With the launch of the F2P system, Turbine has implemented some new drops in the higher end instances as well as boosting the drop rate for the still sought after Symbol of Celebrimbor. The new tomes are permanent boosters for your various stats like Might, Vitality, etc. and while some can be bought in the Turbine Store, the higher tier ones (Tiers 4 and 5) are only available as in-game drops. The Symbol if you’re not aware is a highly sought after crafting ingredient that is required to make 2nd Age Legendary items. There’s a good thread on the forums tracking these new items but I wanted to summarize here.
For symbols they’ve been found in the following instances:
- Sammuth Gul – Symbol now drops from multiple bosses and can drop during the same run
- Goruthul and Daemafor have been confirmed
- BG Raid – confirmed 4 symbols doing Hard Mode of both Durchest and Twins with a symbol in each chest.
- Helegrod – Zaudru (Spider Boss)
- Great Barrows – Samborg. and both Maze bosses. Both from Bosses and Chests
- Annuminas Tombs Instance
- Annuminas Gardens Instance – Final Chest easy mode
- Eregion – The School – Last Chest
- Eregion – The Library
The Stat Tomes have been found:
- In general, Tiers 1 and 2 will drop off Classic Scaled Instances between level 20 and 30 with higher tiers dropping from levels 31 and higher instances including the non-scaled instances.
- Sammuth Gul – Daemafor in Hardmode
- Great Barrows – Maze, including Tier 4 Might from Thadur
- The School – Last Chest
- Helegrod – Sturvagand (easy mode as well)
This is all pretty much hit or miss, as some find many of these while others claim no luck even after lots of runs through various instances. From what it seems, symbols are dropping way more then they used to in pretty much any level 65 dungeon with the stat tomes are being somewhat more rare. I do think it is pretty cool that these can be found in the 3-mans as that makes all of these items much more accessible for the non-raiders or even raiders that want to run with smaller groups.