I give up. My friends have moved on to hard mode. They all have 1 or 2 level 30s. Our same group has done the raid together every week yet somehow I have only gotten the raid gloves so the iron banner didn't even help me. I get the random drops. I've played plenty of MMOs like FFXI and WoW. But the fact that its so random that I can no longer play with my friends while they have gotten gear multiple times is ridiculous. I can no longer effectively play with and be useful to my team even though I've put in the same (and more than some) effort. Which means its a social game that I can no longer play with my social group. Mission failed.
You said you wanted everyone to have their own epic story. Mine is this: I put 328 hours into the game. Tonight the last one of our group who has put in 200 hours got the cuirass and can now hit 30. I quit.
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I'm a 30 with 35+ VoG clears on a Warlock, I've made 3 of them and leveled them to 20, I've even deleted one and leveled another one up. It doesn't take long nor is it difficult, you can get into Hard raids at 29. I doubt you have very many VoG clears, I've done plenty without getting any items and didn't come to the forums to cry. I made a new -blam!-ing character and tried again. Did you even get the IB boots/gloves? I doubt it, because you want your 30 to be 'easy'.