / Valk / Rowanne / Mercy and buzz through them as fast as I can go.
I use the Progress Banner (R/Y) to fill up Bul’ Taros as quick as possible. Since Archer has Fast it only takes 8 mana to fill Crescendo, plus a lucky Bullseye can take out a high armor/life troop. Two empowered Soothsayer blasts in turn 1-2 can often fill both Archer and Bull, then activate Crescendo with a followup Bul’Taros. Easy peasy