I made a thread a few days ago about preparing gear for the Shadow Lairs, but I have to ask:
Boss armors aside, are the Shadow Lairs rewarding enough to give the player a sense of real profit over the cost of the Shadow Key? Because if they aren't, I'm just going to buy all the boss mats from AH and do a single Shadow Lair run, craft all the boss armor, then never go back.
So I'll just craft all the boss armor and go back to FSC.
*wishes OOO put in harder content for FREE*
i'll back up the comments, it does seam as if shadow snarbie was definitely hit with a nerf, did it today and last time i did it, it was much harder. but unless your making gear it is pointless to run them... or if someone wants you to tag along to help and their paying your way then why not. thats my pov.
eh..altho its been said in all 4 of these posts, id like to agree to all 4 of them just to voice how disappointed i am in this waste of content
E:along with these people, i doubt any1 has changed their mind about the keys
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/612714389982196688/DD6AA4B5352B9D01581...
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/612714389982202724/9E17A3741DB42C03FB2...
it really wouldn't be a waste of content if it was free...i think making you pay to access content that is the same as you could get to every day besides the alchemy machine is pretty bad to be charging for. not to mention i could do lets say 2 jelly runs and make more crowns and same amount of jelly gems in the same time as it you take to run urjp...i really do enjoy doing shadow runs and im sure others do too. but problem is at even at lets say ~350 ce per person your still not breaking even, unless you sell the mat from the end of the run and everything you collected. so they make new content and make it a crown sink, when youve already sunk lets see here 50+200+400 ce alone not including crowns/mats/recipes + 800ce to craft once you make it. i would say an average shadow run and this is splitting the key cost among 4 players, and only crafting one piece of gear your looking at nearly ~1800ce, add another piece of gear you looking at sinking another 1450cr, now if you are footing the whole key lets just use the average number ~1500ce that is putting you at ~2950ce just to craft one item, and not counting any ce revives if it happens...i don't think they looked at it for people to make gear and that's it but way it stands that's the only reason i ever go unless someone wants the help and its free for me.
ok done rambling. just ready for new content that doesn't cost ~1.5k ce just to attempt it.
It breaks up the monotony of running the FSC all the time while still being strenuous. It's a fun little diversion you do every now and again to test your mettle. The lairs were never really meant to be a primary focus or something you grind.
So no, it's not worth it. Though I know I'll always make time to tag along on a run.
Not done them myself yet feel free to disagree with me, but I'd have to agree with Guy; they don't seem like something that was ever intended to be grinded or spammed; the high entry cost and rare/unique mats and the crafting machine seem like a "big prize" endgame sort of thing. the crowns and drops therein aren't to put you in profit, but to pay back some of the costs of getting there; the dual-focus would be the challenge of a new boss, and teh crafting machine inside. If you want to farm..do the regular ones. If they were designed to be farmable, the rewards would be much greater and the bosses would drop more than a meagre double.
Metagenic, a 1/4-share of a Shadow Key costs, what, 20,000 crowns? I'm pretty sure that you don't earn that much on the run, even if you don't revive with CE. So a Shadow Lair run is not profitable.
On the other hand, I've found Shadow Lairs to be fun, because they are a new challenge that I haven't yet memorized. So I do them very occasionally.
It's about 300 CE to pay 1/4th a key if you buy one off the Bazaar, so as long as you can make more than about 20K cr like you said, you break even. If you sell the mat, plus the crowns you get, you can usually easily break even off the lair. Though of course revives can change that. Also, I'd like to mimic what everyone else has said, crafting is by far the most profitable part of the SL. So I guess I see that it CAN be profitable, but you basically have to sell what you get, though that cost assessment doesn't include the tokens you get, though that's not huge.
Ginungagap, I was forgetting about selling the material that you get. You're right that selling it would make the run profitable.
But that doesn't make your point less valid. It's not easy to turn a profit, and that doesn't include CE revving, which, especially on the harder ones is a distinct possibility. With CE revs only using mist, then you're fine, over that then you drastically cut into profit. All in all, they're not as profitable as FSC, or even JK, considering the time involved to finish an SL. I really do enjoy them, just because it's that bit of extra challenge, but not something I would buy a ton of keys for to make profit on. It's more about having a fun time doing something out of the ordinary.
Sadly, no. Just grab the gear and don't go back unless you enjoy them. Three of them were hit pretty hard with the nerf bat. You could sell the SL gear/mat for profit if you split the key cost between 4 people.