Hot take advance hone

When Echidna released, I completely missed it because I took a two-month break. I was burned out from Thaemine progression and the weekly “reclear” chaos in Gates 1-3. During my break, my six gold-earning characters were at ilvl 1620 with their 40-piece set completed and minimal transcendent gear.

By the time I returned, we were close to Behe release. Behe groups were asking for pants/chest transcendent level 7, but I had no Echidna materials since I had never run the raid. The gold I had saved was barely enough to upgrade transcendent levels across my roster. However, by the time Behe actually released, I had managed to gather 80+ flowers on all my characters.

From there, I started running Echidna to gain experience and finish upgrading my armor and weapon transcendent levels. By the time T4 arrived, I was able to temper some pieces on some toons and manually honed all of them from 1640 to 1660.

Granted, it wasn’t entirely F2P—I bought the Founders Packs released with T4, which allowed me to hone 3 of my toons from 1640 to 1660. But for an F2P player with a proper roster setup and max gold output for their level, it would have been possible to get at least one character to Aegir ilvl on release day.

Fast forward to now:

• I have one toon at 1680 (honed two weeks ago). I did Advanced Hones 1-10 at 1670, waiting until I had all the necessary materials (both bound and sellable).

• My other five characters are at 1670, fully tempered and ready for Brel and Advanced Hones 1-10. Each has 1M shards and a solid stash of mats.

Is the system bad?

Yes.

Is it expensive?

Absolutely.

Was it rushed for our version?

No doubt about it.

Does it deserve nerfs?

Definitely.

But it’s not as bad as people make it out to be. I honed all of these characters using the average rates on the Maxroll calculator, running 18 raids a week at max gold gains.

You have to hone anyways to reach the level for new raids and advance hones offers a "cheaper" way to reach some milestones.