Some Darkshade Caverns set items show no set name

MreeBiPolar

The thing in common is, both were dropped in Imperial style, while in general these sets are Dark Elf and Dwemer.

Dagoth_Rac

These are "unique drops". Most of the old base game dungeons have them. Even some of the older DLC dungeons, like White Gold Tower, had them. Where set items dropped and what set items dropped were very random and sporadic back in the day. It was fairly common to spend hours running White Gold Tower and not get a single item set piece to drop! It was maybe 50/50 if you got a set piece or random vendor trash from a boss. If you had a bad run, you might get nothing but vendor trash from every boss. And no ability to trade with group mates either!

The "unique drops" were special named items that only dropped from a specific boss. So if you were trying to farm in the old days, you might just rush to the boss with a "unique drop" and hope to get it. Unique drops were loot more often than regular set items. The opposite of now! Where every boss is a guaranteed a generic set item drop and the named unique drops are still random and sporadic, like all gear was back in the beginning.

tl;dr = old special random drops from certain bosses that have been around since game came out. Kind of obsolete in 2023 with way gear drops are more regular and curated.

SeaGtGruff

If I'm not mistaken, set items don't always have names that include a reference to the set. For instance, I think set items which drop as quest rewards can have names that don't reference the set they belong to.

MreeBiPolar

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

These are "unique drops". Most of the old base game dungeons have them.

Actually, not just base game, and not just dungeons, but what threw me off is, the unique drops usually have more unique (not "<material> <type>") names, e.g., "Fist of the Hive Lord" from the same dungeon.

Duh.

Edit: That, and there being really no reason for Imperial stuff to be in THIS dungeon... Nothing in either v1 or v2 quest/story even mentions imperials... It's all Dunmer/Dwemer...

virtus753

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

If I'm not mistaken, set items don't always have names that include a reference to the set. For instance, I think set items which drop as quest rewards can have names that don't reference the set they belong to.

Yes, that’s correct. But they always say the name in the tooltip, and add-ons like Inventory Insight have a toggle where you can filter on set name so these unique items show up with the rest of the pieces.

Unique items also register and can be reconstructed as the generic equivalent in the stickerbook for those who want to “rename” them to the standard nomenclature.