I can't recall whether the shoulders are a purple/blue/green antiquity lead, but Ancestral Akaviri motif chapters drop as antiquity leads from Blackwood Treasure Maps. The leads aren't terribly hard to get, though Blackwood treasure maps aren't very cheap because they drop not only the leads you're looking for, but blackwood antiquities also drop Ayleid furnishing plans as bonus loot as well. And you may need to leave several of the other chapters undiscovered to reduce the chance of getting identical wrong chapter multiple times.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

I can't recall whether the shoulders are a purple/blue/green antiquity lead, but Ancestral Akaviri motif chapters drop as antiquity leads from Blackwood Treasure Maps. The leads aren't terribly hard to get, though Blackwood treasure maps aren't very cheap because they drop not only the leads you're looking for, but blackwood antiquities also drop Ayleid furnishing plans as bonus loot as well. And you may need to leave several of the other chapters undiscovered to reduce the chance of getting identical wrong chapter multiple times.

That is terrible advice. Please don't do that.

It has been proven by several times by several users of the forum (including me) that the lead is decided when you dig up the map. That means that if you already have that lead in your table, you just get nothing at all.

When I tried to do the Akaviris or the Bretons, I tried that trick. I had a whole series of 12 motifs in my list to try to force the one I needed. And then I had a string of 60+ maps with absolutely nothing.

Dig them as you get them. It may not be the one you want, but at least it's something you can sell to recoup some of the cost from doing like 100+ treasure maps and hoping for RNGeesus to bless you.

I have had the exact opposite findings. As well so have many others. I use that method quite frequently and it never fails me.

I've farmed out all the motifs that come from treasure maps, the giant cesspool of leads from IA, etc.. and it never lets me down. Meanwhile, everybody I know that follows your method rants and raves about horrible RNG and how hard of a time they're having finding the lead they're looking for. All the while saying that I'm just uncanny lucky.

[Edit] Though I will concede that I've occasionally considered that the practice of saving leads may be affected by the green/blue/purple rarities. So saving the blue leads may not do much good while hunting one of the purple difficulty leads. (lead rarity color, not motif color since those are always purple)

My two cents:

I just completed the "grand tour" of motif leads from: reach, blackwood, deadlands and high isle

Also did I try different things: holding onto leads or scrying leads at once they are available or scrying leads at once they are available and excavating them.

And I varied the number of treasure maps I used each day for a single zone: around 5, around 10 and around 20.

Anecdotal experience, of course, but I am also thinking that leads, you hold on to, simply can't redrop. That doesn't mean that leads you are missing will drop. You just get nothing if RNG would give you a lead you already/still have active.

But I noticed, the more maps I did use on a single day, the better were my chances to get missing leads. I did combine that with scrying and excavating always as soon as a lead became available.

From all four motif sets mentioned at the beginning, I completed the last missing motifs (two times bow, two times helmet) on days I used around 20 treasure maps and scried and excavated every lead at once it was available.

Following this method, in all four zones I got from 20 treasure maps each roundabout 4-6 motif leads and finally the last missing motif lead.

I also noticed, might be accidental, that no single motif lead dropped twice on the same single day.

Around 50 maps from each zone were necessary for me to complete the motif leads for each zone.


My personal conclusion:
It doesn't look like the motif lead drops are curated based on your missing leads from the stickerbook.

But it may be, that motif lead drops are curated on a smaller scale based on what has already dropped for you on a single day.


My personal suggestion:
If I would have to go for motif leads hunt for a certain zone the first time, I would wait until I have 30 treasure maps for this zone available, use them all on the same single day, scrying and excavating each lead as soon as it gets available.

I believe, this way I maximise my chances to get all motif leads as well as maximising the number of motif leads overall for selling.

I can remember from back in the day that the Shoulders was really difficult to find. Good looking set though.

Woooo, just got them after posting. Thanks for the replies.